Honesty is the best policy in Gal Gohan’s fourth volume

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While Marii Taiyou’s romcom manga Gal Gohan has, up until the point we’ve explored so far, been quite energetic and consistently amusing, the overall “romance” story is a bit of a slow burn by its very nature.

Despite the fact that lead heroine Miku Okazaki is very much in love with her home economics teacher Shinji Yabe, both of them know that taking things any further than they have been so far would be completely taboo so far as the vast majority of society is concerned. In fact, so far as Yabe is concerned, Miku has already crossed a line multiple times — though he doesn’t quite have the heart to push her away completely. In other words, both of them know that it would probably be best to wait, as difficult as that might be.

Gal Gohan vol. 4

A notable moment in this regard came in the final moments of the third volume, in which a cosplaying Miku kissed Yabe on the cheek. This was a significant milestone for their relationship; while Miku had, of course, forced numerous instances of inappropriate physical contact on Yabe by this point in the narrative, she had never actually kissed him. And, as regular readers of Japanese stories with romantic elements will attest, a kiss is regarded as one of the most significantly intimate things you can share with another person; some hentai anime and manga even go so far as to position a kiss as being more intimate than actual sex.

Naturally, both Yabe and Miku are left with a lot of things to think about — and the kiss itself formed the cliffhanger that leads into volume 4. It’s not immediately resolved, either; instead, the volume opens with Yabe pondering to himself about whether or not she was “just teasing” — part of him still feels like she’s being openly flirtatious and inappropriate with him as part of her “gal” persona — and almost immediately is followed by Miku’s close friends Makoto and Hana dragging him along to go and see a poorly Miku.

Makoto and Hana are seen relatively infrequently over the course of Gal Gohan’s complete narrative, but they’re always interesting and intriguing characters. They’re established quite early on as being completely off the table so far as the quasi-harem forming around Yabe is concerned, since they both have boyfriends that they appear completely devoted to. They also, like Miku, somewhat subvert the expectations of the “gal” trope by not being self-obsessed mean girls who put others down in order to lift themselves up, but instead pretty consistently show themselves to be immensely supportive, good friends.

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Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sequence that opens volume 4 where, as previously mentioned, they drag Yabe along to go and see Miku in her sickbed. At this point it’s perhaps debatable as to whether or not Makoto and Hana truly know how deep Miku’s feelings for Yabe run, but at the very least they know he is important to her. As such, they understand that while she is suffering, there are probably few people that she’d rather have by her side.

They even go so far as to sneak out of the house while Yabe is tending to her in her room — they know what Miku wants, and clearly trust Yabe to not take advantage of the situation in a way that will hurt or upset Miku.

We then have one of the more intimate scenes in Gal Gohan. Yabe inadvertently walks in on Miku changing, and the pair of them are suitably embarrassed; it’s actually rather interesting to see Miku in particular embarrassed by the situation because it shows, to her, there is very much a difference between a situation that she is in complete control of — such as being flirtatious at school — and one in which she is vulnerable, such as being alone in her bedroom with someone much older and stronger than she is.

The real intimacy in the scene, though, comes from Yabe demonstrating how he is not at all embarrassed about caring for Miku when she needs help — and that this puts Miku in a position where she feels comfortable letting down some of the walls around herself. She even goes so far as to admit that on some level, she thinks that being a gal might be her hiding from something — and that she’s happy Yabe is the only one to have seen her and interacted with her in such a vulnerable position.

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Naturally, she’s quick to blame everything she said on fevered delirium the next time the pair see one another — but they both know things were said that cannot be taken back or forgotten. It’s an important moment. Interestingly, later in the volume when Miku is in the presence of Yabe when he gets extremely drunk at his sister’s house, he manages to resist blurting out anything he probably shouldn’t; evidently he’s a little better at keeping his “guard” up when vulnerable than Miku is.

Also important in volume 4 of Gal Gohan is how Miku and Fujiwara’s relationship is shown developing. It seems that Miku has developed both a liking for and a sense of trust in Fujiwara, so she ends up confiding in Fujiwara about the Halloween kiss. Not only that, she finds Fujiwara’s presence a valuable “sounding board” for working out her own feelings somewhat; it seems Miku still feels a slight sense of internal conflict over whether she is really in love with Yabe, or if she just wants to “have fun” with him, as she puts it.

Fujiwara, meanwhile, is developing some smouldering feelings for Yabe herself, and these are ignited into a full-on roaring flame of passion during a cooking club session. Despite her trying to hide it, Yabe recognises that Fujiwara is struggling with the spice level of a curry they have cooked together, and Fujiwara is, to put it mildly, rather taken with the fact that he appeared to read her mind.

She is also clearly developing a certain amount of jealousy towards the way Miku and Yabe interact with one another — but not a malicious jealousy; she simply wants to be able to feel some of the same things herself.

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In the previous volume, after all, we got the impression that Fujiwara is someone who is well liked and relied upon, but also someone who tends not to get close with other people. She’s never shown really hanging out with actual friends, but rather simply people with whom she has, for want of a better term, a “professional” connection, such as peers on the school council.

Part of this is, as we touched on in volume 3 of Gal Gohan, Fujiwara’s internal conflict between wanting to live up to the expectations that have been all but forced upon her, and her desire to actually enjoy her youth — something which we get the impression she doesn’t have the opportunity to do all that often.

In Gal Gohan Volume 4, we see a Fujiwara who is much more playful than she has been in the past; she’s initially embarrassed at her attempts to make use of some of the same tricks that Miku plays on Yabe, but seemingly grows more comfortable around him as the volume proceeds. This culminates in a scene where the pair happen to run into one another at a new year’s festival; as their encounter proceeds, Fujiwara ends up admitting some things to Yabe, much as Miku did.

Once again, this stems from a position of both vulnerability and a sense of security in Yabe’s presence; Fujiwara is an incredible lightweight and manages to get drunk on the low-alcohol festival drink Amazake, but she feels safe in the knowledge that Yabe will help her get home. And along the way, she talks rather candidly about her desire to not have to constantly live up to expectations — and that if she wasn’t on the council, she wants someone with whom she can share her life. A touching moment, but we all know she’s never going to “win”, however beautiful her eyes might be.

Gal Gohan vol. 4

But wait! There’s one additional complication to add to the mix, introduced in the last two chapters of Gal Gohan Volume 4: Yabe’s old college senpai Nagisa Shirahama, who promptly explains to Miku that she used to be head over heels for Yabe in college, but nothing ever happened between them. She initially assures Miku that they’re not “together”, but something obviously snaps in her head when Yabe explains that the pair of them “aren’t like that”, and she immediately starts playing the formidable rival to Miku’s rather touchy-feely nature.

Of course, there’s a sense of conflict in the reader’s mind here. Up until this point, the story has conditioned us to root for Yabe and Miku, but Yabe and Nagisa is an indisputably more “appropriate” pairing from a societal standpoint — and the pair of them appear to complement one another well, too. Nagisa definitely has a touch of the “teasing” edge that Miku has to her — albeit in a somewhat less in-your-face way — and definitely contrasts quite strongly personality-wise with the rather reserved Yabe.

But Miku’s worked so hard up until this point — is the sexy older woman really going to ruin her chances before she’s really had a chance to figure things out properly for herself?

Of course not. But things certainly get pretty interesting in the world of Gal Gohan from hereon…

Gal Gohan vol. 4 is available now in physical and digital formats. Find out more on Seven Seas’ website.

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Pete Davison
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