"First comes marriage - then comes love!"
A surprisingly decent and sweet standalone yuri manga, that isn't trashy, het gazey or highly inappropriate concerning consent issues. I guess it helps that it's from 2018-19.
'I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up' is self-explanatory, yet its title is only the start of it. It is about the growth and confidence boost of Machi Morimoto, a young independent woman in Japan, who is just going through the motions of being smart and relatively successful in her office career at her male-dominated workplace. But since a woman without a man is a failure in society and at life, apparently, her male colleagues, but especially her demanding and controlling parents, keep pestering her to get married (in her colleagues' case, probably as an excuse to fire her, since they believe that career and family can't coexist for women, but never for men for some reason).
She's sick of it. Sick of failing to please everyone, no matter what she does.
The solution? Machi's friend, Hana Agaya, who has been in love with her since school, suggests that she marry her; in a civil partnership, so that Machi's parents will finally back off.
The introverted Machi, who used to live alone, can barely handle this sudden and unconventional change to her mundane life and routine. The happy, upbeat artist Hana is her exact opposite; how will "senpai" cope with living with her? But, slowly, surely, the sham marriage may bloom into something more meaningful, helpful, and enlightening, as Machi learns to come out of her shell... as well as the closet.
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Take that, patriarchy!
'I Married My Best Friend' sounds like a bad rom com, or just a hideously tasteless and unfunny comedy. But it isn't. The manga tackles issues of sexism in the workplace, patriarchal ideas of marriage, academic pressure on children bordering on abuse, and homophobia. Small but vital details in an otherwise light, simple opposites-attract love story. For love and support - and consent - are very important values to live by.
Everything here, plus the positive, personal growth of the ordinary woman protagonist trapped in a patriarchal society, is worth highlighting and reading about. It is the 21st century, after all.
Yeah, there could have been a lot more, but oh well. It's nice, bold yet unpretentious throughout, and I'll praise standalone books any day.
Also included is the alternate universe story 'Anaerobic Love'.
'I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up' - I recommend it to anyone, including people who like 'Girl Friends' by Milk Morinaga, and who don't usually like yuri.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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