A-chan and Riyoko are neighbors, Riyoko has always had a crush on A-chan, from the time she was a small girl. Now, as a high school student, her feelings are much more than a mere crush. But what about A-chan? How does she feel? Well..she feels the same, but she’s a teacher in Riyoko’s school and it’s just kind of complicated.

In “Step Forward” and “Step Up”, the first two stories of Takemiya Jin‘s collected Steps, we follow A-chan, as she learns to take Riyoko and her own feelings seriously and how to deal with it not all being a secret. Riyoko learns that true love doesn’t have to be said – but it’s awfully nice when it is. More importantly she learns that her friend Kimura has a girlfriend of her own.

In “Leave hickey?” we take a look at Kimu and her girlfriend, who is the art teacher at school. Kimu wants to mark up – or be marked by – a hickey, but Miyano doesn’t like the idea of a bruise as a mark of possession, and they opt for a small work of art on Kimu’s inner thigh.

In “step by step” A-chan and Miyano team up for a very gay wedding dress shoot, and A-chan struggles with the idea of coming out. Riyoko helps by kissing her soundly in public.

The next two chapters “Mekakushi no Koi” are, quite possibly, my favorite Takemiya Jin story. Satomi looks down at her phone at a picture of her kissing another girl. When she was in school, Satomi wasn’t able to hang around with the other girls – she had an avocation as a novelist. So she wasn’t really able to make too many friends, nor find a lover. So when Ayuna says that’s she’s bi and interested, then kisses Satomi, poor Satomi falls hard. But. Ayuna is not a kind person. She’s willing to have sex, but has no respect for gay people, finding them pathetic, since they’ll have to give up marriage and children. Satomi is not satisfied. She asks her editor, Moriyama, what to do. Ultimately, Satomi finds the relationship untenable and tells Ayuna off. Ayuna does not take it well and confirms Satomi’s suspicions that she is really not a nice person. Satomi walks away. Moriyama congratulates Satomi for taking control of her life…and assures her that Ayuna was a bad example of a bisexual. We circle around to the beginning of the story to see Satomi meet up with Nana, her current girlfriend. (In fact, their story continues in Comic Yuri Hime.) I loved the takedown of the whole “gays can never have a family BS” which is the standard Japanese trope for not coming out as gay. Even more, if Takemiya-sensei had left it with Ayuna just being bi, it would have left a bad taste in my mouth. As it was, Moriyama-sempai gets to explain to Satomi that “bi” doesn’t mean selfish and manipulative and that Ayuna was mostly just a jerk.

In “Secret Love” the entire story ties up. We learn that Satomi is now a successful novelist who writes under the name “Hime Yuri,” Moriyama’s girlfriend is Youko. Youko and Nana’s story was told in Takemiya’s Kila Kila. It’s Youko that realizes that the two circles are intertwined as they talk about going out to get drinks together. “Sensei’s girlfriend is my ex!” Woops. Well, that’s pretty realistic, isn’t it?

I turned the last page and there in the afterword, Takemiya-sensei places a helpful relationship chart. I think we’re in for another “The ‘L’ Word, manga style. Cool.

At which Takemiya Jin becomes the first lesbian manga artist to do a Yuri manga with all-lesbian content. Bam. We have a winner.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8-10
Characters – 9
Yuri – 10
Service – 3

Overall – 10

Folks, the game has officially changed.

Koi no Kaori  is a short story collection of Yuri romances by Takemiya Jin from Comic Yuri Hime; all but the first tied together with the common thread of “scent.”

In “Tsuushin Omachishite Orimasu” Mayumi learns that her confidant on a Lesbian BBS and her rival at school are one and the same. Luckily for her, “Kuro-san” turns out to be a kind upperclassman…and a good friend, which becomes even more important when Mayumi realizes that she’s fallen for the girl in “Ki ni Nacchatte Gomen Nasai.”

In “Sweet Temptation,” the scent of vanilla may be sweet, but the smile on Chika’s face says she knows that her words of confession, like her scent, will fill Risa’s mind with extraordinary thoughts. In “Sweet Desire” – she turns out to be right about that. ^_^

“Love Aroma” is an experiment in aromatherapy and feelings for a teacher new to the school.

In “love * preparation,” Riko manages, eventually, to communicate to her next door neighbor, that she really means it when she say she likes her.

And finally, “Love Aroma 2” continues the double lesson of aromatherapy and love. I’m a big fan of ylang ylang myself. ^_^

This book exactly hits Takemiya-sensei’s sweet spot – stories just long enough to get to like and care about the characters, but not long enough to overblow the drama. I love when she draws “zOMG, what did I just do!?!” expressions. ^_^ And I still love that Takemiya-sensei is one of the few Yuri manga artists out there with characters who are actually lesbians.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – 2

Overall – 8

For a perfect manga sampler of Yuri sweets, you couldn’t do better than Koi no Kaori.

