Hynavian

Looking for a shoujo-ai title where sparks are everywhere in the air but characters do not dig one another? If so, First Love Sisters should be on your list. Why the word “Sisters” in the title? Seriously I have no idea too, not after reading volume 1.

The plot is set in a typical shoujo-ai setting, the girls’ school. For this series, it’s the Tsunokamizaka Girls’ Academy. Chika Matsuzato has successfully entered the prestigious girls’ school after she was impressed by Haruna Kizaki who brought her around the Girls’ Academy a year back. Determined to meet Haruna again, she mugged hard to enter.

Characters and setting bear some semblance to the other shoujo-ai and yuri titles that I’ve read; it’s like a cross between Strawberry Panic and Maria-sama ga Miteru. We have a protagonist who’s kind, innocent and niave. She’s “low class”, has ordinary practices and she enters a high class environment, thus resembling Nagisa Aoi from Strawberry Panic. There’s also semblance to the soeur system in Maria-sama ga Miteru as the Girls’ Academy has a practice where the senior student has to guide a junior.

Characters are limited to only a few but it’s already enough to complicate the plot. There’s Akiho Kizaki, who’s a friend of Chika, and she digs Chika but her feelings are not reciprocated. There’s also Chiori Teshigawara, the stern class rep who digs Akiho but is also not reciprocated. So we have a linear relation where Chiori digs Akiho but Akiho digs Chika, while Chika digs sempai Haruna. Art-wise, the style slants more towards Maria-sama ga Miteru as compared to Strawberry Panic. I feel that the artwork is mediocre but fitting for this series as it does not rely on images to bring across a point.

To emphasize again, sparks are everywhere, love is in the air and there is a lot of play on emotions but nothing physical happened so it’s a pretty clean shoujo-ai series for anyone to pick up. So far, Seven Seas Entertainment has released a volume of First Love Sisters but volume 2 is on hold due to rights issue. Hopefully it’ll be resolved soon as the sneak review has lots of love drama with the introduction of a new love rival character.