What’s not to like about a manga called Butler Girl and Senorhita? (English translation provided by the book cover, so don’t bother correcting me.) Well, sadly, in the case of Shitsuji Shoujo to Ojousama (執事少女とお嬢様) there was way more not to like than one might reasonably expect.

When I opened it up, I had already violated a few of my sanity-preserving expectations rules. I expected it to be light-hearted, I expected it to be fun and for some reason, heavens knows why, I expected it to have a good plot. Probably because of all the potential plots *I* might have chosen, most of them were fun and light-hearted and a fair number were good. So when I started reading and the plot immediately bogged down into depressing and emotionally torturing, I was not pleased. Nor was I amused.

Hinata is a nice, slightly lazy girl whose parents run away to another country to avoid a debt, leaving her behind. She’s offered a position working for the family that sponsors the elite girls’ school she attends, by the chairwoman of the school. She’s not thrilled but, it’s be a maid or live on the street, so Hinata agrees. Unfortunately, she’s a) not going to be a maid and b) not working for the lovely and cultured chairwoman, Tsugeyama Saori. Hinata is going to be a a) butler and b) be working for Saori’s younger sister, star of the school, Saki.

Even more unfortunately, while at school Saki is lovely, gracious and cultured, at home she’s a spoiled, tempermental brat with a sister complex. Hinata is thrown to this wolf, who quickly sees a chance at making someone with no power to fight back miserable…and does. Saki is horrible in every way she can imagine.

At the point where she drags Hinata in wearing long butler morning coat and a collar and chain, I really almost stopped reading. Shades of Maria + Holic and abuse of the weak as “comedy.” Ick.

I will says this for this book, every time it got *just* on the edge of intolerable, it pulled away quickly and found a not-horrible way to solve the problem. It was apparent that the creator had a strong sense of where that line was and why it should not be crossed. Nonetheless, the story kept veering close to that line, over and over. And over.

At school, Saki wants no one to know about the whole butler thing, but still insists that Hinata serve her…which makes it look like they are too close for comfort. The story comes out so at least Hinata’s best friend knows and can help them to preserve the farce.

Saori’s butler, Haruna (also female), tells Hinata that her Number 1 priority is to love her mistress and with that, Hinata works hard at not trying to keep up with Saki’s antics, but to lead her on the path of righteousness. It works. Saki stops acting out so much and starts to appreciate Hinata more. Using the old Cutey Honey maxim that all S&M Queens want, in reality, to be dominated, Hinata starts to dictate the terms of their relationship, all the while wrapping herself in the role of “butler.” In a chapter that should have been touching, but wasn’t really (for a lot of reasons) it becomes apparent that Hinata’s feelings are starting to approach more than just a butler’s love for her mistress.

When Saki’s admirer from another wealthy family, Sorako, arrives, things spiral downward fast, ultimately ending up in a shooting (no, you didn’t misread that – Sorako attempts to murder Hinata)  that makes Saki start to realize that Hinata means something to her after all. And in a grand finale that again, wasn’t really anywhere as near as wonderful as it could have been with loads of icky groping, fake kisses and other tediousness, Hinata becomes the prince to Saki’s damsel in distress.

And then the book ends in a massively unsatisfying non-joke. Sigh.

I spent the entire time it took me to read this ready to stop reading at any moment. With such hi-larious antics as beating up innocent Hinata, random men feeling up Saki in public, school bullying and other yucks, I felt half-brutalized myself through the series. I spent the entire time thinking how it *didn’t have to be this way.*

Ratings:

Art – Moe, of course
Story – Pissed me off
Characters – Coulda been contenders
Yuri – Gatchi Yuri
Service – Obviously

Overall – 4

It could have been a great book, with a fun fantasy setup and a happy/romantic/sexy butler and her mistress ending…only, it wasn’t. And it makes me kind of angry that it wasn’t. There ought to be a law that a love comedy should be free of demeaning sexual and emotional harassment. Sheesh.

Yuri Pop, subtitled Girl*Girl stories, reminds me a lot of playing with dolls. Specifically the little SD characters one gets at arcades, or with candy.u

“Hi, I’m Miharu,” we say, moving the little toy back and forth so you know it’s “talking.”

“Hi,” someone else moves another little piece up and down while they speak in a ridiculous falsetto, “I’m Yuyu. Miharu, I like you.”

“Really?” we reply as if talking to a child, moving the little figurine in our hand. “I like you too!”

Then the two figurines are slammed together and each of us make a “mwah!” noise to indicate that the two plastic figures are now “kissing.”

Reading this book is just like this same scenario, with 10 little dolls. The stories we create are a little different and, because we’re quite creative, some of them are kind of fun. Is Haruka-sempai really stalking Yuki? (No, silly, she just wanted to get to know her better….) And what is with Erika and that white cape? (It looks cool, DUH.)

And in the end, we get all 10 dolls into the story and we have a good laugh and then Mom brings us cookies while we watch cartoons.

