Imagine, if you will, a reader of Sasamekikoto who finishes up a volume of that particular high school Yuri drama and thinks, “That was great. But you know, it would be so much cooler if they were older, maybe, yeah, like assistants to manga artists, and there was an evil overlord trying to stop them and they had to defeat him then have really raunchy lesbo sex.”

That’s pretty much what you get in Volume 1 of Assistant Denki Keika, (aka Keika, the Romance of The Assistant or アシスタント伝奇ケイカ.)

Keika is a Sumi/Fumi/Sachiko/Chikane/Simone classic Japanese nadesico beauty, armed with nibbed pens and the refuse from a million tones and a fistful of angry “get the fuck out of my way.” So when soon-to-be-manga assistant Tamae is attacked by the evil overlord’s henchmen, Keika’s appearance is welcome. She saves the damsel, they spend the night together and use the tools of their trade as sex toys. There are bodily fluids.

They are joined in their violence and sex by Tsumugi, an absurdly cute cross-dressing young man. (If you count Sasamekikoto‘s Sumi as Keika and Ushio is Tamae, then Tsumugi is this manga’s Akemi. If you care.) He has a massive crush on Keika, who has no time for him, and is glad to sell him out to the truly bizarre manga artist Ooba, in a chapter I immediately scoured out of my brain. There’s only so much room for weird sex there and this was just past my tolerance point.

I really liked just over half of this book – especially after Keika and Tamae have sorted out the fact that they actually really like each other. There are moments of sweet nothings between them, pecks on the cheeks and snuggling that are awfully cute. Their sex is still full of bodily fluids but, in every other way is sincere. But the giant dildo/fake vagina thing at Ooba’s place and the massive sucking away of sexual energy so she can draw kind of really didn’t do it for me. I’m not opposed to finding out what happens, I just don’t want to use my own money to do so. ^_^

The next to last chapter takes whatever semblance of cognitive dysfunction we’re using to make this series work in our heads and throws it out the window, runs after it stomps on it and kicks it across the yard for good measure. Tamae and Keika are wandering through a park when they come across these two suspicious looking statues. behind the hedges they note a number of female couples going at it, and they take some reference photos, then are overcome and join the pack. They come to in their own apartment, the photos are pictures of themselves having sex and the suspicious statues are now covered in lilies and even more suspicious-looking. I have no idea what that last chapter was meant to be, but it clearly pointed out to me that this book is essentially crap and if we’re trying to make it make sense in our heads, we are wasting our time. So I stopped trying. ^_^ The last chapter is plain old weird.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 10

Overall – 6

I really can’t say I liked it – but I really can’t say I disliked it. There were some really good things, but some really bad things…bad enough that I’m not sure I want it in the house. It’s a very problematic manga. I still kinda liked it, though.