Naoko Kodama

Enjoyable, sometimes funny, with some interesting ideas lurking under the surface that are never entirely acknowledged or fleshed out, I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up is a quick, entertaining, but fairly light on detail story. The main thrust of the tale is how Machi and Hana's relationship develops after a impulsive decision to fake a relationship to get Machi's parents to stop trying to matchmake, and there are a lot of cute little moments between the two women, but even this plot speeds from the initial choice to the end. The audience is expected to not only read and view the text and artwork together as a detailed narrative (something expected of every genre-savvy reader of manga), but to fill in the missing blanks that Naoko does not have the time or space to do more than gloss over. It's certainly not a difficult narrative to follow, but because it is so fast and so short, the relationship beats themselves ping-pong between rushed and feeling like they've come out of nowhere.

With that said, I appreciated that Hana does not struggle with her feelings or identity, as so many same-sex relationships in manga are about both parties working out who they are and how they feel until they both come to the same conclusion. Additionally, the subplots that are blink-and-you'll-miss-it but really interesting include homophobic, high-pressure parents (and the one panel that reveals the relationship between parents left me really sad that the depth of what's going on in this story is just out of reach of the actual focus of the narrative); sexism in the workplace; and well-meaning coworkers who want what Machi doesn't realize is right in front of her.

There are three very short stories at the end of the book that are, oddly, far more detailed and in-depth: one about alternate teen versions of Machi and Hana as promising sports stars at an elite athletic school; another that is simply a missing scene from the main story; and, finally, a short autobiographical word from the author.

I always love a good one-shot, and this one is fun and sweet, but I feel like it either needed to be much more focused on the way the relationship builds to its conclusion, or it needed a second volume to give the plot and subplots more space to breathe.… (altro)