By the end of the first story in “I Don’t Need a Happy Ending,” creator Mikaneji states in a short blurb: “You can really tell that I was torn between my love for eroticism and my desire to create an emotional story.” This is true especially about the first story, “I’ll Never Fall In Love With You,” which Mikanju describes as a prelude that sets up the rest of the book. This genuine conflict from the mangaka’s part says it all about these five sexy yuri stories as they take us deep into Mikanju’s struggling soul.
While occasionally seeming at odds with itself, this book’s narrative aligns well with its characters infatuations towards others, which often start with submission or even sexual blackmail such as in “I’ll never fall in love with you”. The piece stops short of normalizing non consensual sex by making one character talk about how much she liked being forced to have sex while another let herself be used so that her crush could have sex with her. Despite this, one cannot quite accept it as a romance proper; it seems more like smut than anything else when power fantasies are prioritized over emotions.
In other tales like “I don’t know what love is,” there is some degree of power abuse to a lesser extent, where the manipulation involved makes an unhealthy romance acceptable mutually beneficial. When these situations are looked at objectively though it is difficult to allow the ends justify the means when another negative outcome is easy to picture. Approaching this idea that lust/ sex could be ok as long as it ends up in some kind of ‘romance’ is not healthy at all.
Sample for I Don’t Need a Happy Ending (2023) by Mikanuji.
Another conflict that is subtler, though, is the matter of Japanese cultural conservatism and their views on sexuality. This is true in the short story after which the collection is named “I don’t need a happy ending,” which ends with a break up between partners because they all choose to be unhappy so that an ideal can precede their feelings. This viewpoint isn’t fundamentally wrong. However, this focus on sexual freedom and lesbian relationships does produce tension for people who do not prioritize a ‘common good’ before one’s joy.
The book has a mental health issue, which further complicates any conflict. For example, the line “I don’t know what love is” in the song shows an underlying psychosis or personality disorder. A girl who suffers from depression and low self-esteem falls for another girl who only likes those that despise her; this in itself is a bad connection concerning these two things. It is also at points explicit about wanting sex for no other reason than to humiliate someone, impelling us to question whether its characters can successfully negotiate such tangled emotional and sexual mazes as it investigates, especially given that some of these are teenage stories.
In summary, the work is un-cathartic and does not always end with a personified resolution. This will depend on each reader’s perspective regarding similar values or same understandings of how sex and emotions relate. Instead, Mikanuji earnestly describes complex relationships without assuming all closure should be ‘happy’ or include discussions about what love or lust actually signifies.
This implies that the five stories in “I Don’t Need a Happy Ending” are about Mikanuji as an artist in relation to her readers. If there could be question marks around whether or not these stories will communicate, they have some subtle complexities and the unapologetic representations of how love and lust are combined by a mangaka like no other. In short, even readers who may take issue with the representation of romance and sex but approach it openly can still learn something from the anthology.
Mikanuji’s art is perfect for exploring eroticism and romance, visually, having a fluency that goes between expressive characters to lewd scenarios. However, more often than not, sex scenes are employed to highlight certain points within a story hence making eroticism inseparable from character studies when consuming this material. It is hot and nasty; however, concentrating on them alone may end up in frustration.
I Do Not Need a Happy Ending (2023) by Mikanuji sample 2
“I Don’t Need a Happy Ending” is a small anthology of the mangaka’s work consisting of only 178 pages, so there is enough to take apart and analyze. Although the reader can enjoy the story on its face value, the title really comes alive when one looks beyond this.
Is that what makes it a great manga? That’s not necessarily true… The stories seemed somewhat tasteless to me; I was just fascinated by their conflicts rather than anything else about them. Nevertheless, maybe this collection of short stories could mean more to somebody else; and if it does, I won’t hold that against them. And whether you like the book or not is irrelevant because Mikanuji’s exploration of different themes and how he tries to convey desire, love, friendship and lust would be too intricate for your liking.
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