Book-A-Day 2014 #90: Inu X Boku SS, Vol. 3 by Cocoa Fujiwara

You might perhaps want to see my review of the first two books in the series, back on Day 70, since I expect to leave out a lot of backstory in this look at Inu x Boku SS, Vol. 3. But, to be quick: the richest families of modern Japan have in common ancestors from the supernatural world, and, once or twice a generation, members of those families are born with their ancestral powers. Those youngsters are respected but not really liked, fobbed off on hired help rather than loved, and sent to fancy Tokyo apartment buildings for their highschool years, where each scion has a dedicated Secret Service agent to protect his, or her life. (Except for the scions who are those SS agents, and I still don't quite understand the distinction.)

One of those super-exclusive buildings is the Maison de Ayakashi, where our heroes live. Ririchiyo Shirakiin has ogre ancestry and is insufficiently submissive for Japanese mores: she's sarcastic in conversation and self-loathing in private. Her SS agent is the nine-tail fox Soushi Miketsukami, who is far too obsessed with caring for her every last second of the day and not allowing her to ever do anything. (Think a Williamson Humanoid, but romantic!) Their fellow inhabitants of the Ayakashi are equally quirky and silly, though not quite as romantically entangled at this point.

In this volume, mostly due to a mix-up with a time capsule (no, literally, that's what happens) Ririchiyo and Soushi begin dating, which means he gets to become even more smothering for even more reasons. (And also gets nookie, though I think the smothering is more satisfying to him.) The rest of the book is all character stuff -- this one grumbles about that one, these others gossip, and lots and lots of pseudo-philosiphizing about life, of the kind that's vaguely annoying when it comes from super-rich teenagers.

I believe -- because I unwisely read too far in a Wikipedia article -- that there's a big Event in the next volume, after which nothing will ever be the same. So this is still prologue to the "real" story, which shows how long a manga series can run, if the first 600+ pages are just throat-clearing and scene-setting. Watch this space for volume four; if the publication schedule keeps as it is, it should hit sometime this summer. For now, this is a romance that's best for people who like (the fantasy of?) giving and/or receiving overwhelming attention to the loved one, or teenagers.

But I repeat myself.

Book-A-Day 2014 Introduction and Index