Archive for the Mori Natsuko Category


LGBTQ Novel: Atashi no Kanojo (あたしの彼女)

January 22nd, 2015

anknWe’re very familiar with Mori Natsuko-sensei’s work here on Okazu.So, it comes as no surprise really that her newest Atashi no Kanojo (あたしの彼女) is another romp through various forms of adult play and BDSM.

Notably, this novel comes with a cover drawn by Morishima Akiko-sensei which, as far as it goes, actually is pretty good illustration of the content. There are no other illustrations in the book, as it is not a light novel.

Sae is a college student, in love with her classmate Hanano. Hanano returns the feeling, but in a private conversation, explains she is not interested in sex, only masturbation. If Sae wants to be her “lover”, she’ll use Sae’s sexual exploits as masturbatory fodder. (The word in Japanese for this, btw, is “Okazu”. That was one of the meanings I had in mind when I chose the name for this blog. Okazu is more commonly use to describe little dishes of various food items, as well, which fit into the idea that the blog covers this and that. And, finally, it’s a nickname for lesbian sex, as it’s not “the main course”, but a “side dish.”)

Sae agrees to Hanano’s term and find herself torturing a nice, attractive male classmate, Eiji, for Hanano’s pleasure. Hanano also sets up a session with a butch lesbian Midori. Sae becomes increasingly unsatisfied with her “relationship” with Hanano, as she never gets to so much as touch the other woman. When she meets up with Midori on what she thinks is her own, she finds that Hanano is already there and is watching them.

One last time, Sae is the top to pretty (and rather sweet) Eiji, but Sae’s thoughts stray towards Midori. She’s attempting to break away from Hanano, but finds that her “lover” is two steps ahead of her. Midori straps Sae down, then calls both Hanano and Eiji to join them, As Midori directs Eiji to have sex with Sae, Sae suddenly realizes that all along, Hanano was the sadist and she, like Eiji, has always been a masochist.

Like Sae, I grew a little tired of the “relationship” about halfway through the book. It was an easy read and I suppose it was sexy, if that’s what one is into, but there was never any kind of emotional development for any of the characters that convinced me to like them. This was very much a case where I would have liked to see Sae be plucked out of this book and find someone nice in another story. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 6

It was okay. All of Mori’s typical fetishes, without any of her fabulous outrageous humor or geeky wonderfulness. In the end I decided that the one thing I never, ever want in my porn is an ironic ending. ^_^;





Lesbian Novel: Super Otome Taisen

February 3rd, 2011

Mori Natsuko-sensei a master of the craft of writing. The fact that her writing is pornographic does not diminish this fact one bit.

Super Otome Taisen (スーパー乙女大戦) is a collection of short stories that were published over a period of several years to create an epic whole.

It is Christmas Eve at St. Anna’s private Catholic school. In the Teresa dorm, a minature Angel named Lilith tells seven girls that they have been chosen by God to save the Earth.

The “senshi” are third-years Mikiko – honor student, former president of the Student Council;  Makoto – out lesbian, and “Casanova” of the school; second-years Karen – a half-Japanese supermodel; Sasa – the school bad girl; Fuyuko – otaku and president of the SF/Fantasy club and; first-years Goth-Loli Yumeno and…Mana. I’ll get to Mana in a bit.

The “senshi” gig isn’t quite what one might expect – they are told that their sexual energy will power the giant robot guardian Super Gaia as she fights off equally giant monsters that attack the planet. This requires them to either masturbate or have sex with one another to free Super Gaia from the tentacle-y clutches of the monsters.

During the course of their adventures, the senshi undergo some awakenings. Mikiko discovers a sadistic streak, while Sasa learns that she’s a masochist. Yumeno – who yearns for Karen –  also learns she has a mean streak, School Casanova Makoto is summarily rejected or ignored by almost every one of the others, Karen and Fuyuko discover a mutual love of tentacle play and fall in love and Mana develops a kind of telepathy with Lucretia, the giant sea anemone tentacle monster they keep in the dorm and Lucretia’s baby tentacle monster, Koro-chan.

Right from the beginning, there’s a few things that are not right about the situation and it’s otaku Fuyuko who notices them first. For one thing, the monster design is inconsistent (and she can identify which anime and live-action designers they remind her of.) She also comments on the set design. And, as she points out, the Angel that is their contact has the name Lilith, which doesn’t sound like someone that the Christian God would chose to save the Earth. Fuyuko comments that Lilith’s wings are more like an insect’s than an angel’s and calmly mentions that for all they know, the God they are serving is Beezelbub, Lord of Flies.

