Volume 2 of We Started a Threesome put a lot of time into developing Emito and his backstory, along with the setting up that Emito was bisexual and also loved Suisei – who so far hadn’t shown any signs of being bi, and was also dealing with some of his own jealousy. So, theoretically, the ending that has been established for the final volume was – “What’s Suisei’s own backstory, how will he handle his own jealousy, and is he closeted bi, or is he heterosexual and this volume will be about how nested polycules handle situations where two members have incompatible sexual orientations, where one of those members is into the other, and both have a common person who they’re both compatible and romantically into?” The question becomes – how do they handle that topic (if they do), and will they have enough time to do it justice?
The short answers are – they don’t exactly handle that topic well, and that is aggravated by not having enough time. This series absolutely needed at least one more volume to handle the topics that Katsu Aki is trying to cover, because as things stand, the end of the series is absolutely rushed. None of this is helped by two major issues. First, they try to elaborate on the jealousy subplot by including a previously unmentioned childhood friend who is a very religious Christian. Second, they add that Lia is now pregnant, and with this they bring back up all the previously developed plot elements about how Japanese society does polyamorous people dirty.
On the one hand, I am 100% glad that the series continues to include this level of social commentary. I appreciate and welcome the fact that the series, while being horny and smutty in earlier volumes, also doesn’t hesitate to openly criticize Japanese society. The problem is that there’s just too much plot in this volume to do everything justice. Suisei’s own jealousy is leading him to suggest that maybe he and Lia (or Emito and Lia) should have a formal marriage, in the hopes of solidifying some of their relationship, while also mitigating pressure from third parties. This is aggravated by well-meaning friends saying “If you don’t put a ring on it they’ll leave you.” Meanwhile, Emito is trying to establish that what helped him get through his own sexual trauma in the past was his romantic feelings for Suisei (even more than feelings for Lia), which Suisei doesn’t know how to respond to.
What aggravates all of this is the fact that the climax is Emito running away in tears from an initially failed confession, getting hit by a truck and ending up in a coma, Lia and Suisei agreeing that now matter what the three – plus their child – will stay together, and agreeing to get married… followed by a time skip where suddenly now Emito is trans and has transitioned.
That last bit is what I find narratively frustrating. I don’t object to having trans characters in a story about polyamory – there are a lot of LGBT people in poly spaces. However, in this context, it feels like injecting a weird form of heteronormativity into the story. It feels like saying “I feel like my readers (or your readers if this was enforced by editorial) would be more comfortable with a post-transition trans woman than a gay man, because they’d be more comfortable viewing a lesbian or a heterosexual relationship rather than a gay one.” Also, it does this shift without doing any of the heavy lifting for Emito’s shell cracking, or going through the transition process. Admittedly, there reportedly was a plot in Futari Ecchi with a trans-female side character transitioning, and maybe Aki-sensei felt that he’d already covered this in Futari Ecchi, so he doesn’t need to do it here. Still, without that context, the narrative shift to Emito being revealed as trans out of the blue after a time skip is a moment of narrative whiplash.
Does this mean I no longer recommend the series? No – I still give it a recommendation. Aki is trying very hard to respectfully tell a story about polyamorous people, not only to focus on the sexy aspects of being poly, but the romantic aspects, and the hurdles they have to contend with – in terms of their relationships and in terms of societal judgments. Aki’s heart is in the right place. Its flaws lie with not having enough time to tell the story that he’s clearly trying to tell, and that hurts the story in the long run.
If you do want to pick the book up, you can get a physical copy and support your local bookstores through Bookshop.org, or get a digital copy through Amazon – buying anything through those links supports the site.
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
