{"id":139244,"date":"2024-08-09T16:05:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T15:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wrongeverytime.com\/?p=41335"},"modified":"2024-08-09T16:05:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T15:05:52","slug":"yuri-is-my-job-episode-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/09\/yuri-is-my-job-episode-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Yuri is My Job! \u2013 Episode 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we\u2019re embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of Yuri is My Job! I doubt I need to explain to any of my readers that \u201cyuri\u201d generally refers to lesbian romance in anime or manga. Yuri has a long and storied tradition in these fields, with the early 20th century Class S dramas that were often focused on all-girl schools informing the works of the Year 24 Group in the 1970s, including such enduring classics as Riyoko Ikeda\u2019s Dear Brother. These stories influenced the next generations in turn, with \u201890s highlights like Maria Watches Over Us and Revolutionary Girl Utena paving the way for modern, somewhat more grounded stories like Bloom Into You or Adachi and Shimamura, as well as lighter romcoms like The Demon Girl Next Door.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anime and manga have often been a haven for society\u2019s outsiders, realizing the hopes and aspirations that would invite censure in a rigid, conservative culture. And even as we\u2019ve begun to break the shackles publicly inhibiting expressions of homosexual love, yuri dramas have continued to evolve with the times, even hopping aboard the isekai boom through stories like I\u2019m In Love With The Villainess. Yuri is My Job seems to fit neatly within the modern self-aware paradigm, with its genre-savvy title and heroine whose name is literally Hime, meaning \u201cprincess.\u201d It apparently takes place at a cafe themed after those classic Class S dramas, making me curious as to both how it might comment on genre convention, and how it will express earnest character drama in its own right. Let\u2019s find out!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Episode 1<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Scanning the key staff, the first thing that pops out to me is that series composer Naoki Hayashi wrote the scripts for the second half of Flip Flappers, which is one of the best gay romances and also just generally best shows of the last decade. So that\u2019s a good sign!<\/span><\/p>\n

We open on some Class S aesthetic staples: tea being served, school uniforms, and a cross implying we\u2019re at a Catholic all-girls school<\/span><\/p>\n

The OP implies some immediate tension between our light-hearted Hime and her tall, imposing coworker. Their height gap is very powerful<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It also seems like we\u2019ll be delving into conflicts prompted by their true feelings versus their professional personas, which seems like a rich vein of drama. The stories this show is drawing on often emphasized the difference between our public and private faces in hostile school environments, so transposing that to professional performance seems like a natural twist<\/span><\/p>\n

And of course, we end on a field of lilies, a backdrop depicting a boarding school in the German countryside, and a bow before the curtain falls. Really drawing attention to their \u201cperformance\u201d of this genre, which will presumably facilitate a critique of love as it is dramatically imagined versus love as it is actually experienced<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We open the episode proper in the big city, with students gossiping about Shiraki-san, the cute and composed new first-year student<\/span><\/p>\n

Hime Shiraki\u2019s graceful, mild-mannered performance charms her classmates instantly<\/span><\/p>\n

She relishes admitting it\u2019s all a facade, and that she\u2019s worked hard to cultivate this affectation<\/span><\/p>\n

Her dream is to hook a millionaire and marry her way into high society. You get \u2018em, girl<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Seems deliberate that the idea of marrying a man is framed in purely mercenary terms. She already can\u2019t imagine actually falling in love with a man<\/span><\/p>\n

A wider shot reveals the blue-haired girl from the OP in her class. Given her look of despair in the OP, I\u2019d assume this girl has known and loved Hime for a long time<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHime-chan looks just like this shoujo manga character!\u201d Even before she reaches the cafe, her affectation is already a performance guided by classic manga<\/span><\/p>\n

Quite a rich color palette for this production. External scenes are lit in an array of pastel hues, evoking a bright spring feeling that\u2019s ideal for the beginning of the Japanese school year<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hah, love this playful cutaway screen as she stumbles into another girl, like a pinwheel emanating from the center screen<\/span><\/p>\n

The girl she bumps into has an instantly recognizable voice – it\u2019s Yukari Tamura, the voice of Nanoha, though she\u2019s here evoking a more childish tone evocative of her Rika Higarashi performance<\/span><\/p>\n

Hime offers a false offer of support in condolence, but this girl Mai takes her at her word<\/span><\/p>\n

Hime immediately calls out the kabedon attack of Mai\u2019s gyaru friend. I suppose she\u2019d know all this stuff if she\u2019s modeling her persona after shoujo manga<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The gyaru\u2019s name is Sumika<\/span><\/p>\n

They work at Cafe Liebe, which means \u201clove\u201d in German. Emphasizing the European boarding school settings of so many yuri forebears<\/span><\/p>\n

Hime is asked to meet in the back, and thus earns her private meet-cute with her tall coworker<\/span><\/p>\n