Karen, discovers something’s up when she overhears Lilith talking to “God” who has a very high-pitched voice and whom Lilith refers to as “Director.” To keep Karen quiet, Lilith imprisons her with Lucretia. Karen doesn’t really mind that much and Lucretia is very gentle with Karen – even going so far as to feed her. Nonetheless, I had a really hard time being comfortable knowing Karen was involved in “tentacle play” for three days straight.

It’s Mana who saves the day. Mana is a really weird character. She’s totally asexual and never involves herself at all with any of the other senshi. When she discovers Lucretia’s baby, she puts Koro in a bowl and raises it. From there, she develops empathy that evolves into telepathy. When Mana realizes that Koro-chan misses her mommy, she gets the locked door open by asking Lucretia politely to open it. Ultimately, this frees Karen (who, mind you, asks to go back after a bath and a meal.)

The climax (herhn herhn) of the book comes when Yumeno, disgusted at what Karen has become, blames Lilith and concocts a plan to punish her. She engages the help of Mana (to whom she had always been kind) and Koro-chan. The little tentacle monster is just the right size to detain and “play with” Lilith. The senshi gather and force Lilith to tell them what’s up. It turns out that the role of “God” has been played by an alien AV director who wanted to create a reality show for the human fetishists in the universe. And it was a big success, she admits. I really felt that Mori-sensei dropped the ball here – she needed to have had Mikiko demand royalties for them all. Oh well, can’t have everything. Oh and Earth? Never really in danger…

The senshi are returned back to their lives which, amazingly, they slip right back into. They gather together one last time to say goodbye to the graduating third-years. You get one guess as to how that turns out.

In the final scene, Mikiko and Makoto are walking the campus and they see a beautiful woman, with perfect proportions and a very western face. They go running up to her…it can’t be…Super Gaia? I won’t spoil the ending. You’ll just have to read the book to find out. ^_^

In the same way that Sempai to Watashi takes the idea of BDSM and kind of beats it to death and then still runs with it until it stops being sexy, sort of normalizes and then becomes both more profound and more silly than ever before, Super Otome Taisen does the same with tentacle rape.

While Mikiko is the leader of the team, it’s Fuyuko who is protagonist for most of the book. Her open otaku-ness allows Mori-sensei to really trot out some serious sci-fi/fantasy obscura. Now I too know about “Stalingrad Fuyu Keshiki.” You can tell that Fuyuko is the protagonist, too, because she is the only one who gets the girl in the end. Makoto remains a court fool and Sasa is the group whipping girl, but Fuyuko and Karen find true love. Mana gets a new baby tentacle monster to raise. And they all live happily ever after….

…

Ratings:

Overall – 8





Lesbian Novel: Futari no Hitori Asobi

January 25th, 2010

It’s always a pleasure to read a collection by Mori Natsuko, and today’s short story collection Futari no Hitori Asobi (二人のひとりあそび) is no less stimulating than any other.

The primary differences between this collection and the previous two of Mori-sensei’s work that I’ve reviewed, Sempai to Watashi and Himeyuri-tachi no Houkago are twofold: In this volume there is more straight sex than in the previous two and there’s less outrageously funny behavior. In fact, more than once, I thought to myself, “I think she’s getting old, because everyone in this book is all love-dovey and warm-hearted.” There’s less sadism in her BDSM in most of the stories, except the very first.

The first story was about a young woman who is cruelly tortured in class and falls in love with the sadist (female) who rescues her. This ends with a three-way relationship between the sadist, the protagonist and a guy who is everyone’s bitch.

This was followed by a number of straight stories that involves some light B&D and cross-dressing by the guys, including a strange story from the perspective of a crazy woman who has fantasy sex with her dead (male) lover. And a few group sex stories.

Probably the most disturbing stories follows the love/sex triangle of two men and a woman and the plant-boy that they find on a park bench and one of them takes home and raises. I can’t properly communicate how odd this story was and how awkward, as it started as porn, then sort of became sci-fi then bounced unhappily between horror, sci-fi and romance, sorta. And then there was the very yucky father/daughter incest one which I had wiped out of my head until I flipped back for this review.

