Archive for the Yamaji Ebine Category


Yuri Manga: Binetsu no You Na (微熱のような) Ends in Feel Young

June 5th, 2014

ScanA couple of months ago, I noted that Yamaji Ebine has begun a new series in Feel Young magazine. Binetsu no You Na went three longish chapters and has now wrapped up.

In my original review I said, “So far this story is, as many of Yamaji’s recent stories have been, uncomfortable.” And so it remained, right to the very last panel. I suggest you read the first review before you decide if you want to read the rest of this one. ^_^;

Even after Nao is told flat out by Mifuyu how she manipulated Nao, Nao comes crawling back to the other woman. The final scene, in which Nao succumbs to her attraction to Mifuyu, is no more appealing or empowering than earlier scenes, in which she is manipulated into sleeping with her teacher or Yoshiaki. And, in the end, instead of owning her weakness, Nao still blames her absent first love, Taki, rather than admitting that she’s just weak.

Again, quoting from my previous review, I say, “The last few Yamaji works have felt more like her working something out than actual stories. This one feels more like a story, but imbued with a struggle I’m not able to understand.”

Ratings:

Art – Her usual sparse style 9
Story – 6 Tight, but uncomfortable
Characters – 6 Ultimately, the only one I could feel anything about was Yoshiaki
Yuri – 8, but ugh
Service – 4

Overall – 6

I spend the entirety of this story thinking “What on earth happened to Yamaji-sensei that all we’re getting from her these days are stories about rape and manipulation?” I hope to heavens it’s just editors wanting her work to be more “gritty.”





New Yamaji Ebine Manga in Feel Young Magazine

March 23rd, 2014

ScanIn the February volume of Feel Young (フィール・ヤング) magazine, Yamaji Ebine has a new series starting that, at least at first glance, warrants our attention. “Binetsu no you na” (微熱のような), which I’d translate as “Like a Mild Fever” begins rather abruptly, in the middle of a conversation between Nao, a typical Yamaji-esque protagonist, and Mifuyu, an acquaintance at university, on their way to discuss a book with the author.

During the discussion, Nao finds herself suddenly quite tired. She wakes up in Sensei’s home, wearing a negligee, with no memory of how she got there or what happened. Sensei says that it was Mifuyu who undressed her and put her to bed.

Nao confronts Mifuyu, who thinks it all quite funny. After a conversation about Nao’s best friend in high school, Taki, who has gone to college in England, so Nao is feeling a bit lonely, Mifuyu also contrives to get Nao alone with her boyfriend, Yoshiaki. Yoshiaki hits on Nao, not in a bad way and, lonely, disappointed in her friend Taki, for becoming “just another normal woman and getting a boyfriend,”  Nao sleeps with him. Again, Mifuyu find this very amusing.

But it isn’t until Mifuyu hugs her that Nao feels anything. She’s suddenly aware of the electricity between her and Mifuyu, even as she is completely aware that there is something quite broken in the other woman.

In chapter two, things become even more complicated. Mifuyu still positions herself as Nao’s friend and it’s increasingly obvious that Nao is attracted to her, even as she’s leery of her. But Mifuyu is setting Yoshiaki and Nao up more and more…and we learn, (perhaps not surprisingly) that she’s watching when they have sex.  The second chapter comes to an end with Nao visiting Sensei and having her work critiqued. She asks not to be sent home that night, and Sensei obliges.

So far this story is, as many of Yamaji’s recent stories have been, uncomfortable. The attraction Nao is feeling and the actions she’s taking are in pulling in two opposite directions. And I can’t help but feel that Mifuyu is pulling the strings for some reason of her own. I wonder where this story will go, but I’m kind of not willing to think about it, either. ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – If you like her bare style, then 9
Story – Longer chapters and more direction that recent Yamaji works, but still kind of “uhhmmm”
Characters – I couldn’t begin to tell you yet, waiting for the boot to drop
Yuri – 3, maybe
Service – 4

Overall – Big ole, “I’ll wait and see”

The last few Yamaji works have felt more like her working something out than actual stories. This one feels more like a story, but imbued with a struggle I’m not able to understand.





