Komura Ayumi’s popular series about a cross-dressing boy, En, has mostly flown under my radar. But, when I reviewed Girl’s Lily, a special focusing on two lesbian characters,  YNN Correspondent Nikki wrote in to let me know that they get some of the spotlight in the series, I thought I’d take a look at those volumes.

In Girl’s Lily, the point of view was Keiko’s brother. In Volume 10 of Usotsuki Lily (うそつきリリィ), the point of view is once again that of a guy, Saotome Taiyou,  the younger brother of the female protagonist, Hinata. Taiyou comes across a woman in tree who, as she shimmies down the trunk, slips and falls onto him. When she sees that he is bleeding, she invites him over to her shop, where she appears to sell hand-made crafts and knick-knacks.  To apologize for injuring him, the woman offers Taiyou a job. And that is how he meets Arimori Kanae.

The shop is quiet, no one comes to buy anything. Bored and with nothing else to do, Taiyou watches Kanae. It is immediately apparent when she brightens up because someone is coming. That someone turns out to be Keiko. It’s obvious right away that Kanae is love with Keiko and vice versa, but it takes a little fiddling, a handwave, and a unfortunate, yet successful, plot to make Keiko jealous, to get them both to admit their feelings.

Their arc in Volume 10 ends with Keiko vowing to snatch Kanae away from Taiyou, who doesn’t really want Kanae, but whatever, drama, etc.

Kanae is pleasantly flaky and Keiko is pleasantly not flaky and I look forward to them getting together.

Komura-sensei’s art is also pleasant, without being amazing. As a Margaret magazine romance, this series  – well, this arc, anyway – is reasonably unmelodramatic.

Ratings are for this arc only:

Art – 7
Character – 8. Everyone seems very nice in this arc.
Story – 6 ‘Story A’ with adults, and the handwave of young men as catalysts.
Yuri – 5 Same as above
Service – 0 Nada. Not even if you try.

Overall – 7

As we already know from Girl’s Lily, they will eventually plan on getting married, which makes me want their arc to be relatively painless. ^_^