After having been a contributor to several volumes of Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, and the second Yuri Shoujo Anthology, Miman-sensei now has landed with Comic Yuri Hime, with this collection of shorts, Kimiiro Shoujo (キミイロ少女) (also available on Kindle for JP customers).

The title piece, “Kore ha Nisemono,” sets the tone of the collection – it’s going to be all schoolgirls, most Story A. Nothing objectionable, nothing outstanding. A sempai and kouhai in photography club pretend to be a couple, to protect themselves from being upset when they have to part. Not surprisingly, that bit doesn’t work out, so they don’t part.

My favorite story of the collection is the second. This time we’re focusing on track, where a girl finds herself moved and ultimately motivated by her crush’s focus on running.

A girl can’t figure out why a classmate is so damn nice all the time, and another girl struggles to make her feelings plain to a friend. A girl enjoys every single moment with a friend while they can be together.

And, finally, as the sempai and kouhai from the first story face spending a night together, they both come to terms of the not-at-all-fakeness of their feelings.

The stories broke no new ground, but were a pleasant enough read. The one truly notable thing about the book was the author’s note, in which Hirari and Yuri Hime are anthropormophized and Hirari leaving is portrayed as a sudden breakup. Having been cast away by Hirari, the author’s tough love friend Yuri Hime-san complains about Miman-sensei’s moping about not being able to have a tankoubon. “Tankoubon, tankoubon, that’s all you ever go on about. Fine, I’ll get you into a tankoubon already.” “Yuri Hime-saan~~!”  The author’s note concludes with the most romantic, sunset bedecked, dramatic embrace  of the whole collection. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 6 Probably the weakest link. No one has any depth. They are their one-line description
Yuri – 8
Service – 1

Overall – 7 A solid, stolid Yuri collection.

As Volume 5 of Kanojo to Camera to Kanojo no Kisetsu (彼女とカメラと彼女の季節）opens, we’re facing a terrible moment. Yuki, who has never before been obviously malicious, is showing Akari a picture of Rintarou, half-naked in bed. Akari refuses to be cowed and asks Yuki about the picture, at which Yuki crumbles. It turns out that she’s always desired Rin, but he sees her more like a sister. In the guise of a photo session, she stripped him down and tried to seduce him. Rin’s reaction was much like Akari’s when he tried to seduce her. He throws Yuki off and they have a honest talk, in which she is forever rejected as a woman by him.

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Akari’s reaction to this revelation is to set the timer on her camera and film herself and Yuki making love. This Yuki, Akari thinks, is perfect.

They go their separate ways, Yuki in Tokyo, Akari and Rin in town, working towards their exams. They meet up by accident after exams, and it’s clear that the ties between them have unraveled. Friends, obviously, but no more. Even when they finally graduate, and Rin offers them both a button from his jacket, they laugh at his presumption. Everything between them is gone…until an underclassman asks for Yuki’s tie. All of a sudden, Akari realizes nothing at all is resolved and drags Yuki away from the crowd to finally make her feelings clear to both herself and Yuki, once and for all.

Seven years pass. Rin is a salaryman, Akari teaches at a pre-school. Rin and Akari stay in touch, but neither have heard from Yuki in seven years. When an exhibit of Yuki’s photography comes to town, Akari hurries over to see it, but just as she starts to feel sad, because what she had really hoped was to see Yuki herself, Yuki appears behind her. They embrace as the narration asks if we want to go take some pictures.

This was a surprisingly cathartic volume, for a series that has been building tension without release for 5 volumes. And in many ways, that was what I liked best about the series. Yuki’s desire to take photos, she says right away, is to see people in their realest moments, and we’ve been doing nothing but seeing those moments, with hardly a break. So when finally Yuki’s cool mask shatters, the tension releases utterly in a way it could not have when Rin had his moment of pain or Akari hit her wall.

I’m fascinated also, that for a series so enraptured by photography, that the art itself makes no attempt at photorealism, but does a fantastic job of capturing facial expression and body language.

The ending was unexpectedly pleasant, which is always a nice bonus. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 6
Service – 4

Overall – 8

If you’re a reader that likes seriously intense, Dear Brother-levels of emotion, you might well enjoy Kanojo to Camera to Kanojo no Kisetsu. I know I did.