The bullying was so absurd it completely took me out of the story. Even setting aside the surreal idealisation of the president (which is such an overused trope in yuri that I've reached the point where I just skip any panels like the last one here), harassing someone to the point of threatening them with a cutter just because they forgot some flower arrangements? In what world would that ever happen?
The relationship between the main pair was interesting, but the rest kind of ruined it for me. It would've been a lot more believable and enjoyable if they had removed or toned down some of these elements.
Agreed. It completely made me lose interest in the rest of the story and the couple relationship and I was only interested in how that bullying situation would be dealt with.
Once I saw both girls got transfered I didn't even bother reading the rest...
I can totally see how it might mess with someone’s enjoyment of the yuri, yeah. For my part, I really liked that side of things. It really made me think, entropy being what it is, to maintain an image of perfection in light of a mistake would require a huge and seemingly disproportionate expenditure of energy. And in such a case, perhaps a harmless mistake requires the sacrifice of life stability and all reputation of some less powerful people. It’s horrific for the MC, who thus far has relied on her own honest effort, but it must be routine for people like her father working with larger and larger systems it must be routine.
To me it demonstrates the brittleness of the kind of perfection that can tolerate no blemishes, which is common to purity cultures like religious organizations and other groups that ask (or demand) the impossible from individuals. It’s a demand for a type of unreality, an inhumanity, that must be traded for with something else: an unstable kind of dynamic equilibrium.
I like how the President’s instinct was to instead own up to her mistakes and accept fault when she saw those consequences, to embody another model of virtue—the normal person who tries her hardest, who is very competent but sometimes makes mistakes and owns up to them. It’s a much more stable and healthy position to be in. Someone who isn’t apart from others, but is aspirational, rather than inspirational.
But the people around her didn’t want that kind of idol, and the VP realized it. The loss of a purity idol is also a blow to the self-regard of a purity culture, and the rich girl school they’re at seems to be one of those. Just as she gave the President an easy out to not speak up before, now she gives the rest of their little society an easier story than believing their idol has been tarnished—it was just someone else’s fault. Now they are the ones creating a reality with the President is perfect, and she alone isn’t strong enough to fight against that collective demand for narrative. She’s trapped in it. And of course that means she’s stuck in a world where her human side is inconvenient to others, so the VP is the only one who can see it.
And then, there you have it: a dynamic equilibrium made static, bought at the cost of blood for stability. Plenty of toxic cultures have that structure.
It’s really interesting from that perspective. I would have liked some more emotional realism or commentary on the human condition in the VP, but I think as it stands it’s quite interesting to me. Not a fave, but I got something from it.
