Resonant Blue (レゾナントブルー) is a collection of stories by Yorumo, a popular Twitter artist. Although most of the stories had made an appearance in different anthologies, they are collected together here for a lovely set of small mini-arcs and a few standalones.

The cover story, “Resonant Blue” is a schoolgirl story about a reticent girl who finds herself drawn out of her shell by a popular girl who she falls for because of her voice.

A girl falls for her hair stylist and learns that the feeling is mutual.

In “cigarette kiss” an office worker is looking for her prince when she is assigned to work with a really hot guy. Miku shameless throws herself at Akira only to learn that Akira, despite her masculine good looks, is a woman. She feels foolish, but Miku’s heart still pounds around Akira. In “refrain kiss” Miku decides that regardless, she is interested in Akira after all. Now she has to work on her jealousy.  In a little short epilogue, one of Miku’s coworkers admires her work sempai but starts to get a hint that Miku and Akira are more than just client and vendor. The art, characters and setup in this story is 100% on point for me, so two thumbs up from this reader.

Another short about two women living together and how besotted the one is of her lover. Absolutely adorable, obviously.

Another mini-arc follows Suzuka, a model student, the star of the school and the former gang-girl who transfers in and beats the pants off her in grades. Waon isn’t interested in a rivalry, so Suzuka has to figure out how to become friends. I absolutely loved this story. Everything about Waon was on point for me, as well. Former Yanki, refusing to take crap from students attempting to bullying her, unflappable personality, I found her to be just right.

And last, a quick epilogue to “Resonant Blue,” where Michiru and Kaede meet to see fireworks together.

Yorumo’s art is solid and, in entirely unrelated news, hits me in a couple of my weak spots, so I find her characters exceptionally appealing. ^_^ The stories are fun, lack any emotional manipulation…in fact , the characters often actively derail the typical tropes of bullying and ostracism. I…loved it.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Nothing salacious, but Akira is a 9 on my service scale ^_^
Yuri – 9

Overall  – 9

The more I think about this collection, the more I like it. It was refreshingly entertaining.