The very first moment I encountered Watashi ni Karada, Utteminai? (私に体、売ってみない?) in Comic Yuri Hime, as a preview of a first chapter for a series running on their Pixiv channel, Yuri Hime @Pixiv, I knew that it was a terrible, awful, horrible, plot…and that I would like it anyway. ^_^

Tsukasa’s mother died when she was young, and her father fell into gambling away his pain. He amassed a huge debt, then abandoned his now-teenaged daughter to pick up the pieces of her life. Which she is, we assume, doing, until a loanshark shows up at her home, demanding she pay her father’s debt. 

Only, this loan shark is an attractive woman, who protects Tsukasa from a second, much less attractive or female loanshark who arrives to collect his money.  Tsurusaki Reiko grasps Tsukasa’s situation pretty quickly and offers her another way out – pay off the debt with her body, (double entendre intended.) The deal is, she will be Reiko’s assistant, housekeeper and companion and work the debt off that way. It’s not how Tsukasa intended to live, but hey, the prospects of being sold into sexual slavery by other, less attractive or female loansharks is even more unsavory. She takes the deal. 

And, in the course of living together and getting to know one another, Reiko and Tsukasa fall in love. I know, I know, who’dathunk it?

Like I said, this is a horrible, terrible plot, with all sorts of not-good things about it. It’s pretty much an argument for how arranged marriages are supposed to work, which is also a whole can of not-okay-worms. And the fact that they end up happily ever after is inexcusable for a Yuri manga in 2018. 

Nonetheless, with complete knowledge of all the really crappy lessons expressed here. I liked it. I knew I was going to, too, because this is such a shitty premise that one either should avoid it completely, or just settle in and recognize it for what it is –  a shitty romance plot. In fact, it’s so shitty, it reminds me a bit of the absurdities that filled Mist magazine, back in the day.  

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 2, but I liked it anyway
Character – 7
Service – 2 Mild given the premise
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8 

We even get an epilogue, in which Tsukasa, now adult, welcomes her loving wife home after a long day of loansharking and kneecapping.  ^_^ Awww…