Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! Today I’m eager to stop back in at Cafe Liebe, as our salon employees prepare for the upcoming Blume election. With Hime and Mitsuki having reestablished their friendship, our focus has turned to Hime’s friend Kanoko, who is tentatively confronting her fear of the admittedly intimidating Sumika. Of course, what Kanoko seems to perceive as “gyaru delinquency” is really just an expression of confidence in self; Sumika is happy with who she is, and thus does not feel compelled to mold her personality into precisely one internally coherent shape.

To our gallery of anxious and performance-bound heroines, Sumika’s confidence feels pretty close to a superpower. Hime knows how to please others, but her performance is not authentic to her actual feelings, which she generally keeps tightly buried. Mitsuki only knows how to commit herself to clearly defined tasks, and uses the formalized language of Cafe Liebe to substitute for her lack of casual conversational aptitude. And Kanoko can barely talk at all, only feeling comfortable expressing herself with Hime, and even there hiding the actual nature of her feelings.

Compared to them, Sumika’s comfort in her own skin and unapologetic embracing of her hobbies must indeed feel intimidating – for she has discovered the secret lying beyond the horizon, and understands that all of this adolescent performative roleplaying is only useful insofar as it leads you to a satisfying, authentic self. Fuck the haters, find your people, and let the rest take care of itself. Now let’s get back to the show!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving back into the tangled performance of masks that is Yuri is My Job!, as our heroines struggle to discover something approaching intimacy among the performances and expectations of both genre and adolescence. We arrive back after a moment of great victory for Hime and Mitsuki, with the two having simultaneously repaired their friendship and affirmed their validity as Schwestern for the cheering crowd. Though Mitsuki has tremendous difficulty admitting to her feelings, the strictly defined language of Cafe Liebe ultimately served as something like training wheels for true expression, equipping her with the language and confidence necessary to admit she genuinely loves Hime.

Of course, she immediately walked that confession back with a convenient “that was all part of the performance,” but that too is part of why she was able to speak in the first place. To the awkward and uncertain, the itemized emotional beats of genre can be a lifeline, a common language that offers less ambiguity and vulnerability than fickle, unmediated conversation. And it’s not like regular conversation lacks strict conventions – after all, it was Mitsuki’s inability to match that lingo, to downplay her passions and laugh lightly with the crowd, that isolated her in the first place. And while Hime thrives in the superficial conventions that attend adolescent acquaintances, it’s clear that she too is seeking something more, something lasting, honest, and maybe even transformative. Let’s see if our heroines can find it as we return to Yuri is My Job!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to Cafe Liebe, where it seems Hime and Mitsuki might well be on the verge of an emotional breakthrough. Though Mitsuki is still frankly terrible at expressing herself outside of the formalized confines of Cafe Liebe’s performance, Hime’s declaration that she would “never betray Yano” clearly got through to her, affirming the doubts she was already possessing regarding how their first friendship ended. And in spite of not understanding Mitsuki’s admittedly vague statements, Hime can see the change in her as well, and is beginning to embrace her own genuine emotions.

Of course, genuine emotions are difficult to express at Cafe Liebe, where every idle passion is formalized into a rigid dance, and every statement of longing must meet the approval of a judgmental audience. In its systems of hierarchy and rejection of anything betraying convention, Liebe has turned the once-freeing context of yuri drama into its own form of social confinement, with the online comments of attendees now serving the role that Hime’s classmates performed in grade school.

Transgressive art breaks boundaries and allows unlimited personal expression, but transgressive art turned into an industry (or worse, a fandom) becomes an institution with strict expectations and inarguable internal rules. Mitsuki briefly found solace in the reliability of these rules, but she’s now discovering the feelings she bears towards Hime do not necessarily fit within the interpretation of love demanded by Cafe Liebe. Can Hime save both her relationship with Mitsuki and their performance as Schwestern? Let’s find out!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving back into the thorny drama of Yuri is My Job!, having at last borne witness to the full prior relationship of Hime and Mitsuki. Back in grade school, each of them were outsiders of their own kind; Mitsuki was rejected as a too-serious weirdo, and though Hime was popular, she had no one with whom she could share her actual, honest feelings. The two found a brief sanctuary in each other, where Mitsuki could embrace her passions without judgment, and Hime could admit to the ungenerous feelings that simmered beneath her persona. But tragically, while they cared about each other, they never truly understood each other – thus Hime abandoned music to protect Mitsuki from the bullying she already expected, and Mitsuki responded by robbing Hime of the facade she herself couldn’t respect.

