Archive for the Morinaga Milk Category


Yuri Manga: GIRL FRIENDS, Volume 5

February 16th, 2011

After a rollercoaster ride of emotional growth, we have at last arrived at Volume 5 of Morinaga Milk-sensei’s definitive work, GIRL FRIENDS. And it is good.

Mari and Akiko have only a few more things left to deal with before they can face the world as a couple. One of these things is the physical component of their relationship, which is played for both laughs and “aww”s and is a sweet, rather than salacious, moment in their journey.

Of course their high school life is another thing they must deal with, and the hurdle of what will they do after they graduate takes up a large portion of this volume. It’s resolved satisfactorily on all sides. Akiko and Mari graduate without problem and in a giant handwave get to live happily ever after – at least as far as into the next stage of their lives.

And, despite the big stick o’happily ever after being applied liberally to the end of this series, I find myself not as satisfied with it as I had hoped to be. Bear with me as I explain why.

There are, IMHO, three obvious and perfectly legitimate reasons why the ending was given to us in an amorphous ball of “and they lived happily ever after,” rather than in any detail. Please allow me to indulge in a bit of overthinking here. These reasons might have been:

1) The author herself is clearly a specialist in the space between realizing “I like you” and getting together as a couple. It may be she has no interest in portraying anything after that.

2) The editor may have suggested that the audience isn’t terribly interested in the non-high school hurdles a gay couple has to face, or that the frisson of first love/first lust is sexier and more appealing to them than the domestic minutiae of buying furniture

3) Since all romances are, in some key ways, fantasies, the author may have wanted to portray a perfect world in which a couple of women, having decided to build a life together actually can, without pressure or difficulty from family or discrimination in housing or employment.

As I said, all three of these reasons are absolutely perfectly acceptable. And yet I remain unsatisfied. Why? Because for 4 volumes, Morinaga-sensei had constructed what I consider to be an incredibly realistic look at two young women in love. No, I absolutely did not need to see Mari and Akiko stressing over coming out to their families, but one handwave to wipe away all the many, many obstacles a young lesbian or gay couple faces was slightly irksome in the face of spending 4 volumes delving deeply into that very thing.

When you are part of a young gay or lesbian couple, your life is never truly private. Every act you do as a couple is a political statement, demanding recognition. As David Welsh of MangaCurmudgeon so brilliantly put it, every time he goes food shopping with his husband it is a subversive act. Constance McMillan never set out to make a political statement – she just wanted to take her girlfriend as her date to their senior prom. But the adults around her immediately turned that perfectly average desire into a divisive political declaration. For those of us who are LGBTQI, this happens every day.

So, when all of that is simply skipped or ignored, after 4 volumes of dealing with every single possible emotional hurdle between two girls and a life together as a couple, I found it to be disappointing. Had Mari at least thought, “Well, we still have a lot to deal with,” as she considered their life together in the epilogue, I would have been 100% satisfied. As it is, Morinaga-sensei gives away a little of the issue with the wrap-up in which we are told that Mari and Akiko still remained friends with Sugi-san and Tamamin and the others. This was never really a story about Mari and Akiko as Girlfriends. For Morinaga-sensei and her readers it was a story about Girls and their Friends. And in that story was a very sweet romance between two of those girls.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 8

This series, at a comfortable 5 volumes, would be an excellent candidate for a American manga company who wanted to take a chance on a “Yuri” manga.





Yuri Network News – October 16, 2010

October 16th, 2010

Yuri Manga

From YNN Correspondent Komatsu-san, French Yuri imprint Taifu Comics plans to release Morinaga Milk’s GIRL FRIENDS in 2011 (in French, obviously). France continues to be a very girl-friendly space for manga. The final volume of GIRL FRIENDS hits Japanese store shelves in November…just after I leave the country….

Fans of questions never answered and running around and angsting alot are sure to want to pick up the first volume of Zettai Shoujo Astoria by the artist that did First Love Sisters, Shinonome Mizuo.

