Archive for the Artists Category


Revisiting Old Friends and Celebrating Yuri Anniversaries in Doujinshi!

September 9th, 2020

Some of you may have followed the saga of my recent package from Japan, that sat in a warehouse in Kawasaki for 7 weeks because it was supposed to take 8 weeks, so they made it take 8 weeks and then took 4 days to actually ship. ^_^; Today I want to share the partial contents of that package, because it will give us a chance to catch up with old stories and celebrate some anniversaries. All of the doujinshi I’ll be speaking of were purchased online at Melonbooks, and shipped from there to Tenso, which shipped it to me.

I used to joke/complain that the decent artifacts from Yuri Shimai / Yuri Hime had the most complicated histories. (Although nothing beats Hatsukoi Shimai.) Well each of today’s doujinshi practically comes with it’s own guidebook. ^_^

 

In 2003, before Hayate x Blade, manga artist Hayashiya Shizuru started serializing a story, Strawberry Shake, in the new quarterly Yuri manga magazine, Yuri Shimai, a manga that really honed her “baka” style of physical comedy. The series was ported to the new Yuri Hime magazine in 2005, was renamed Strawberry Shake Sweet and eventually was printed as a two-volume collection, both of which were reviewed here on Okazu. Volume 1 in 2006, and Volume 2 in 2009.  A single omnibus volume re-renamed Strawberry Shake  was printed in 2015 by Shueisha, with a new extra chapter.

The story followed two goofy, clueless “talents” (that is, they model, or do TV shows, or commercials, or whatever) Tachibana Julia and Asakawa Ran, as they meet, fall in love and almost never manage to get it together. When we meet her initially, Julia has just made a splash on a TV drama, and Ran is a new talent who is scooped up for fashion modeling. They are surrounded by a group of wacky characters who are nearly all also lesbian. It’s a tale told with Hayashiya’s bloody, violent comedy and I know it isn’t for everyone, but she’s  been one of my favorite artists since. ^_^ In fact, she may be the first artist I followed specifically, now that I think about it.

She’s continued the series in doujinshi over the years in a – so-far – 4-issue series titled Berry Strawberry Shake. Volume 1 | Volume 2| Volume 3 | Volume 4. The running gag in these are the same running gags in the original. Ran is still a doofus and Julia is still a baka. They are in love, but not in sync. Their manager Saeki is still uptight. The super-lesbian hairdresser Kaoru is still teasing her old schoolmate Saeki and getting into fights with her girlfriend and the very very queer band, which is less visual kei than visual gay, Zlay, is still super gay. All these many years and surrounded by all that gay, and our protagonists still haven’t managed a night together!

Well, this year in, Berry Shake 4, only 17 years after meeting for the first time, Julia and Ran manage a night together. Mostly.  There are…technical difficulties. ^_^;   I’m so glad to be able to check in on Julia and Ran and see that, as goofy as they are, they are happy and successful and…I note that they both are wearing matching rings.

 

 

On a quiet, greenery lined street in a little town, at the end of the road is a tea shop, where you can get delicious tea and patisserie and bask in the company of cute Yuri couples, all enjoying conversation and the pleasant atmosphere. Welcome to the Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan; Seriho and her partner Sarasa are your gracious…and always adorable…hosts.

Fujieda Miyabi‘s series, Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan began its life in Yuri Hime magazine in 2006. No, wait, it actually started in 2005 in a one-shot done for the [es] ~ Eternal Sisters, Volume 2 anthology. The series began serialization in Yuri Hime beginning in 2006. It ran for some years and was eventually collected into 2 volumes: Volume 1 in 2009, and Volume 2 in 2012.

Fujieda-sensei took his series to Drama CDs. The series had 4 DCDs and a 5th which was a crossover with his other contemporaneous series,  Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo, Madrigal Halloween, which is still the absolute finest Drama CD I own and arguably, ever made. The cast from this series and locale also makes constant cameos in his other series, including Alice Quartet and even Iono-sama Fanatics. He loves his crossovers as much as he loves Drama CDs.

