There are days, here on Okazu, when it’s a little harder to not be just a tad snarky or cynical about Yuri manga. In fact, I suppose it’s something that every generation does – going through all the various contortions of growing up, coming out and being a gender, romantic or sexual minority and then being all world-weary when the next generation does it all over again. In regards to Yuri manga, I’ve seen roughly three or four “generations” of artists “discover” that girls fall in love with each other sometimes. And yes, there are days that I shake my head with  an amused smile at all the sincere doujinshi and manga that have hatsukoi or hajime(ru/te/ta) in the title. But I never, ever want to be this guy, acting like his own personal journey marks the end of all similar journeys and be a jerk about a sincere story

With the build-up of yet another Story A in Aoki Toshinao’s ripple (リップル), (with Shimura Takako’s name boldly labeled on the obi for very important marketing reasons,) you might even have forgiven me for rolling my eyes just a bit. But, I didn’t, and I’m glad because yes, ripple is indeed another Story A and no, it breaks not one panel of new ground and yes, it is very banal…but I liked it anyway. Apparently, every once in a blue moon sincerity is a replacement for competence. 

Neither art nor story here is exciting. A girl named Minami falls for a girl in her school named Nami. Their courtship is typical, their relationship follows all the general patterns of all relationships. Nami has a secret which is painfully obvious to us from the first mention – she’s liked a girl previously, and that girl broke her heart, a story she admits to at the climax of the volume. Again, you might forgive me for eyerolling, and again I say…but I didn’t.

Minami helps Nami to shed the baggage of her former relationship in a full-color final chapter. They like each other, and they sleep together and they are happy together, the end. And it was not creepy, nor painful nor boring. Just all pleasant and human and real.

Ratings:

Art – 6 better than I could do, but not great
Story – 6 Girl meets and falls in love with another girl
Characters  – 7 Likable and sympathetic, acting their age, which is sort of nice
Service – 3 A very little partial nudity in the final pages, So sex, but not sexed up.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 7

I believe, from the bottom of my heart we will always need stories that tell the basic plot of “there is a girl who likes a girl. The other girl likes her back. They like each other, the end” because there will always be a new generation of readers who have never read that before. And there is always someone who has not seen their experience in a manga before. And so, no matter how far on we have come in our personal journey, it’s important to remind ourselves that yes, stories like ripple should always have a place in our genre.