Archive for the Artists Category


Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 3 ( 私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

January 27th, 2022

In Volume 1, Oohashi Rei, found herself waking in the world of her favorite otome game and free to pursue the villainess of the game, the highborn noble, Claire François. In Volume 2, Rae begins to worm her way into Claire’s life, turns out to be overpowered and adopts a baby water slime that she names Relaire. (I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 2 manga in English hit shelves yesterday! So you can read that for yourselves.)

In Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 3 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。),by inori, with art by Aonishimo, character designs by hanagata, Rei and Claire, along with Rei’s roommate Misha, the princes of the game and other students compete to become members of the Academy Knights, the school’s student council.

The first half of this volume is filled with the battles for these positions…and they give us a better idea of the skills and styles of our main players. I will venture a small spoiler – they all get in to the Knights.  Having been made part of the Knights, Claire and Rae head out into their first task  – solving a late night mystery!

The final half of the book details the Knights’ preparation for the Founder’s Day event, the Royal Academy’s school festival.  The Knights settle on a gender-switch cafe and we get to enjoy the prices dressed as maids, and Claire, Rae and Misha dressed as butlers.

All of this is charming and wonderful, but I’m going to share my favorite panel of the volume:

Look at Thane playing with Relaire in the background! Isn’t that squee-worthy? ^_^

This kind of thing is why I genuinely love the manga. It’s the same story as the novels, but with little details thrown in that really just level it up. Aonoshimo-sensei’s art really adds points to what is already a fantastic story.

Because I bought this volume at Melonbooks again (in order to score an awesome acrylic standee) it came with this lovely insert. There is a comic on the other side in which they play dress down with Lene.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 9
Story – 9
Service – 4 Dressing and undressing
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

 

I’m currently reading Ichijinsha’s brand new print version of the first novel, Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou ~Revolution ~, Volume 1 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。-Revolution-) and I’m not tired of this story yet!

 





I’m in Love with the Villainess Light Novel, Volume 4

January 17th, 2022

When we left our heroines in Volume 3, they were in the Nur Empire, and we have had any number of massive plot points set up. So, of course, the first half of the book deals with literally anything else.

I love the first half of the book so much. ^_^

In the first half of I’m in Love with the Villainess, Volume 4, Rae and Claire will be dealing with important things like a cooking contest, getting dresses for a grand ball, solving two murder mysteries, and opening a forbidden box. There will be discussion of rights and lives for for sexual and gender minorities. And they will, presumably, also be going to school.

And, then, in the second half of the book, our Heroines of the Revolution, will jump willy-nilly into another fraught political situation and shepherd the world to a shape we could not have predicted. But, because I am in Rae’s position (in a meta sense – she knows what will happen in the narrative up to the end of this novel and I know what will happen afterwards,) I also know that none of it may matter. But that is for Volume 5. I cannot *wait* for you to read Volume 5.

Chapters here are short and move quickly, whether they are serious of silly, which means that both serious and silly items have an equivalent weight in the overall narrative. And, indeed, some of the stuff that is silly, will come to be serious in time.

One of the major concerns I had after reading Volume 3 in Japanese was the twins. They are savants, clearly, but in different ways. Volume 4 goes a long way to sorting their paths. I hope, after inori-sensei finishes her current work, which I hope you will all be able to read in published format soon, she takes a look at the twins when they are taking after their mothers in high school, causing societal upheaval.

hangata’s art has visibly improved since the first novel, but this book still favors character over scene, so we have a lot of straight-up character portraits with little scenery.

It will come as no surprise that I love Dorothea with all my love. Competent, impatient, not prepared to suffer fools, the only thing wrong with her is her disinterest in food. That’s a fatal flaw.  Aonoshimo-sensei, the artist for the manga recently shared their version of Dorothea and I just completely lost my mind – just perfect. ^_^

So, you’re all set up now with the world as we know it. You’ve met all the players, you’ve learned about Dana, Melica and Kiko. And you are ready for them all the return home. Volume 5 does not have a release date yet, but my gut says it will be late summer, based on the release dates of the rest.

I read this on Bookwalker because I did not want to wait – the paperback will be released in late February.  Overall, it is a good adaptation but, I have one teeny weeny quibble.  Sorry. I know translators have hard jobs and I’m not angry or anything and probably no one but me cares. I just …could not cope so I made a meme. ^_^ I will keep this meme, and probably use it endlessly for the rest of my life, because “translating” itadakimasu into another not-English language is my personal path into madness. My head screams “Why!?!?” every time I see it.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – 4? Suggestive commentary, dress-up and Rae slavering over Claire.
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10

Overall – 10

Overall, this was everything was as fun and memorable as I hoped and I am now waiting for Volume 5!





Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu! Volume 9 (私の百合はお仕事です!)

January 14th, 2022

When Miman-sensei created a series about a concept cafe based on a popular novel series about ‘S’ relationships at a mission school, I was hooked right away. I honestly would never have believed we’d be 9 volumes into it and still ongoing…and still amazing. But here we are. Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!, Volume 9 (私の百合はお仕事です!) is an endless series of small delights and mortifications. ^_^

Having finally settled the major drama (but not the minor, daily, drama) between Mitsuki and Hime, we turn our eyes to the senior figure at Cafe Liebe, Sumika. Her character at the cafe is both bookish and suggestive, cornering her cute schwester to make her blush. In daily life, Sumika is said to be a bit of a gal, but I’m not convinced, honestly. Nonetheless “gal-sempai” has been a bit of mystery to us. We know her one desire is that everything stay the same at the cafe, and we know why – her first little sister was stolen by another member of the cast. Nene, the former little sister, thinks Sumika’s version of the story is full of horsepucky, but it is true that she’s moved into the back of house since.

Sumika has been obsessed with trying to get Kanako to stop obsessing over Hime, so far unsuccessfully. And now Sumika has another problem…she’s starting to have raunchy dreams and romantic thoughts about her reluctant little sister.

And all of that is about to come to a head when the woman who stole Nene from under Sumika’s protective wing shows up at the cafe! What does Goedo Youko want?

This volume was amazing, from beginning to end. It had everything, suspense, drama, fakey romance, real….something, if not romance, then what? And a new back of house employee which gives is the brilliant opportunity to ask all the cast what the S-style sister relationship means to them. When Shinooka is debriefing with Mai, she says that her favorite definition comes from Sumika who says that it is “A Romance, with the romance taken out.” I can’t imagine it better said.

Miman-sensei ends the volume with process discussion, which is always enjoyable and now, as soon as I am done with this, I’m cracking open the next Comic Yuri Hime, so I can see where this new arc is headed. And you will get to read Yuri is My Job, Volume 8 in March. Trust me, there’s a lot to look forward to!

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

A fantastically unpredictable volume from a series that never stops surprising me.





Fuzoroi no Renri, Volume 5 (不揃いの連理)

January 4th, 2022

Mikanuji’s Fuzoroi no Renri, Volume 5 (不揃いの連理) continues as a  smorgasbord of miscellaneous relationships between various couples.

In this volume, we take time to expand on a few previously established couples. A mangaka and her editor who bond in their game world, take their relationship into the real world, and it turns out it works rather well.

Two women meet in university and everything just works beautifully.

Minami has Iori now, but Shizuka remembers when they had no one else to rely on but each other. She’s not ready to move on, but Minami seems so happy now, Shizuka finds it hard to not be jealous…and she’s maybe not winning that war. The epilogue spends time with Minami and Iori and their happy life together and, finally, we see Saori reminding Shizuka that there is someone there waiting, if she cares to look.

The art here is primarily cute, emotional and sweet. The couples are living in that world where expressing one’s feelings is fraught, but the real world considerations that make that true, are absent.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8

As a light snack of happy Yuri couples in Mikanuji’s cute art style, this volume is sweet treat.

No author’s note this time, but the book came with a comic on cardstock as Shizuka has a smoke while chatting with Minami.





Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 3 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ)

December 2nd, 2021

One of the defining characteristics of an adult life is facing setbacks. You can work really hard, gambare with all you have and still not achieve the goal. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s just life. In Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 3 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ), its both.

Sakuma and Wako work very hard to achieve goals and sometimes is just doesn’t work out. But that is not the point of Volume 3. Of course, it is part of the plot, but what makes this, like the previous two volumes, work is not what Sakuma and Wako do…but how they do it. And how they very much do it together. This is not a happily-ever-after type story. This is a two people who love each other very much, live lives and eat meals and sometimes life is a step forward and sometimes it’s a step back.

I would gladly read this series for decades and watch these two look at each other like that and be there for one another. ^_^ This series is not about Yuri tropes, like Ikeda’s Whispered Words, it is not about office romance, or relationship melodrama…it’s a wonderfully told and drawn story about two decent people making their way through the world and us rooting for them rooting for each other. ^_^

Oh, and their friend gets some sex, finally.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Service – 5 Light nudity
Lesbian – 10

You’ll get to read this series in April 2022, when Seven Seas releases Volume 1 of The Two Of Them Pretty Much Like This, which is already available for pre-order through this convenient Amazon affiliate link.

In the meantime, get yourself someone who looks at you the way Sakuma looks at Wako.  ^_^