Yuri Is My Job!

I can't believe I expected a show that would just be poking fun at common yuri tropes and instead got an deep psychoanalysis of perpetual liars and group relationship dynamics instead...

You wouldn't know it from this gif but there are like three separate layers of façade happening here.

The best way to sum up "Yuri Is My Job!" is that there are a handful of girls working at a themed cafe where the waiters are all playing the role of a schoolgirl from a fictional private school in a typical Shoujo/Yuri manga setting. Think something like Revolutionary Girl Utena or Strawberry Panic. Everyone has a character and a role to play, because the customers who frequent this cafe are apparently hyper-invested in the unfolding story they're putting on while serving them, and it's important to understand the distinctions between acting and real life.

This show takes "giving the audience what they want" VERY seriously.

The twist is that all four of the primary characters also have their own relationships with each other underneath these performances, and their own underlying personas beneath their public image as well. Everyone is operating on three different levels at any given time - who they really are, how they want to be perceived by others, and the character they play at their job. Struggling to maintain a façade while trying to work out why each girl feels the way they do about each other's relationship - both "in character" and out - turns the whole experience into a deep dive into the psyche of perpetual liars, unrequited love, betrayal, and the paranoia of someone seeing through the image you've constructed of yourself.

She may look small but in her mind she's playing 4D chess to keep up appearances.

Our main character Hime is so engrossed in keeping up her own façade - the image of a cute and universally beloved girl whose only goal is to marry someone rich that will take care of her forever - that she doesn't even stop to consider that other people around her might also be wearing a mask for their own reasons. One girl (Yano) - whom Hime finds herself inexplicably drawn to - plays a kind and caring "onee-san" to her while in character, but makes it known that outside of the cafe, she absolutely HATES Hime. And Hime not only doesn't understand why, her main concern is that Yano has somehow seen right through her cutesy act and will threaten to expose her as a liar, which in her mind, is a fate worse than whatever the ACTUAL reason Yano hates her might be.

It's a fact that all the best comedies come from a very genuine and often sad place.

Watching each character try to get through a conversation with each other, trying to discern what's a genuine statement and what's being said to keep up appearances, or only said in character, becomes a tense, dramatic, and yet still extremely funny experience. It would be so easy if these girls would just communicate openly with each other! But developing relationships is messy, and even moreso when you have an image you want to maintain. This is a story about understanding the way people often juggle the different versions of themselves, and really underscores the danger of living your life entirely under a façade, where constantly lying to others - and to yourself - can cost you entire friendships.

Some people lie to make others feel better. Other people lie because they don't want to reveal how gay they really are.

What starts out as a snarky little satire quickly evolves into a surprisingly deep and fascinating look into the myriad ways in which people struggle with self-image and relationships. It doesn't just ironically riff on all the things that made Strawberry Panic exactly what it is, but that irony was intentionally baked into a very real underlying story about reconciling with a lost friend, and struggling to understand where the lies end and the facts begin. Don't let the detached nature of the show's comedy fool you, the anime ITSELF is putting on a façade of its own to hide its true nature!

I can't be the only one who sees parallels between Hime/Kanoko and Ana/Matsuri from Strawberry Marshmallow. Tell me I'm not the only one!

Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. Not only because I'm still a sucker for those private schoolgirls falling in love with each other type stories, but because this one came with an incredibly complex twist about liars (a subject that hits close to home for me), the need to be validated, the desire to know the truth about how people feel, and why people go to all this trouble of masking it up in the first place. 100% worth your time if you like classic yuri and want to dive in a little deeper.

Good hustle out there today, Hime!

Man. I haven't heard the word "façade" spoken that many times in a 22-minute setting since the last Mother 3 LP I watched...