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"What form do the insects placed inside our wombs take?... and how will they change us in the end?"

This is a very unique, dark fantasy story with some yuri romance in the mix. The visceral imagery of girls being controlled and transformed through bugs in their wombs lends itself to a highly dramatic and emotionally engaging story with interesting world-building and action.

The main character, Odamaki Ayumi, is desperate to become a Noble Butterfly so she can reunite with her best friend/love, Reika. However, after her transformation and ascendance to the butterfly upperclass, much to Ayumi's horror, Reika has changed into someone who completely despises ... Ayumi and is obsessively loyal to her new master, Lady Towa. The metamorphosis seemingly turns girls into power-obsessed elitists, detached from their former humanity, leaving Ayumi feeling frustrated and terrified of her own potential change.

The setting is highly militaristic/factional and post-apocalyptic. Girls like Ayumi are raised at and confined to the "farm" and used as fodder against the army of armored bugs that have ravaged the Earth, that is, until Ayumi is brutally killed in battle and undergoes her transformation into a new species of black butterfly. However, her death and rebirth as a Noble Butterfly only adds fuel to the fire of her formerly repressed rage at the unjust system she and her friends have been subject to.

The contrast between the hopeless state of the girls who remain pupas and the beautiful, elegant world of the Garden from which the Noble Butterflies reign creates the atmosphere for a story of revolution and challenging unfair power dynamics.

There's also plenty of romance between girls in this series (a huge draw for a yuri fan such as myself), especially unrequited love. As the story continues, I'm sure there will be plenty of drama surrounding Ayumi's betrayal by Reika, Reika's devotion to Lady Towa and her jealousy towards Ayumi, and Iyu's (Ayumi's friend who remains a pupa) resentment towards Reika and fear of losing Ayumi. Gotta love a toxic yuri love triangle(?).

I'd recommend this manga to fans of dark magical girl stories, especially Madoka Magica, as its themes share a lot of parallels with that genre. Though its content is a bit more sexually suggestive at times and on the adult side of things.

I'd say this is less of a traditional girl's love story and more so a story of girls who have "perverted" ways of showing their love.

The main characters are Azuki Komugi, an otaku girl who obsessively carves clay models of her high school ex-girlfriend, and Yoyuki Remu, an outgoing girl who secretly relieves stress by touching and sucking on dolls, yearning for the perfect "ideal girl" figure from her childhood. Both characters are deeply ashamed of their fetishes but are united by a common goal- trying to recapture the magic of their first "love" (or is it only lust?).

Although there's only one completed ... volume at the time of me writing this review, I've been immensely impressed with the bold portrayal of the characters' shame, obsession, and repression. Kogumi displays a significant amount of self-resentment about her desires. She justifies her fixation with Megaru as being nothing more than pure love but struggles with her obsession being seen as disgusting and nothing more than a product of lust. Kogumi feels as if Megaru was the only person to ever understand her, so her betrayal of rejecting Kogumi's attempt at intimacy deeply stings and sends her spiraling. Now, as Remu enters her life, someone who truly understands her struggles in a more unique way than Megaru, Kogumi battles with being accepted and is forced to develop a new perspective on what intimacy can mean.

I feel like this story can really connect with queer people who have struggled with internalized homophobia, or really anyone who has struggled with non-traditional sexual desires. The themes in this manga are uncomfortable, complex, and provocative. It's also always refreshing to read a yuri manga that is outside the regular high school setting (the main character is an actual adult! woohoo!).

If you're wanting something outside the scope of a regular romance story, definitely give this one a read!