Konatsu has moved to a small beachside town. Her father has stay where he is for work, so she’s basically on her own. She’s hoping to be able to make friends, but isn’t great at it. She meets Koyuki, who is working at the local aquarium and is unusually interested in the older girl. Although they go to the same school, circumstances are just not giving them the chance to to get to know one another.
As the school festival approaches, Konatsu takes a leap and joins the aquarium club to be nearer to Koyuki.
Koyuki, for her part, is equally interested in Konatsu and, like the other girl, feels reticent about reaching out. But more and more she finds herself thinking about Konatsu. On the day of the school festival, when Konatsu reacts with joy at seeing Koyuki, she finds herself embracing the other girl with all her heart.
Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru, Volume 1 (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる ) by Hagino Makoto, is a charming little love story about two girls and a cute salamander.
There is a lot of Yuri out right now. Of course the Asagao to Kase-san theatrical release is getting a fair amount of promotion, so it was no surprise to see the trailer screening at the Yurimate event at Animate, and it was equally expected to see the Love To Lie Angle anime featured at Gamers store in Akihabara. But what a surprise to me to see a door-sized poster, and mini-museum for Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru at Gamers, as well!
This was unexpected for several reasons. One, the series is really quite charming and sweet and has no service of the kind in which Gamers specializes. It’s just…nice…without any fetishtry. Not T&A, no lolicon. So I was pretty darned shocked to see it featured at Gamers, of all places. As you can see from the pictures, there were some goods items on display. Had I wanted, I could have bought the mug with my purchase of the second volume of the manga, but did not. Reproductions of pages were on display and a message board for visitors. I jotted a short note in English for that and reminded myself to finish Volume 1 when I got home so I could tell you about it!
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 1 on principle only, there really isn’t any
Yuri – 7
Overall – 8
It’s really just a lovely little story and you’ll learn a little bit of marine biology as you read it. And the word for “salamander.”
Glad to see this reviewed here! It was absolutely a pleasure to read this series, simply a cute story about people reaching out toward each other without any drama to it. I’ve bought both vol of this series and I’m looking forward to the future development.
Also I guess at this point you’ve read most of the popular new yuri series among Japanese yuri fans: 将来的に死んでくれ, 私は君を泣かせたい, たとえとどかぬ糸だとしても, 私の百合はお仕事です!, and of course 熱帯魚! How many of these do you like and plan to follow? Also I think it’s great that many of them actually come from shounen magazine which targets the general audience instead of the niche YuriHime or Kirara, if that means at least the public embraces yuri a little bit more.
I’ve read the first volume of 将来的に死んでくれ, 私は君を泣かせたい, but found it unfunny (I reviewed it here: https://okazu.yuricon.com/2018/02/28/yuri-manga-shouraiteki-ni-shindekure-将来的に死んでくれ/). I’m not sure if I’ll read more and frankly cannot for the life of me understand why other people think it so amazing. I dislike たとえとどかぬ糸だとしても a great deal and do not think it worth buying the volumes of. In fact, I barely skim it in Comic Yuri Hime. I much prefer Kuzushiro’s 兄の嫁と暮らしています。, which has a similar premise. I don’t think incest and incest-adjacent stories are that interesting, generally. As a fetish I find it uninteresting.
I quite like 私の百合はお仕事です! and have reviewed all the volumes here on Okazu.
Btw, you can always tell what I think about a series by searching the title on Okazu. If there is no review, I didn’t think it worth talking about.
将来的に死んでくれ plays very straight on the boke-tsukkomi dynamic, which I suppose there will always be Japanese readers who enjoy. I think it’s only fair considering the manga’s target demographic, as it’s being published on the same shounen magazine as 進撃の巨人.
Also I’m surprised to hear that you don’t like たとえとどかぬ糸だとしても because of the incest, because personally I don’t think the manga portrays the MC’s crush in a “fetishy” manner at all, unlike, eh-hem, Citrus. She is generally shameful and is always in a great deal of pain because of it, and I think it’s worth noting that she purposely tries to seek way to put down her feelings in stead of being confrontational about it, which is a direction that I don’t see many yuri manga’s MC take when it comes to a love not worth pursuing. In fact the complaints for this series are always “There is no yuri here at all!” as the MC up till now still refuses to chase after her sister in law. I also think the characters there and their interactions feel pretty human, they all have their good, their bad and their selfish sides.
Just want to offer my 2 cents on why I enjoy these two series or why they are popular with Japanese readers here. I value your take on them though, but I think these two manga each offers something that you usually don’t see very much in the yuri genre.
I don’t like it because I believe that falling in love with someone who lives with you is the laziest, most boring plot device in the history of the universe. It does not matter to me the relationship, if you can’t be bothered to leave the fucking house to fall in love, that’s lazy. And boring to me as a reader in all forms.