Choir (ちょいあ!), Volume 1 was an easily forgettable 4-koma manga centered around otaku activities of a bunch of girls who hang out and do otaku stuff together. It had a Yuri romance and, at the end of the volume, Shousei and Mayuko are indubitably a couple.

I know I read Volume 2, but did not review it here. I believe that was because in Volume 2 the fanservice switched with the Yuri, so that Yuri was pushed to the background and moe lolicon cat-ear-wearing became the focus. In fact, I cannot remember exactly what happened during Volume 2, which is always a sign that it wasn’t very good. ^_^

In Volume 3, Yuri and fanservice collide in a massive matter/anti-matter explosion of drama without content. Given that the premise of the series is “a bunch of girls hang out” and the drama is “they all want the loli” it gets pretty tired, pretty fast. Complicating factors for me is that Shiroyuki and Shousei look so similar that I have to keep checking which one is with Mayuko at any given time.

In the other Yuri affair going on, Mawata is a inconsiderate Dom to Kyouko’s very sensitive Sub, and I found myself repeatedly frustrated and annoyed at the way Mawata treated Kyouko. When Mawata consented to pay attention to Kyouko, they weren’t a bad match, but quite inexplicably, Mawata insisted on pursuing Mayuko.

The tedious fanservice is at red-alert level. If naked moe loli cat-ear-wearing girls is high priority for you…this is the book you’ve been waiting for. They all go to a hot springs so they can be naked for many chapters.

The drama is mostly “everyone in the series pursues Mayuko,” who also drove me crazy with her inconsistent affections. She was not a particularly riveting character and seemed to be appealing to everyone only because she was the loli. In every way she’s just…annoying.

Mayuko and Shousei end up still together although I have to be honest and say, I don’t know how. Shousei is practically a non-entity in this volume and Mayuko treats her terribly. In my review of Volume 1, I wrote, “Mayuko appears to find it amusing to string Shousei along, then push her away. (Run, Shousei, run! Don’t do it!)” and I stand by those words here in Volume 3. Shousei will be better off after she graduates and finds someone less of a tease than Mayuko, Shiroyuki will be better off with anyone than Mayuko, and Kyouko will be better off with someone other than Mawata.

Ratings:

Art – 3, unless you like moe loli with characters that are hard to identify
Story – 6 It’s situation comedy.
Characters – 5 After repeated “treating their partner badly” scenes Mayuko and Mawata drop down to a 3
Yuri – 8
Service – 9

Overall – 6

Isn’t Lesbian Drama hi-larious?

College student Maki meets and clearly falls for the new student on campus, Kanna. But, like a good little lesbian, she prefers denial to pursuit, even when her best friend, Lilia, pushes her to make a move. Thus begins Rikachi’s Ibara no Namida (いばらの泪 ).

It’s very apparent to us and Lilia that Maki is attracted to and intrigued by Kanna. But, for whatever reason, she just can’t seem to make that move and, as we and Lilia watch, she loses Kanna to another woman without having said a word. As Maki suffers, Lilia suffers twice as much, because – it is apparent to us from the very beginning – Lilia is in love with Maki.

Miserable from her loss, Maki thinks back on previous aborted relationships she’s had and, we learn that this Maki is in fact the same Maki as Hiromi’s best friend from Sora-iro Girlfriend. We relive Hiromi’s and Juli’s relationship from the point of view of the best friend who was cut out of Hiromi’s life by a jealous girlfriend.

After moving on to a new school, Maki meets and becomes friends with Lilia. She also meets a very cool, popular and fun classmate, Yuki. Without realizing it, Maki starts to compare Yuki to Hiromi and slowly, finds herself interested in the other girl. Lilia warns her off, but it’s not until Maki learns Yuki’s secret that she gives up.

Which brings us back to the present. Maki is mourning having yet again lost a girl without ever having her, but Lilia is trying to fill that space in her heart. So caught up in her own issues, Maki is inadvertently heartless to Lilia. And then…Lilia disappears.

Maki suddenly realizes the extent to which she had been selfish and inconsiderate to Lilia – and she realizes just how self-absorbed she’s been all this time. Although she’s been friends with Lilia since high school, Maki realizes with shock, she knows just about nothing about her. A handwave meeting saves her and off she runs to make it up to the best friend who has been by her side for all these years. The story ends with the retelling of Sleeping Beauty as the Princess wakes the Princess with a kiss and they live happily every after.

The final chapter is from Lilia’s point of view, expressing her desire to wake Maki from her Sleeping Beauty phase and make her aware that there was a princess willing to wake her with that kiss right in front of her all along.

While I did not love Sora-iro Girlfriend, I very much liked Ibara no Namida. There’s no doubt that Maki did far, far better for herself than Hiromi did and Lilia was all kinds of sympathetic and likable in a way that Juli never was. Lilia played the lovesick best friend in love with the lovesick best friend, a take on that particular trope I’ve never seen before. I found it kind of charming. And this story was set in college, which appeals to me more than a high school setting.

Maki made it a little hard to like her, being at first apparently wimpy, then serially kind of pathetic, but I find that at the end, I felt she and Lilia felt more three dimensional than anyone in Sora-iro Girlfriend.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 9
Service – 1

I’ve always had a softer spot in my heart for Sleeping Beauty than Romeo and Juliet, and I’m always pleased when the Princess wakes the Princess with a kiss. ^_^

Last year, Ichijinsha announced that the Yuri Hime Wildrose series would be undergoing a name change. And so, the Girls Love series was born. Japanese bloggers had some issues with the title, due to the missing apostrophe in the English-language title. Most of them weighed in with a preference for Girl’s Love, but I think I probably would have used Girls’ Love, if I was going to insist on the apostrophe. It’s all moot because Ichijinsha didn’t ask any of us and so, Girls Love it is.

