Manga artist Nanzaki Iku developed a fairly significant audience as a creator of doujinshi under the circle name Doropanda TOURS where she became best known for her stories about Shizuru and Natsuki from the Mai Hime/Mai Otome universes. These lovingly, and often explictly, rendered stories added the “after happily every after” chapters that fans craved in which their ShizNat were the item that they always knew they were.

In Sweet Little Devil, Iku takes her character types and crafts some original stories with them. This is her first full collection from Yuri Hime, but not the first time her work has appeared in a Yuri Hime anthology – her stories have been fixtures in all the Wildrose collections.

The first couple, Sayo and Ri-chan are most like ShizNat, but their personalities are not analogous. Ri-chan (the Natuski type) is older and Sayo (Shizuru type) is an admiring underclassman. They’ve been together for some time, so we’re spared the “girl A likes girl B” trope of Story A.

Their arc comes to a climax when, during summer on a night of fireworks, Sayo is forced to out herself and Ritsuko to an old school friend. Luckily, they both feel it was fine, before they have sex.

Have I mentioned the sex? This book is a series of well-endowed characters having sex, with some small plots woven between the sex scenes. Just so you’re not surprised.

The rest of the one-shots are either tiresome or pleasant depending on what you like. For me, the major positive of Iku’s work is that the characters really *like* one another. There’s no doubt that this is love, not just sex. It’s a small point, but an important one for me.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, but all pretty decent, so 8
Characters – Same
Yuri – 9
Service – 8

Overall – 8

If you’re looking for, or don’t mind, explicit stories about women who really like one another, (and one Story A story), I can definitely recommend Sweet Little Devil.

This is not the Fu-Fu you’ve been waiting for. This is not Minamoto Hisanori’s Fu-Fu. This is not a serious story about language and rights and perception wrapped in 6 layers of adorable-ness.

This Fu-Fu is the Fu-Fu that, in a series of 4-koma strips, flirts with saying something serious, but never quite does. This is Fu-Fu Dengeki 4-koma Collection (ふーふ―電撃4コマコレクション).

In this Fu-Fu, Furika and Fuyuta are the player names of two characters that met in an MMORPG. They became friends, and eventually were married in the game world. In that world, Furika is a cute bunny girl and Fuyuta is a handsome bird man. In real life, it turns out, they are both high school girls in the same grade at school.

The manga begins with some very affectionate displays of affection between them in public and their disbelieving classmates’ reactions. After an extended kiss, they’re asked, “Are you two lesbians?” Their response is, almost predictably, “No, of course not.” They then clarify that in the game, they are married, so this is obviously totally normal.

There is some space spent on classmate reactions. Predictably the boy representative is less concerned, although somewhat confused by the gap between their behavior and their words. A female classmate, Okada, is outright disgusted, which prompts the boy to say that it doesn’t bother him…he’s not sure how he’d react if it were two guys. Which then brings up a mis-timed reaction from a third classmate, male, about gay guys, implying that he himself might be gay…something that is quickly swept aside in denial.

And that’s about where it all stays in Fu-Fu.  Furika and Fuyuta are in love, married in the game, physically affectionate in person, but in no way are they lesbians.

This manga is a 4-koma, and the formula, while less obsessed with wacky humor than, say, Hyakko, or  Ichiroh!, is still meant to have a bwah~wah~wah~~~~ feel about it.

The second half of the book takes a slightly more serious turn, as Fuyuta (as we’ll continue calling her,) begins to get an inkling that her feelings for Furika are more than just in the game world. There are some awkward bits when she tries to push their relationship to deeper levels of intimacy, but fails, and even more when Furika won’t let her go when she starts to realize her feelings may indeed be “lesbian.” The book ends at a most uncomfortable moment, when Fuyuta lies to Furika about having a boyfriend, so this playing at being married must stop.

I’m not entirely sure what I feel about this book. It’s not serious enough to take seriously, it’s not silly enough to dismiss. Some real issues are touched upon, but not meaningfully, and the humor isn’t quite funny enough to carry the book.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – Starts at an amusing 7 and ends at a somewhat frustrating 7
Characters – I waffle on this, they are so inconsistent. Let’s call them 6
Yuri – Also inconsistent, 6
Service – 2

Overall – 6

It very much feels as if this started with an idea and suddenly had to develop a plot when it continued longer than planned. If a second volume is released, we may see a new direction entirely, as Fuyuta and Furika work through the gap between perception and reality. Of course, I hope they come to the gayest conclusion possible. ^_^