Gokujou Drops, Volume 1, (極上ドロップス) is the second of two “phone comics” put out by Ichijinsha’s Yuri Hime magazine. This volume is a collection of manga delivered by phone as an extra to Japanese readers.
I’m curious how this works because, Japanese phones, while having a decent sized screen, don’t have a huge screen. Is it delivered one panel at a time, or the whole page and the reader reads it in bits, focusing in on the part they are reading? Perhaps some of my Japanese readers could take a picture of a cell phone manga for us.
In any case, Gokujou Drops is the story of Maezono Komari who has suffered the fate of many a freshman transfer student – she has been unable to line up housing. Ah, now that brings back memories….
The unhelpful school housing person (ah, nostalgia….) suggests she go beg on hands and knees to be allowed into the most exclusive dorm on campus. Komari does and is suprised to be let in – on one condition. She must become the slave of Himemiya Yukio, the resident classic Japanese beauty. And thus, Komari heads out on an adventure of “funny” sexual harrassment by pretty much everyone in the book.
In her first days, Komari finds herself sexually harrassed by the seniors in the dorm, which has the side effect of making her realize that she’s fallen in love with (and desire for) Yukio. And she’s sexually harrassed for getting so close to Yukio by Yukio’s “fan club” at the school.
In the end of the volume it seems as if everything will be okay, because Yukio and Komari definitely want each other. I’m sure that none of us think actually that “happily ever after” will apply here, not yet at least. :-)
The Yuri here is pretty fetishy. Sexual harrassment, incest, public sex, non-con. And for that reason, I’m not really a big fan of the series. Sure, Yukio and Komari are in love, but that’s like 1/25th of the Yuri. The other 24/25ths are for people who like their Yuri mean, and nasty.
Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 5
Yuri – 9
Service – 8
Overall – 6
I’m torn on this series. Sometimes I find it enraging, sometimes excruciating, sometimes – like today – it’s okay. Whatever. ^_^
What do you think of it?
It’s good for entertainment and sometimes that’s just the only thing you’re looking in a manga. :)
ano…
This is irrelevant to the post, but I just wanna know how to order marimite DVDs through.. say, gokigenyou.com. I’d like the Japanese edition, although I don’t know Japanese at all.
Thanks for the help!
@goronta – Uh…You don’t buy them through gokigenyou.com. That’s just the series site. You’d need to buy them through a Japanese store.
Here’s a link to the very first Marimite DVD on Amazon.JP:
http://tinyurl.com/7hmw4m
You can cut and past the title into the Search box for the rest of the series. (And there’s a link that you can click that will translate some of the page to English – not the series title or information, but the checkout button and things like that.)
@Anonymous – That’s where I guess I get stuck. I find sexual harrassment not very entertaining.
Is it a coincidence that Yukio’s last name is Himemiya? :o
You know there’s something about female manga-ka doing ecchi themes aimed towards females, and it ends up being more titillating than your everyday shounen ecchi series done by guys.
@darkchibi07 – It’s not coincidence, but it’s not what you think, either.
The -miya ending implies a very high-ranking family in Japan. You’ll see Himemiya and Ichinomiya all the time as indicators of old families of high rank. It’s a fictional version of Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. That was why Anshi’s family name was Himemiya, and also, like Yukio, to give her the “princess” appellation.
It *might* be meant to be a nod to Utena, but it’s just as likely to be using one of a standard of fictitious high-ranking, wealthy old family names.
This is one of those series where the art is better than the story IMO but since I love fetish it works for me. ;-D I like the D/S relationship that’s developing between Yukio and Komari. I’m hoping that “unique” aspect of this series will stay the main focus of the storyline. After all, it’s really the only part of Gokujou Drops that sets it apart from all the other “new girl with head lesbian on campus,” mangas out there. Without the dominance and submission aspect, Gokujou Drops becomes typical to the point of forgettable. I’m not sure how many Yuri mangas highlight a modern Mistress/Slave relationship where both the Domme and the Sub are in love with each other but THAT is what makes this story so refreshing and interesting to me. Unlike Kylin’s relationship with Shinobu in Shoujo Sect, Yukio and Komari seem to actually be developing a classic (and reciprocal) D/S romantic relationship.
