PREFACEFFFFFF I have to preface this review by saying Otsu Hiyori is one of my favorite yuri mangaka and I think understanding her as an artist is important to fully understanding her work. I am not entirely sure if Otsu is attracted to women but the primary composition of her work makes up stories of girls loving girls. Primarily she likes writing from the perspective of high school girls. As such she tends to fall under the Class S genre at first glance and thus can be unappealing for those genuinely interested in a love story between women. Class S is a subgenre of yuri that focuses on strong romantic relationships usually not sexual in nature between schoolage girls. Class S has been criticized for treating homosexual relationships as being temporary or experimental in nature. Class S works are typically recognized by one or more of these details: a senpaikouhai relationship establishes a predatory relationship an allgirls boarding school often tied into the idea of were dating because there are no men around schoolage girls especially high school girls and a general lack of substance. Although Class S is important to yuri as a genre today there are a lot of reasons why modernday yuri readers especially gay readers are wary of works that simulate this subgenre. However I would respectfully argue that Otsu often does not fall under this genre. In fact I cant recall a single one of her works that left a bad taste in my mouth. Otsu prefers high school protagonists for sure but her treatment of their feelings is always done with a layer of respect something allotted to them regardless of whether they are actually gay or not more on that in the actual review. While several of her works do contain Class S elements ex: Othellohttps://anilist.co/manga/56642/Othello/ Roundabouthttps://anilist.co/manga/63077/Roundabout/ a good number actually defy what it means to be Class S ex: Mizuiro Cinemahttps://anilist.co/manga/47800/MizuiroCinema/s depiction of homosexuality several of the short stories in Orange Yellowhttps://anilist.co/manga/50481/OrangeYellow/. A lot of Otsus characters could be viewed as heterosexual women in strong friendships. But a lot of them are also very obviously gay characters. The complexity with how Otsu writes the relationships between women is still something to applaud and I admire the simplicity of her work. For reviewing Clover I will be taking into consideration the dynamic between each female pairing and how Otsu writes them remember: not all of them are going to be explicitly romantic. Also I wont add spoiler tags to anything but I hope it should be alright since this manga is fairly short. PREMISE+CHARACTERSFFFFFF The Tachibana family has four sisters each of whom have had at least one relationship that involves falling for another woman or having one fall for them. How realistic is it that a family would consist of four sisters that all happen to be some variation of gay? Not realistic at all but I dont really care because its cute as hell. All of the stories take place at different times except for two? which I think take place in the same timeline so youll see the the older sisters as adults before you see them as teenagers this is why I wouldnt classify Clover as being Class Stheres something seriously magical about seeing grownup gay women. Onto the youngest sister CH.1 NEXT TO HERFFFFFF A student meets a girl on the train and hopes to never run into her again only for her to show up as a transfer student. From the description itself it probably isnt that hard to come to the conclusion that this is not one of the more explicitly romantic chapters. I am perfectly fine with that. Why? Because the relationship between Izuki and Sakurai has just enough leadon to let the reader decide what will happen between them in the future. Of the two Sakurai is the more personalitydriven character only being a transfer student for an hour before breaking all the rules the school has. Izuki on the other hand is a product of her elder sisters temperaments she doesnt know how to say no to a pretty girl like Sakurai. Their relationship is cute and entertaining with dialogue shot back and forth between the two suggesting genuine chemistry. All of this being said the true delight for gay readers is in the obvious setup for future translation: past stores in this collection. The older sisters in the Tachibana household already have their lives in order or as inorder as twentysomethings can get and plenty of teasing scenes of older women sharing a meal and agedup versions of women on the back cover leave readers excited for what next. RATING: 3/5 CH.2 BITTER GIRLFFFFFF A worker in a pastry shop convinces a pretty regular to become her coworker in an effort to lighten her workload only to find herself developing confusing feelings for a girl whose stay is decidedly temporary. Midori and Sugiura are really cute. Midori also thinks shes heterosexual and Sugiura is... very obviously not heterosexual. She doesnt even need to say it explicitly you can kind of just tell when she first appears. The storyline of this chapter follows a very streamlined heterosexualrealizestheyrehomosexual plot but the pain present here is immensely relatable to any wlw who has ever been sidelined. The start of their relationship is a fake relationship that Sugiura suggests as a heterosexual woman obviously because thats what all girls do before finding boyfriends. The premise from the start therefore is a bit flawed but I can be very forgiving of a