Archive for the Artists Category


Yuri Manga: Golondrina, Volume 5 (ゴロンドリーナ)

April 27th, 2015

Golondrina5In Volume 5 of Golondrina, (now available on the Yuricon Store along with the rest of the series) Chika finds herself doing well enough as a matador. She’s regularly being awarded by the crowd, but she’s hit an emotional wall that seems insurmountable. She no longer wishes to seek death, but she’s not finding any joy in life, either.

Not able to find herself, Chika ends up in Madrid, at an anti-bullfighting rally, run by a famous singer, Jora. Jora is…Amazonian. Tall and physically dominant, Jora is a presence both on the musical and political stage. She invites Chika to a live show and to join her afterwards. Chika does, losing herself in this strong presence.

Her lack of drive is noticeable to those around her. Sechuu confronts her. If she doesn’t respect herself and the task she’s undertaken, he’s outta here. She pulls herself together, a little, but now she’s living a double life – matador by day, Jora’s paramour at night and neither role truly suits her.

It’s Vincenze, after all, who helps her find the will she’s been lacking. His right side is still paralyzed, but there he is in the ring, practicing. The sight galvanizes Chika, making her realize that there is something about this life that is worth living for. She returns to Jora, during a rally against bullfighting and confesses to the crowd who she is and what she’s learned. The crowd boos, Jora slaps her, admits she’s been sure that Chika was a bullfighter and they part. When Jora and Chika first slept together, Jora asks for Chika’s real name – Chika tells her that everyone calls her Chika. As they part for the last time, Jora asks her name once more, and Chika, smiling, says “La Golondrina”.

I’ve had a complicated reaction to this series. I love the art and the storytelling, but not so much the subject matter. It’s not the violence that bothers me, but the lack of consent. Two people fighting is one thing – they both know why they are here. But I feel as if I am a hypocrite if I dislike bullfighting as much as if I like it. I can see the art and the beauty in it, just as in any sport. I just wish the ball one kicked around weren’t alive. While I’m glad to watch two humans fight, you won’t catch me near a bullfighting ring ever.

On the minus side, Chika never got fangirls in the audience, but on the plus side, she had a lover who wasn’t a jerk to her and helped her discover something important in herself, so I consider that an overall win for Yuri readers and for this series.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1
Service – 4 Nudity and sexual situations, subtly rendered

Overall – 9

I’m fully a est em fan now. I’ve even started picking up some of her BL series just to have the pleasure of looking at her art.





Yuri Anime: Dear Brother Set 2, Disk 1 (English)

April 20th, 2015

DearBrother2When people referred to the anime based on Riyoko Ikeda’s Dear Brother manga as Yuri, it was primarily this section of the series they were talking about. Disk 1 of the second Dear Brother set is pretty much the pinnacle of Yuri in the series – it’s also a brief moment of life and joy and happiness in what is otherwise an extraordinarily dark series.

In this disk we start to realize that the drama – all of the drama – is centered upon a single person. Ichinomiya Fukiko, known as Miya-sama, is not just a terrible person, she is a pathologically controlling and sadistic person. As Saint Just starts to recover herself, rediscovering a small joy in the physical activity of basketball, Miya-sama reels her back in repeatedly, like a fisherman tiring out his prey.

But even on the darkest days, the sunlight can sometimes shine through the clouds and Saint Just finds enough of herself left to enjoy – fully and totally – basketball again. Mariko, Nanako and Tomoko are friends and can laugh and joke together without the jealousy we saw in the first set. Through Nanoko’s eyes, we discover that Mariko has fallen in love with Kaoru no Kimi. Not content to be a fan or admirer, Mariko has taken a kind of small possession of Kaoru’s well-being and not been rebuffed. This triggers thoughts in Nanako’s mind that she’s never had before and she considers the idea that she is in love with Saint-Just. Saint-Just does her best to prove to Nanako that she is not lovable at all.

But it’s when Miya-sama “teases” Nanako with veiled threats and unfunny jokes that we realize there is something much, much larger than the obvious going on. In the end, it his Ichinomiya Takashi, Miya-sama’s older brother who gives us the first clue to what it might be. We are left wondering why, when she has Saint Just on such a short leash, Miya-sama cares so much about Nanako?

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 9

Enjoy the laughter and the respite from the dark…in Disk 2 the clouds will thicken again.





