CW: Heavy spoiler and content warning. As with Book 1; Underage sex work is a prominent theme of this series, although nothing is explicitly described. But now with more incest!
To quote myself from my review of volume 1 “I’m not really sure what’s going on here.” 2 volumes later and I still have no idea what’s going on other than surprise incest. At the end of volume 2, “Chiki”, the older woman Umi has been working for, reveals she’s actually Umi’s long lost big half-sister. Was this necessary? No? Did anyone want or ask for it? Probably some creepy men (maybe including the author) and that’s why we’re here.
Book 2 of My First Love’s Kiss opens with Takasora secretly watching Umi and Chiki kiss in a park after she follows Umi to see what she’s up to, and because we’re trying to make this as cliched as we absolutely possibly can, Chiki takes not just Umi, but both girls to a hotel room for the night. Where of course Chiki suggests they all bathe together, and it all goes downhill from there.
The big reveal comes at the end of volume 2, and it just doesn’t seem to bother anyone other than Takasora, who we know doesn’t like Chiki anyway and almost seems to see this as an inevitable next step considering how terrible she thinks the relationship between them is already.
Volume 3 is just Umi (and all the adults around them) not even caring that it turns out she’s shagging her half sister, and of course they then run away together. It’s already been established that Chiki is wealthy so that’s not an issue. Takasora goes to visit them and Umi might as well just be a sex doll at this point, her hair is cut how her sister likes it, and what little of her personality there was is just gone. I still don’t understand why Takasora even had a crush on her to begin with other than her boobs, which are mentioned several times over the course of both books. Hino and Nagafuji from Adachi and Shimamura pop up at some point but their role is so minor that I can’t remember it and they might as well not be there so I can’t even recommend this to fans of that series on that basis.
It’s very rare that a book series actively makes me angry, but this one did. If you want to write “a love comedy involving an evil woman” (from the afterword of volume 3), then try actually giving your characters a personality rather than just resorting to the worst cliches and stereotypes. This isn’t even “so bad it’s good” car crash reading, this is just plain bad, and there’s nothing funny about any of it. The incestuous predator wins and nobody lives happily ever after.
Please, for the sake of your own sanity, read literally anything else and if you must read something of Iruma’s, read the Regarding Saeki Sayaka novels.
Ratings:
Art – 5. I enjoy Fly’s art style but these series is nothing special. The covers are totally misleading as well, volume 3 especially gives the impression that Umi and Takasora are happy together but oh no, couldn’t be further from the truth.
Story – 2. If you can call it a story.
Characters – 2. Again, to quote myself from the volume 1 review:
I have come to the conclusion that his (Iruma-sensei) works are much more enjoyable when he’s writing about someone else’s characters instead of his own.
Service – I don’t feel comfortable rating underage sex work and incest as service.
Yuri – 0. Incest is not yuri.
Overall – 2 . I deeply resent having spent money on this. At least I was gifted the first 2 volumes of Netsuzou Trap so I didn’t have to spend money on that.
