Kakeochi Girl Review

To start off, lets put it straight - Kakeochi Girl is a "Yuri" manga. But while it is one, I have a strong feeling anyone will be able to connect to it's story, even if you aren't the biggest fan of the genre, and it doesn’t have that much difference in that aspect from non-Yuri Josei Manga. That is because Kakeochi girl is more of a Psychological manga than it is a romance manga. Yes, it does have a lot of intimate moments, but to me it felt like the romance "is just there", we didn’t explore "falling in love" like in your other usual Romcoms, instead the manga focused other themes of courage, social expectations and loneliness, all from a very mature point of view.

Kakeochi Girl wasn’t perfect. In fact, it had a few major flaws. Especially with Midori. For the most part, I felt like Midori's character was made to fit in the story – I'll explain. First off, we get to meet the high school girl Midori: Young, Happy and in love. When she finishes high school, she randomly decided that being in a lesbian relationship was just her being immature – or maybe it was not so random, but we didn’t receive any explanations for why she did that? Obviously, Midori did love Momo, and you would expect her to fight for her love, right? Maybe already back then she was very mentally unstable, but then again, the situation should be explained more clearly. But after we meet the older Midori, I grew to like and understand her a lot more. Midori was most likely affected by the Battered woman syndrome, a psychological concept I haven’t seen in an anime or manga before. Midori suffered a lot from being in a relationship with her soon-to-be husband, but couldn’t stand against it, and convinced herself that she loves Tazune, because even with his flaws, she is still "Happy". After reuniting with Momo, Midori slowly realized that being in such relationship is wrong, and she should stand up for herself and for what she wants. Although Kakeochi Girl is somewhat wholesome, it did manage to keep its stressful aura that kept me hooked on reading it, especially when its so short. Usually being short doesn't assist a story, as its forced to obviously be less detailed and to end early, but with Kakeochi Girl I feel like it was very refreshing and good, making it a kind of one-sit read. Only thing i wish we had more of is the interactions between Midori and Momo, but hopefully we will get a Sequel manga for that.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would definitely recommend you give Kakeochi Girl a try. Its not long enough to be a Time waster, and its definitely enough to teach you a few things. I have encountered a lot of Yuri manga over time, and honestly? Most of them are complete trash. But this manga, despite of not being too focused in the actual "Romance", manages to present LGBTQ themes in a very mature light, and is probably one of the best Yuri stories I have read so far.