Yuri Manga: Rose Meets Rose

August 6th, 2010

I am feeling like crap tonight on account of food poisoning last night and yet, here I am writing you a review. Aren’t you moved by my dedication and focus? Don’t you want to shower me with praise (and if you’re my wife, kisses?) I thought you might. Thank you.

Today we have Rose Meets Rose, a collection of several Yuri Hime phone comics, by Shinn Yui.

I was reading this book before bed every night and quickly realized that it might not be the best choice for that, as the stories are the opposite of relaxing.

The first story is particularly uncomfortable, as it follows the anger, denial and ultimately, love, between two girls who may well have been responsible for the death of a pedophile who kidnapped them when they were children. It turns out that they were not, in fact, killers, but somehow it didn’t sit well with me that they suddenly found comfort in each other, when five seconds before they loathed one another for the secret they had been keeping.

In the second story, Sen falls in love with a girl in a painting. When that girl, Mai, transfers to her school, she asks Mai to pose nude for her. Mai has a reputation for having had an affair with the man – her teacher- who had painted her, and Sen knows it, but can’t stop herself from obsessing about Mai. The rumors fly about Mai, while Sen tries to protect her from the fallout…and tries to get her to open up a bit. When Mai gets a call from the teacher, all of a sudden Sen sees what a transformation love can make. Taciturn Mai blossoms into a beautiful woman. Mai will be leaving to join her lover in Europe, but Sen never stops loving the girl in the painting. This was my favorite story of the collection.

The third story was sci-fi-ish. Two girls break out in “love” with a rose-colored and -shaped rash. The more intense the love they have for one another, the more of their bodies are covered. After a late-night swim in the pool they are completely covered, of course.

And, finally, a girl with the nickname Dorothy is brought back from wanting to die by a “cowardly lion.” This story was too reminscent of those bad-old lesbianism=mental disease days for me to really like it, even though it had a sweet ending.

In keeping with the rest of the Ichijinsha phone manga, I found this all to be not *quite* satisfying. None of it is bad, the art style is pretty classic – reminiscent of Kakinouchi Narumi (Vampire Princess Miyu, Uta-hime) and now that I think about it, the stories are a little reminiscent of her’s too. But the tragic heroines were too melodramatically tragic for me to ever truly enjoy it.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Stories – 5-8
Characters – 6
Yuri – 7
Service – 4

Overall – 7

So, not stellar, but not bad either. Definitely not relax-y bedtime reading though. ^_^

6 Responses

  1. Mandy says:

    Hope you feel better soon, Erica.

  2. Thanks, Mandy. I’m better today, but am very glad it’s the weekend.

  3. G Clark says:

    Having had food poisoning several times, I feel your pain.

    Get well soon.

    G Clark

  4. Ran says:

    Hope you feel better soon.

    And yes, it is nice to have links to author/creator information or home pages. :)

    Ran

  5. George R says:

    I hope you feel fully better soon.

    I’m not only impressed by your getting a review out under …personally trying times, I’m also glad you resisted the temptation I succumbed to this spring when I suffered the same. I wrote some friends, “While I’ve had bad reactions to shows in the past, this is the first time I’ve ever had one make me hurl, literally.” And I didn’t have the guts to send that out til I was fully better.

    And I do enjoy links to author/creator pages if it’s not too much work for you.

    Here’s hoping your next read is enjoyable and soothing, to your eyes, mind, and in this case, guts.

  6. coral says:

    Hello,

    I just received Rose Meets Rose in the mail, and would like to thank you very much. (I entered your ‘transparent orange on the lip’ contest)

    I look forward to reading it and practicing my foreign language skills. I do like the art in it too, and as far as the the melodramatics go, they may be just the thing to inspire some nice fiction writing in my case :) !

    Thanks again!

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