With You, Our Love Will Make it Through

Episode 8

On the one hand, there is a part of me that is glad that the show sped through the childhood rivalry troupe. I wasn't expecting Kisara to acknowledge and come to terms with the relationship between Mari and Yukihiro so quickly. It wasn't unwarranted or unearned, given the conclusion that she had come to in the last episode. I guess I'm just so used to this being something that gets drawn out, so I guess I was expecting more of a rivalry dynamic to be played up, despite the previous acknowledgment. The confrontation with the other beast folk did feel a bit forced narratively, but a part of me is glad that Kisara acknowledged Mari and Yukihiro's relationship. Given that they want their relationship acknowledged by more people, this is arguably a big step.

On the other hand, part of me feels like this show is almost afraid of having any real major conflict. There's a lot of talk about society, prejudice, or even the real danger of Yukihiro giving in to his instincts. But nothing major has arguably happened outside the show's inciting incident. Things either get sidestepped, resolved very quickly, or put on a shelf to deal with later, which is a little hard to stomach when you consider that this season is almost done. Maybe I set my expectations too high for this episode, because it felt like the perfect opportunity to address two major elements the show had teased.

The first is that I would've loved to see Mari actually interact with Yukihiro's parents, because I still feel like they aren't discussed nearly as much as they should be. For all of this talk of prejudice and how different beast folk are from regular humans, you would think that one of the only relationships between a beast person and a human would get more spotlight or be brought up more in conversation. But no, they are conveniently not home, so Mari and Yukihiro can aggressively feel each other up, which is the second thing that I was gonna go into.

The physical primal passion that these two feel for each other is arguably what drives them. There's a strong sense of physical and emotional attachment, so I like the idea that these two clearly just wanted to go to town on each other, but they need to be cautious. I like the fact that Yukihiro needs to muzzle himself just for the sake of playing it safe; you could definitely read into some power-dynamic play there, and there is a bit of a tragedy to it. However, the scene just happens, and then it doesn't really dwell on it nearly as much anymore because the narrative has to move on to the next scene. I thought the show would get progressively more intense as it went on, but this felt tame compared to the last interaction. This was apparently a bit toned down compared to the original manga, and that is typically the case with anime adaptations of more spicy material. Still, I feel like there could've been better ways of communicating passion, as it is a strong cornerstone of the show's identity. Strip that away, and I'm left wondering why exactly I'm watching this show…outside of me JUST being a furry.

I wanna make it clear that I do not think the show is bad by any means, but it does feel like it's meandering a bit. I don't need major conflict in my slice-of-life shows. But it feels like this show is trying to take itself a bit more seriously and be about something compared to others. The problem is that it's not really following through on any of those promises. Maybe I'll feel differently by the end, but for now, With You, Our Love Will Make it Through ironically just hit a wall.

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With You, Our Love Will Make it Through is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.