Did You Think My Yuri Was Just for Show? Review
Suzune Sengu is a popular voice actress, with a secret love for the idol group DIAGONAL, but especially for one of its members, Karin Shotsuki. So her heart is broken when she hears that Karin is graduating from the group; what is Suzune to do without her favourite idol??? Several months pass, and Suzune’s voice agency gets a new voice actress, and it’s none other than Karin! The two are quickly joined at the hip, and Karin is keen to learn from Suzune, but can Suzune keep her idol-fixation for Karin to herself? Or will the feelings develop into something more?
This Yuri light novel is by Neru Asakura, who has released several light novels prior, but so far this is the only one to be translated into English. As Neru points out themselves in the author’s notes at the end, their past novels have been more ‘naughty’ (as in erotic) books, so this is their first attempt at a non-ecchi story, but it’s their second light novel in the Yuri genre. In the author notes, they say they wanted to ‘challenge myself to find a way to express the moe feelings burning inside me’ without the use of erotica, and you can feel that throughout the book. It’s quite a ‘slice of life’, gentle, slow-burn Yuri story of working women developing feelings for each other.
A lot of romance manga and light novels, whether queer or not, tend to focus on teenagers, so I liked that this book was about older (early 20s) women, who have working lives and responsibilities. So they go out drinking, shopping, look after themselves to maintain a healthy vocal range for their work, and so on. The world of voice acting is also given a lot of life in this story too; Suzune is part of an agency that has voice actors across seasonal anime, dubbing of foreign films, video games and more. It’s really interesting getting an insider’s perspective on how a voice actor’s world could be, not just the drama of keeping their personal lives out of the press, but also the effort involved in auditioning, finding work, the ebbs and flows of income, etc. We don’t get to see the lives of many voice actors in the agency; the cast is kept small, but there’s enough little details that Suzune and the story provide, that feel like Nero Asakura did research and clearly cared about presenting accurately. I also didn’t realise that it’s common for Japanese voice actors to do radio shows and podcasts regularly to promote the anime they’re working on. It’s neat to see how much work voice acting is, not just speaking lines into a microphone, but performance in all aspects of promotion.
The main couple, Suzune and Karin, are cute together and have decent chemistry; the novel is told from Suzune’s point of view, so we’re only privy to her developing feelings. I think the novel portrays really well the shifting dynamic between the two. You might think it’s unbalanced at first as Suzune is more experienced and also a super fan of Karin but outside the twist midway through the book, you can already see the development of their relationship from super fan-idol, to co-workers who mutually respect each other’s hard work and skill.
I was sold on them as a couple at the start of the book; however, I found myself losing interest toward the final third. I mentioned ‘slice of life’ earlier, and that’s what it feels like: the daily life of a voice actress with some timid romance thrown in. I don’t know if the author, having a history of writing erotic content, was trying very hard to lean the other way and not get too spicy, but the story overall is very tame. There’s little tension or drama in this book, and what little we do get is solved very quickly. For example: Karin goes for her first audition, and there’s tension there and also in the lead up to her first rejection. But then the next chapter reveals she’s been given a role in a series we didn’t see her audition for: the co-lead with Suzune. I would have rather experienced the journey of that audition. It would have been nice to see the pair work together, show off their chemistry with hints of something more between them, rather than the audition that went nowhere. Despite the book being 16+, there’s not even a kiss in this book; if I had to guess, the age rating would most mostly be for the alcohol references, but even then I wouldn’t say it was much.
This sounds nit-picky too, but I found the title to be…misleading? There’s a big point made at the start of the book, that some female actors play up the Yuri aspects of their characters for ‘Yuri bait’ in promotions. It even examines the difficulties and prejudices involved when the actresses in question are queer themselves, which I appreciated. The title seems to suggest that there will be a lot of ‘queerbaiting’ between Suzune and Karin, only to develop into reality, but outside one small scene, we don’t get that. Most of the book focuses on Karin getting her first gig, and befriending Suzune, and we don’t get a clear answer as to whether Suzune’s last few roles, or at least the roles that inspired Karin, were overtly Yuri-bait at all. So there’s a bit of a disconnect between the title and the content of the book.
The artist is Minori Chigusa, who’s been providing illustrations for light novels for a few years now, and mostly for Yuri works. Their work is nicely detailed, with good use of shadows and clothing designs, especially on the front cover. But I looked over their other work, and couldn’t help but think they didn’t bring their A-game to this title. I’m not sure who makes the decision to illustrate which scenes (the editor maybe?) but the choices of scenes they did art for here are uninspired. Admittedly there weren’t many scenes to go with, but I couldn’t help but think there were a few missed opportunities. For example: there’s a scene where Karin is arguing with another voice actress, with Suzune caught in the middle, and the image provided depicts Karin standing in front of Suzune, with no dynamic angles or facial expression from the other voice actress to create that tension. The best illustrations are the coloured ones at the start, with a nice pull-out page for a key scene towards the end. Maybe I’ve been spoilt, as my (so far) only other light novel experience has been 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! which had a lot of great images, but there’s also many romance, action and political scenes to chose from too.
Translation by Jenny McKeon is an easy read, although there are a few words (like Suzune’s overuse of ‘Oshi’) where it would have been helpful to have context provided for in translation notes.
I wanted to like this light novel, as it has an interesting setting and it’s nice to have a romance not set in a high school. But the lack of stakes, tension, and some less-than-stellar illustrations make this light novel only an ‘OK’ for me. If you like slow burn, low stakes Yuri, this is worth a look. But if you like more spice in your romance, this may not be for you.
Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.
