The end is near in Gal Gohan’s ninth volume
Here we are with the penultimate volume in Marii Taiyou’s romantic comedy Gal Gohan — and things are starting to build towards a finale. In this volume, among other things, we see leading lady Miku Okazaki’s rival and student council president Fujiwara finally graduate, and Miku enter her final year in high school. We appear to be getting closer and closer to an answer to that all-important question “will they or won’t they?” but there’s still just one more volume to go after this one.
So let’s get right into it, and see what goes on as we approach the end of Miku Okazaki’s tale of seemingly unrequited high school love.
Since Fujiwara’s time in the series is clearly coming to an end with this volume, it makes sense that she’d get a bit of time in the limelight in this volume. And sure enough, Gal Gohan volume 9 kicks off with a somewhat melancholy Fujiwara story — albeit one that has some delightfully heartwarming elements to it.
Frustrated with her inability to express the things she really wants to say in her graduation address, Fujiwara goes out for a walk in the rain and, by chance, stumbles across Miku’s two friends Hana and Makoto. This pair are, as we’ve previously seen, recurring characters in the story who act primarily as a means of subverting expectation and, indeed, of emphasising one of the series’ core messages: the fact that we shouldn’t judge people by appearance, or indeed by the ways in which they choose to express themselves.
The stereotype of a “gal”, as we’ve seen in several previous volumes of Gal Gohan — most notably the eighth, in which Miku is branded by some strangers as being “easy” purely based on her appearance — is that they’re shallow, promiscuous and largely self-obsessed. And, indeed, this stereotype is often backed up in other forms of media — but not Gal Gohan.
Not only is Miku herself a thoroughly likeable, sympathetic character whom most readers will be rooting for by this point in the overall narrative progression, but Hana and Makoto have repeatedly proven themselves to be the best kind of friends, too. They’re supportive, they’re understanding, they don’t rub their own successes in others’ faces and, as we particularly see during this Fujiwara-centric sequence in volume 9, they’re not above helping out someone who seems to be struggling — even if that person is someone they don’t know all that well, or who they haven’t interacted much with previously.
Naturally Fujiwara is hesitant; being a naturally bashful sort at the best of times, being confronted with Makoto and Hana at their most energetic makes her wonder if she’ll “be in the way” — she’s considerate to a fault. The pair of gals are offering to take her out to have some fun — and yet she’s worried that she’ll be getting in the way of them having fun, because she knows that the council president type also comes with some stereotypes attached to it!
Makoto in particular shows herself once again to be very perceptive; she picks up right away that Fujiwara is pining for Yabe, but despite some gentle ribbing, she doesn’t make a big deal of it. Instead, she helps Fujiwara work through her feelings by providing her a series of prompts that encourage her to organise her thoughts. And Fujiwara has plenty of thoughts about the situation — plenty of conflicting thoughts.
“Why does thinking about Yabe-sensei hurt so much?” she ponders silently to herself, feeling pain deep within her heart. “Is it fear? Is that it? Am I scared?”
“Miku,” Makoto begins, reading Fujiwara like a book. “She’s gonna go through this too. Expectations, mixed with fears and anxiety. But ultimately she’ll have to make her own decision.”
Fujiwara knows that this is true — and she also knows that her own desires are unlikely to come to pass. This is one of the things that brings her such pain — but she also knows that the whole situation is ultimately for the best. And she certainly doesn’t resent anyone involved for the way things are likely to turn out, either; she recognises that she has changed for the better since meeting Yabe and Miku in particular — and more importantly, others have noticed the changes in her, too.
“When I graduated junior high, I had nothing to cry about,” she explains, attending a small party that Miku, Yabe and third point on the love triangle Nagisa Shirahama have thrown in honour of her graduation. “Sure, I was on the student council, but I think I’d built walls around myself. But this time, when I was writing my address, I teared up a lot. I love this school. All of you changed me for the better.”
And it’s true; while Fujiwara was initially introduced in a traditional “antagonistic” role for a high school story — someone who wants to shut down the cooking club for violations of school policy — that side of her was rejected (or perhaps it’s more accurate to say “seen through”) almost immediately in favour of her true self. Both Yabe and Miku accepted her for who she was rather than forcing her to live up to unreasonable expectations — and it afforded her the freedom to grow and learn to express herself rather than simply bottling everything up inside.
