Comic Yuri Hime, April 2024 (コミック百合姫2024年4月号) is an incredibly strong issue of what is turning out to be a very good Yuri manga year.

There are a nice mix of kinds of stories here, from fictional slice-of life, centering adult women, and school girls, as well as some autobiographical works/comics essays, which gives the a- story-about-two-people-in-a situation some depth across the magazine.

Fantasy is fairing well here, with at least five original stories. I always have hope that they will break out of the romance mode into a plot that’s more deeply developed, but none of them have collapsed in on themselves yet and the new entry, “Gakeppuchi Reijou ha Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!” (崖っぷち令嬢は黒騎士様を惚れさせたい！) starts with a pretty good punch. “Shikabane to Ai ga Omoi Seikishi no Toubatsu Gakuen Life,” “Konoyo de Ichiban Sutekina Owarikata,” “Shikabane to Ai ga Omoi Seikishi no Toubatsu Gakuen Life,” “Salvia no Bouquet,” and “Kiraware Majyo Reijō to Dansou Ouji no Kon’yaku,” are taking up a fair amount of real estate in this magazine right now. None are the same as each other, which is pretty  impressive. This is the most fantasy I’ve seem in this magazine at the same time.

“Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” comes to some kind of conclusion. I don’t think we will know what the consequences will be until the end of this volume, but it was good to see Kanako regain some kind of control over her situation. I just really hope she’s come to a healthy conclusion.

“Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru” by is closest I have to a sports manga and it’s doing pretty well at it, even if it’s focusing on things other than the competition, which suits the theme just fine.

We’re still not getting the kind of science fiction I as a SF reader am looking for, with complex worldbuilding and plot, and in part I think that’s because of the serialized nature of the magazine. Every chapter has to end on, if not a cliffhanger, than some moment of tension, forcing storytelling to sacrifice development for impact. That said, we’re getting a number of fantasy stories that are trying to or are exceeding my expectations.

And of course, there’s plenty of slice-of-life stuff for those of you looking for small crises and resolutions. From relaxing food while camping to the “totally relatable” crisis of a married woman staying with a lesbian and neither of them being capable of having a conversation that lasts more than a panel or two, to the actually relatable story of two women living together, being in love and having fun with it, this was a really excellent issue of a magazine that has truly hit it’s stride this year.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

The May issue has hit JP shelves and waiting for me at the book store! Amazingly, I’m holding steady as she goes with reviews. I have no idea how that is happening. ^_^

Comic Yuri Hime, March 2024 (コミック百合姫2024年3月号) starts off with a new story, “A Bouquet of Salvia,” which was rather sweet as a opening  – and could have stood alone on it’s own merits. A girl who was rescued from dire circumstances finds family and a mentor in a young witch who has taken her in and is training her. In this opening chapter, the emphasis is on found family, understanding there is more to life than duty and the profoundity of joy. I’m all for it. ^_^

So much water has gone under the bridge in “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto desu!” that we seem to have come to the beginning of the river, once again. Kanako still does not understand herself but, at least this time Sumika does.

“Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou.” steps back to interrogate Misha and Rae’s friendship. On the eve of an audacious plan to save Yuu, Rae has to trust Misha with the whole truth about the world and herself. Rae learns something important that might explain a few things. Eventually.

Yuama’s “Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata” comes to an end, exactly where I expected it to. Despite the fact that the whole story was telegraphed from the beginning, it did some interesting things. I’m not sure I would have given it as much time to be told as the magazine did, but I don’t regret reading it. There’s something to be said about a story that moves past forgiveness into redemption.

“Garan no Hime” has suddenly become much more interesting! Where we seemed to be flailing looking for a lost sister, we have sudden have a whole new level –  one in which Hime is the key to something important.

In “Shikabane to Ai ga Omoi Seikishi no Toubatsu Gakuen Life” Mari unlocks Shurika’s memories…for good or ill.

There were a number of decent one-shots in this issue including Inaba Mine’s “Kemuri ni Yosete,” which felt very old school as an established couple works through the distance building between them.

As always there were other stories I read, and did not read, which makes for a magazine that will appeal to a wide range of Yuri fans!

Ratings:

Overall – 8

The April issue is on JP shelves now and it’s a very exciting issue, in which the arc about Prince Yuu comes to a climax in “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou.” and a new manga fantasy written by Suo, and illustrated by Superwomen in Love!‘s Sometime, “Gakeppuchi Reijou wa Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!”

Comic Yuri Hime, February 2024 (コミック百合姫2024年2月号)  is an excellent volume of this magazine. Right off the bat, the stories about evenly split between stories I am reading and stories I am not reading. 50% is an almost unheard of percentage for me. But there is another thing in this issue, I want to discuss, because it was really good.

I talk a lot about Yuri literary fiction here on Okazu. I’m unapologetically as much a literature nerd as I am a comics nerd. Many school years of reading literary fiction somehow did not manage to break my interest in the idea of fiction. In fact, this year I am actually a judge for an award for independently published fiction and overwhelmingly, the books I have been reading are very interesting. Reviews to come when the embargo is lifted.

So yes, in this volume Aki and Shiho go out on a date in “Sasayakuyouni Koi Wo Utaa” finally, and Rae comes up with a bold and dangerous plan to rescue Yu from an imposed gender curse in “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou” and the climax to “Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata” was a fucking sucker punch *even though we knew it was coming for the entire story.* And the King in “Kiraware no Majoreijo to Dansou Ouji no Konyaku” is a dip and we applauded Eve for yelling at him, and Kiki and Michiru danced their hearts out…even though Kiki was injured and it was really stupid, in “Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru.” These and many other continuing stories were great.

