Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! This week we welcome back Mariko S whose reviews are always a delight to read. Ahead of the Seven Seas edition of this seies, Mariko is taking a look at Gunbured X Sisters, Volume 1, (ガンバレッドｘシスターズ) and I for one can’t wait to see what she says about it. Welcome back, Mariko and take it away!

 

I am not an aficionado of vampire tales. I’m not a fan of nunsploitation movies. I don’t care for stories of spectacular violence or body horror. But when I ran across Mitogawa Wataru’s demented yuri-nun-vampire-girlswithguns-horror-erotica mashup manga… somehow, I knew it was for me. There is nothing subtle about this manga: It is proudly exploitative and violent. There is ugly lesbian sex and plenty of blood. But if just the idea of the sentence “sexy lesbian nuns hunt vampires with ridiculous weapons” makes you smile, you will love this book too.

 

Dorothy (Dolores to everyone but Maria, for reasons) is the daughter of the head of the Church, and a prominent nun in the monster extermination division of the abbey. She is slated to be the next leader of the Church and is treated with awe and deference by all that she meets. To public appearance, she is the picture of the Church’s ideal, trained in every aspect of running the Church and combating monsters. But privately she is a deeply, deeply damaged young woman. Her mother seems to have died when she was very young. In childhood, she witnessed the nursemaid that raised her be torn to pieces by vampires. She has become obsessed with the idea that vampire/human hybrids called “dhampirs” exist, and that finding one is the key to her quest to exterminate all vampires and effect her revenge.

 

Maria is the dhampir that Dorothy has been searching for all these years. Hated by humans and vampires alike, she and her sister Noelle were orphans. One fateful day a few years earlier, Maria helplessly watched as her sister was kidnapped by a vampire, and has spent all of her time since then hunting vampires from the shadows in hopes of finding her.

 

Of course, fate and circumstances conspire to bring the two together. Maria, chased by a horde of vampires she cannot defeat, crashes into Dorothy’s chapel, and is gravely injured. Once Dorothy realizes what she is, Maria gets a quick education in dhampirology. To this point, Maria has nourished her vampire side with blood bags, but a drink straight from the source triggers a powerful transformation into a bondage-geared beast. In that state she is capable of wielding the huge cross-shaped transforming gun that Dorothy totes around, which is specifically designed for dhampir use. Afterward they reach a detente – Maria will subjugate herself to Dorothy and work with her as a Red Sister, in order to further her mission to find and rescue Noelle. In return, Dorothy will be able to use Maria’s power in her quest to annihilate the vampire scourge.

 

Introductions aside, the rest of volume one is devoted to peeling the onion on the workings of the world and its societies, both vampire and human, as well as deepening our understanding of our heroines. Maria is crass and boorish, and absolutely uninterested in conforming to the expectations of a sister or of obeying Dorothy. But Dorothy in turn has a sadistic streak, and delights in manipulating Maria into doing her bidding. That completely unsubtle sub/dom dynamic is a major part of their relationship, especially at first. They undergo some missions that provide both spectacular stages for violent action, as well as further the mystery of just what the vampire legions are up to. We are also eventually introduced to Shanon, the princely woman who leads the Knights of the Cross, the male equivalent of the Red Sisters in the Church. She has been in love with Dorothy since childhood, and is her self-appointed protector.

 

Let’s talk about service. In case everything I’ve already written hasn’t made it abundantly clear, this series is a confection of pure uncut service from every direction. There are shower scenes and bedtime seductions and bondage and clothing destruction. There is every manner of salacious angle chosen to show off legs and breasts and butts. Maria wears a “combat habit” that is basically a miniskirt and corset, and after her magical girl transformation to dhampir mode wears even less. There are buckets of blood and violent deaths and huge explosions. What I appreciate most is that Dorothy and Maria are never cringing victims who are abused by the story for the reader’s pleasure (only to win in the end to make all the torture “ok”). No, they have power and agency at all times. They are not cute. At all. They are foul-mouthed crazy assholes, and I love them both for it. Also worth noting is Dorothy’s character design – if you like full-figured women but are tired of the anime aesthetic of a twiggy girl with two beach balls strapped to her chest, then Dorothy’s zäftig frame may be right up your alley. She has big hips and big breasts and they look and move like they should – A+, Mitogawa-sensei.

 

Yuri is a slow burn in this series. Dorothy is clearly obsessed with the idea of “owning” Maria the dhampir. There is a lot of playing around with vampire lore and tropes to suggest a conflation of Maria’s bloodlust with sexual desire for Dorothy. But they are both so screwed up and self-absorbed at this point, that most of the Yuri is veiled through their power dynamics. The late introduction of Shanon introduces another Yuri trope to the story, and there will be more, much more, in subsequent volumes.

 

Ratings:

Art – 10     Totally subjective, but the detailed-yet-sketchy renderings of gothic churches and dark alleys and horrible monsters and sexy nuns is, to my mind, perfect for this story.
Story – 7     Points for innovation, points off for cohesion (there’s a lot of hand-waving for anything that doesn’t get us to the next scene of mayhem). Also, having grown up Catholic, the concept of the Church operating in this way is absolutely hilarious.
Characters – 9     Did I mention “shit-talking lesbian nuns-with-guns?”
Yuri – 5    Not so much yet, outside of some variably tasteless exploitation scenes between Dorothy and Maria.
Service – Yes.

Overall – 8