Very charming how her affectation isn\u2019t <\/span>quite<\/span><\/i> natural, thus she\u2019s always stopping and restarting her introductions in Proper Hime Form<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hime is instantly intimidated by this girl, who seems to naturally embody the grace that Hime puts on as a performance. Definitely some potential for genre interrogation there; in general, this premise seems perfectly calibrated to explore why we put on performances of selfhood, and how those performances either echo or conceal authentic aspects of our identity. After all, much of growing or changing as a person is simply willfully embodying new behaviors until those behaviors come naturally. \u201cJust be yourself\u201d can be a liberating directive when you\u2019re forcing yourself to put on an inauthentic persona, but it can also be a way of excusing bad behavior rather than working to change it and growing as a person<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNyanyazon\u201d is a very good fake Amazon<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently the tall girl\u2019s name is Mitsuki Ayanokouji<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They all dress as students at the fictional Liebe Girls\u2019 Academy<\/span><\/p>\n

Nice energetic character acting as Hime\u2019s feigned stomach ache is countered by Mai\u2019s feigned wrist injury<\/span><\/p>\n

Mitsuki\u2019s first performed lines are of course accompanied by a glimmering fringe of roses, echoing the lush adornments frequently accompanying such lines in shoujo manga. I feel like Osamu Dezaki remains the king of echoing such aesthetic melodrama in animation, though obviously directors like Kunihiko Ikuhara and Shinichi Omata have walked in his storied footsteps<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you should ask your heart that question?\u201d A line also accompanied by lilies, symbols of love and purity that are frequently also connected to yuri romance<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sumika\u2019s usual gyaru fashion sense and blunt affectation make her performance here feel all the more stark. It\u2019s an interesting contrast, and seems to naturally imply that while classic yuri manga was a sanctuary for socially sanctioned emotions, it too came with its own attendant rules and expectations, specific personalities and archetypes that were once audacious and transgressive, but have at a certain point become limiting genre conventions in their own right<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d be delighted if this show continues to explore that point, investigating how this fake school\u2019s expectations can be a safe space for articulating feelings you\u2019re not allowed to express in ordinary life, but how the forms of behavior expected here are also ultimately limiting in their own way, thus necessitating rising beyond genre convention into an authentic expression of personal feelings<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody talks like this outside of shojo manga!\u201d Hime herself immediately critiques the formalized, inauthentic nature of this dialogue. Of course, your affectation need not be authentic for the feelings expressed to be real<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m acting cute to score a rich husband, not to show off in an embarrassing costume at some weird cafe!\u201d The clear connection between this cafe and her own performance immediately discomforts her. It\u2019s as if this place is making a mockery of her dream, forcing her to question the legitimacy of her normal affectation<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re totally missing the point! Acting shy is part of the facade, like everything else!\u201d What\u2019s worse, both the customers and her fellow employees aren\u2019t even impressed by her performance. She clearly feels like she\u2019s above fully committing to this performance; the person she attempts to represent as Hime is not a person she internally respects, and she takes pleasure in \u201cfooling\u201d everyone with such an obvious ploy<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mitsuki encourages her towards a self-introduction, but seems shocked when Hime refers to her as \u201cOnee-sama,\u201d and scolds her for it after their shift<\/span><\/p>\n

Love Hime\u2019s rough-sketched interpretations of their different personas<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently Mai\u2019s arm is broken, so Hime will be filling in for the time being. Back at school, we learn that Hime was actually in a club with the blue-haired girl<\/span><\/p>\n

What is it about blue hair and romantically doomed childhood friend characters? Rei Ayanami is sort of the textbook \u201cblue-haired, non-threatening, childhood-reminiscent love interest who will ultimately fall by the wayside,\u201d but I wonder if there are other progenitors<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her name is Kanoko. She knows about Hime\u2019s facade, and Hime seems to speak freely with her<\/span><\/p>\n

Mai says that they can \u201cfix\u201d Hime referring to Mitsuki as Onee-sama by making them \u201cSchwestern,\u201d a pair complete with matching crosses<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a word used when an upperclassman and an underclassman make an oath to form a special, sister-like bond.\u201d A classic dynamic of the Class S stories we\u2019re drawing on here, with the upperclassman drawing the underclassman into a mysterious world of intimacy and adulthood<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Interesting conceit of them reading and reacting to the comments of cafe attendees, essentially adjusting their performances to fulfill the expectations of their audience. Another way of emphasizing how these particular forms of behavior can actually be quite limiting, even if they were originally conceived as a form of liberation. A narrative of rebelling against social convention has now become its own convention<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really want you two to decide. I\u2019ll leave the kreuz with you until you do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no idea if she\u2019ll behave properly at the salon.\u201d Yeah, this is excellent. Drawn from stories that were all about hiding forbidden love, Mitsuki now doubts Hime\u2019s ability to properly obey the prescribed forms of articulating that allegedly transgressive romance. A natural critique of how the conventions of genre romance can become their own form of cage, flattening the complexity of human interaction into specific stylized expressions of emotion<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

