Well, it had to happen. The May volume of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫2023年5月号) was mostly not of interest to me. There’s a lot of stories that have sex portrayed in a way that is super unappealing to me. Coerced, manipulated, not an expression of love, but of power or desperation. It’ll never be my thing, but if you love shocked/unhappy faces in your sex scenes…enjoy.
There were a small handful of go-to series that I read.
We finally got Lorelei’s performance at the Battle of the Bands and of course it was super intense after Shiho dumped her whole heart on Aki in Takeshima Eku’s “Sasayakuyou ni Koi wo Utau.” I’m kind of sorry the anime will never get this far in the manga.
This chapter of “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou,” written by inori and illustrated by Aonishimo, is the very-intense Undead Hunt, which will lead up to a shock next month. Speaking of anime, we have a date for the ILTV anime! Clear your calendar in Oct 2023.
Miman’s “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” goes somewhere I feared it might, but manages to work it’s way through a deeply awkward and painful moment for Kanako and Sumika. I finally have hope that we’ll see them both come out of this okay, now. Phew.
For some reason a number of the stories I genuinely like are all headed off various cliffs, some of which are plot, but a few feel a bit like “who needs a plot when we have drama?” So overall, this was not my favorite issue ever. But that happens and then the next issue comes out and we’ll be good again. ^_^
Ratings:
Overall – 5
I would like a few more new stories about non-moe characters doing interesting things and falling in love, and much less about unpleasant high school girls being manipulative and creepy, but YMMV.
Ugh, that’s a real shame to hear. XC I know there’s certainly a time and place for depicting toxic relationships and bad sexual encounters in media, especially how they impact the victims, but it sounds like this was definitely not one of those times. I can’t fathom why the editing team decided to put so much of that content in one magazine issue, that would be far too much for me personally. Was Usui Shio’s current ongoing series one example of that, or was that an example of “We need more ~drama~”? I share you sentiments about what type of yuri manga I’d love to see more of, and hope the next issue is significantly better.
I enjoy Usui Shio’s series, actually. ^_^ I can’t be sure, but I think it did not run in this volume. It will in the next and it’s great.
That’s good to know, I’m extremely excited to read “I Married My Female Friend” when the English version arrives later this year!