Kaoru Mori’s Anything and something

As I mentioned in my artist spotlight, despite the number of Kaoru Mori’s titles that are available in the west, I was disappointed that, due to their length, many of her short stories were unavailable legally – That is until the recent release by Yen press of Anything and something, a collection of her short stories that she has had published in Fellows magazine, along with many of her various illustrations and sketches from the last 10 years, as well as artwork of both her earlier works Emma and Shirley and her most recent work brides story.

As the title suggests the titles presented cover a large swathe of subjects including –

Welcome to the mansion, master – where a young delivery boy suddenly finds himself the less than willing owner of a of less than scrupulous maid and butler.

Burrow Gentlemen’s club – One of the many contemporary period stories included in this book this tale, told in the first person, introduces us to a hostess club waitress who may be more than she seems….
Oh, did I forget to mention that she’s also a bunny girl?

Miss Claire’ s ordinary, everyday life – Despite the title of this 2 part story Claire, the sole renaming servant to the always broke Baron Heinz, has anything but an ordinary life, from see through glasses, to burglars, to even a gramophone built into a Victorian telephone [beating bill gates by 100 years!]

But by far my favourite part of the book was that Velvet blossoms, the story drawn by Kaoru and written by Satoshi Fukushima, and which I covered in my artists spotlight on Kaoru Moris works, has been included in this book [although retitled for the western release as “Sumires flowers”].
The story of two female art club members, one more interested in her art than social interaction, the other who uses the art club as a mean to “socially interact”, and how the two eventually come to understand each other and bond through art still stands in my mind by far as the one title that makes this book a must buy – In fact out of them all I think both Sumires flowers and Claire had the potential to be developed into their own [albeit short] series in their own right.

In all this series is an absolute must for fans of Kaoru Mori, whether through her recent work Brides story or [like me] through Emma.