Transparent Light Blue, by Kyoko Iwami, was a collection of two multi-chapter short stories that ran in Comic Yuri Hime (and, I believe a earlier as a doujinshi. My Japanese volume is buried in the files, so I cannot check.)
The first story follows three friends, Ritsu, Ichika and Shun, as their friendship faces a severe crisis in the form of a love triangle. Both Shun and Ritsu are in love with Ichika. The tension between them threatens to pull the three of them apart until Ichika makes a decision. When she chooses Ritsu, the crisis passes and Shun accepts that his friends are now an item. The overall narrative is a bit pat, and there is a lot of service in the form of ear-cleaning, which stands in for sexual intimacy and is therefore rather more breathy and double entendre-laced than we might expect.
The second story is a messy little tale about gender, cross-dressing and sublimating sexual desire, with a shockingly happy ending. Upon re-reading I was surprised how almost-absurdly satisfying I found both endings, especially as I recall debating with myself when I read this in Japanese about even reviewing it, as we had better manga already to talk about.
But now that it’s in English, I think it’s worth taking a look at, if only to springboard from it into the vastly superior current work by Iwami-sensei being serialized now in Comic Yuri Hime, Luminous Blue (ルミナス＝ブルー). The only reason I have not yet reviewed this manga is that I cannot get a copy! It sold out almost instantly when it came out and hasn’t yet been restocked on Amazon JP. Everything Iwami-sensei does in Transparent Light Blue, she does better in her second series. And so, if you like to see the evolution of a Yuri creator, I do actually suggest you read this volume, so when Luminous Blue is licensed, you will see where she came from and how far she’s come.
Ratings:
Art – 7 Drippy
Story – 7 Messy, but satisfactory
Characters – 6 Questionable choices / unreasonably positive results
Service – 6 Sexy ear-cleaning, making the cute girl cross-dress
Yuri – 7
Overall – 7
In 2010, Transparent Light Blue would have felt like a triumph. In 2019, it feels a little regressive, but still delivers a dose of dopamine if you like soap opera.
Just had a look and it looks like there is a Kindle edition as well as stock for this print edition of something called ルミナス＝ブルー-1 on Amazon Japan.
Btw, were those the shards of a broken glass ceiling on the floor in front of your 100 Years of Yuri display case? In any case – have a great time at TCAF with Hiromi Takashima and others …
Yes, we had a catastrophe: One of the framed pieces fell and broke a glass shelf. But it’s all been reset up.
I saw the link to Luminous Blue on JP Kindle, but we cannot get JP Kindle JP. So thank you, but that was the point. As soon as it comes back for sale in print I’ll get it.
Glad you got that sorted.
(For the print edition it showed four items in stock for me there. Odd.)
Maybe that’s changed, but when I last looked it was all 3rd-party sellers. When I place another Amazon JP order, I’ll look again. Thanks for checking.
It shows in stock again for me, now. ^_^