Manga Review - 'Beauty and the Beast Girl' by neji

What a nice little yuri manga this is! A lesbian 'Beauty and the Beast' retelling that's adorable, and even thoughtful and introspective. There's as much thinking and brains as there is feeling and heart in 'Beauty and the Beast Girl'.

Heath (who was initially nameless) is a lonely monster girl in the woods, shunned from society, and hated by all who see her. One day she stumbles upon a blind girl named Lily Blind (what a coincidental name!), who is visiting the nearby village. Desperate for companionship, Heath lies and tells Lily that she is a normal human traveller, with stories to share, which she actually read from the books in her small house. It is Lily who gives the beast girl the name of Heath, after a flower she remembers from a very long time ago, before she lost her sight.

Heath is aware that she is wrong to deceive Lily and take advantage of her blindness. She feels terrible about it. She quickly realises she is in love with the human (as well as other things concerning both their backstories), and decides she is going to tell her the truth. The whole truth.

Will Lily mind? How will she react? Is there in fact - pardon the expression - more to her than meets the eye? As she herself points out, she is not just her blindness.

But people tend to only see her as the blind girl, much like how people would only see Heath as a monster and a threat. No matter what Lily does in her life, no matter what she succeeds at (or doesn't), no matter how adroit she is, people will either pity her or mistrust her. They may think she is faking her blindness when she accomplishes "too much", or they'll think she "isn't disabled enough" to be called as such.

So the kind and gentle Lily has reason to distrust and avoid everyone (apart from her father and maids and servants), like Heath does. They're both "different" in society. They are viewed as problems, troubles, burdens, mistakes, unnatural, unsuitable and unfit to take up space among the "normal people". And for that they are ostracised. Though their circumstances are not the same, and one's appearance will trigger a more violent reaction than the other, their lives are in parallel with one another.

More so than Lily might know. For as part of a plot development, Heath discovers with horror, dread and guilt another truth - about their paths crossing before, in the tragic past...

I'm being vague to avoid spoilers, but I don't mind spoiling one thing: Lily never gets her sight back! There is no magical or strictly medical cure (Lily mentions visiting the village in order to see a magic doctor; so magic, as well as monster people, is an established fact in this fairy tale). She doesn't need to be cured; there's nothing to cure. The disabled young woman is wonderful exactly as she is! She and her scaly, clawed, fanged and lizard-tailed lover are wonderful and cute together!

For while I call them girls, the couple are really women. Adult women who are sweet, cuddly and peaceful*, and love each other very dearly. They bring out the depths, and the best, in one another. They complete each other.

Nothing explicitly sexual is shown in 'Beauty and the Beast Girl', and that's just right for this type of story. It's nice and mild, and I mean that in the best way. Although the mangaka's proclaimed fixation on drawing breasts is somewhat apparent**. Showcasing bigness aside, it's not that noticeable, probably because of the lack of cleavage. In light of all my years of reading manga and watching anime, and seriously becoming sick of seeing unnaturally, beyond cartoonish-ly large breasts and cleavages in female characters in nearly everything, I guess I have to be content with this bit of restraint. Fanservice is so shamelessly prevalent in this medium that I'm positive I would feel just as disgusted even if I wasn't straight. It's not only sexist, ridiculous and exploitative, it's boring and predictable. Jiggle physics is predicable, and tiresome (and BREASTS DON'T WORK THAT WAY!). I have a feeling that the Japanese, both men and women, are as insecure and sexually frustrated as the Americans often are. As sick of sexual repression, too. As everyone else is, who isn't somewhere on the asexual and/or demisexual spectrum.

Err, anyway, tangent over - back to 'Beauty and the Beast Girl'. It's great. I certainly did not see the intelligent ending coming. An additional slight spoiler is that there is a happy ending for Heath and Lily. They fit so well together, and their story is voilà, so good.

A modern yuri fairy tale manga, containing surprisingly progressive themes. Smart, sweet, astute, unassuming and unpretentious, I highly recommend it.

Final Score: 4.5/5

*But don't make Heath angry. The crushingly lonely outsider has a dark side, linking her to her "monster" nature. Also, like many lonely creatures, she is possessive of what and who she has in the world. She will protect Lily, at any cost.

**Heath being female and so has to be pretty is also the reason for why she doesn't look too monstrous. Ugh!