Archive for August, 2007


Sneak Peek at Yuri Monogatari 5 – "West End"

August 24th, 2007

Thank you to everyone who commented – quite intelligently – on yesterday’s post. The incoherent rants are almost never in reaction to posts like that, they tend to be very series-focused. I don’t think I have to explain why. ^_^

Since I ended yesterday’s “discussion” (by which I mean, “genteel rant”) with an admission that what I look for in Yuri is stories of lesbian experience, it seemed logical to me to jump in to today’s review with examples thereof.

As I also mentioned in a comment to one of the comments, the desire I had to read Yuri that reflected lesbian life and love was one of the motivating factors in creating ALC Publishing. And it continues to be one of the reasons that we focus on doujinshi artists who are out there creating really excellent lesbian narratives that are not likely to be found in mainstream manga.

When I started this year’s Yuri Monogatari Project, I thought, initially, that I might do the book with a “West and East” approach – have the English language stories read left to right until halfway in the book, then ask the reader to flip to the back and start reading right to left for the Japanese translations. But. Because we market Yuri Monogatari to a G/L/B/T market, as well as to the manga market, I thought that that might be asking too much of my non-otaku readers. (What do you think? Is it something that you’d like or not? Comments? Thoughts?) So I ended up just going with a left-to-right format. This means we have to flip the Japanese pages. Because we have to do that, I have become quite good at flipping things in a way that does not lose the original flow. It’s a complex process to explain, but it works.

In any case, I’m going to split the next review up into two posts, in recognition of that original idea. Today, I’ll give you a sneak peek at the stories contributed by Western artists, just over one-half the stories in the book. ^_^

To start us off today, we have “Vagrants,” by Jessie B., a wacky look at life on the retail job side. This story never fails to make me laugh. We’ve all had those kinds of jobs, where the job description, “customer relations manager,” and the job “clean the bathroom,” don’t jibe. Jessie’s story takes a look at two admittedly off-kilter people (who I would definitely have over for lunch) and their attempts at finding the right position for themselves. It’s a light-hearted, yet deeply snarky look at the world of non-office job hunting. And yes, love.

 

 

Niki Smith’s “Your Hair” is a frank look at the end of a relationship. The chiaroscuro contrast of the art really sets off the contrast between the two characters’ perspectives on what is going on. (Much as the sharp black and whites of June Kim’s 12 Days did.) When I say that Yuri Monogatari tells stories of “lesbian life and love” I am constantly reminded by the artists that this cannot only mean happily-ever-afters. Niki’s story, with its sharp art and sharp message is a unique perspective on this brutal, but not uncommon, fact of life.

 

Now that I am old, it always makes me happy to see stories about other old ladies. ^_^ That’s not true – I always liked the older couple love stories, even when I was younger. In fact, several of the first “lesbian” novels I can remember reading were stories of older women. Perhaps that’s why I’m terribly excited to be able to include Holly Hume’s “Emmeline’s Cruise” in this volume. This is not just a story about an older woman, but a story about freedom, about creating a new life and about how learning who one truly is, can take a lifetime. This story has a bunch of my personal “hooks,” but the thing I like best about it is Emmeline’s tendency to panic over little things. It makes her seem very real.

 

Susan Knowles’ “Rapunzel” is notable for several things: her reinterpretation of more than just one old, familiar story; and the fact that her protagonist looks like a real high school student, instead of one of the unrealistically stylish and adult-looking characters we’re used to. In fact, “Rapunzel” probably wouldn’t work at all if the main focus was on an adult character. It’s a story about bringing darkness into the light, and has the kind of ending we can all be happy about…until we think about it twice. ^_^

 

“Umbrella” continues Althea Keaton’s series of mood pieces. In direct contrast to Niki’s story of a relationship dying, with Althea’s usual focus on body language and tone, rather than action or setting, “Umbrella” feels a bit like watching a phoenix rising from the ashes of the past.

 

 

 

 

The next story pretty much violated two of my main rules for the “Yuri Monogatari” series – no schoolgirls and no coming out stories. Of *course* we’re going to have both in the series, but I try to avoid them on principle, because both have been done to death. In “Love Won” Sirk Tani puts an interesting spin on both of these tropes and, I think, has come up with a unique angle for the story – and some food for thought, as well.

 

 

 

Last up for the “West” side is returning artist Lilyshield, with her take on fantasy and the supernatural and love between women. Lily’s art has a distinctly Gothic quality and this story just fits it perfectly.

