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Oniisama E is a lovely, classic shojo that is absolutely worth reading, especially for anyone interested in the development of the yuri genre, as I believe it was highly influential on other series.

I love Riyoko Ikeda's classic shojo art, huge eyes and dripping tears and all. I'm simply obsessed with the way she draws the masculine female characters! They look like real butch women! And the 70s fashion is incredible.

(The only thing that threw me off about the art was that the pages often use solid black backgrounds just for effect, whereas I'm used to black backgrounds behind panels meaning this is a flashback scene ... -- this confused me for the first few chapters as I kept thinking I was skipping back to the past when actually the background meant nothing, haha...)

The plot is VERY melodramatic, and the ending of this series is both somewhat abrupt and bittersweet. There are no happy endings here, but I didn't find the sadness to be over the top. And it was nice how the angst isn't centered on "I love her but we're both girls" or anything, just a passionate story of high school first love that ends tragically.

For a short read that sweeps you up in the dramas and intense relationships of an all-girls high school, Oniisama E is one I highly recommend devoting a day to. I'm hoping this series gets officially licensed in English someday because I would love to own it in physical form.

This was disappointing to me. It started off really strong with a lot of fun humor and a strong premise, seeming to be an exploration of teenage girls' coming into their awareness of sexuality in a realistic way, but by the 3rd volume it took a turn for the melodramatic with a cliché love triangle and also started introducing a creepy teacher-student plotline that wasn't handled well at all. The humor was also disappearing at the same time. A real shame as this seemed like it had the potential to be something pretty unique and special among all the typical high school romance series out ... there.