Yubisakikara Suberiochiru Valetta (指先から滑り落ちるバレッタ), transliterated on the cover as “Valletta that slides from a finger-tip,” by Tsuitsui is a collection of stories that ran in Comic Yuri Hime magazine. 

In the first story, two female friends go to a love hotel together because they want to try staying at one.  Although nothing happens between them, they become a little closer as a result, and recognize that they care about  – and maybe for  – one another.

A businesswoman takes in the high school girl who is seeing the college-age guy next door as she sits out in the rain, giving her s cup of hot coffee to warm up. They become friendly, and when the guy dumps the girl (after sleeping with her of course) Yui is there to help pick up the pieces of Konatsu’s heart…until they fight and Konatsu stops coming by. Yui brings herself to ask the guy next door where Konatsu’s school is. They make up and will once again be able to share a cup of coffee.

Nagano is being bullied by Miyuki, but Nagano doesn’t care. She tells Miyuki she knows she was behind it and Miyuki wants to know how to make it up to Nagano. “Pretend to be my friend,” Nagano replies. As they pretend to be friends, Miyuki’s old friends ostracize her and start bullying her. But Nagano is there for her and Miyuki finds that she just doesn’t care any more about the old friends, either. She and Nagano exchange pretty barrettes, from which the title comes, (although mistransliterated for English. It ought to be “A Barrette That Slides From Fingertips.” The addition of “my” or “your” before Fingertips, while not literal would be more poetic. “The Barrette That Slides From My Fingertips.” is what I’m going with…thinking of this from Miyuki’s perspective, as Nagano first bought her a barrette, which precipitated her falling out with her henchchicks.

The final story follows a “tough-as-nails” businesswoman who has held a torch for her old school friend for years, but when her friend says she’s getting married, Mei is able to see that the clumsy, sincere woman who works for her seems to actually like her. They might even get together.

I quite like Tsutsui’s messy, sketchy art. And the story-telling basics are solid. 

Ratings: 

Art – 6 It’s got issues, but I like it anyway. Needs maturing, and some work on the eyes, particularly
Story – 5 Basics for the qualifying round. Now it’s time to move on
Characters – 8 Definitely the strength of the volume
Service – 4 There is some
Yuri – 7 There is some. Mostly feelings, very little relationship

Overall – 7

I’d like to see the artist get a whole volume’s worth of story down, now that we’ve got the compulsories out of the way.