So, there you go – those are the stories that were written originally in English, specifically for this book. For my next post I’ll give you a glimpse of the six Japanese artists we’ve got lined up – and I’m positive you’ll be as excited as I am to see the finished product! ^_^

 

Pre-orders for Yuri Monogatari 5 are currently available on the Yuricon shop, at your local comic shop through the August Diamond Previews, through you local chain bookstore through Diamond and on Amazon.com!





Utter Nonsense the Fifth, or Fun With Hate Mail and What I mean by "Yuri"

August 23rd, 2007

Recently, I’ve gotten a lot of comments and emails in which people accuse me of being a moron, stupid, retarded, etc. I really enjoy these, because inevitably, they are poorly spelled, with minimal to no punctuation. As an added bonus, they are also often ranting and incoherent.

In other words, they are pure art.

In most cases the writers are angry with me for something they decided I said, even if I never said it. Scott Adams writes a lot about this particular type of cognitive dissonance on his Dilbert Blog. All of what he wrote applies here, so I won’t attempt to restate what he has already said so well. The bottom line is, 80 times out of 100, those negative comments are yelling at me for something I didn’t say.

Another 19 times out of the 100, I am being yelled out for not acknowledging some couple that the writer feels personally invested in. (Like the person who has carried resentment across three forums (that I know of) because I see Alita and Milano from Murder Princess as close friends who might, one day, become a couple, rather than as a couple right off the bat.)

To these people I say this – thank you for reading Okazu. My posts are only my personal opinions – and opinions about comics and cartoons, at that. I am flattered that my opinions spark such a strong response in you, but I also am a little worried that you care so much about what I think. Because they *are* after all, only fictitious, 2-dimensional, made up characters and stories.

That leaves the 1 out of 100 negative comment that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories. These usually have some other personal beef with me…i.e., I was mean to this person at some point. These arrive by email, are very long, very detailed and have no white space. I really don’t have anything to say to these people. We are both too biased to listen to the other side of the story. Nothing we can really do to fix that, can we? My response is most often to hit delete on these. I am mean, yes. This is well established. I’m meanest to my friends, but because they are my friends, they understand my humor and that I am meanest to those people I care about. If they are my close friends they are just as mean back and it makes me laugh. Because I don’t take myself seriously. (In fact, I so enjoy people being mean that I am seriously considering making a t-shirt out of the slam against me from the “why 4-chan hates Erica” thread, “Ugly dyke is ugly.” I thought that was hysterically funny.)

I am telling you this because these negative comments tie in to the topic of today’s post.

Today’s post is about *Yuri*. That is, today “we” are going to “discuss” the “definition” of the word “Yuri.” 1

Let me set the stage here – there is no definition of the word “Yuri” that will hold water. Language is fluid (no pun intended,) it always changes, and it is subject to the perceptions of the people who use it. So, no matter what Wikipedia says, or what I say, there is no one intractable, unchangeable definition. Of anything.

Here’s the Yuricon definition of Yuri. This definition is broad, to allow room for fans’ propensity to project “Yuri” onto characters they like:

Yuri can be used to describe any anime or manga series (or other thing, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience….

In short, yuri is any story with women in love (or lust) with other women.

So, using as an example, Shizuru and Natsuki from Mai HiME, by the Yuricon definition, they are a Yuri couple. It’s clear that a large majority of fans think that they are. This is why Yuricon’s “The List” often had characters listed who are not really gay, but are the object of the gay characters’ affection and obsession – because Fans see them as “a couple.”

This is not *my* definition of Yuri. This is the broadest definition I could come up with that would allow for inclusion of the widest possible range of characters and stories to be seen as “Yuri.” This was on purpose, because if I tried to limit “Yuri” to what I think it is, a lot of popular series and characters would have to be left out.