More excellent fluid animation as Mitsuki storms out, incensed at the idea of having to cover for all of Hime\u2019s mistakes<\/span><\/p>\n

Mitsuki\u2019s rejection briefly reminds Hime of earlier years, when her own facade was critiqued by her fellow students as obviously artificial. Audiences want to be lied to, but they will hate you if you don\u2019t make them believe in the lie<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh man, this is so good. Mitsuki\u2019s frustrations are then immediately turned into fuel for her performance, with the next stage of her argument taking place in front of their guests. Mitsuki might be struggling, but there\u2019s no reason she can\u2019t use that struggle for Content<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Impressive panning cut transposing the cafe against the imagined academy, as Hime fully commits to this performance for the first time<\/span><\/p>\n

Hime\u2019s obliviousness to these genre conventions are making her seem far bolder than she intends, as she outright challenges Mitsuki for not accepting her kreuz<\/span><\/p>\n

For browbeating Mitsuki into accepting the pairing, Hime earns Mitsuki\u2019s deepest loathing<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And Done<\/b><\/p>\n

Whew, what a rich first episode! So much to dive into here in terms of the relationships between our public and private selves, as well as how those identities can be influenced by the expectations of either media convention or a wider audience. Contrasting Hime\u2019s personal facade against her professional performance is already yielding some compelling character interrogation, while that discussion regarding the nature of yuri pairs served as a graceful commentary on the awkward relationship between media as transgressive liberation versus media as trope-driven validation. This text is working on all sorts of levels, and I\u2019m eager to explore them further!<\/span><\/p>\n

This\u00a0article\u00a0was\u00a0mad<\/a><\/em>e possible by reader support<\/a>. Thank you all for\u00a0all that you do.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we\u2019re embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of Yuri is My Job! I doubt I need to explain to any of my readers \u2026 Continue reading \u2192<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[61,122,127,129,124,128,125,132,131,133,126,130,123,66,94,88,97,56,64,65,60,112,40,75,95,104,33,120,105,101,98,115,30,29,41,86,70,69,68,72,71,26,118,108,87,46,55,48,52,54,51,50,83,62,58,57,109,35,59,63,85,79,82,96,80,27,81,114,44,42,43,45,38,39,110,117,100,111,116,73,89,90,92,91,93,84,78,37,102,34,36,77,67,74,99,113,119,28,121,32,47,49,53,103,31,76],"class_list":["post-139244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime","tag-airpods","tag-anime","tag-anime-characters","tag-anime-cosplay","tag-anime-edits","tag-anime-merchandise","tag-anime-movies","tag-anime-news","tag-anime-recommendations","tag-anime-reviews","tag-anime-series","tag-anime-streaming","tag-animes","tag-app-store","tag-app-store-samsung","tag-appgallery","tag-appgallery-oneplus","tag-apple","tag-apple-music","tag-apple-tv","tag-apple-watch","tag-bbc-sport","tag-best-mobile-games","tag-bixby","tag-bixby-xiaomi","tag-champions-league","tag-cyberpunk","tag-cyberpunk-2077","tag-fantasy-football","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-formula-1","tag-fortnite","tag-free-fire","tag-free-mobile-games","tag-freebuds-pro","tag-galaxy-a52","tag-galaxy-note-20","tag-galaxy-s21","tag-galaxy-watch-4","tag-galaxy-z-fold-3","tag-game","tag-games","tag-golf","tag-harmonyos","tag-how-to-backup-iphone","tag-how-to-factory-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-reset-iphone","tag-how-to-restore-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-5","tag-how-to-unlock-iphone-6","tag-huawei","tag-ios","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-live-soccer","tag-lol","tag-macbook","tag-macos","tag-mate-40-pro","tag-mi-11-lite","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p","tag-mi-home-security-camera-basic-1080p-huawei","tag-mi-smart-band-6","tag-minecraft","tag-miui","tag-mlb-scores","tag-mobile-game-design","tag-mobile-game-development","tag-mobile-game-marketing","tag-mobile-game-monetization","tag-mobile-games","tag-mobile-gaming","tag-nba-scores","tag-nba-standings","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-scores","tag-nhl-scores","tag-one-ui","tag-oneplus","tag-oneplus-9-pro","tag-oneplus-buds-pro","tag-oneplus-nord-ce-5g","tag-oxygenos","tag-p40-pro-plus","tag-poco-x3-pro","tag-pokemon","tag-premier-league","tag-pubg","tag-pubg-mobile","tag-redmi-note-10-pro","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-pay","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-steam","tag-steeam","tag-top-10-anime","tag-valorant","tag-when-do-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-does-the-iphone-7-come-out","tag-when-is-the-iphone-7-coming-out","tag-world-cup","tag-xbox-series-x","tag-xiaomi"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139244"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141260,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244\/revisions\/141260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}