I’m Luce, several time reviewer here and long-time book collector who is very much a tsundoku exhibiting person. I’ve been reading my manga though, including this one, a small gem from Seven Seas who are probably my new favourite company. Not that I really have those, but they do a lot of Yuri. I’ll ignore some of the other series they do. Anyhow! I can be found on the Okazu discord as farfetched, and on tumblr as silverliningslurk. Ready, fight!

In Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, Mitsuki Aya is one of the only new students in Kuromi Girls Academy, a prestigious private school, attending on a scholarship. She’s trying her utmost act as ladylike as the other (mostly rich) girls in the school, but none more so than Shirayuri, the epitome of elegant grace and another new student. At least… That’s what everyone thinks, including Aya, until she catches her late at night not only playing fighting games, but violently trash-talking the person she just trounced. Outing herself as a gamer to Shirayuri accidentally, Aya is asked to join a match, but she’s given them up – or at least, tried to. Aya’s own previous obsession with fighting games and a new-found rivalry between the two aside, there’s a big problem here – all games are banned at the school!

It sounds ridiculous. It kind of is ridiculous. It clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously, with the name ‘Shirayuri’ (literally white lily) being pointed out in the translation as something incredibly flowery and a highly unusual Japanese name. But it’s good. The way that Shirayuri flips on a coin from a lovely girl held on a pedestal to someone downright crass is funny, and some of the responses to things that Aya says are hilarious. For example, Aya starts saying how she eschewed fighting games to become a ‘proper lady’ and all this noble speak… And Shirayuri basically responds with ‘wtf you talking about, fight me’.

That’s pretty refreshing, honestly. Shirayuri clearly has no intention of leaving something she loves to fully become the mask she portrays everywhere else, and doesn’t see why Aya is so hung up on this ideal. They have several virtual matches, which are pretty well drawn and narrated as such by Aya’s thoughts, breaking down her predictions and actions in a way that feels pretty smooth and close to what I feel like a slow motion fight scene would feel like. They get caught… and their escape is just as ridiculous and funny as the reactions. The series flips quite well between the elegant lady aesthetic and a caricatured ugliness of real emotion. The mangaka does both quite well.

As for yuri, well, I’m not 100% sure that it will be yuri, but if it is, it certainly won’t be something fluffy like Girlfriends. They’ll be fighting all the way along. But some of the scenes and panels on their own make me feel like this series could well go on a yuri-ish direction. There is clearly a lot of idol worship towards Shirayuri that could lean that way, but even other than that, some of the art just makes me think this will be yuri. Natsume, Aya’s roommate, clearly thinks they’re together. I mean, Shirayuri, her name aside, is introduced with lilies in the background. Bookwalker told me it’s yuri, so I’m going to believe it, since it feels too self-aware to not be.

Next volume, they decide they have to find something safe to game inside. I hope Aya comes to a revelation that she can enjoy things and be elegant, or just… enjoy things and not worry so much over what other people think. I’ll be looking forward to it.

Art – 8 – does both pretty and grotesque quite well. The comic violence in and occasionally out of the in-manga game is good.
Story – 6. It’s ridiculous. I have questions. But it’s fun.
Characters – 8
Service (level of salaciousness) – 2? Aya is in a form-fitting turtleneck at one point, but that’s about it, and it’s not played for anything. It’s also not a male-gaze type of form-fitting. The skirts are not magic, either.
Yuri – 4. For the moment.
Overall – 8

My questions are mainly: how many first year students with long white hair can there possibly be, and how can you be (presumably) that loud and not get caught. It’s not meant to be serious, so they’re not serious questions. I also want pg115 on my wall, it’s glorious. Other than that, check it out!

Erica here: Thank you very much for this fantastic review. I hope you’ll all take this chance to pick up and enjoy this silly story. ^_^