Manga: Reviews of Servant X Service and Sweet Blue Flowers, Vol. 1 - a podcast by Stergios Botzakis & Derek Royal

Time Codes:

• 00:00:28 - Introduction
• 00:02:35 - In-between holidays
• 00:09:01 - Servant X Service
• 00:55:47 - Sweet Blue Flowers, Vol. 1
• 01:32:21 - Wrap up
• 01:33:22 - Contact us

For November Shea and Derek discuss two very different kind of manga, but both that involve romance in one form or another. They begin with Karino Takatsu's Servant X Service. The complete series was released in two volumes by Yen Press in 2016, and the guys spend much of the episode discussing this strip-like series. The title concerns civil servants on the job -- a topic you don't really encounter much in comics/manga -- and both Derek and Shea have a lot to say about the unusual subject matter and format. After that they discuss the first volume of Takako Shimura's Sweet Blue Flowers (VIZ Media). As the guys reveal, this is an example of yuri manga, where two childhood friends who have lost track of one another become reacquainted in high school, although they attend different academies. As the story unfolds, romances and complicated relationships develop. However, the friendship of the series' main protagonists (at least in this first volume), Fumi and Akira, is what really anchors this text.

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