I spent *alot* of time and money buying new and used Dengeki Comics in Tokyo. I had a few older series to catch up on, and some new ones to pick up. I’d been looking for this one used for a while, and was able to finally get it in Nakano. Yay me.

The first volume of the manga is pretty much a straightfoward repeat of the anime. The art is even cuter-faced than the anime, but the story was pretty much exactly the same as the first two DVDs or so of the anime. Which means not so much Ayaka and Yayoi. Hence the lack of review.

Volume 2 starts with a very nice picture of our two Yuri poster girls, which I have scanned for your viewing pleasure:

You are welcome. ;-)

As Volume 2 is about as far as the manga seems to have gone, the story ends with the Great Mission, and the last few chapters speed through a lot of the plot complications. Sadly that means Jojo, Akira and the two teachers all get shafted of their lovely little love affairs. However, nearly a whole chapter is turned over to Yayoi and Ayaka, while Shima and Kouta get about three pages total…so I think it’s a good read all around. :-) And let’s face it – the Great Mission wasn’t that exciting anyway. Did we *really* think that the world was going to be destroyed when we have cherub-faced and pink cheeked heroes and heroines to save it? Nah.

We learn early on in the manga that Ayaka flies her Katie with a picture of Yayoi from before her accident…we are allowed to see that the picture was originally of the two of them arm embracing happily. Ayaka has cut herself out of the picture and taped Yayoi onto her dashboard.

In the manga while Yayoi’s accident (which was caused by Ayaka in both anime and manga) did stem from jealousy, it wasn’t the same level of homicidal pathology that characterized the anime Ayaka. And she didn’t repeat the murder attempt with Shima. In this case, as in the anime, Shima and Rina take stupid risks on the joust and happen to simulate a situation similar to Yayoi’s and Ayaka’s.

In an attempt to absolve herself of her sin, Ayaka had developed a program that she uploads to Shima, which allows her to save Rina. The event forces Ayaka and Yayoi to confront their past and their feelings for one another. While it wasn’t *quite* a cool as coming out in front of the whole world, their moment is very emotional, full of tears, and embraces and promises to never leave one another’s side.

But, at the end, when Ayaka unbends and joins the rest of the Big 4 for their ritual meal around a bubbling nabe, she looks *awfully* perky and happy all of a sudden. We have a name for that look around my house…”the freshly fucked look” is what we call it. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Character – 7
Yuri – 7

Overall – 7

The biggest problem with the manga? It ends too soon.