Oopsie! I forgot to post anything for about a month. I was just really locked in playing Minecraft, but I’m back on the yuri grind so here’s some reviews for you.
They Said My Status Stayed the Same Even Though I Reincarnated in Another World!? (異世界転生してもステータスはそのままでって言ったのですが!?) is a gender-bender yuri isekai web novel about a guy who is randomly approached by a supposed god and asked to come over to her world. The bit is that all this guy asks is that his status remain the same, but his magic potential couldn’t have been known to him on Earth. Why become a girl? Well, there’s just more girls in this world, so being an average guy here is basically just being a cute girl right? Honestly, I only got up to ch. 17 of this, Japanese web novels always speedrun the setup and it’s kinda hard to get into. I might come back to this whenever I feel like dealing with the weird pacing thing,1 for now it’s a tentative 5/10.
A Shy, White-haired Girl Has No Interest in Being Someone’s Love Target! (弱气白发少女才不要被攻略) is a gender-bender yuri web novel about average college student Su Yun wishing to be a girl and turning into a vampire within the hour. This immediately spirals into a vaguely blackmailed fueled romance between her and the school belle, amid various conflicts brought about by each other’s identities and the world at large. Frankly, it’s very stressful to read. Someone on NU said that the conflicts just get reminders without resolution, but honestly that makes sense in the pacing. A lot of the issues are decades long family disputes, you can’t expect them to be resolved within the month the story has spanned in the 168 translated chapters. I do think it’s fun how Su Yun’s parents are pretty accepting of the situation and help her go through all the legal procedures of transition, changing her gender and name on her ID… though it is weird that despite her changing her name legally and everyone around her the name Xiaoyun, the narration still refers to her as Yun. It’s pretty well written, just a bit too much drama for my anxious little kitty heart, so I’ve put it on hold at ch. 235, giving it a 5/10.
Destroy it All and Love Me in Hell! (ぜんぶ壊して地獄で愛して) is a “psychological” yuri manga about the perfect Yoshizawa Kurumi being asked to help deal with the delinquent Naoi by her teacher. This initial meeting is marred by Naoi overhearing Kurumi complaining about the situation, which gently transitions into frequent homoerotic fist fights. Not to spoil too much, but at one point Kurumi confesses to Naoi, which was baffling in the context of how much they’ve been punching each other already. I’m up-to-date at vol. 5 ch. 25 so I can give this one a nice 6/10.
Trapped in Paradise (穿书的我绝不向渣男主屈服) is a gender-bender romance isekai web novel about a Ning Chu, who was transported into the world of his own erotic web novel series. After some initial confusion over which character he is supposed to be, Ning Chu concludes he must be the woman who is later discovered to be living in the protagonist, Wen Yang’s dorm. Concluding that this means he may eventually become a girl and sleep with the protagonist, he decides to temper Wen Yang’s promiscuity by essentially acting like a jealous girlfriend, stopping Yang from hanging out with girls who show up throughout the original plot. The setup is kind of funny, but it’s pretty hard for me to get into straight gender-bender series, so I’ve put this on hold after merely 20 chapters, it’s a 4/10 until I get bisexual about it.
After Reincarnation, I Was Turned Into a Slave Maid by the Princess (重生后我被公主变成奴婢女仆) is a gender-bender yuri isekai web novel about the great hero who suddenly died right before being given the keys to the kingdom and the lovely princess after defeating the demon lord. Given a second chance, the hero excitedly dives into character creation on the assumption that he was creating his designated companion for this more arduous adventure… turns out he was actually designing his own character? What!? Also, that whole previous adventure was just a simulation or something, now she’s in the “real world.” I only got up to ch. 11 on this one, the setup is a bit too post-apocalyptic feeling at the start, it might get better but I just wasn’t in the mood to see it through. Should I just give this a tentative 4/10 then? Might come back to it.