Sarasa is a high school girl who frequents the local tea shop because she is in love with Seriho, the woman who runs the place. Seriho is sweet and a bit of a bubble-head, but she and Sarasa make a good team. Over time, Sarasa takes on the event planning and marketing and the cafe’s regular clientele eventually boasts a famous Yuri novel series author, a witch, a miko, fashion designers and a god. ^_^ (I bet it tortured Fujieda that his series Twinkle Saber Nova was set in the future….) The series ends with Sarasa and Seriho buying matching rings before Sarasa heads off to school to be become a pâtisier.

When the series wrapped up in Yuri Hime magazine, Fujieda-sensei created his own Yuri anthology doujinshi, Lilyca, in which Sarasa and Seriho, continue to live happily and adorably. I have two of the Lilyca volumes in print and the final two in digital form. It was my great luck to happen upon a collected volume of these stories The Ame-iro Kouchakan Tanhenshuu (飴色紅茶館歓談短編集) on Melonbooks and nab a copy before it sold out. This volume was created for Girls Love Fest in 2018, according to his Pixiv account.

I fell for Fujieda’s gentle stories full of happy Yuri couples, and his clothing design. To be honest, this cover is probably the least good clothing I’ve ever seen him create. Where other artists drew stuff like this – highlighting breasts and crotches for no good fashion reason, Fujieda rarely did that.  He was probably the second Yuri artist I followed specifically.

Time has passed, but all of our favorite couples are doing well. Sarasa is clearly a talented pâtisier now, the shop is known for delicious pastries as well as tea. Also doing well are DCD characters Shuri and Sayu and novel author Manaka and her manager. Sadly we don’t get to see what became of Letty the witch and her miko partner, Tsumugi. But it’s still good to see Sarasa and Seiho happily “married.”

 

 

Speaking of “marriage.” In 2010 – 10 years ago, Yuri Hime magazine was split into two separate publications, Yuri Hime, ostensibly for women, and Yuri Hime S, targeted towards men. Each came out quarterly for a total of 8 issues a year. Almost inexplicably, the February issue of Yuri Hime S premiered a series called  Fu~Fu (ふ~ふ) by Minamoto Hisanari who was, I believe, one of Fujieda-sensei’s assistants, and a member of his Atelier Miyabi/Moonphase circle (which spawned a couple of Yuri artists, in fact.) I say “almost inexplicably,” because Fu~Fu was about Kina and Suu-chan, an adult couple who were moving in together and celebrating wedded bliss without the wedding.  It was great having a series where moe-style art didn’t equate to either infantilized or grossly oversexualized..or worse, both at the same time.

Fu~Fu was a romantic comedy, very much in the Moonphase house style, sweet with explanations of lesbian lives and why marriage equality ought to be a thing. Kina is sweet, bubbly and Suu-chan is serious and a hard worker. They meet other Yuri couples and, when Suu-chan gets them matching rings, their friends and neighbors demand a wedding ceremony. This was collected into a two-volume set. Volume 1 at the end of 2011 and Volume 2 in spring 2013.

Well, this year is Suu-chan and Kina’s 10th anniversary, you see…and Minamoto-sensei had planned a special doujinshi for it…and the pandemic hit and Comitia was cancelled. But he participated with the online Comitia and released ふ~ふ 10th anniversary, act. 1 as a print doujinshi and in digital format which you *can* buy if you are outside Japan.  Act 2 is supposed to be released with the next online Comitia this autumn.

This 10th anniversary doujinshi starts with our two happily nested lesbians watching a movie together. Then a chapter about how all the characters use their cell phones and finally how Kina and Suu-chan met in school. It’s all very “awww”-inspiring.

So here we are, more than a decade since these three Yuri pioneers laid down bricks so many have followed. I still greedily consume everything Hayashiya-sensei creates (including her newest doujinshi series that features Yanki girls, food and Yuri, Yankoi Shokudou, and is therefore the most perfect thing ever created.) I hope publishers will pick them all up again, if they hope for that, or hope they tell the publishers to fuck right off, if the digital economy makes that easier for them.