Shounen manga, which is primarily written by and targeted to a young male audience, has its own conventions and definition of Yuri. Yuri, in shounen manga and anime, is usually one fetish in a longer list of fetishes that are laid on rather thickly for the titillation of the reading/viewing audience. In shounen manga, lesbian characters are usually physically attractive, often with unrealistic proportions. Characters who are not in any way “lesbian,” are often shown engaging in “skinship” (any number of touching, grooming, washing behaviors which can easily be interpreted as sexual.) This does not in any way mean that the characters engaged in the skinship *are* lesbian…they are often straight characters engaged in quasi-lesbian play for, again, the titillation of the viewer. There is no emotional connection, no desire to be together, no “love” as we might say. It’s “play,” plain and simple. This kind of skinship – whether it be breast groping in the bath or splash art of the two characters draped suggestively across one another, or faux-kisses (in order to pass air, medicine or any other ridiculous reason) is not an indication of feelings of love. But – and this is the important thing – most fans can’t tell the difference. Some of the folks on the Yuricon Mailing List call this kind of thing “Yuri service,” since the lack of ability to differentiate the “Newtype Effect” (two scantily clad straight female characters draped suggestively across one another to imply a sexual/emotional relationship that otherwise never appears in the series) is one of the key qualities of the otaku/fanboy.

Although I have not yet reviewed it here, a perfect example of this is Venus Versus Virus. In the manga, the “clues” to Lucia and Sumire being “a couple” come in the form of the following: suggestive splash art; a misunderstanding about why Sumire needs to stay near Lucia; and the perfectly natural reaction of Sumire launching herself into Lucia’s arms after a traumatic event. None of these in any way shows *any* actual feelings of lesbian love or desire. In later volumes I have no doubt that they are continued to be shown touching in ways that are easily open to interpretation. I cannot see any sign of them being in love with one another. Perhaps they will grow to care for one another. But they are clearly being set up in a way that opens up the description “Yuri” to be applied by people who have less rigorous criteria than I. In general, I call this “Shounen Yuri.” When a couple is interpreted as Yuri, but I can’t feel anything like what I feel for my wife coming from them – they don’t want to live together, love one another, be together forever, but people call them “Yuri” anyway. This is Yuri as a fetish.

As an example, someone posted the other day on the Yuricon Mailing List about the Yuri implications in The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi since Haruhi is always undressing and molesting Mikuru. There are NO Yuri implications of any kind in that series, especially not between Haruhi and Mikuru. This is service. This is two completely, obviously, straight women, being shown doing things that can be interpreted as sexual for the titillation of the audience. It is nothing more. But, as I mentioned earlier, many people can’t tell the difference. I can see that both Mikuru and Haruhi who are both *obviously* interested in Kyon, are straight. It seems so apparent to me that I was frankly boggled that anyone ever should even for a second see “Yuri” there, when all that is there is skinship for the service of viewers. (I can only imagine that it is people like that that buy “Girls Gone Wild” DVDs and see the behaviors of the obviously straight girls kissing and think “lesbian.” Maybe we just need another word for women like that. Well, I can think of a few, but none of them are nice, so I’ll move on.)

Not all Shounen Yuri is crap. For example – Fate and Nanoha in StrikerS. From them, I clearly get the ” live together, love one another, be together forever” vibe. And they have the big pluffy bed, so it’s a done deal in my opinion.

Shoujo Yuri is, in many ways even more problematic than Shounen Yuri. Because the assumption is that men get off on lesbians, the “Yuri” characters in shounen series often act in an overtly (frequently pervy) ways that indicates their like of other girls. In Shoujo, because the emphasis is so often on romance, and because of the tropes of shoujo anime and manga, there’s often a gender-bendy component to one of the characters and the love, while obvious to anyone looking for it, can easily be explained away by anyone determined to do so. In part, this is due to the understood reluctance with which Japanese people use the phrase “I love you” and their preference for ambiguity in interpersonal relationships.

In Sailor Moon Haruka passes as a man several times, and in the manga is said to have the heart of a man, which some people have interpreted as her either being a transgender individual or the reincarnation of a man. There is no way to “prove” that this is not true, except that the author has said that Haruka is 100% woman and she and Michiru are lovers. This ambiguity carried through to Utena where, because there is no overt confession of love between Anshi and Utena – and even in the movie where they kiss passionately – it is easy enough to call this relationship “shinyuu” and “akogare,” relegating it to that sort-of space between real sexual relations (which are always with a man) and fantasy relations (which can be ambiguous.)

Even Sei from Maria-sama ga Miteru, who is rarely heard speaking in a masculine fashion, or wearing men’s clothes in the course of the series, is still obviously perceived as being butch. And, although it is apparent from her relationships with Shiori, Shizuka and Kei, there is once again no “proof” that Sei is gay in the text. Other than that she fell in love with Shiori, rejected literature which showed or labeled same-sex relationships as perverse, found Shizuka “charming” as she kissed her and obviously likes Kei. And that Eriko’s father, for no other reason that because she is clearly butch even in that old-fashioned school uniform, calls her “Sei-kun” where he calls Youko “Youko-chan.”

