I Love You So Much, I Hate You is a yuri romance drama about an office affair between the sales department’s rising star, Saori Fujimura, and her division’s first female manager, Ayako Asano. Both are hard-working women that go from close co-workers to recurrent romantic flings.
The problems they have to overcome all stem from their own feelings towards the relationship. Saori falls hard for Ayako quickly, but the strict manager doesn’t want to risk her work reputation and marriage. In fact, Ayako only started this as a way to get back at her husband, who she firmly believes is cheating on her. Chained to an unfaithful man, she uses Saori without thinking of the consequences or her feelings.
The art here is sleek, and the professional setting appeals a lot to my own tastes. What I really enjoyed with this is how it handles Ayako’s crumbling marriage. Each one on its surface feels like an average interaction, but you obviously get the sense that things aren’t connecting anymore. It’s falling apart on both ends, and yet everything looks fine.
I Love You So Much, I Hate You is sleek and emotional but could be better
Unfortunately, there’s not much more that can be said for the story. The rest is mostly sudden business trips that propel their relationship and concerns about getting caught in general. It’s definitely focused more on Ayako’s side of things. Meanwhile, Saori becomes so attached that we never explore her personal life outside of conversations with a friend also seeing their boss. You still feel her emotional turmoil in solidifying her status with Ayako, but you’re left wanting more from her.
Perhaps Saori is too dependent on Ayako to the point where not learning more about her is a purposeful choice by the author to show how unhealthy it is. No matter what the case may have been, it could’ve been improved.
Overall, this one-shot manga is more office eye-candy with a neat view of subtle relationship issues than much else.
Check out I Love You So Much, I Hate You, available now.
Title: I Love You So Much, I Hate You
Publisher: Yen Press
Release Date: August 18th, 2020
Type: Manga (One-shot)
Explicit Content
Author: Yuni
Translation: Eleanor Ruth Summers
Lettering: Erin Hickman
