“We are having a well-balanced symbiotic relationship.” 

This week, it was my sincere pleasure to announce the new venture by GL Bunko, who are  releasing Yuri Light Novels in English and Japanese on US Kindle. The first foray for this venture was GIRLS KINGDOM 1 & 2, by Nayo with illustrations by Shio Sakura, translated by Momoko Saito. 

The story follows Misaki, a student entering Amanotsuka Girl’s School. As she jumps the wall to make the entrance ceremony, she’s discovered by a beautiful student who asks her to confirm that she doesn’t want to become a maid. Easily enough confirmed, Misaki finds that she has actually agreed to be Himeko’s maid because, in this school there are only girls in the Socialite course who are rich and girls in the Home Economics courses who vie to serve them as maids. 

Misaki, enrolled in the Home Economics course, doesn’t want to be a maid and Himeko, who is a Socialite, doesn’t want a maid, so they agree to pretend to be maid and mistress. And it all works out. 

Except that Misaki – who doesn’t want to be a maid – is not great at all the maid things she’s expected to learn. And her roommate, who wants desperately to be a maid, is envious to the point of mania. Kirara begs one of the Socialites in order to become her maid, so a test is set in which she  – and Misaki – will prove their fitness to be “Seraphs,” maids who serve the Socialites, for a promise of a maid’s job after graduation. (Other students agree to become maids for the duration of school only, as “Exousia”*.)

GIRLS KINGDOM 1 & 2 was a lot of fun, with some important reservations. The art is satisfactory but, as might be expected, illustrates scenes that might not need illustration. Of these, the illustration of the first part’s climactic moment was the most satisfactory.

The translation is not polished. It’s not incorrect, per se, but it’s not grammatically correct English, either. Everything in the book is completely understandable, but the individual phraseology is sometimes strained or fantastical. On the other hand, some of those phrases end up being brilliant, such as Misaki describing the Socialites as “surreallistically wealthy.”  The book also needed a bit more proofreading, as small typographical errors are frequent.  

Adjacent to this, the story-telling is the kind of overblown tropes made so popular by years of derivative “girls’ school Yuri” narratives, such as Strawberry Panic!. So, along with the maid/mistress plot, we get the pleasure of an extended scene of buying underwear at exorbitant prices, so we learn – in detail – that the wealthy girls are surrealistically wealthy and all about the underwear Misaki is wearing. It’s critical to the plot though…is a thing I’ll never say. ^_^;

A climactic “battle” of table manners fill the final pages of the book. If you did not already know how to eat escargot when you begin this book, you will by the time you finish. 

I don’t want to say “nonetheless” but, nonetheless, given the book’s technical and narrative shortcomings, I enjoyed it immensely. I say that with all sincerity.The unpolished translation actually served the comedy aspect of the book well. What might be less beneficial if the book were to have been a drama worked here…presuming that this was meant to be a comedy. If this book was meant to be taken seriously, (as some reviewers on Amazon JP do,) then maybe it didn’t work so well. But one can never really tell with reviewers, can one? ^_^ 

Yuri was confined to a fantasy ideal of maid/mistress relationships, but Himeko and Misaki are kind of cute together. This book is firmly in “parting the gauze curtain” territory of girls’ behavior. There is no reality here, in setting, speech or behavior.

I had a lot of fun reading this novel, despite the underwear (what is it with Yuri novelists and underwear? It’s not that interesting, folks) and random groping scenes. There are 7 parts of this series available in Japanese, of which this is 1 & 2, as stated in the title.  I will definitely read the next one in the series. 

Ratings:

Overall – 7 Not “good,” per se, but very enjoyable.

Thank you very much to the folks at GL Bunko for the review copy.

If you have picked this up, I will be very interested in your thoughts in the comments! 

*Because I can’t help myself, I learned that Exousia (ἐξουσία) is a feminine Greek noun meaning “conferred authority.” But you know I thought of Exodia from Yu-Gi-Oh every time I saw it.

Last spring we had the pleasure here on Okazu of reading a Guest Review by Mariko S on Mikagura School Suite Anime. In that review the protagonist, Eruna, was described as “an unusual/interesting heroine …. She is that rare anime heroine who has absolutely no lack of self-confidence. She always thinks she can handle whatever happens, and when she loses or someone is nasty to her she fights back with jokes and smiles and energy. She doesn’t mope or cry once. …you can’t help but love Eruna.”

This got me feeling hopeful, so when One Peace Books sent m a copy of the first volume of the Light Novel series, Mikagura School Suite: Stride After School, I happily made space for it on my to-read pile. And now have I read it. 

What a strange Light Novel. ^_^; The author is credited as “Last Note” which seems fitting.

The book appears to be a prequel to to the anime. We begin by meeting Ichinomiya Eruna, the aforementioned confident protagonist. But what may appear to be confidence in the anime turns out to be something closer to delusions of grandeur with a side of unhinged in the LN. But never in a bad way. Eruna just has a selective memory, which rarely includes most rational deductions based on normal external stimulus. If Eruna were to be reaching for a hot coal, and you screamed “Don’t touch that!” she’s likely to assume that you mean, because she’ll have a magic power that will make her unable to feel their heat. That kind of “confidence.”

