Today is a double-your-pleasure review, as I have both the Japanese and the English language collections of Boyish², the crowdfunded Butch x Butch Yuri Anthology to talk about!

The Japanese edition arrived first, so that was my first impression of the collection. I appreciated the variety of stories. A little fantasy, a little school life, a little adult life, a little comedy, a little tragedy, a little adventure… we got a nice mix. With 11 artists, I was able to really enjoy different interpretations of what “Boyish” (which is like cute butch, baby-dyke, you know…boyish) means to each creator. With butch x butch, some of the stories looked a little like a BL manga, but I felt that the emotions in the stories showed that even the most masculine characters were women.

The stories were pretty easy to read in Japanese…and then the English edition arrived! I was able to check my interpretations against what was a pretty solid translation. The lettering was easy to read and s/fx were translated, which freed me to re-read the volume, paying more attention to the art. Which was really a lot of fun.

I liked all the stories for different reasons. Nekobungi Sumire’s stories have a little whimsy, a little science fiction/fantasy. There were a couple of school life stories that didn’t go the way I expected and one or two that did. Mint’s dark fantasy story, “Sea Foam,” felt and looked so much like a MIST magazine story, that I instantly loved the art and adultness of the setup.

My two favorite stories come at the end of the book. Host Natsuo Mutsumi does a fantastic little coffee shop story that stars a black barrista, Gray, and her Japanese soon-to be girlfriend (spoiler!). They are absolutely adorable. I hope to see more of them. And Hanakage Alt flexes her love of muscled women in the final story, “I’ll Sculpt My Abs.”

The covers are the same for every edition, so you’ll get the same cute image from Akizora Sawayaka regardless of which edition you get. And you can order a poster with the cover image as well on the Booth.pm site. There are 4 editions available of this anthology, all with the same cover, so be careful when you order: Print editions in Japanese and English and digital editions of the same. Shipping for the print editions will need to be done through a shipping service, like Tenso. Booth.pm does not ship overseas. Which is why the ebook is a great choice – it’s an instant download. Last note – this book was crowdfunded, so there may be limited copies of the print version available.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Obviously, if butch x butch is not your cup of tea, then this might not be to your taste. But as a filler for what I see as a huge gap in Yuri, I think this volume did a bang-up job. My congratulations and thanks to everyone who contributed!