クローバー

CLOVER

Romance

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
1
RELEASE
October 18, 2008
CHAPTERS
5

DESCRIPTION

The Tachibana family has four sisters, each of whom have had at least one relationship that involves falling for another woman, or having one fall for them.

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

casivea
85/100
A cute, charming four-shot about the love lives of four sisters that are varying levels of gay.
PREFACE

I have to preface this review by saying Otsu Hiyori is one of my favorite yuri mangaka and I think understanding her as an artist is important to fully understanding her work. I am not entirely sure if Otsu is attracted to women, but the primary composition of her work makes up stories of girls loving girls. Primarily, she likes writing from the perspective of high school girls. As such, she tends to fall under the Class S☆ genre at first glance and thus can be unappealing for those genuinely interested in a love story between women.

☆ Class S is a sub-genre of yuri that focuses on strong romantic relationships (usually not sexual in nature) between school-age girls. Class S has been criticized for treating homosexual relationships as being temporary or experimental in nature. Class S works are typically recognized by one or more of these details: a senpai-kouhai relationship (establishes a "predatory" relationship), an all-girls boarding school (often tied into the idea of "we're dating because there are no men around"), school-age girls (especially high school girls), and a general lack of substance. Although Class S is important to yuri as a genre today, there are a lot of reasons why modern-day yuri readers (especially gay readers) are wary of works that simulate this subgenre.

However, I would respectfully argue that Otsu often does not fall under this genre. In fact, I can't recall a single one of her works that left a bad taste in my mouth. Otsu prefers high school protagonists for sure, but her treatment of their feelings is always done with a layer of respect, something allotted to them regardless of whether they are actually gay or not (more on that in the actual review). While several of her works do contain Class S elements (ex: Othello, Roundabout), a good number actually defy what it means to be Class S (ex: Mizuiro Cinema's depiction of homosexuality, several of the short stories in Orange Yellow). A lot of Otsu's characters could be viewed as heterosexual women in strong friendships. But a lot of them are also very obviously gay characters. The complexity with how Otsu writes the relationships between women is still something to applaud and I admire the simplicity of her work. For reviewing Clover, I will be taking into consideration the dynamic between each female "pairing" and how Otsu writes them (remember: not all of them are going to be explicitly romantic). Also, I won't add spoiler tags to anything but I hope it should be alright since this manga is fairly short.

PREMISE+CHARACTERS

The Tachibana family has four sisters, each of whom have had at least one relationship that involves falling for another woman, or having one fall for them.

How realistic is it that a family would consist of four sisters that all happen to be some variation of gay? Not realistic at all but I don't really care because it's cute as hell. All of the stories take place at different times (except for two? which I think take place in the same timeline), so you'll see the the older sisters as adults before you see them as teenagers (this is why I wouldn't classify Clover as being Class S—there's something seriously magical about seeing grown-up gay women).

Onto the youngest sister!

CH.1 ➸ NEXT TO HER

A student meets a girl on the train and hopes to never run into her again, only for her to show up as a transfer student.

From the description itself, it probably isn't that hard to come to the conclusion that this is not one of the more explicitly romantic chapters. I am perfectly fine with that. Why? Because the relationship between Izuki and Sakurai has just enough lead-on to let the reader decide what will happen between them in the future. Of the two, Sakurai is the more personality-driven character, only being a transfer student for an hour before breaking all the rules the school has. Izuki, on the other hand, is a product of her elder sisters' temperaments; she doesn't know how to say no to a pretty girl like Sakurai. Their relationship is cute and entertaining, with dialogue shot back and forth between the two suggesting genuine chemistry.

All of this being said, the true delight for gay readers is in the obvious set-up for future (translation: past) stores in this collection. The older sisters in the Tachibana household already have their lives in order (or as in-order as twenty-somethings can get), and plenty of teasing scenes of older women sharing a meal and aged-up versions of women on the back cover leave readers excited for what next.

RATING: 3/5

CH.2 ➸ BITTER GIRL

A worker in a pastry shop convinces a pretty regular to become her co-worker in an effort to lighten her workload, only to find herself developing confusing feelings for a girl whose stay is decidedly temporary.

Midori and Sugiura are really cute. Midori also thinks she's heterosexual and Sugiura is... very obviously not heterosexual. She doesn't even need to say it explicitly, you can kind of just tell when she first appears. The storyline of this chapter follows a very stream-lined heterosexual-realizes-they're-homosexual plot, but the pain present here is immensely relatable to any wlw who has ever been side-lined.