FINALLY, the first volume of Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi will be out in early November – unlike everything else I want, which comes out after I leave Japan. I really think you ought to buy this one and read it. Really. Just do it.

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Maria-sama ga Miteru News

YNN Correspondent Soul Assassin was kind enough to point us towards this Cobalt Shueisha special with photos from the filming of the Maria-sama ga Miteru movie. It made me all kvell-y and happy. ^_^

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Other News

A new Hayate x Blade Drama CD – the first since the shift to Ultra Jump – is listed on Amazon. It’s cleverly titled, Hayate x Blade Ultra Drama CD! Ichiban Hoshi! Zekkyoutsumeawase!.

Not Yuri, but classic sistercest, here’s a a Graphic Novel of Christina Rosetti’s juicy poem Goblin Market.

Also not quite Yuri, but very Yuri-friendly, I took a long, lingering look at women’s manga magazine Feel Young at Mangacast.

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!





Yuri Manga: GIRL FRIENDS, Volume 4

August 19th, 2010

GIRL FRIENDS Volume 4 is the kind of story-telling that fills volumes of literature, but manga fans generally can’t stand. Having established in previous volumes that both Mari and Akiko feel the same way about one another, manga fans (who have been trained to be terrible readers by illicitly scanned porn doujinshi and impatiently written fanfic) bitch endlessly “why don’t they just get together (i.e., have sex) already?”

Maddeningly for them, this series is not a porn series. Instead it is a graphic novel series about a shockingly realistic – and therefore frustrating – relationship between two girls young enough that merely identifying one’s feelings at all is problematic. One of the complaints I’ve heard regularly about this series is that it is not realistic at all, but I feel that it absolutely is realistic. The folks I’ve heard this from the most live in a culture and with families that are largely tolerant and accepting of same-sex couples. I can assure you that in parts of the world where there is not a high level of acceptance and/or tolerance, this kind of agonizing hesitation is quite normal.

In Volume 4, Akiko is confused, hurt, frustrated and puzzled by Mari’s lack of response to her kiss at the end of Volume 3. It seems obvious to Akiko that she’s communicated her feelings properly but, inside Mari’s head, the bunker has been shut down. Having only words and unreliable emotions with which to parse Akiko’s actions, Mari has convinced herself that this was merely a kiss between friends…despite all evidence to the contrary.

The bulk of the volume is taken up with the class trip, and the comedy of errors, misunderstandings and miscommunication that keep Mari and Akiko apart. Some of it is not their fault, but a great deal of it is simply lack of a quiet moment to have the talk that they need to have. When, over a heart-shaped stone that is supposed to guarantee eternal love, they finally have that talk – amazingly – much of what keeps them apart dissipates into the nothing it really was.

Now, at last, the two can start developing their relationship. We watch their first halting steps through the jaded eyes of their friend, Sugiyama, in what to me was a really miserable chapter about broken dreams and the death of innocence. But, hey, that’s realistic too.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 4

Overall – 8

Volume 5 will simultaneously bring fans the climax they desperately want and the end of the series so they have something to whine about – also a critical factor in fan enjoyment. ^_^





Yuri Network News – January 30, 2010

January 30th, 2010

This week was the last week of having 4 jobs; as of next week, I’ll be back to my usual 3 at a time. Thank you all for your patience with gaps in reviews. I’m *still* open to guest reviews, so if you have something you’d really like to review here, email me and we can talk!

Before we start, I have a Mystery to Solve. Someone sent me an absolutely *beautiful* doujinshi from Romania. There was no name, no note, no nothing. Can someone claim credit and let me know who to thank?

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Yuri Manga

The pre-order for the first volume of Gunjo is up on Amazon JP. It’s got a February 25 release date.