More importantly, the question I had was, was the newly re-named publication going to be better (or at least different) than it’s predecessor?

Unequivocally, the answer is…no. Girls Love is the same kind of “Plot, What Plot?” porn shorts that I found almost entirely unappealing in Wildrose. As I read stories by Rokuichi, Mikuni Hachime and other Comic Yuri Hime regulars, I thought a bit about what, exactly, kept me from enjoying the stories in this series. I mean, these folks are pretty popular and I like some of them. So…what is the problem?

Upon reflection, I’ve come up with two distinct issues that I have. Neither is true for every story, but one or the other is true for most.

The first is – the art. In many cases, I find the art to be actively unappealing. Some artists that are popular with other readers, absolutely utterly fail to be sexy to me. When the stories are merely meant to frame the sex, this is problematic.

Secondly, and again, I realize that your mileage may vary on this but, quite often I find the way the characters maul each other to look, well, painful, rather than sexy.

Either one of these can kill a story for me, and together they kill most of the stories in the book. Combine this with the unfortunate tendency of most PWP stories to pretty much suck as stories and you basically still have a book that wastes a lot of talent for very little return, IMHO.

That having been said, this volume had a few stories that were notable for one reason or another.

“Junjou Playgirl” by Asagi Shinobu has a typical setup of quiet girl getting seduced by the school playgirl, but she turns the tables on her seducer in a rather cute way.

Morishima Akiko’s “Omoidasu Musubi” was sweet, a little melancholic and I wish there had been a resolution, rather than a fadeout.

“Yume Miru Yoake” was just…I don’t know what it was, but I liked it anyway.

Saida Nika’s “Amai Namida” was also another same-old setup, but I liked the ending quite a bit. It almost had a feel of after happily-ever-after.

Like all the Wildrose volumes that came before, it’s not like every story sucks, it’s just that after I’ve read them, very little sticks in my brain and too much of the sex looks uncomfortable and painful for it to be fun to read.

Overall – 6

Welcome back to the melodramatic world of Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi! （野ばらの森の乙女たち）In Volume 1, we met heroine Hatsumi, her best friend Sakura, who enter a prestigous girl’s school together where they meet the Top Star couple of the school, boyish Izumi and her partner, perhaps lover, Mayuko.

Hatsumi has developed strong feelings for Izumi and, after Mayuko leaves Izumi at the party, is spending a lot more time with the charming, otokoyaku-ish Izumi as Volume 2 dawns.

But something is not right here at Otoha Girls Academy. Students who were previously pleasant to Hatsumi, or ignored her as another first-year, are starting to pick on her. And the bullying is getting bad, rather quickly. Izumi rescues her from some of it, but that makes it all the worse. Sakura rescues Hatsumi as well but, when Hatsumi tells Sakura that she’s in love with Izumi, Sakura yells at her, saying that she’s grossed out by it all and runs off. Not only does she stop talking to Hatsumi, she moves out of their room, leaving Hatsumi open to even more bullying.

The bullying stops when the girls all report back to Mayuko, how they’ve taken revenge on Hatsumi for stealing Izumi away from her and Mayuko tells them off. But this is only because Mayuko has other plans…. Mayuko convinces Sakura to help her.

That night, in a somewhat convoluted scene, Mayuko tries to seduce Izumi into making a formal promise in the chapel, but is rejected because, Izumi says, Mayuko rejected her when she asked previously. Izumi can see that this is some kind of set-up and sure enough, Sakura and Hatsumi were there to see it. Izumi tells Mayuko that if she’s going to make a vow with anyone, it’ll be Hatsumi, and Mayuko, in what was a stellar moment of bad judgement, throws herself out the window…which is only one story up, so instead of killing herself, she breaks an ankle.

Hatsumi is still seeing Izumi and trying to get a clue about Sakura so, she decides to have it out with Mayuko…which she does. Big time. Mayuko throws stuff at her and she hauls off and slaps the upperclassman across the chops, instantly rising in my esteem.

Back at school, Hatsumi appears to have clued in finally and decides that the one she wants is Sakura, while Mayuko and Izumi reunite and make up, along with protestations of love all around. The End… Only, it’s not!

There’s an omake chapter about Mayuko and Izumi’s childhood together which was both annoying and funny and a second chapter, which leads into the story that will be collected in the third volume.

The series has been moved to Nakayoshi Lovely, the seasonal special, but a third collected volume has been given the go sign. This time we will be following “cool” (distant, unfriendly(?)) Fujitani-san and a mysterious beauty. Whoo~~

When you read this series, read it slowly, no more than a chapter every few days. Weekly would be better. Savor the melodrama, the tears, the slaps, the sensuality of the scenes, the thrill of Izumi in glasses, etc. etc. It’s a silly story, still very much the child of Yuri that has gone before. To all the little girls who are reading this series and thinking that Izumi is pretty hot – welcome to the club, kid, have a seat I’ll pour you an orange juice. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 9
Yuri – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 9

I have to admit to a teeny bit of squeeing over this series, because the idea of a whole new (really new!) generation of Yuri fans makes me very happy.