As always with Mori, you have to expect at least one incest story. In this case, there was the one above and a lesbian sister with a little non-consensual sister loving. Since the older sister was named Reina, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining Elina and Reina from Queen’s Blade, which probably made the story more interesting for me than it might otherwise have been. ^_^

My favorite stories – other than the first one, which started pretty harshly, but I began to like the sadist when she responded to “I like you” by slapping the protagonist across the face – were the last two.

In the next to last story, a woman starts to recognize that she may be a lesbian, and is approached by a classmate who confesses that she is, in fact, gay. Kanae then offers to help Noriko learn what women do in bed. As their relationship develops, Noriko realizes that Kanae actually is in love with her and she sheds her childish crush on another classmate. Their relationship deepens a bit and threatens to become an actual thing, as the curtain is drawn on them.

The final story is the title story. If you know any Japanese (or indeed anything about Mori-sensei’s work) you’ll know exactly what the story is about. Nao meets Isako on a chat board and they play with themselves, together.

So, as I said, it was an entertaining read, but it definitely lacked the crazy humor and hard edge to the BDSM that I expect from Mori-sensei. All the warm, soft feelings for people in the throes of bound ecstasy was sort of cute and fuzzy, but I think I like her better when she’s making me shriek with appalled laughter.

Ratings:

Story – Variable, from 3-8
Characters – Same
Lesbian – 10 when it’s a 10

Overall – 7

The last two stories might be something I’d hand to another lesbian, particularly the next to last one. It actually dealt with some of those “what does it mean to be a lesbian” questions that Yuri rarely deals with.





Lesbian Anthology: Sparkling Rain (English)

May 15th, 2009

Yuki pulled her face away. She couldn’t get used to the concept that anything that lesbians made was wonderful. She did want to support lesbian work even if she thought it was ugly, and she couldn’t stand heteros mouthing off at lesbian work. Watching this bad piece of porn, however, was tortuous. – From “Monalisa Night” by Izumo Marou

Well, you know, I am *so* right there with Yuki. I love to support lesbian work, truly, but so often wonder who the hell it’s for? Not me, certainly. And Japanese lesbian works equally, if not more so, sometimes.

And so I approached this anthology with a full measure of concern that I might find it teh suck. Instead, I have to say – with great pleasure – that Sparkling Rain: And Other Fiction from Japan of Women Who Love Women, edited by Barbara Summerhawk and Kimberly Hughes, is full of awesome and wonderful. With the exception of one story, every single story had at least a few magnificent gems. Not like diamonds in the rough at all, though – like a ring that particularly catches your attention in a jewelry store window.

The anthology begins with introductions by Sawabe Hitomi and Watanabe Mieko, two women who were heavily involved in the lesbian community in Japan. Their insight into the politics and social situations of the time fascinated me. Not terribly surprising, as I’ve been lurking on the edge of their world for so many years.

This is followed by two literary essays, one on Yoshiya Nobuko, the woman I consider to be the great-grandmother of Yuri. These are then followed by about a dozen pieces of fiction, including a story by Natsuko Mori that I had previously read in her Himeyuri-tachi no Houkago collection, and a few translated Plica-chan comic strips, with a breathtakingly honest introduction by translator and scholar Mizoguchi Akiko.

All excellent, but these were not even the best of the collection. “Monalisa Night” is a non-linear multi-perspective tale that follows a number of women in a cubist painting of a story. Uehara Chigusa’s slightly tortuous, but very real “Story of a First Love,” starts off with one of the most honest appraisals of the delusional relationships we create in our own mind. And the title story, Nakayama Kaho’s “Sparkling Rain” is incandescently beautiful, painful, realistic and highly fantastic all at once.

And still, these are not the only treasures in this book. Almost every story stopped me cold with at least one truly remarkable, memorable scene or line. Even as I write this review, I can call to mind a number of scenes that have burned themselves into my memory. These are all stories I will revisit one day soon.

Every story was surprising, every story was interesting and even the ones I did not like, I was glad to have read. This was not just a lesbian work, and so worthy of support – Sparkling Rain is an *excellent* lesbian work and so, worthy of praise and recommendation.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Seriously, I hope you’ll buy this, because it was truly an extraordinary book.

I want to thank James Welker for making it possible for me to review this, and New Victoria for providing a review copy. If this had been what I expected I would be thanking them politely but, as this book was unexpectedly excellent, I thank them from the bottom of my heart for giving me this opportunity to tell you all about it.





