Archive for the English Manga Category


Rainbows After Storms, Volume 2

March 10th, 2025

Having met them in Volume 1, in Rainbows After Storms, Volume 2 we get to learn a bit more about our protagonists Chidori and Nanoha. We learn about their likes and dislikes, how they met and started to date, and about their friends, a little.

In some ways we’re in a relationship with them ourselves, and can think of this volume as a second date. In Volume 1 we decided we kind of like them and want to see them again. Now we’re ready to learn a bit more. Chidori had long hair and a previous failed relationship. Nanoha is afraid of lightning and very embarrassed about it and shares the sweets she makes with her friends.

This is not a dramatic story. Both Nanoha and Chidori are low-key nice people. Their friends are, as well. These are just a couple of nice kids and we’d like to see them be happy. When I reviewed Volume 2 in Japanese, I chalked this up to Shonen Sunday not being ready to have nuance (or romance) yet in their Yuri. I stand by that, 5 years later. It’ll take a while for both Shogakukan and Nanoaha and Chidori…bu they’ll all get there. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 1, mostly on principle

Overall – 7

I’ve added a point to my original review because I know this series sticks the landing. ^_^ Enjoy this gentle series by Luka Kobachi now, from Viz Media! Volume 3 is on the way in April.

 





I Want To Love You Till Your Dying Day, Volume 1

February 27th, 2025

In front of a ruined wall and a bright blue sky two girl in blue Japanese-style school uniforms hold hands and smile into the camera. The taller girl, with wavy blonde hair has a bandage on one cheek. The smaller girl, with long, lush punk hair flying in the breeze, holds a wildflower in her hand.Did you read The Promised Neverland and think “I wish this had more yuri?” If so, I Want To Love You Till Your Dying Day, Volume 1 might just be the series for you. Newly available in English from Kodansha USA; “Love blossoms amid bloodshed in a new enthralling dystopian yuri manga.” This series began in the printed Comic Yuri Hime magazine in 2018 but has subsequently switched to an online serialisation via the Yuri Hime Pixiv site. 8 volumes are currently available in Japan, Kodansha are aiming to release the first 5 volumes in English by October this year.

Content warnings: gore, child soldiers including deaths of.

Set in a mysterious orphanage where children born with magical talent are trained as weapons to be used by the military in a war against an unknown enemy, thoroughly average student Sheena wakes up to find her roommate has been killed in battle the previous day. Any short lived excitement about having a room to herself is almost immediately snuffed out when a strange new student arrives. “Mimi” is rumoured to be a secret weapon, immortal and under the supervision of the mysterious school nurse. Now however, she has been assigned to Sheena’s class and is her new roommate. Gone are the days of blending into the background as this curious new student has latched on to Sheena and captured the attention of most of the school as well.

This is very much a volume of exposition. Lots of threads are dangled, but I am interested enough to stick around and see where this is going. Unfortunately, Mimi does precisely nothing for me. I’m not a fan of the naive loli murder machine schoolgirl trope, and she is mentioned to be 10 years old at one point which is just a little on the ick side for me. Sheena is much more interesting to me, and at this point I’m more invested in her since she seems like she might actually die at some point. She clearly struggles with using magic and fighting, and to me that just makes her more real and human than the overpowered 10 year old who can just kill everything in her path with little resistance and a smile on her face. I’m also very interested to learn more about Ari and Seiran, 2 side characters who are implied to be a couple.

Overall, there’s more to like than dislike here. The magic adds a bit of a fantasy twist to the scifi story and hopefully all the threads in this volume will gradually come together as the series progresses. I will be reading the next volume to find out.

Ratings:

Art – 6.5 Perfectly adequate Yuri Hime house style.
Story – 6.5. At the moment, I’m more interested in the scifi than the yuri.
Characters – 5. Mimi is currently the least likeable character for me. I hope her backstory will make her more interesting when it’s revealed later on. And I wish she was older.
Yuri – 2. Some clandestine hand holding between side characters and kisses disguised as CPR/magical revival.
Service – 3. The mystery nurse with gravity defying breasts is as much as we get. Thankfully no Made in Abyss vibes here.

Overall – 6 but with potential.





Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing, Volume 4

January 29th, 2025

A wolf girl in a trenchcoat, laden with packages, smiles as she is pulled along down a street by a sheep girl in a cute denim jacket and fluffy pink skirt.In volume 3, we saw Aki confess both her feelings and her concerns about their ability to make a relationship work to Momo, and Momo saying it was her problem to deal with convincing her family and the world. So they are now officially in a relationship! Even if no one can know… but those close to them can probably guess.

In Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing, volume 4, we have Momo sneaking in affection for Aki in every spare moment, and a bit more on Aki’s back story. Kiku overhears Sakaki discussing their past, and that Sakaki might like her? Momo and Aki go to a book signing of Momo’s favourite author, who looks a bit familiar? Finally, a new recruit making friends with Aki sparks jealousy in Momo.

We finally get a bit more on Aki’s past, although it’s still somewhat vague – she ‘lost everything’, but we don’t really learn much more than that. We also see her first romance, and how it failed because Aki couldn’t communicate her feelings well. I actually appreciate that both of the leads have experienced love and loss of that love before, though in different ways, which informs their current attitudes towards their relationship. Ruminating on how her passiveness and inactivity ruined her previous relationship, it spurs Aki on to be more proactive in this one, albeit you can still tell it’s difficult for her. That said, she’s still not good with saying her feelings directly – something that will be addressed next volume, given the ending.

The foray into Sakaki and Kiku’s back story was nice to have, and honestly fits them both pretty well. It was actually interesting to see the difference between the rural discrimination versus the non-issue her white fur (possibly albino) is in the capital, where there are all sorts of animals and it doesn’t stand out. It felt a little simplistic that one person’s acceptance means more acceptance in a small community, but maybe it can be that simple? I don’t know, honestly.

I’m not a fan of jealousy plotlines, but I guess they had to have some sort of cliffhanger (more of a mild bump in the road really, this will have nothing but a happy ending and possibly something like a wedding judging by the Volume 5 cover). It’ll be solved with a conversation I’m sure, which will be in the next one: the fifth volume will be the last one, and it’s coming out in a month or so, so not long to wait. Then fluff. All the fluff. Possibly some fluffy sex.

Ratings:

Art: 8 – fluffy as always!
Story: 5 – plot? What plot? All fluff.
Service: 1
Yuri: 10 – yuritopia ahoy

Overall: 7

As usual, enjoyable, pleasant, pretty unremarkable. Given the start of the series and Momo’s comments, I’m guessing the service quotient on Volume 5 may way go up.





Becoming a Princess Knight and Working at a Yuri Brothel, Volume 1

January 22nd, 2025

A blonde woman with extremely large breasts that spill over the top of a leather corset, her gauntleted hands tied above her head to a sword on her back, kneels on the ground wearing leather garters and stockings over visible underwear in a medieval-type street. 4 women behind her regard her with differing expressions: ignoring, glaring, smiling and saluting.Guest Review by Paul S. Enns, Guest Reviewer

Becoming a Princess Knight and Working at a Yuri Brothel, Volume 1, by Hinaki, has a better story than you’d expect.

It’s a mashup of isekai , yuri, and gender bender. Like many isekai stories, there are some RPG-like elements dropped in for doing tasks and gaining ranks. It’s easy to consider these elements as part of the main character’s imagination.

Every character name has been translated into Latin, and provides an additional level of interest/humor. I will provide translations into English in parentheses after the first use of their name.

Lillion (lily) herself/himself is our protagonist. The soul of about-to-die, 38-year-old Naruse Soushi is thrust into the about-to-die body of Princess Reina (queen). Instead of the defiant, not-afraid-to-die Reina, it’s now the quite-afraid-to-die Soushi who begs to live. This is granted and she (the pronoun I will use to refer to Soushi-in-Reina’s body) is sold to a brothel. The brothel’s Madam, Acanthus (genus acanthus are plants with spiny or toothed leaves), renames Reina as Lillion for the duration of her stay.

Given it’s in the title, no surprise, the brothel services only women. Lillion tries to adjust.

Lillion provides most of the humor, thanks to Soushi being inside. Soushi also allows Lillion to endure the many humiliations Princess Reina wouldn’t be expected to get through. Or would Reina be able to endure these? We can’t know. It’s part of the problematic nature of the character.

I can’t really fault Lillion for the actions she takes in the book. Trying to get along in a new world, she is doing the best she can.

Who I can find extreme fault with is Precarie (precariously), the one who removed Reina’s soul and grabbed a random soul from another world to replace it. What is Precarie’s endgame here? What happened to Reina’s soul? Why is Precarie so interested in Lillion when Precarie knows that Reina isn’t in there? Too many unanswered questions.

