Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka (クロユリ学園大奥学科) by Yoshizawa Miyabi runs in Young King Ours magazine. Maybe that means little to you, but it meant that I kind of knew what I was getting into when I started reading this. What it meant, specifically, was it was likely to be weird and sleazy. ^_^;

Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka was, in fact, weird and sleazy. ^_^

Minazuki Miu, whose hairstyle indicates that she’s a “gal,” finds herself at Kuroyuri Gakuen, a school for (apparently) well-trained rich girls, blah blah. When the Student Council President demands Miu present herself for acceptance into the “Seijyo” (which could mean order of holy women, or female saints of Vestals or anything you feel like translating it as because the word is irrelevant to the circumstance,) Miu finds her life getting substantially unbalanced. First she’s ordered to strip. And bathe. In front of the President who approves of her “mark of the Seijyo.” We are eventually shown a number 6 on her shoulder blade.

Miu appears to be befriended by another first year, who then starts to harass and bully her because…she’s a split personality. Oh, okay then. Miu fixes that  by being extra decent. The mark of the Seijyo disappears from her new friend’s body.

From then on Miu alternately seduces (without particular enthusiasm) or befriends others, but mostly she ceases to care what bullshit the others pull. The book ends with an orgasm-off for reasons I barely cared about in the first place and don’t remember now. Miu won and evil #8 loses her mark.

The art is ornate without being good, the story is meaningless drivel and both nakedness and sex are insincere. And yet, it’s at least slightly original. If the characters were more interesting, I might even read the next volume. I still might if I can find it at a used book store. ^_^;

Ratings: 

Art – 6 Competent
Story – 5 Less so
Characters – 2 I have rarely cared so little for characters in a story. Miu’s lack of fucks is the best part.
Service – 10 Sex, nudity and lasciviousness of many kinds
Yuri – 6 See above, without a shred of affection.

Overall – 5

It’s half “what did I just read?” and half “why did I keep reading?” ^_^; There is a Volume 2 for those of you inspired to read it for yourself. 

We remember Hidamari Sketch (licensed in English as Sunshine Sketch), don’t we? Aoki Ume’s series about a bunch of women at a trade school apartment building was nice. It was cute and silly and extremely, bizarrely repetitive. In 8 volumes of manga covering the 2 years they’d be at the school, they must have celebrated Christmas 7 times, maybe more. It also had a serious problem. Hiro and Sae were obviously a couple only Sae refused to admit it. Hiro was painfully aware that Sae was pretending that they weren’t a couple and it became painful to me to watch the shenanigans of plausible deniability that no one wanted. I cannot have been alone in thinking that it would have been nice if Hiro and Sae just were a couple.

Apparently, no, I was not alone. The suspiciously-pseudonymous Umehara Ume (eyeroll) agrees, and so here we are talking about Roku + Ichi Gurashi (ロク+イチ暮らし) which is pretty much Hidamari Sketch with Yuri. ^_^

Suzume has arrived at a trade school to study early child development in order to work in daycare for little kids. In her apartment she meets several other students, among them Nanao, with whom she promptly falls in love.  Her taciturn neighbor, Kie is in love with Sae look-alike Ai, who is love with Kouko.  Sachi is not in love with anyone until she sees the landlady’s daughter, and Ai’s fellow business student, Shiori. 

Unlike, Hidamari Sketch, this is not a gag comic, so we get little vignettes that have dramatic, rather than comedic punchlines. Kie and Ai compete in a Mr/Miss contest in the school and, although Kie ends up finding strength to confess to Ai, she’s gently rejected, which gives Ai the impetus to confess to Kouko. They are a nice couple, so we’re happy for them, as we are for the others. The story ends with Suzume making us a promise that she’ll become a terrific daycare provider. 

It’s all quite sweet and cute. A little too tidy, but so was Cirque Arachne, which “fixed” a similar “problem” with Kaleido Star. When you’re fixing someone else’s mess, you can skip all the details and just get to the meat of the story and pair the girls up already. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8 Fixed that right up
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 4 That Mr/Miss contest was for no other reason but to dress Sae, erm, Ai and Kie up in wedding clothes.

Overall – 7

I’ll be very interested to see if “Umehara Ume” ever publishes anything else. ^_^