Are you the kind of person who saves the best for last or who goes for the good stuff first? ^_^ When there’s a new shipment of manga in from Japan, I waffle back and forth. Half of me wants to binge read all the best manga right away and half wants to hold it to the very end. The first half usually wins. ^_^ Especially, as the second half of Hana Monogatari has had a surprising number of deaths and I keep finding myself really weepy and needing something happy to read before bed. (T_T)

Of course, one of the books on the “good pile” is Takemiya Jin-sensei’s newest collection, Renai Log (恋愛ログ). This collection, although a Yuri Hime Comics publication, wholly consists of doujinshi by Takemiya-sensei. 

Of the storie,s the opening two-parter was my favorite. In “Otonari-san” a young woman becomes aware that her neighbor is a lesbian and, after the neighbor has been left by her lover, starts to have feelings of her own for her. I really enjoyed this story, as it took a fairly long time to develop. The ending was deeply satisfying, as well.

The middle stories were a selection of bittersweet “wth is happening” and “goodbye” stories that hit me in already tender emotional spots. 

But the final story, “Chocolat Orange 2” was absolutely lovely. Just the treat I needed, along with “Otonari-san,” to wipe away the melancholia left by people dying in my evening literature. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, average 8
Characters – 8 A lot of sympathetic characters
Yuri – 8
Service – 0 Really. There just wasn’t any

Overall – 8

I had waited as long as I could before reading this and, as usual, was really glad I got to it. ^_^