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Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games #2
Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games Vol. 2
Kuromi Girls' Academy is a refined, elegant school that expects the very best in deportment from its young ladies. Aya got into this peerless rich-girls' institution on a scholarship, and hopes to grow as lovely as her fellow student and idol Shirayui. But Shirayui hides a terrible secret: she's a trash-talking, combo-chaining, newbie-stomping, ruthless hardcore gamer! Could a mutual indulgence in no-holds-barred video game combat grow into a deeper rapport between these two girls?
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
October 5, 2022
With Aya and Mio (née Shirayuki) desperate to play more fighting games, they settle on a very risky plan to hide in the belly of the beast. Of course, that’s only half the battle and in addition to discovery there might also be the question of actual schoolwork to worry about…
What if there was a yuri series about two girls who were so obsessed with a singular passion that they didn’t bother to act on their attraction? You might have something like this, which is pretty queer coded and from a yuri author, but eschews passion of one sort for passion/obsession of another.
And obsession is the watchword here - these young women barely think of anything except how they’re to get their next fix in the fighting world and while nothing is quite as dramatic as the window escape in volume one, that’s only because the opportunity doesn’t come up - these are people ready to risk expulsion over their hobby (read: lifestyle). The part where Aya says she can’t risk it while simultaneously walking towards it is pretty emblematic of the attitude here.
How is this so interesting? I have no idea, but I love it nonetheless. The fighting game stuff remains incredibly well realized - Ejima put the work in and it shows off in spades with how detailed it all is. I really love when the game characters occasionally interject into the “real” world.
On the one hand you could see this as unnecessary detail, but for the level of skill and verisimilitude that the author wants, which is diving into the crunchiest of facts about a game to show the intensity of the players, it’s very arguable that it needs to be there or the story simply wouldn’t work.
It’s funny how it took two tries to get into this the first time, but this time I was totally with it the whole way. The energy in this book is astonishing - these ladies are often vibrating at the thought of competition and Mio is so bad that she’s a borderline addict.
So while it is still about being true to yourself and maybe also the friends we made along the way, the story takes a moment to recognize that this much devotion can come at a price as we see exams overlap with something far more important, but Mio turns out to be hanging on by a thread.
Will it turn yuri? Who knows! I don’t care, honestly, although the entire school assumes that Aya and Mio are dating because the latter hates the Shirayuki nickname and wants Aya to use her first name.
The other two characters are also fun as we have a cadre of females who all enjoy fighting games but are all at various levels of play and enjoy it in different forms. If anything, Aya being the only one who can keep pace with Mio might be the catalyst if this moves away from game-love to girls-love, though I honestly can’t see them putting those controllers down unless force is involved.
5 stars - a passion project about passionate people leads to more crazy antics and friendships and strangers forming a tight circle to do what they love. It is both crazy and loveable in equal measure and it is utterly unlike any book I’m reading in the best way possible.
What if there was a yuri series about two girls who were so obsessed with a singular passion that they didn’t bother to act on their attraction? You might have something like this, which is pretty queer coded and from a yuri author, but eschews passion of one sort for passion/obsession of another.
And obsession is the watchword here - these young women barely think of anything except how they’re to get their next fix in the fighting world and while nothing is quite as dramatic as the window escape in volume one, that’s only because the opportunity doesn’t come up - these are people ready to risk expulsion over their hobby (read: lifestyle). The part where Aya says she can’t risk it while simultaneously walking towards it is pretty emblematic of the attitude here.
How is this so interesting? I have no idea, but I love it nonetheless. The fighting game stuff remains incredibly well realized - Ejima put the work in and it shows off in spades with how detailed it all is. I really love when the game characters occasionally interject into the “real” world.
On the one hand you could see this as unnecessary detail, but for the level of skill and verisimilitude that the author wants, which is diving into the crunchiest of facts about a game to show the intensity of the players, it’s very arguable that it needs to be there or the story simply wouldn’t work.