Where the service, the fetish play, for the male audience has the lesbian characters looking especially feminine and acting masculine and pervy, for the female audience the Yuri fetishes are to have the lesbian character look more masculine and act more feminine. Sure, they may talk like a boy, but their behaviors are the perfect male ideal as seen by a 14-year old girl. Haruka, Utena, and even Sei can be likened to a Takarazuka Top Star. (In fact, in “Rainy Blue” Yumi directly compares Sei to a Top Star, despite the lack of any overt cross-dressing.)

Which brings me to a main point here – Yuri in anime and manga is so often cloaked in ambiguity that it’s a joke to try and define it.

Ambiguity sells a series to a wider audience. Why isn’t the relationship in Noir between Mirielle and Kirika made more obvious? Because, if it was, then those people who do NOT want to see them have a relationship will be alienated.

It’s very apparent to me that Fate and Nanoha are quite married. But if we see them kissing in bed, then the Yuuno x Nanoha ‘shippers might abandon the series. The goal for any anime or manga series is to generate sales. The wider an audience a series reaches, the better. This is why Yuri is implied or claimed in so many series, even when it’s really not there at all. Because if one person buys a DVD or a figurine or a manga because they like Yuri, then the company gains another sale. Duh.

In Japan “Yuri” still means women having sex drawn by men for men, despite the growing number of women who draw lesbian narratives. Because those women variably call them “bian” or “onna-doushi” or “onna x onna” or any number of words or phrases, there’s no one coherent genre name in Japan for the stuff lesbians draw for themselves. When I was trying to bring all that stuff over here, as well as the more conventional shounen and shoujo stuff, I quite purposely lumped it all under the label Yuri, so it was at least accessible and vaguely understandable to the average western fan. Plus, I wanted to promote what I saw as “real” Yuri to an audience used primarily to fetish-Yuri.

Which brings me to *my* definition of Yuri.

This is what *I* am thinking when I read/watch any series. This is what *I* want to see in manga and anime:

Yuri is any representation of two women or girls actually in love and/or desire with one another, or any one single girl or woman who is in love with and/or who desires another woman. In other words – Yuri, to me, is any story that reflects *lesbian* experience. Not straight girls draped over one another, or set up to look gay.

In other words, when I look at the Shizuru and Natsuki of Mai HiME, I do NOT see a Yuri couple. I see Shizuru as a probable lesbian, and I see Natsuki – who clearly and coherently states that she does not have that kind of interest in Shizuru, but does care about her a lot – as a straight friend who cares about her a lot. In Mai Otome, however, I can easily see them as an established couple.

What *I* want to see is Yuri that shows two women in love with one another. Preferably two women who already know that they are lesbians. Because I am much less interested in coming out stories and first love stories than I am in love stories between women who know who they are. This is why I often write post-series stories in my fanfic, and stories about out, adult lesbians in my original work.

So, the next time I say that your favorite couple isn’t a couple it’s probably because, while I absolutely DO see the same things you see, I have chosen to interpret them as the set-ups they are and the fetish/sales tactic that they represent. And just because I say something at Episode 5, doesn’t mean I’ll say the same thing at episode 13 or 26. (I can think of at least a dozen series and even more characters, I’ve radically altered my opinions on as I watched them. lol)

In the end, it’s all just our personal opinions on what “Yuri” is.

Feel free to call me names, but just remember, your anger isn’t likely to change my perception of a fictitious, 2-dimensional character. But it will pretty thoroughly change my perception of you. :-)

1″We” as in “I”
“Discuss” as in “you can comment in the comments field”
“Definition” as in “Whatever comes to my mind”
“Yuri” as in “female characters that like other female characters in anime and manga.”





Yuri Manga: Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, Volume 5

August 22nd, 2007

Feeling crappy today, so decided to review something “feel-good.” Looked at my pile of things to review and realized that with only two exceptions it was all feel-good. Kinda creepy, huh? ^_^

Today’s post will contain *massive* spoilers. I frequently have spoilers, but because there is a scene after the climax of this series that I want to discuss, I have to give away the ending. If you do not want to know how this series ends, do not read past the bit that ends “Massive Spoilers Follow”. If you read past that bit, you will be spoiled for the end.

Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, Volume 5 begins after Hazumu’s fateful rainy-day kiss with Yasuna. Soaked and cold, they bathe together. This fills Hazumu with guilt so she runs over to Tomari’s house to rinse and repeat, because she’s so torn between her two lovers that she feels obliged to balance the service.

Having said her good-byes, Hazumu pretty much spends the book wandering aimlessly between places and people, constantly aware that her life force is running out. To make matters worse, both Yasuna and Tomari tell her that they love her outright.

The school festival approaches and with it, Hazumu’s final hour. The day is spent in near misses and lost last chances to see Tomari and Yasuna. Night falls and they both find Hazumu on the roof, ready to say good bye.

***Massive Spoilers Follow***

Before Hazumu can say anything, the fence behind her breaks and she falls off the school roof to her death. Only…as she falls, a hand grabs hers and we see two sets of legs falling.

Hazumu becomes aware that she is dead. Only…she’s not. She wakes up in the infirmary. She leaps out of bed to pull the curtain back on the next bed to see that it was Tomari who threw herself off the roof to save her. It was Tomari she had called out for and Tomari who she had wanted to see. And now it is Tomari that she tells, “I love you.”

Outside the room, Yasuna has overheard it all. She’s happy that Hazumu is alive, and happy for them, but cries against the wall while Ayuki holds her.

Here’s the bit that makes all this work for me – the Christmas Concert has arrived and Yasuna is the featured soloist. Hazumu and Tomari sit in the front row, hand in hand. And through her music, Yasuna wishes them well and commands them to never ever let each other go. Her blessing and her emotion carries over – Tomari and Hazumu get the message loud and clear.

On the way to a Christmas party after the concert, under the starry sky and a row of light-filled trees, Hazumu and Tomari kiss. At the party, everyone is happily rambunctious – “Kashimashiku”.

The End

Following the end of the main story are three omake stories – two creepy Ayuki stories (or, really, stories that explore how creepy Ayuki is) and one with the usual Tsukiko Namiko-sensei gags of self-pity and clumsiness.

The End, again.

So…I liked it. None of the over-the-top absurdities of the anime OAV ending. True, Hazumu did not entirely make the decision herself, but a decision was made, the girl does get the girl and it’s not a bad thing at all. Unless you really wanted Hazumu to get together with Yasuna. And you know, originally I did.

***End Massive Spoilers***

Unlike the anime, the manga handles the final decision with a class that, in general, the series lacked overall. lol Yasuna gets extra class points, as befits her character. Ayuki gets extra creepy as the story goes on which has incited me to create an equally creepy girlfriend for her. (If I was into media-crossovers, I’d surely pair her up with goth Abby from NCIS. But I don’t have that kind of time, energy or interest, thank heavens.)

Despite the service, the aliens, the gender switching, the harem plot, at the end of the series, we’re looking at two woman in love with one another. And that’s what I call Yuri.

I think the end justified the memes.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Character – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 10
Service – 5

Overall – 8





Burst Angel Anime, Volume 2 (English)

August 21st, 2007

Burst Angel, Volume 2 starts off in the middle of a story which is suspiciously similar to the infamous hentai anime, Bible Black. And that’s about the best thing about the whole volume. ^_^;

Let me stop here and offer my thanks to Daniel P. who sponsored today’s review! Yay!

Meg is undercover at a creepy private girls’ school in which students are going missing or going insane. She is schmoozed mightily by the ultimate star of the school, while she tries to find out the dirt behind the “Ishtar club” – the exclusive, elite, star-chamber cabal that everyone admires, desires and fears. To everyone’s (everyone that has never seen Bible Black, that is) surprise Meg finds herself attacked by a demon. Jo is forced to put on the school uniform just long enough to allow Meg to be kidnapped so she can rescue her from the demon-y evil thing at the center of the mystery. It is a great shock to us all to learn the true identity of the demon is….!

The second two episodes deal with a giant robot crow who kidnaps girls and therefore takes a stab at kidnapping Meg so Jo can fire up Jango and rescue her. Jo is successful, sadly. In the course of this arc, we learn that the occasional glowing brain is not just a shiny special effect, but an actual plot complication. Also, Kyouhei is injected with an SPCD (Stupid Plot Complication Disorder.) In this case, a virus that takes 6 hours to germinate within his body and then will kill him spectacularly. (Okay, they don’t say it’ll be spectacular, but I like to project.) Under the guise of saving Meg, Jo drags Kyouhei all around town pointlessly, in order for them to bond.

