Archive for March, 2019


Warui Onna no Ko Manga (わるいおんなのこ)

March 21st, 2019

When Kisaragi Mayu joins the Art Club in Warui Onna no Ko (わるいおんなのこ), everything goes to hell.

Mayu is, as the title says, an evil girl. Through manipulation, both sexual and emotional, physical torture and blackmail the entire club becomes her slaves or is injured and even killed for resisting. The pages of the volume close on the teacher for the art club showing obeisance to Mayu and being tattooed by Mayu’s slaves.

It’s a cheerful little manga, as you can imagine. ^_^

Crazy eyes and shock eyes inhabit most of the panels. The art is all the more disturbing because it is good. The story is disturbing because it is disturbing.

When I heard that Complex Age creator Sakuma Yui was drawing a Yuri manga, I had no idea what to expect. I expected a Yuri manga, at the very least. This story isn’t Yuri, so much as uses the frisson of Yuri as one of the various forms of predatory grooming and psychological manipulation. So…that was fun. (-_-);

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 4
Characters – 3 One has hope at the beginning. Not so at the end.
Service – 5 It could be worse, but there is a lot of blood
Yuri – 1

Overall – 4

Depending on what you like, but I found it dire. If you like trainwreck stories starring creepy assholes successfully being creepy, you’ll love it.





Yuri Manga: Beauty and the Beast Girl (English)

March 20th, 2019

Neji’s Beauty and the Beast Girl is, exactly as it sounds, a Yuri fairytale.

A blind girl named Lily Blind meets and falls in love with a beast girl who she names Heath. Let it never be said that fairytales aren’t symbolic. Heath hides from humans in the forest and spends most of her time loathing her own form until Lily brings her out of her shell.

What follows is a gentle tale of redemption and love and growth for both Lily and Heath. As this is a fairytale and a romance, we never have any reasonable expectation that Lily and Heath will be parted, but as all good fairytales have some conflict, this does have some potential for disasters that are, of course, averted by love.

Neji-sensei is clearly a fan of non-human x humans romance, as I am simultaneously reading Volume 2 of Prisontown e Youkoso! (my review of Volume 1 can be read here,) from Comic Yuri Hime, in which a human finds herself in a supernatural town where she lives alongside fanciful creatures from myths, fairtyales and legends.  So this particular pairing is spot on for this creator’s ouvre. ^_^ The story is sweet, with more attention paid to character design than plot, which also seems typical of Neji’s stories.

The ending of this comic is very doujinshi-esque, where it ends, rather than wraps up, but it is, after all a fairytale, so “and they lived happily ever after” is acceptable. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Service – 3
Yuri – 8

Overall – 7

Commenting on Heath’s name, Lily says “I think there was another name for that flower” which, I am obliged to remind you is “Erica.” ^_^





Yuri Manga: Éclair Special Sukinano ha Onnonoko Kitao Taki Yuri Sakuhin Kessakusen (エクレアSpecial 好きなのは女の子 北尾タキ百合作品傑作選)

March 18th, 2019

It is always a special pleasure to be able to review a collection by an artist I have been following for many years. Today I will indulge in this pleasure once again by talking about Kitao Taki-sensei’s Éclair Special Sukinano ha Onnonoko Kitao Taki Yuri Sakuhin Kessakusen (エクレアSpecial 好きなのは女の子 北尾タキ百合作品傑作選) a collection from Kadokawa of 8 stories by a creator whose work has made me happy since the early 2000s.

Kitao-sensei’s stories are almost always centered around a pair of women, one of whom suffers from painful embarrassment and their lover who gently teases them because it’s so much fun. This collection also includes a few stories in which next morning jitters or poorly communicated feelings have a place in the plot but, everything generally works out.

Characters here are mostly adults, some workplace romance, some drunk sex, a few ill-considered choices, but there’s little melodrama.  There’s a lot of “this could be happily ever after, if that’s what they both want,” which works just fine for me. ^_^

The art is style that lays somewhere between loose sketchiness and tight drawing, but is neither one, nor the other. I’ve always like her style, but your mileage may vary on that, obviously.

My favorite stories in the collection are the bookmarks at the beginning and end, which follow Aki and Minami, an adorable couple, as we follow them in the morning and at night as Aki returns home from the office. Totally squee. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Stories – 8 Slice of adult life
Characters – 7 We don’t get much time with them, but they tend towards the emotional and adorable
Yuri – 9
Service – 4 There is some nudity

Overall – 8

This collection is a great opportunity to get a chance to see a less-known-than-she-ought-to-be veteran Yuri artist have free reign with her work.





Yuri Manga: Lillium Terarium (リリウム・テラリウム)

March 17th, 2019

Lilium Terarium (リリウム・テラリウム) by ED is a collection of short comics from Yuri Hime @ Pixiv. As YNN Corespondent CW helpfully noted, “The serialization was based on a 4 page piece which got quite heavily retweeted when it was posted on twitter.”

The book itself is impressive, with glossy pages, comics printed in one or two colors that differentiate arcs from one other and clear printed dust cover, Lilium Terrarium is more like an artbook than a manga.

