Let’s get the most damning thing about Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 3 (百合姫Wildrose) out of the way right up front. When I picked it up today to review it, I couldn’t remember a single story in it, although I had only re(!)read it a week ago. After I picked it up and flipped through the volume I remembered a few of the stories, but having set it down again more than ten minutes ago, they are already slipping from my mind. This is not a good thing. But that aside, it’s a fine addition the the Wildrose series.

Mistukuni Hachime, of Gokujou Drops fame, brings it on with “Netemo Sametemo,” which seems just about the most straight-on schoolgirl item in the book.

“Closet Daisakusen’ started off with action and I thought, “woo-hoo, we’re gonna get us some girls with guns,” but no, it was a peeping tom/sex in the closet story.

Nanzaki Iku, aka Doropanda Tours, brings in entirely new, yet completely identical ShizNat stand-ins for more semi-public sex and a mild plot complication.

Amano Shuninta’s “Sweet Exercise” was quite…sweet. A curvaceous woman, Umi, worries that she’s too heavy and tries to diet herself thin only to learn that her curves are what her girlfriend Morii likes.

There were a number of other stories, of course, but none that really stepped up to be more than the sum of its parts.

The impression left behind by the overall volume is one of what the Japanese and many western fans refer to as “ecchi”-ness. It’s titillation of the “sorority sisters’ lingerie party” sort. There’s peeping and cosplay and teasing and bonbons and teacher/student and a bunch of other sorts of tee-hee kind of stuff. Much like Volume 1 and Volume 2. This is what Yuri Hime Wildrose is. It’s a collection of twitter, twitter “ecchi” stories. As Monty Python so brilliantly put it, “wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.”

Ratings:

Art – Variable, as good as 8 at times. Which times are entirely up to personal taste. ^_^
Stories – 6-7
Characters – 6-7
Yuri – 9
Service – 10

Overall – 7 for me, probably 8 or 9 for others.

Before you ask – the reason it gets a 9 for Yuri and not a 10 is because the sex seems more for intended for the reader than for the characters. The cover art says it all – they are looking at us, not each other. And that, in a nutshell, is why I like but do not love the Wildrose anthologies.