In late Edo Japan, she was cool,
That successful businesswoman Vlad Dracul.
With Satuski her guard
Who was handy with a sword.
My complaints with this book are minescule.

Kunoichi Bettegumi Igarashi Satsuki, Volume 1 (くノ一別手組ー五十嵐五月) sold as kunoichibettegumi in Japanese on US Kindle, by china, with illustrations by ooshimakaoru was a gigantic ball of utter nonsense that I enjoyed every single moment of.

In the late Edo period, foreign ships were officially repelled from Japan. In Yokohama, foreigners were allowed to conduct business and live in a ghettoed area, but not everyone is happy about their presence…hence the Bettegumi, a team of for-hire bodyguards who the government hired out to foreigners.

All of this is true. All the rest of this book is not.

Igarashi Satstuki is a swordswoman hired to be the bodyguard of one Vlad Dracula, a successful English businesswoman, who wears men’s clothes, has red eyes, silver hair and dead white skin. Satsuki’s initial impression of Vlad is to shudder in horror. Satsuki doen’t like foreigners to begin with, but lesbian vampire foreigners are just too much to imagine. Oh yes, Vlad is indeed a lesbian. Night after night she either visits female entertainers after hours, or she has them visit her. It drives Satsuki mad, that Vlad likes wandering around as it gets dark, putting both of them in danger.

While accompanying Vlad on her perambulations, Satsuki meets Clare, a girl who works at the bank. Satsuki asks Vlad to teach her English, so she can communicate with this cute young lady who subsequently falls hard for the dashing swordswoman. Satsuki and Vlad end up saving Scarlet, an English admiral’s daughter, who ends up joining their group for the rest of the book. Scarlet starts out imperious and rude, but becomes a fixture from that point on. Scarlet and Vlad add themselves to Satsuki’s date with Clare. Satsuki fights off a provoked bear, and takes on a group of provoked anti-foreigner ronin and generally makes herself swoon-worthy. Vlad teases her and Satsuki pushes back. And in the end, all four of the women end up in a sleep-over at Vlad’s place. And then the book ends. Mid-sentence.

The story is filled with the kind of touches one expects in a fanfic – use of outdated terms where we have equivalent terms that will do; random bits of culture (Japanese unagi is vastly superior to English jellied eels, we are assured); not-quite-correct uses of a foreign language – for instance, English – that are meant to set the tone, but instead tend to throw one out of the story. In this case, English is actually a part of the story, and when it works, it works. When it doesn’t, it really doesn’t. In a scene designed to show Satsuki that she and Clare are of similar common class, the language Clare uses isn’t just coarse, but incoherent. Oh well…. ^_^

While one might expect that a character named Vlad Dracula,with silver hair, pale skin and red eyes, might be sensibly be assumed to be a vampire, we don’t see her sucking anyone’s blood until way towards the end. Kind of interestingly Satsuki’s reaction is not “Holy Shit! You’re sucking her blood!” but more like “Wow, what are you….oh, forget it. Weirdo.” Vlad is the least boring vampire ever, to her credit.

There’s no particular coherence to the narrative. We meet people and have experiences that, presumably, in the future will develop, but in this volume are just sort of… there. Despite that, I found this story to be fun and entertaining, which is all I ever expect out of my entertainment!

Ratings:

Art – 8, Vlad’s suits don’t fit her curves, which is a kind of service
Story – 8 Did I mention that Vlad’s a vampire?
Characters – 8 Lesbian vampire and soon-to-be-lesbian swordswoman, serving girl and admiral’s daughter. What more do you want?
Yuri – 7 See above
Service –  Have you read anything I wrote? Yes, service.

Overall – 8

On to Volume 2!

Don’t let the title fool you – there are no kunoichi in this book.

A lesbian vampire is fun
An Edo swordswoman plus one
Add two English girls
With smiles and curls
And your heart will surely be won