I am on a Galette kick! I am desperately trying to clean up after a long, emotionally and physically exhausting winter and that means even metaphorical piles of unread Galette publications. I recently purchased some items from the Galette Webstore, including Sakuraya Yukino’s – Inu to dorei no 100-nichi sensou – (-犬と奴隷の100日戦争-).
This felt, somehow, like an old-school doujinshi collection.
In the main, multi-chapter story Kanno, a kind of behind-the-ball employee is called out by her tough-but-fair manager. Kanno and everyone else admires Onda, but Kanno finds her compelling. When Kanno stays late to work, she finds Onda in the office reading porn and takes the opportunity to form a slave/master relationsip (not non-consentially, I hasten to say) with Onda. And, even though in bed Kanno is boss, that only lasts until they say it does. Kanno may be the maser, but she’s still Onda’s dog.
This story is followed by a number of one-shots, one set in school, another about a woman whose boyfriends are unkind to her and who find acceptance with another woman. One of the stories appeared in Galette magazine and while I liked the execution, I thought the premise felt so old-school. A woman is attracted to a coworker, but feels the attraction is something like a creeping shadow that possesses her. The art was fully creeptastic – desire expressed shadow hands that seek to touch and, implicitly, consume. But the feeling can be parsed as internalized homophobia, fear of her own sexual desire and in both these cases, as we have no back story for her, it feels like a lean back on old themes.
The book comes with a postcard of the cover art and a one-sheet ‘thank you’ message from the creator which, again, makes this very much feel as if one picked it up at a comic market. The art is all right. Side and oblique angles of faces and mouth especially needs some work, but the paneling is good. Narratively, I look forward to seeing Sakuraya grow, as well.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 4 the prurience is mostly implicit
Overall – 7