Rira to Shion by Yamaji Ebine

September 23rd, 2013

I have this really weird, tenuous relationship with FEEL YOUNG (フィールヤング) magazine . I’m not subscribing to it, but apart from an off issue or three, I’ve been reading it regularly for years, probably around a decade. First, it brought back Hana no Asuka-gumi, then it kept running Yamaji Ebine’s work. On and off, it had Yuri/lesbian stories, on and off it had something else I wanted to be reading. Now that Ohana Holoholo is winding down, I wondered if it was going to find a way to keep me coming back. Well…yup. The September issue had another one-shot by Yamaji Ebine that I like a gazillion times more than most of her recent stuff.

In a on-going series of “Lyrical” manga, Yamaji Ebine’s contribution is kind of sadly sweet. “Rira to Shion: Story of the contrastive girls” [sic] tells the story of Shion, a young woman who wants to be a photographer and Rira, a girl she meets by accident when Rira comes into Shion’s aunt’s doll shop.

Shion, it turns out, has not quite embraced adult life. She was betrayed by an adult when she was young – a man who used her photographs without her permission or credit. She’s been hovering on the edge of life, not graduating, not moving on, working with her aunt.

Rira also has not moved into adult life. After being traumatized by the sight of her older brother and girlfriend having sex, Rira is clinging to childhood. She only feels like her “true self” when she dresses like a doll among her dolls.

Shion and Rira recognize something similar in each other. And, as Shion puts it plainly, Rira becomes her Muse, bringing her photography to a whole new level. Motivated by Rira, Shion applies for graduation – but only if Rira is credited properly for her role.

The two women step forward into a new, adult life ready to support each other’s true selves.

Overall, this was a really feel-good story. There’s nothing Yuri or lesbian about it, but watching the two help each other to grow and embrace their own lives,  was just really nice.

I’ll hope that this is a swing back for Yamaji-sensei away from exploring they way people hide from the world and towards how they grow in it.

And I guess I’ll still be picking up Feel Young a little while longer. ^_^





Yuri News This Week – November 1, 2008

January 1st, 2008

Yuri Events

As you read this, I am at MangaNEXT along with a bunch of the Yuricon staff, Rica Takashima and a host of awesome con guests!

Here is my Panel schedule for MangaNEXT:

Friday – 7PM – Writing for Manga

Saturday – 2PM – Yuri Panel
6PM – 10 Steps to Impressing a Publisher

There’s loads of other great stuff, too. Mari Morimoto will be discussing Gay Manga 101 on Friday, and the Manga Library will be hosting a Book Club discussion of Rica’s works on Sunday. In between there’s tons of stuff for fans of every genre, so I really hope you’ll pop by to say hi and stay for the great panels and people.

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Yuri Manga

Okay, the news is out, at last. Sometime last spring I learned that Tokyopop licensed Yamaji Ebine’s Love My Life, but was asked to not say anything. Well thanks to Amazon’s advance listings, I no longer have to take the rap for being the leak. Hah.

Probably no one cares about this but Amuria in Star Ocean, which had tons of almost-but-not-really-Yuri ends its run in the December issue of Dengeki Daioh.

Nakamura Ching, creator of Gunjou, wrote me to say that she’s getting a lot of overseas requests on how to purchase copies of Morning 2 magazine. Because she’s a really lovely person, she’s gone and created a guide to purchasing back issues from Kodansha’s website. It’s a step-by-step process, with key things translated into English for your benefit! She’s asked me to pass on the information that back issues that contain chapters 1-3 of Gunjou are no longer available, but chapter 4~ are. I seriously think we need to thank her for that effort – it’s completely above and beyond the call of duty, don’t you?

Sean writes in to tell us that Gunsmith Cats Burst is coming to an end in Japan. And the most recent chapter includes a kiss between Misty and Rally. A kiss that is lovingly detailed over *3* pages. It’s a damn good kiss, I have to say. lol Sadly for Misty x Rally fans, it’s a good-bye kiss. But all I have to say is “I knew it!” (That’s sort of a joke, based off my recent GSC fanfic. Just saying. lol)

For Aria and Aqua fans, Amano Kozue has announced a new manga series to begin in March, called Amanchu. The art has two girls, so undoubtedly there will be fans who see it as Yuri. :-)

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Yuri Anime

Once more Crunchyroll offer free, legal streaming Yuri-ish suff. This time Toei announces, among other things, streaming piles of PreCure. :-)

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Other News

I just wanted to take a moment to thank three gentlemen for their kindness and friendship. 828-san, Yuki-san and Komatsu-san. Komatsu-san, particularly, sent me a huge pile of books, all of which I will review here (including the surprisingly Yuri PreCure manga.)

