Fuji Tamaki’s Kono Yo ni tada Hitori (この世にただひとり) was an interestingly retro book. It reminded me very much of art from long ago in the 1990s. As almost all her main character types followed the same pattern after the first story, I initially thought the book was about the same two women, growing older together, but…no. It was just a stylistic tic.

In the first story a new girl throws a group of friends into chaos, as she breaks up the old crowd with her new games.

There are a few school friends stories, including “Aoimidoro,” in which an athletic girl wishes she too could just look pretty and feminine for a bit. (We really have to change the prince/princess dynamic of girl-girl stories so even the tall, dashing girls get to be girly if they want.)

A story about a woman working on a photoshoot with naked models stands out by not being prurient and kind of sweet, and the boos ends with a short mini-series about sweets, a baker and a rich girl, dusted lightly with a little magic.

There was something comforting about the art, a turn of the 21st century women’s magazine and/or doujinshi feel to it that I liked very much, although none of the stories grabbed me by the throat. (The soy ink did, however. For whatever reason, the pages of this book were practically choking me.)

Ratings:

Art – 8 YMMV, but I liked it.
Story – Variable, let’s say 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6, tops
Service – 6 for “Akame no Adrian”

Overall – 7

For a retro feel and nice stories, this is a good change of pace from purely moe work.