Archive for the Eleanor W Category


There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… LN 1

July 28th, 2025

A girl with blonde hair embraces a girl with pink hair, who looks uncomfortable about it. They wear the same school uniform skirt of black plaid, white blouses and red ties. The blonde wears a black blazer, as well.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

This series has been on my radar for a while, but with the anime now airing I took the chance to read the first novel, which is mostly covered by episodes 1-3 of the anime adaptation of the light novel There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless…, Volume 1

Content warning: sexual assault

Mai Oduka has it all. Money, good looks and brains. So when former loner Renako decides to reinvent herself for high school and go to a new school where no one knows her, she of course attracts the attention of Mai. Renako becomes part of Mai’s friend group, and is stunned when Mai confesses her feelings to her. Renako, however, just wants to be friends, so they set up a contest where some days they’ll try being lovers, and other days just friends. If Mai wears her hair up, it’s a friends day, if it’s down, it’s a lovers day.

I like the premise, it’s silly and a little bit of wish fulfillment for those who want to imagine how the other side lives and date the most popular girl in school. I just wish the author understood consent. There is one particular chapter in this volume where Mai and Renako end up in a hotel room because of course they do, and of course they end up naked together as well. I would describe what Mai does to Renako at this point as sexual assault. If you (supposedly) love someone, you listen to them when they say no. Granted, Mai does apologise later and says she got carried away, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

From this point, feelings start to get a little more messy. Mai tries to put Renako out of her mind, and hosts a private party to find a new partner. After a confrontation with Satsuki (another member of the group who has the potential to be very interesting), Renako dashes to find Mai and they quite literally kiss and make up. I must applaud whoever came up with the pun “friends with Rena-fits” at this point, as that’s how their relationship is going to proceed into volume 2. Not quite friends, not quite lovers. I do wonder if the reason Mai likes Renako so much is that she treats her relatively normally and actually says no to her, when she’s spent her entire life getting what she wants as soon as she wants it.

A potentially much more interesting development is Renako and Ajisai’s relationship. Ajisai is another member of the friend group, described as “the class archangel” but there seems to be more to her than just that. She has siblings who she has to care for and it turns out she’s also into video games, so while Mai is away working in France, Renako invites Ajisai over to play games with her. Renako has a little bit of a crush on Ajisai and does tell her that, so I’m interested to see where that goes, although I’d be very surprised if she ends up with anyone other than Mai.

Overall, this book is more complicated that it first seems. What seems to be a very shallow, over the top, harem-ish premise actually has some interesting characters in there. Renako’s reaction to being assaulted is also surprisingly realistic, she blames herself for not being firm enough with her boundaries and feels bad for slapping Mai. Girl, you are not the problem here. I was heartened to see that the most popular comment on episode 3 of the anime on YouTube at the time of writing was “The word of the day is consent”. Maybe there’s hope for the internet after all.

Ratings:

Art – 7 I do enjoy Eku Takeshima’s art
Story – 6 This would have been a lot higher if there was no sexual assault.
Characters – 7 So far the side characters are more interesting than the main couple.
Service – 6 A few illustrations but nothing too indecent.
Yuri – 7 It gets better as it goes on.

Overall – 7 I just hope there’s no more sexual assault in the next volumes.





My First Love’s Kiss, Volumes 2 & 3

July 10th, 2025

Two girls in summer Japanese school uniform, white blouses with robin's egg blue ties, blue skirts, sit on a floor under windows. In the foreground the girl with medium-length brown hair smiles as she looks at her phone, the blonde watches her with a dissatisfied expressionCW: Heavy spoiler and content warning. As with Book 1; Underage sex work is a prominent theme of this series, although nothing is explicitly described. But now with more incest!

To quote myself from my review of volume 1 “I’m not really sure what’s going on here.” 2 volumes later and I still have no idea what’s going on other than surprise incest. At the end of volume 2, “Chiki”, the older woman Umi has been working for, reveals she’s actually Umi’s long lost big half-sister. Was this necessary? No? Did anyone want or ask for it? Probably some creepy men (maybe including the author) and that’s why we’re here.

Book 2 of My First Love’s Kiss opens with Takasora secretly watching Umi and Chiki kiss in a park after she follows Umi to see what she’s up to, and because we’re trying to make this as cliched as we absolutely possibly can, Chiki takes not just Umi, but both girls to a hotel room for the night. Where of course Chiki suggests they all bathe together, and it all goes downhill from there.

The big reveal comes at the end of volume 2, and it just doesn’t seem to bother anyone other than Takasora, who we know doesn’t like Chiki anyway and almost seems to see this as an inevitable next step considering how terrible she thinks the relationship between them is already.

