Neji’s Beauty and the Beast Girl is, exactly as it sounds, a Yuri fairytale.
A blind girl named Lily Blind meets and falls in love with a beast girl who she names Heath. Let it never be said that fairytales aren’t symbolic. Heath hides from humans in the forest and spends most of her time loathing her own form until Lily brings her out of her shell.
What follows is a gentle tale of redemption and love and growth for both Lily and Heath. As this is a fairytale and a romance, we never have any reasonable expectation that Lily and Heath will be parted, but as all good fairytales have some conflict, this does have some potential for disasters that are, of course, averted by love.
Neji-sensei is clearly a fan of non-human x humans romance, as I am simultaneously reading Volume 2 of Prisontown e Youkoso! (my review of Volume 1 can be read here,) from Comic Yuri Hime, in which a human finds herself in a supernatural town where she lives alongside fanciful creatures from myths, fairtyales and legends. So this particular pairing is spot on for this creator’s ouvre. ^_^ The story is sweet, with more attention paid to character design than plot, which also seems typical of Neji’s stories.
The ending of this comic is very doujinshi-esque, where it ends, rather than wraps up, but it is, after all a fairytale, so “and they lived happily ever after” is acceptable. ^_^
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Service – 3
Yuri – 8
Overall – 7
Commenting on Heath’s name, Lily says “I think there was another name for that flower” which, I am obliged to remind you is “Erica.” ^_^
I remember reading in the author’s commentary that some kind of continuation is planned/intended, which would explain the manga’s stopping point. While the story is sweet enough on its own and covers the main points it was making, even I felt it could’ve kept going, which I wouldn’t mind!
The series has been continuing in its original incarnation on pixiv. There’s about twice as many chapters now as when the tank version came out.
Does any one have any idea if the author will publish the next tank for all the other chapters they already have on pixie?
As far as I know, the manga has already ended there, but there doesn’t seem to be any plans to continue the printed version.
And I’m not sure if I read well a message there but apparently the first volume didn’t sell too well so…
Can anyone confirm this, please?
I really enjoyed this manga, and the other chapters are quite nice.
And that ending! Ugh…my heart.
It would be nice to have this printed even if it’s independently.