Archive for the Artists Category


Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 4 (English)

February 27th, 2018

In Bloom Into You, Volume 4, as the Student Council goes into a stay-over training camp in order to work on their play for the school festival, the principal characters encounter issues they’ve brought with them from their past into their present. 

Sayaka is forced to deal with a memory being pissed all over by her first lover. The sempai, in attempting to absolve Sayaka of any blame for their gay relationship, forces her to use Touko to make a point about being gay anyway. Touko doesn’t mind, but the whole thing is awkward and uncomfortable. Sayaka’s then brought into close quarters with the girl she desires, but cannot have. She cannot not see Touko’s interactions with Yuu, she cannot not know what they mean. She has no course at all but to be stoic, which is in unfair step down from just having an unrequited fantasy. I am still primarily reading this series for Sayaka and really want to see her happy by the end of it.

Yuu learns from a friend and teammate from middle school that her current state of dissatisfaction at being overworked with Student Council stuff marks a pretty major shift from her previous lack of engagement with pretty much everything. I read too much manga, I know, but my mind went directly to another MediaWorks manga that used pathological lack of engagement as a plot complication, Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl. Is this a key development moment for Yuu, or just a thing that is told to us to explain her ambivalence? Unfortunately for readers, we cannot be sure if anything we’re presented has weight of meaning. It could easily be a handwave.

We can be sure that something came to some kind of head when we all see Touko get extraordinarily emotional as they rehearse the play. Kanou-san just got way too close to the truth (as Yuu notes privately,) with her script. Touko is competing with the ideal of a dead older sister  who turns out to have actually been a bit of a jerk. She learns her sister used the people around her and is then told, quite incorrectly, that she’s nothing like Mio. But we readers can see that she is much more like her sister than anyone knows.

If the book took a direction that made me happy, Touko would confront her own behavior in regards to Yuu and change. Yuu would be then given a chance to decide if she wanted to be with this Touko. And Sayaka would meet a nice girl. But realistically, I’m just waiting for the magic handwave that will make Yuu decide she loves Touko and they’ll get married on a rainbow-bathed chapel in the sky. Oh, sorry, switched to Kashimashi again. 

Seven Seas has given us an excellent, authentic manga reading experience with this volume, so we can relax and be perplexed by the story. ^_^

Ratings: (quote directly from the review of the JP volume)

Art – 8
Story – 5 This issue has issues
Characters – 8 
Yuri – 7
Service – 4 Bathing scenes with three girls, two of whom are lesbian.

Overall – 8….

I really want to like this series. I just still don’t know if I do. Huh, just like Yuu feels about Touko. How ironic. ^_^

Volume 5 in English hits shelves in June 2018.  Thanks very much to Seven Seas for a review copy, but I had already gotten it for myself. ^_^





LGBTQ: Hitori Koukan Nikki (一人交換日記)

February 22nd, 2018

“Dear Nagata Kabi-san, this is Nagata Kabi.”

We left Nagata-sensei at the end of Sabishi-sugi Rezu Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report (さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ) (which was sold as My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness in English) looking at a building a life in the middle of crushing depression and a debilitating eating disorder. As the pages of Hitori Koukan Nikki (一人交換日記) open, she is still attempting to build that life with crushing depression and sudden, shocking fame. (How much fame? The cover of this book says that her first book has 4.8 million copies in print.) But no pressure.

Nagata-sensei’s journey is a merry-go-round. Left out of the normal development of human emotions and affection, she’s desperate to be loved, to be embraced, but incapable of functioning at the level she would need to build the relationships that provide those things. Torn between needing some kind of stability, and desiring adulthood and freedom, we see her moving in and out of her parent’s house over and over trying to find some kind of balance.

Determined to make it on her own, Nagata-sensei struggles with ever worsening depression – her darkness is very omnipresent in these pages, signified by increasing use of black in the art, as she all-but-literally drowns in her own misery. 

Nagata-sensei, though, really is determined and keeps working at her next book, this time for Shogakukan’s Big Comics Special. Although her story is fully autobiographical, it has enough general appeal to have a major publisher pick her up and run her work in their magazine. More success equals more pressure.

But, just when things seem too overwhelming, she meets someone. Someone who becomes important to her. For the first time in her life, Nagata-sensei is experiencing the kind of emotion she craves. And, miraculously, it’s returned. I won’t spoil the end of the book, because it made the rest of the book worth reading, frankly, and you too will be able to read it this June when it comes out as My Solo Exchange Diary from Seven Seas.

Let me editorialize here for a moment: I am convinced that the reason the first book sold so well was that it had “lesbian experience” in the title AND a relatable story for so many.  I bet this won’t sell nearly as well without the word “lesbian” in it. Why? Because Amazon does not have a Yuri or lesbian manga/comics category. So people put in the keyword lesbian to find stuff they might want. Then they read the description. No one  is going to find Hana & Hina Afterschool when looking for a “lesbian romance” because that phrase is never used in the description. How many people might have loved a cute, sweet lesbian romance? Who knows because the description calls it a “toy-shop romance.” This is why Amazon needs a Yuri category, but also why publishers have *got* to understand how description works and who it’s for. Because I feel so strongly about this, I’ve sent this all to Seven Seas. Update: Seven Seas tells me that they agree, and are putting this volume out as My Solo Exchange Diary: The Sequel to My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness.

Seven Seas does a reasonable job with description, compared with say, Yen, who use the surreally vague Japanese descriptions, but this one is just going to need some help to become as popular as the first volume. And it should be, Because it’s a harder read, but a better book.

