きたない君がいちばんかわいい (Kitanai Kimi ga Ichiban Kawaii): Vomiting and Puking About Impurity [Repost]

why can't all women be this terrible

I Want to Love Them

If you've talked to me in person before, I am sorry that you've heard me obsess over terrible, despicable, vile, awful, shitty, monstrous, inhumane, and repulsive characters for hours. I genuinely love it when people do awful things without any apology. And to be clear, I'm not talking about your typical "unlikable but relatable" characters; I'm referring to people who are 120% dogshit and recognizing you have a shred of empathy for them makes you feel sick. Ami from Semiramis, an eroge I've covered earlier in the newsletter, is a great example. I need cursed beings like her.

This is not to say I don't enjoy the heroic and admirable once in a while, but I do appreciate it when creators go the other end and bring the disgusting out of the human race. There's just something about seeing unsalvageable characters getting their way and making the situation worse. This direction naturally leads to more unconventional stories and unique conclusions.

And sometimes, that's kinda hot.

So, it shouldn't be a surprise to yuri fans in the know that I've become a huge fan of きたない君がいちばんかわいい (Kitanai Kimi ga Ichiban Kawaii, henceforth referred to as Kitakawa), a yuri manga by Manio and serialized in Yurihime Magazine. Countless friends have told me to check it out for months and I've finally succumbed to the yuri virus after being burned out from visual novels. This was the first manga I read to completion in years and I became livid -- in a good way.

Kitakawa is peak fiction hours for me because the stars have aligned for me and created the perfect comic suited for my advanced brainworms.

I Want to Strangle Them

The work follows two adorable characters: Sezaki Airi and Hanamura Hinako. Airi's got ojousama vibes while Hinako is the sweet girl next door. They may be miles apart in personality and do hang out in separate friend groups, but things change after school. They make out and Airi sticks her fingers into Hinako's throat, causing the latter to vomit her lunch out. Airi finds Hinako's vulnerability very cute and that's why she's been doing these fun, family-friendly experiments on her. They've been managing a delicate balance between their everyday life and after-school "activities".

Just from this description, one might be led to believe this comic would be a Fetish-of-the-Week manga. That assessment wouldn't be too far off if only considering the first few chapters. There is actually an ero ASMR adapting the first volume, which includes the melodic sounds of Hinako's puking. Adorable stuff IMO.

But by the end of the first volume, it takes an interesting turn that will soon shatter this entire premise. Kitakawa's attention is quickly turning toward school dynamics, specifically how they influence the characters' behaviors and fear of being not only ostracized but abandoned by their partners.

In this respect, Kitakawa is less a yuri genre manga and more a school caste work. Imagine a comparatively less unhinged yuri manga for a second: the plot and themes would be about self-identity and learning to accept relationships, sometimes in a cruel heteronormative world. But school caste works force people to hide their desires and conform to the "natural" flow of hierarchies, usually through violence. While this manga doesn't focus on things like bullying too much, it does bring up how dogmatic conformity can be and the things one will do in order to keep their freedom to express -- even if it may get distorted later on.

This aspect is especially telling when the work examines how friend circles in school settings are just a farcical charade. Airi is usually bored with her friends; they're just part of her routine in order to keep up the wholesome girl appearance. Hinako, on the other hand, is very happy with her friends, but she's definitely head over heels for Airi. In fact, one of the reasons why Airi and to a certain extent Hinako are seeking such a specific, unconventional relationship is because they're able to express themselves in ways that would be untenable for society. Their friends serve as camouflage, as a necessary evil to insure themselves from any impending dangers.

But what happens when shit hits the fan? While they can certainly repress their adulation over each other in appropriate moments, it doesn't mean they can keep their cool if things do slip up. Airi already sees the world as a social ladder to climb, so if anything doesn't go her way, she gets into a tantrum and demands things to revolve around her immediately. Hinako's never had a strong personality either; that's why she is a perfect masochist for Airi's crap. So, what works for a hot SM yuri relationship might not exactly pan out in the troubling and political landscape of classrooms.

Their relationship can easily be perceived as taboo and disgusting, especially since they're founded on shaky grounds. Interpreting Airi as an atrocious human being and Hinako an enabler of the former's antics would in fact be reasonable. Their obsession with each other can definitely devolve into something very unhealthy and dangerous. But the two could've perhaps led a stabler life doing weird kinks together if they lived in a more accepting world.

