Archive for the Shimura Takako Category


LGBTQ Manga: Wandering Son, Volume 5 (English)

June 27th, 2014

wson5One of the most maddening things about human relationships is our frequent inability to escape from previously established patterns of interaction with people. We return home to visit parents to find them – and ourselves – slipping into well-worn and often dysfunctional habits of communication and behavior.

As Nitori Shuichi begins 7th grade in Wandering Son, Volume 5 (Amazon | RightStuf), I couldn’t but help feel as if I was reading a return to old habits and relationships. Chiba’s still angry, Mako’s still perceptive in an awkwardly adult way, Sasa’s still energetic and Nitori and Takatsuki are still fighting battles on multiple fronts. A few relationships have changed, but many have not and the tensions they create fill the book with chapters that look eerily like the shadows of earlier chapters. But, even as I say that, I realize I’m being ungenerous. Everyone – especially Nitori and Takatsuki – have indeed changed.

Which is why I almost found it frustrating that the plot complication of the gender-switch play was introduced…again. Yes, it works for this class and yes it allows the characters to work some stuff out, but don’t you wonder if the rest of the kids in the class thought, “Really? Again?!”

And the super awkward obsession of the teacher is, well, just straight up freaky. Now I’m wondering if any of my teachers looked at me and thought of some past person they knew instead. (-_-);

The issue of the gendered uniforms is subsumed in Chizuru’s wearing of the boy’s uniform because she feels like it, while Takatsuki, who desperately desire to do so, does not. And Nitori is almost reflexively denying the desire to wear girl’s clothes, but Mako rightfully points out that they may not be able to get away with it for much longer. Puberty creeps ever closer.

In all sincerity, I am reviewing this volume for the last scene in which Chiba, in an unusually lucid moment, asks Nitori if he likes Takatsuki as a boy who likes a girl, or as the girl he wants to be liking Takatsuki as a girl. I’d also add the possibility that Nitori as a girl could like Takastuki as a boy. Not surprisingly, Nitori cannot answer that question. It’s a tough one and the answer to it is the primary reason I’ll read the next volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
LGBTQ – 8

Overall – 9

I find this series deeply uncomfortable reading, but I keep coming back. I want to see how this plays out.





Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 8 (青い花)

October 29th, 2013

And here we are, at the final volume of Aoi Hana (青い花). Wow, have we come a long way.

High school graduation approaches, but before it arrives, the girls of Fujigaya head to London for a class trip. Unbeknownst to Fumi, Akira and Kyouko catch up with Sugimoto-sempai who now lives there with Kawasaki-sempai.

Then graduation comes, and Fumi and Akira are forced to have the conversation that has been building between them for some time. Is there, in fact, a “them” to discuss?

In the meantime, Yamashina-sensei finds that a confidence shared off the record has become general knowledge. The students learn that her lover is female after all.  And in the end, nothing changes. But, it seems likely that she’ll feel less inclined to be honest with the next student who asks. And you just know the rumors will continue.

Graduation passes, and so does time. Everyone is drawn together once again, this time by a happy occasion – Kyoko’s and Kou’s wedding. Time moves on, as Ya-san notes, for all of us.

Yamashina and her lover, Haruka’s sister,  consider holding a wedding ceremony themselves, a scene that made me inexpressibly happy. ^_^

Without spoilers, I will assure you that you the ending does not bring closure. It has the one thing I had hoped for – ambiguity.

Ratings:

Story – 10
Characters – 10
Art – 10
Lesbian Life – 10
Service – 3

Overall – 10

The story began on a day that led to many other days, full of joy, sadness, loneliness, friendship and love. Aoi Hana ends on a day that will lead to more of the same.

Happily Ever After is, as we well know, a process, not a destination. And for Fumi and Akira life is, as well.

This is the third manga series I like that has come to an end in 2013 and for the third time, I find myself left feeling happy, rather than sad. ^_^





Wandering Son Manga, Volume 4 (English)

July 30th, 2013

WanderingSon4We’ve covered a few volumes of Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son, published in English by Fantagraphics here on Okazu, but it hasn’t been featured regularly.

We’ve covered Volume 1 and Volume 2 and I hope those reviews were enough to encourage you to buy and read Volume 3. The early volumes introduce us to Shuuichi, a boy who wishes to become a girl and Shuu-chan’s classmates, friends, enemies (among whom I have to count his sister, the aspiring model) and Yoshino, a girl who wishes to become a boy.

