Archive for the Series Category


Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou, Volume 12 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

May 21st, 2026

Cover of Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou, Volume 12 / 私の推しは悪役令嬢。Story by inori., art by Aonoshimo. Surrounded by white lilies, a young woman with long blonde curls, in a red fatasy-style school blazer and dark blue skirt with voluminous white petticoats, turns towards us as if to curtsey, her blue eyes and smile very gentle.The end draws inexorably nearer, in Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou, Volume 12 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) Salas holds the Revolutionary Government in his hands, while the Provisional Government lead by Dole and the nobles seem intent upon driving the commoners to rebellion….

…which was the plan, Rae finally admits to Claire. Claire finally learns that everything Rae and her father have done is to save her, and all she has to do is stand with the Revolution. But Claire is a noble through and through. And she’s always been the “Villianess,” willful and obstinate. Claire turns herself in to the Rebel forces, know that she is going to die. 

Rae becomes despondent. Everything she has done, all the allies she has made, has failed to save her love. But those allies are stronger than Rae knows, and when Misha gets into her face and say, “hey you’re not the only one who gets to interfere with friends’ love lives.” And then a wild card shows up and suddenly, we have hope once again. 

 Watching Salas manipulate everyone (and gloat about it) is enraging, but as horrifying as it is, we must acknowledge that Dole was, in his own way, just as manipulative. It’s easy yo see him as a good guy masquerading as a bad guy, but…he also was, genuinely a bad guy, too. 

This is a powerful and deeply emotional volume, then sets up all the pieces for Rae and Claire to face one another from opposite sides of a philosophical gap for the final time.

Ratings: 

Art – 9 Aonoshimo’s art is wonderful.
Story – 10 This is still one of the best climaxes in Villainess media
Characters – 10 Claire practically grows wings here
Service – 1 A kiss. A sad, bittersweet kiss.
Yuri – 10

Overall – 10

Based on the timing, I expect this to go about 14 volumes, unless there is a coda…which I hope there is. Let’s not forget to write Comic Yuri Hime and ask for more!





Roll Over and Die: I Will Fight For an Ordinary Love With My Cursed Sword, Episodes 4-12

May 4th, 2026

Main visual for Roll Over and Die anime: 2 girls are in the foreground, the one on the left has apricot coloured hair, the one on the right has silver hair and is wearing a maid's uniform. Other characters appear in the background

By Eleanor W, Okazu Staff Writer.

This review contains spoilers.

When we left Flum and Milkit at the end of episodes 1-3, reviewed here on Okazu , a man called Leitch has asked them to retrieve some illicit herbs to turn into medicine for his sick wife. Remembering that the Church has outlawed such magic, they are joined by Sara, a nun who is willing to defy Church law. While searching for the herbs in a cave outside of the city, our main antagonist Dein, (the man who tried to trick Flum and kill her when she first came to the Adventurer’s Guild looking for work) collapses the entrance, leaving Flum and Sara trapped inside.

If you didn’t enjoy the first 3 episodes, then there’s nothing here for you. As I suspected in my previous review, there is more to the Church than meets the eye, but I was pleased to see it built up in such a way that we gradually learn more as the show goes on, rather than just a massive infodump all at once. An abandoned underground laboratory proves to belong to them, and Flum’s name appears in the papers left behind. Flum reunites with Eterna, a witch from the Hero’s party who quit after an argument with Jean, and is furious when she learns that Jean secretly sold Flum into slavery. Dein and his men continue to pursue Flum, and a new character, a blind girl named Ink, joins the group, as well as some other former members of the hero’s party.

Dein is not the greatest antagonist ever created. He is revealed to be a pawn of the Church and gets a disproportionate amount of screentime for how ultimately inconsequential he is as a character, before he is finally killed by Flum in episode 11. I feel the show would have been much more interesting if Flum and the group had gradually built up to fighting Origin as the final boss, but it may be that the anime just wasn’t able to do this in the 12 episodes available so I don’t want to judge too harshly on that basis.

Artwise, the same dark moody colour palette as in the first 3 episodes prevails. Some character designs are more interesting than others, and most of the budget seems to have gone on the gore, particularly (CW) the torture scene at the beginning of episode 12.

There’s lots of potential directions the story could have gone in, but ultimately I did enjoy this version of it, including Flum and Milkit’s relationship. I liked that the show isn’t shy about making their feelings for each other clear. This is about two girls who desperately need each other and desperately want to protect each other and that’s what they do.  Whilst it does lean on the ick and gore a little too much in places, the setting is still interesting enough that I’d watch a season 2 if it gets made (there were potential threads left dangling to set one up) and I’m curious to read more of the novels too.

Overall, if you’re looking for something in the “kicked out of the hero’s party and wants revenge” genre that’s a little different from the norm with some genuinely nice relationships between the characters, I’d recommend giving this one a go as long as you can deal with the gore.

Ratings: 

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 6
Service – 8 if you enjoy gore, 5 if you don’t care for it.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 7

Eleanor has been a fan of anime and manga for over 20 years, and has several thousand volumes to prove it. Since discovering the original Seven Seas translation of the first 2 Strawberry Panic! light novels back in the early 2000s, they fell down the Yuri rabbit hole and never looked back. They can be found around the Internet under the handle st_owly, and live in Scotland with their wife and 2 cats.

