Lilium Terarium (リリウム・テラリウム) by ED is a collection of short comics from Yuri Hime @ Pixiv. As YNN Corespondent CW helpfully noted, “The serialization was based on a 4 page piece which got quite heavily retweeted when it was posted on twitter.”

The book itself is impressive, with glossy pages, comics printed in one or two colors that differentiate arcs from one other and clear printed dust cover, Lilium Terrarium is more like an artbook than a manga.

The name is, frankly, perfect. We watch young women in a variety of typical shoujo-style Yuri set-ups, much as we watch snails in terrarium, with interest, rather than engagement. These are stories we’ve seen before, just the markings are different. That said, the book is a very nice version of that Yuri terrarium and the snails all have nice markings. ^_^

My favorite of the arcs is the Kanako & Yumi arc, which begins with four friends playing at the seaside. Kanako and Yumi’s relationship is comfortable, but the camaraderie between the four is what warmed the cockles of my heart. (I had a grandmother who used to say that. We used to make fun of her, but I think I just figured it out, the ventricles kind of looks like cochlae. HUH.) I also enjoyed the heavy dark lines of the Mei & Aki arc and loved that the book ended with a sweet lightly-colored and charming story about Nanayo and Juri, who adorn the back cover, as well.

As a reproduction of digital comics in paper form, it’s unique and quite lovely.

I picked this up at Shosen Book Tower so I got one of the special paper inclusions, this one of Mei, I believe.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 0
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

All in all a nice, if not breathtaking, collection of Yuri schoolgirl stories which was more interesting for the presentation than the content.