Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 3, follows the drama of the school’s garden club into which resident school genius Kurozawa Yurine is roped.
Yukina, the Gardening Club President is determined to save the school rose garden despite the opposition of the Student Council. Only, it turns out that they aren’t the real problem at all.
As I said in my review of this volume in Japanese, the story here is about love and betrayal and growing up. The drama of the Gardening Club is watching characters having to deal being betrayed and betraying others and still finding some sense of hope and growth, much like the roses that are at the center of the drama.
This seems especially true when we spend a few moments with Yurine and Ayaka. Ayaka’s protests are getting weaker as Yurine’s honesty and, for lack of a better term, purity of intent, have worn down her resistance.
Despite the big lie that drives the plot, this volume leaves one with a feeling thaat, rather despite themselves, the characters are growing and changing. One hopes, of course, for the better.
Jocelyne Allen again is doing an excellent job of translation, preserving each character’s unique voice The Yen team’s technical reproduction, lettering, touchup are all clean. When you pick this book up, you get to slide into an authentic manga reading experience without being thrown out of the moment by anything. I’m old enough to remember how many years this wasn’t true and to still appreciate it every single time. ^_^ I also want to shout out to the really excellent work on the cover – and especially the spine design, that perfectly captures the font and feel of the delicate text used on the original. It looks really nice.
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8 Less cute and sweet before, but more complicated instead.
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 on principle only
Overall – 8
Many sincere thanks to the team at Yen for an excellent work and now, having moved past the weakest volumes of Kiss and White Lily, we can buckle down for a more complex, and more compelling, story. Volume 4 will be out at the end of November, so get ready for more!
While the gardening club may not be my favourite arc, it does contribute an awful lot to Yurine’s character and her relationship with Ayaka. Ayaka’s concerns early on in the book about Yurine only liking her because of their academic rivalry, are answered by the end via the club, really. It’s also refreshing to see how Yurine responds to a club that doesn’t need her for her ‘genius’ abilities: anyone else would have done just fine, and seeing Yurine respond to that lack of ‘neediness,’ allowing her to feel normal, is fascinating to me. It’s some solid character/relationship building that I really appreciate.
There’s also two panels of Yurine looking petulant and annoyed while being yelled at by Yukina that crack me up every time I see them. That, and Yurine’s response to ‘tricking’ Ayaka in the bonus content at the end. A+ hijinx.
Towako struck me as an odd character, but she immediately came to mind when I got around to watching Yurikuma Arashi, as she’s a younger form of Yurika Hakonaka (especially her concerns about permanence). A little scary to think about. I don’t know if Yurikuma Arashi was out soon enough to be an influence on Towako’s character or if there’s a larger trope they’re both a part of, but I do know that Canno once drew fanart of Yurikuma, so there’s a small connection, at least.
I bristle at Volume 2 being included among the ‘weakest’ volumes, as I think it’s become my favourite volume of any manga ever – but that also means it’s hard for me to be objective about it, too ;) Actually, I really enjoy reading dissenting opinions on here, because I usually learn something after reading one of your reviews that has an opposite response to something that I had.
(Also, I thought it sounded cool at the time, but “bristle” was way too strong of a word I think; my bad)
No worries. You’re welcome to have any opinion you have. ^_^