Archive for 2025


Otherside Picnic, Volume 12

April 9th, 2025

Two women hold hands, looking at each other as they jog forward out of the book cover frame.by Sandy Ferguson, Guest Reviewer

Otherside Picnic manga, Volume 12 concludes “The Whisper Is At-Your-Own-Risk” then launches into “About That Rush” concluding with Kozakura’s rebuttal, “Flashback To That Night”.

Another intense read, from gripping action, troubling revelations and a trip to the Otherside where Furth Kind idol Runa will discover the consequences of meeting your idol.

And then there is Toriko’s declaration of her feelings for Sorawo. The conclusion to “The Whisper Is At Your-Own-Risk” is exhausting and satisfying, there are a lot of moving parts and the artwork makes sure that you will be shocked. And then the “About That Rush” gives us a guided tour of The Mountain Ranch, the place created by Runa’s fan club to be a conduit to the Otherside.

So safe to say, there is a lot going on in this volume.

I have often explored Otherside Picnic as an exploration of trauma, of how victims try to navigate the legacy of their trauma. This volume is certainly in this case as Sorawo struggles with a critical question, can Sorawo deal with the fact that other people care for her? And that other people are even willing to risk their lives for her? This is a profound challenge for Sorawo as we are reminded that she was a victim of her own family who tried to destroy her.

So, as well as intense action, there are some intense emotions floating around.

And then to add to the pile, Sorawo also is forced to deal with the consequences of hiding stuff from people she is learning to care about, the stuff they desperately want to know. She fears the consequences of her actions, but eventually also takes ownership of them when the truth is revealed. This leads to Sorawo being confronted with a new situation, people will not abandon her.They may be mad at her but are willing to stick around to try and figure out what the hell is going on with Sorawo, because despite what Sorawo might think about herself, she is worth their care. Cue more angst from Sorawo, after all she is still figuring out what it means to care about other people and that sounds like too much work! Especially in the middle of a crisis.

And it is not just Sorawo who is going through an emotional wringer here. We see Toriko beginning to deal with her own trauma as she is confronted with a dose of reality about the gap between the Satsuki she yearns for, and what Satsuki has become.

And there are her feelings for Sorawo.

Sorawo and Torino’s relationship has mediated through the Otherside is one of a messy rebirth of 2 wounded people learning to care for themselves, one another and other people, something that is heavily illustrated in this volume.

After the intensity of the conclusion of “The Whisper Is At-Your-Own-Risk,” with an interlude where Kozakura hosts the Otherside after party we begin “About That Rush,” which focuses on the messy aftermath of the clean-up of the Farm created by Runa’s cult. There we meet a new group, Torchlight, a security group that participates in this operation. Then we are treated to an idyllic moment in the last chapter as Sorawo and Toriko explore the new possibilities of the Otherside and their growing relationship.

And then everything shifts, and we are given a heads-up that in future volumes Sorawo is going to be facing some unfinished business from her past.

In “Flashback To That Night” Kozakura provides her perspective on the events of “The Whisper Is At-Your-Own-Risk,” as she reflects on the actions of Sorawo and Toriko, and the encounter of what Satsuki has become. Kozakura gives us a glimpse of the gap between the Otherside Satsuki, and the Satsuki she knew.

Ratings:

Story– 9
Artwork– 9 The artwork is intense and vivid, something I learned while enjoying a coffee and a donut, as I followed the confrontation in the Otherside.
Character– 9, there is a lot going on with both Sorawo and Toriko in this volume.
Service– 9
Yuri – Toriko is a 10, Sorawo has some catching up to do, maybe a 8?

Overall – 9

Volume 13 is headed our way in November.





Her Kiss, My Libido Twinkles, Volume 2

April 7th, 2025

In tones of yellow, a girl with long hair, hr mouth open, leans into a girl with shorter hair, as the shorter girl pulls away. It is always fascinating to me to read a collected volume of work I have previously seen as serialized. The story seems so familar, of course, because I have already read it, but also seems very new, as if I am seeing it for the first time.