 

 





Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 5 (山田と加瀬さん。)

April 9th, 2026

Two young woman stand before background of colorful cat face silhouettes, cups and toothbrushes. The taller, with dark brown hair wears a brown bear sweat jacket with ears on the hood. The short woman with collar-length blonde hair, wears pink and white stripes sweater and a white cat ear Alice band, as they hold toothbrushes and bathroom cups.There are several extraordinary things about Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 5 (山田と加瀬さん。)  that I want to call out. 

First, this series has been one the most persistent works I have ever read. It “should” have ended several times; when Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari was cancelled after a respectable 4 years and when the initial series ended on Web Hirari. Instead of becoming an interesting relic of Yuri history,  Takashima Hiromi-sensei kept drawing.

The Kase-san series moved to the online edition of Wings and then to the print edition of Shinsokan’s flagship magazine. It’s even been the cover series. Kase-san and Yamada graduated, moved to Tokyo are going to college…and now they are living together! This volume makes Takashima-sensei’s 10th volume of the series.  All of this is just…amazing. Not miraculous, though. I believe that Takashima-sensei just works hard at the series and keeps it thriving.

In Volume 5, we turn to Yamada who is living her best life…a little too hard. In her desire to buy beautiful things for her . and Kase-san, she is pushing herself to her limits. This choice ends up hurting Kase-san unintentionally. Thankfully, Yamada realizes that her failure to prioritize her time in the right ways is her own fault and they make up, agreeing to prioritize their time together. It’s almost nice to be annoyed by Yamada for something other than low self-esteem. ^_^

Kase-san and Yamada are entirely relatable than in this volume and there’s no sign of the jealousy from previous volumes, just the small day-to-day adjustments we make as a couple. 

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 9
Character – 9 
Service – eh, 2?
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

So congratulations to Takashima-sensei for this 10th volume of the Kase-san series, which still bears the Hirari comics imprint – which is the last notable thing I wanted to point out. ^_^ Still carrying the Hirari torch, 12 years later. How incredible is that?





Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta, Volume 4 (気になってる人が男じゃなかった)

April 2nd, 2026

On a vivid green background, a woman with dark hair in a sleeveless top holds the cords to earphone in the ears of a woman with lighter, longer, wavy hair,, as they lean in close to one another. While Volume 4 of Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta, Volume 4 (気になってる人が男じゃなかった) was one of the most-anticipated manga to arrive in my house, it’s also something that both my wife and I are following online, so we are more or less tuning in, rather than seeing it “finally.”

Volume 4 finishes the “prom” arc, in which Mitsuki and Aya finally give up any pretense of “maybe.” If you haven’t been following along on any of Arai-sensei’s social feeds, then all I want to say about this is…it’s a good kiss. ^_^

And then the story turns towards life after high school with short, but critical time slip after graduation. Again, if you haven’t been keeping up, you’ll get to see a much more masc-presenting Mitsuki who is working on her music with a band, and Aya who has committed to a career in translation. Joe makes a huge decision for himself, as well. 

In many ways the second half of this volume is a wholly new story, about two young adults building their new adult lives and their relationship. Old friends are still part of those lives, but new people are joining the cast as well. 

I’m going to re-read this volume at least once more in Japanese and will be looking forward to it when Yen puts it out in English. There’s no release date at time of writing, but I’m hoping for it in early summer. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters  – 9
Service – There’s a valid argument about the prom outfits as service. But as for salaciousness, 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9





I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 3

March 11th, 2026

Two people in Japanese style school uniforms, one in boy's uniform, one in girl's uniform, their head on their knees, sit on a school stairway.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

We have now reached the penultimate volume of Umi Takase’s I Wanna Be Your Girl, and having also reviewed volumes 1 and 2 here on Okazu, this one is definitely the weakest of the three. One thing this series continues to excel at though, is portraying teenagers realistically. Hime is still headstrong in her convictions and her determination to protect Akira. Akira, meanwhile, just wants to be treated like one of the girls and be noticed by the senpai she has a crush on. At the end of volume 2, we start to delve into another character’s back story. Hamuro is another student who has a secret of his own. He cross dresses as a maid while working at a cafe near the school, and it’s revealed that he’s not trans like Akira but cross dresses to support his younger sister Momo who was bullied for being too cute.

I don’t really feel Hamuro adds very much to the story, and the whole starting cross dressing because your sister was bullied just seems a little too out there, especially for a seemingly cishet teenage boy. Fortunately, it’s not a big part of this volume. What we get after Hamuro though is something I’ve hoped would happen since volume 1, and that is Sasaki-sensei’s backstory. I mentioned in my review of that volume that “It seems though, that there is more to the teacher than first meets the eye. He sits Hime down for a talk one day, and it’s strongly suggested that he’s gone through something similar regarding identity in the past” He now reveals in a conversation with Akira that he is aromantic, and how he has suffered from not meeting society’s expectations too. I’m glad we got this segment, especially since in the afterword the author mentions that he was only supposed to appear briefly in chapter 2.

The rest of the volume is just more of what we’ve already seen before, Hime and Akira continue to misunderstand each other, side characters are used as sounding boards for the main characters to talk about their feelings and we’re not really any further forward with their relationship either.

I Wanna Be Your Girl is still an enjoyable series and I’m very glad it exists, but nothing new really happens in this volume, especially when compared to the previous two. I’m optimistic though that everyone will get their happy endings in the next and last volume, and I’ll be reading it to find out.

Ratings: 

Story – 6. This would be a point lower if we didn’t get Sasaki-sensei’s backstory.
Art – 6.
Characters – 7 Hamuro and his sister are unnecessary.
Service – n/a
LGBTQ — 10

Overall – 7 but again, probably an 8 if you’re a confused/closeted queer teenager looking for something to relate to.