Saturday, March 3, 2012

Manga Review: Sweet Guilty Love Bites


Amano Shuninta's Yukemuri Sanctuary is fun, but it's pretty clear that it's her debut collection. Since creating it, she has honed her skills. (Her art in the series she's currently drawing for Yuri Hime looks leaps and bounds better than Yukemuri Sanctuary's.) It really shows in Sweet Guilty Love Bites.  

Sweet Guilty Love Bites follows the loves of four hostesses working at Club Rose.

One night after work, Kirie kicks what she thinks is a pile of garbage out of her way...but whoops, there's a person (Myata) under it. Panicking, Kirie takes Myata home and Myata, apparently homeless, starts living with her. Just as Kirie starts falling for Myata, Myata disappears. A few months later, Myata shows up at Kirie's door and tells her what really happened. They make up, and Happily-Ever-After. ^_^

Niina has a drunken one night stand, but figures that even though she regrets it (since she wouldn't have had a one night stand with anyone if she hadn't been wasted, and she doesn't think that she can have a love life and still be a good single mom), at least she won't see the woman from that night again. The woman from that night turns out to be Mayu-sensei, Niina's daughter Ryuuna's pre-school teacher. lol Mayu is still interested in Niina. As they spend more time together, Mayu proves that she really loves Niina and won't let her juggle all of her responsibilities alone anymore. She moves in with Niina and Ryuuna, and Happily-Ever-After again. ^__^ This is my favorite story in this collection.

Kokoro, a university student, works at Club Rose for a naïve but charming reason. She likes being able to make money by looking fabulous while getting an eyeful of gorgeous women. (As she gushes this out loud, another hostess is like, "Could you take this job seriously? You're one of those women.") Kokoro falls in love with the number one hostess at the club, Kurea, who is also her roommate. After Kokoro accompanies Kurea to a modeling photoshoot, Kurea confronts Kokoro about her obvious feelings for her and they get together. Kurea has trouble focusing at work now that she's dating Kokoro. Rather than break up with her, she decides to switch to a different club. Kokoro hears about this and...they resolve it happily. And Kokoro proposes. Yay! ^_^ This is my second favorite story in this collection.

The characters are all likeable, Amano Shuninta's art is charming in a way that I can't quite put my finger on, and each story has a grin-inducing resolution. Where each chapter in Yukemuri Sanctuary could be described as sex with a tenuous frame of a story, each chapter in Sweet Guilty Loves Bites is a story with sex as a nice bonus. (Nothing really wrong with the former, but the latter does take more effort to write.) Highly recommended for something that's more mature than the norm (in more than one sense, since the characters are all working adults), with a liberal dose of Happily-Ever-After.

Story: Averages at A-
Art: B+
Overall: A-

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