Yuri Manga: Renai Joshika, Volume 1 (レンアイ女子課)

October 13th, 2010

In her Afterword, Morishima Akiko-sensei tells us how Renai Joshika was born. “I want to read a Yuri story about Office Ladies!” she told her editor. Her editor replied, “That’s okay, but, don’t you mean you want to draw that story?” To which Morishima-sensei says, “I want to read it, but it doesn’t exist so I will have to draw it.”

I akogare her with all the crushy admiration I can muster. (*_*)

So, here we have Volume 1 of Renai Joshika, a series of Yuri pairings at a bridal planning company. It’s a perfect setup, because the women can all be utterly girly and we can obsess about things like hair and makeup and dresses all while being very, very lesbian. ^_^

Himeno Arisu starts off the story by being aggressive in the love-seeking department. She finds it, rather unexpectedly, when new employee Shireha Saki arrives. Saki’s already got a girlfriend, but Arisu is awakened to the idea of finding love with another woman.

Love is the best makeup for a woman, we learn, in a short about falling in love at first touch.

Our old friends Kaori and Mutsuki return, only to find that a..ahem, drunken kiss… rekindles old feelings between them.

Arisu and Saki are thrown together through silly circumstances, but when Saki finds herself ready to admit that her relationship with her former lover is dead, Arisu is ready and willing to pick up the pieces.

Everyone lives happily ever after in this Yuri soap opera of cute.

Ahhhh. It’s like a bubble bath for the harried Yuri soul. Relaxing, fun, girly, a little sexy.

Bartender, I’d like three more of these and a refill on the pretzels, thanks.

Ratings:

Art – Cute! 8
Stories- Fun and Cute! 9
Characters – Adult and Cute! 9
Yuri – Sexy and Cute! 8
Service – Cute Fanboys only! 2

Overall – So goddamn cute my cheeks hurt from smiling. 9

As you may have learned from the comments for yesterday’s post, Morishima-sensei got her start as Aoki-sensei’s assistant. I thought this would make a great match to yesterday’s review.

10 Responses

  1. Mara says:

    “I want to read it, but it doesn’t exist so I will have to draw it.”

    That is secret code similar to:

    “I love genre X, so I will make the best example of genre X ever.”

    So that you instantly know a lot of effort went into making what you are reading.

  2. Ayra says:

    *stares at review*
    *stares at bank account*

    Morishima-sensei’s works are always a pleasure to read and from the description, this book certainly looks right along my alley. Very likely going to grab it next time my employer is actually able to let me cash in one of my paychecks…

    I have a question regarding buying online, actually. While I’m at it, I’ll probably grab a few other titles of interest, too. What titles I bought so far have been from Amazon directly.

    Your older links have a referal to your shop in the address and your new links go directly to your amazon store. Is it ‘better’ to buy from your amazon store directly instead of the referal links? I assume you’d get a better commission if bought from your amazon store, which is definitively fine by me considering I read your blog at least weekly.

    However, unless I’m blind, some of the titles I’m interested in aren’t in the Yuricon shop (Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen vol 2 and the Rakka Ryuusui volumes to be precise). Are those going to be added to the Yuricon shop, or should I simply use the referal links in your various reviews? If so, would it be possible to give a referal link for Renai Joshika too, so that I could make one single order for everything?

  3. Hi Ayra – Both kinds of links do the same exact thing. So if you go through a store link, then keep shopping, it’s all referrals from there. So you can use either kind of link for the same effect.

    Thanks for asking, though!

    If I makes you feel more comfortable, here’s a direct link to the Amazon JP entry: http://amzn.to/931e3F

  4. Joshika says:

    Hello, my name is Joshika.
    One of my colleague was commenting about my name as everyone find it very unusual. Then she said my name is like a manga name.

    I looked up on the internet and found Renai Joshika which is a manga.
    My question, from where have you got this name Joshika? Why is your manga named Renai Joshika? I would like to know more about this name if you don’t mind.

    Thank you

    • Hello. The manga is not mine. It was created in Japan by a person named Morishima Akiko. “Joshika” in this context means something like “business division staffed by women.” It is written 女子課 in Japanese.

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