Archive for the Artists Category


Yuri Manga: Whispered Words, Volume 1 (English)

August 27th, 2014

ww1It’s been an exciting summer for Yuri fans, with series new and old that we love. One of the most exciting titles of the year to be released in English is Ikeda Takashi’s epic dramedy of Yuri tropes, Whispered Words out from One Peace Books. Volume 1 is available on RightStuf or Amazon.

The story follows the life of a high school student, Sumika, who is in the unenviable position of being in love with her best friend and classmate, Ushio. Sumika has everything going for her – classic looks, she’s tall strong, athletic, smart and a competent leader. Unfortunately for Sumi, Ushio dreams, not of being swept away by someone princely, but sweeping away her own petite and cute princess. Although Sumika is always by her side, Ushio never even notices Sumika’s feelings. Complicating this one-sided love, are about a hundred things, all of which are silly tropes of Yuri.

A male classmate who likes Sumika, is a cross dresser and is, in fact, so cute, that Ushio falls for him as a girl.

Aoi, Yuri light novel fan, thinks she’s found a like mind in Sumika…but she hasn’t.

Sumi and Ushio discover that there are, in fact, two lesbians in their class, and through pretense and blackmail are made to join Tomoe’s “Girls Club” for girl-lovers.

An extremely cute foreign student transfers in. Ushio, predictably falls for her, but Lotte wants to be strong like Sumi.

Each plot complication piles on Sumi, who bears the weight of Ushio’s obliviousness. And it’s apparent – especially after the somewhat messy arc with Aoi – that Sumika is a really standup kind of person. Ushio’s cluelessness hurts, and in a vulnerable moment, Sumika lets her mask slip. But will it bring them closer together?

Volume 1 covers the first three volumes of the Japanese edition (here are my reviews of Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3), which includes some emotionally charged reading in places. The story is comedic, but there are places where characters (and, possibly, readers) are found in tears. For a comedy, Volume 1 has a lot of drama. ^_^;

Technically, the book is much better than I expected.  It had only a very few typos in nearly 500 pages and nearly none of the other issues I noticed with the preview copy. The translation is absolutely excellent – I could really hear  the characters’ individual voices in the dialogue.   The story is by turns hilarious, heart-wrenching and lovely. Ikeda’s art is reproduced well and I like both the heft and paper quality of the translated edition. I feel like I’m getting something solid to hold, but not hideously bulky or heavy.

Volume 2 is already up for pre-order, with a release date in November 2014. I know that the typo issues are mostly resolved in the next Volume, and while these three volumes are the hardest to get through (Volume 4, Volume 5 and Volume 6), the finale of this series is well worth hanging in there for, I promise!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 1

Overall – 8

If you’re looking for excellent Yuri, definitely get Whispered Words – good sales will translate to more Yuri. ^_^

My sincere thanks to One Peace Books for a review copy of Volume 1! It was great to be able to see this excellent Yuri tale told in English. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru, Volume 4 (姫のためなら死ねる)

August 19th, 2014

You know those moments when someone mentions a series that you no longer follow, for whatever reason, and you think, “Is that still running?”

I’m pretty sure you all think that when I mention this series, because JManga is ancient history now and no matter how amazing a job Erin S. did on the translation, you probably forgot all about it, and ran right back to scans, or forgot the series existed at all. ^_^; Well, it still exists and it’s still a bizarre mashup of high culture and low. If you’re new, here’s my reviews of  Volume 1 and  Volume 3.  Volume 2 was never reviewed because it went straight to translation at the time.

Volume 4 of Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru, (姫のためなら死ねる) introduces us to two new characters. One, Sei Shonagon’s brother, is rather more a distressing than a positive influence in her life and I was glad when he sort of slid back out of the narrative once more.

The second is a new court lady, Sugawara no Takaesu no Musume, whs is a straight-up otaku obsessive about Murasaki Shikibu’s writing. This leads to a startling confession by Murasaki that she has never known the kind of passionate love she writes about, it’s all…duh…fantasy. (Which means if Sei Shonagon is a blogger and tweeter in our vernacular, Murasaki is a doujinshi writer.)

There’s a bizarre little interlude when Kuzushiro-sensei flails for plot ideas Murasaki and Shonagon switch bodies, which leads to many, many breast jokes. (Murasaki’s are large. Hahahahah.) And we are then introduced to a third new character and we can see that Kuzushiro-sensei has just about given up on historicity with her. The new character is the Onmyouji, Abe no…wait for it…Hito (Which would roughly translate as “that Abe person”), whose face is always obscured by material, which reflects ASCII art of her emotions.

Were my expression at her appearance to be rendered into text it would read “…”. And so it is with the rest of the cast, who kind of wonder why she’s there, too.

This volume was a bit more otaku humor, a bit less Yuri. We do get a bit of lovely Takako-sama (Teishi’s mother) and Benkan service, which I quite enjoyed.

I hope that Volume 5 (yes the series is still ongoing, remember?)  returns to the formula of Shonagon being besotted over Teishi.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 3
Service – 5

Abe no Hito? Really?





LGBTQ Manga: Torikaebaya (とりかえ・ばや ), Volume 3

July 14th, 2014

A lot happens in Volume 3 of  Saito Chiho-sensei’s Torikaebaya (とりかえ・ばや ).

Sarasojuu’s friend and peer, Tsuwabuki, has fallen for Sarasojuu’s wife, Shinohime. Alone and unable to understand why her husband does not make love to her, Shinohime falls willingly into his arms.

Both Tsuwabuki and Shinohime are overcome with shame and can’t face Sarasojuu, who is, obviously concerned and confused.

