LGBTQ+ Manga Review 'I Can't Believe I Slept With You!' Volume 1
What was sold as an ecchi comedy quickly turned into a much deeper and more engaging story
I have been avoiding this one for a while. I never paid attention to Miyako Miyahara’s Ichido Dake Demo, Koukai Shitemasu while it was in serialization in Dengeki Daioh and this disinterest continued when Seven Seas licensed it. Everything presented seemed scummy and disgusting, the cover art’s insistence on exposing a woman’s obvious discomfort (and cleavage), the description of quid pro quo harassment, and even the English title, I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! But when I finally did open my copy, it was not the depraved ecchi sludge I expected, but a sympathetic, albeit contrived, slice of life story about two miserable but well-meaning and kind people.
The story begins when twenty-four-year-old Koduka Chiyo is approached by her landlady Haru, who is unnamed throughout most of the story and referred to only as “Landlady,” about being three months behind on her rent. She apparently offers an arraignment to the inebriated Chiyo, more time to pay the rent in return for sex.
The next morning, Chiyo awakens delirious, somewhat forgetful of the previous night due to her intoxication, and full of regret, stating that she is into men. A quick conversation reveals that Chiyo is unemployed after a somewhat unexplained issue led to her quitting her job as a game developer and she has fallen into a depressive state. Taking pity on her, Landlady presents a plan for how Chiyo can pay off her debts. Landlady will move in with the despondent young woman and Chiyo will continue to perform favors to pay off the debt. These favors quickly reduce in scope for sex to more vestal activities like playing games together or offering Landlady a hug. And thus, the romantic Yuri cohabitation comedy is established.
This initial chapter exposes the manga’s two key flaws. In both cases, it requires a certain amount of work from the reader. First, there are a number of leaps in logic demanded by the premise. Had the start of the manga taken a little more time to establish our characters and the circumstances that led up to their new living arrangement, it might have been more believable. However, as is, Landlady's advances and willingness to suddenly move into with Chiyo feel incredibly awkward, and that is to say nothing of Chiyo’s willingness to go along with her plan. Furthermore, as most readers will key into, there are some uncomfortable issues surrounding consent and power dynamics.
The early dynamic between Chiyo and “landlady” is I Can’t Believe I Slept With You’s largest hurdle. Naturally, the arrangments of sex for housing is textbook harassment. Furthermore, while the reader does not witness the initial encounter, the early chapters of the series have no trouble presenting both characters, especially Chiyo, in a salacious manner. There are many, many troubling scenes and panels featuring the women in various states of undress and in multiple compromising positions, from their clothing falling off to Chiyo walking in on a shirtless landlady in the bathroom. While there is no 18+ content visible to readers, it is clearly played for fanservice.
However, in the manga’s defense, future chapters help further contextualize the nature of the characters’ night together and ongoing relationship. The fanservice quickly drops off, although never disappears. Although, by the end of the volume, the more salacious moments are more earned and intimate, acting as a key element of the story to show Chiyo’s increasing comfort with and want to please Landlady and the latter girl’s struggle with their dynamic. This culminates in SPOILER WARNING a revelation that Chiyo was the one who initiated the sexual encounter, and a tearful landlady lamenting going along with it and worries that she took advantage of Chiyo’s drunken state, saying, “Even if it was just once, I regret it” (which was the publisher’s initial English title before changing it prior to publication.)
While the latter half of the volume does an incredible amount of heavy lifting to unwrap the layers of the setup and steady it on a somewhat more reasonable moral footing, it does not excuse everything. Chiyo was still drunk, and therefore not able to consent, and even if that one night together was explained, it does not address Landlady's further advances and sexual offers from the first chapter or two.
Still, this manga gets better the longer you give it, offering insights into deplorable actions, recontextualizing early events, and working to hold characters accountable. In that regard, I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! is akin to a less melodramatic version of Citrus, with thankfully much tighter pacing. And like that series, the reader’s mileage will vary based on if they can overlook its transgressions or not.
With all that out of the way, it is important to highlight what Miyahara does well here, and there is quite a lot. As earlier stated, the series has fantastic pacing. With the sleaze of early chapters fading away, the real plot begins as Chiyo begins completing twenty-one favors for the landlady. A favor is completed about once every chapter, which includes a variety of activities such as playing games, going on a shopping date, and Chiyo snuggling with the landlady, a compromise that actually occurs after Landlady rejects her tenant's offer of another sexual encounter. This system nicely sets the scope of the series, as a favor or two is completed each chapter.
On a similar note, the pacing is also extremely tight. The complete series is three volumes, and if the precedent set by volume one continues it might be one of the most competently assembled series in the Yuri genre. Miyahara knows exactly how much to reveal about the characters and how to effectively do it in an engaging way. The relationship between the main characters, which of course starts as lovers but also strangers, quickly but effectively transitions to friendship, companionship, and more as they come to know and rely on each other.
I went from dreading it to pre-ordering the second and third volumes.
As the story unfolds, we get enough glimpses into Chiyo and Landlady in beats that feel natural to the story and effectively use the time and space they take. For example, a quick moment of the two playing games together reveals that Chiyo has a passion for them and their culture, from which one can surmise that leaving her job as a game developer must have been incredibly painful, thus making the depressive state she is first introduced in more believable. However, this moment also starts to build up Landlady’s relationship and eventual friendship with Chiyo by establishing a common interest.
