If you are a fan of Kokoro Library, Pure Marionation (Volume 1 and Volume 2,) or Cassiopeia Dolce (running now in Yuri Hime S,) you’ll definitely want to take a look at Magie Paire, for yet another Takagi Noboyuki Yuri comedy with a healthy dollop of service.

Maria is starting classes at an exclusive private school, where all the other girls seem to be obsessing about becoming a “Paire” with one of the older students. Tall, classical Japanese beauty Reina-sempai seems to be the choice person to be admired. Maria states plainly that she has no interest in pairing with anyone – so of course when the chips are down and she’s threatened, who else could it be who comes to the rescue but Reina? To Maria’s surprise, Reina manifest a magic weapon. To her even more considerable shock, *she* manifests a similar weapon and they fight off the threat. But when everyone congratulates her upon becoming Reina’s “Suite” she refuses point blank.

You can guess that they do become paired, can’t you? :-) Reina is the only remaining Magie on the student council unpaired, so the other members are pleased as punch. She is the “Rayf Master,” a master of Fire. (As soon as I figure out which language these names are butchering, I’ll fix the transliterations, promise. )

The problem, Maria insists, is that she can’t DO magic. Big-ass magic sword notwithstanding.

She’s right, of course. She and Reina wander off into the practice forest to practice and are immediately attacked by a host of things. Among the things is the “cute mascot thing,” a Fukuma, which proceeds to be as “cute” as possible. You know, drools, vomits, steal panties, all the usual “cute” things that just endear us to such creatures. The Fukuma also spends a lot of its time riding on Maria’s head, so we’re never free of its presence. And Maria doesn’t seem to be able to do magic, unless the chips are, indeed, down.

There is, as I mentioned, a lot of service. Takagi’s girls spend a fair amount of time dressing and undressing, bathing, swimming, etc. This is another Gum comic, the same company that has the Wani imprint, so it comes as no real surprise. The service here is much as it is in Pure Marionation where it’s constant, but sort of the soft cute to fanboys, but not to me, kind of cute. If you know what I mean. It’s still stealing panties and bathing, cute or not. And since we’re talking Takagi here, you get blushy baby faces on over-developed bodies, as well.

Ratings:

Art – 6 (+2 if you like his style)
Story – 7, then -1 after the Fukuma shows up
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 7

Overall – 6

The plot is fine, sort of Marimite meets Harry Potter, but I sure wouldn’t mind losing the panty shots and Fukuma vomiting bits. :-)

It is completely true that this is a Yuri manga. It is also true that it is about love between two girls. However. It is *also* true that this is one of the freakiest, most diseased manga I’ve read in a while – so of course I want to tell you all about it! ^_^

I picked up Parian no Sono in the Animate in Ikebukuro. It was shelved with their slowly growing (but as-yet unlabeled) Yuri manga section. These sections, as I’ve mentioned previously, are starting to pop up here and there. They usually have the Yuri Hime collections, Iono-sama, Strawberry Panic and a few random other titles. In some stores the “other” might be slightly more adult titles, in some stores, they were slightly more “soft Yuri”. The sections, which are still relatively new, are completely in flux right now. I look forward to seeing how they grow. This store was the only one that had Parian featured in that section. Bruce and I eagerly bought it. I wonder what he thinks of it? I think it’s pathological. ^_^

In short, Parian is the story of a girl in love with her Judo team captain.

In full, it’s the story of a weirdly drawn, munchkin-like “cute” girl with enormous breasts whose existence invites stalkers, molesters and perverts of every kind, and who “forgets” to wear pants a lot, so she ends up doing a lot of half-naked Judo. Which makes this the first “Yuri” manga I can think of that explicitly adds the wrestling fetish to the more usual Catholic schoolgirl nonsense. (I know that wrestling fetish manga has long added Yuri, but this is really the other way ’round.)

So the story starts with “adorable” heroine Botan (by which I mean she’s awful and I wanted to squash her like a bug) getting on the train and immediately being groped, so she’s late for Judo practice. But the joke’s on us – she’s late because she kicked the guy’s ass and…here’s the best part…got *in trouble* for doing that. Nice.

Lots of pants-off stupidity, hugging the club president, and on and on with the “funny” hijinks. It’s established early on that Tessen-sempai does indeed love Botan, but most of the lovey-dovey is on Botan’s side. There is an actual moment or two when the couple have a quiet interlude. But not too often – and it’s usually interrupted by Botan putting Tessen into a choke hold or arm lock or something equally as romantic.

The first big crisis comes in the form of Botan’s sister, who is 1) even smaller and “cuter” than Botan; 2) goth-loli (duh!) and; 3) evil. She wants her sister to return to classical dance, because Botan had showed such talent and because she’s got a huge siscon. Through lies and manipulation, Botan is made to return to ballet, but being away from Tessen breaks her heart. Eventually the sister realizes that Judo is where Botan needs to be and releases her. The end comes as Botan runs into buchou’s arm’s….without pants. AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

There’s the teacher/nun that falls in lust with Botan, and spends much of the book peeping. And the teacher/Judo club manager who has the hots for Tessen, and colludes with the nun to keep them separated. A misunderstanding over a hot springs incident involving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation almost splits Botan and Tessen up for a moment, but not.

So, yes, Yuri. But any romance is so well cloaked behind so many layers of freakishness, that I thought it fit nicely within this week’s unintentional anti-romance theme. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 3 Augh!
Story – 3
Characters – 3
Yuri – 6
Service – 8, but it has to be a *special* kind of Fanboy to find this appealing, much less sexy

Overall – 3

Usually, I’m totally gung-ho for stories that feature girls who do martial arts (Yawara anime, out in 2008!) and I love joint locking (Ryomou is da bomb!) but this was just too much of a lot of bad things. At first glance, I thought the title was Pariah no Sono It totally should have been named that. This one’s sad, even for Wani Comics (who, incidentally, also do Ikkitousen.) ^_^