In Volume 4, the story remains complex and emotional as always. By this point, Shimura-sensei’s characters are finely wrought, so the tension in each panel is palpable. Manga scholar Matt Thorn has gotten out of the way of his own translations, so the story flows as smoothly as a story as jangly as this can possibly flow.

The children are just beginning to enter puberty, and their bodies are not necessarily their friends. In this story we see the complexity of sex, gender, gender roles and sexuality laid out in the messy mishmash that it is. After reviewing Anything That Loves last week, I found myself paying attention – for the first time – to Anna, another aspiring model and peer of Shuuichi’s sister, Maho.

Anna is not presented to us as a nice person. She’s mean to Shuu-chan…but then her introduction to him was dismissive and unkind and Maho is selfish, not supportive of her brother and uninterested in him as a person. (The last, admittedly, pretty common among siblings.) Anna, taking her cue from this, has teased Shuu-chan in an immature way – but also in a way that clearly indicates to the audience that she is interested in him.

It’s hard enough as an adult to understand the mechanism for “showing interest in” another person. As a tween/teen, there is pretty much no socially acceptable mechanism for this at all.  Any expression of interest of any kind is grounds for teasing. And here is Anna, interested in a boy who would prefer to not be a boy….she’s got to be asking some questions about herself in the middle of the night. Is her interest in Shuu-chan in the boy-girl he is or the person he might become? There are no answers for this at this point, and as we saw in Anything That Loves – there may never really be an answer. Anna is immature enough to take her confusion out on Shuu-chan…which puts us in a bad place as readers. We might be sympathetic to her if she was merely angry at Shuu-chan for not being what she wanted, or at herself for having confusing feelings, but in her (and Maho’s) hurtful words and actions we’re seeing something that is way too close to bullying and bashing for us to be sympathetic at all.

Next volume they start middle school with the addition of the rigid gender-identifier, the school uniform. What, for so many shoujo heroines is a looked-for right of passage, will be for Shuu-chan and Yoshino-kun, a political and social statement. This gender/sex/sexuality/ thing is really complicated. I’ve already got my fingers crossed tightly for them and I don’t even have Volume 5 yet.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – ?

Overall – 9

The best, perhaps the only real way to  describe Wandering Son, is that it is compelling story-telling.





Yuri Anime: Sweet Blue Flowers / Aoi Hana Disk 2 (English)

May 24th, 2013

swb Where Disk 1 of Sweet Blue Flowers was full of nostalgia and longing, Disk 2 is a brutally beautiful look at all the different kinds of pain people can inflict upon one another without ever meaning to – or wanting to – do so.

With the backdrop of the school play (and Sugimoto being simply too cool as Heathcliff,) Fumi finds herself unsure of her sempai’s feelings. As the days pass, she is more and more sure that Sugimoto likes someone else. When she discovers the truth and confronts Sugimoto, she finds an uncomfortable truth waiting for her, as well.

If the entire series was just this one disk, it would still be one of my favorites. The life lessons in it are deep and abiding. It’s a love song to young love and to Kamakura and to the springtime of youth. Above all, it is a love song to young girls who find themselves in love with other girls. You are not alone, you are not wrong, you can love and lose and love again. That’s a hell of a chorus and I am glad this series is out there, singing those important words.

I’ll say this once again, because it cannot be said too many times – despite her own words to the contrary, Fumi is an incredibly strong character. As I watched this series over again, I felt honored to be allowed to share in Fumi’s story.

The world could use more Fumis.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (with some lapses toward the last two episodes)
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 8
Service – 8  Sugimoto as Heathcliff is pure service. ^_^

Overall – 9

I’m so on pins and needles about the end of the manga. I know what I want it to be, but what will it be? /worry worry/





Aoi Hana to End in July

May 8th, 2013

Aoi_Hana1ANN is reporting that Shimura Takako’s Yuri manga, Aoi Hana  will be coming to an end in the July issue of Manga Erotics F.

The Aoi Hana manga was picked up for translation by JManga in 2012 and the Sweet Blue Flowers anime was recently released by Nozomi/RightStuf.

8 volumes is a good solid run, so there’ll be no complaints from me. Thank you Shimura-sensei for such a wonderful series!

Thanks also to YNN Correspondent Orange Pekoe who wrote in to let us know the news.