Archive for the Artists Category


Wicked Spot, Volume 1

April 30th, 2026

On a vivid yellow background, a woman with wild pink hair in hot pink and black, sits cross-legged, manicured long nails visible on her hand, smiling broadly with fangs showing and an intense look in her green eyes as looks a us.In my review of this book in Japanese I said, “Sal Jiang’s newest manga, Wicked Spot, Volume 1 is a classic case of a story beginning in one place and ending way far away from there in many different ways. I love it. ^_^.” 

Now that I have read it it English, I still love it. ^_^

Sada is a young with and the rules around staying hidden and away from people chafes. When a cell-phone opens up the world to Sada, she becomes a hit social media influencer (largely by walking into stores and just taking what she wants, courtesy of  bit of magic.)

Hanako has been tormented her whole life for being “a witch” because of her enormous strength. In the wake of Sada’s public confession that she is, in actual fact a witch, Hanako goes from fan to hater in a moment. When they meet, many worlds will collide!

If you like Sal Jiang’s work, you love this, if you are new to her work, hopefully, you’ll grow to love the wacky reaction faces and crazy muchness of both Sadako and Hanako’s situations. 

For me, it’s a fun read with just enough emotional buy-in to keep me reading what amounts to a action and magic filled comedy.

Ratings:

Art – 8 sometimes beautiful, other times messy
Characters – 8 Yes, this kind of off the wall, please
Story – 9 Awesome so far
Service – Cute clothes are about it
Yuri – Could go any way right now, but I trust

Overall – 8

Thanks to Vertical/Kodansha for a review copy through ANN for their up coming Spring Manga Guide! This volume is headed our way in a few weeks!





Threads of Me and You

March 18th, 2026

Two women wearing kimonos and holding flowers that complement the other's outer coat look at each other.One with short black hair wears a blue and white kimono an golden outer jacket, holds a purple flower. The other women with longer light brown hair pulled u into a bun at the neck wears a sunflower pattern kimono, and purple outer coat while holding sunflowers.by Patricia Baxter,  Guest Reviewer

Threads of Me and You is the newest yuri manga series from Ayu Inui, the author of If We Leave on the Dot. Like her previous series, this is a manga focused on the lives of two women who are already well established in their respective careers, meeting, growing closer, learning more about themselves, and falling in love along the way. One of the major differences between the two series is that Threads of Me and You focuses on women meeting and connecting through fashion and self-expression, centered around wearing kimonos.

Yui Nanjou is a twenty-eight year old office worker who dislikes being seen as “cute” by others, and wishes that she could look more mature. At a local restaurant she meets Mizuho Shiiba, a woman her own age who is typically seen wearing a kimono while working, with a mature and refined air about her that Yui can’t help but admire. After an impromptu conversation, Mizuho agrees to teach Yui how to wear a kimono, which marks the beginning of their friendship.

One of this series’ greatest strengths is how it showcases Yui’s character arc, as she slowly but surely begins to undergo a journey of self-reflection, which helps her learn about herself and how she wants to be perceived. This also includes unlearning heteronormative assumptions about romance and relationships that she had internalized. Her journey of learning to love herself, Mizuho, and kimonos, are all entwined together and feel natural, and seeing everything come together in the end was a joy to read.

Unfortunately, Mizuho does not get the same amount of depth and character development as Yui, which is a shame because she was clearly shown throughout the series as having her own struggles and insecurities. Unlike Yui, who is undermined because she looks cute, Mizuho finds people have high expectations of her since she appears “mature”, when in reality she has trouble with directions, even to familiar places, and gets easily distracted by her interests. This could have been an interesting setup for a sapphic romance with an implied neurodivergent love interest, but the series, and Mizuho’s struggles, are wrapped up very quickly for the sake of a satisfying conclusion.

Despite these snags, the positives of the series, such as Yui’s character growth and seeing various women pursuing their passions, make it a worthwhile read.

Ratings: 

Art – 7.5
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 4

Overall – 8 

Threads of Me and You is available to buy or rent as twelve individual chapters exclusively on Renta! and each chapter costs $1 USD each.

 




I Wanna Be Your Girl, Volume 3

March 11th, 2026

Two people in Japanese style school uniforms, one in boy's uniform, one in girl's uniform, their head on their knees, sit on a school stairway.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

We have now reached the penultimate volume of Umi Takase’s I Wanna Be Your Girl, and having also reviewed volumes 1 and 2 here on Okazu, this one is definitely the weakest of the three. One thing this series continues to excel at though, is portraying teenagers realistically. Hime is still headstrong in her convictions and her determination to protect Akira. Akira, meanwhile, just wants to be treated like one of the girls and be noticed by the senpai she has a crush on. At the end of volume 2, we start to delve into another character’s back story. Hamuro is another student who has a secret of his own. He cross dresses as a maid while working at a cafe near the school, and it’s revealed that he’s not trans like Akira but cross dresses to support his younger sister Momo who was bullied for being too cute.

I don’t really feel Hamuro adds very much to the story, and the whole starting cross dressing because your sister was bullied just seems a little too out there, especially for a seemingly cishet teenage boy. Fortunately, it’s not a big part of this volume. What we get after Hamuro though is something I’ve hoped would happen since volume 1, and that is Sasaki-sensei’s backstory. I mentioned in my review of that volume that “It seems though, that there is more to the teacher than first meets the eye. He sits Hime down for a talk one day, and it’s strongly suggested that he’s gone through something similar regarding identity in the past” He now reveals in a conversation with Akira that he is aromantic, and how he has suffered from not meeting society’s expectations too. I’m glad we got this segment, especially since in the afterword the author mentions that he was only supposed to appear briefly in chapter 2.

