This is a very specific kind of book that will appeal to a very specific kind of person. I am that person. If you like reading about iron-willed, "unlikable" women and don't mind unhappy endings, you might enjoy it like I did.

From the moment I picked up this book, I couldn't stop reading. Kiyoha is what some people would call a "bitch". She's spiteful, stubborn, intelligent, and absolutely ferocious (a little feral, to be honest). I couldn't help but love her. We watch her grow from a child to a young woman, and even though she eventually accepts that she'll never escape the pleasure quarters, it doesn't break her.

Kiyoha decries love, finds it absurd that her fellow courtesans are taken in by it, and yet falls for the same trap herself. Through just a few looks, and touches, and nights spent together. She knows that the men who come to Yoshiwara rarely mean it when they tell a courtesan they love her, but she falls for it all the same. To me, that's what makes that last arc so powerful. She knows better, but when she's swept up in it she finally understands.

The last page still haunts me. Her smile, the one she learned to use for O-Some, and her last words: "They didn't catch me. I came back of my own accord."

I feel like the manga ended earlier than intended, because the first chapter mentions she became Higurashi of Tamagiku house, but we never get to see that happen. Also her relationship (of some kind) with Seiji is hinted at in the first chapter, and they interact throughout the book, but I feel like there was supposed to be more to the story.

There is also a lot of same-face syndrome, so it's hard to tell the characters apart.