After a huge debut Kickstarter, Yorita Miyuki’s first volume of Her Kiss, My Libido Twinkles came out last year. Following that, she ran a Kickstarter for volume 2, which was even more successful, coming in at a whopping 770% funded. I reviewed Volume 1 as  part of a two-part Kickstarter review. Today I’m going to take a look at Volume 2. Although I have the Japanese volume, I apparently never got around to reviewing it. It’s not that surprising, as there is so much Yuri these days that keeping up with everything in Japanese is now impossible. ^_^ But since this arrived at my door in English, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about it.

The cover of Her Kiss, My Libido Twinkles, Volume 2, shows Sana and Akane in yet another position that establishes Akane as an aggressor…a theme carried through this volume. Having established in Volume 1, that Akane is some kinds of “broken” – ill, without family, friends and with a tendency to romantically and sexually press her dominance over Sana, without making space for feelings or conversations, wec ome to a Voume 2 where both girls are trying to reframe their relationship to fit their own needs.

Sana struggles to understand Akane who, until the end of the book seems as if she has no interest in being understood. In the final story, we see Akane take a leap to meet Sana where she is, even at the cost of some embarrassment. It is this Akane that we think might work for Sana as a girlfriend. 

What helps is a chapter in the middle from the perspective of Sana’s friend Mi-chan. Cut out of being Sana’s intimate friendship, Mi-chan struggles with jealousy, only to find at the end that she actually admires Sana and Akane as a couple, although she had no idea. Once she makes the attempt to befriend Akane, the other girl starts to warm up a bit. Socialization is very good for our unsocialized Akane.

The technicals on this volume are excellent. BPS Co, Ltd did a bang-up job on the translation and  lettering, with full retouch of the sound/fx. The paper is pleasantly thick – unusually so in these days were paper is almost miraculously thin. And the French fold on the cover always looks and feel nice.

It is nice to see such a good-looking book as a reward for a Kickstarter. The book came with an advert for an upcoming kickstarter to fund the upcoming live-action series. It will be quite interesting to see how that goes!

Ratings:

Overall – 8





Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics

April 6th, 2025
Deep blue book cover, with a circle of brightness highlighting a classic manga baseball pitcher in mid-pitch.

Version 1.0.0

One of the best things that happens when one steps past “fandom” as an interest to “research” of that interest, is that one meets a community of people who are passionately analyzing, criticizing and rewriting the histories of those interests. The academic and independent anime, manga and comics (and larger pop culture) studies community has been one of the most welcoming group of people I have ever encountered. It has been possible for me to meet and correspond with some amazing minds from whom I have learned more than I could ever imagine. And, when I wrote my own book, their acceptance was heart-warming. So, as often as is possible, I like to return that favor and review a book you should definitely know about and read.

In 2022, it was a pleasure to read such a book,  Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, by Eike Exner, in which Exner painstakingly fills in the  gaps in most histories of manga from Edo-period sketches <time jump> to  manga. To quote that review, “Exner focuses on is the shift from extradiagetic narrative, i.e., blocks of text – often literally- outside the story that explain the story, to transdiagetic narrative tools like dialogue in speech balloons and sounds that both we and the characters in the story experience .”

In Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics, Exner builds a more complete history of manga from the perspective of what was happening with comic strips, then comic books, in Japan, to what we broadly categorize as “manga.” In chronological sections, the book peels away some of the accepted narrative that manga existed in it’s own uniquely Japanese vertical and was influenced only by previous Japanese art. Every section confronts an orthodoxy of thought about the creation, influences of and global spread of the manga phenomenon.

