Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I thought we’d check back in on Hime’s part-time adventures, as we explore the second episode of Yuri is My Job! Having forcibly established a “Schwestern” bond of sisterhood with her coworker Mitsuki, Hime has solidified her place in the cafe’s kayfabe dynamic while simultaneously earning the enmity of Mitsuki herself. Though Hime is accustomed to performance, she has little fluency with the unspoken rules of engagement here, and seems poised to trample over any number of sacred traditions in her acclamation to life at Liebe Academy.
Of course, tangled as it is, that’s only the first layer of drama we’re dealing with here. Through its transposing of Class S traditions to this maid cafe-reminiscent venue, Yuri is My Job! is also naturally interrogating how the aesthetics of personal liberation can themselves become a new kind of limiting convention, as well as how performances of selfhood can either mask or facilitate emotional sincerity both in fiction and our own lives. Can these genre-born rituals convey genuine personal truths, offering vectors for feelings that must otherwise remain unspoken? And how does that hope square with the expectations of the audience, their insistence on performances that abide by strict models of personal expression? This show’s concerns stretch beyond the specific confines of Cafe Liebe’s performances, exploring the new realities of intimacy in an age where confessions are also Content, and finding a perfect vehicle for the universal in the specificity of the yuri boarding school’s narrative conventions. It’s a fascinating stew, so let’s not waste any more time talking around it, and get right into the action!