Volume 13 of the Seiyuu Radio no Ura Omote light novel continues to tackle other elements of the seiyuu/idol industry while, at the same time, keeping the focus on further developing the (yuri) relationship between our main heroines, Chika Watanabe and Yumiko Sato.

This time the focus was on a new face in the industry called Moco Watagashi, who is being pushed strongly by her production studio. The story revolves around the reactions of Chika and Yumiko to this new girl as they interact with her. This studio seems to be a recurring "antagonist" of the series as they use various underhanded tactics to try and get new talent at all costs.

Moco is a beautiful and quite talented girl who is extremely frank and honestly probably a bit depressed about the status of her career. Her trauma stems from the fact that she was picked for a role without even an audition simply because of pressure from her production studio. This caused a much more talented girl (who was her friend) to be dropped instead.

This created a jaded view of the industry in her mind, which clashes with the more idealistic views of our two main heroines. She doesn't seem to care about the career aspect anymore and is just going with the flow. She uses her looks to move forward, knowing well that at some point that won't work anymore and she will just move on from it.

She seems to like Yumiko a lot because of her resurgence after dropping to rock bottom following the "scandal," but she hates Chika for reasons that are currently unknown. At the same time, Yumiko gets scouted by that same studio with a tempting offer that seems suspiciously convenient timing-wise.

In the midst of this drama, we get some funny events involving Mekuru Yubisaki (the experienced seiyuu and closet otaku) being sandwiched by Chika and Yumiko as they ask for her senior opinion. Poor girl. She loves them so much that she can barely survive them acting cute or getting too close to her. Such is the pain of being close to your idols, I guess...

The Moco situation gets solved by Chika awakening Yumiko's skill during a concert. This shocks Moco completely as she wasn't considering Yumiko a serious opponent at all. I am wondering where this leads because Moco seemed unable to respond back to Chika afterward. Will this make her position change and maybe allow her to become friends with the two main heroines?

The offer, in the end, turned out to be something that they made purely to try and get her manager to jump ship. Yumiko denied it as she still thinks of reaching things through her own skills and not because of the push of a company. It is an idealistic point of view, but definitely something that is commendable.

Oh, and Yumiko finally mustered the courage to thank Chika for saving her in the previous volume when she was about to lose her willpower to continue because of the Precure audition. The final scene was incredible. Chika goes, "Of course I would do that, you are my other half, I can't do my best if you are not at your best."

This caused Yumiko to retort, "I understand this is just a way to hide your embarrassment, but you do realize what you said is even more embarrassing?" while both of them were blushing hard. IT WAS SO CUTE. My yuri glasses just activated on their own!

The quality of the writing is still top tier and I love following Chika and Yumiko's lives so much. I just noticed after reading that Volume 14 is already up for pre-order, so I am looking forward to giving it a read once it is out.