And this last piece is the main weakness of this book. I am friendly with Eike and have seen some of his struggles against these orthodoxies. I’m outside academia, so my support is relatively inconsequential, but I do support his work. Because he so clearly has struggled against being dismissed by the establishment in manga studies ( and, I presume,  Japanese cultural exceptionalism) the tone in this book is sometimes aggressive, almost angry. When arguing against strongly held, but disprovable, conceptions that are deeply entrenched in manga studies, I absolutely understand. When that same dismissive aggression gets turned upon fandom, it does feel a bit gatekeepy. Thankfully, that tone dies off quickly in the second half of the book, when he’s past much of the hidebound thinking about the creation of “manga,” (i.e., post-Tezuka).

There was so much information in this book, from the ongoing influence of western comics that has now become a dialogue between manga and comics worldwide – something I am also writing about right now for a project – to the continuds, ongoing influence of many creators and editors beyond the best-known names. I came away from this book having learned so much that I already know I’ll need to re-read this book and cement much of it in y mind. I’ve already used it as a reference in pieces for two other books and it’s not even out yet! ^_^

For a fresh, well-researched look at the history of manga, I highly recommend Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics by Eike Exner.

Ratings:

Overall -9

Many thanks to Yale Press for a review copy and a request for  blurb. I hope that will be on the book itself. ^_^





Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – April 5, 2025

April 5th, 2025

A blue silhouette of a girl with a white flower in her hair, embracing the earth. Blue block letters read YNN Yuri Network News. Art by Lissa P. For Okazu.Yuri Anime

We said goodbye to the last season and now we face a….no, no, there’s no way Momentary Lily would jut let us move on that easily. And so, there is one. more. episode to watch. It is certainly about intense, if nonsensical, emotional relationships between girls, so, sorry, it is required homework. Go with grace.

In better news, the shiny new Rose of Versailles movie is coming to Netflix on April 30. ANN’s Alex Mateo has the details. I know I’m pretty excited about it. We’ll have French food for dinner. Expect high ridiculousness from me about this. ^_^

Finally, on to new things! Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty has arrived on HIDIVE and it is being received with critical acclaim. The Okazu Discord was buzzing last night and Anime Feminist’s Vrai Kaiser has high praise for this mix of Class S aesthetic and girls’ band stuff….and Yuri.

Via Zack Davisson, the original 1990’s Sailor Moon anime is on Amazon Prime. If you haven’t watched it ever, and have Prime, this is a great time to boggle at the monsters of the day back in the 90s.

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Yuri Manga & Comics

Yen has a few license announcements for us and ANN’s Alex Mateo has all the info!  First up, is the manga for Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty, and the anthology comic for the Lycoris Recoil series. The third one, Muromaki’s “100 Yuri Situations” comics (#百合シチュ101 ) on Twitter has been collected and licensed. I know I read it, but somehow it slipped through the cracks here and I never reviewed it. It has been licensed by Yen as Lilies Blooming in 100 Days. I humbly suggest that “in” be replaced with “for”.

Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau offers us this voiced comic covering the days after the school festival as Aki and Shiho repair their relationship and become a couple.

S.I.R. , a “GL Motorcycle Jousting romance” by Fell Hound and Eleonora Bruni is up for pre-order, and will be hitting shelves in June. You bet I have pre-ordered a copy! ^_^

Mage and Demon Queen creator Color-LES is pleased to introduce her patrons to “Leina and Aisha, the main characters of my upcoming GL/ Yuri manga【Detective Reaper Morrigan】” Keep an eye out for that!

 

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Yuri Visual Novels

Noodletub games is very pleased to announce the launch of their Renai Bakudan on Steam and Itch.io. “The ultimate 18+ yuri visual novel! Romance seven beautiful ladies, work at the weirdest love hotel in Japan, and live your best life in Akiyama’s red-light district!”

Also adult, but in a different way, we have the Adult Life Yuri Bundle by Team ANPIM on Steam. They describe this as a collection of “4 yuri stories by Team ANPIM, featuring women who are 23 years and older! No longer students, they are finding romance while balancing the responsibilities of working, rent, and adulting.”

