Welcome back to the melodramatic world of Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi! （野ばらの森の乙女たち）In Volume 1, we met heroine Hatsumi, her best friend Sakura, who enter a prestigous girl’s school together where they meet the Top Star couple of the school, boyish Izumi and her partner, perhaps lover, Mayuko. Hatsumi has developed strong feelings for Izumi […]

Hatsumi and Sakura are best of friends. They have done everything together for years, including studying for and being accepted to the prestigious Otoha Academy where, because of the wild roses that grow around the school, the students who study there are known as the Maidens in the Forest of Wild Roses. Otoha Academy buildings […]

I remember the moment I first discovered desire in shoujo manga. I was reading Sailor Moon, raw, with very little Japanese comprehension, accompanied by a script translation created by a dedicated fan. There was Usagi, our charmingly naive and sweet heroine, in bed, wearing Mamoru’s shirt…and nothing else. It wasn’t explicit, but the art clearly […]