I cannot stop telling you how amazing it was to walk into Animate in Ikebukuro and see a giant sign in the middle of the ground floor that  said “Yuribu.” Nor will I stop gushing about shopping for Yuri now that the various bookstores are actually setting up “Yuri sections” on the shelves that are multi-publisher and multi-format, so you can find manga, magazines, light novels and novels in the same area. It’s awesome. 

It also allows me to pick up stuff I wasn’t going to get when I had to ship it to the USA. Most importantly, it allows me to find stuff that I frequently would never otherwise have heard of or seen (and often forget about as soon as possible. ^_^)

Sougou Tovarisch, Perfect Edition, Volume 1 (総合タワーリシチ 完全版 上) by Arata Jiri falls into this last category. ^_^;

Imagine, if you will, a version of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl in which Ayaka is almost completely unlikable. That’ll get you close to the dynamic here. Kana is neither smart nor stupid, but the existence of cool, calm and likeable Yuu enrages her. This volume mostly consists of Yuu being pleasant and friendly and Kana losing her mind about that. In fact, the story is so strung out with Kana screaming over imagined transgressions, that I finally skipped to the end. Yuu does, in fact, kiss Kana, although I cannot imagine why. Surely there’s someone else less shouty she could fall for. The cover gives you a good idea of Kana’s typical sour expession.

But, if you like the dynamic of a competent and likeable person falling for a shouty person like Kiss and White Lily, in a school that’s less filled with Yuri couples, but characters do have friends, then this series is probably a good bet for you.

Ratings:

Art – 6  It’s busy being busy.
Characters – 6 Kana annoys the heck outta me
Story – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 6 Not terrible, certainly not bad enough to be funny, just kind of “yup, that again.”

I’m going to skip on the second volume and instead plug through the rest of the “I have no idea” pile I got last year, before I go back and pick up more who the heck knows what. ^_^