Studio Élan has a few announcements as well. A Tithe in Blood is getting a full Japanese translation as well as full Japanese voice acting on release. That’s all kinds of cool.  Their Upwards Rain, “The post office of farewells,” is getting a Steam release in July. Our Home, My Keeper now has a playable demo on Steam, as well.

If you are interested in writing reviews for Okazu, Yuri Visual Novels are a very good pitch. I don’t read them, but am very interested in having people who do, write reviews for us!

 

If you’d like to support Yuri journalism and research, Patreon and Ko-Fi are where we currently accept subscriptions and tips.  Our goal now, into 2025, is to raise our guest writers’ wages to above industry standard, which are too low!

Your support goes straight to paying for Guest Reviews, folks helping with videos, site maintenance, managing the Yuricon Store and directly supporting other Yuri creators. Just $5/month makes a huge impact! Become part of the Okazu family!

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Otherside Picnic, Volume 9

April 4th, 2025

I have one real beef with Iori Miyazawa’s light novel Otherside Picnic, Volume 9. It was too short.

I’m not joking or saying that like “Tee hee, it was so good, I wish it kept going, I mean it more like, “Dude, this thing needed a denouement, a coda, an epilogue, something, sheesh.”

Aside from this one thing, this volume was excellent. ^_^

After Volume 8, it would be really hard for any author to build a compelling narrative. But, as I said in my review for the previous volume, “Because Sorawo is our narrator and protagonist the story has allowed her the time and space to be unaware that she even is a mystery, or to have any real insight to the mystery that is her.” and, later, “One of the deep leitmotifs of this series is communication – or the lack of it. Sorawo doesn’t understand people and isn’t great at understanding herself. ” This is the main thread here. Once again, under the cover of Sorawo’s disassociative cluelessness, we watch as the people around Sorawo flounder trying to understand and accommodate her needs, while she moves the goalposts as fast as she sees that a goalpost is needed.

All of this is happening as DS Research asks Sorawo and Toriko to train their mercenaries to be as prepared as possible to face the kind of horror the Otherside presents. Along with Runa and the enigmatic “magician,” Tsuji, they set up The Farm to be a kind of terror-generator. Stuck in a campsite whose only goal is to push people past their normal limits of reason and sense, Sorawo struggles most with the banalities of life and she –  and we – must confront her worst fear as she is forced to understand who people give a shit about her and want her to reciprocate.

What really got to me is how relatable Sorawo’s confusion was, even as she’s being an annoying dipshit. ^_^  It was not at all surprising to learn that other people have a strong reaction to Sorawo, although she kind of sees everyone else as Toriko and not-Toriko.

What made this book work, from beginning to end, was the inclusion of former cult-leader, touched-by-the-Otherside Fourth Kind, Runa. We are reminded endlessly that she is a minor, but we’re never really given her age. I think this is an important distinction. She’s prone to sulking like a child, and having hissy fits, but is probably older than she acts…and, we think, has no real sense of the place of family and friends in a normal life. Runa’s skill in crafting deeply unsettling Otherside horror-inducing rooms makes for outstanding story-telling. But it is her relationship, such as it is, with Sorawo that will change the story.

I haven’t mentioned Kozakura, for a reason. When we meet her, we are told she is an adult…but until Volume 9, we really have only had the vaguest glimpses of it. Now that she (too) has someone to care for, her house is becoming a home, her maturity is suddenly apparent and it deeply affects Sorawo, who is not used to feeling…things… about people.

Everything is changing and despite herself, Sorawo may have built a family. If only she can see it.

Ratings:

Art – I really do not know, let’s talk about the art next volume
Story – Also don’t know, but wow it was compelling
Characters – 9, also compelling
Service – Either no or I am getting used to it
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

An incredible book, but it still needed a denouement. ^_^;