Finally, we get to see some family members in Our Fake Marriage! And with only one volume to go, it’s time to plan a wedding!
Oh, not for Takumi and Yae — for one of Takumi’s brothers. Because it’s a rule the older brother must marry first!
Uh, okay…
Now, I did say family members, but except for a brief teaser at the very end, this is all about Takumi’s family members. First the older brother, then the parents, and finally the youngest brother. My memory may be faulty, but I don’t remember hearing that Takumi’s family was so large…or well-off. They’re not rich-rich in the vein of, say, characters from Boys Over Flowers or Ouran High School Host Club, but no one in this family is hurting for money.
Again, though, this doesn’t seem to be a family with the type of financial or historical clout to have a ridiculous rule. It’s all just an excuse to extend Our Fake Marriage as long as possible. Especially since the oldest brother, who is somehow even more Takumi-ish than Takumi, is already married.
Yes, Ayumu constantly references “my wife” and “our son”, and it’s mentioned in the author’s note that Ayumu just decided to register their marriage. Tokina also says, “It’s just common sense that if both the first and second sons want to have a wedding at the same time, the eldest son gets to have it first.” Ayumu is just too busy to plan a wedding (and I guess too cheap to hire a professional wedding planner?), so Takumi (with Yae) decides to take the initiative and plan Ayumu’s big event so they can have their own.
And then little bro comes in with his Youteabe channel and wants to record videos where he and his fiancée go looking at wedding venues…except he uses a fake fiancée. One guess who it is.
I left volume 8 thinking that either of the two brothers could have ended up as Yae’s beloved if they had reunited with her before Takumi (or, in Ayumu’s case, before he met his wife). We learn the other two liked to mess with Yae when they were younger, and while they (and their parents) seem looking forward to having Yae join their family, the manga has a bit of an otome game-ish vibe because of it where you picture the alternate routes.
Takumi still isn’t able to keep his hands off Yae, and the spice seems to be the manga’s defining feature at this point. Strip chess, anyone? And while the trips aren’t as exotic as they usually are, the manga continues to showcase various locales — just in Japan this time.
In short, this entry of Our Fake Marriage is mostly about introducing one new member of the Natsume family after the other, and the surprise that the main couple is now suddenly planning a sibling’s wedding is dumb. But in truth, I kind of noped out of here when a over-30-year-old man pulled the “to-be-fair-I’ll-kiss-you-too” card complete with the tie-pull in…on his own brother. Just one of the many bizarre literary choices in volume 8.