I would enjoy Kanan-sama wa Akumade Choroi more if I wasn’t continuously distracted by the unfeasable breasts of its protagonist:

The series’ original mangaka, Nonco, clearly comes from the “more breast is better breast” school of character design. It’s not just Kanan here being blessed with tits bigger than her head. There’s also her childhood maid first seen in the second episode, whose abundance is even greater, as well as the childhood friend of Kanan’s love interest, the female teacher of her love interest’s class, the bunny girls her father employs… It’s all a bit much, as seemingly every woman in this series sports a rack that would give its owner serious back problems in real life. I’m not a fan. Kanan’s design is cute except for those ridiculous tits. They look alright in a still image, but in motion they quickly become an irritation.

Youji’s problem is that he’s just dull, his character design matching his personality. The gimmick of the series is that Kanan is trying to eat his soul, but got tricked into becoming his girlfriend after he misunderstood what she wanted from him. When she told him how she wanted to peel off his skin he thought she was talking about a blowjob. He enthusiastically agrees to it, which first puzzles Kanan and then flusters her immensely when she realises he’s talking about S-E-X. A solid setup but let down by Youji just not being enough of a pervert. It’s the sort of story that can only work with teenagerrs, despite Cy Catwell’s objections:

[…]I just don’t get why this couldn’t have been two adults and not two high schoolers. In fact, I think the “sexy” nature of the Kanan’s approach versus Youji’s incredibly disarming eagerness to have sex (he wants to go to third base immediately) would have been genuinely enjoyable if say, Kanan, a thousand year old devil with a bust size to rival Ilulu’s from Maid Dragon, were like… in her thirties and Youji the same. Or like, at least if they were in college.[…]

You cannot tell the kind of story Kanan-sama wa Akumade Choroi wants to tell with adults. Youij has to be the kind of horny, hormonal dumbass that only teenagers can be, unfiltered by adult experience to play off Kanan’s innocence and naivety, which again wouldn’t work if she was a thirty something office lady. That’s she’s “actually” a thousand year old devil doesn’t matter: functionally she’s a sheltered teenage girl. I do understand Cy feeling uncomfortable about the high school setting and the way Kanan and other female characters are used in fanservice, even though it’s rather mild (mostly breasts going ‘boing’ rather than e.g. the camera leering at her underpants).

I can also understand why Draggle wished it was “just a bit more trashy”, which brings me back to Youji. In the first three episodes he has been mostly passive, not been all that thirsty after that initial setup and it has been Kanan who has been providing the comedy. I maybe should’ve expected this from a bloke orientated romcom, but it does make it all slightly more tedious than it needed to be. The introduction of the omnivorous maid in episode two, who unlike her mistress has no problems seducing anyone and anything, was a good step forward. Just a pity she was even more boobylicious than Kanan…

Kamiina Botan has rizz when she’s tipsy.

Kamiina Botan, Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana is about what happens when the titular Kamiina Botan (twenty) gets her first drink in her. Not only does she take to it as a duck to water, she’s a flirty drunk. A first year student doing an engineering degree, she;s on a sight seeing trip with a few girls from her residental hall, but when they stop for lunch Ibuki, their RA has disappeared on them. Botan goes in search for her and it turns out Ibuki slipped away to get herself a drink: a truly humongeous whiskey highball.

Even watered down that’s an absurd amount of booze for just 500 yen. I tend to estimate amounts by assuming one euro equals a hundred yen, making this excellent value for money when the average boring pilsner here is not that much cheaper, but of course these days 500 yen is more like three euro, which makes it even better. Later in the episode we learn that Ibuki has a display cabinet filled with booze in their hall’s common room, which makes a little bit more sense if all alcohol is this inexpensive in Japan… Anyway, it turns out Ibuki is a bit shy about her drinking as it makes her hiccup and she has had bad experiences when others saw that. When she finds out Botan doesn’t mind, she thinks drinking with others might not be so bad…

Which may be good news for Gujo-senpai here, the other person Botan drinks and flirts with in this episode, as she has been looking for a way to drink with Ibuki. When Botan confronts her with this, she turns from confident, cool senpai, in a blushing, awkward mess. Yes, Kamiina Botan has rizz when she’s tipsy.

I had no idea what to expect from this series but the word “yuri” in the title had me hopeful and fortunately I got what I wanted. This is a slice of moe series about college girls drinking with and being flirted at by Kamiina Botan and I’m all for it. The animation is gorgeous and matches the laid back feeling of the show, as Kvin explains over at Bluesky. The only real quibble I have is that the subtitles transposes the characters’ names from Japanese order (surname, given name) to western order.

this actually gave me a bit of nostalgia for my own college days, hanging out with friends and room mates in our student flat. and not only do we see people drinking, Gujo-senpai smokes too! Refreshing to have such a properly adult series for once among all the endless series set in high school.