Yes， it’s time for another volume of the themed yuri anthology Syrup。 While Syrup has always been the bottom rung of yuri compilations for me， surely this volume can’t be any worse than the second instalment？ Right？Well， no， of course not。 Nothing could be worse than the second volume。 It took a really brave soul （or hard-headed reviewer， hello！） to suffer those increasingly awful takes on forbidden love - which pretty much every author took to mean “hateful”。No， the theme this go-round is ‘the Yes， it’s time for another volume of the themed yuri anthology Syrup。 While Syrup has always been the bottom rung of yuri compilations for me， surely this volume can’t be any worse than the second instalment？ Right？Well， no， of course not。 Nothing could be worse than the second volume。 It took a really brave soul （or hard-headed reviewer， hello！） to suffer those increasingly awful takes on forbidden love - which pretty much every author took to mean “hateful”。No， the theme this go-round is ‘the first time’ and you get a wide variety of stories centred around that theme， from a very goofy story about two hapless virgins to one melancholy tale that spans almost forty years。 There’s definitely a lot of sex in this volume。The two best stories in the book are actually really good。 One story about two long-standing - and long-suffering - roomies who end up as something more （or do they。。。？） could easily have been a full series with a little fleshing out。 I felt the ending to this one was realistically hopeful， yet messy。Milk Morinaga once again has a stellar entry， a tale of a gym trainer and her client， that is actually more forbidden than her entry for volume 2。 It’s a lot of fun and it’s neat to see her style evolve to put a little more meat on her characters。 It made me miss her long-form series yet again。Everything else is various shades of tolerable to okay。 Canno’s usually pretty reliable for at least something interesting but their entry is surprisingly toothless。 There’s a good one from， I believe， the author of Yuri is my Job， who explores two very different students who wind up together。Annoyingly， the book leads with its worst story， an exquisitely drawn piece that happens to feature an eighty year age gap （！？） romance between two inari。 It just feels very icky the whole time， but mercifully it is not representative of the whole here， which I was really dreading。2。5 stars and boy I am having real trouble with not being able to award half stars this week。 Still， an average collection with some above average work and some okay to meh as well。 Since only the first story really grated on me， we’ll round to 3， but anybody who wants a taste of a truly stellar yuri anthology should really check out Eclair Blanc first。 。。。more