I enjoy the secret story this oneshot tells:
Aside from Yuri Hime and Hirari, Tsubomi used to be one of the only other big names in yuri publishing. It has since gone out of business, but recently Mebae has taken its place (it is also the magazine this oneshot ran in). This story literally has Mebae sending love letters to Tsubomi. I consider this oneshot as a love letter from Mebae (or the author) for all the good Tsubomi has done for yuri.
It has a lot of amusing parallels which further personify these magazines as their characters:
"I found Senpai at a book store I just happened to visit" and "After some time, she graduated, but I ended up entering the same world as her." start the story off strong on Mebae talking about finding a Tsubomi magazine, and then Tsubomi going out of business but having Mebae enter the industry soon after.
"You were born in April, Me-chan." Refers to Mebae's Volume 1 release on April 31st 2014.
"I've graduated, we live in different worlds now" again refers to Tsubomi going out of business, but then Mebae responds "We're together! I chose to enter this industry so I could be closer to you, Senpai". Pretty obvious.
Tsubomi has a lot of stories that never get to the kiss (infuriatingly, at times), hence the kissless virgin moment.
Tsubomi ran for 21 volumes, thus "There's 21 minutes left to my birthday" and the subsequent "Unfortunately, I'm out of time" when those 21 minutes are up.
Unrelated specifically to this oneshot, but Tsubomi means flower bud and Mebae means seedling. This connection runs deep!
This is possibly the first instance of someone shipping yuri magazines in a yuri magazine.
last edited at Apr 20, 2015 3:22AM