EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

The title promises a story of scoundrels, but the pages tell a different one. Ore wa Kuzu dakara koso Sukuwareru Kenri ga Aru! stands in the hall as Sabaku's second collection, read for that mismatch and for endings that linger.

It is an adult anthology in the lolicon line, collecting eight stories from COMIC LO. Each one shifts the setting and the relationship: a soldier stranded on a southern island and a mysterious girl, a boy and a girl who meet in an abandoned building, a nonhuman girl who feeds on human souls and a man. Alongside age gaps, its subjects include non-consent and prostitution.

The first thing readers agree on is that far fewer scoundrels turn up than the title would suggest. The heavy stories are few, and the endings are left open, readable as happy or as bitter; reviewers keep finding a lingering resonance in them. They also repeatedly praise a dramaturgy that takes its time over setup and situation, a world that stands up in each story, uncluttered pages and assured drawing.

The publisher presented Sabaku as a storyteller and framed this as a second book in which both drawing and dramaturgy had been honed. The DLsite edition came with the plot and storyboards for one story as a bonus. Sekirei, from Imouto no Tomodachi no Sekirei-chan, a story readers single out, later became the central figure of the fourth collection, Sekirei-chan to Boku.

The print edition came out in January 2021, a year and nine months after the first. It stands 200th among the hall's commercial works.