EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

An artist known for short-story collections steeped in romance and comedy turned the light down sharply here. Himehajime stands in the hall as the collection that marks the turn in Kitani Shii's style.

Drawn mainly from work published in Comic Mate L, it gathers eight pieces, a linked story with its sequel alongside standalone shorts. Lo-Fi opens the book, and the title piece sits in colour near its middle. Some pieces are framed as mystery, others as science fiction, and the range of approaches is wide. Official genre listings classify it as loli; it is a collection for adult readers.

The review at publication recognised a delicate, refined style of drawing while noting that the atmosphere was darker and heavier than in earlier books. Readers, too, return again and again to its decadent, underground mood and to how few of its stories end brightly. Praise for the care given to facial expression recurs. The publisher presented the book as a new direction for the artist.

The print edition came out in May 2017, a little over a year and a half after the previous book, Imouto Swap!, and ten years after Kitani's first adult volume in 2007. One reader counts the next year's Awa no Ohimesama as the second book in the same vein, following on from this one.

In its year of release it reached 10th for the first half and 21st for the full year among adult manga bestsellers at Toranoana's Akihabara store A. It stands 119th in the commercial hall.