And we got the first chapter of a very old-school shoujo romance feeling “Toi Et Moi” by Nakato Nui. And “Daiuki Desu!”  by nmi, among others both of which were very good.

But what I really want to talk about is the short story, ” Tsuitou Juu-shunen Tokubetsu Kiji  ‘Tousakusha Sakakiba Mizue no jinsei’.” by Maruchou. This translates to Special Article On The Tenth Anniversary Of Her Death,  “Plagiarist Sakakiba Mizue’s Life.” This was the grand prize winner of the 5th Yuri Literary Short Story Contest, co-hosted by Pixiv, Comic Yuri Hime, Shinchobunko, Early Wing and Shosen Bookstore. And yes, it absolutely deserved the prize.

This was a fantastic fiction that is presented as a non-fiction about the life of a person who “everyone knows,” but who never existed, with interviews with people who knew her and one of the best endings I have ever read in my life. Oh my gosh, this was SUCH a good story.  You can read it for free on the contest website. Please go read this, even if you just use google translate. Seriously, it was gorgeous work. 10/10.

So both thumbs up on this issue.

Ratings:

Overall – For the short story alone, it’s a 10

I also have the March issue here and am digging right in!

And so, another year of Comic Yuri Hime magazine comes to an end. I had to buy another storage container and move a few years off my shelf so I have room for more – I can only keep about 3-4 years at a time on the one shelf where the current issues live, depending on the size of the issues. The 2023 volumes are visibly larger than 2022 and I can see that 2024 volumes are looking to be getting closer to 600 pages again. It’s been an amazing process, watching this magazine go from quarterly to monthly, and being a corporate partner to successful anime and multiple kinds of contests. What an absolute ride these past 20 years have been. When I look at Comic Yuri Hime December 2023 (コミック百合姫2023年12月号), I’m thinking about endings, but no series actually ended, except the cover story.*

There is one series, however, that will end with the next issue and I wanted to talk about it, because since the first chapter it has been a textbook example of how *difficult* it is to serialize a story. ^_^ So instead of me paging through the magazine, saying “here’s the stuff I like” let’s talk about a series I have not actually reviewed here, for reasons of my own.

Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata, (君と綴るうたかた) localized in English as The Summer You Were There by Yuama, has had a literal fatal flaw since the very first chapter. Shizuku is an author, but she is clearly, visibly traumatized by human contact. Kaori is an ebullient reader of her work and, not coincidentally goes to the same school. Kaori asks Shizuku to write her a novel, but Shizuku, full to the brim with PTSD, is totally blocked. When Shizuku learns Kaori is dying, that does not help free her mind. But as the chapters continued, Shizuku has done a lot of work, in order to become the person Kaori saw her as.

The story has had to do some interesting things to get us to this penultimate moment. Firstly, Shizuku’s initial trauma was that she was the aggressor in an incident in elementary school and has never forgiven herself. The story takes time to parse this and the incident and aftermath is resolved. But, after all that time and care it turns out that “not forgiving ones’ self’ is not enough of a trauma to explain Shizuku’s very obvious PTSD. Much as characters we are told were “neglected” by parents, when their behavior shown signs of being a victim of CSA simply doesn’t sit right. (I am told that Citrus did, eventually, create a more plausible story for Mei’s behavior than parental neglect. As I have not read any of it beyond the first few chapters, I cannot confirm. If so, I think that’s good, narratively speaking. It was a horrible inconsistency in the story.) I am not a fan of trauma porn, but if you’re going to create a character who behaves like a victim of trauma, the story ought to be consistent.

Interestingly, in this case, Shizuku’s story is given a coda. Having been shunned by classmates for being “scary,” Shizuku takes to writing. She finds an online site and becomes a successful author. But with fame comes abuse and, at 13, Shizuku is alone and unable to cope with the harassment online. She stops writing, and becomes the recluse we met in the beginning of the story. At which point, we understand and her behavior actually, finally, makes sense. Was this series originally meant to be more than a volume or two, in which case the initial scenario might have been enough? Or was this planned? It feels more like the former, as that piece of the story comes in after the initial conflict is put to rest. Nonetheless, it was a good use of the (possibly extra) space and time.

Now we get to current issue and we have to reckon with the other huge weakness in the narrative. Kaori either must die as we have been told she will for years now, or an impossible and annoying miracle will occur. We have been repeatedly told that her condition is fatal. Even as she heads into surgery, we know there is no happy ending here – this surgery cannot save her. The final chapter hit shelves yesterday in Japan and there are a number of likely endings: One, Kaori dies, Shizuku goes on to plumb the depths of this horrible point in her life to become a famous author. Two, Kaori miraculously survives. Three, Kaori lives a little while longer, helping Shizuku become the person she wants her to be, then dies off-screen when Shizuku is helpfully older and more capable of coping.  Four, this was all a story that adult Shizuku was writing for Kaori and none of it happened. All of these have positives and negatives, and everyone’s opinion on what will work are different. I know how I would end it. ^_^ I’m hoping for an interesting ending that works with the characters and story as they have been presented to us.

We can see plainly here how longer serialization can and has to change the way a story is structured and executed. I’m reminded yet again, of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane deciding that if you want a series to continue sometimes the premise be damned, you have to write a story (I believe this was in Have His Carcase, if you care to check, it has been a long time since I’ve read that one. Think I’m going to have to bust it out on audiobook….)

In just a few weeks I will know how this ends and I am equally ready to be annoyed and pleased. ^_^

And we’ll be in for another year of Comic Yuri Hime!

Ratings:

Overall – 8

*The cover story ends in an epilogue that returns us to the colorless life of our protagonist, fondly remembering that gloriously colorful year of her life and all I can says, adults…we are doing this wrong. ^_^;

The January 2024 issue of Comic Yuri Hime is out, with a whole new cover design.