Happy 17th anniversary to Julia and Ran, Happy 14th to Sarasa and Seriho and a very happy 10th anniversary to Suu-chan and Kina! Our fictitious “friends” are all well, as married as they can be in contemporary Japan, and I’m happier than I expected to be to see them again. ^_^





Nakatani Nio Short Story Collection Sayonara Alter ( 仲谷鳰短編集 さよならオルタ)

August 24th, 2020

Nakatani Nio Short Story Collection Sayonara Alter ( 仲谷鳰短編集 さよならオルタ) is the collected volume of short stories by the Yagate Kimi ni Naru /Bloom Into You creator. The stories in this collection come from Nakatani-sensei’s work in  Dengeki Daioh, the Éclair anthology series, doujinshi and an original work for the collection. There’s a kind horror-esque feel about some of the stories that make me feel super creeped out. ^_^;

In the titular story two girls aren’t twins so much as two halves of the same person, and when one dies, the other is there to continue being her. This was followed by a fantasy story about a young man, and a grim little story about a girl who eats a giant snail, which skeeved me in evrry possible direction.

A pianist’s hand is broken and her friend has to be there for her. A friend falls in love her friend’s passion for an idol group. A girl finds herself interested in a wolf girl who transfers into her class. A woman who designs androids has a multilayered relationship with her first triumph.  Two women decide to buy a double bed, and admit that their relationship had changed. The original story for this collection tells about a complicated relationship between a a boy and a girl in high school.

If you’re a huge fan of her work, or you like short manga stories with slightly uncomfortable edges, you’ll want to get this collection. It definitely is an excellent overview of her art changing over the last decade or so. changes, as it evolves quite considerably from beginning to end in a way that would not be obvious if you didn’t see the stories laid out one after the other.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

An eclectic volume by an artist who is now known for one kind of story, it’s also a good reminder that Nakatani’s work is not just Bloom Into You.





Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 2

August 17th, 2020

Saeki Sayaka would probably not, if you asked, consider herself nostalgic. Nor would she likely think of herself as capricious, I don’t think she’d go far as to say that she was any more logical than anyone else. I am confident, however, that she would agree that she is a thoughtful young lady, who considers her choices carefully…and considers the consequences of those choices very deeply.

In Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 2, we meet Sayaka after she has experienced love and loss in middle school and after she has fallen in love once again in high school. It’s a love that isn’t going to be realized, we know, but she’s in the middle of it. While she might have an inkling that she’s put herself in an untenable position, she’s allowing herself a kernel of something like hope, a promise to herself that if she should want to reach out and bridge the distance between her and Touko, she could…she just doesn’t want to.  It’s a pleasant little story, that becomes a lie in the beginning pages of the book and Sayaka knows it.

We can relax into this book because, of course, we already know happened, but we really should take a moment to appreciate how much work the writer, Hitoma Iruma, put into it. They could not relax at all, as the readers already know what happened. ^_^

There are number of nice touches in this volume too. Classmates Manaka and Midori are a lot of fun. I read an early passage in which Manaka said that joining a club would be useful, because “…if you exercise enough, you’ll be ready if something happens and you need to make a quick getaway.” I hope we all had a laugh remembering the friend in high school who said stuff like that. (Honestly, in my crowd, any one of us was likely to be “that guy.” ^_^)

Physically, this book was lovely, with extra flourishes by interior designer Clay Gardener – the original Japanese volume had undecorated pages. I thought this was a very nice touch. All the other technicals were likewise excellent. Translation and adaptation were spot on for the serious Sayaka we see in the anime.

I enjoyed this volume immensely – again. As I said in my review of the Japanese edition, “I am pleasantly surprised to have fully enjoyed a novel by Iruma Hitoma, in which the tone and feel of the character as we know her is captured well.” I look forward so much to the third volume in December, in which we see Sayaka exist apart from Touko, as she becomes the Sayaka she will bloom into.

Ratings:

Art – 10 Art by the series creator
Story – 8 A stronger sense of Sayaka’s feelings for and about Touko
Character – 10
Service – 1 Not really this time
Yuri – 7 This book is chock-full of Sayaka’s thoughts about being attracted to Touko for all the reasons.

Overall – 9

My impression of the third volume in Japanese, was that I grinned throughout. I hope you do too!

