ショートケーキの苺にはさわらないで

ショートケーキの苺にはさわらないで #1

by Yuu Nagira, 凪良 ゆう, Sakae Kusama (Illustrator)

アンドロイドが普及し、人に代わって戦争すらしてくれる時代。大学生の南里輝は、自分だけを愛してくれるセックス用アンドロイド、通称「裏ドール」を伴侶にすることを夢見ていた。その資金を貯めるため裏方バイトをしていた風俗店に、ある日とびきり美しい裏ドールが売られてくる。悲しげな姿を見かねた南里は、つい貯金をはたいて「彼」を買い取ってしまった。シンと名づけられた彼は、ドールゆえの一途でけなげな愛を南里に注ぐが――。

Genres: Yaoi, Japanese Literature

293 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 2015

About the author

Associated Names:
* 凪良 ゆう (Japanese)
* Yuu Nagira (English)
* นางิระ ยู (Thai)

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew this was going to be sad, but I didn't expect to have my heart torn out repeatedly like this.

There are several tropes that are sad by themselves - stories about androids, say, and stories about war, and stories about memory loss and stories about people dying. So what happens if you PUT THEM ALL INTO ONE DAMN BOOK?

This happens.

Don't get me wrong, I loved this, and I love Nagira Yuu, but while I was reading this I kept going, "Why would you DO THIS to me?" So far all the books she published with Chocolat ended with me hardly being able to read the kanji because my eyes were swollen from crying so much.

I don't want to spoil too much about the plot, but while I kept reading this I wished so badly for a friend who can read Japanese just so that she could tell me whether I would be okay with the ending. So I'm going to be that friend and tell you that I was very much okay with the ending.

Anyway, the story starts in 2047, a time where homosexuality is nothing extraordinary anymore (a detail which I liked very much) and a time where androids have become rather popular, whether as household helpers to nurses to construction workers and of course also sex dolls. The main character, Nanri, is a gay doll otaku part of a doll circle at his university. There's a thin line being tread here between these guys being really creepy and, well, not, but it worked for me, mostly because Nanri at least is aware they're being creepy.

Nanri is saving up in order to one day be able to buy the doll of his dreams, but then at one of his job he meets a doll owner trying to sell his clearly mistreaded doll to a yakuza. So Nanri steps in and buys the doll, without thinking about it. He gives the doll a new name, "Shin", and teaches him the pleasures of taking a bath and drying himself with a fluffy towel (since the android is white-haired and kept saying "fuwa fuwa" he reminded me even more of Clear from DmMd than he would have anyway which only ADDED to the sadness thanks so much - but because of that I also kept hearing his voice which was more than fine with me). Slowly, Shin opens up to Nanri, and slowly, the two of them fall in love. Yes, they don't have sex right away. In fact, it takes them a very long time to do it, which also helped with making it read not creepy.

But while I was naive enough to think that the only problem to come up in the book would be the "can androids have real feelings" one (and maybe the "the human will die before the android one) I was soon proven wrong. In the future, androids also have another use: as replacements for soldiers. In that future, Japan goes to war again (and while I am conflicted about that story line because I'd rather prefer the books I read to escape reality to not deal with things like war [I read enough non-fiction on that] I did like how real she made it seem) and while at first it seems completely unreal for Nanri, Shin and their friends, reality has a way of catching up to people. And when the war takes a turn for the worse, all kinds of androids are taken in in order to fight at the front line. Nanri of course doesn't want to part from Shin and so they try to run away from the government.

I'm going to stop here because that was pretty much as far as I got before falling to pieces. I stopped reading there yesterday because I had to go to work and I had tears in my eyes and was literally shaking. It took quite a lot of resolve to finish this today, but once I picked it back up I couldn't stop, not even when the tears kept falling and falling. I don't think I can eat strawberry short cake any time soon without crying.

As I said in the beginning though, I loved it. It was quite the love story, and now that I know how it ends I think I could even read it again at some point. Despite the overwhelming sadness, it has so many lovely and funny moments that end up sticking with you.

The art by Kusama Sakae was, of course, impeccable, and the final picture? Perfect.