More importantly for me, Yuri Pop wins as the only Japanese manga I have ever read that uses the words, “Namby-Pamby” and “Herkimer Jerkimer.” In English. Spelled right. Used right. Which has to win some kind of award, really.

Ratings:

Art – 6, but what do you expect of SD characters?
Story – 8, surprisingly, for variety and fun
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 2

Overall – 8

Best page of the collection is the back cover. I stand agape with respect for the sheer freaking whimsy with which this utterly silly collection was built.

Given my recent issues with a number of less than stellar Yuri manga anthologies, you might forgive me if I’ve become a bit twitchy. I opened Comic Lily Plus, Volume 1 (which takes the place of Comic Lily, Volume 4. I don’t know why the name change, as it otherwise is pretty much the same. It could be any number of reasons) with some mild concern.

While nothing in this volume made me cringe, it didn’t break new ground, either. Not that I need every anthology to push the envelope. This volume had a surprising number of continuing stories, which might confuse anyone picking this anthology series up for the first time, thinking this is truly a first volume. And there was a rather nostalgic return of the razor-wielding hair-cutting lesbian stereotype, which I haven’t seen in some time.

There a few kisses in this volume, and some vaguely satisfying endings as Girl A and Girl B agree to start liking one another simultaneously – a nice place to start but kind of a maddening place to end. Other than one story about loli catgirls with big breasts in bloomers (a story I skipped, you will not be surprised to learn) there was nothing here particularly objectionable. So, why do I object?

Needless to say, I read a *lot*. Not just Yuri manga, not just Japanese books and comics. I read pretty much nearly every waking moment I am not sleeping. I read when I eat. I read, no kidding, when I walk. I read as obsessively as Yomiko Readman reads and have since I was old enough to read.

What the hell is it that I am looking for in these anthologies?

Last night, as I reread some of Takemiya Jin’s doujinshi, it dawned on me – I’m looking for conviction. It’s not that some of these stories are retellings of the basic Story A, it’s that so many of the stories I read lack conviction. They don’t know who their characters are, so of course we don’t, either. The situation is thin, sometimes barely in existence. We never see the characters explored outside the setting of the story, which would work if the creators were adhering to Aristotelian rules… but that’s rarely the case.

The creators I like best – whether they are creating a fanwork or an original work, have conviction. They write and draw it into every line and every panel. In 10 pages, we learn volumes about each character – and what we don’t learn is begging to be filled with our imagination.

For example, let’s look at Takemiya Jin and Nishi UKO. Both of these artists do really great fan work and they also do fantastic, compelling original work.

Fan work is often easier, because one doesn’t have to explain much. The reader knows why and how and where and who. But really exceptional fanwork doesn’t just explore the known, it explores the unknown – the time off the screen, the stuff left out, the holes in the story. In order to create fanwork that stands out, the artist or writer needs an accurate grasp of the characters, the setting and what makes scenes work between them.

In the case of the above, I’m reminded specifically of two doujinshi in my collection. One, a Maria-sama ga Miteru doujinshi, in which Takemiya Jin creates a Rosas so cynical and cruel that they becomes absolutely sublime. It’s totally out of character – only, it isn’t.  Because the characters’ actions are composed with conviction, it works. In a Hayate x Blade doujinshi, Nishi UKO has a short between Hitsugi and Shizuku that is so exactly true to their characters that I’m still kind of shocked that it hasn’t been stolen and used in the actual series.

In an original doujinshi, Takemiya Jin takes builds an entirely new, original and fresh character from the kind of characters created for the fan works. The protagonist is cynical, and therefore fragile. She is realistic and therefore an idealist. It’s a great series and there’s a terrific sense that the characters are, even before they are drawn, alive beyond the confines of their medium.

For Nishi UKO, I’ll refer to her works that have been collected in Yuri Monogatari or in the new Rakuen Le Paradis anthology. In either case, not only do we see the main characters interact, but the reactions of the people around them and how it affects them. They are, almost instantly, real people we might meet. Again, real beyond the fact that they are 2-dimensional representations of women in love with other women.

So, when I read stories about these Girl As and the only thing they have to themselves is a vague longing to be with their Girl Bs, it fails. Not everything I write is genius, but I try to give my characters more depth than that, even in a throwaway fanfic or original work. So, it pains me to see characters created with so little motivation beyond, “this is a Yuri story.” I can’t tell you a thing about the characters in “3 Lies,” from this collection, because outside their love triangle they don’t exist. There’s nothing to them. There’s no reason to care if two of them get together or not. There is no conviction. Most of the time, I can’t remember their names after I finish the story.

My point here is not that the people who write for these anthologies are inferior – everything in life has a distribution curve. My point is that this anthology is on the largest part of that bell curve. It is “mediocre” in the sense that it is okay. And if “okay” is okay with you, then I recommend it. :-)

Ratings:

Overall – 7