While the plots of this volume ain’t all that, the extras are. Once again, we have English voice commentary and Japanese radio dramas.

The English voice commentary is amusing. They comment on totally random things, background characters, Sei-who-is-not-Beth’s gravity-defying breasts, and the fact that the point on Jango’s head is supposed to be a cowboy hat, not a dunce cap. (Something I completely missed. Who has the dunce cap now, Erica? Huh?)

The Japanese radio dramas are strange and awkward, but amusing, as well. Watanabe Akeno (Jo) and Toyoguchi Megumi (Meg) do things like have a tongue-twister show downs, try to record a play written by a viewer with sound/fx and all, and have an entire segment where they speak in piercing, dog-whistle high-pitched voices about beer.

Not happy with just actually having cool extras, the liner notes are full of pictures and commentary. Very shiny.

Ratings:

Art – wildly inconsistent, but it averages at about a 6
Characters – 5
Story – 5
Yuri – 1
Service – 6

Overall – 5

The extras are so good, it’s *almost* as if they’re trying to make up for the lack of content in the anime.





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 9 – Part 2

August 18th, 2007

The second half of Yuri Hime, Volume 9 brings back the incredibly weird and wonderful “Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen,” with a splash page that is so horrible and distressing that it makes me laugh every time I look at it. It’s hot, Arare, Kiri and Pero comment, because, duh, it’s summer. But that also means it’s time for the summer sea to arrive here at the school for supernatural creature girls! Arare has no idea what that means, but when Pero takes her to look out the window, instead of a forbidding winter sea crashing against the rocks below the school, there’s a veritable tropical paradise. The rest of the chapter is taken up by Arare’s trials as she keeps ripping bikini bottoms in an attempt to hide the proof of her humanity, her belly button. It’s all goofy and creepy fun here at Monster High.

Mori Natsuko’s “Yuri Doujou” advice column takes a look at the continuing stories of some of the folks who wrote in for advice previously. It’s all pretty banal, but heck, love problems *are* banal.  ^_^

FINALLY!! In this chapter of “Hatsukoi Shimai” secrets and flings and crushes are flying thick and fast. Teshigawara’s crush on Akiho is made a little plainer for the idiots like me who thought it was on Chika. The mysterious girl who so troubled Teshigawara last issue reappears and sets her a-fuming all over again. Chika and Haruna spend the chapter being all lovey-dovey, sharing baby pictures and making us all ill with their cuteness. But, we learn that Haruna and Akiho do have a terrible secret! Shock! Chika must never find out! Touko-sensei is reminded that her time at Tsunojo is coming to an end, so she hares off to find Akiho in the Library (can I just say something here? I am clearly either a genius, or Japanese artists are plagiarizing the heck out of my fanfic. I wrote Touko and Akiho in the library before there was even a Hatsukoi Shimai manga.  More likely, it was so obvious that I and the manga writer just came to the same conclusion. But still, first Hana no Asuka-gumi and now this.) Akiho confides in Touko about her terrible secret, which I will not spoil, because it ain’t all that terrible, really. In return Touko moves in to kiss Akiho, *finally.* Geez. But Akiho pushes herself off and runs away. I’m just glad that Akiho and Touko’s relationship is getting some attention. I really want them to get together, despite the questionable ethics of the situation.

In the last scene Miyu is watching Kirika practice archery. There’s an exchange of words, Miyu goes to run off and as she leaps after her friend/lover to grab her, Kirika drops like a stone to the ground. Gasp! We must wait until October to find out what happens.

Some color pages on Soulphage, an apparently all-girl private school game, Blue Drop, an upcoming anime based on the manga of the same name and more “buy our game!” coverage of the Simoun game.

The second chapter of “Creo of the Crimson Crises” was not as fun as the first. Suou complains about having been placed in an unremovable collar. Creo doesn’t care, a magical mascot creature appears and gives an important message, Creo disappears. Suou’s best friend who has a crush on her tries to remove the collar. They both end up going to Suou’s older sister’s where they find Creo already there. Suou’s sister asks Creo to take care of Suou. Bwa bwa bwaaaaah…. There’s some portentous stuff in there too that I’m sure will be important later on. But Suou’s whining got on my nerves. lol

Mana and Chiyo are two little girls with more than little feelings for one another. They talk around it a bit in Takahashi Mako’s “Hitosubu no Umi.” I didn’t like it enough to bother translating the title.