“At graduation, I’m going to tell Yabe-sensei how I feel,” she explains to Miku as the pair share a sunset on the school roof, perhaps for the last time together. “I thought a lot about it. I know it’s best for him if we just stay… good students. And if I don’t tell him, nothing’ll change between me and you, or Shirahama-sensei. But I still want to tell him. Maybe that’s selfish.”
“No it’s not!” Miku immediately reassures her. “You oughta be more selfish. Everyone has the right to take that step, you know?”
Miku’s reassurance is, of course, not out of a sense of arrogance and confidence that she is the one who is going to win the heart of Yabe in the end — even though pretty much everyone involved probably knows that by this point in proceedings. Rather, it is from a place of genuine affection and concern for Fujiwara; Miku is a good person, and she cares deeply for others. She recognises that she does not have an exclusive “right” to harbouring feelings for Yabe, and in many ways it is that shared emotion that allows her to connect with Fujiwara on a deeper level than anyone else in the cast.
Indeed, Yabe unwittingly says it best when discussing the girls’ departure with Nagisa.
“Fujiwara’s always on her best behaviour when grown-ups are watching,” he says. “I’m sure there’s a side of her that only Okazaki gets to see.”
And, indeed, she’s absolutely right; alone on the rooftop with Miku, Fujiwara lets out a piercing scream, as loud as she possibly can — and there’s the distinct sense that everything she’s ever forcibly held down deep inside her heart has burst forth from her body in that single outburst.
“Sorry,” she explains to an understandably surprised and concerned Miku. “I just always wanted to scream on a rooftop. It’s kind of like a dream come true!”
Fujiwara’s story wraps up in beautifully emotional style, with her delivering the heartfelt graduation address she finally managed to compose — and reflecting on her time with Yabe and Miku privately at the same time. This sequence is made all the more heartbreaking by the completely wordless opening to the chapter, in which we see Fujiwara clearly confessing to Yabe… and being rejected.
But she doesn’t let this deter her; she knows that Yabe’s importance to her is more than just a desire for a romantic relationship, and that her experiences have helped her to grow as a person. While obviously she would have preferred things to end up a little differently… she can’t honestly say that she’s sorry about the way things ended up. And that’s an entirely fitting conclusion for Fujiwara’s main narrative.
Elsewhere in the volume, now that Miku mostly has Yabe to herself, we see plenty of opportunities for the pair to get more and more intimate with one another — both deliberately and accidentally.
A notable incident occurs during a trip to the swimming pool, when Yabe and his nephew inadvertently run into not only Miku, but also Miku’s “gal senpai” Maki, previously introduced in an earlier volume. In true pool episode tradition, Miku ends up losing her bikini top during an unfortunate minor accident, and of course while rescuing her she ends up pressed tightly against Yabe, the only thing protecting her innocence from prying eyes being his chest.
Miku once again emphasises that in contrast to the stereotype of gals being exhibitionists, she doesn’t want just anyone to see her naked body; she only wants Yabe to see. Yabe is, of course, quick to emphasise that he didn’t see anything — a fact that causes Maki to judge him honestly as “a good man” when reflecting on the situation with Miku after the fact — but Miku is, once again, left a little sexually frustrated by the entire incident.
Interestingly, from hereon we see Yabe deliberately taking some more steps in the direction of indicating his genuine affection for Miku. In a wedding sequence where Miku is working as waiting staff while Yabe is attending as a guest, Yabe takes the time to bring Miku one of the table centrepieces after she is disappointed that she wasn’t able to catch the bridal bouquet. And in the final chapter of the volume… well, it’s hard not to read the sexual implications into the way the situation is presented, despite it definitely being perfectly innocent in nature.
Recognising that Miku’s graduation is looming, too — the timeline of Gal Gohan as a whole accelerates quite considerably following Fujiwara’s departure! — Yabe challenges her to a final evaluation of her skills. He blindfolds her and challenges her to identify ingredients purely by taste — a common test in culinary circles. But… well, I mean, read the chapter for yourself and you tell me that the implications of the scene’s presentation are not intended to be deeply, deeply sexual, particularly once the fish sausage gets involved.
And on that spicy note, there’s just one more volume to go before we get some resolution to this tale. I’m sure we all know where it’s going — it’s just a question of exactly how it will get there!
Gal Gohan volume 9 is available in paperback from Amazon. Digital versions and alternative retailers can be found on Seven Seas’ website.
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