At the end of last year, I voted a trio of Takemiya Jin-sensei’s works in as the #1 manga of the year. Of those three, Seasons (シーソンズ) is quite possibly my favorite.

Like so many of my favorite manga artists, Takemiya-sensei started her career as a doujinshi artist. There are several ways in which a doujinshi artist can transition into a professional career, but the one that seems to be the most effective is this – draw original work. Manga publishers are less likely to want to publish look-alikes than, say, US book publishers, who so often are running after the latest trend, rather than creating the next one. Artists I first encountered as doujinshi artists include Hayashiya Shizuru, Morishima Akiko, Morinaga Milk, Nanzaki Iku, Nishi UKO, Mitou Kana and Kitao Taiki and many, many others. There’s only one, in fact that I haven’t seen make the transition to pro that I expected to, and weirdly, he’s gone the other way, from really well-conceived derivative serials to kind of crappy porn. Oh well.

So when I saw Takemiya Jin, who I have been following for years as Junk Lab, take the leap into the pro world, I was thrilled. For her – and for us, the readers. She’s got great short-story ability, honed by years of standalone doujinshi and can carry off a series with some chops.

Seasons is a collection of several doujinshi…a few of which I have. It gives the collection a feeling of meeting old friends and making new ones in one book. ^_^

The first few chapters follow Shirai-san and Kurozawa-san as they do the usual fall in love, be incoherent about it, not get together and get together in the end. Nothing ground-breaking here. What I found especially good about this series is Shirai-san’s friend, Asaki, who (maybe) inadvertently causes a massive crisis between the two main players. Asaki, it turns out, has a female lover and a whole life that Shirai-san is unaware of. And, Asaki is clearly part of the lesbian culture in Japan, as she and her lover both use slang in their conversations. Asaki gave it away to us, the readers, when she tells Shirai-san that Kurozawa-san is “nonke” (i.e., straight.) At that point, my slangdar pinged. Straight people do not refer to each other as “nonke.”

Let’s back up for a sec. I believe I’ve referred to this before, but here’s the deal about “nonke.” When a person is part of a culture in Japan, they are referred to as being whatever”ke” or “ka”, for instance a person who does Judo is a “Judoka.” You may remember we discussed the implication of “Kocchi no ke” in relationship to “Honey Mustard,” Morishima Akiko-sensei’s story for Yuri Hime that was collected into Ruri-iro Yume. “Kocchi no ke” is pretty much analogous to an American gay person saying “that person is ‘family.'” (The “ke” kanji is similar, where “ke” or “ka” 家 – as in mangaka 漫画家- means “house” as in the “House of Windsor.”)

So, “nonke” (ノンケ) is non-“ke,” i.e., “not one of us.” It’s use always implies that the user is, by default, “one of us.” So, when Asaki calls Kurozawa “nonke,” it’s pretty much saying that she is ke.

Asaki and her lover also use reba, neko and tachi, all slang words. For definitions, feel free to check out my Okazu Glossary of Terms. (I just added “nonke” there, as well.)

Following this story are a number of shorts, one- and two-shots that deal with a variety of “Story A” scenarios, and a few stories of couples dealing with a crisis in their relationship. A multi-part story about a girl falling in love with her class representative is a pile of well-used tropes (dress them up, then get jealous of them, the group date gone bad, misunderstood feelings, etc) that was nonetheless charming.

Almost the entire second half of the book is a look at a high school girl and a middle school girl who meet on the train (when a pervert starts to harass the younger girl) and their relationship over the next year. Unsurprisingly, the younger of the two is relatively immature, and causes no end of difficulties, but ultimately, there is a happy end that allows for the presumption of a happy future.

As I said in my write up of Takemiya-sensei’s work for the Top Ten list, the inclusion of gay slang in this book is one of the qualities that catapults her work to the top for me. Anyone can write a Yuri story, but it’s still pretty rare when we get a Yuri story with visible ties to Japanese lesbian community.

Ratings:

Art – I’ve always liked her art, so for me, 8, but your mileage may vary
Story – Variable, we’ll round it to 7
Characters – In most cases, I would invite them over for lunch – 8
Lesbian – 10
Service – 2, there’s some nudity and presumption of sex

Overall – More than the sum of its parts, Takemiya-sensei’s Seasons is a 9.

I’m so happy she’s gone pro. Here’s to more great work from her!