The name is, frankly, perfect. We watch young women in a variety of typical shoujo-style Yuri set-ups, much as we watch snails in terrarium, with interest, rather than engagement. These are stories we’ve seen before, just the markings are different. That said, the book is a very nice version of that Yuri terrarium and the snails all have nice markings. ^_^

My favorite of the arcs is the Kanako & Yumi arc, which begins with four friends playing at the seaside. Kanako and Yumi’s relationship is comfortable, but the camaraderie between the four is what warmed the cockles of my heart. (I had a grandmother who used to say that. We used to make fun of her, but I think I just figured it out, the ventricles kind of looks like cochlae. HUH.) I also enjoyed the heavy dark lines of the Mei & Aki arc and loved that the book ended with a sweet lightly-colored and charming story about Nanayo and Juri, who adorn the back cover, as well.

As a reproduction of digital comics in paper form, it’s unique and quite lovely.

I picked this up at Shosen Book Tower so I got one of the special paper inclusions, this one of Mei, I believe.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 0
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

All in all a nice, if not breathtaking, collection of Yuri schoolgirl stories which was more interesting for the presentation than the content. 





Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 16, 2019

March 16th, 2019

Yuri Manga

Kodansha has announced the license for tMnR’s If I Could Reach You, with a planned release in autumn.

Naoko Kodama’s I Married my Friend to Shut My Parents Up is slated for a release next month in English from Seven Seas. This one-shot nothing like NTR, so if that put you off, you need not worry. That said, if NTR turned you on, this next book is nothing like it, so be warned. Read my review of the JP volume to decide for yourself.

Vanilla Nonhuman x Nonhuman Yuri Anthology ( バニラ人外×人外百合アンソロジー) and Cinnamon Nonhuman x Human Yuri Anthology (シナモン Cinnamon 人外×人間百合アンソロジー), from Kadokawa  and SHIBUYA Gal Yuri Anthology (SHIBUYA ギャル百合アンソロジー) from Ichijinsha are now on the Yuricon Store and available on JP shelves this month. 

Also from Ichijinsha are two more anthologies hitting shelves at the end of the month: Macaron Idol Yuri Anthology (マカロン　アイドル百合アンソロジー) and Yuri-quer Alcohol Yuri Anthology (ユリキュール　アルコール百合アンソロジー) both of which are making me long for the days when Yuri anthologies were named after flowers. ^_^;

On the one hand I am thrilled beyond belief that there is so much Yuri coming out in Japan, on the other hand, I am vexed at the pumping out of themed anthologies designed to appeal to fetishes. But yay for artists getting paid to do work! I think some of these will, by necessity, be digital purchases for me. I don’t have the room anymore for getting every Yuri book ever, and I’m running out of time to read and review everything that comes out. I need more patrons so I can quit my day job and do this full time. ^_^ Become an Okazu patron, get sneak previews to new research, access to patron-only events and content and help us support queer creators and Yuri media. Five dollars a month can change the world.

YNN Correspondent Sean G tells us that Dengeki Bunko has announced an Adachi to Shimamura (安達としまむら) manga…and in looking around I see that it was already a 3-volume manga from Gangan Comics, but this appears to be a new serialization that will run in Dengeki Daioh magazine. Also, for those of you following the series, Volume 8 of the novels will be released later this spring.

And finally! a book I’ve been looking out for for months, Lily Lily Rose Volume 2 from Konno Kita. I enjoyed Volume 1 and have been hoping to see the continuation.

 

Yuri Event

YNN Corespondent endlessrain contacted us on Twitter to tell us that there is a Yuri and Yaoi event in Seville, Spain on March 23 & 24! Here is the website for more details. How exciting!

The Yuriten event has opened today in Ebisu, Tokyo! It will be in this location until the 24th and will open in Osaka on March 30.

The folks who publish Yuri manga magazine Galette is holding a Galette Yuri Matsuri on May 6 in Tokyo Culture Culture in Shibuya. Several of the magazine artists will be there, live drawing is planned and a Q&A with the artists.

I sincerely hope that you’ll join us for the 100th Anniversary of Yuri Tour in Tokyo in September! 

Yuri Anime

RightStuf is doing an inventory clearance on the Revolutionary Girl Utena 20th Anniversary Box Set. It’s $90 off, which made it affordable enough for me, finally. ^_^ The set comes with the complete series, movie, book with interviews, production drawings, character designs, art, etc., and a box with both the Duellist’s ring and the Black Rose ring. Limited while supplies last and all that. 

The Live Action stage play of Yagate Kimi ni Naru / Bloom Into You has announced cast and will be performed in May in Shibuya, Tokyo at the Zenrosai Hall / Space zero according to this Comic Natalie report.

 

Yuri Games

A bunch of folks have written in to tell us about Shiritsu Verbara Gakuen ~Versailles no Bara Re*imagination~ a Nintendo Switch game based on the Rose of Versailles series. Check out Crystalynn Hodgin’s report on ANN for details and Promotional video! 

New Yuri game Hatsukoi Shift has opened up a Twitter account….we’ll be waiting to see what the account announces.

Previously announced game with some Yuri, Shinrui no Minasam e, is now slated for release on Ps4 and Switch.

 

Other News

ANN has the video in which Brie Larson cites Sailor Moon as one of her childhood role models. ^_^

YNN Correspondent Super has written in to let you know that Universal Studios Japan is running a new Sailor Moon 4-D experience and this time, the Outer Guardians will join the battle! Check out the ANN report for details.

Do you have questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast, Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to!

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!