Yuri Manga: Kyou mo Futari ha Nakayoshi Desu. ~Kuzushiro Short Story Collection (今日も２人は仲良しです。)

April 17th, 2015

FutarihaNakayoshiKyou mo Futari ha Nakayoshi Desu.~Kuzushiro Short Story Collection (今日も２人は仲良しです。) is a collection published not by Yuri Hime Comics, but by Rex Comics, also an Ichijinsha imprint. I found that interesting, although without any particular context.

The short stories are right in Kuzushiro-sensei’s ballpark – two people who are lovers/rivals and both slightly nuts, so that the situations, while they may start off normal, are guaranteed to descend immediately into wackiness. The majority of the stories are or could be considered to be Yuri, but there are a few male x female pairings which work just as well.

The first few chapters follow various couples in a idol group. Each couple is equally amusingly dysfunctional, but anyone familiar with Nekoyama-san to Inugami-san, would instantly recognize the formula. And speaking of Nekoyama-san to Inugami-san, this collection includes an early story idea for that series.

My favorite stories follow a seriously creepy eye-patch wearing girl and the girl she targets in school…and yes, I know that’s utterly predictable of me, but it’s not the eyepatch that worked for me this time, it was the utterly fucked up eye she had under it. ^_^

The art was clean, much cleaner than I’m used to from Kuzushiro-sensei, but the comedic gags weren’t quite as sharp, as befits earlier work.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, we’ll say 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 2

Overall – 8

A great way to enjoy more from a creator whose work makes me happy.





Rokujo Hitoma no Nekogami-sama Manga (ろくじょ~ひとまの ねこがみさま)

April 2nd, 2015

nekogamiMinamoto Hisanari-sensei is coming off of several very decent manga series for Comic Yuri Hime. Following his stellar series Fu~Fu, he’s had a few fun short series collections. So despite my disinterest in all things cat-related, (it’s really more like distaste, no, more like full-on loathing of all things cat) I picked up his newest collection from Yuri Hime Comics, Rokujo Hitoma no Nekogami-sama (ろくじょ~ひとまの ねこがみさま). And, even setting aside the cat thing, it had a major problem. In this review, even as short as it is, I have already given you a clue to what that problem is. Can you guess?

Mino-san moved into a room with a small shrine on one wall. Unbeknownst to her, there is a cat spirit (who calls herself a ‘god’) living in the shrine. Chaos and comedy and cat jokes and wackiness ensues.

In the final few chapters, we meet Kanade, who really, really, really, REALLY likes food. So she joins the Tabearubu – the school food club whose reviews are the talk of the town, only to learn that they train hard, so they can eat hard.

You can see the problem I had with the manga, yes? At several points I picked it up to check it really was a Yuri Hime Comic because, try as I might, I could see no Yuri of any kind. In the first story, one might, if one wants to make a story out of whole cloth, pretend that Mino’s friend Fudou has a thing for her, but we can do that only because Fudou never actually says a word, so we can make up anything we want about her.

Kanade’s story is shockingly mixed company – actual boys with names exist and are good people. The story itself was really very cute, especially the second chapter, but again, if you’re finding Yuri there, you have made it up. Which is perfectly fine, mind you, but why is this a Yuri Hime Comic? Why not print it under the Rex Comics imprint, which it seems far more suited for? Very odd.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Hisanari (and Fujieda’s) brand of moe hyper cute.
Story – Nekogami was a 5, Shuuran Gakuen Tabearbu was a 7
Characters – 6
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 6 Not bad or anything, but why Yuri Hime?





New Edition of Iono-sama Fanatics to be Released in Japan

March 23rd, 2015

Ionothumb According to Comic Natalie, Fujieda Miyabi’s Iono-sama Fanatics has been picked up by Ichijinsha for a new edition release, slated for June 2015.

Additionally, a spin-off story will run in  Comic Yuri Hime. A Special Edition of the manga will also include a Drama CD.

Before you get too excited, Seven Seas made it very plain on Twitter that they do not intend to license this. The conversation was interesting, because it was made plain that when they say they “orders” they do not mean sales of individual copies to people like you, they mean bulk pre-orders from chain stores. So, despite the absurdity of relying on the old comics model for sales viability, it’s clear that the industry is still hoist by that particular petard.

But, for those of you who have taken the opportunity to learn a little Japanese, this will be a wonderful reason to restart that practice, to help support one of our favorite creators and encourage Ichijinsha to continue the series. ^_^