I’ve always enjoyed the idea behind a childhood friendship that turns into something more.  I’ve felt I could relate to the idea of being friends but then feeling the boundaries and limits of that relationship lengthen into something else.  It’s scary, too, which I think is part of the fun of reading them.  There’s a fear that something changing may cause that something to break or be hurt, or the people involved equally hurt.  It can be annoying when two characters play this constant pull back and forth and the reader is basically screaming at them to just finally make that last step.  However, even when I’m pulling my hair out, I still feel a sense of empathy for that fear.

She is the Rokurokubi is definitely one of those stories.  Set in a world where Youkai live in an unfortunate “separate but equal” place from humans, a human boy, Itsuki, and a Youkai girl, Natsuki, have been friends since childhood and go to school together on the Youkai side.  A Rokurokubi is a type of Youkai that can stretch its neck indefinitely.  And while that could make the boy and girl very different from each other, they couldn’t possibly be closer.  Both of them love a lot of the same things, they hang out and do the same things, and constantly fight with each other like siblings.  However, both of them are starting to realize their feelings are changing.  As the series goes on, Natsuki’s friends try to help, but inevitably, it’s Natsuki and Itsuki who have to take that final step.