EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

In the world of this book, nobody doubts that a doll can have a heart. Inran Ningyou Hime stands in the hall for keeping its stories bright from first page to last on the strength of that single premise.

It is an adult fantasy collection about dolls with souls and the dollmaker who made them, organised around the bond between master and doll in the manner of a harem story. Each doll is given a temperament of her own, from the guileless Hime to Dia, proud and wary of people since losing her master. Alongside the title work sit a two-part story about a maid robot and a comic adaptation of a PC game whose subject is body modification.

The book declines the heavy questions it might have raised, such as how a person differs from a doll or where a heart resides. Misunderstandings and near-disasters alike end in reconciliation. The distance between the first impression made by the artist's extreme style and the pastoral sweetness that builds page by page was noted by a review written just after release and, years later, by readers of the digital edition.

It was the third book by an artist whose first collection appeared in 2005, and the second from Kill Time Communication. Two contemporary reviews, one from the year of the previous book and one from this book's own, agree that the anything-goes pages of Comic Unreal allowed Shiina Kazuki's particular gifts to open up. The adapted game is Nyotai Kyouran: Kore ga Watashi no Nozonda Body, released in 2008 with original art by Shiina.

The print and digital editions both appeared in 2010. It entered through the sales gate and ranks 242nd in the commercial hall.