Sal Jiang is one of the most consistently captivating yuri manga artists creating today, and the recent English translation of her delightful workplace comedy Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! sees her continuing her streak of lez-gazey* character designs and plots rooted in cosmopolitan Japan’s lesbian culture.
The story starts with high-femme Ayaka eyeballing the older Hiroko across the office floor, every inch of the illustrations screaming her attraction to her slickly suited and consummately professional colleague. Ayaka is shown to be a bit of flashy dresser, favoring off-the-shoulder fits and tight tops that raise a few eyebrows from her colleagues… all to shamelessly fish for compliments from and blush prettily in front of her more staidly-behaved superior.
More importantly, her response to other people’s comments on her outfits and comportment clues readers into the fact that she doesn’t let other people’s opinions impact her pursuit of what she wants. And what she wants right now is Hiroko.
Ayaka is a woman on a mission. Her biggest obstacle? Initially, it seems to be Hiroko’s misguided belief that Ayaka is a clueless straight girl. The first volume is full of funny scenes where Hiroko struggles to keep her cool when being clearly, unabashedly and occasionally unhingedly flirted with—before going to her favorite lesbian bar after work to mope and whine with other regulars about their romantic woes. But in true Sal Jiang fashion, what starts off as a funny but seemingly straightforward setup soon deepens into a something more profound.
The manga goes on to tackle generational differences in expressing and understanding queer sexuality, specifically Ayaka’s comfort with coming out and showering affections finding friction against Hiroko’s understandable—and as we later learn, well-founded—fears of being out in the workplace. Their generational gap isn’t mind-bogglingly large, but it covers the years between Boys Love/Girls Love stories becoming mainstream and social media snowballing increased awareness and normalization of LGBTQ+ identities.
Hiroko’s age also means she got her start in the workplace at a time when there were much fewer women in management positions and therefore greater pressure on how she needed to behave to get ahead. “Old boys club” mentalities create toxic conditions that undermine competent women and give them emotional hangups. We see Ayaka actively benefit from the change that Hiroko and her cohort effected before, and there are touching moments where the two of them reckon with what it takes for queer folks to find love (and each other) even today.
Because even with the advances made over recent years, the course of love doesn’t run smooth for Ayaka either, as she chafes against different presumptions and assumptions in her pursuit of being true to herself and her priorities. Jiang insightfully depicts the kind of baggage that comes from being closeted and struggling to control your own narrative—for both women—as they try to reconcile their growing feelings for each other with the context they live in.
Readers who enjoyed the cultural specificity and hopefulness of She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat, or the comedy-drama and expressive art of Sumiko Arai’s Green Yuri will find a lot to love in the latest of Sal Jiang’s works to get an English translation. So will fans of Brooklyn 99 or Parks and Rec, or working sapphics looking for stories that tackle being or coming out in well into adulthood. Volume 1 is currently available in English, with the other two slated for publishing later this year.
*Despite some panels that show a clear love of curves, readers looking for smut, raunch and other on-page intimacies might be better served by Jiang’s previous English release, Black and White.
Content warnings: homophobia, lesbophobia
Erik says
There’s also a delightful live action adaptation streaming on GagaOOLala 🙂