The rest of the volume is just more of what we’ve already seen before, Hime and Akira continue to misunderstand each other, side characters are used as sounding boards for the main characters to talk about their feelings and we’re not really any further forward with their relationship either.

I Wanna Be Your Girl is still an enjoyable series and I’m very glad it exists, but nothing new really happens in this volume, especially when compared to the previous two. I’m optimistic though that everyone will get their happy endings in the next and last volume, and I’ll be reading it to find out.

Ratings: 

Story – 6. This would be a point lower if we didn’t get Sasaki-sensei’s backstory.
Art – 6.
Characters – 7 Hamuro and his sister are unnecessary.
Service – n/a
LGBTQ — 10

Overall – 7 but again, probably an 8 if you’re a confused/closeted queer teenager looking for something to relate to.





The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Volume 1

March 6th, 2026

Cover of The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate by Kodama Naoko. On a pale-blue background with pale white letters spelling out the title, a tall short-haired woman wears a tuxedo, back to back with shorter woman with light brown wavy shoulder-length hair in a wedding dress.In The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Volume 1, Naoko Kodama offers up a lesbian that is a little more than just a plot complication. 

I’ve noted in the past, that some of Kodama’s work gets very close to discussions of trauma and the way people react to it.  In some cases, she sets up a reaction that is so extreme, the originating event appears to be serious, only to back off into a troubling, but not damaging, situation. There are two exceptions (mostly) to this trend -notably, I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up and the topic of today’s review. I say “notably,” because these two books, of all of her work, directly address queer life in Japan. 

Shigisawa is not out at her workplace, but she is very aware of and unhappy with the inequality she faces as a woman who will(can)not get married and a woman without children. She is grumpy about this. When a popular former colleague shows up needing her help, Shigisawa is not happy about that at all, either. On the one had, she had a mild crush on Goto and is grumpy about that too, as Goto left to get socially-approved married to a man. On the other hand, Shigisawa Rei is actually a softy and doesn’t turn Goto Saya away. 

The main conflict for Rei is being in close proximity to a woman she finds attractive and who appears to be all but throwing herself at Rei in what she believe is a clueless straight-girl way. For Saya, the conflict is very different, as her marriage is…she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s not working. This is not a funny at all, though. By not understanding her own self, Saya spends the volume unintentionally putting Rei’s emotions at risk.  

Because Kodama’s work typically comes with a guarantee of a happy ending, there isn’t that much tension in these two conflicts. We have to assume Saya will – at the last possible moment – deal with her failed marriage, and Rei will get the girl. And whether you like them as a couple or not is up to you. But at least, here in Volume 1 we get some pointed griping about Japanese society and their government’s abject failure to legitimize same-sex marriages, something that more than 70% of Japanese people think ought to exist (and despite multiple court rulings that lack of SSM is unconstitutional.)

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 4
Yuri – 8
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 7

Kodama-sensei’s work often strikes me the same way Melissa Scott’s science fiction in the 1990s did. It comes so close to making a point, dealing with an issue, managing an emotion, but shies away from follow through. That said, Kodama has been edging closer and closer and I hope that one, day, she’ll write the thing that has to be written.





Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 4

February 25th, 2026

Cover of Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 4 by Ami Uozumi.Two women in green dresses embrace, lightly, looking forward at us, with soft unfocused eyes.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Reviewer

At the very end of volume 3, which I also reviewed here on Okazu, an unexpected character from Ema’s past reappears. It’s her mother and there’s clearly some history between them, as within the first two pages of of Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 4 she makes a snide comment about Ema’s hair and clothing choices. Ema also contemplates how long it’s been since she saw her, and how much older her mother looks. Hario does at least stand up for his wife, but the cruelty is very pointed and definitely hurts Ema in a way that I’m sure many of the audience will be able to relate to, so much so that she’s ready to give up on the cafe and have Hario handle it instead. There’s nothing like a mother’s love and support is there? At the end of this chapter, Takara asks Ema if she wants to run away. The next chapter opens with another confrontation with Ema’s mother, but this time it’s Takara standing up for her.

The “will they won’t they” dynamic continues to be the crux of this series, although I do worry about how much longer it can carry the story. We’ve known for a while now that Ema and Takara are head over heels for each other, and I just hope that we get a proper confession from someone sooner rather than later, since we did not in this volume. The characters are still wonderfully messy, flawed and above all, realistically human. For that reason, Pink Candy Kiss continues to be one of my favourite ongoing Yuri series, and I’m eagerly awaiting volume 5. I also think it would make a fantastic live action drama, if a company would be brave enough to produce it.

Ratings: 

Art – 7 It’s still a shame there aren’t colour pages with the chapter art on.
Story – 8 The living apart situation is still a little contrived, but the rest works very well. 
Characters – 10. Ema’s mother is vindictive, cruel and totally realistic, as is Ema’s reaction to her. 
Service – None. It still doesn’t need it. This is a story about women’s feelings, written by a woman for other women.
Yuri – 10 So much yuri.

Overall – 8