EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

Sometimes the defining book arrives late in a long career. Naisho no Murikuri stands in the hall as the collection Minasuki Popuri published twenty-two years after a commercial debut and six years after the previous one.

It is an adult anthology of 249 pages, built around work from COMIC LO, with stories that never ran in a commercial magazine and pages from other titles added. It also includes a sequel to a series of linked stories from the earlier volume Watashitachi no Kaerimichi.

The artist's standing rests on a style of drawing that recalls shoujo manga and on the choice of words in the dialogue. The writer Tamagomago praised that ear for dialogue in 2008, and the critic Mushizuka Mushizou has cited this artist as a defining example of the shoujo-influenced look. Reviews of this book converge on the level of the drawing and the range of expression, and one points out that each character is given distinct clothes and even distinct furniture. Several long-time readers call it the best of the artist's books so far.

Minasuki Popuri began in doujinshi in 1993 and made a commercial debut in COMIC Rurihime in 1999. The first collection, in 2002, placed sixth in that year's reader poll. Since 2013 the principal venue has been COMIC LO, and this is the seventh of eight books.

Print and digital editions appeared almost together in the summer of 2021, and that year the book ranked 23rd in the annual sales of an Akihabara Toranoana branch and sixth in FANZA's annual mail-order ranking. It stands 241st among the hall's commercial works.