The part where Komari confesses that she WANTS to belong to Yukio struck such a deep chord with me as a fellow submissive. I know the feeling of wanting to serve someone that badly. It was the quintessential “Awwww, I’m gonna cry!” moment for me!
As you mentioned Erica, there’s a lot of non-con and silly sexual antics going on in the background, foreground and stage right that will put off some readers but, that aside, this story has the potential to be a nicely done alternative Yuri series
I kind of liked chapter seven, perhaps eight too, a bit… the remaining chapters I`d rather skip. That would logically give this manga a whopping score of 2 out of 9, which in fact isn`t far from my opinion of it (maybe an extra point for art). ^-^; By the way, I found out that a good indicator of whether something is actually cute and funny is to imagine such thing happening to yourself; if suddenly it doesn`t look so cute and funny anymore, then most likely it isn`t. ^-^;
But I guess “Gokujo…” was intended to cover a… different part of spectrum from “Hanjuku Joshi”, so that people who don`t fancy one of the two might still enjoy the other… Like me, for example. ^-^
The other 24/25ths are for people who like their Yuri mean, and nasty.
Sounds perfect for the misogynistic losers who consider Maria Holic “good.” *still livid after watching Maria Holic’s op* I need more than fetishes (Incest? Non-con? *shudder*) and creepy S&M dynamics to consider a romance manga “good.” (Hence my eternal loathing of Hot Gimmick.)
The art looks good, and if it’s written by a female for females, the plot sounds kind of hot… I’m very tempted.
Sexual harrassment is indeed not entertaining, and I never meant it that way. I simply keep in mind that it’s the kind of manga where you put your brain level at 0% and that it’s purely made for that kind of brainless entertainment. Besides, the main character (I don’t even remember her name) doesn’t even really seem to *mind* what people are doing to her and it’s all for one purpose: to give some fanservice to people who are craving for ecchi Yuri.
For me, most of the manga went by in a sort of stunned “ahahahaha oh lol what the heck?” daze – all that fetishy service was just too absurd, I couldn’t take the story seriously at all – but much to my surprise, I found the last few chapters to be actually kind of sweet. It’s not too bad for a piece of brain-rot – I’ve certainly read far worse things.
I liked the manga, except some of the hints at fetishes made me think, “*Sigh*…here we go again.” But overall, I licked it. The only part of it I didn’t particularly like, was that Komari became sort of the community bicycle, instead of the mangaka focusing on her and Hime. If there is a second volume that focuses more of Hime and Komari, I’ll gladly read it :)
So many of this manga’s problems could have been avoided if the protagonist had something resembling a backbone. Really, if Hime or any of the other girls who took advantage of Komari were guys, wouldn’t people find it exploitive or sexist? Plus, Hime just doesn’t come across as a convincing love interest at all (but then, none of them do), what with her treatment of Komari and the perpetual squinting glare she always seems to be wearing.
As you can guess, I love it.
Just wanted to thank everyone, because many of you touched upon perspectives I hadn’t ever considered. I’ll still file myself as “on the fence” for this series and hope it moves away from random acts of harrassment.
Am I the only one who hates the art…?
Anyway, I find this manga to be hilariously bad. So by default, it must be good to read ;)
I don’t know; it seems to ridiculous to be taken seriously but it doesn’t have that, oh, charmingly obvious idiocy that other manga of this sort do.
The sexual harassment… is “tongue in cheek” the phrase I’m looking for? It seems like a big nod to ecchi fans and yet I observe some of the panels and they’re actually sexy, if you may. The kiss scenes, I’m talking about, not the groping. Having (sadly) read several other ecchi sexploitative manga, they never bother or are just incapable of drawing a kiss scene that looks nice. This manga does that, shockingly. Sadly, that’s the only nice thing. Most of the time, I’m just reminded it’s a Yuri ecchi manga and bleh.
Characters? Please. Story? Yeah, yeah. Molestation is love. It’s not love unless they deny it. It’s not romantic unless someone ends up feeling abused in some way in the end. Yay…!
Plus, I keep getting some Ouran High School Host Club vibes from it. The cast and the story line seems to vaguely mirror that. However, as this isn’t a satirical comedy series, I will just settle on it’s fanservice Yuri that will make you gag if you’re not busting your gut over how awful it is.
5/10.