It’s funny how it took two tries to get into this the first time, but this time I was totally with it the whole way. The energy in this book is astonishing - these ladies are often vibrating at the thought of competition and Mio is so bad that she’s a borderline addict.
So while it is still about being true to yourself and maybe also the friends we made along the way, the story takes a moment to recognize that this much devotion can come at a price as we see exams overlap with something far more important, but Mio turns out to be hanging on by a thread.
Will it turn yuri? Who knows! I don’t care, honestly, although the entire school assumes that Aya and Mio are dating because the latter hates the Shirayuki nickname and wants Aya to use her first name.
The other two characters are also fun as we have a cadre of females who all enjoy fighting games but are all at various levels of play and enjoy it in different forms. If anything, Aya being the only one who can keep pace with Mio might be the catalyst if this moves away from game-love to girls-love, though I honestly can’t see them putting those controllers down unless force is involved.
5 stars - a passion project about passionate people leads to more crazy antics and friendships and strangers forming a tight circle to do what they love. It is both crazy and loveable in equal measure and it is utterly unlike any book I’m reading in the best way possible.
January 15, 2022
I do love the concept, but fighting game jargon just goes right over my head.
May 16, 2024
man i really really want to like this more than I do b/c i think the general gist is very fun and i like seeing such passion for niche hobbies but fighting game stuff is simply not for me. im sorry to my passionate fighting game wife who adores this series but i simply cannot get through all the explanations of moves and am clearly missing a ton of fighting game references on top of that. i love the energy behind this but think i need to drop the series :(
December 7, 2022
Loving this series, very cute, and a lot more depth than there needed to be. There's some great origin work here, and any fighting game nerd will relate in some way or another. I'm glad some new characters were introduced, and Senpai 4 was indeed expanded on! The writer's passion shows, and the art is so damn adorable. Glad we're moving into new settings and territory with the tournament.
I 🤍 Mio
I 🤍 Mio
January 16, 2022
There's really not much story here. Like I get it, you're in a school that has banned video games and you play them in secret. And the more you play, the more people you find out like them just as much as you do.
That's really all there is to this manga.
That's really all there is to this manga.
June 13, 2022
4.5/5, rounded up for GR
I'm beginning to suspect that this comic was made specifically for me.
Also - the translation awkwardness from vol 1 has been fixed, vol 2 reads a lot better. Huzzah!
I'm beginning to suspect that this comic was made specifically for me.
Also - the translation awkwardness from vol 1 has been fixed, vol 2 reads a lot better. Huzzah!
February 28, 2023
Hard to say really.... I do like the series and characters but I'm not excited to read the next volume, which for me is a worry. I have two more of the series to read, let's see how they go.
December 6, 2021
Another absurd, dramatic volume that neatly toes the line between overly silly and just plain fun. I love the focus on the details of the fighting game and techniques. I wish there was a bit more romance in this one, but I enjoyed meeting some new side characters, especially Inui!
March 12, 2022
Whatever minor privileges begat by the intuitional powers-that-be at Kuromi Girls' Academy, one might surely be to bend the dorm rules to one's will whenever necessary. On the face of it, the Dormitory Affairs Committee wields an iron grip over the rights and rules assigned to the girls at this upper-crust high school. But as is often the case, just beneath the surface, a handful of young ladies, eager to exorcise their anxieties, contravene expectations.
YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is somewhat entertaining but also entirely predictable. Part of the charm of the previous volume, even its narrative crux, was that Aya Mitsuki (transfer student) and her pal Mio Yorue (beloved perfect student) had to indulge in their love of videogames under the radar, less they be expelled. As the girls scuttle about in search of an ideal place to break the rules, they survive repeated close calls. But it would be foolish to presume these two girls are the only two girls in this private academy who love gaming.
As such, readers witness a convergence of conveniences. Aya and Mio's predictable run-in with their rule-keeping peers understandably shifts their two-person, gaming-in-secret escapades into a three-person, then four-person adventure. The manga's introduction of Tamaki Ichinose (stern and facile) and Yuu Inui (optimistic and easygoing), of the Dorm Affairs Committee, expands the story's breadth of personality.
YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is awkwardly and abruptly funny. Aya's hysterical outbursts, in an effort to drag down her fellow students to avoid her solitary guilt, are always a high point of the comic (Mio: "Aya-san, please calm down! You're being gross again!!"). And the author's constant over-dramatizing of wide-eyed, shoulder-turn moments in otherwise benign scenarios is exquisite.
But with the good tropes also come the bad; the manga regularly treads in shallow waters. For example, the predictable alignment of the rule-keepers becoming the rule-breakers feels less a comical turn of events than a perfunctory acquiescing to the obvious. One would rather see more of Aya and Mio's isolated exploits, and their peers' continuous misinterpretation of those exploits, than to see the girls muddle and complexify their daily responsibilities with the needs of others. Readers barely understand who these characters are, so why accelerate the narrative with the pressure of newer (and different) character dynamics?
Also, the comic's didactic affectation with the mechanics of fighting games escalates considerably in this volume. The previous installment only barely finessed the balance of in-game commentary with actual, plotted story. The current volume goes in a completely different direction. While the manga actively shows Aya strategizing in-between her scheduled bouts (good), the manga also goes into excruciating detail with intercalary memos only a die-hard gamer would bother with (bad). Do readers really need to know the literal frame rate of certain game characters' attack patterns? Doubtful. Do readers need a nonsensical yonkoma to explain a continuity error that occurred way back in Chapter Two? Unlikely.
Ejima's art is softer and shifts more amicably between the looser, more comical blend of a spastic teenager operating against the rules, with the deliberately melodramatic complications that come from that same teenager completely misreading the scene. For example, when Aya goes to the bathing area to explore her thoughts in solitude, it's no surprise she ends her bath by leaping out of the water, angry, nude, and with devilish eyes, intoning, "I'm ready." YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is a fun, but undemanding, undeniably and increasingly niche manga.
YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is somewhat entertaining but also entirely predictable. Part of the charm of the previous volume, even its narrative crux, was that Aya Mitsuki (transfer student) and her pal Mio Yorue (beloved perfect student) had to indulge in their love of videogames under the radar, less they be expelled. As the girls scuttle about in search of an ideal place to break the rules, they survive repeated close calls. But it would be foolish to presume these two girls are the only two girls in this private academy who love gaming.
As such, readers witness a convergence of conveniences. Aya and Mio's predictable run-in with their rule-keeping peers understandably shifts their two-person, gaming-in-secret escapades into a three-person, then four-person adventure. The manga's introduction of Tamaki Ichinose (stern and facile) and Yuu Inui (optimistic and easygoing), of the Dorm Affairs Committee, expands the story's breadth of personality.
YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is awkwardly and abruptly funny. Aya's hysterical outbursts, in an effort to drag down her fellow students to avoid her solitary guilt, are always a high point of the comic (Mio: "Aya-san, please calm down! You're being gross again!!"). And the author's constant over-dramatizing of wide-eyed, shoulder-turn moments in otherwise benign scenarios is exquisite.
But with the good tropes also come the bad; the manga regularly treads in shallow waters. For example, the predictable alignment of the rule-keepers becoming the rule-breakers feels less a comical turn of events than a perfunctory acquiescing to the obvious. One would rather see more of Aya and Mio's isolated exploits, and their peers' continuous misinterpretation of those exploits, than to see the girls muddle and complexify their daily responsibilities with the needs of others. Readers barely understand who these characters are, so why accelerate the narrative with the pressure of newer (and different) character dynamics?
Also, the comic's didactic affectation with the mechanics of fighting games escalates considerably in this volume. The previous installment only barely finessed the balance of in-game commentary with actual, plotted story. The current volume goes in a completely different direction. While the manga actively shows Aya strategizing in-between her scheduled bouts (good), the manga also goes into excruciating detail with intercalary memos only a die-hard gamer would bother with (bad). Do readers really need to know the literal frame rate of certain game characters' attack patterns? Doubtful. Do readers need a nonsensical yonkoma to explain a continuity error that occurred way back in Chapter Two? Unlikely.
