Even If It Was Just Once, I Regret It Vol. 1 (I Can't Believe I Slept With You!)

Product Information

There’s a power imbalance in I Can’t Believe I Slept With You. It’s notably reversed from the usual societal structure, since Chiyo is five years older than her landlady, but Hara maintains the power over her thanks to her position. This seems to be a week where books are pulling a fast one on me based on the expectations they’re setting with their descriptions. Make no mistake, Koduka is over a barrel here and she does indeed take Landlady (I will be referring to her as such for the review because of reasons) up on her offer. Koduka is a disaster - she is clearly grappling with depression after her job went sideways and everything about her life has fallen down in the meantime. So when Landlady offers her this extensive favour system to provide ongoing debt relief for services of any kind, not just sexual, Koduka says yes and gets a roomie in the bargain (which may not make sense on paper, but I assure you this might be the only manga where this actually makes a modicum of sense to occur). This is brought to a head in a chapter where the landlady requests a date with Chiyo as one of her “favours” for the day. Chiyo, believing this to be a light-hearted, silly thing, initially doesn’t take it all that seriously — but realises that she’s made a mistake when the landlady shows up clearly having made an effort. From hereon, it’s clear that Chiyo is starting to look at the landlady a little differently — and the climax of this comes where a former acquaintance of the landlady stumbles across her and Chiyo sitting together at a mall food court.

Turns out that this story’s really good. There’s definitely an uncomfortable viewing of this where Landlady used her leverage over Koduka to get sex, but there’s more to that story and Koduka did technically agree to it (and not get drunk beforehand, at that). It is most certainly not just its premise. I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! ( 一度だけでも、後悔してます。, Ichido Dake Demo, Kōkai Shitemasu.) is a Japanese yuri manga series written and illustrated by Miyako Miyahara. The manga was serialized in ASCII Media Works' monthly shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh from June 2019 to February 2021. The story follows Koduka Chiyo after she has a one-night stand with her landlady. I Can’t Believe I Slept With You isn’t the first yuri manga to explore the concept of uncertain sexuality and attraction among queer couples — Tsukiatte agete mo ii ka na (How Do We Relationship?) springs to mind — but it’s wonderful to see more yuri stories approach lesbian relationships from a questioning angle. It’s always great to see a yuri book that doesn’t shy away from lesbian issues and Landlady has an absolutely awkward encounter at the mall that features some nasty prejudice (beware the well-meaning, yet ignorant high school acquaintance) and features Koduka both standing up for a friend, yet also being forced to confront some truths about herself.Unable to pay the three months’ rent she owes, she (perhaps unwisely) says that she will “do anything” for the landlady. And the landlady, without missing a beat, indicates that if Chiyo was willing to have sex with her, they could probably come to some sort of arrangement. After Koduka Chiyo quits her job and spends her time wallowing in self-pity she becomes three months behind on her rent. Her landlady proposes an unusual solution: perform favors for her in exchange for the owed money – with the first being that the two sleep together. After a one-night stand, the two women decide to keep the arrangement, slowly growing closer over the coming months. Chiyo Koduka is 24, three months behind in rent, unemployed and living in a mess — so when her much younger landlady, Ritsuka Hara, propositions her with a plan to fix her debt situation, Chiyo (drunkenly) agrees. A regretful one-night stand turns into an awkward home life when her landlady moves in and they start living together! Landlady is not straight and very up front about that, but, while she certainly did the deed with Koduka, she turns out to have a lot of regret (and general melancholy about the loneliness her orientation has caused her). And it might just be that she’s after something more than sex (we actually know this pretty early on). There’s a lot of hinting that the reason Landlady regrets the sex is because her feelings run a lot deeper and the offer might have been an opening she took, to her own dismay. The series is licensed for an English release in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment. [6] No.

