Confidential Confessions Manga, Volume 4 (English)

May 6th, 2008

Back in the bad old days of Yuri, in between the frantic melodrama of the 70’s and this current decade, (and with the exception of Sailor Moon) it was fairly common in manga to find lesbian love paired with mental unbalance. Confidential Confessions, by Momochi Reiko is a series that allows us to wallow in the depravity of “true” stories and incidentally, see some crazy lesbians.

You know the television show that’s on WEtv (which as you know, I like to refer to as the “Violence Against Women Network,”) High School Confidential? This manga was written 10 years ago – and it’s the exact same stuff. Teenage pregnancy, abuse, drug use, etc. Freaky, huh? Guess good girls in bad trouble still appeals to some.

In Volume 4, we “deal” with a number of unpleasant issues; institutionalized abuse of female students; prostitution; bullying; and, in “Forbidden Kiss,” a lesbian love affair complete with insane jealousy, a knife and an ambiguously asexual ending.

The author’s notes dramatically explain that all these terrible things go on, and she feels that, by telling these stories, she’s bringing these issues to people’s attention, so the bullying and abuse and prostitution will stop. She doesn’t mention the lesbianism. If I was young and had read her story, I might have been tempted to stop being a lesbian. Those girls were *crazy*! ^_^; This is the same tone of slavering “concern” with which WEtv deals with the same issues in their show – oh, how awful, isn’t it just terrible what happened, did you hear, I know I was shocked too.

The art in Confidential is decidedly old-school, and in a way it made me nostalgic. If you like the dredging up of sleazy “true” stories, then you’ll be happy to note that the series is 6 volumes long and there’s a second series, Confidential Confessions: Deai, as well. So plenty of teenaged girl misery and abuse for you to bathe yourself in and either feel better about your own life, or get secretly turned on, or whatever floats your boat.

While I do love me my Evil Pycho Lesbians, I’m less moved by this kind of teenage pathos. But, if you love tabloid drama Confidential Confessions is certainly dramatic. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – N/A
Characters – N/A
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 7

A tip of the hat today to Ted the Awesome for sponsoring today’s review! (You may have noticed that I haven’t added anything recently to the Yuri Wishlist. That’s because I’m positively *drowning* in things to review and want to make some of it all go away before encouraging you all to throw more on top of an already untenably large pile. When these piles are gravitationally stable again, I’ll add more stuff to the wishlist! Thanks, everyone, for your support!)

4 Responses

  1. Fuyumi says:

    You know, its interesting, because I think this volume of Confidential Confessions was the first time I stumbled upon Yuri in manga (this probably speaks volumes of my age, admittedly). I can recall furtively reading it in a Barnes and Noble, protectively curling myself over the pages so that passerby couldn’t see what was depicted on the pages… haha, it pre-dated my realization of the fact that I wasn’t straight, so I felt guilty about enjoying it.

    Anyway, I’m definitely having a nostalgia filter with this title, as I remember it being better than you make it sound. In retrospect, I do recall both girls as being a bit crazy, but I suppose I didn’t really connect that with their lesbianism/bisexuality… just, um, that they were crazy (I think one of them had a batshit family, too?).

    I think this series also confused me at the time because none of the really horrible stuff in it ever happened to guys… LOL, it never does in this stuff, though, does it?

  2. It’s not so much a in this particular book, but in general, across a wide range of manga that lesbian characters were either homicidal or suicidal. Much like the fact that the “lesbian murderer” card is still the most visible lesbian characters on TV and in movies. It’s all a muchness.

    Like in KOOLS, the fact that lesbianism is lumped in with a load of horrible things in this book, makes it by default, *another* horrible thing.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Horrible stuff happens to girls because the whole Confidential Confessions series is aimed at girls/women. People tend to be more interested in problems that concern their own gender.

  4. The same reason that an entertainment network for women runs the equally vile High School Confidential.

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