付き合ってあげてもいいかな Girls Love Manga
付き合ってあげてもいいかな(English: How Do We Relationship, Chinese: 要我和妳交往也不是不行) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by たみふる(Tamifull).
It has been serialized since August 31, 2018 on 裏サンデー(Ura Sunday), a webcomic distribution site by 小學館(Shogakukan), and on マンガワン(MangaONE), a free manga application for smartphones. Eight volumes have been published to date (as of July 2022) and it’s not yet completed.
It is a romance manga about two college girls who start dating because it so happens that they both like women and the relationships that surround them.
Since this work is a manga dealing with love between women, Tamifull wants it to be considered one of the romance manga, so the official term “Girls Love” is used instead of “Yuri”.
In addition, the work is conscious of depicting realistic romantic relationships between women, and as such, it is characterized by the inclusion of kissing and sexual scenes (mainly between the main characters) and the appearance of male characters.
Story Summary
Immediately after entering university, 犬冢美和(Miwa) meets and becomes friends with 猿渡冴子(Saeko), who is a completely different type of person from her. Saeko invites Miwa to join a light music club, and during a conversation, Miwa and Saeko come out to each other as homosexuals. Saeko has never hated Miwa ever since they first met, so she asks Miwa if she would like to go out with her. Miwa is puzzled because she has never had romantic feelings for Saeko, but her interest in love prevails and she decides to start a relationship with Saeko.
Main Character
犬塚 美和（いぬづか みわ）
Because she is a tone-deaf person, she plays the bass guitar in the club band.
She is popular among men. She realized in high school that she likes women, and Saeko is her first date. She lived at home for a while after the start of the story, but finally succeeded in persuading her family to let her move to live alone.
She is friendly and simple-minded, and is described as a “flower in the greenhouse” by her club seniors. She has a mild personality and is not good with words, but in order to “become as strong as Saeko”, she is determined to make a change.
A romantic who takes details seriously.
猿渡 冴子（さわたり さえこ）
She has brightly dyed hair. She was active in the light music club in high school, and plays guitar and composes music in the club band.
She has had relationships with both sexes. Although she experienced dating a girl in junior high school, it became a bitter memory. So she recalled that dating a man was a mistake in her desire to be “normal”, and she thinks that her first sexual experience was completely unpleasant. Rather, She even remembered the emptiness.
Unlike Miwa, she can communicate with anyone and is open about sex. During sexual activity, she prefers touch and doesn’t feel comfortable being touched because she thinks “feeling about sex is disgusting, and it’s not her character”.
After Reading
Contains slight SPOILERS
Unlike many other Girls Love manga, How Do We Relationship does not depict the story of two girls who end up together, but the story **starts with two girls being together** and the relationship and conflicts between them.
Tamifull wrote in the first volume’s afterword: “Love in reality is actually full of calculations and compromises, isn’t it? There are so few works about this kind of love.”.
As you can see, this manga is so real that it has brought back my buried memories of life experiences as a lesbian at all stages of my life.
So after reading it, I just felt sad and empty.
The experiences of the two main characters in the story are almost all similar to my own. I think it’s not just me, everyone who is a lesbian is pretty much the same.
Although many readers hope that the two main characters can finally get back together, I am not obsessed with it.
After a breakup, they are just as sincere in a new relationship which can also exist as a full and complete story.
Rather, it is more likely to be a reality if they do not get back together.
But in my estimation, they will.
Most importantly, I hope they can find a way to live their lives that gives them inner peace and happiness. It doesn’t matter who they are with, whether they are in love or not.
Because when society is not for us, we have to create a place where we can be ourselves.
Happy reading.