“Mermaid Line” continues from last issue as Megumi goes out with some poor unsuspecting schlub as a beard for her real feelings, (even though she won’t let him tell anyone that they are going out) while Aoi is now as outcast as Megumi had been for being labeled “rezu.” (“Rezu” or “les” is kind of like lesbo or dyke in English. It’s meant to be understood as a slur in this case.) When her boyfriend makes a casual remark about their relationship, Megumi realizes that she’s lying to him, and herself about her feelings. Aoi finds herself looking at a picture book of the Little Mermaid story and berates herself for her stupidity. Megumi finds her there and complains that in that story both mermaid and prince were really dumb. As Megumi smiles at her, Aoi starts to cry at both of their stupidity. The story will continue next month, I’m interested to see where it goes now.

In Hakamada Mera’s “Kurozukme no Onna no Ko” a little black-haired, black-clothed girl is very overprotective of the woman she lives with – going so far as to drive potential suitors away and rubbing herself all over her friend. When the girl turns out to be a cat, I’m sure plenty of folks who were not me said “awwww.” (I had read a nearly identical story in Carmilla magazine ages ago. I kind of liked that one better, since there was a creepier vibe. The cat/girl was shown as a normal-sized girl, dressed all goth in black, with a collar and doing all the same cat things. It had a SM sort of vibe about it, which worked.) This one works too. And it isn’t a school story. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Hiyori Otsu’s “Proof of Love” is the second teacher crush story (assuming one doesn’t count “Hatsukoi Shimai”) and of the two, the one I like best. A teacher is sitting down having a smoke, when she is approached by a young woman who asks, “do you remember me?” The teacher (who I don’t ever think gets a name) flashes back to five years previously when she entered a classroom to find two girls kissing. One of the two takes off immediately, but the other, third-year student Haseno sticks around. The teacher asks her if she likes the other girl, to which Haseno replies no, that was a “give up” kiss. In the course of the conversation Haseno kisses the teacher, then admits that she likes the teacher…but will not give up. Now, five years later, Haseno is a new student teacher at the school, and she wants an answer to her proposition. :-) The end. More and more I’m coming to like Otsu’s work. She tends to have older characters and even though there are often set in schools and colleges, they are not always same-old retreads of school girl crushes.

In “Apple Day Dream” it’s time to go to watch fireworks and Kaoru dreams of getting Mayu in sexy yukata and having her way with her. She comes closer than usual, but is interrupted by coworkers. At this point I can’t really tell if Mayu is actually uninterested or not, since as a passive-aggressive character her job is to protest all the time. Kaoru, of course, is always so pervtastic that it’s not unreasonable for Mayu to protest. Personally, they exhaust me.  ^_^

The last story, “Butterfly 69” is, in my opinion, wonderful. I cannot express how much I enjoyed it. At a private music school for girls, half-Japanese, all-punk bad-girl Maria is pretty outcast, but she doesn’t care. Her love is given to her rock band and to the president of the student council, Ageha. Ageha not only returns her love – and desire – she basks in it. Ageha supports Maria in everything. But when Maria’s band, Butterfly 69, starts to sell out performances and gets a deal with a recording company in the US, she tells Maria that she won’t be going with her, her family is a main sponsor of this school, and she plans on remaining here after graduation. She insists that Maria goes, though, and become the singer she wants to be. Ageha takes Maria’s earring and pierces her own ear with it, then stops talking to Maria at school completely. Maria, suffering in silence, one day overhears a teacher badmouth her; then overhears Ageha’s response, which is to rip the teacher a new orifice. She calls the teacher jealous of Maria’s voice – a voice which could change the world. As a going away present, Maria’s band hijacks the senior concert and does a live performance, where Maria sings her heart out, hoping that Ageha will hear her message of love. She does. In the final few pages, the school is in an uproar – the massively famous lead singer of the number one band Butterfly 69 is at the school! Ageha comes out of the school to find Maria standing in front of a Porsche in the parking lot. In front of everyone, she launches herself into Maria’s arms for a passionate welcome home kiss. A perfect end to a great story and a really strong ending to the book. While the art is in no way clean, the energy it conveys to the characters is a perfect fit. I’ve liked both the Yuri Hime stories by Natsuneko and look forward to more.

As always, while not everything was to my taste, I liked well over half of the 300+ pages and about a third I really liked or loved. So, a strong thumbs up from for Yuri Hime 9!