Yuri Manga: Suzunari, Volume 2 (English)

June 25th, 2009

Let’s be blunt. Suzunari was not written for me, W.C. Fields or anyone like us. It was written for a particular kind of reader – primarily male, adult, who likes cats and kids, not quite inappropriately. They find cat ears and maid costumes on girls irrestibly adorable, like Yuri-cest, and don’t mind a story that is not complex, as long as it has most of the above in some measure. This is moe fandom and Suzunari is for them.

In Volume 2, Suzu and Kaede slide through many of the typical school-life tropes; school trips and festivals and class activities, in a jerky, semi-non-linear fashion. I expect that the timing made more sense for the months in which the manga ran in its magazine. Like soap operas, manga may be anywhere in the story line, but will always be seasonally appropriate. :-)

Suzu’s need to be acknowledged and her love explicitly returned becomes more and more of a critical plot device, one that – to me at least – makes even less sense once we learn who Suzu is. As a cat, she avoided being smothered by Kaede’s love, but as a catgirl now smothers Kaede. Of all things in this manga, this was the hardest for me to make sense of. The ending struck me as especially uncomfortable, so I simply stopped trying to make sense of the story and read the darn thing one 4-koma at a time, letting the continuity (or lack thereof) slip away as a non-issue. You can’t make champagne from pebbles and I wasn’t about to try and make literature from Suzunari. lol

If you like catgirls, moe, Yuri twincest, and all the usual clothing fetishes that go with them, I have no doubt that you will enjoy Suzunari, too. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 3
Characters – 4
Yuri – 5
Service – 9

Overall – 4

My sincere thanks to Ed S, our newest Okazu Hero! His sponsorship made today’s review possible. Ed is a great reviewer in his own right, check out his reviews at Comics Worth Reading, as well as being a swell guy. So thanks Ed and welcome to the roll of Okazu Heros!

3 Responses

  1. C. Banana says:

    I’m always surprised that Japanese series that invoke this much cuteness can be series targeted towards adult males considering that it’s unheard of for a Western series targeting adult males to invoke cuteness anywhere near this level.

  2. Anonymous says:

    It’s the pedo factor. Cute means little girl look, which involves the whole brother/sister complex stuff.

    Oh, and waifu. Advantage for the otaku is that these girls look harmless, are easily overpowered, and no threat.

  3. Eric P. says:

    I would assume Suzu is affectionate as a cat-girl to make up for the snubbing from during her cat-life. I’m not a moe fan, but I thought this manga still had its sweet moments.

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