Girl Friends, omnibus volume 2

[touma]

This is the second of two omnibus volumes from Seven Seas of Girl Friends by Milk Morinaga. Together they contain all five of the original volumes that were released in Japan.

I must admit that after waiting so long for this I was rather disappointed with it, at first.
The situation that ended volume one did not really have much of an impact on the start of volume two. It was treated as being a lot less important than I thought that it should be. I probably would have liked it better if Seven Seas had not split volume three, which created a separation between the events.
Also, it seemed to take a long time for the relationship to advance. There were too many repetitions of the typical situation in romantic comedies where one of the people thinks "I must tell her how I feel" followed by "no, I can't. It might ruin our friendship" or some similar excuse.
Part of the reason for the delay was a misunderstanding that just did not seem realistic to me. If you were a girl and your closest female friend gave you a deep passionate kiss would you assume that she must kiss all of her friends like that? Really?
This went on long enough that I was getting very frustrated and impatient. Fortunately the secondary characters were being very entertaining while the primaries were spinning their wheels. That definitely kept me interested long enough for the story to get moving again.

And the story, and the relationship, did start progressing, very well. It was back to the way it was in volume 1, with the girls moving forward in the relationship in a way that seemed natural to me. And, best of all, there is finally yuri!
Real yuri, with sex. There was only one sex scene, and it did not get explicit to the point of being hentai, but it did show more than I had expected to see, especially in a book that was not shrink wrapped. But, I am not complaining.

For me the second half of the book was very satisfying and more than made up for the slow progress in the first half.
The secondary characters were even better in this volume than they were in the first. They actually carried the story for a while, and one of them was very helpful in providing some good advice to the girls.
The ending is not conclusive, but I did not expect it to be. These girls are still in high school. They still have most of their lives ahead of them and they are just starting their relationship.
I hope that Milk Morinaga decides to continue their story.

This is probably the best yuri book that I have read, and one of the better books of any genre.
This volume includes more then twenty pages of bonus stories. There are nine stories, and I enjoyed all of them.
The first story has Akko, the blond of the pair, cosplaying as Lum from Urusei Yatsura. She was tricked into doing it and was rather reluctant, until her girl friend Mari was cast as Ataru, aka "Darling."
There were also two stories with a tiny Akko. Very tiny. Small enough for Mari to carry her to school inside her blouse.

I will definitely recommend Girl Friends, as yuri, and as romantic comedy, and as just romance.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by touma

I will definitely recommend Girl Friends, as yuri, and as romantic comedy, and as just romance.

I will get it. Well, it is for once a positive point that I need to get 250$ of manga for free shipping... At least, I'll be able to read both omnibus one after another.

[Hououin91]

^

Considering the amount of manga you are buying getting to 250$ takes it's time, I'm lucky on that regard even if I have to import from UK, I only need 25£ for the free shipping. Girl friends vol 2 is still stuck with a march manga though which is annoying but expected as much.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by Hououin91

^

Considering the amount of manga you are buying getting to 250$ takes it's time, I'm lucky on that regard even if I have to import from UK, I only need 25£ for the free shipping. Girl friends vol 2 is still stuck with a march manga though which is annoying but expected as much.

It sure does... The only thing I do hope, is for every volumes to be available when I'll be ready to make an order...

[pianocello]

Unless something better comes up, I will declare Girl Friends as the best manga of the year. Admittedly, I sometimes wanted to slap Mari and with the exception of Sugi, the side characters were like mere irritances rather than contributing to the story, but I liked how the relationship resolved. Even the sex scene was realistic for its initial awkwardness and not the bed of roses that most initial sex scenes are portrayed to be (though I thought it was ridiculous as to how anyone would act embarassed when their partner walks nude casually around the room).
I hope the success of this means we can get more yuri manga translated. I certainly hope we see an anime for this soon.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by pianocello

I hope the success of this means we can get more yuri manga translated. I certainly hope we see an anime for this soon.

I agree 100% with the first sentence. I'll agree 100% with the second as soon as I will buy/read this.