Monday, August 04, 2025

How to Housebreak Your Crazy Fiance

The "Hanky Panky" sound effect is great.

OK, backtracking to the 2nd volume of Yakuza Fiance. The first volume ended by introducing a subplot about the daughter of the leader of a subgroup in the same larger organization Kirishima's grandfather is part of. I don't really understand the ins and outs of that stuff; the best I can do is think of it as really big rival corporations, each with many smaller companies within them.

Kirishima seems to be looking into it on his own time, but it's Yoshino who catches a glimpse of the "missing" gir, going into a club on the turf of the same group her family is part of. Hence why no one from the Tokusa Clan could find her, because it'd risk a turf war to go there. But Yoshino's family is part of the Kirigaya Faction, so she can go, and bring Kirishima with her.

At that point, the book briefly turns into a detective story, with Kirishima busting into the VIP room and casually explaining everything that's gone on. The girl was running a scam with one her dad's employees in makeshift gambling parlors and ripped off members of the Filipino Mafia, who responded violently. Once three more guys show up and the leader casually backhands Yoshino, it ceases to resemble a Raymond Chandler story, and becomes The Raid, as Kirishima goes HAM on the entire room. I'm pretty sure one guy gets stabbed in the eye with a fork, and Kirishima takes a knife to the thigh like it's nothing.

Yoshino needs a minute to get into the groove, but ends up K.O'ing the leader with a liquor bottle and keeping Kirishima from killing anyone. RIP to that one guy's eye, though. The whole situation is largely resolved, though the guy Yoshino hit and his cronies are the ones out for revenge in volume 4.

The second half of the volume is focused on Kirishima and Yoshino's evolving situation, though it starts with Kirishima and some other woman in a hotel room. While he's eagerly describing how Yoshino won't ever let him take photos of her, and gets angry enough he thinks she'd kill him if he tried anything, the woman points out it sounds like Yoshino hates him. No shit. Kirishima is flummoxed by this notion, and decides he should start sneaking into Yoshino's home and watch her sleep. When caught, he explains it's because she won't look angry when she's asleep.

I don't know, what do you even do with someone like that? He has this particularly wide-eyed and lost expression when he says it, too. It's like dealing with a feral cat. Yoshino is at least getting an idea of how he thinks, so she doesn't waste time phrasing her orders in terms of laws or morality. She also reveals she knows he's got other women on the side, but she doesn't care, because he doesn't mean anything to her. It's funny, because her friends will later criticize her for not keeping closer tabs on Kirishima, or for seeming indifferent to what he gets up to. And I'm sitting here going, yes, she is indifferent. What's your point? She does compliment him on how true to himself he is, so I guess that's something he can cling to, like a barnacle on a whale's jaw.

From there, her old friend Shouma arrives to deliver a photo album she asked for, and based on what Yoshino tells him, offers to kill Kirishima any time she asks. Yoshino's not really prepared for that, but then Kirishima shows up outside Shouma's hotel, and that doesn't do anything to dissolve the tension. Shouma clearly dislikes Kirishima, and Kirishima can't stop trying to egg Shouma on. That'll come to a head later.

Asuka Konishi mentions in a note at the end of the volume that Shouma is sort of a bunch of bad boy characters all averaged together, but I like him better than Kirishima. He's subdued, to the point of seeming apathetic about everything. But he obviously cares about Yoshino, enough to question her desire to stay and try to "win" this thing with Kirishima, but still respect her choice. Konishi's very good at showing how comfortable the two are with each other. Yoshino can yell at him, or Shouma can bust her chops about losing her temper, but it's all good-natured and a sign of people with a long, positive history together.

One other thing worth noting, though I'm not sure how it'll play out. We get a little backstory about Yoshino, as well as about her grandfather and Kirishima's grunkle. One, Yoshino's dad hated Yakuza, moved out as soon as he could, and died in a car accident (which Kirishima's reaction clearly indicates was no accident.) Two, Renji (Yoshino's granddad) and Gaku (Kirishima's grunkle) are longtime friends, but the way it's framed and described - 'it's quite touching to think they were good friends when they were young' - screams there's some underlying tension that's going to explode eventually. And Yoshino's presence in Tokyo is part of that, though whether she's meant to keep a lid on it, or set the whole thing off is unclear.

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