Reviews and Comments

This volume starts off by building a bit into the mystery behind Nadeshiko. She’s clearly advanced tech - beyond anything Akane is aware of - but her maker is a mystery that the volume slowly drop feeds at different spots in the volume. The mystery is interesting, but remains so firmly in the background of the story that it’s more an afterthought. While the virtual gathering of sexadroid owners at the very beginning had some fun bits, it was a bit of a letdown from what I imagined from the ending of vol 1, and it barely takes a chapter. Instead, the majority of the time is spent building Akane and Nadeshiko’s relationship, getting Akane more used to and embracing of Nadeshiko’s presence, whether she’s conscious of it or not. Oh, and tons of smut. Good stuff, though it may have taken up too much of the page time for the story minded. I’ve already read the next volume by the time I’m writing this, and this volume definitely feels like a higher concentration of on page sex. The one part that I wasn’t thrilled with was when Akane regressed age-wise mentally while she was sick. I could have done without that, or maybe if it was done differently. Ah well. Still a good volume, overall.

This volume continues to occasionally drip feed the mystery of Nadeshiko’s background to the reader in tiny doses, but this time instead of taking a back seat to mostly-smut, it now takes a back seat to the interpersonal drama between Akane and Jun - a girl who Akane used to watch over a bit years ago when they were both kids, who has sought her out in Tokyo because she’s always been secretly in love with Akane. Don’t you worry, there’s still plenty of nice smut. But now we have the love triangle of Akane, Jun, and Nadeshiko. With Jun’s confession, Akane finds herself having to confront how she really sees and feels for Nadeshiko. Is she just a sexadroid to her? Should she return June’s feelings?

Should they have a threesome!?!? (My answer is yes, but Akane doesn’t agree)

We also start seeing Nadeshiko express feelings in secret that seem very much at odds with the way a typical sexadroid would be programmed to feel, like jealousy. Can robots truly feel love?

I mean, the answer in these types of stories is yes, of course. Not exactly having to read the tea leaves on that one. It’s not a groundbreaking story, but it remains a solid cute Yuri ecchi. Looking forward to vol 4.

This volume continues to occasionally drip feed the mystery of Nadeshiko’s background to the reader in tiny doses, but this time instead of taking a back seat to mostly-smut, it now takes a back seat to the interpersonal drama between Akane and Jun - a girl who Akane used to watch over a bit years ago when they were both kids, who has sought her out in Tokyo because she’s always been secretly in love with Akane. Don’t you worry, there’s still plenty of nice smut. But now we have the love triangle of Akane, Jun, and Nadeshiko. With Jun’s confession, Akane finds herself having to confront how she really sees and feels for Nadeshiko. Is she just a sexadroid to her? Should she return June’s feelings?

Should they have a threesome!?!? (My answer is yes, but Akane doesn’t agree)

We also start seeing Nadeshiko express feelings in secret that seem very much at odds with the way a typical sexadroid would be programmed to feel, like jealousy. Can robots truly feel love?

I mean, the answer in these types of stories is yes, of course. Not exactly having to read the tea leaves on that one. It’s not a groundbreaking story, but it remains a solid cute Yuri ecchi. Looking forward to vol 4.

This volume starts off by building a bit into the mystery behind Nadeshiko. She’s clearly advanced tech - beyond anything Akane is aware of - but her maker is a mystery that the volume slowly drop feeds at different spots in the volume. The mystery is interesting, but remains so firmly in the background of the story that it’s more an afterthought. While the virtual gathering of sexadroid owners at the very beginning had some fun bits, it was a bit of a letdown from what I imagined from the ending of vol 1, and it barely takes a chapter. Instead, the majority of the time is spent building Akane and Nadeshiko’s relationship, getting Akane more used to and embracing of Nadeshiko’s presence, whether she’s conscious of it or not. Oh, and tons of smut. Good stuff, though it may have taken up too much of the page time for the story minded. I’ve already read the next volume by the time I’m writing this, and this volume definitely feels like a higher concentration of on page sex. The one part that I wasn’t thrilled with was when Akane regressed age-wise mentally while she was sick. I could have done without that, or maybe if it was done differently. Ah well. Still a good volume, overall.

I enjoyed this one. I wanted something with a legitimate sapphic romance in it, and I got that. I liked the main character’s love interest. They were fun to watch together and I liked their personalities. The side characters were also good, though I didn’t really get enough time with any of them. That’s all right. The book is focused very heavily on the main pair and their story. There is a very clear three act structure and the first and third act are by far the strongest, in my opinion, and ends with a satisfying if bittersweet conclusion. It’s not that the second act is actually bad, per se. It’s more that, since I am really big on world building, I could see a lot of the cracks and thinness of some of the supernatural elements. By the time the third act came around, I was able to shrug off my misgivings in favor of enjoying the melodrama of the final act. While tragic LGBTQ stories might be a bit overplayed, if you’re looking for a YA, supernatural sapphic romance, this one is quite solid.

This series does not give up its secrets easily. It holds them closely and tightly like a squirrel with its nuts. I was left at the end of the last book with a lot of questions, and really pressing plot developments that I needed answers to, and “Harrow the Ninth“ wasn’t going to give them to me lightly. The book does its best from the get-go to upend your sense of reality, attacking your memories of what exactly happened in the first book. It does this both in story content - it directly contradicts events as you remember them from book one - but also in the narration. style. I can’t say that I have ever read another book that spends this much time in the second person. It took me quite a while to get used to it, as I typically despise second person, but once I did it won me over. It’s use emphasized the tone, and set up some surprising reveals in the last act. I don’t want to say too much aside from the fact that all of the strangeness and confusion is worth it for those big reveals, and I recommend sticking with the book through it. It is worth the ride. The story follows Harrow in both the present and past, with the past reliving events from the first book from a different angle and with those big inconsistencies, while the present focuses on her experiences with the Emperor and the other Lictors, as she learns more about the truth of the state of the empire, and her role in it. The book is full of interesting world building, conflicting personalities, mysteries, and occasional flashes of action and violence that are thoroughly satisfying to read. I personally would not say that I like this one better than the first, because I missed some of the characters I liked from that first book, but this is very easily a worthy successor that does very interesting things with its narration, and it is a strong recommendation from me.