Two girls, one with blonde hair, the other with brown, wearing white Japanese sailor-style school uniforms with bright blue ties, lay next to one another, as they smile into the camera. The blonde looks at us, the brunette looks at the blonde

Volume 3 is just Umi (and all the adults around them) not even caring that it turns out she’s shagging her half sister, and of course they then run away together. It’s already been established that Chiki is wealthy so that’s not an issue. Takasora goes to visit them and Umi might as well just be a sex doll at this point, her hair is cut how her sister likes it, and what little of her personality there was is just gone. I still don’t understand why Takasora even had a crush on her to begin with other than her boobs, which are mentioned several times over the course of both books. Hino and Nagafuji from Adachi and Shimamura pop up at some point but their role is so minor that I can’t remember it and they might as well not be there so I can’t even recommend this to fans of that series on that basis.

It’s very rare that a book series actively makes me angry, but this one did. If you want to write “a love comedy involving an evil woman” (from the afterword of volume 3), then try actually giving your characters a personality rather than just resorting to the worst cliches and stereotypes. This isn’t even “so bad it’s good” car crash reading, this is just plain bad, and there’s nothing funny about any of it. The incestuous predator wins and nobody lives happily ever after.

Please, for the sake of your own sanity, read literally anything else and if you must read something of Iruma’s, read the Regarding Saeki Sayaka novels.

Ratings: 

Art – 5. I enjoy Fly’s art style but these series is nothing special. The covers are totally misleading as well, volume 3 especially gives the impression that Umi and Takasora are happy together but oh no, couldn’t be further from the truth.
Story – 2. If you can call it a story.
Characters – 2. Again, to quote myself from the volume 1 review:
I have come to the conclusion that his (Iruma-sensei) works are much more enjoyable when he’s writing about someone else’s characters instead of his own.
Service – I don’t feel comfortable rating underage sex work and incest as service.
Yuri – 0. Incest is not yuri.

Overall – 2 . I deeply resent having spent money on this. At least I was gifted the first 2 volumes of Netsuzou Trap so I didn’t have to spend money on that.





Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 2

June 20th, 2025

A woman with long hair leans over the shoulder of a woman with short hair. They wear the same teal color and accessories and it looks as if they are looking into a mirror.Having now read two volumes of Pink Candy Kiss, I have come to the conclusion that I need more josei yuri in my life, but perhaps maybe on a different theme than “married woman falls for another woman.” Although the premise instantly reminded me of Even Though We’re Adults by Takako Shimura, this series is definitely different enough to be worth checking out as well. It somehow feels softer and more delicate, less obviously dramatic than Even Though We’re Adults.

As Erica said in their review of volume 1, ““What am I feeling?” goes only so far to carry a story.” Whilst Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 2 does also suffer from this to a certain extent, we do at least get a confession of feelings from Taka, and Ema thanks her for telling her. So they’ve both realised they’re in love, but what are they going to do about it? Hopefully we’ll find out sooner rather than later. Unlike in Even Though We’re Adults, Ema seems to enjoy her relationship with her husband, but I get the feeling she’s not in *love* with him. How the story figures this triangle out will make or break the series and I look forward to reading more.

The last chapter takes us somewhere rather different. Taka visits a lesbian bar and receives some wisdom from an elder butch lesbian that yes, her feelings are totally normal because she’s in love, and it’s OK to be in love with another woman. What she will do about these feelings, and Ema about hers, remains of course to be seen.

Ratings: 

Art – I really like it, particularly the colour palette and slightly sketchy feeling.
Story – Lots of feelings. But the lesbian bar chapter is excellent.
Characters – I’m rooting for no one to get hurt. And for them to just kiss dammit.
Service – None. It doesn’t need it. This is a story about feelings, written by a woman for other women.
Yuri – So much yuri.

With thanks to Viz for the review copy. I will definitely be buying my own when it’s released.

Overall – 8





X-Gender, Volumes 1 & 2 (complete)

May 30th, 2025

A cartoon of an ungendered human with short dark hair close to their scalp, wearing white shirt, grey pants and brown boots, their arms crossed in front of them in an 'x' mirroring the white 'x' on a yellow background they are in front of.by Eleanor Walker, Staff Writer

Content warning: this series discusses topics including human euthanasia and suicide.

Perhaps inspired by the success of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and its sequels, Seven Seas has also published some other queer autobiographical manga, including The Bride Was a Boy and the subject of today’s review, X-Gender (性別X) by Asuka Miyazaki. X-gender is an umbrella term used in Japan to describe various non-binary and genderqueer identities.