Lesbian Novel: Sempai to Watashi

July 16th, 2008

Mori Natsuko-sensei is a well-known and well respected author in Japan. She got her start in speculative fiction/horror, and built up quite a following. She happens to be a lesbian and also writes lesbian and gay stories, many of which are extremely explicit and often, in my meager experience with her work, to have at least mild bondage.

Mori-sensei currently writes the “Yuri doujou” advice column for Yuri Hime magazine, in which she fields the same three questions over and over ad nauseum, but does it with the kind of humor and flair I would never be able to muster about someone else’s tedious relationship problems. Mori-sensei also happened to be a guest at Yuricon 2005 in Tokyo, where I found her to be a sophisticated and cultured woman.

Previously, I reviwed her book, Himeyuri-tachi no Houkago, which was a hilarious collection of exceptionally filthy short stories, almost all of which were so bonkers that my shrieks of laughter disturbed many an Acela passenger that weekend.

So of course when I learned about Sempai to Watashi I ordered it right away. ^_^

The story is pretty much identical to the setup in Hitohira and just as realistic. At T. Women’s University, there is an erotic novel writer’s club. There is also a competing club, which for argument’s sake I’ll call the erotic novel appreciation society, because I never bothered translating the long names for each club. The ENWC has five members and puts out a beautifully printed, perfect-bound anthology called the “Monthly Gomorrah.” The ENAS, which consists of two members, our protagonist Mitsue and her sempai Amari, puts out a copy book called the “Monthly Amazon.”

Both publications focus on lesbian sex, but where the members of the ENWC are self-admitted lesbians and to gain ideas for their monthly stories engage in free sex together, Amari-sempai is adamant about *not* being a lesbian herself, but rather being interested in erotica only for masturbation. Mitsue is head over heels in love and lust with Amari-sempai, so pretends to agree with her so she can remain by Amari’s side. However, after Mitsue is approached by Hanayo, the leader of the ENWC, she finds herself drawn into an ever deepening and widening circle of BDSM lesbian sex. Some of these chapters are not for the faint of heart. No lesbians were harmed by the making of these chapters, unless you like your lesbian sex to be sweet and cute and not involve tape over the mouth and the creative use of vegetables, in which case you’ll really want to avoid this book like the plague. LOL

(At some point I couldn’t help but wonder why it is that in my recent anime/manga/novel perusals, I keep coming up against so many things with the same style of ball gag? I have no opinion either way about BDSM., although I do believe strongly that it can be a lot more beautiful in text than it ever is in real life.)

In any case, after being the bottom to Hanayo’s top, and the bottom to evil loli Ruri and Jinko’s top, and the top to Hanayo’s bottom (a very nice bottom I gather, from the book,) and a voyeur as Hanayo is pleasured by her Vice President and adoring lover Eri and any number of other combinations, Mitsue defects to the ENWC, partially because sex is better than no sex and partially because Ruri blackmails her into doing so.

Of course, when the tables are turned and Ruri, who had during the course of the book kidnapped Hanayo and was keepng her as a pet (please don’t make me explain that…) is finally defeated by Eri, and both Hanayo and Mitsue are set free.

Mitsue immediately runs back to Amari, gives her the newest chapter of her erotic series “The Secret Adventures of Princess Karen” and is stunned to be told to get out by Amari-sempai. Predictably, the reason Amari wants Mitsue to go is that her new story is really hot and Amari is getting horny. Mitsue applies a *teeny* bit of physical coercion and bondage and convinces Amari that she is, in fact, a lesbian, and that lesbian sex is way better than masturbating alone.

And they all live happily ever after…except for Ruri, who is now the punching bag for everyone in the ENWC.

The End.

It wasn’t as funny as Hime Yuri-tachi and some of the extended BDSM scenes got a little tiresome (“You want this don’t you?” Nod. “Say it.” “I want that.” “Want what? Say it.” etc, etc…) but overall it was just a big, creatively executed pile of porn, in which a few scenes were really standout and occasionally quite sexy.

You know what I always say about this kind of thing – why else would you study a foreign language except to read porn on the train, while no one around you can tell. :-)

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 10000000000000
Service – 10000000000000 (Yuri fanboys would hate it. It is neither cute, nor sweet, nor loli, nor that “Story A” type Yuri that they all love so much.)

Overall – 7

I wonder what the reaction to me reading it on a Japanese train would be…. ;-)