EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

Set every story in the same inn, and a collection becomes a single building. Seiai Onsen was put together on that plan; it entered the hall through the record of awards, and it was also widely taken up in print, across bookshop counters.

It is a linked collection set in one hot-spring inn, each chapter pairing a man with a woman in a different position: a junior from university, the older woman in the next room, a married woman, and others. Some chapters take up infidelity, stolen and lost partners, and wide age gaps. The stories first appeared as doujin releases before being gathered here, with a newly drawn epilogue added to each. In the closing chapter, the couples from the earlier stories all happen to be staying at the inn at once.

Reviewers on both stores agree on the craft of holding to a single setting while changing the flavour from chapter to chapter. They agree too that the epilogues settle the aftertaste of each story. The soft line and the warmth of a sidelong glance are also singled out.

Bifidus has been publishing collections since 2017, mostly with Angel Shuppan, and this one came out from Angel Comics in November 2021.

In print, illustrated cards were offered through fourteen bookshops and chains, with exclusive extras at Melonbooks and Toranoana. It placed 58th in the 2021 annual comics ranking of the FANZA mail-order shop, a list the artist's books had also entered in 2018 and 2020. Its award was third place in the 2021 edition of Kono Ero-Manga ga Sugoi!, a feature in SPA! magazine. It stands 119th among the hall's commercial works.