After Lillion deals with Lady of the Moon (I’m disappointed this wasn’t translated to Domina Lunae), Precarie, and Alsea (sea), she faces the threat of Lapis Rufus (red stone, or ruby, associated with love and passion), Captain of the Vigilante Corps.

I’ve summarized enough and will stop, except to say that it doesn’t have an end and goes right into Volume 2.

While I have a problem with all of the characters, the world building done for this captured my interest. Hinaki obviously has a destination in mind for these characters, and has created a world to tell an interesting story. Just with lots of sex.

By accepting the premise, you accept the level of service. It’s part of the plot.

Translation is well done. Making all proper nouns into Latin words was a fun addition.

Ratings:

Art — 8 I can tell every character apart, and it has well done backgrounds.
Story — 8 Held my interest the whole time.
Characters — 4 Problematic, especially Precarie.
Service — 7 for how explicit it is, 10 for how much there is.
Yuri — 9 It gets a point knocked off for Lillion being occupied by a guy’s soul.

Overall — 7

This was way more entertaining than I expected it to be. I’m going to continue reading this story. Volumes 2 and Volume 3 are already available, Volume 4 releases March 4, 2025.





Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing, Volume 3

January 8th, 2025

A wolf-woman in a butler's suit tucks a sheep girl in a fluffy bed surrounded by pastel colors and stars hanging from the canopy.by Luce, Staff Writer

In Volume 1 and Volume 2, we met and got to know Aki, a Wolfa butler, and Momo, a Sheepa princess. Momo was clearly interested in Aki, but even now that Aki has realised how she feels, the gap between them feels too wide for her to bridge, and with talk of marriage on the horizon…

In Sheep Princess in Wolf’s Clothing, Volume 3, we see the end of Momo’s birthday party, and Kunya leaving. Momo realises that she missed Aki’s birthday and does her best to celebrate! Bluebell, Momo’s maid takes ill, and the only person Momo would be comfortable taking over is, of course, Aki! The full moon comes around again, and Momo knocks at Aki’s door? Finally, with encouragement from Kiku and Sakaki, Aki finally tells Momo that she cannot reciprocate her feelings due to their differing social classes… How will Momo respond?

This manga is quite hard to review, as it’s generally just… pleasant. I enjoy it, but there aren’t many particular things to discuss – the art is cute, suitably fluffy when it needs to be, and good at making the characters look good. I like the interaction between Aki and Momo, especially in this one as Aki loosens up a bit. There are two sections that were notable in this volume though, both fairly brief.

There is a short moment at the start where it seems that Kunya may rat Aki out for her feelings… But it turns out she’s a huge fan of royalty/servant pairs, and just wants the details. Phew. I’m glad that she didn’t turn out nasty. I’m not sure her portrayal is necessarily the best representation, as there seems to be a flavour of the ‘exotic foreigner’ to her, but she is contrasted with the other character of colour who broke Momo’s heart and causes her to shut herself away, so at least she’s nice. (Upon a reread, I noticed there is another maid who is a person of colour, so there are a few).

The second full moon scene is something that probably needs a bit of a caution – when Aki refuses to let Momo in, as she knows that her emotions are harder to control, Momo orders her to let her in. Even if Momo is fully aware of the kind of thing that will happen if Aki loses control, and even wants it, it feels like an abuse of privilege, and not very fair to Aki. They don’t really get anywhere with it, as Aki shows enough control and escorts Momo back to her room, but I feel like it’s only fair to be warned about it.

Finally, I’m glad that Sakaki (and Kiku) manage to talk Aki out of separating herself from Momo, due to her perception of the difference between their social classes being too high to overcome. It’s always classed in fiction as some noble ambition to not hurt the other person, but really, walking away like that just means protecting yourself from seeing the hurt that you caused.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that Momo is elated that Aki says that she loves her. As she points out, Momo is the one who will have to persuade her family to accept it. In fiction, the power differential doesn’t seem so big, and I hope that they can make some kind of relationship.

Art: 8
Story: 6
Service: 4 (mainly in low cut dresses and maid uniforms)
Yuri: 8 not sure a man has been named on page yet. More on the ‘yuritopia’ end of series. Everyone has a crush on another woman it seems.
Fluffiness: 10

Overall: 7

If you enjoyed the previous volumes, you’ll likely enjoy this one! Volume 4 came out in November, hopefully the review for that will be done a bit quicker than this one!