When last we left former princess Deriana and former maid Josette in Wild Bouquet Volume 1, they were escaping from Deriana’s arranged marriage to the King of Akabansu, a kingdom of the Glorious Alliance in which romantic love of any kind is expressly forbidden.

In Wild Bouquet 2: The Name of the Flower That Dances (ワイルドブーケ想いを綴る花の名は,) they have ended up in a nearby independent country, earning money to continue the journey. That is, Josette is working to earn money, but she won’t let Deriana soil her royal hands. Deriana really *wants* to contribute, but Josette is having a hard time letting go of their difference in status. As part of Josette’s pay, the two have a pleasant little room above the pleasant little restaurant in which she works, in this pleasant little town.

Deriana spends her days at an archive, reading novels – including the illegal novels of romantic love written by the mysterious author “Lolipop.” At the archives, she meets a girl named Coriida, who is moved by Deriana’s beauty and grace. Despite wanting to be left alone to read, Deriana finds herself drawn into Coriida’s acquaintance.

In the meantime, Josette is befriended by the exceedingly eccentric woman who lives behind the restaurant. Bergamo researches the illegal topic of romantic love. When she pegs Josette for being “in love” with someone, she keeps asking for Josette to deliver her food, then asks her a ton of questions about this whole “in love” business.

However…Josette doesn’t know what being “in love” is – she’s not even sure that that’s what she and Deriana are! Having grown up in a world where any romantic love was forbidden – and same-sex love was completely unheard of – Josette hasn’t the vaguest clue what “love” is. At night, Josette still acts as a maid, brushing Deriana’s hair and washing her back in the bath. She refuses to share a bed with Deriana, until the former princess insists. For her part, Deriana is constantly trying to break down the walls between her and Josette. She insists on brushing Josette’s hair and washing her back, too and reminding Josette to just call her “Deriana.”

In town, there is a church. Separately, Josette and Deriana find themselves there; getting a tour of the building, meeting the occupants. They learn that Cyrano – the obviously bad guy from the first novel who turned out to actually be the psychopomp who saved them – is staying there, bound by some intense, undefined relationship with Miss Roush, the head of the church.

Josette is with Bergamo, and Deriana and Coriida are at the church, when Coriida – who has some past with Bergamo – suddenly wants to see the researcher. Deriana and Coriida walk in as Bergamo is about to show Josette what a kiss is (prompting me to ban all literature from my house that includes the line, “What is…kiss?”)

Not surprisingly, it turns out that Coriida’s actually in love with Bergamo and vice versa, so when Coriida runs out onto the street, Bergamo follows, leaving a flustered Josette to try and explain what was going on to a Deriana who is three steps ahead of her and not the jealous type. Deriana kisses Josette. Finally.

As she runs away from Bergamo, Coriida drops the manuscript she was clutching. Bergamo picks it up only to be immediately accosted by the police, who arrest her for being “Lolipop.” It’s no real surprise to learn that Corrida is the outlaw romance author; it was a marginal surprise to learn that the church was publishing the manuscripts and Cyrano was the one distributing the illegal novels to the world.

Coriida, Deriana, Josette, Cyrano and Miss Roush come up with an extremely overcomplex plan to spring Bergamo and get everyone safely back to the church, then get Josette and Deriana out of town two steps ahead of the law. Coriida and Bergamo make up; Cyrano is vaguely amused, Miss Roush seems vaguely annoyed by everything and Josette and Deriana run off together to continue their journey west and probably into a third novel. The book ends with a romantic kiss in the moonlight for our two heroines.

Why do I think there’ll be a third book? Because there’s a scene early on where Josette’s foster sister and commander of the Akabansu guard, Soliel, is organizing a search to find them. But nothing comes of it. So…book three. (Update: There was no book three.)

This novel was hardly great literature, but it had some good points. The best thing was Deriana. She spent the book trying to bridge the distance Josette kept putting between them – and when the kiss thing came up, she didn’t bat an eye. No histrionics, not even a twinge of irritating jealousy. She stepped right up and used the opportunity to kiss Josette. She was also totally game for helping out with the stupid plan to free Bergamo. It’s kind of expected that the hime-type character will be the haughty, annoying character, but I think I liked Deriana best.

The biggest downside was, that the night before I finished it, I read a Haruka x Michiru shousetsu, a fan novel. That story was equally as predictable as this one (Michiru loses her memory in an accident and has to fall in love with Haruka all over again, but gets her memory back when she transforms into Neptune…it was a totally “duh” plot,) but about 800 times better written – and pretty hot. So here I am reading Josette’s question to Bergamo, “what is…kiss?” and it made me want to stab something. ^_^; Because the whole “this is my first time – teach me” thing totally creeps me out. Thank goodness for Deriana not being equally as tedious.

In any case, unlike Volume 1, Volume 2 of this Yuri fairy tale met my minimum requirements for Princess and Maid love stories. ^_^ If you must read the whole series, fine, but if you want to pick one – pick this one.

Ratings:

Art – 6 (light novel, remember)
Story – 6
Characters – 6, Deriana – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 1, unless you fetishize “pure, innocent” feelings, then 8

Overall – 7

I’m a little worried about the creepy factor of Volume 3, though. I shudder to think we’ll have to read through awkward discovery of heavy petting. Ugh. FanBoy heaven, Erica hell.

