I agree that the title is a bit confusing, I wonder if there's some Japanese pun or idiom we're not getting?
The title (Kinou no Teki wa Kyou mo Teki, “yesterday’s enemy is also today’s enemy”) is a play on the expression Kinou no Teki wa Kyou no Tomo, “yesterday’s enemy is today’s friend”. It means something like, just because you’re at odds with someone today doesn’t mean you won’t be on their side someday. Yuni’s take on this is “sure, redemption arcs are fine, but more often, something giving you trouble today will actually keep giving you trouble the next day”. She likes to use these plays on expressions for titles.
As for how it relates to the story, I have a few ideas—just my own interpretation of the story.
Generally I think the theme is “if you don’t like something, asking you to come to like it might be unfair. Maybe you’re just right, and the best you can do is cope and eventually move on.”
They’re dealing with sexual harassment at work, but this isn’t a story about them addressing it per se. There’s no real confrontation, much less redemption for her boss(?). Instead they just find ways to cope with it because they have each other’s backs.
Throughout their relationship, Onose has never gotten used to Asahina’s smoking. That doesn’t change, but she does finally build up the courage to confront it. But no redemption for that, Asahina just acknowledges that it was never really good for her in the first place.
Onose tends to overcommit herself and be a people-pleaser. She doesn’t like this about herself (hence self-loathing mode). But Asahina doesn’t discourage this or try to change her, instead she supports her as it is—whatever stage of dealing with this Onose is in, Asahina has her back.
Asahina enters her new job thinking she’ll never see the nice lady she met at the info session again, but then turns out to be right with her all along. Pretty low-drama arc (of crush I met briefly) -> (follow after her) -> (relationship). There’s no “friends I made along the way” kind of story. Not so much “enemies” in this case, so maybe this is a stretch.
At the end, Onose has left her job. Maybe this was because of persistent sexual harassment, maybe because she found the culture of picking up other people’s slack too hard to avoid, we don’t know. But switching jobs is much less common in Japan. Reading between the lines, it could just be that she acknowledged that her situation was flawed, and couldn’t fix it, she could only leave it for somewhere better.
last edited at Feb 4, 2025 8:43AM
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