It’s October, which means all my friends are finding virtual ways to celebrate Halloween. I’ve decided to join in with Ooooohhhh~~~kazu on Twitter. Every day I’m sharing a spoooooky review from the last 20 years of Okazu, starring witches and vampires and ghouls of all kinds. It’s not in order, because hashtags and threads are smart and I am not. Here’s a link to a Twitter search. ^_^

While I was collecting up 31 days of creepy reviews, I came across a news item I had bookmarked. Because of Ameko Kaeruda’s work we’ve talked a lot about Syosetsuka ni Narou, the free website for web novelists that has spawned a couple of new faves. But there’s also Yomuco, a by-the-chapter service where a number of novelists have paired up with well-known artists to created serialized-for-pay webnovels. Yomuco webnovels are also available on Global Bookwalker and Amazon JP Kindle. There are a ton of Yuri stories on Yomuco and I’ve been meaning to get to reading some for a long time.

Well, here I am reviewing a jaunty seasonal little story called Girls Love of the Dead, Shi ga Futari wo Waka..tanai?, (ガールズラブ・オブ・ザ・デッド <死がふたりを分か……たない？>) written by  Hoshii Nanao, with illustrations by Morishima Akiko.

The story begins on a dark and moonlit night, as Mitsuki decides she must leave her life behind…her beloved Rin is gone from this world and there’s nothing to live for. So she has come to this secluded old school building to die. Only, for a secluded place, it’s awfully full of…zombies!

Chased by zombies, Mitsuki finds herself in the art room, where she paints herself to look like a zombie. And so, Mitsuki finds herself in zombie school…sitting next to none other than her late lover Rin! Rin doesn’t remember Mitsuki, but that’s okay…Mitsuki says we have all the time in the world (since Rin is dead) but no, Rin only has 6 months of undead existence before her life force will dissipate! Mitsuki has to find out what Rin wanted to say to her before that or she will never know.

There’s a mystery in the middle of all the screamers. Rin was on swim team, so how was it even possible that she drowned and was never found? And who is the girl whose eye keeps rolling out? And why is there a school for zombies at all?!?

Tune in to Volume 2 to find out, because as of now, I have no idea. ^_^

This novel is very much formatted to be read on a phone screen, so is much like a VN, with about 3-4 of text lines per screen. Morsihima-sensei’s art is both fabulous and hilarious. For some reason all the zombies are blonde with golden eyes, which provide a splash of color in an otherwise gloom- and death- filled story. A cute death- and gloom- filled story, with adorable dismemberment and moe eyeballs rolling across the room. What more could you ask?

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 Goofy, might still be great
Characters – 7 Rin’s a bit deadpan, (hah)
Service – I don’t even know how to score this….
Yuri – 7 Well, yes, dammit. Even if they are a inter-biological couple.

Overall – 8

If you’re into horror Yuri, as befits the season, and want a little something that isn’t too challenging, is good for practicing reading, I think there’s a good case for webnovels generally, and Girls Love of the Dead, ‘Til Death Do Us Part…Not?, one specifically. ^_^

There is no one more surprised than I am that I’m here reviewing My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Volume 3 he Light Novel. Why? Because the Yuri in this series is 100% pure queerbaiting, written more lazily than one can countenance…and yet, it’s pretty enjoyable anyway. So here we are. ^_^

After Volume 2 and after the finale of the anime, Katarina is still in Magic Academy with her friends. Although Nicol has graduated, Sophia, Mary and Maria, Alan and Jeord are all at Katarina’s side to celebrate the school festival. The first half of the book is a description of a pop-up gourmet food and high-end goods town that passes as this absurdly weathly nobles’ school “festival.”

We meet Alan and Jeord’s older brothers…and their wives, which is going to clearly mean something at some point, because everything and everyone in this series is a gun on the wall. Katarina, despite her inability to remember the lines, is roped into playing an evil stepsister in Cinderella, so she draws on her memory of evil Katarina from the game and becomes a star actress. And then, she’s kidnapped.

I call the series “queerbait,” because while Katarina does go on at length about how charming and beautiful Maria is and how, if she had been a man, she’d have already asked her to marry her, and Maria’s machinations in order to stay near Katarina…and of course Mary’s open desire for Katarina…it’s only ever the men who get a kiss. I consider the writing lazy because every chapter’s dialogue, once written, can be used whole for the next, necessitating only rewrites for perspective. The most time-consuming part of the writing would be devising means by which Katarina explains away obvious, normal  behaviors through ridiculously convoluted contrivances.  These qualities might surely be flaws if this series were not obviously brainless fun from the get-go. But it is brainless fun, so one enjoys the obvious queerbaiting and takes to Pixiv to find art that does not make one wish to scream.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Not bad, per se, but not relevant either
Characters – 10
Story – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 0

Overall – 9

I’m in desperate need of entertainment that requires no thinking right now, so this volume totally hit the mark. 
I purchased this on Bookwalker Global, but it is also available in print and on Kindle from J-Novel Club.

I adore the cover of this volume, because we finally get to see the Villainess Katarina.

I just finished ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword!, Vol. 1 written by kiki, illustrated by kinta, out now from Seven Seas. Tl;dr  It was a fast read and overall, a good one. I will certainly read the next volume.