If these two characters were given more room in the manga to pick apart their feelings about each other, they might've been able to express their desires for each other in a way that respects each other's needs without hurting themselves in the process. Airi's and Hinako's relationship is still valid, even if admittedly unusual. There's no good reason to deny their feelings for each other, just because they are complicated, messy, and entangled.

But there are tacit laws within society that limit such expressions. If they cannot be rendered acceptable, then these desires must be excised and the relationships invalidated. This is despite the everlasting human condition to desire, to discover things outside what is convention. The only crime these two characters have committed is having a passion for each other that is incomprehensible to the world.

That is to say, anyone is free to have feelings toward other people as long as those feelings are okayed by society -- whatever that means.

And I Want to Hate Them

When Kitakawa passes a very obvious point of no return, I had to read the rest in one spurt. I was emotionally invested into the cast because what makes them so charming is why they're vulnerable in this latter half. Everyone, not just the main duo, gets a little bit twisted. The work finally becomes this callout about how the world punishes the "wicked" but also revels in the drama.

So, I read the later chapters not just as an inevitable spiraling of a toxic co-dependent relationship but how they were pushed to pass the point of no return and they couldn't return to their normality. They don't exactly regret their emotions for each other; however, they abhor the circumstances that especially brought out their flaws to the forefront and turned their relationship into something so parasitic. If they weren't so cornered and a bit more well-adjusted, they may not have turned out like this. The two could've been a normal couple with unique kinks. Instead, their relationship makes them dig each other's graves: they've become dependent on each other because they've got no choice. Airi never stopped being self-centered while Hinako tore herself apart to be the person Airi wants her to be. What was once fun had transformed into this distorted love for each other.

Kitakawa is, I believe, a romantic tragedy penned by these two lovebirds and the world around them. It is difficult to attribute blame and responsibility to anyone except the factors that led to this situation. Even those who are merely watching the drama unfold are part of the stage; their small participation is more than enough to get this ball rolling. And that is why the ending may be predictable, but it is a shocking turn nonetheless: it lays cold our obsession with purity and ugliness and how we can't really escape from that framework.

This pseudo-hygiene is what makes Kitakawa sexy and abhorrent in the first place. If we never had such strong feelings about cleanliness and dirtiness, we wouldn't have taboos or sexual fetishes. These emotions are foundational to how we categorize the world. It is nigh impossible to detach ourselves from something so fundamental to our thinking and the inevitability pervasive within the comic stems from that all-too-human fact. As long as we desire or be repulsed, the Kitakawa cycle continues and there is no way to escape.

The only conclusion we are allowed to have is the happy and fantastical Fetish-of-the-Week manga we wanted or this treacherous path the manga has taken. It takes huge courage from Manio, the mangaka, to take the latter path and display the "reality" of how desires play out within the restrictive setting of our real world. This controversial direction allows the reader to interrogate how desire grounds all our actions in many interesting ways but are limited by what's prescribed from societal expectations. From this reasoning, we probably would never have been satisfied by this hypothetical happy fetish comic.

Kitakawa is just being honest about how we love to be repulsed. And if we stick with that logic, we must not only accept this terrifying ending but be "turned on".

Okay, I think I just wrote a lot of shit that would be better for a full-length article on the main website. But you gotta understand: Kitakawa took control of my life. Or rather, Kitakawa was my life 24/7. This word vomit was written within a span of days with the help of Len, so I cannot stress how much this work has infested and germinated inside my brain. It's the best. I now stan Manio and want to read more of her works. Kitakawa is a commendable feat with some interesting paneling and highly detailed art that invites multiple readings. It's obvious that she'll be one of the best manga artists in the near future.

But I've heard from fans of the comic that they feel awkward recommending this work to their friends in case they judge them for the extreme content. While I understand that, I believe that is Unwise(tm). I highly recommend it to everyone of all ages: it's got ageplay, choking, and girls vomiting their love for each other. That's what all the TikTok kids these days like, I'm pretty sure.

Really, this is the kind of manga that defines my interests in fiction to the tee. I adore creators who take this imaginative space not as treading the same ol' content but rather exploring something that would not be ethically permissible in our reality. Fiction is the best place for weird shit to happen and Kitakawa lets me think about these "unrealistic" things deeply. It's an entertaining and challenging work about how desires play out in a school caste setting and I would love to see people, in particular riajuu as fuck couples, adorn Airi and Hinako avatars to express their love.

Airi and Hinako are just very cute, especially when they puke.