And here we are at Comic Yuri Hime July 2021 (コミック百合姫2021年7月号). ^_^ Let’s start with the fantastic stuff I definitely want to mention.

Usui Shio’s “Kaketa Tsuki to Donuts” comes to key moment – and so does “Onna Tomodachi to Kekkonshitemita.” Both are ongoing and I find both stories absolutely delightful for different reasons. I would take a magazine full of this kind of story – adult women with more than one layer of existence or relationship. Usui-sensei’s art and story telling gets a 100% from me.

“Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” by Miman, is doing something I both wanted and kind of feared! Sumika is starting to find herself interested in Kanako…who only has eyes for Hime. Hrm…I’m super interested in where this goes.

Takashima Eku’s “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Uta” continues to be a pleasant read, even if the new characters feel a little tsun for the sake of having a tsun character. I hope she’s actually driven by desire to succeed and not just a type.

And, in very exciting news, Comic Yuri Hime announces that Inui Ayu’s autobiographical comic column about her life with her girlfriend is returning with more pages and will be collected into volumes! I’m absolutely thrilled at that news.

Now, if only we can get some decent sports and action series in this magazine. Which beings me to…

Last month I promised to ridicule semelparous, so let’s get that over with. The premise of this manga appears to be “Attack on Titan, but less fun, less coherent and make all the women’s bodies as insulting as possible.” Ogino Jun has absolutely complied with this: This art is bad.

These poses are infantile and absurd. Tits are not balloons, they don’t just flap about with no reason, even out of a bra.

Of course, when the guy shows up…he’s hardbodied and bizarrely, his dick isn’t wangling around in a loose sheath, it’s packed neatly and invisibly away behind what any sensible human might presume to be protection.

Of course he is. What man would draw a penis sock, leaving that specific body part unprotected? None. Even Dick Fight Island give the penises big masculine energy. (If you haven’t seen Dick Fight Island, you should really, it’s quite amazing for a lot of reasons. As a pure act of sexualizing men’s bodies for a female audience, it’s fantastic. I mean, it’s hilarious and wack, but so gleefully over the top that it’s not insulting, just amazing. I wish we could get something that’s fun and wack and amazing here.

Instead, for women, we get camel toe and…this…thing…which actually made me laugh out loud. I won’t even bother explaining why. Either you understand how impossible this is or you have never once met an actual human woman.

It’s not just that these pictures are terrible art, with no grasp at all of anatomy, it’s that they are illustrations for a story which has no plot other than the torture and dismemberment of women…in a Yuri manga magazine, which one might believe to be at least nominally for and about women. This story could have been a fantastic science fiction action story about women. Instead, it is quite literally the most boring thing I have seen in years. There’s no joy, no humor, no delight even in the badness – which I absolutely could have gotten behind. I LOVE things that glory in their crappiness. Give me Tit Fight Island, sure, but – and this is important – make sure that it’s fun. This isn’t fun. It’s just…ridiculous.

This is the last time I’ll be mentioning this series here. It’s been licensed by Seven Seas, and it won’t be going on the Yuricon Store, but if you like it, bless. This seems obvious to me, but I’ll say it anyway, the comments are open to cogent, intelligent disagreement, but grunting-of-animals-type comments need not apply. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

With only a few exceptions, an excellent volume and now I’m going to go over to the Comic Yuri Hime questionnaire and tell them to give us manga that celebrates women’s lives, achievements, emotions and bodies. And sports. ^_^