Thank you to Seven Seas for the review copy. As a result of their generosity, I have an extra copy to give away!  Enter by putting a funny story about a friend in high school saying something goofy and you’ll be entered. Use an email you check regularly. I’ll pick a winner by Sunday, August 23. (The winner has been contacted!) Here’s my story:

In high school I was sitting with some friends in the cafeteria and one of them had decided that she was head over heel in love with some senior boy. She asked us all to say what liked best about him and my future sister-in-law said, “His absence.” I absolutely lost it and haven’t stopped laughing about it since. ^_^





Bloom Into You, Volume 8

August 11th, 2020

As we pick up Bloom Into You, Volume 8 by Nakatani Nio, out now from Seven Seas, it’s almost inevitable that the unctious strains of “My Way” come floating into our minds. ^_^

Yuu and Touko at last find each other and, more importantly, find themselves. They let go of the bonds they had imposed upon themselves, and in that, find freedom to be themselves, together. It is a fitting ending to a series that had such a tenuous beginning that I could not see them together without them losing parts of what made them, them. I wasn’t wrong, but Nakatani-sensei did it all her way…and, it worked.

When you’ve waited 7 volumes for a narrative climax, it’s often easy to feel vaguely let down by the end. For Bloom Into You, it’s very much the opposite. I originally expected a train wreck at the end, but the story and characters were given the time they needed to develop. I’m confident that Yuu and Touko can be happy together, maybe even moreso because they took the long way around.

An epilogue is always appealing to me. This volume’s epilogue is filled to the brim with catching us up on everyone and everything. If there is a flaw to this volume, its that everyone has done too well, and is too happy. ^_^ But I’m not complaining, as that is still rare and precious enough to just be enjoyed.

More importantly, we have a tantalizing glimpse into Sayaka’s future….a story that is currently playing out in Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 1, Volume 2 which is out now in paperback and digital and Volume 3, which will be available later this year. I happily recommend all 3 volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – There is a sex scene. Whether you consider that service or not is entirely up to you.
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Several of the after-series publications mentioned in the afterword have come to pass already. I’m currently reading the short story collection of Nakatani-sensei’s work from the Éclair anthology series, Sayonara Alter (仲谷鳰短編集 さよならオルタ). I have not yet obtained the artbook, Astrolabe, (アストロラーベ). If someone has it and would like to review it, drop me an email!





Aikata System ~ Gakuen ga Eranda Unmei no Onna no ko~, Volume 2 (相方システム~学園が選んだ運命の女の子~)

August 4th, 2020

What if you entered a school that had a fabled old tradition and it sounded so beautiful and romantic that you couldn’t wait to be part of it…but once you did you found the system was broken and toxic?

Nao has been partnered with Asagiri Ibuki and she find that she’s genuinely falling in love with her sempai. Ibuki is kind and thoughtful and it definitely seems like the feeling is returned.

Kairo has been partnered with Abiko Yuuka, but while Yuuka and she have become lovers, Kairo is sure she’s being used. Abiko-sempai is emotionally manipulation and occasionally abusive and even when she is being kind, it hurts.

Both Nao and Kairo can see that Ibuki and Yuuka have a past. Ibuki lies about it to Nao, but Yuuka tells Kairo the truth.

Kairo is also going through a little crisis about herself. She refers to herself as “boku” and it’s pretty obvious that she’d like to be more princely. I think she’d specifically like to be Nao’s prince.

Yamada from the newspaper club says it first…the Aikata System is not working. People are being hurt. It’s broken and it needs to be broken up.

Aikata System ~ Gakuen ga Eranda Unmei no Onna no ko~, Volume 2 (相方システム~学園が選んだ運命の女の子~) did not go *anywhere* I thought it would and wow, am I impressed. Creator Hakamada Mera is showing us a version of Marimite‘s souer system that is a poisoned well, and I find that, as difficult as this book is to read or enjoy, it’s a compelling story.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 3 Partial nudity, sexual situations.
Yuri – 6

Overall – 8

Although I was deeply distressed by Abiko-sempai’s treatment of Kairo, I was relieved that by the end of this volume, Kairo, Yamada and Nao are all aware that this system is not working. I think it would be interesting to see the first-years band together and take down the system, although that might be asking too much of this series. ^_^