contemporary story like this especially when the leading ladies do fall in love and dont find boyfriends later on. Id honestly argue that the pain in this chapter is worse than the later chapter with the fromthestartgay sister if only because we as the reader can tell that Sugiura likes Midori but she has no clue She has no clue whatsoever and we are all at the edge of our seats waiting for her to find out Something about reading from Midoris perspective is so satisfyingly frustrating. I dont want to give away what happens in this story even though I said spoilers galore I cant give away all the story in a thirtyfive page oneshot but this is one of my favorite oneshots ever. If anyone reading this comes out wanting to read only one chapter I hope its this chapter. RATING: 5/5 CH.3 SPRING LOVEFFFFFF A story of unrequited girl between a popular girl and the girl she sees everyday at school. A lot happens in this oneshot so I cant really give too much away without basically just transcribing the oneshot so Im just going to talk about the character dynamics. This is a love triangle The first one so far this book. In general Otsu Hiyori is not a big love triangle person. Most of her stories involve straightforward backandforths between two girls maybe with like a random boy to drive home the fact that one of the girls has come to a realization about herself. In Spring Love however three girls are given center stage. The start of the story establishes that Fuuka is a popular girl Carefree relaxed the slackertype president that oozes tranquility she honestly reminds me of one of my favorite charactershttps://anilist.co/character/131667/YurineKurosawa from another yuri manga. Shes reminiscent of girl crushes like Haruka from Sailor Moon the kind of girl you can rely on when youre feeling vulnerable. And that is the premise actually of the conflict of this story. We are introduced to Fuukas vice president Hashimoto a strict serious woman who reels Fuuka in when shes slacking off. Through a series of events Fuuka learns that Hashimoto is dating her childhood friend a girl named Ayako and thus begins her involvement in their romantic affairs. As the situation further becomes complicated Fuuka convinces Hashimoto apparently she and Ayako arent really dating? to confess her feelings to Ayako shunning her own feelings for Hashimoto in the process. I maintain that Sugiura was more difficult to observe than Fuuka is but the pain is still the same. There is nothing temporary or flaky about these feelingsFuuka loves her vice president and she lets her go although she wanted to be the one by her side protecting her. The theme of this oneshot therefore becomes unrequited love. It is an interesting feeling to lead off especially considering her younger sister in the previous oneshot exemplifies an unrequited love turned requited. After this it is not immediately obvious how the next story should go. RATING: 4.5/5 CH.4 ENTRANCEDFFFFFF A girl attempts to break the spell put on her by the princess that moved into her neighborhood during childhood. This and Bitter Love are the true romances in this oneshot collection. The fantastical I am slightly exaggerating the description a littlea lot of girls have put me under spells too setting of this story is interesting to say the least. This story is different from previous onesthe protagonist is not one of the four sisters Instead Kazuyo tells the story of her irritating childhood friend princess Ichige a selfish presuming girl who is responsible for her three younger sisters. Ichige is rude and doesnt care about the feelings of others dragging Kazuyo around without a care for what she wants. Kazuyo spends countless hours at the house of Ichige we get to see cute younger versions of the protagonists of previous oneshots. This is borderline the same thematic storyline as the third oneshot interestingly enough Fuuka is close enough in age to her older sister for me to wonder if this wasnt a coincidence. Kazuyo is in love with her childhood friend but doesnt know how to articulate her feelings or if she even should. Their relationship is complicated not by gender but by Ichiges selfishness. This story has a cute premise and the concept of being one of the younger sisters and having like a psuedomom in the form of your sisters childhood friend who is in love with her is absolutely delicious but nothing.. really happens. The after story continues Bitter Love not Entranced. This strikes me as bizarre because there are definitely hints in the first three chapters that things happen between Ichige and Kazuyo but this is never elaborated on. I respect the relationship Kazuyo has with Ichige but I am not super happy with the development of their relationship. This is probably the most disappointing chapter in the collection. RATING: 2.5/5 OVERALLFFFFFF Overall this is a very cute collection of stories that explore relationship dynamics. Three of the chapters involve explicitly gay relationships with two resulting in relationships but the enjoyability varies. TLDR Chapters 1 and 4 are skippable and 2 and 3 are the real treasures of the collection. That being said this collection is very short so there is no harm in reading the entire manga. This is a very good introduction to Otsu Hiyoris work and the way she writes her characters. If this was a fun read I would recommend Mizuiro Cinemahttps://anilist.co/manga/47800/MizuiroCinema/ or Otomodachi kara Hajimemashouhttps://anilist.co/manga/71241/OtomodachikaraHajimemashou/.