The Fall 2020 Manga Guide

Unicorns Aren't Horny

What's It About? 

Emuko is a twenty-something virgin by choice—in fact, she's never really dated anyone in her entire life. Her roommate is a unicorn, a mythical creature known for its attraction to virgins. This unicorn, named Sea Urchin, adores Emuko, but sometimes Emuko wonders what she might be missing by avoiding romantic love.

Unicorns Aren't Horny is scripted and illustrated by Semi Ikuta, and Seven Seas will release both print and digital versions of its first volume on November 10 for $13.99 and $9.99 respectively

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

This was one of the longest short books I've read recently. Mostly that's because I have a very low tolerance for humor about virginity – its importance, gags about not losing it, whatever; as a joke it hasn't ever worked for me. And what we have here is a book that's largely built on the fact that Emuko is a perpetually boyfriendless virgin in her twenties who has somehow ended up living with a unicorn who loves her “purity.”

On the surface, that sounds like it'd be very funny. Emuko's invested in finding someone to lose her virginity with and Uni is equally intent on having her maintain it. In practice, Emuko's not actually all that keen on the whole sex bit, but rather wants a boyfriend because she'd like to be in a romantic relationship, sex or no. It's more like she's looking for companionship and the sort of innocent love that flourishes on the pages of her favorite shoujo manga; it's Uni's obsession with her virginity that makes her more focused on that aspect of being single. Again, this really should have been funnier than it turned out to be, or at least more heartwarming, because while Emuko wouldn't mind the sex part of the relationship, what she's really after is something she's starting to have with Uni as they share her apartment.

Where things get tripped up is a combination of Uni's one-note jokes about how he loves her virginity paired with what looks awfully like his desire to take said virginity. Emuko is largely okay with just sharing her life with the unicorn, and at points both think of Uni as her boyfriend. But then Uni's libido kicks in when she touches his horn, or when he makes her uncut sushi rolls and really enjoys watching her eat them, and things get kind of weird. It's like the book can't quite commit to either humor or romance while also enjoying Emuko's vague sense of shame that she's never had a (human) boyfriend, and that just didn't work for me. It's fine when the two are just getting along or when they're playing off of each other in a kind of slapstick way, but the emotional and humorous undercurrents of the plot don't sit comfortably together. There is also the fact that this is an interspecies relationship, if that bothers you. Uni and Emuko may not be doing anything much, but at the end of the book Emuko makes a friend who is living with a bicorn, a creature that loves impurity, and the lady and the bicorn are definitely in a sexual relationship. We don't see anything, so it's hardly a dealbreaker on that front, but it's also not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

The loose art and the combination of short chapters and four-panel comics work well for what the story is trying to be: an absurd romantic comedy about a virgin and a unicorn. It has its moments, both sweet (Uni taking Emuko out to look at the stars) and funny (Uni being jealous of the dog), but just not enough of either to make slogging through another volume sound at all appealing.

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Caitlin Moore

Rating:

As I paged through volume one of Unicorns Aren't Horny, I kept saying to myself, “Please don't fall in love with the unicorn. Please don't turn into bestiality. Please please please don't screw the unicorn.”

Unfortunately, this unicorn is not here to grant my wishes.

Okay, so Emuko, our heroine, doesn't actually screw the unicorn, but considering a sentient quadrupedal equine mammal does get screwed, I'm not willing to let Unicorns Aren't Horny off scot-free.

Emuko has, despite her childhood dreams of getting married early, made it well into her twenties without ever going on a date, let alone having sex. Since unicorns are only attracted to virgins, this leads to a unicorn named Uni moving into her apartment as a surreal roommate. He may keep her company, but he's also obsessed with her virginity and wants her to maintain “purity” at all costs.

I do not like Uni, not at all. I was obsessed with unicorns as a child, and watched movies like Unico and The Last Unicorn more times than I can possibly count. Having a unicorn as a roommate would sound like a dream come true to four-year-old me, but Uni is a creep. He's constantly getting turned on by Emuko's inexperience, sniffs her crotch whenever she gets back from going out to see if she was around any men, and overall is completely intrusive and lacks any kind of chill. Emuko desires romance and sex, but has no idea how to make it happen and lacks the motivation to pursue it, so she just kind of lets him do whatever.

I get the feeling Semi Ikuta wants to make some sort of statement about perceptions of virginity and sex in society, but a romantic comedy between a woman and an invasive crotch-sniffing unicorn isn't working for me. I was uncomfortable with how Emuko and Uni's relationship seemed to be increasingly romantic, especially considering his lack of boundaries and paternalistic interest in her purity. Empowering this ain't.