The characters are enjoyable and their personalities are brilliantly displayed in their actions, rather than narration. Chiyo is somewhat childish and very irresponsible, having shown to squander her money on figures and games. She often seems like the younger of our main couple, despite being five years the senior. However, she is the more outgoing of the two, having a friend from high school who comes to check on Chiyo and give her ice cream, a kindness that causes her to break down into child-like tears. However, Chiyo is conscious of how she acts and how others treat her and expresses regret and embarrassment over them worrying about her or taking pity.
The landlady on the other hand is nearly her complete opposite, acting as a foil to the older woman. She is quiet and very calm, rarely expressing much emotion, although she is not apathetic or unfeeling. Like Chiyo, she is very kind, to the point where she was planning on offering her tenant, who she had hardly ever spoken to, a chance to repay three months of late rent in exchange for some chores. She is exceptionally mature and well put together, managing multiple apartment units at the tender age of 19. However, she has moments of vulnerability, especially as she and Chiyo grow closer, and Landlady comes to trust the older woman, culminating in the emotional final chapter.
Together, these two are rather excellent, as they bring out the best in each other, forcing both women to grow as people. Chiyo for example starts pursuing a job and even matures a little bit, as she is determined to return her landlady’s kindness and become someone that the younger woman can rely on. The landlady on her part starts to come out of her shell and quickly falls in love with Chiyo, a struggle that will undoubtedly color the rest of the series.
Unfortunately, each character has a major flaw that grates on the reader. Chiyo is very, very oblivious, to the point of being nearly inconsiderate. While she has brief moments of clarity and realization, these are few and far to come by. It passes by the point where it is amusing and quickly becomes frustrating for the reader, as they watch her miss obvious points at nearly every turn. The landlady is lonely and isolates herself. While this trait is not as tedious, her insistence on isolation, such as her rule about not having any female friends lest she ends up attracted to them reduces the realism of this otherwise sympathetic character.
Ultimately, these negative traits details a small crisis of identity I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! seems to have. The work cannot decide if it is a comedy or a drama. While many of the slice of life situations are set up as comedy, they often deliver on a more emotional note, which can be soured by the setup and Chiyo’s exaggerated reactions. And while Chiyo’s near-complete obviousness works in a series like My Next Life as Villainess, the moron character is a much harder sell when she is shown to be struggling with a depressive state and half the chapters hint at the landlady’s traumatic past and self-isolation.
One aspect that especially surprised me going into this Yuri series, perhaps even more so than its emotional weight and the hard left turn away from ecchi content, was how queer it is. The landlady openly admits that she is attracted to women, which is as close as we typically come to an express admission of lesbianism. However, we do see some queer vernacular in perhaps the only joke that only made me laugh out loud, as she questions why straight people… actually, yeah, that is the whole joke 'why straight people'. But it is one I have heard many queer people make, including myself, so it resonated with me.
The first volume actually does a lot to set up potential LGBTQ+ stories based on relatable situations, if slightly exaggerated. For example, while Miyahara does not tell us everything about the landlady, readers are given enough tidbits to piece together her history. She dated a girl in high school, and other students knew about it. However, she reacts quite strongly when a former classmate talks about this to her, which suggests that she may have experienced bullying or backlash over her relationship, a possible explanation for her self-isolation.
The one-sided love the landlady experiences and her crushing feelings of loneliness are also sadly relatable for many queer people, especially those growing up where there were not out role models and peers. Finally, there is Chiyo, who claims to like men at the start of the series but may be growing to realize there is a slight curve to her sexuality as she starts to have feelings and experiences with another woman. I honestly doubt Miyahara will be able to capitalize on these stories, as they do not fit the “romcom” slice-of-life build they seem to be going for, but I would be happy to let this series pleasantly surprise me once again.
Miyahara also does a fantastic job with the art in I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! The panels are very well thought out, with a nice mix of contained shots and wider images, although there is an interesting lack of spreads, which does not detract at all from the story. The backgrounds are detailed when they need to be, which helps build the small space of the girls’ apartment and make the characters’ physical boundaries, a rather important element of the story considering its premise, feel grounded and everpresent.
The character designs are well made, with district differences that act as a rather nice contrast to their personalities, but the younger, moe style can make certain ecchi scenes feel uncomfortable and acts against the crucial story point that they are both adults. However, I will give immense praise to Landlady’s expressions, which strike the perfect balance of showing her exhaustion, frustration, and affection and maintaining her cool, quiet demeanor.
Clearly, there is a lot to say about Miyako Miyahara’s I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! What sold itself as an ecchi comedy turned out to be a much deeper and more engaging story. The characters and their journey are wonderfully grounded and relatable if a tad exaggerated, and the series' incredibly tight focus help move along Chiyo and her landlady’s unconventional relationship at a satisfying and steady pace. While readers may have to overlook a few unsavory elements in the early story, they are quickly rewarded for their effects. I went from dreading it to pre-ordering the second and third volumes.
Ratings:
Story – 6
Characters – 8
Art – 7
LGBTQ – 7
Sexual Content – 8
Final – 7
Check out I Can’t Beleive I Slept with You! Vol. 1 Today: https://amzn.to/3HlYTFl
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Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment. Special thanks to translator Faye Cozy and the rest of the team at Seven Seas including Dawn Davis, Danya Shevchenko, Hanase Qi, Alyssa Honsowetz, and Shanti Whitesides for their work on this manga.
This review is made possible by Avery Riehl and the rest of the YuriMother Patrons. Help support LGBTQ+ media reviews, news, and analysis by checking out the YuriMother Patreon page today.
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