Queen’s Quality Volume 2 by Kyousuke Motomi
Kyousuke Motomi shoujo series are entertaining and refreshing for me to read, because while romance certainly is a feature, it often takes a backseat to subversive humor and action oriented plots involving hackers or the demons that lurk inside the souls of humans. This volume of Queen’s Quality continues the exploration into the twisted soul of a teacher who was bullying students, and Fumi and Kyutaro have to combine their abilities yet again in order to root out the bugs that cause a sort of soul malaise to spread to people like an infectious disease.
Motomi’s humor is on full display in a scene where Fumi is going to pick her sacred psychic weapon and instead of summoning a spear of light or magic sword she conjures a long-handled scrub brush. Kyutaro suggests that she try for another weapon but Fumi is delighted with her weapon because it is perfectly balanced and the best possible implement for cleaning toilets. Fumi’s cartoonish enthusiasm as she waves her brush around in the air is one of the few light-hearted moments in this volume, because once the Sweepers head into the brain of Ms Hayashi, things get both scary and surreal.
Kyutaro’s role as a steady emotional support to Fumi becomes even more important as she reveals another aspect to her hidden power as they battle their most challenging bugs yet. The layers of protection that exist in Fumi’s mind that hide her memories as well as her ability to consciously manifest her role as a “Queen” make Queen’s Quality an intriguing character study. The violent psychic landscape that the couple has to navigate contrasts with the more mundane chores of cleaning and making rice porridge back in the real world. Motomi is great at portraying slightly broken characters with great nuance, and it’ll be interesting to see if Fumi and Kyutaro manage to heal each other and achieve some sort of peace by the end of the series.
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