This series is most definitely aimed at people who have no knowledge of LGBTQ+ or women’s health, as it was originally serialised under Kodansha’s Young Magazine umbrella, a seinen (aimed at young men) magazine. There’s lots of explanation of basic queer terminology which may seem superfluous for many readers of this site, as well as a chapter explaining periods, but probably needed for the average reader of Young Magazine. I hesitate to compare this directly to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, as I don’t really feel it’s fair to compare people’s real life experiences, but there are definitely some parallels to be drawn with the stories. Being queer can often be an incredibly isolating experience, and X-Gender tells the story of Asuka finding a community they can be a part of at local gay bar Poker Face, owned and run by a fantastic trans man known as “The General”, only to then have it ripped away from them by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Whilst volume 1 mostly deals with Asuka’s finding themselves as a newly out X-gender person, there’s a noticeable change in tone in volume 2. Japan and the rest of the world is shutting down due to Covid, and Poker Face, Asuka’s favourite IRL hangout, is closed. I did find this volume rather unfocused compared to volume 1. This is acknowledged by the author though, as they were finding life very difficult during the pandemic and lockdown. The chapters are much shorter, and there’s very little story continuity between them, they’re more like a set of short stories with recurring characters. I don’t like to criticise someone’s real life experiences when used as the basis for a story, but I do think that Asuka is a good visual storyteller, the panels flow nicely and it’s an easy read visually.

Gender non-specific person with short dark hair, striped button down shirt, grey pants and brown boots in front of a large white 'x' on a light blue background. They hold their left arm up making a 'V is for victory" sign, smiling, while their right arm is help in a fist at their right hip.Overall, I’m happy this series exists and was released in English. It’s a good introduction to non binary identities for those who have absolutely no idea what they are. (I am a cis lesbian with many non-binary friends, and I acknowledge this is not a substitute for actual lived experience.)

Obviously this is only one person’s story and the non-binary experience is vast and variable, but I feel like a lot of readers of this site can relate to the feeling of not belonging in society or not being comfortable in our bodies, as well as the isolation many of us felt during 2020. For the cishet men this was aimed at, I hope it can be an insight into a life that’s very different to your own, but ultimately a reminder that we’re not so different after all.

 

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6. This one is definitely best read a chapter or two at a time, rather than all in one go, especially volume 2.
Character – 7. The General is by far my favourite.
Service – 7. There are some fairly graphic descriptions of the author’s porn and sex preferences but nothing explicitly illustrated..
LGBT+ – 8

Overall – 7





Yuri Is My Job!, Volume 13

May 14th, 2025

A blonde girl wearing glasses in a dark-green dirndl-style uniform is surrounded and embraced by flowering branches. She grips the tie at her collar as if to protect herself.

by Eleanor Walker, Staff Writer

After the shocking events of volume 12 and the Okazu Staff’s first ever group review, Yuri Is My Job! is back with volume 13 and the aftermath of those events. Content warning for discussion of sexual assault.

As I hoped, this volume focuses on Kanoko and her past and, to a lesser extent, future. We learn, via a conversation between Sumika and Kanoko, how Kanoko became friends with Hime, and how her feelings developed. The best way I can describe this is that it all feels very realistically teenagerish. The not wanting your only friend to start going out with someone because then you’ll be all alone is certainly something I remember experiencing, although my best friend wasn’t the popular girl, unlike Hime.

Frustratingly though, Kanoko doesn’t seem to have moved on or learnt anything from the whole ordeal. She’s still obsessively infatuated with Hime and a complete doormat to everyone else, and although she says in the last chapter she wants to face her head on, to me the only way she can do this is confess to her, which she steadfastly refuses to do. I just want to shake her and tell her you cannot put aside your own feelings to make others happy, it will all end in tears like it just did with Sumika!! Her fear of romance taking her friend away is beyond healthy at this point, and she really needs help. Whether she will get it remains to be seen.

One thing I did appreciate is this page though, where Mai, in a rare moment of actually acting like a manager, says to Kanoko that even though nothing physical happened, she was still threatened and hurt. It’s nice to see the story acknowledge that (sexual) violence doesn’t always have to simply be a physical act but also a mental one. I’m still in two minds as to whether it was even necessary to begin with, but I am glad the author is taking it seriously in the aftermath.

5 panels of Yuri is My Jon, Volume 13 in which Mai explains to Kanako that even though she was not hurt physically, she was traumatized. "Someone *hurt* you, Kanako-chan, I'd say that's violence."

I can’t honestly say I’m enjoying the series at the moment, but I am interested to see how we move on from this arc. In the afterword of the volume the author says this arc should conclude in the next volume, but unfortunately, the series has been on hiatus in Japan for about a year now due to the author’s health, and at the time of writing, there is no indication of when it may return. There are 3 chapters which have been released in the magazine which have not yet been published in graphic novel form.

Whilst nowhere near as viscerally intense as the previous volume, to finish I am going to quote Erica from our volume 12 review:

“The question I am left with is…is this what we needed or wanted from Yuri Is My Job!?” and after this volume I’m inclined to think not. I can’t work out what the end goal is or where the story is going to go from here and I can’t help but feel the author may have written themselves into a corner they can’t get out of.

To be continued.

Ratings:

Story: 5
Art: 7
Characters: 5
Yuri: 6
Service: 2. Thankfully nothing nearly as egregious as the colour spread in the previous volume. One brief scene of Sumika getting changed but no details visible.

Overall: 5