I just don’t even…I…don’t…know what…/shakes head/

In R.O.D., Volume 10, Yomiko is sent by Joker to a fancy girl’s school to…something. She’s enrolled as a student, the main point of which is to get her in a school uniform. I gather this because it is mentioned about 8750 times that she is wearing a school uniform. At the school she finds a veritable book heaven. Books are everywhere, *all* the clubs are about reading and writing. Her roommate Kaku Izumi’s name refers to writing, as Yomiko’s does to reading. They become best friends.

There are a few disturbing things about the school – all the teachers are named Haga and they look identical. And while books are revered, romance novels, light novels and other light reading are forbidden. This means there are no books by Sumiregawa Nenene in the school. Heaven turns to hell instantly for Yomiko. But Izumi has one of Nenene’s books in their room. Phew!

Yomiko learns of the “Read Fight,” during which two girls read a book and are quizzed on small points of detail until one fails to answer correctly. Yomiko dominates Read Fight, utterly destroying the barely-in-existence-sanity of the champion, Mitsusei Utsuo. Mitsusei is also the chief dog and enforcer of the Student Council President, Kuniya Kino-sama, thus making their names two of the most tortured puns ever. (Kino Kuniya is easy enough to figure out, if you’re familiar with the Japanese bookstore chain Kinokuniya. Remembering that “mitsu” can also be read “san” and the character used for “Utsuo” is also “do”, instead of Mitsusei Utsuo, one gets Sanseido, another large Japanese bookstore chain.)

Kino-sama as Student Council president is beautiful, charismatic (we are repeatedly told) and prone to vomiting up blood.

…

With Izumi’s backing (who turns out to have a secret – she was the former Vice President) Yomiko runs for Council President and, after corruption in the count is uncovered, wins. As President, Yomiko gets the key to the secret book room, fights off multiple Haga-senseis and retrieves whatever Joker sent her there for. The end.

Aside from clone teachers and a Student Council President that vomited up blood, what made this volume particularly hard to read was the intrusive presence of the author, who not only made aside comments to us, and talked at Yomiko within the narration, he actually inserts himself randomly in two places. The first is an utterly pathetic aside in which he tells us he’s at Anime Expo 2004 in his room working, watching girls playing volleyball outside his window. Later there is a second scene in which he gets a text message on his phone.

These, and oh, the fact that two volumes ago the story was left hanging, unresolved, made this a particularly irksome read. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 4 I think it’s getting worse
Story – 7 It might have been okay as the second book of the series.
Characters – 7
Yuri – 0
Service – Other than the frenetic repetition of “Yomiko in school uniform!” – 1

Overall – I can’t even….

Do you remember the Monty Python album named Contractual Obligation? This book had that title written all over it.

As Volume 9 of R.O.D begins, Yomiko Readman and the head of Dokusensha, the woman known as China, are flying through the air on one of Yomiko’s paper airplanes, when the mountain that held the Dokusensha headquarters explodes.

Joker, having heard no word from Yomiko or Nancy for days, learns of the explosion and tunes in by satellite. When he sees that the “explosion” is an eruption of paper flowers, he gets the message from Yomiko loud and clear.

Yomiko and China enter the woods around Dokusensha HQ, only to encounter Ou-En and the 4 sisters and learn, belatedly, that Gentleman was seen at Dokusensha HQ. The news is received with solemnity, as it is accompanied by the news that Gentleman has slaughtered many of the Dokusensha members and destroyed HQ.

While sitting around the fire that night, trying to convince the sisters that she doesn’t have any intention of harming China, Yomiko learns that Ou-En feels affection for her – she remind him of his sister and of a previous lover. As they share their stories, they are joined by a tall, strapping and very naked man…Gentleman has arrived.

Nancy spends an important interlude with Drake’s team undressing and dressing in her normal bondage-gear outfit.

Meanwhile, in India, Nenene and Wendy are doing something. I’m not sure what, because they were on their way to China, but hey, whatever. While Wendy is out, Nenene reads more of Donny’s diary.

Donny recounts the time just before the British Library moved to its current location, when he’s begun meeting up with Yomiko at random times at the BL. Her 16th birthday is approaching and he promises that he’ll celebrate it with her. But Joker sends him out of town that day – and Donny doesn’t have Yomiko’s address or phone number. He runs into her later, and as he’s apologizing, a voice over loudspeaker invites them into the new BL. They take a private tour of the new location, shepherded by Joker’s voice, eventually finding themselves in the King’s library, surrounded by the original manuscripts of some of the world’s greatest literature. Yomiko says that this is like a dream, at which Donny asks her to dance. Alone in the King’s Library, they dance, while paper flowers rain down upon them.

When Yomiko asks for a kiss to make her night complete, Donny blows it completely and kisses her on the cheek.

So, with two novels to go, we really still don’t know much about the Gutenberk paper, Donny or Gentleman or Joker or Dokusensha or Nancy or, really, Yomiko.

Ratings:

Art – 4 Almost every picture was carefully crafted to skeeve me, except the one of Donny kissing Yomiko, which was just awkward.
Story – 7 Had some good bits and some less good
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 8

Overall – 7

More Yomiko and Nenene dammit!