REVIEW: ‘You Can’t Live All on Your Own!’ Volume 1 is Giving “What About Your Friends” Josei Vibes

Look, I got beef with TokyoPop. It started when I was a teenager, and it has persisted over fifteen years. I’ve tweeted and shared the rage and mourning that this manga publisher has put me through–in different places and on different platforms online. It mostly boils down to not finishing in publishing the rest of the volumes of several of some of my fave Shojo, Josei, and Shojosei manga series back in the day and not cherishing Shojosei fans as a whole for years when they were the ones that helped build the manga empire that TokyoPop grew to be. I can’t rehash all the details. (I’m now an aging Millennial whose back hurts and make sure I do my skincare and be in bed before 10 pm.) One of my faves, Colleen, does a great job in retelling the story via YouTube (HI COLEEN!) Perhaps this even started the decline of publishing Shojo manga outside Japan in North America as a whole? And Josei, too as an result?

That’s food for thought. I love Josei down. She’s my second favorite genre of manga, next to Shojo, and I have grown up with Josei guiding me along thorough my college years, my job high-jinks, and my romantic mishaps. Once upon a time, I wrote the now-cornerstone piece of the site, A Love Letter to Josei Manga a few years before the very strange year of 2016 touched down–and made a lot of us NOT want to remember how dark those times were. In 2019, I came back with A Love Letter to Josei Manga Part Two–with more love for th…