Flum Apricot was chosen young to be legendary warrior, but her “reversal” skill means her stats are always at 0. To make herself more useful, she provides food and backup to the team, but her cheerfulness and friendship with the other members makes wannabee team-leader Jean angry, so he has her snatched, branded and sold as a slave. Flum escapes with the help of her power and a cursed sword. along with the slave girl she recuses, Milkit. Together they set out to become adventurers to pay the bills. They find derision and antagonism at the Adventurer’s Guild, but together they overcome all the very bad odds against their survival and end up thriving.

Reading this brought up a lot of comparisons, as I have, over my years of reading obsessively, read an enormous number of books.  First, the opening premise brought to mind Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, in which protagonist Bink had a similarly extremely powerful and even more extremely annoying magical skill. And, indeed, the beginning seems a little like Xanth, if the focus had been on violent dismemberment and the panty shot obsession was just a little side gig. Because this book is heavy on the grotesque violence.

Which brings me to the second comparison. As you may know, I am fully all-in on the Locked Tomb fandom and obsessive about Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. So much so that I have actually considered making a Sixth House costume (which is, coincidentally exactly what I wear anyway, with a cloak and few more pens and a caliper in the pockets. It’s even the right color. ^_^ Find your own House here, but I’ve known I was Sixth since the first page. ^_^) In many ways, ROLL OVER AND DIE feels like a 8-bit freeware version of Gideon.

Which is not to say that it is a bad book, even though it might be pushing it to say that it is “Good.” It is heavy on the set-ups of violence against the persons involved who are mostly, but not exclusively, women. Those setups linger just long enough to be triggering if scenes of physical torture, dismemberment, mangling, rape and more general rapaciousness bother you – as they should. The premise makes it completely possible to kill your brain cells reading that and not feel much. In that, I think the author does the readership a disservice. It is one of my two main complaints about this book.

On the good side, the sexist and classist violence and disrespect the women face will not be the main plot, as it was in JK Haru is a Sex Worker in Another World. Equally in the positive column is that the women involved are team-building, in much the same way they do in Sexiled. The characters are relatively likable, and they work well together. The Yuri…well, we’ll get there…

The primary objection I have is that I am simply not okay with “men are vile sexist shitbags to women” as a world-building handwave. Yeah, we get it. Actually, we live it. We don’t need it described to us. 1 out of 5 women have been raped or experienced attempted rape, and 1 in 38 men. That means you absolutely, positively know someone who has been raped. Think of how many people you know. That’s a lot of sexual assault.  I can completely understand that conflict drives growth, and violence against women, and use of people as property are both low-hanging fruit for conflict, (and yes, rape and violence sure can be legit forms of fantasy) but without nuanced writing, this is just torture porn and I am not really here for it. On the positive side, many of the most egregiously vile scenes are cut short, and only the blatantly violent ones are left to play out. Still may not be to your taste, because it is pretty grimdark overall.

Again, on the positive side, not all men in this book are dirtbags. Flum and Apricot receive a lot of kindness from some of the men in the story and, as it goes on, I think there’ll be a balance, but a balance of extremes, on the one hand rapacious dirtbags and the other exceedingly kind and generous men. I hope that the men get to be more fleshed out as, so far at least, the female characters are.

So, let’s talk about the Yuri. Flum and Milkit definitely grow closer, slowly and pretty carefully. The relationship is just beginning to develop as the final scenes play out. It’s played for a very gentle kind of service at the end, but I can’t really complain. Milkit’s backstory precludes anything just happening spontaneously and, thankfully, it’s not handled in a hamfisted manner.

The art for once is pretty good, although we’re told repeatedly that Flum is dressed in sensible clothing and the art never once reflects that, which just pisses me off. Women look good in pants and boots, folks. Stop with the floofy dresses and bloomer-style shorts. At least Milkit’s stupid costume was given a story, even if it’s one of the least believable choices in the books. ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7 Grim and grotesque, but not bad
Characters – 8
Service – Mostly of the gross kind, with a bit here and there of dressing and undressing. The Yuri service is absurdly gentle as it has to be to work
Yuri – 4, but no doubt it will climb

Overall – 8

But Erica – you ought to be saying right now – you said that you had two complaints and you only discussed one. What’s the other main complaint?”

I look at you, smiling and say: Well, Milkit is a terrible, awful name, isn’t it? It’s just so bovine and miserable. But that’s not the problem. The main complaint is that Flum Apricot is the most enraging awful protagonist name ever. Flum? FLUM?!? Half my brain was screaming that “It *clearly ought to be Plum, not Flum!” and the other half was screaming “Yo, not better!” in an endless loop.

Horrible, horrible naming. Absolutely ugh-making. Flum Apricot. Enraging. I’m not blaming anyone but it set my brain on fire. ^_^

I genuinely enjoyed kiki’s author’s note and the dithering about the word count. I purchased this digitally on Bookwalker Global and was pretty pleased with the formatting, with loads of white space which made it easier to read.

Here are my pullquote suggestions for this book:

“When life gives fated hero Flum lemons, she picks up a cursed sword and makes *^$!ing lemonade.”

“Legendary warrior Flum and ex-slave Milkit are shining lights in the grimdark.”

“Roll Over and Die is a Funhouse Dark Ride of a novel; an energetic mashup of fantasy, horror and Yuri.”