A lovely collection of loving ladies
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Assorted (19 contributors)
Translation: Eleanor Summers
What They Say
Eclair: A Girls’ Love Anthology that Resonates in Your Heart Manga includes multiple short stories written by the ASCII Media Works group.
Beating hearts and fluttering feelings. An anthology of girls’ love stories to leave you breathless. With contributors like Canno (Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl), Sakuya Amano (GoSick), and Nio Nakatani (Bloom Into You), and many more this collection is sure to satisfy the desire for a sweet love story (or sixteen!).
ASCII Media Works includes authors: Canno, Sakuya Amano, Auri Hirao, Chihiro Harumi, Eri Ejima, Shuninta Amano, Uta Isaki, Taki Kitao, Mekimeki, Hachi Itou, Nio Nakatani, Fly, Tamamushi Oku, Musshu, and Izumi Kawanami.
Technical:
The front cover here is a rather charming one of the characters from the first story getting close, with a rather nicely lit background that really gives the thing some pop. The back cover carries on from that, changing the time of day and making for a nice companion to the front. Paper quality feels solid, honorifics are maintained, sound effects are left in their original form and subtitled, and text reads smoothly throughout. Three color images are included up front, and we get a message from each contributor at the end.
Naturally, it’s hard to actually offer an assessment for the art of this anthology, simply because it varies from story to story. Still, on the whole, they range from competent to even some real nice standouts, and I wouldn’t say any dip to a level I’d call actively bad. And so, I’d call it a nice looking book taken as a whole.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Thanks to the fact that there are so many stories here, and they’re all so short, it makes it a little hard to really offer a good analysis of this book. As such, what I’ll do here is try to offer a short little look at each story, as it’s just not really possible to go especially in depth with this format. First off we get one about a girl who wants to get close to another one named Kai who’s really into the piano, and curses her skill. Pretty much the idea is that she wishes Kai couldn’t play piano anymore so she could have her attention, and then that happens and she feels bad… but then they get closer as a result, and Kai ends up better off too. This one honestly bugs me because I mean, it sets up a conflict but then wishing harm on someone is kind of written off like a good thing because everything turns out well and it’s never really brought up. I suppose that’s the issue with such limited page length, though. Similarly, the next one actually sets up a kind of interesting thing with a girl discovering someone is in a lesbian relationship with her friend and lashing out, because of her OWN repressed feelings. It’s a nice setup that again feels like it needed a few more pages to explore, as it’s probably the one that gets closest to the heart of really exploring the topic of homosexuality… but it just doesn’t get the time to do enough with what it sets up. The next two are pretty harmless little ones, about a perfect girl finding her incompetent junior at work super charming, and then one about a girl falling hard for her tutor who is super into history.
Next up is a cute little one about an unemployed woman who kind of freeloads off people, and a highschool girl who’s super into her. It’s just an amusing little thing that fortunately doesn’t go too in depth with things so as to make the age gap as awkward as it could be. Then we get a short little one about a girl who loves working with hair, which I don’t have much to say about. This is followed by the first one I’d say hits particularly strongly, about a dedicated maid and the young girl she serves. It packs a lot into the limited page count, so much so that it actually feels like a somewhat complete story with somewhat defined characters, which is nice. And then, we get a short whatever one about a girl offering to do whatever the other one asks, as a birthday gift.
The one that follows is another one that feels a little more fleshed out, this time about two girls who grew apart as they entered high school, and the bond that they shared when they were younger. Again, it feels like a bit of a full story, and I really wish we got more stuff around this size to make up the book. Next up we get a bit of a gimmick one that starts off looking like it’s set in an apocalypse, which I won’t spoil. The one after that actually is one of the longer entries but… I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like it flows great, and I’d actually rank it probably lowest in the collection. It’s about a woman and her promiscuous roommate, and the way the events play out just feels a little stilted and not quite natural. Then we get one about kids and jealousy that’s okay but not exceptional. Ah, and one where a woman amusingly asks for help to cook for her crush… who turns out to be the woman she asked!
As we approach the end, we get what are easily my two favorites. The first is set in a fantasy land with animal people, and the later is about a supposed magical pregnancy. And they both use their pages perfectly, making for charming little stories with nice characters and plenty of amusing humor. Then lastly, we end on a so-so one about idols.
In Summary
So, there are a lot of stories in this anthology, and naturally, the quality varies quite a bit from story to story. One thing of particular note is that there are a LOT of stories packed in here, and that means that unfortunately, the page count for each is generally limited. In fact, a good number of the stories I would call little more than a scene or two, to be blunt. That said, a few do break away from that and tell what I’d call a full story, and frankly, those are generally the better ones. And on top of that, a few stories feel especially hurt by this limited number of pages, cut off without really being able to do what they need to, with the stories at the front especially standing out in that regard. Honestly, I really do wish the book would have just let the stories have a bit more room to breathe, whether that came from just packing less in or increasing the overall size of the thing. But still, I’d say there are enough stories that work here that it’s worth a read for readers looking for some girls’ love, assuming you just remember to keep your expectations in check.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: June 5th, 2018
MSRP: $12.99
