Warning: This is a smutty story.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the very first smut manga that I’ve read. I, at that time, still do not know what smut is nor have been introduced to the other works of Shinjo Mayu like Kaikan Phrase. I thought that this is so vulgar and that I would be wasting a lot of time reading this. What surprised me more is that it definitely has a story.
It is already the 20th century. Yuuri is enjoying her date with her boyfriend. As she steps on wet soil, something grabs her and take her to the time of the Hittite Empire. Later, she learns that she is transported there to be a living sacrifice by the Queen. Fortunately for her, Prince Kail saves her and take her as his concubine. Caught between political intrigues and wars, how could Yuuri go back to modern Japan? Also, what will happen to her relationship with Prince Kail when the two of them are slowly developing strong feelings for each other?
From the present Anatolia (Turkey), let us go back to the ancient time as the story’s heroine, Yuri is transported from 20th century Japan to Anatolia. We are introduced to the era where the rulers in the Middle East are the Hittites. There is also Egypt ruled (at the start of the story) by Tutankhamen. Chie Shinohara did a good job in making a connection of history and fiction.
Surely, Minami Maki came up with a quite unique title. It really caught my attention. Just a random fact about S.A: ZA Hana to Yume is a sister magazine to Hana to Yume. The ZA is just the Japanese transcription of “THE” (since the “th” sound doesn’t exist in Japanese and one of closest sounds that can be used to substitute it is “z”).
ZA Hana to Yume has a less frequent publishing schedule – issues appear something like four times a year, I think. S.A was first serialized in ZA Hana to Yume (before moving to the regular Hana to Yume), which is why the first four chapters kept reintroducing Hikari, Kei, and everyone else and why the art between chapter 1 and 2 looks rather different. This is all thanks to Kaeyko from S.A LJ page.
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