And then, Shinohime is found to be pregnant. Sarasojuu is shocked. Clearly, Shinohime is sleeping with another man, and who can blame her. Sarasojuu visits her father, proposing that Shinohime be told the truth, but he puts the cabosh on that, pointing out sensibly that, if the truth were spoken out loud, even in secret, it would spread fast.

In the meantime Toguu-sama is heading to the mountains taking Suiren with her. Suiren probably doesn’t realize it yet, but  we can see Suiren is falling for Toguu-sama, and it’s kind of cute, but of course there’s the whole gender thing complicating matters.

Toguu-sama allows Suiren to invite Sarasojuu to the mountains to accompany their party. In the mountains, the two siblings meet the master of the mountain, Yoshinomiya who instantly sees who they truly are. Returning home, Sarasojuu “forgives” Shinohime and eventually comes to believe that the father is Tsuwabuki.

In the capital, the Mikado learns of a city warehouse that is not releasing rice to the people and decides that what they need is the return of Yamato Takeru, a hero from the ancient epic Kojiki, to enact the Mikado’s will.  (As an aside, Yamato Takeru is known to have hidden by disguising himself as a woman. This indicates to me that Saito-sensei is having some fun with this story, about a boy who is a girl physically, who is playing a boy dressed as a girl.)

Sarasojuu and Tsuwabuki perform their roles and the warehouse is opened (shades of Mito Koumon there, honestly, with the officials overturning their sake bowls in shock at their appearance.) Afterwards, they are greeted by Shikibukyo-no-miya who blatantly claims Sarasojuu for his evening’s entertainment. To save his friend from this odious man, Tsuwabuki volunteers himself to be the priest’s sex toy. They return to the capital and finally, Sarasojuu is able to confront Tsuwabuki about being the child’s father. Now that the child is born, Sarasojuu offers to divorce Shinohime so Tsuwabuki can raise his daughter. They argue and, as the book comes to an end, Tsuwabuki may have discovered the truth about Sarasojuu’s body.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3
LGBTQ – 5 This volume was very Victor/Victoria.

Overall – 9

A lot happened in this volume….and how it will turn out I have no idea. I’m on pins and needles here. I probably won’t get  to Volume 4 for months. Arrghh!

 





Manga no Tsukurikata, Volume 8 (まんがの作り方)

July 10th, 2014

In Volume 8 of Manga no Tsukirikata (まんがの作り方) something happens, but it’s too late to salvage this series.

First Masato suddenly develops a cute sempai, although he never seemed to belong to a club or anything. There’s a lot of talking about making manga and deadlines, but not that much doing of it. We stop all the talking and not doing that much to play some ping pong…then suddenly we learn that Morishita, surrounded as she is by a guy hopelessly in like with her, his talentless and graceless sister with whom she is hopelessly in like and Takeda who hates her, and both Kawaguchis, but admires her professional alter ego, admits to being in a professional slump. Imagine that.

Having admitted that, the manga artists all decide to reapply themselves to their work, no one pays any attention to Masato and Kawaguchi asks Morishita to go out with her, probably for real this time. Maybe. We hope.

Just in case we enjoyed any of this even a little, the extra story is about a girl who becomes famous showing off her underwear, but is surplanted in popularity by a girl who shows her bra to make us hate ourselves all over again.

8 Volumes of this “Yuri” manga without so much as the scrapings of actual emotional connection. It’s not even worth excoriating.

Ratings:

Art – Mostly competent
Story – Nonexistent
Characters – Hesitant
Service – Extant
Yuri – Irrelevant

Overall – Thank the gods that’s over.

But still, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Dan P. for making it possible for me to finish this thing. How does a series so boring get 8 volumes?





Rose of Versailles Anime, Part 2, Disk 3 (English)

July 2nd, 2014

Rose-of-Versailles2 The third disk of Rose of Versailles, Part 2 is brought to you by the word “clusterfuck.”

The slope towards the Revolution has become decidedly slippery. The strongest leadership is on the side of change, and the status quo just crumbles in the face of it. Perhaps, it is hard for us to understand how significant this was. Kings were not just rulers, like Presidents and Prime Ministers, who are expected to be human and flawed – they were practically gods on earth. The idea that the King of France was not a good leader seems almost obvious from our perspective. For commoners and landed classes to fight back against the established order was fairly significant.

As France descends into chaos, we’re watching Oscar, tortured by the old order and yet, not part of the new. Her life is in a tailspin, as she realizes, for the very first time,, that she has feelings for Andre’, and cares more about the health of France than about following orders. “Watashi no Andre’!”

Rosalie is back for a brief moment, so we know that she is, finally, happy.

In addition to the suffering on the macro scale, we’re getting little dollops of personal suffering on top, just to add a piquant taste to the general misery.

On the positive side, I spend a lot of time, while watching this anime doing historical research. I’m a bit more grounded now in bits of the history of the French Revolution than I was when I started.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters 9
Yuri – 0
Service – 1 (on principle)

Overall – 8

Dear gods, this series is just about all I can take in terms of drama and human suffering. No wonder I avoid watching the evening news. If I had to watch current stories like this, I’d be a wreck.

Before I finish up for today, I just want to do a piece of Okazu News. Amazon has taken a stance that is decidedly anti-publisher, anti-competition and frankly is plain assholish. So, where I can do so, I’m moving my affiliate links to RightStuf. For our purposes, this means mostly English-language anime box sets and manga. RightStuf has competitive pricing and, so far, good customer service. Japanese manga and other items will probably still have Amazon links, but where I can, I’m moving us over to TRSI. If you want your purchase to be on my affiliate code, use this link when you’re shopping and this link when you’re searching. If you’re looking for a direct link to an item, please feel free to write me and ask!