Never before have I seen a collection with so many vehicular deaths.

Ichijinsha’s Isekai Tensei Yuri Anthology (異世界転生百合アンソロジー) was somewhat disappointing from my perspective. I was hoping for fun (i.e., innovative and original) Yuri stories about being reborn into an alt-universe. Instead I found this anthology clogged with repetitive tropes that take the place of good writing.

When I was reading fantasy novels in the 70s and 80s during the first big boom, Isekai was a pretty common plot. Lots of “people who ended up in the world of their D&D games as their characters,” or something very similar. It was so common that it almost instantly became a parody of itself and, one or two of the riffs ended up being more memorable than the lazy writing it parodied. Ultimately, they all came down to two plots: We Have to Get Back or Life is Better Here, We Want to Stay.

We’re at that point, clearly with Isekai, where we need some folks with the chops to parody the whole thing better than the originals, because this whole anthology was uninspired and uninspiring.

Which brings me to my original comment. I have been reliably informed about “Truck-kun” the standard form of death that catapults a character to some alternate world. I have so many objections to this interpretation of “reincarnation,” I could write an essay. I’ll spare you other than to say: That is not how reincarnation if we are speaking of the re-incarnation of the soul – works, if it indeed works. “Reincarnated as a Slime” and “Evo Girls” are closer to the idea, even if they are both are hyper-sped up. But setting that aside, the fact that almost no creators in this book came up with *any* new idea to get us to that world is just…disappointing.

Once the character find themselves in “another world,” I was yet again reminded of the D&D isekai novels of my youth as every single alt-universe is some variation of a fantasy feudal society. I mentioned this on various platforms online and several people noted that Isekai, as a subgenre, is meant as a kind of rejection of societal norms and adult oppression – a paean to not growing up. To which I replied, “I reject growing up and being oppressed by authority! Let’s escape to a feudal monarchy!” Even as a child I could see that fairytales were only a good place to be if you were the third Prince with two idiot older brothers. They were shitty for everyone else. ^_^;

The very coolest thing about this collection is the cover. There is no story inside that quite hits that same level. There is one story with a cool knight from another world in ours, who is defending a much younger girl, for some reason, but that failed to engage my attention. Many of the stories include animal-eared or demony girls. My general objection is absolutely zero of the stories were about two adults, and combining lolicon and anthropomorphic fetishes do nothing to endear me more to either.  Although some of the stories were just fine on their own, I have no idea what made them Isekai other than a panel that showed someone dead from being hit by a truck.  These could have just been in the non-human x human anthologies I’ve previously reviewed.

Apparently it is too much to ask of a wholly fantasy setting to have something original, about women in that fantasy setting doing something cool.

I was so looking forward to reading this anthology. I cannot truly express how disappointed I am in it.

Ratings:

Overall – 5

It’s an *alternate universe*, you can make up anything as you go – why be so boring?

Cinnamon Nonhuman x Human Yuri Anthology ( シナモン 人外×人間百合アンソロジー) was so much more fun than I expected, I bumped it up the review pile just to be able to tell you about it. ^_^

The premise of Cinnamon, one of the recent crop of Ascii Mediaworks / Kadokawa anthologies, is that humans and non-human creatures can and do find love together. Like it’s sister publication, Vanilla, which featured all non- and demi-human protagonists, how they get there is really tangential to the romance itself.

The first story by Neji, sets the tone of “oh, okay” when a young woman is out walking the mountain paths and meets a beast woman with whom she falls in love. There’s not enough time to delve into the hows or whys, but there’s plenty of time to kvell for their potential happiness.

The next story, by Asagao, follows two sisters whose deep connection continues on even after one becomes a zombie. This story has not one thing in it that ticks off a box for me, but I liked it anyway. ^_^

Several artists took a look at schoolmates who turn out to be something other than human, notably Takemiya Jin, whose look at “onigokko” (hide-and-seek) takes a dark turn when one of the girls turns out to be a real oni who will eat the loser. I don’t much care for animal ears on girls, but I quite like horns, as it turns out.

My favorite story is by Sekihara – once again, because I think I’ve liked their work in several recent anthologies. This story follows a woman who has moved into a new place to live, and found it inhabited by an Edo period Oiran, the ghost of a courtesan. They make it work. ^_^

The art and storytelling were both pretty strong for an anthology. I was glad to see mermaids and yokai included with the usual crop of animal-featured girls.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I had pretty low expectations for this collection, but found it genuinely entertaining. I could easily see this being picked up by Yen Press.