Friedman, Erica (February 21, 2022). "I Can't Believe I Slept With You, Volume 1". Okazu . Retrieved July 10, 2023. So this is clearly about to be some smutty book where an older woman is forced into trading sex for rent as she struggles to figure out her life… or is it? What follows is a rather touching story about the struggles of adulthood when things haven’t quite gone the way you expect them to. Through Chiyo, I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! explores the idea of how, when you get yourself into a difficult or seemingly “impossible” situation as a grown adult — old enough to “know better”, as it were — it’s hard to ask for help, even when it’s obvious that you need it. For her part, it’s clear that Hara is lonely and confused. She struggles with female friendship, fearing that she’ll inevitably end up attracted to someone and end up hurt or rejected. A few instances throughout the volume suggest Hara has been on the receiving end of homophobic judgement before, and that she genuinely wants a passionate relationship but struggles to find the right person. She clearly took advantage of Chiyo’s situation to fulfill her own desires, but she also regrets that decision, especially since her feelings for Chiyo seem to run deep. Nov 20 From the U.S. to Japan, You Can Control the Life-Size Moving Gundam from the Comfort of Your Own Home

Success!

The two make quite the pair because Koduka’s (supposedly) straight and has no intention of repeating their night of passion, but it turns out that Landlady has no intention of doing so either. Which might seem weird, except these are layered characters that spend literally 90% of the volume in an apartment and are still really interesting. From a personal perspective, I found this side of I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! to be exceedingly relatable. Having lived through one failed marriage (my present one is just fine, thanks very much) whose complete breakdown coincided with a period of unemployment, I’ve been almost exactly where Chiyo is at the outset of I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! — broke, feeling utterly worthless and terrified of the prospect of doing even the most simple necessities alone.

Twenty-four-year-old Koduka Chiyo quits her job and is three months behind on her. Her landlady will reduce the costs and help her, if she has sex with her. Which happens, but Koduka doesn't have much memories about it, because she was drunk, though she has flashes of memory later on. Each time Koduka does something for the Landlady she will cross off a number on the calendar. Review: I Can't Believe I Slept With You! GN 1". Anime News Network. March 30, 2022 . Retrieved July 10, 2023. Although landlady Hara’s feelings are obvious from the beginning, Chiyo questions her feelings a lot, as she’s sure she’s straight. Throughout the first volume we see her assumptions about sexuality questioned, and we hope there’ll be more time to explore this in the next few volumes, too. 2. Consent Matters! Hazra, Adriana (July 3, 2021). "Seven Seas Entertainment Adds 7 New Manga, 2 Light Novels". Anime News Network . Retrieved July 10, 2023. a b c d e f "Series: I Can't Believe I Slept With You!". Seven Seas Entertainment. Seven Seas Entertainment . Retrieved July 10, 2023.I've decided to try and see how risque a few "usually in sealed bags at Barnes and Noble" manga are, but under the stipulation I can get them through the public library. I Can't Believe I Slept With You was a title I saw on the shelf at a local bookstore. Paging through it briefly, I realized it was yuri (manga focusing on romantic/sexual relationships between women) and thought I'd add it to my test. This is the third title I tested. Tsugi Manga (in Japanese). Archived from the original on August 20, 2020 . Retrieved July 11, 2023. The original (and direct) translation of Ichido Dake Demo, Koukai Shitemasu’s title is Even If It Was Just Once, I Regret It. That’s a much more accurate title for the characters and their relationship in this yuri rom-com drama. Still, with its smooth combination of slice-of-life cuteness and the introspective consideration of sexuality, I Can’t Believe I Slept With You! (to use the current title) is a fun and thoughtful delight.

Written and illustrated by Miyako Miyahara, I Can't Believe I Slept With You!, was serialized in ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh from June 27, 2019, to February 26, 2021. [2] [3] The series was collected in three tankōbon volumes from January 2020 to March 2021. [4] [5] Could a regretful one-night stand blossom into an actual relationship? And what difficulties lie in a relationship where one party isn’t even sure of their own persuasion? I Can’t Believe I Slept With You manages to propose this question and begin exploring its answer all while maintaining a sweet charm that errs on the side of comedy more so than drama.The following morning, it becomes clear that they did indeed follow through on this, since the landlady sets up a “rent reduction agreement” for Chiyo, indicating that if Chiyo will do her 21 “favours”— one for every 10,000 yen she owes — she will write off the debt completely. And, since a now-sober Chiyo is exhibiting a certain amount of regret for her actions the previous evening, those favours don’t even need to be sexual in nature.