Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! Volume 1, Guest Review by Matt Rolf

March 1st, 2023

A partially dressed pink-haired woman is surrounded by three other partially dressed women.Letters read  Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! Vol 1, story and art by Kuro ItsukiIt’s Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu and today we welcome back Matthew Rolf who will take a look at this new 18+ manga series from Seven Seas!

Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! does not convey an air of nuance or subtlety. The cover of the book shows our protagonist being ravished by three other women, with four sets of breasts barely covered by clothing or the book title. On the back cover, our heroine stands with her nightgown open the length of her body. Asumi gazes at the reader while another woman places her hands on her butt.

It’s true: this manga contains graphic depictions of lesbian sex, and the back cover helpfully contains a parental advisory for “explicit content.” Author Kuru Itsuki set out to create a “comical, sexy yuri manga,” and has succeeded. This volume contains five episodes in a story that now extends to at least three volumes.

Asumi is a sexually inexperienced college student pining for Mai, a slightly older girl who kissed her back in grade school. Asumi’s friend Ouka thinks she’s seen Mai in the lesbian sex trade. Ouka makes Asumi an appointment with a sex worker, so that she might find Mai. So begins Asumi’s adventure of hiring women for sex until she can find and sleep with her childhood friend.

This book is as unapologetically gay, sex positive, and kinky as it is implausible. Just one sexual encounter contains kink elements of cosplay, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and edging. Other encounters tease rope play, domination, puppy play, group sex, and a few other things. There are no men in this book.

The sex scenes are rendered both in cartoonish and more realistic styles, depending on the encounter. Some effort is made to show a variety of body types within a narrow range, and the chest excesses of the cover are mostly avoided in the story. There is nothing unusual in the artistic presentation, but the blocking and rendering of the intimate encounters is a strong point. The sex workers Asumi encounters are given at least some characterization.

There’s no gender play, and the book feels less queer than it might for being so kinky. The slick presentation feels inspired by mainstream pornography. That likely makes the book more appealing to a wider audience, including men, but will probably turn off some readers. It’s a minor criticism for a work that brings its protagonist to climax no fewer than four times.

This book owes more than a little to Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. One can imagine an editor wanting a pitch for “Kabi’s book, but with hotter sex and without all the mental health issues.” Itsuki’s story delivers to the point of reading like an advertisement for the sex trade in places. Kabi’s work is undoubtedly more touching, moving, and real, but Itsuki’s work is pure fantasy to help you get off. This book is in a different genre with a different purpose, and I have veered between feeling it’s a salacious ripoff or just fine for what it is.

Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! is entertaining, explicit, and doesn’t ask much of the reader. If you like your lesbian sex manga explicit with a small side of kink, consider picking up this book the next time you need to get in the mood. The English translation of volume 2 comes out later in 2023.

Final Verdict: Gold Star Yuri Erotica.

Published by Seven Seas Entertainment, through an arrangement by Kodashana Ltd., with translation by Lily Aspen and lettering by Ash Works.

Ratings

Art – 7 – Sparse, mostly anatomically correct.
Story – 6 – Meticulously constructed to get to the next erotic encounter as quickly as possible.
Characters – 5 – Here for the boning.
Service – 10 – Non-stop lesbian sex.
Yuri – 10 – Gold Star.
Overall Score – 319 (referencing the apropos Prince song of the same title)

Thanks so much Matt!

Volume 1 is available in Print on Bookshop and RightStuf, and digital on Bookwalker. Amazon has Volume 3 listed, but not V1 or V2, presumably because of the covers.

There were a lot of lesbian sex worker stories that popped up after Nagata’s initial work. We’ve reviewed some here. Of them, the one I’ve really enjoyed is BariKyari to Shinsou.

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We’re always looking for guest reviewers, especially as there is so much coming out in English and Japanese, I can’t keep up. If you are interested in reviewing for Okazu – I am particularly interested in hiring non-white writers here  and queer folks, as well. I have a review copy of Futaribeya, V9 going begging. So if you like this series, and want a shot at a paid review gig, drop over to our Submission Guidelines and put yourself forward!

8 Responses

  1. CW says:

    In 2019 Yuri-Hime Comics did a run of 12 anthologies, all with different themes, of which one was sex work. That one was the breakout hit. The Asumi-chan series started the next year.

    In the wake of Nagata Kabi’s essay manga, sex work has managed to become currently one of the biggest tropes in yuri, behind student councils and romance with non-humans. It does seem driven by audience demand for it though and there is a variety of approaches (Comic Tant’s Lesbian Fuuzoku no Onna-tachi is very different to YanMaga’s Tada dewa Dakaremasen). Moeru Onna Sacchan seems to have been about 30 years ahead of its time.

    • I kinda feel like the anthology was following the trend, not leading it, but otherwise totally agree. Every magazine has their own take.

      • CW says:

        In the years between Nagata Kabi’s essay manga becoming a hit and the anthology’s release in 2019, the trend was fairly lowkey and I don’t think it was obvious at that point that the trend in fictional yuri depicting sex work would arrive where it is now, with that anthology being the beginning of it taking off commercially. It predates all the following:

        レズビアン風俗の女たち
        水蜜桃は少女にかじられる
        彩純ちゃんはレズ風俗に興味があります!
        愛されてもいいんだよ
        私達の生きる世界
        クズ浪人生、人生が辛いので夜のお姉さんを呼んでみた
        タダでは抱かれません
        私の初恋相手がキスしてた
        抱かれたい女~JDだけどアラサー女子に買われています~
        あめとむち

        • That is exactly how trends tend to work. A trigger starts a slow roll and eventually it picks up virality.

          • CW says:

            If a YouTube channel’s popularity follows a pattern that can be divided into years of ‘slow roll’ followed by ‘virality’, is it likely the first video to get lots of views had something to do with it? Would ‘That is exactly how trends tend to work’ be grounds for thinking otherwise?

            ‘Virality’ isn’t separable from concrete instances of things getting attention. Especially when it comes to trends in what companies are bringing to market, that’s what they’re likely to act in response to.

          • I don’t think we are in disagreement. Yes, there were other series as well, and yes, you have named several.That doesn’t change that the massive sales of Nagata-sensei’s work changed the economic landscape for that kind of narrative. Trends are not a straight line.

          • CW says:

            My first comment attributed the trend to Nagata’s work (“In the wake of Nagata Kabi’s essay manga”). I don’t think sex work would have been one of the themes used among the 12 anthologies without it. My position is that Nagata Kabi’s essay manga led to the anthology, which in turn led to Asumi-chan.

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