Pretty cool start? I love art that talks about art (Yuri Espoir is among the best works in the genre, btw), that focuses on how stories bring people together and say so much about who they are, tastes singing louder than words, reviews at first sight, five-and-one-star crossed lovers gleefully bantering about the Experience. Romance is subcultural in its own way, mixing expectations and stations and influences and confluences, trying out looks and tales and links and scales, a private back and forth born of time and place and jamming to the tunes of people trying out a voice, of an age and therefore of All the Time. Ichiko's trying to see herself a bit clearer in the spotlight, discovering her density as she tests out the flow, thinking for pennies and touring the dreadfuls, and Kuran's her anchor, her rock and beacon, an anti-lighthouse she can bob away from, feeling the warmth of a gaze of her back to counter all the ones she faces, the cryptid in her corner. Its a damn nice dynamic that feels both innovative and familiar, because there truly is something comforting about iconoclasm, the hipster's trusty homestead, the reassuring, self-affirming impact that gutters up your bones as you kick out, because there'll always be a tower to flip off, a sky to spit in, a history to sneer at, and to Ichiko out there on fomo's frontlines, Kuran's the mean because she's mean, a star to navigate by because she's extreme. There is no authenticity except in moments felt as they pass, and Ichiran pass 'em with other, phoning in the phonology of phonies, slinging their hearts into every declamation of cliché, never false because they're never true, always the same old and so always new- in short, Sincere Since they're Here. Very Cool.
Also, the art bangs severely in various ways, from the way Ichiko tilts like she's a hidalgo with giants to kill to Kuran looking like a Peanuts character in her punk phase, but special shoutout to the pixel trans flag bubbles on the cover glitching out reality from the cumulative Gender of it all. They just like me, fr, fr.
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