The start of their relationship is a "fake relationship" that Sugiura suggests (as a heterosexual woman, obviously) because that's what "all girls do before finding boyfriends". The premise from the start therefore is a bit flawed, but I can be very forgiving of a contemporary story like this, especially when the leading ladies do fall in love and don't find boyfriends later on. I'd honestly argue that the pain in this chapter is worse than the later chapter with the from-the-start-gay sister, if only because we, as the reader, can tell that Sugiura likes Midori but she has no clue! She has no clue whatsoever and we are all at the edge of our seats waiting for her to find out! Something about reading from Midori's perspective is so satisfyingly frustrating. I don't want to give away what happens in this story (even though I said spoilers galore, I can't give away all the story in a thirty-five page oneshot!), but this is one of my favorite oneshots ever. If anyone reading this comes out wanting to read only one chapter, I hope it's this chapter.

RATING: 5/5

CH.3 ➸ SPRING LOVE

A story of unrequited girl between a popular girl and the girl she sees everyday at school.

A lot happens in this oneshot so I can't really give too much away without basically just transcribing the oneshot, so I'm just going to talk about the character dynamics. This is a love triangle! The first one so far this book. In general, Otsu Hiyori is not a big love triangle person. Most of her stories involve straightforward back-and-forths between two girls, maybe with like a random boy to drive home the fact that one of the girls has come to a realization about herself. In Spring Love, however, three girls are given center stage.

The start of the story establishes that Fuuka is a popular girl! Carefree, relaxed, the slacker-type president that oozes tranquility (she honestly reminds me of one of my favorite characters from another yuri manga). She's reminiscent of girl crushes like Haruka from Sailor Moon, the kind of girl you can rely on when you're feeling vulnerable. And that is the premise, actually, of the conflict of this story. We are introduced to Fuuka's vice president Hashimoto, a strict, serious woman who reels Fuuka in when she's slacking off. Through a series of events, Fuuka learns that Hashimoto is dating her childhood friend, a girl named Ayako, and thus begins her involvement in their romantic affairs. As the situation further becomes complicated, Fuuka convinces Hashimoto (apparently she and Ayako aren't really dating?) to confess her feelings to Ayako, shunning her own feelings for Hashimoto in the process.

I maintain that Sugiura was more difficult to observe than Fuuka is, but the pain is still the same. There is nothing temporary or flaky about these feelings—Fuuka loves her vice president, and she lets her go although she wanted to be the one by her side, protecting her. The theme of this oneshot therefore becomes "unrequited love". It is an interesting feeling to lead off, especially considering her younger sister in the previous oneshot exemplifies an unrequited love turned requited. After this, it is not immediately obvious how the next story should go.

RATING: 4.5/5

CH.4 ➸ ENTRANCED

A girl attempts to break the spell put on her by the princess that moved into her neighborhood during childhood.

This and Bitter Love are the true romances in this oneshot collection. The "fantastical" (I am slightly exaggerating the description a little—a lot of girls have put me under "spells" too) setting of this story is interesting, to say the least. This story is different from previous ones—the protagonist is not one of the four sisters! Instead, Kazuyo tells the story of her irritating childhood friend, princess Ichige, a selfish, presuming girl who is responsible for her three younger sisters. Ichige is rude and doesn't care about the feelings of others, dragging Kazuyo around without a care for what she wants. Kazuyo spends countless hours at the house of Ichige (we get to see cute younger versions of the protagonists of previous oneshots).

This is borderline the same thematic storyline as the third oneshot (interestingly enough, Fuuka is close enough in age to her older sister for me to wonder if this wasn't a coincidence). Kazuyo is in love with her childhood friend but doesn't know how to articulate her feelings or if she even should. Their relationship is complicated not by gender, but by Ichige's selfishness. This story has a cute premise (and the concept of being one of the younger sisters and having like a psuedo-mom in the form of your sister's childhood friend who is in love with her is absolutely delicious) but nothing.. really happens. The after story continues Bitter Love, not Entranced. This strikes me as bizarre because there are definitely hints in the first three chapters that things happen between Ichige and Kazuyo, but this is never elaborated on. I respect the relationship Kazuyo has with Ichige, but I am not super happy with the development of their relationship. This is probably the most disappointing chapter in the collection.

RATING: 2.5/5

OVERALL

Overall, this is a very cute collection of stories that explore relationship dynamics. Three of the chapters involve explicitly gay relationships (with two resulting in relationships), but the enjoy-ability varies. TL;DR Chapters 1 and 4 are skippable and 2 and 3 are the real treasures of the collection. That being said, this collection is very short, so there is no harm in reading the entire manga. This is a very good introduction to Otsu Hiyori's work and the way she writes her characters. If this was a fun read, I would recommend Mizuiro Cinema or Otomodachi kara Hajimemashou.
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