Ejima's art is softer and shifts more amicably between the looser, more comical blend of a spastic teenager operating against the rules, with the deliberately melodramatic complications that come from that same teenager completely misreading the scene. For example, when Aya goes to the bathing area to explore her thoughts in solitude, it's no surprise she ends her bath by leaping out of the water, angry, nude, and with devilish eyes, intoning, "I'm ready." YOUNG LADIES DON'T PLAY FIGHTING GAMES v2 is a fun, but undemanding, undeniably and increasingly niche manga.
August 23, 2022
Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games by Eri Ejima brought a laugh to a gloomy day I found the artwork and storyline so refreshing only it felt a little flat when most of the story panels include young girls crying and overacting over every little thing which does not go their way even the front cover has the main character crying while looking pretty.
Although I am not a big video game fan I am fairly interested to see how this series pans out especially as the back story behind the main characters addiction into play fighting games is hidden within the story.
Although I am not a big video game fan I am fairly interested to see how this series pans out especially as the back story behind the main characters addiction into play fighting games is hidden within the story.
October 7, 2022
Watching girls at a all girls school sneak around and play fighting games. This time we add in two more characters to the mix who play games. One who wants a REAL challenge but never had one, and now must work towards that goal. Still over the top, cute, some Yuri flare, and overall fun. It's not going to win awards but if like video games and cute girls it's worth a read.
May 2, 2022
Like the first volume, the story is somewhat derivative of Hi Score Girl without the magical nostalgia of that series, though Ejima clearly has personal experience with fighting games, specifically Street Fighter V. Great illustrations here once again.
July 26, 2022
Interesting concept. However, fighting games bore me greatly...
.. so, I don't think I'll be continuing to read this series. I was under the impression this was a yuri high-school story, but two volumes in, it's mostly about cute girls playing fighting games.
.. so, I don't think I'll be continuing to read this series. I was under the impression this was a yuri high-school story, but two volumes in, it's mostly about cute girls playing fighting games.
November 14, 2022
The plot is pretty slow moving in this volume because it focused more on introducing and maintaining new major characters. Tamaki and Inui add some more spice to the story as they all begin attending midnight gaming club meetings. Anyhow, I’m really excited for the next volume. 😊
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2021
This series is amazing! I think Ejima succeeded in making a romance battle manga haha. I look forward to seeing the new characters and types of gamers that will appear in volume 3.
January 17, 2022
do we give it 5 stars for using the phrase "that's some mega-boomer energy right there"? yes. yes we do.
April 2, 2022
Cute!
This manga is so so cute. It's pretty funny at certain moments as well. I can't wait for next volume.
This manga is so so cute. It's pretty funny at certain moments as well. I can't wait for next volume.
June 18, 2022
oh to waste my days away playing arcade fighting games
July 31, 2022
This series is so dorky and I absolutely love it. If you enjoyed the first volume, this just continues more of what you loved with a couple of new characters.
March 28, 2023
Still enjoying this one!
August 8, 2023
4.5 but I just love giving out those fives.... This is sooo fun and hysterical and cute!!
April 3, 2024
5/5
Although the fighting game jargon goes way over my head, I still enjoy this series! The characters are cute and I want their passion for gaming to turn into passion for each other.
Although the fighting game jargon goes way over my head, I still enjoy this series! The characters are cute and I want their passion for gaming to turn into passion for each other.
May 17, 2024
Absolutely hilarious and still true of the FCG culture.
August 22, 2025
J’adore ce manga vraiment pépite
January 28, 2022
This series continues to be hilariously wacky and over the top and I love it. I like the two new characters and the dynamic they bring, as well as the rivalry between the main girls. I also love Shirayui's backstory, it suits her character so well as well as being unabashedly overly dramatic. This is a super fun series and I can't wait for more!
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews