Yuzumori-san

Right off the bat, there's one thing that needs to be said upfront about this series: its main character is a lolicon, and the story is about the line she walks between friendship and infatuation with a 4th grade girl. Most people will probably choose to ignore it based on that sentence alone. But what if I told you that against all odds this manga is a work of art that handles its theme with tact and maturity? Would you reconsider? I've never read anything quite like Yuzumori-san, but I have to say, I loved every second of it. It's like the inverse of every otherromance series I've ever come across. Instead of hoping for their relationship to advance when the "will they or won't they?" moments happen you find yourself on the edge of your seat pleading that the main character will manage to restrain herself from acting upon her lustful urges for this gradeschooler. You see, Yuzumori-san alternates between two very conflicting but somehow synergistic art styles: the fluffy, flowery way that the series' slice-of-life and romantic moments are drawn, and tense or disturbed panels whenever the main character's carnal desires surface or there is emotional turmoil. Our main character Mimika is acutely aware that her sexual attraction to the young Yuzumori is "wrong". Mimika spends the series agonizingly trying to resist her own deviant urges, trying to protect Yuzumori from herself while still remaining close to her. Chapters can therefore rapidly oscillate between happy, cute and funny moments of the two acting like a normal couple and angst / despair, with a feeling a bit like you've been suddenly thrown into a page of a horror manga. In spite of this, the manga never veers too far into the territory of being tragic or dark and retains the bubbly feeling of your standard slice of life yuri story. This contrast is pulled off so well that you can find yourself simultaneously disgusted with and rooting for the main character, who is forever struggling to follow her moral compass and maintain a wholesome relationship with Yuzumori in spite of her pedophile nature. And Yuzumori herself, a precocious but lonely child, is loveable in her own right. She deeply cares for Mimika, the guileless way she interacts with the eternally anxious Mimika is hard to hate and the two make for an oddly compelling duo. My only complaint would be that the series has very little to offer besides the one single plot device of getting Mimika flustered and having her struggle to control herself, there is very little advancement of the story before the last few chapters. But all in all, I'd recommend it to anyone, even if they'd probably give me a disgusted look for doing so.

Yuzumori-san tells a cute/insanely ballsy story about the most responsible pedophile in manga with the help of its amazing visual work and straight-forward dialogue. Eri Ejima mentioned in the past that she was not used to drawing young girls but you wouldn't be able to tell from the drawings alone: almost every chapter she carefully details all the reasons why Mimika goes head over heels for this girl with so much care it was hard not to feel the same way myself. Expedctedly, a recurring motif is the cuteness of Yuzumori and how out of place Mimika's love is for this girl. Time and time againYuzumori hugs, sits, or even just stands in such a way that the difference in size and maturity between the two is obvious but are a perfect fit for each other nonetheless. There's a specific panel where the two are hugging and it's shown that Yuzumori's body is quite small compared to Mimika's; this image alone captures perfectly every emotion Mimika has to struggle with every time she falls more and more in love with Yuzumori. Although there weren't many other moments were the visuals alone were so emotionally charged, Ejima does have a knack for drawing cute girls. Yuzumori is the most perfect girl in this world and it would be impossible not to agree with the characters' infatuation. Her sense of style is perfect, she's visually gorgeous with the giant glass eyes, and is quite confident. Concluding my gushing about the manga's visual flair I have to admit that the characters are not perfect, though that is understandable given the short run time. Mimika herself has a fun goofiness to her demeanor but it would have been nice to explore further her love for Yuzumori. But still, I am sucker for wholesome loli content and this manga has that in spades, and for that alone I have to give it a 10. P.S. There's so many feet shots that I am not honestly not sure if it was intentional or not but I have to admit they were always immaculately drawn, so it gets bonus points for that. 11.3/10

Honestly, this is a nice manga. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. You have to keep an open mind. While sometimes uncomfortable, it is also a very cute and lovely story at the same time. It's not always believable. The relationship seemed a little rushed. But I do think it's worth a read if you're willing. Story: 7. Nice sort of beautiful story. Can get a little rushed but not too badly. Art: 8. Very pretty art, easy to look at, makes you want to read more. Character: 6. Character development seemed minimal and the characters weren't always too believable but they're all right and likable enough. Enjoyment:7. It was a good read, though I'm not sure I'd read it again. Overall: 7. Would recommend.

As a general rule, I tend to avoid placing too much importance on the messaging of a particular piece of media when I analyze it, and there are two reasons for this: 1. I have the media literacy of a rock, and thus messaging and themes tend to fly right over my head at supersonic speeds while my senses fail to even register the sonic boom they leave in their wake; and 2. It’s not central to my enjoyment of something—it’s why something like Strike Witches can be one of my favorites despite saying literally nothing at all. Despite this, I feel like an analysisof Yuzumori-san would be irresponsible if it focused on anything other than the messaging, because Yuzumori-san is decidedly a story attempting to humanize pedophiles. I tend to be pretty open-minded about things like this, in that I think it is important to view things through every lens imaginable, and I am more than happy to accept gray-space and nuance in things. Thus, I’m not against Yuzumori-san solely for its admittedly gross concept. Yuzumori-san’s approach to pedophilia is entirely based around the morality of its main character: Mimika. Mimika is presented as a normal person, not the embodiment of grease and creep that pedophiles are typically presented as. Mimika falling for Yuzumori-san is treated essentially as an anomaly, as in it just kinda happened with no prior interest in children. Furthermore, Mimika has no interest in any child (or person, for that matter) other than Yuzumori-san. Mimika also wants to do what is best for Yuzumori-san and struggles to restrain herself throughout the entire story until ultimately promising that nothing about their relationship will change until Yuzumori becomes an adult. In this way, pedophiles are shown to be complex people who struggle in their own ways; which I think is mostly good because pedophiles, despite being disgusting in every sense of the word, are human beings with their own outlooks on life and understanding pedophiles is important to preventing, or at the very least lessening, the issue of pedophilia. Yuzumori-san’s approach to this matter reminds me of the MAP, Minor Attracted People, movement from several years ago, and it functions in much the same way, just with a little less ambition. The MAP movement, for the uninformed, was a group of pedophiles who tried to finagle their way into public acceptance by fitting themselves into the LGBTQ+. The argument went that being attracted to children was essentially the same as being gay, thus should be acceptable. The movement got a lot of backlash, and the LGBTQ+ vehemently refused them allegiance. When I say Yuzumori-san functions the same way as the MAP movement, I mean that it attempts to gain acceptance by overlooking the inherent deviancy of being attracted to children. Mimika’s attraction and “Minor Attraction” both act to make pedophilia appear more innocent by relabeling pedophilia from sexual fetish to an attraction, with the idea being that an attraction prescribes motive other than sexual satisfaction. However, pedophilia is a sexual fetish. There is no motive behind pedophilia other than sexual satisfaction. The term “Minor Attraction” ironically outlines this perfectly, because it describes the object of attraction as being a minor. Pedophiles are not attracted to the personality of a person, as a gay person might be; they are attracted to the immaturity of children. Yuzumori-san tries to address the sexual aspect of pedophilia by showing pedophilic urges as resistable with sufficient moral integrity and societal consequences. Mimika resists her urges mostly because she feels her feelings are wrong and doesn’t want to face the consequences of laying her hands on a child. However, reality sits in stark contrast to this, because if pedophilic sexual desires were resistable, we’d have a lot less child sex crime. No society views pedophilia as acceptable—I am aware conseqences aren’t very harsh in Japan, but I’m of the impression that it’s actually pretty frowned upon by most Japanese people and is not just “a part of their culture”, as many like to state—and many moral institutions and leaders have been outed countless times for child sex crimes—living in the United States, I feel obligated to nominate the Christian church for the position of the top moral institution with a long history of overlooking and defending child sex crimes. So, I think it is more than clear that morals and consequences don’t do anything to prevent pedophilia. If a pedophile is going to touch a child, they are going to touch a child; the only way to stop this is to identify pedophiles and instate preventative measures to protect children. To finish this up, I do want to say that I don’t actually think the author meant to have these implications; the story is way too cutesy for that and in the end of volume sections where the author is directly addressing the reader as the author it seems she just liked the idea of an age-gap yuri, and this is the result. However, I think pedophilia is such a matter that any story involving it is saying something about it, and in the case of Yuzumori-san, whether the author intended it or not, the story is actively humanizing pedophiles. As stated earlier, I don’t hate Yuzumori-san for this, in fact, despite my pretty harsh critiques so far, I actually don’t hate Yuzumori-san at all. For me it is sufficiently enjoyable as a cutesy love story with just enough space from trying to appeal to pedophiles that it’s not outright disgusting. However, I think it is important to engage with the message of an artwork, and I think the message of this artwork is at best misguided and at worst disinformation. Still, I would argue that Yuzumori-san is worth reading solely because of its relatively unique take on pedophiles, and seeing different opinions on things is always a good way to develop your own opinion on a matter.