Ordering from Amazon JP isn’t as hard as it appears, since all the buttons are the same size, color and shape on every Amazon, and the check-out can be displayed in English. However, I know that not everyone is comfortable with the idea of ordering from there. So, to make things easier, I’ll be coordinating a bulk order. I’ll let you know when it’s all set up, but here’s the plan: I’ll set up a link to take orders through Paypal. You’ll have to pay shipping from Japan, the cost of the book, the fees on Paypal and shipping to you. However, you’ll be paying a smaller shipping cost than if you placed the order on your own. You don’t *have* to order this way, I just want to make it easier for you if you want it. :-)

YNN correspondent Sean G. did some great investigative reporting this week, when he contacted Digital Manga Publishing and asked whether they had abandoned the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga. Their response was ‘We still have it. Lyrical Nanoha Strikers will come out this year. Vol. 1 is in September.’ As Sean said, “there you go.”

Octave Voume 4 is up for preorder, and the latest Comic Yuri Hime magazine has already hit the shelves.

The big news is that Morinaga Milk will be doing a color illustration for Yuri Hime. This has excited some hope that she – and therefore Nana and Hitomi’s story – will be returning to the magazine. File that under conjecture and rumor. All it really means is that she’s doing a color illustration.

CANAAN Volume 1 is now available. So far, it pretty closely mirrors the anime, which is both good, and bad.

It’s the Year of Nanoha! The movie is out, with a Number #1 song for Mizuki Nana, and the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid has hit the stands. The story is excellent, the execution gives me nightmares.

For those of us who prefer the adult characters, the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Force is also available.

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Yuri Artist Interview

Speaking of Yuri manga artist Morinaga Milk (Girl Friends), she answers 10 questions on the Comic High website. These cover important issues like her unusual pen name and what items she keeps around when she’s writing, etc.

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Other News

It’s my pleasure to announce the winner of “Get this thing out of my house! Contest” from last week – Satoshi Miwa. Miwa, can you DM me on Twitter or email me with your address and I’ll get this fine example of unrestrained crap out to you as fast as I can manage? :-)

It’s all the rage to give away manga these days among the manga bloggers – I may make this a regular feature!

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!





Yuri Manga: GIRL FRIENDS, Volume 3

November 18th, 2009

In Girl Friends, Volume 1 and Volume 2, we followed Mari as she struggles with her increasing interest in and desire for her best friend Akiko.

Mari’s conflict largely arises from the fact that she is fairly introverted, and has therefore not had the experience of close friendship with girls her age. She spends a lot of time sure that she’s not normal, and Akiko is. She’s doing her best to put her feelings aside, if not behind her, and at least recapture the friendship that she and Akiko shared.

In Volume 3, we turn our gaze towards Akiko. She’s been Mari’s object of desire, but we’ve never really gotten into her head – until now.

Akiko finds herself thinking way more about Mari than about anything. So much so, that she starts to see a pattern in her obsessing. After Mari’s confession and their kiss, it seems almost obvious for Akiko to realize that she has fallen for Mari. But it’s a long way from point A to Point B.

But…and this is a big “but”….Akiko still isn’t really considering how Mari must be feeling. Now that she’s come to realize that she wants to be with Mari, she’s not seeing the distance Mari is carefully putting between them. By pressing the issue, Akiko is now causing Mari as much, if not more, stress than before.

I’m not usually a big fan of the “obsessive internal monologue” style of romance writing, but the writing in Girl Friends has consistently rung true. Where introverted Mari is rolling in quiet misery, extroverted Akiko is doing her best to not explode in public, but can’t stop herself from leaking around the edges.

There are still about a gazillion hurdles for Mari and Akiko to leap before they can be together. The 100-yard dash to the finish line isn’t really even out of the starting blocks, yet. There’s no telling how this race will end! Here’s hoping that Mari and Akiko are the winning team. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 8

This is the territory that Morinaga-sensei does best. Just after the confession, before the consummation. I’m very interested to see if we get more than just “happily ever after” – or not.