The Green Snake Won’t Be Caged (青蛇也非池中物) is a gender-bender yuri xianxia isekai web novel about Ye Jin who gets reincarnated as a little green snake up in the mountains at the edge of civilization. She surpasses her fellow “yao” in cultivation with the power of “merit,” doing good deeds for the villagers wandering into the woods, until human cultivators come to exterminate all the “yao” in her area. One of those hunters, Bai Xingning, is gravely injured and Ye Jin just can’t stop herself from trying to help! Ye Jin wraps her snake body all around Bai Xingning, their spiritual power mixing together to extinguish the poison in the latter’s body. Mixing powers like this is generally referred to in xianxia works as “dual cultivation,” essentially sex. Bai xingning gets really attached afterwards and chases after the fleeing Ye Jin to try to woo her. It really deserved the “clingy lover” tag. The two get together pretty early on, their relationship very unbalanced, and go on all sorts of adventures that culminate in a fight for the fate of the world. The translator was very misleading on claiming Ye Jin will only be a bottom until the hundredth chapter or so, it follows the very typical Chinese TS yuri setup wherein the protagonist believes herself to be totally capable of topping due to having once been a man, but clearly hasn’t met the average trans woman. The ending feels very abrupt though, having a big “to be continued” vibe, despite generally having tied up all the loose ends, which greatly reduces my score for it. So it’s a 7/10 with 494 chapters.
This is spoilers, but I can’t not talk about it. There’s a part where Ye Jin and Bai Xingning travel to the “yao” territory and come face-to-face with the normalization of slavery there. Ye Jin, as both an isekai protagonist and being the embodiment of a perfect good girl, is naturally opposed to the idea, but acknowledges that she does not have the power to contend with all the forces with vested interests in maintaining the institution. As a cultivation series, one should naturally expect her to eventually acquire such power, but it’s also soon revealed that we don’t have to wait for that. Through their investigation of the oddities in this land, Ye and Bai discover a burgeoning slave organization readying themselves for open opposition. The issue then becomes that this organization is closely tied, if not entirely a manifestation, of a church from the “subcontinent” from which many of the slaves originate. Ties are then found between this church and “demons,” the ultimate enemy throughout the series who travel the universe to harvest worlds for their spiritual energy, and the upcoming slave revolt has been entirely orchestrated to weaken the defense of this world and establish footholds for the demons outside of the “subcontinent.” This is one of the most horrifying circumstances to find in a web novel, because by all rights the slaves deserve freedom and this should not be denied due to the original instigators’ ulterior motives. Thankfully, the series does not disappoint, the protagonist party merely fights the demons and, if anything, seeks to ensure the slaves themselves are unharmed by this fight. Ultimately, they support the revolt in taking control of the city when its defenders are exhausted from the battle, leading to complete abolition of the institution of slavery.
The Defeated Saintess is on a Journey to Tame the Evil God (战败圣女今天也在驯服邪神的路上) is a gender-bender yuri mystery/fantasy web novel about Xing Mo, one of the guardians of the Citadel, being suddenly and forcefully recruited to the side of an “Evil God” names Aurora. Much of the series is presented as a detective work, uncovering clues of conspiracies throughout the city and world at large, and gradually scales from a mysterious serial killer to cover ups of wars between the gods. The setting is interesting enough on its own, being a sort of steampunk fantasy world where magic is built atop the “strings” that control nature being “played” by the magicians with their wands. It has some flavor of a cosmic horror in its presentation of inherently harmful information regarding the gods, where not only does gazing upon the visage cause mental strain, but simply learning a truth about the world could drive a high level magician mad if not outright killing them. The more romantic aspects between Xing Mo and Aurora are rather slow, barely scratching the surface of a relationship in the first book, as the two really know nothing about each other whatsoever at the beginning. I’m sure there will be a lot more development on that front going forward, as I’ve only just begun to read the second book before writing this. The chapter numbers are rather confusing, I’ve read up to book 2 ch. 2 pt. 2, approximately ch. 142, thus far and am thus willing to give this an early 7/10 with potential to reach 8/10 soon.
A lot of media has this like a priori derivation of queerness, avoiding any commonly known terms and frequently outright ignoring the possibility of homophobia or the like. What’s with that? I know, okay. Anyway, I’ve decided to completely rework the structure of what I’m writing myself, so it’s been delayed further… just kidding, not having reworked it was really keeping me from making progress so I’ll have releasable chapters a lot sooner now.
Also, the first translator for the series just posted the chapters on their WordPress blog, along with other series they’re translating, so reading it is a huge pain in the neck. ↩︎