Among the many amusing bits of fallout from my post yesterday, I got to bang my head against the the MegaTokyo Forums, the posters at which were completely befuddled by my refusal to stop being an all-Yuri publisher, and who, when I tried to gently explain that no one else out there is publishing the kind of Yuri I want to read, called me a “Feminazi.” I therefore dedicate this review to those fine, upstanding human beings.
Suzunari is a moe catgirl 4-panel comic, with mild implications of Yuri twincest.
I am well aware that there are many people who find it incredibly appealing to imagine that an underaged girl (drawn to look even younger) with cat ears might have an unrequited crush on a girl who looks exactly like her. I am not one of them. So for me, the “cute” in Suzunari went completely unappreciated.
In fact, I had to force myself to finish the book.
By about 2/3 of the way through though, I did actually say “hehe” in response to one of the 4-panel comics. So perhaps that is a kind of victory. ^_^
Suzunari is one of those manga that people naturally jump to the wrong conclusion and blame a bad translation for a muddled beginning, but since this is a 4-koma, and I know that they tend to be a little unfocused and assume that 1) you find owarai-style comedy funny and 2) are Japanese and thus need no explanation of the things going on, my guess is that the translation is fine – it’s just that the beginning of the story is a not as well-written as we might wish.
What we do glean is that a spirit of some kind is brought to Earth as a cat-eared girl that looks just like another girl, Kaede. For some reason, the cat-eared version is immediately accepted by Kaede’s family and for some other reason immediately forms a desire for Kaede. This setup having been established, the rest of the comics are they typical ha-ha type humor of four panel Japanese comics. Puns and misunderstandings abound.
Yen Press, who I thank for this review copy, did a fine job on the book itself. The pages looks crisp and clean, the translation does as good a job as possible with the material and the color pages look great. I’m really sorry that I couldn’t like it more.
Ratings:
Art – 5
Story – 3
Characters – 4
Yuri – 3
Service – 9
Overall – 4
I *am* looking forward to S.S.Astro, which is the same dumb jokes, but a different Yuri setup. ^_^
“with mild implications of Yuri twincest.”
Twincest. Wow. Thankyou for adding to my daily dose of “crazy words you find on the Internet. Wow.
Per the Megatoks, you would think an online comic forum would be going the other way. With so many defenders out there rebutting any criticism of a comic they like with the old “Well if you don’t like it then form your OWN publishing company and publish the comics YOU like!”, one would think they’d hold you aloft as a “See, it CAN be done” model to emulate.
Yes, one *would* think that. You would’t mind being a model, would you?
Eh. Some posters were like that. But others just wanted to know “Why”. As in asking the “why” after the first “why” to get to the bottom of thing. Don’t write everyone there off. :P
If I recall correctly, Suzu was originally Kaede’s cat. She wished to be human, and some manner of deity granted that wish. Was this not how it was translated?
Suzu was a stray cat (or one of those in a box). Kaede wanted to take it home but her folks wouldn’t let her.
She apologized to the cat and gave it her treasure, a set of bells. I’m guessing the cat either died, or simply wanted to be with her so much she bugged ‘god’ incessantly until she was made human
That’s how it is in vol 1
Suzu and Kaede’s past isn’t explained until Volume 2.