Earlier this year, Ichijinsha, publisher of Yuri Hime magazine, announced a line of light novels for women – their “Iris” imprint. The line includes romance (straight, BL and Yuri,) adventure and fantasy stories. previously, I reviewed .(period), which was an Action/Yuri story…with little Yuri action. ^_^;

Today I’m reviewing the second Yuri title, Wild Bouquet, subtitled, “In This World of Unblooming Flowers.” This book was written at a slightly more difficult level of Japanese than I usually read, further complicated by it being a Fantasy novel and therefore containing words that were completely made up. Luckily for me the story itself was simple, and the book was better written than . (period). In the end, it took me not long at all to read the whole thing.

As I say, the story is a simple one – in a country where the sum and total of a woman’s existence is to be married, a Princess is brought to the kingdom to marry the King. She will live in the palace for six months until her 16th birthday, when she will become King Leonidas’ consort. Instead, Princess Deriana falls in love with one of her maids, Josette.

Josette is our protagonist. We learn a bit about her early life; she was given away by her parents to a noble’s family to become the companion to their daughter, Soliel. Soliel is now a captain of the guard, and Josette is a maid in the palace.

Like .(period), the Yuri in Wild Bouquet is formulaic. There’s doki-doki moments when they are called for and in the end it’s love – but there’s really no depth to it. First Josette likes Deriana’s company, then the next moment Josette finds herself sick with unhappiness at the thought of Deriana marrying the King, then they are “in love.” There is, of course, no physical compenent to this “love.” Josette does not want to jump Deriana, rip the wedding dress off her and have her way with her. She wants to “hold her close”. Maybe. The most romantic thing that happens between them is that they hold hands.

The plot, too, is a bit pat. Soliel was perfect for a jealousy subplot, but she only provides a moment of angst and in the end is on our side. The *obviously* evil character turns out to be our fairy godmother. I’d kind of like to know why she helped, too. All she says is “I have a reason. Perhaps it’s the subject of the next Wild Bouquet novel, I dunno.

The feeling I have is that this novel is not so much a “fantasy” as a “fairy tale.” As a Yuri fairy tale, it works fine. In fairy tales, the Princes and Princesses do not have bed scenes – or even hot kisses. They hold hands and ride off into the sunset. And so it is here. There’s nothing that would prevent me from giving this to an 11-year old whose interests were leaning lesbian.

My only complaint is that I really would have appreciated a kiss, at least.

Ratings:

Art – 7 (light novel, remember)
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 7
Service – 0, unless you fetishize “pure, innocent” feelings, then 8

Overall – 6

While it was an easier read than . (period), it was slightly more disappointing. Next time, I want the maid turned knight swinging-into-the-cathedral and saving the princess AND a hot kiss. Thanks.

Check out the review of Volume 2 for the end of the story!

You may have gotten the mistaken impression from reading these reviews, that I enjoy making a complete fool of myself in public, by laughing out loud and snorting in amusement while on public transportation, airplanes, waiting rooms, etc. This is not true – it’s just that, given the average quality of what I read and watch, I can’t help myself.

Which brings us to today’s review of a high quality lesbian schoolgirl killers Light Novel, Vanilla, A Sweet Partner, by Asaura. And special thanks to Anastasia Moreno for pointing me in the general direction of this work of “literature!” ^_^

Vanilla follows the lives of the totally deranged schoolgirls Kei and Nao and their guns. And the guns of everyone around them. And random gun information, because, you know – guns! Yes, the author is a gun otaku and since I am not particularly enamored of guns in my native tongue, other than the fact that Kei used a Beretta 90 TWO and Nao a Takami rifle, I can’t tell you a single thing about any of the weapons so lovingly described.

On the other hand, I can tell you all about Kei – she’s *crazy*. When we first meet her, she’s recounting how she bit a piece of her stepmother’s ear off, because the woman redecorated her real mother’s room. Kei basically spirals downhill from there – from selfish, spoiled and slightly volent to selfish, spoiled and insanely violent. At first I kind of assumed that she and Nao were professional killers who killed people they don’t like for fun, but no…they just killed people they don’t like because they don’t like them. Sure, the three guys who assualted them in the alleyway…but uh, hello, you were two defenseless girls in the alleyway late at night. Set-up much?

We have less info on Nao, but enough to know that her violent tendencies stem from chronic sexual abuse.

So, Nao and Kei love each other very much. Very, very much, they reassure each other a zillion times. They don’t like other people, but they love each other. This is good, because when Kei shoots her father and stepmother in the face in a public place, at least they have each other to rely on as they escape from the police.

Still very much in love, they hide out at their school, where a classmate offers to assist them, because he kind of likes them. But, ultimately, the police track them down and what follows is a long, drawn-out siege which ends with a shootout, but no deaths. Unless I misunderstood the end bit – which might have been the case, because I was a little fried when I read it.

So for Yuri, we get repeated protestations of eternal love and a bunch of kisses, and one implication of maybe some heavy petting – in front of a camera for maximum service. These two are in no way lesbian – but they are definitely Yuri.

Guns, insane, violent schoolgirls and Yuri – what’s not to like?

Ratings:

Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Oh and yes – it made me snort on the train. ^_^