Eruna is a generally lazy, unmotivated person. Eruna is also interested in girls. She choses the school entirely because of the beauty of the girl in the catalog. But when she goes to take her exam (running extremely late) she is basically alone in a room. The exam, which she has been told is really hard, isn’t. And she still sucks at it. Nonetheless, she’s accepted. This quickly becomes a pattern…no one explains anything, Eruna, too delusional to realize she’s missing info asks nothing useful and fails to be even remotely competent…and still she gets into the school. She’s told only that she must join a club, that all the clubs are culture clubs and they battle. The battles determine the student’s status in the school. We and Eruna are told these things about half a dozen times and by the end of the book, we know nothing more than that. Thanks, Eruna.

Because Eruna is the protagonist, of course she’ll be fine, but I have to admit a couple of times I wanted to put her through a wall. In any case, it was a good exercise in being inside the mind of a character I couldn’t cope with at all. ^_^

The art by Akina is blocky and kind of appealing, in a way I’m finding it hard to describe. It’s sort of Pixiv-y or fanartish, maybe?

Ratings:

Story – 7 Silly, goofy, contentless wackiness
Art – 7
Character – 5 Everyone is in on the school except Eruna, so no one explains anything
Yuri – 4 Eruna is absolutely into girls
Service – 0 Not really

Overall – 7

So with all the wackiness and nonsense, would I read the next book? I think I might, if only to see if anything about the school is explained at all. It was an entertaining, if occasionally vexing, read. Thanks to the folks at One Peace for the review copy!

It only took me 5 years to finish GIRLS UPRISING, the collaboration between science fiction writer Fukami Makoto and illustrator Kazuaki. The story ran inside the cover of the 2011 reboot issues of Comic Yuri Hime, and the illustrations captured my attention. Unfortunately, I found the small type and weird color choices of the original an actual barrier to reading.

When the story was printed as a collection in 2014, I snapped it up…only to find the type just as small on pages about the same size as the magazine. That meant four 2″ tall horizontal rows of vertical text per page. My intentions were good, but it was just a hard book to read, physically. And the story (which is rather messy) didn’t make it compelling. It kept falling to the bottom of the pile.

And now I’m here to tell you, for once the reviews on Amazon JP and I agree. This book is not Fukami’s best work.

In a post-apocalyptic world, at a school for girls where the discipline/security committee assures the students’ safety by carrying around lovingly described guns, we end up following a character so unlikable I actually waved goodbye as she headed off to certain death.

Chisato and Kotono are gun-bearing members of the disciplinary and student council.  They are best friends and lovers. Kotono is a bit moody. Chisato is a jerk. She leaves Kotono for Sayaka, then proceeds to be a jerk to her, too. Kotono finds solace in the loyalty of her vice president, Megumi. And while we spend oodles of time following these young ladies arguing and buying bathing suits, a completely different story is happening across town.

In the tower across town, lives an evil scientist, Musaki Origa and her lover/guinea pig Hyouko. Hyouko is cared by for by the android Chanel who predictably, is the 5th of her kind. What, exactly, the experiments are for, are vague. Something about an elixir of youth, but really, it’s just torture porn. Hyouko is determined to escape from the tower. Chanel, who seems to have fallen in love with her, is willing to help.

Somewhere else in this war-torn town in which shopping malls that sell bikinis and bottled water still exist, another girl, Tatsuki, meets and saves a girl in a wheelchair, Kiriko. Tatsuki, we learn, was Kotono’s former lover.

As an aside, I always find it a little silly when high school aged characters speak of “long ago” or “former lovers” as if they are 47 instead of 17. ^_^

Tatsuki relays to Chisato that her sister is the girl in the tower and Chisato tells Sayaka that her only true love is her twin sister, Hyouko. She runs off to save her sister/certain death. Bye, Chisato! You’re a jerk! I said, waving. But, no, Sayaka, Megumi and Kotono head after her.

In a crappy no-malls or bikinis part of town Chisato saves a little girl from rapists, but they are both captured by the bad guy pedophile who had never been mentioned until now, who wants to rape the girl. Chisato and the girl, Midori, are tortured a bit, then the guy’s hands are blown off. The cavalry has arrived. We kill all the bad guys and… the book ends.

Um, but what about Hyouko? Dunno. She escaped but…

This story, which was originally presented as a series of standalone chapters just didn’t work all that well with the new, final, messy chapter. In retrospect, the only two chapters that worked on their own at all were Hyouko’s story “Rapunzel” and Tatsuki and Kiriko’s brief flash of happiness.

Kazuaki’s illustrations still hold up well enough, but the novel just felt forced and fetishy without any of Fukami’s typical skill in weaving a good story.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 5
Characters – mostly 6, but Chisato was a jerk – 3
Yuri – 9
Service – 9 Practically nothing but

Overall – 6

Making the unlikable Chisato the protagonist was a terrible idea. But there were still decent moments. So not unreadable, just not great.