In  Volume 1, we met Fujishiro Nanaki, one of the cool and fashionable girls and Kurozawa Kaede, one of the fujoshi girls,  who meet and find their lives somehow interconnected. Here in Failed Princesses, Volume 2, a culture clash had set the two young women up for an all out war on reality.

Nanaki is frustrated at Kurokawa, but she’d be hard pressed to explain why. She just knows that Kurokawa’s new found popularity pisses her off…but her jealousy is not AT Kaede, but is definitely because of her. Kurozawa is just angry at a world that never rewards her for trying. The cool girls clique has become openly hostile, the teachers are punishing Nanaki and being rude about Kaede and if not for the decency of the nerdy girls, I probably would have given this series up.

Volume 2 felt exactly like what it is – a short series that was meant to wrap up, but was extended. So instead of Nanaki falling in love with her Galatea, Galatea has come to life and been treated like garbage and Nanaki punished for standing up for her and only Izumi apparently smart enough to see what is going on. Nonetheless, Nanaki does realize that she’s missed Kaede and Kaede realizes there’s no point to her beauty if her Pygmalion isn’t there to enjoy it with.

I’m up to Volume 4 in Japanese, and I’m struggling with the series. There just isn’t a lot holding this series together beyond two girls who run in different circles in high school fall in love, which is simply not very compelling for me. More critically, everything interesting in the story has come from one of the fujoshi group – Kaede’s “we live in different worlds” commentary, Izumi’s awareness of the cool girls’ jealousy and loneliness. The cool kids are, well, kinda as boring as they were in school.

What I hope from this series would be more insight into in-group vs out-group dynamics, but what we are getting is high school crushes and drama. This series is definitely great for folks who like Morinaga Milk’s GIRL FRIENDS but wanted more conflict. Ajiichi’s art is good, the characters are solid. And I’ll hope that the plot develops past “what is going on with me?”

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 1
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

Thanks very much to Seven Seas for the review copy!