As Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl continues in its established formula of introducing a new, romantically-connected set of girls in each volume, while continuing to check in on previous couples I was struck by how this series almost feels more like an anthology or a series of short stories (considering how relatively unconnected one volume is to the next) compared to other, character-driven yuri series currently being published.
Canno is starting to find her footing here however: she has become much better at balancing introductions of new groups of characters in every volume while still finding time to look back to past characters, something that the first few volumes struggled with. Volume 5 is her strongest attempt at this balancing act so far; the new characters Sawa and Itsuki are set to interview Ayaka about a day when she went AWOL with Yurine, providing a great chance to touch on the original couple’s growth again while also giving time and context to flesh out the new characters.
Surprisingly, Sawa and Itsuki are the first “childhood friends” couple we’ve had so far in Kiss and White Lily, but surprising because normally that trope is a staple of romances and therefore appears much earlier in most stories! While I wasn’t sold on Sawa suddenly wanting to rekindle the childhood promise she and Itsuki made, I could understand Itsuki’s almost jealous frustration that Sawa didn’t recognize her at all (making it appear that Sawa didn’t remember Itsuki). When two people move away from each other, they won’t remember each other in the same ways and it can be very disheartening to see that the other person has “moved on” in their life, which was how Itsuki saw Sawa acting in the digital media club. I do worry that their relationship might end up being a bit too possessive — Itsuki can be quite clingy for example — but hopefully when they appear in future volumes they will have settled into a more balanced, equal relationship.
After a brief interlude with some other previously established couples, like Chiharu and Izumi from the second volume, Canno flings three new characters onto the page and they make up what feels like the stories’ first proper love triangle. Kiss and White Lily has certainly dabbled with third wheels and characters who have had relationships both pan and not pan out, such as with Chiharu being visited by her former senpai whom she had a crush on, but the three characters who grace the cover of the sixth volume have a more complicated, and in my opinion, much more interesting relationship than your usual love triangle.
As volume 6 begins, there’s a craze going on at school about giving flowers to your friends and lovers and sending them a secret message depending on what color ribbon you tie around the flower (it’s a very yuri manga-esque set-up). And, since a red ribbon is one you give to someone special, most of the girls at school say you can only send one red ribbon, and only to the person who you truly like. But, Amane likes many people deeply so she’s been giving out multiple red ribbons! Two of her recipients, the quiet Hiruma and the clingy Nina, have very mixed feelings on this development. Such a simple gesture truly challenges Hiruma and Nina to sort out their own feelings on romance, friendships, and confront the idea that someone can have multiple relationships without leaving one person behind (something that’s also echoed in one of the “Kiss Theater” interludes in this volume between two unconnected characters). Canno dug deeper into this changing relationship than I expected and, while it’s still a bit tropey in many ways, I’m a sucker for OT3s in general so I was perfectly happy to see a situation along those lines!
As time begins to progress in Kiss and White Lily I feel more and more confident in Canno’s writing and ability to balance an ever-increasing cast of characters. I do still wish that she would return to Ayaka and Yurine’s story a bit more often, since they were the original hook. I do consider them to be the “most central” characters in this story, but as long as the individual stories of the various couples remain strong I can see myself continuing to stick with this series for a while longer.