by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

The Botan Kamiina

1 oz Yume no Kanbai 19 year sake 
0.75 oz strawberry-infused scotch whiskey (Glenlevit base)
0.5 oz Rokudaime Lily shochu
0.5 oz simple syrup
2 dashes of angst–I mean, angostura bitters

Shake with ice, then pour into an absinthe-rinsed coupe. Garnish with a lily flower.

When I first sat down to watch the Botan Kamiina anime, it was like ordering a drink from a cocktail bar’s menu. I knew I liked the ingredients (Yuri? Check. Set in college? Check! With a focus on appreciating alcohol? Check!!) but a menu description doesn’t tell you how balanced a drink will be. Much like a boozy cocktail, Botan hits you up front with some harshness (cough cough episode 3) but as you sip and let the drink dilute, the sweeter flavors come forward and leave your palette more satisfied.

That is to say, it is not exactly a perfectly crafted concoction, but there are plenty of things to like.

As I mentioned in my early review of the series, a new dorm member arrived. Chin-lan Chang, a new student hailing from Taiwan, arrives in the house and immediately throws a sapphic molotov cocktail on the yuri yearning status quo. (You see, her older sister married a Japanese woman, and after accepting her new sister-in-law, she goes “I gotta get me one of those”.) Immediately she puts some moves on Botan, but quickly recognizes that her target already had a situationship brewing. She then pivots to gunning for Gujou-senpai, who is still futilely pining for Ibuki. Nevertheless, her forthrightness pushes the narrative forward by both snagging her senpai for herself as well as getting Botan to confront her feelings and face Ibuki head-on.

Like many others, I’ve found it refreshing how straightforward the series is about the girl’s interest in each other. Chin-lan just asks Botan, “are you and Ibuki dating?” and the question is considered seriously. Botan’s struggle to understand how she and Ibuki feel about each other is centered on whether it’s the alcohol that Ibuki really loves, not handwringing about whether it’s possible for girls to love other girls. And I also appreciated that Botan wants more than pure 100% agave tequila love out of her connection with Ibuki once she emotionally commits to her own feelings.

The thing that is so ultimately frustrating about this series is that its best moments belong in a more focused story. Chin-lan’s confession, folding out of Gujou’s metaphor on her uncertainty, may be one of the most beautifully-phrased scenes of its kind in Yuridom. And yet, this sits within a series that dedicates half an episode to an anime-original infomercial for a Yamaha showroom which you can visit in Shibuya (the collab is ran through August 17; you even get a clear card if you happen to buy a guitar there). If HEY had this much juice in their writing, I would’ve liked to have seen it occupy more of the run time.

Visually, the show kept the bar high through the end. There really isn’t a point I can say that the production skimped out. It’s visually compelling all the way through, which is fantastic.

The one thing that became more and more apparent is that these girls are bougie. Aside from their interest in pricey bottles of various forms of alcohol, they attend a prestigious college, have ample travel budgets, and namedrop seriously expensive fashion brands like Sakai and Margiela. Hell, when Ibuki borrows a friend’s car it’s not a decade-plus old hatchback, it’s a modern Mazda Miata. It puts the series in a realm of affluence tourism. I personally did not find that aspect distracting but I’m sure some have.

It’s hard to wrap discussions of the series without feeling like an important detail is getting filtered out. The story highlights are strong but the story is so lightly sketched that it feels more like an aperitif–not to mention that the storyline for tertiary couple Akane and Yaeka gets left hanging. It’s hard for me not to appreciate the craft that studio Soigne put into the series, and I beg that more Yuri works get this level of treatment; at the same time, only talking about its production and potent yearning glosses over the unevenness around its primary subject matter: drinking. But given the fanart and discussions I’ve seen about the series, alcohol is the least-discussed part of the series. I mean, I certainly had questions about it when the girls drank straight absinthe on more than one occasion.

All that said, I think the show is well worth checking out if you haven’t already taken a sip or two. What I hope it does most is broaden more viewers’ palettes for something with a bit stronger of a yuri kick.

(While I did not try to source a single drink that is featured in this show except for absinthe, it did reignite my interest in mixology which has been fun but a bit taxing to my wallet and liver.)

(Also, I cannot vouch for the quality of the cocktail described above. It’s probably terrible.)

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 8 
Service – 4
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Botan Kamiina Blossoms Fully When Drunk is (for now) still streaming on Crunchyroll.

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network. You can find him mostly reskeeting Yuri posts and sports takes on Bluesky @hyperartmarcussan.bsky.social