In Yuri to Koe to Kaze Matoi, Volume 1 (百合と声と風纏い) Matoi is a young woman who doesn’t really get love. She can see her sister and her friends on about romance and attraction all the time, but it just doesn’t touch her, until… One day, while running late, a thunderstorm makes walking home seem very unappealing. She can’t reach her mother by phone, so she resolves to wait it out. A woman, older than Matoi, but not by much, enters, sees Matoi waiting and offers her a ride home on her motorcycle. Matoi takes the offer. When she gets home, she finds she’s kept the other woman’s extra helmet. 

Matoi learns that the other woman is Yuriko, who runs the gas station in town. She lived with her grandmother until the old lady died, and her parents are out of town. Matoi finds herself intrigued by Yuriko. They start spending time together, share their lives;  they take rides on Yuriko’s bike, Matoi shares the music she composes with Yuriko. Yuriko has reasons to avoid intimacy, but she’s finding herself wondering what she thinks about the young woman who watches her with such interest.  Matoi wonders if she’s falling in love and what that means when shes leaving for Tokyo in a few months to go to college.

This series is the first I’ve seen from the Lilie Comics imprint, from a publisher Dogenzakashobo. A quick visit to their site tells me they also do BL titles and have other Yuri titles by Hakamada Mera and Kabocha, so I’ll be back to take a look later, for sure. ^_^ I know I picked this volume up when I was in Tokyo at one of the Yuribu, although I can’t remember which one. I know I did, because it came with a illustration paper as they often do in the stores.

This story was quiet, and complex, happening primary through Matoi and Yuriko’s respective inner dialogues. Of course I want to know what happens, but I expect no high drama, nor a particularly happy ending. I won’t complain if I’m wrong about the latter. ^_^ What I like best in this story is that characters feel fully developed. They aren’t constrained by oddly conservative values, they have agency and society.

RenMei’s art is competent enough, if not nuanced. We are expected to understand the meaning of things like glances, without them being all that clear. But that is a mere quibble and overall the art is decent.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 3 A shower scene (for plot reasons, could also have been done differently)
Yuri – 3

Overall – A strong 7

Whether Matoi and Yuriko ever develop a relationship beyond this friendship/infatuation thing that they have now remains to be seen and I remain here to see it. ^_^