Yuri is a bit of a peculiar genre. Despite being primarily about female/female romance, it's not usually really for actual lesbians, or for actual women in general. Most yuri is aimed at men, who, the common wisdom dictates anyway, fetishize the purity and wholesomeness of relationships between women while at the same time not seeing them as "real" in the same way that they do heterosexual relationships (you could, it must be noted, levy many similar criticisms at yaoi). Consequently most yuri is also written by men, and regardless of its quality, you can usually sort of tell. Even the best yuri in this style tend to have a certain ethereal thin-ness about the characters, and there tends to be a bit of a preoccupation on not showing anything too racy, unless it's out and out porn.

Then, somewhere very far away from all that, you have LOVE/DEATH. A very short manga that manages to finagle its way out of most of these criticisms, and which exists in an entirely different universe than more conventionally "romantic" yuri.

The premise really could not be simpler, and it's a wonder it's not been done more often. Two girls, both lesbians (there is no coyness here. The two openly profess their love for each other about once per chapter), who are also yanderes, for each other. If you're not familiar with the yandere archetype, it's a well-worn trope in anime and manga (and it's not terribly uncommon outside of it either, just not under that name). A woman so possessed of the fires of romantic love that it drives her mad, a woman who is willing to do anything or hurt anyone to get to the object of her affection, and, it often follows, if she can't have him, no one will! Thus it's not uncommon for yandere characters to attempt to kidnap or murder the people they are in "love" with. As with all things, this can be played various ways. There's another universe out there somewhere where LOVE/DEATH is fifty volumes deep and is a psychological examination of its two leads, and the horrific consequences of their twisted affection for each other. In our world however, LOVE/DEATH is pretty much a straight comedy manga; short, sweet, and to the point, and if that comes across as a disappointment, it shouldn't.

LOVE/DEATH really only has one joke, but it tells it with enough subtle variations over its seven short chapters that by the time it closes you're left with the feeling that it's been stretched just far enough. The setup for each chapter is essentially the same. Our leads; the black-haired Shouko and the blonde Akira, are dating. The first bit of the chapter presents them as a well-adjusted couple that you might find in any number of run-of-the-mill romance manga, usually engaging in some innocuous activity (going to a movie for example). Then, there is some misunderstanding (say: Akira seeing Shouko talking to a guy and assuming she's being cheated on), and the second part of the chapter is devoted to the two fighting both verbally and physically--usually causing shonen levels of catastrophic collateral damage--and then in the final pages they reconcile.

To be sure, it's not a terribly complex setup and it'd be disingenuous to claim it was somehow much more than the sum of its parts. It is, to be sure, funny, but more than that, despite their relatively broadstroke characterization both of the leads actually do manage to feel real. There's a genuine burning intensity to their passion for each other that makes their resorting to violence so often (and so intensely) feel less like a joke and more just the logical conclusion of these cartoony loons being in love. The characters work, more because of their absurdity than despite it. The manga only really falters when the violence gets a bit too real. It's usually pretty non-bloody, but there are a few instances in the later chapters where something genuinely gory happens (the most egregious example being Shouko blocking one of Akira's knife jabs by having said knife stabbed through her hand) and it jars the reader out of the cartoon violence of the manga's world enough to make them contemplate the leads' relationship dynamics in a more serious light, which is absolutely not something that a manga trying to be this goofy should be doing. Still these missteps are few and the manga is so short that it's impossible to claim they impact the overall experience in a major way.

Mangaka Kuzushiro is a mysterious figure, and it's plainly not possible to know if they are male, female, or something else, but no matter how they may identify, their deft comedic hand makes this an easy recommend for anyone who's not put off by the very premise. It's hard to believe that a cottage industry of "two yanderes in love" stories wouldn't get old quickly, but perhaps writers of more "traditional" yuri could stand to pick up a few tricks from Kuzushiro's work, and for that reason alone, the yuri enthusiast looking for something a bit hotter in the blood will find a good deal to like here.