Thus we arrive at our current state of affairs, with Hime still traumatized by the consequences of revealing her true self, and Mitsuki seeing Hime as everything she despises about social performances. The two have arrived at Cafe Liebe from opposing poles: Hime sees Liebe’s performances as simply a quirky variation on her own affectation, while Mitsuki takes comfort in the regularity of these interactions, the rules she can internalize such that her passion makes her a star, not an outsider. Each of them has learned to feel ashamed of the person behind the mask, but at Cafe Liebe, they have the chance to hone their performances such that they need never look at their true selves in the mirror. Let’s see how this deeply unhealthy “solution” proceeds!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return Yuri is My Job!’s fanciful Cafe Liebe, and see how Hime attempts to disentangle her latest foot-in-mouth insertion. She was actually doing quite well last episode, with the accidental reveal of her private performance ultimately resulting in a moment of genuine honesty between her and Mitsuki. Hime was even driven to admit to the past trauma that had convinced her only a flawless, all-encompassing social performance could prevent her from being despised and abandoned; unfortunately, it turned out Mitsuki herself was precisely the person who instigated that trauma, prompting a fresh rift between them.

Nonetheless, even this new conflict seems like a healthy step forward for both of them. Coming to truly know about others’ feelings will inevitably invite friction, the kind of friction that might prompt you to hide within a loveable facade like Hime, or gravitate towards ritualized performances of intimacy like the Cafe Liebe crew. But it is only by continuing to invite that friction that you might find true, earnest companionship, and discover that everyone else is muddling through just as awkwardly as you are. We cling to scripts when we believe everyone else already has one; the truth is, everyone engages in a combination of performance and sincerity every day, all of us seeking an emotional safe harbor for our flawed, imperfect perceptions of self. As with the initial reveal of her performance, Hime has once again ripped off the band-aid accidentally, leaving a raw mark to tell of her painful prior experiences with Mitsuki. This leaves them both more vulnerable than before, but it is only through embracing vulnerability that we might arrive at genuine mutual trust. Let’s see how spectacularly they fail to manage it!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to Cafe Liebe, and see how things are faring for our hapless kohai Hime. After being conscripted into service as a replacement for her manager Mai, Hime swiftly managed to trip over or smash into basically every convention of their fictional girls’ academy. Though she has some vague understanding of the genre territory being explored, the lingo is still foreign to her; she has mastered a precise script of feigned modern-day courtliness, but her affectation bears only a passing resemblance to the assumed calls and responses of Liebe Girls’ Academy.

Of course, that precise formality of assumed language is exactly why Liebe’s customers find this performance so enticing. Hime is talented at improvising in the manner of a genuine social butterfly, but the genre-born assumptions of Liebe flatter a very different audience, comforting those who, like Kanoko, find the vagaries of spontaneous conversation foreign and intimidating. Scripts provided by fiction allow those who have difficulty expressing themselves organically to connect with others; when the rules are so clearly defined, there is little fear of putting your foot in your mouth. And of course, it’s not like organic conversations don’t follow their own unspoken scripts, as Hime’s initial talents well demonstrate. All human interactions are in part a performance of selfhood, and through Cafe Liebe, Yuri is My Job! is consistently demonstrating the differences and nuances of performing for yourself, for the sake of being understood, and for the approval of an assumed audience. Let’s see how Hime fucks it up this time!

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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!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re embarking on a brand new adventure, as we check out the first episode of Yuri is My Job! I doubt I need to explain to any of my readers that “yuri” generally refers to lesbian romance in anime or manga. Yuri has a long and storied tradition in these fields, with the early 20th century Class S dramas that were often focused on all-girl schools informing the works of the Year 24 Group in the 1970s, including such enduring classics as Riyoko Ikeda’s Dear Brother. These stories influenced the next generations in turn, with ‘90s highlights like Maria Watches Over Us and Revolutionary Girl Utena paving the way for modern, somewhat more grounded stories like Bloom Into You or Adachi and Shimamura, as well as lighter romcoms like The Demon Girl Next Door.

Anime and manga have often been a haven for society’s outsiders, realizing the hopes and aspirations that would invite censure in a rigid, conservative culture. And even as we’ve begun to break the shackles publicly inhibiting expressions of homosexual love, yuri dramas have continued to evolve with the times, even hopping aboard the isekai boom through stories like I’m In Love With The Villainess. Yuri is My Job seems to fit neatly within the modern self-aware paradigm, with its genre-savvy title and heroine whose name is literally Hime, meaning “princess.” It apparently takes place at a cafe themed after those classic Class S dramas, making me curious as to both how it might comment on genre convention, and how it will express earnest character drama in its own right. Let’s find out!

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