Akiko Morishima is a Girls' Love mangaka who specializes in realistic stories about romances between adult working women. Her works include Hanjuku Joshi, 20-Year-Old Girl × 30-Year-Old Maiden, and The Conditions For Paradise. She also provided the character designs for Yuri Kuma Arashi, as well as the art for its manga adaptation.
Tropes frequently used by this author:
- Christmas Cake: Unusually for a Girls' Love author, Morishima mostly focuses on women in their late 20s and 30s, rather than Schoolgirl Lesbians.
- Schoolgirl Lesbians: Morishima does enjoy indulging in this Yuri Genre staple every-once-in-awhile, but she tends to subvert or deconstruct most of the tropes involved in such works.
- Puni Plush: Everyone looks pretty squishy
- Slice of Life
- Teacher/Student Romance
- Yuri
Tropes used in this author's shorter works:
A Lapis-Lazuli Blue Dream
Princess of the Stars
- Bifauxnen: Tsumugi used to be one.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tsumugi and Yui were the “prince” and “princess” of their One Gender High School.
Honey and Mustard 1&2
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Chiho to Mai
- Bifauxnen: Mitsuki
- The Casanova: Mitsuki is quite the charmer. Kaori even refers to her as “a regular Don Juan.”
- Chick Magnet: Mai
- Drowning Our Romantic Sorrows: Mitsuki and Kaori go get hammered at a bar after they both get turned down by Mai.
- Girlish Pigtails: Mai
- Grumpy Bear: Chiho
- Indirect Kiss: Mitsuki kisses Mai’s hand, and then kisses Kaori’s hand to pass it along.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Mitsuki and Kaori both feel this way, they eventually work past this by promising that even if they should break up again they will always be friends
- Lipstick Lesbian: Kaori
- Master of the Mixed Message: Mitsuki tends not to realize she is a spectacular flirt. When tries to flirt on purpose she actually sound like she's rejecting Kaori
- Perpetual Frowner: Chiho
- Platonic Life-Partners: Mitsuki and Kaori used to date and now they're best friends.
- Relationship Upgrade: The two become a couple by the end of Honey and Mustard 2
- Ship Tease: Mitsuki and Kaori, a lot.
- Time Skip: 4 years pass between 1 and 2
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mitsuki and Kaori
- UST: Mitsuki and Kaori
- The two get a chapter in "Office Romance" exploring this.
- Will They or Won't They?: Mitsuki and Kaori, especially in part 2
Nostalgia
Soft-Boiled Fujoshi
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Yuria
- Emotionless Girl: Yuria is quite deadpan.
- Fetish: Chie likes Zettai Ryouiki, and Yuria likes to watch Chie put on her glasses.
- Girlish Pigtails: Yuria
- Joshikousei: Chie gets very fangirly when Yuria changes into her regular school uniform.
- Meganekko: Chie
- Meido: Yuria dresses up as one.
-
Moe: Chie is a strong proponent of moe, and the manga itself debates which is more important to a fujoshi: moe or love. - Not What It Looks Like: Chitose hears some rather suggestive noises coming from Chie and Yuria’s room and bursts in to tell them to tone it down, only to discover that the two of them were just working on a porny doujin together. In Chie’s own words, “it’s just the story that’s dirty!”
- Old Shame: Chie cringes when she finds out that Yuria has read all of her work, even the really old stuff.
- Otaku Surrogate: Chie
- Shout-Out:
- Chie refers to her first encounter with Yuria as an “event flag.”
- Chie reads Yuri Hime Wildrose.
- Yaoi Fangirl/Yuri Fan: Chie, the titular fujoshi.
We’re Aiming For Love Now
- Bridal Carry: Lalah does this to Shinobu in their backstory. She also tries doing it in the present-day, but finds that grown-up Shinobu is a little too big.
- Cosplay Otaku Girl: Lalah
- Girlish Pigtails: Lalah
- Gray Rain of Depression: Inverted: Rain causes Shinobu to get depressed because it reminds her of the day her mother deserted her.
- Heroic BSoD: Shinobu
- Implausible Hair Color: Lalah dyes her hair blonde.
- Older Than They Look: Lalah is 29, but doesn't look it at all.
- One Head Taller: Although in this case, the shorter one is also the older one.
- Parental Abandonment: Shinobu suffered this when she was a kid.
- Sempai/Kohai: Shinobu still calls Lalah “sempai.”
- Victorious Childhood Friend
Peach Taste
- Meaningful Name: Momoko’s name means “peach girl.”
- Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Momoko’s friends dismiss her crush on Yoshino as just an immature admiration, saying that she needs to grow up and fall in love with a guy.
- Sempai/Kohai
- Shout-Out: One of Momoko's friends has a crush on a manga character named Chasuke. She also whips out a magazine called Shounen Chump which advertises a Prince of Table Tennis on the cover.
- Sexual Euphemism: In an omake, Yoshino recaps the story as "two girls doing this and that with a lollipop".
Angelic Girl
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Negama, though she has a lot more self-esteem issues than most.
- Beta Couple: Nana and Kei to Negama and Tsukimiya.
- Berserk Button: Nana does not like Kei mentioning she's been with men, or whatever knowledge she's gained from those experiences.
- Bifauxnen: Kei. She's somewhat of a Deconstruction of this archetype, as it's eventually revealed that most of her past girlfriends were using because they viewed her as less intimidating than sex with a real boy, or viewed her a "practice" before getting an actual boyfriend.
- Gayngst: Negema worries that Tsukimiya is straight. Kei is revealed to be mostly a fling or passing fancy to most of the girls she's been with.
- UST: Negama and Tsukimiya even after they become a couple.