All three have sent me beautful art and/or books and all three offer support to both myself and to Yuri-dom at large. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

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Another Yuri-ful week. How cool is that?





Live Action: Love My Life

January 24th, 2007

While I was in Tokyo, I had the chance to see the movie based on the terrific, Yuri manga by Yamaji Ebine, Love My Life. I won’t be going over the characters or plot of the story in detail, because if you haven’t read the manga, there’s just about no way you’d see the movie, so if you’re unfamiliar with this manga, please take a second to read my original review of LML. (For folks coming to this blog from Afterellen.com, most of the next paragraph is relevant to earlier posts about my trip to the world’s largest comic market, Comiket. If you want to know the story of the manga – and movie – read the link above.)

Looking at it now, I realize that we were *incredibly* lucky, because the theater we saw it at, N Theater Shibuya was a very few blocks from Bruce’s hotel. I only today learned that it played at like *two* theaters. What were the chances that one would be in walking distance from where Bruce was staying? Oh, and btw, it was immediately above the Shibuya Animate, which meant that the next day, we knew where we were going for that, too. Did I mention “lucky?”

The movie version of Love My Life was very sweet. There were some number of changes from the manga, which I’ll detail below, but in general, it was a really cute movie with an undoubtedly happy end where the girl got the girl. Totally worth having seen for that alone. I sincerely hope that there’s a US release.

The biggest weakness of the movie was something I have encountered over and over and over in Japanese live-action films: the pacing. This movie was almost 90 minutes long and when I saw the running time,I was skeptical as to how they’d stretch the story…especially as the first few chapters of the manga/movie zip by in rapid succession. So it starts off light and fast and happy, and then, suddenly, stops dead. At just about the time any American movie would start wrapping up, Japanese movies insert 20-30 minutes of absolutely nothing. It kills the energy, sucks the life out of the movie and makes my wife get fidgety. ^_^

In this case, after having established how sad Ichiko is, we are treated to 20 more minutes of her being sad. Sad, sad, sad. She’s so sad. And when the end comes, there’s another pacing issue, but if I complain about that I’m just being a hard ass.

Well, I’m a hard ass. Here goes. Eri has called Ichiko after their long separation and instead of calling back, Ichiko starts running. And running. And running. Eri, waits and waits and waits, while Ichiko appears to run across the freakin’ country. *Just* as Eri begins to turn away unhappily, Ichiko comes running up. Uh…wouldn’t a phone call back saying “I’m coming!” have been a good idea right then?

The actress who plays Ichiko is…well…okay. Where the Ichiko of the manga is pleasant, hard working, smart and cute, this Ichiko is dreamy and over-smiley happy. She plays the role like a baby seal you’re waiting to watch be clubbed.

On the completely other hand, Eri is played perfectly. It’s immediately apparent that she, while not being a gabber, has a deep and rich inner dialogue – and you want to be part of it. I think that she was just about perfect.

And the rest of the cast is pretty great, too. The actor who played Ichiko’s father hit the nail right on the crumpet with his portrayal – and Ichiko’s gay friend Take was immediately likeable and real.

There were a few things changed for the movie. For one thing – the hair. In the manga, Ichiko, and later, her mother’s former lover, have dyke-y short hair. In the movie, both have shortish normal cuts. And the bald skinhead girl who piques Ichiko’s fancy is turned into a mohawk-wearing punk. No clue why.

Another thing that was changed, which I thought really odd, was the soundtrack. The manga has a distinctly classic jazz background. You can’t miss it, as jazz music and musicians are mentioned nearly every chapter. The movie was given a peppy, pop music soundtrack by noodles, that was, nonetheless, exceptionally appealing. The opening theme, particularly, was darn cute.

The final thing that I could not help but notice was that Take merely announced that he had nabbed himself a boyfriend. In the manga we meet Joe, an African-American student. I was sort of sad to see that they didn’t show Joe. I was wondering how they were going to handle that – the fact that that they didn’t bother bugged me a tad.

The story is reasonably close to the manga, until the extra inserted bit at the end, as Ichiko kills her Eri-less time by trying to become a translator like Papa. The beginning, particularly, is very, very good. Their relationship is sweet (I know that I wasn’t the only one in the theater holding my girl’s hand during a few of the lovey-dovier scenes) and quite realistic.

Ratings:

Cinematography – A little precious, 6
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – 3

If only someone would edit that slow bit, the whole movie would be a real keeper. ^_^