Well, I’m not gonna say that this wasn’t a really original book. In Mushroom Girls in Love, Murayama Kei creates a multi-layered society and an entire planet ruled by sentient mushroom beings. There is a royal ruling class, a military, scribes, herders and traders. According to the “Shroompedia,” the world was once inhabited by “gods” but now only the simple fungus folk live here.

On this world, all the beings are female-bodied, but in a blatant rejection of biology, some mushroom people still are “husbands” and others “wives” who are meant reproduce. If two fungi marry but are not compatible they might die from rot. Arriala and Erriela get married and are not compatible. Arriala almost dies, but surgery is performed to remove her spores (which I’m gonna be honest, gagged me a bit.) Because of this inability to reproduce  which grants her an immunity to the royal curse, a Princess desires Arriala and kidnaps her. Erriela defies family, tribe, custom, law and the royal family to get Arriala back.

They are reunited, and leave both scribe and herder tribes behind them to join the traders and make a new life for themselves together.

I’m not gonna say that this wasn’t a really original book.

I’m probably also not gonna say it was an enjoyable book. Between the fungus-infected spiders and the extreme grotesquery of political infighting in the royal family, I kind wished both Arriala and Erriela got to be plopped down in another story completely. 

But it sure was original. 

Ratings:

Art – Both pretty good and pretty ick at the same time
Character – The leads were epic, everyone else was a total fungus
Story – Again epic
Yuri – Arriala and Erriela are very much in love
Service – 10 if you are a mushroom fetishist

Overall – I really wish Bruce were alive so he could have argued the pro side on this for me. Here is his review of the Japanese original as a stand-in. 

I wonder if it hadn’t been mushrooms, how I would have felt about some other plant form. “Dandelion Girls in Love”? I have no idea. I’m probably gonna think twice before eating mushrooms for a few days.

In After Hours, Volume 2, Emi finds herself lost in the cracks of her own life. She likes being part of what Kei is doing and she likes the team, but she has no confidence in herself, or the choices she’s making.  And the fact that she’s never told Kei about her boyfriend, her apartment and the life she walked away from is driving a wedge between them.

In the meantime, the team has added a new member, Midori and navigated more than one breakdown in teamwork. But they’ve got a location and equipment and music and a designer and Kei and Emi are working together pretty well…so why is neither of them all that happy?

Luckily for them, Emi snaps and comes clean, and finally asks the question that really is eating at her – wat, exactly, is she to Kei? She’s a little surprised to find that Kei’s answer is conventional and they get to say to each other that being together is what makes them happiest. 

And then…it’s the night of the event. 

The characters in this series – especially for such a short series- pretty well-developed, but we still have to a do a fair bit of reading into the characters, particularly when it comes to motivation. I can’t help wonder why Emi makes the choices she makes. Kei, who was presented as a bohemian free spirit, turns out to be pretty traditional after all.

Ratings: 

Art – 5
Story – 8 
Characters – 9 
Service – 2 
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

For a seinen magazine, and for a story that is mean to frame sex scenes, the frame is pretty solid and the sex scene in’t too pandery.  

Volume 3 will be available at the end of 2018, and we’ll get to see what happens when Emi and Kei are able to work in sync, at last.