It is a harder read. I squirmed during the chapters when her parents read her first book. Crushing depression is crushing, and I was feeling weighted down by Nagata-sensei’s struggle. And when she broke down after kissing someone she liked for the very first time in her life, I’m not ashamed to say I cried, too. Which is why I really liked the ending and very much look forward to Hitori Koukan Nikki, Part 2.

Ratings:

Art – 7 She definitely has a style
Story – 6 
Service – N/A, even when there is nudity
LGBTQ – 9

Overall – 8

I’m fascinated by the (maybe disproportionately?I don’t know) important role in the comics industry held by autobiographical comic essays both in the West and in Japan. 

 





Yuri Manga: Akaneiro no Kiss ha Okujou de (茜色のキスは屋上で)

February 13th, 2018

Even as Momono Moto-sensei is working her butt off with Galette magazine, Ichijinsha has been licensing some of her work, as well. Akane-iro Kiss ha Okujou de is one of these collections. 

In the first story, Megu asks an older girl at a shop to go out with her, over the loud opposition of her friends. Luckily for her, the other girl  is not all that opposed.

Two friends realize their friendship means a lot to them, and maybe even more, just int time for one to move away. Years go by and they are reunited.

A girl is approached by the subject of her crush and she just has no idea how to react.

A lesbian and straight friend have drunken sex, which leaves two of us – the lesbian and this reader – unsatisfied. I hate this kind of self-loathing “in love with a straight friend who uses the lesbian as a life size vibrator” kind of story.

A childhood mentor and tutor becomes a lover. This story kind of squicked me primarily because we’re told their specific age difference. I’m never comfortable with that, even though I don’t always dislike the concept of an generation-difference story itself. A bit hypocritical, but, I’m human.

And finally, the title story in which to friends discover that they love one another and share twilight kisses on the school roof. A nice, arm, fuzzy ending to a collection by an artists who specializes in the bitter and uncomfortable forms a relationship might take.

I really like Momono-sensei’s art, and while her stories tend to focus on the awkward and uncomfortable bits of lesbian-relationships, when she pulls out the stops and gives characters a happy ending, it’s always quite beautifully done.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, say 7
Characters  – 7 much less unlikable than in some of her previous work
Yuri – 10
Service – 5 Some sex scenes, a little nudity

Overall – 7

You know I’m going to say this….I cannot wait for Momono-sensei’s “Liberty” from Galette to be collected!





Yuri Manga: Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 7 (あの娘にキスと白百合を)

January 18th, 2018

In Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 7 (あの娘にキスと白百合を), Yurine gets a new underclassman in gardening club. As a near-last act, her sempai show up and say, “Here, this kid wants in.” Haine is thrilled to be part of the club and to be near the famous Kurozawa Yurine, but. As it turns out in our story du volume, Haine is famous in her own right and she’s frankly unimpressed by her impressively talented sempai. She takes Yurine to task for not caring about anything she does and calls her life “empty.” 

Yurine, for the first time in this entire series, is deeply hurt. The idea that she’s living a meaningless life sends her, in tears, to Ayaka. But this crisis is good for her, when she comes to realize that she actually does enjoy acting and her rivalry with Ayaka. She’s not empty after all.

Final exams are on the line. Ayaka bets Yurine that she’ll beat her this time for sure. Yurine, confident that she is unbeatable as always, jokingly says that if Ayaka loses, she wants a kiss. The grades are posted. and….I won’t spoil the ending.  ^_^ You’ll be able to read it for yourself soon enough, as the English-language releases are coming out fast. 

This volume is not the first time we’ve taken a look at Kurozawa’s life, but it’s the first time the series has gone to any length to make her sympathetic in any meaningful way. Equally, this volume takes a moment to show us a Shiramine who has softened a little. As they move closer to one another, for the first time in all 7 volumes, I feel like I can root for them as a couple.

The final chapter takes a look at Itsuki and Sawa, and Towako and Yurina show up to tell us that they’ve both gotten into the school’s college, so they’ll be sticking around. I can see that this series, having taking such pains to create a bunch of couples, aren’t going to just let them go simply.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7 
Yuri – 5
Service – 1 on principle only

Overall – 7

For the look at Kurozawa’s weaknesses, this is a good volume. And a much-needed one.





Yuri Manga: Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 4 (English)

January 11th, 2018

Mizuki is facing a crisis. It’s her senior year and her last chance to make the nationals in track. But her longtime friend and her inspiration, Moe, can see that it’s not so simple as just ramping up training.

Moe insists that Mizuki stop using her as a muse and find it in herself to run because she wants to. In Volume 4 of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Mizuki loses the battle, but wins the war when finds her love of running again, and she and Moe get to admit their true feelings for each other.

This is, to date, one of my favorite volumes of Canno’s series. The set-up feels more honest and less “plot complication”-y than most of the scenarios in the series so far. I also quite like Moe because she’s says what she’s thinking, a quality not often see in Yuri romances. Additionally, the series has sort of settled in for a longer haul now, and we can turn our eyes almost completely away from main couple Kurozawa and Shiramine without fearing that the entire series will disappear in a puff. So, while Yurine and Ayaka do make an appearance, it’s almost a walk on, until the amusingly snarky final chapter, which was all obligatory Valentine’s Day stories ever, all at once.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7 Cute, sweet, etc
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 on principle only

Overall – 8

The English-language Volume 5 has a release date of late February, and I’m working on Volume 7 in Japanese right now. At this rate of release you’re all gonna all catch up with the Japanese series by next summer!