The arguably oldest shoujo Yuri (Yuri manga written for a female audience) is Shiroi Heya no Futari (白い部屋のふたり) which means “Our White Room”. Published by Ribon Comics in 1973 (back far enough that even I was a child), written by Yamagishi Ryohko, this story is the mother of all Yuri that came after it.

And, oh, what melodrama it is!

Shiroi Heya no Futari introduces us to blonde, doll-like “good” girl Resine, as she’s dumped by a uncaring aunt at a boarding school. Because she’s a late transfer, the school puts her in a room with “bad” girl Simone – with the admonishment to not take notice of Simone and, if it gets too much, she can ask for another room.

Unfortunately for the school, Resine and Simone get along reasonably well, even going so far to actually like one another, then really like one another…then really, really like one another. When Simone plays the Prince to Resine’s Princess in the school play, their kiss is passionate – and real.

Their confession of love is overheard by a classmate and soon the entire school knows about them. In denial, Resine begins dating a young man with a vengeance, but her jealousy for Simone keeps pace with Simone’s own dark feelings. When the pressure becomes too much, Resine runs away, leaving Simone to find her own reconciliation, alone. Of course, Simone, high strung and emotional, finds her denouement in a tragic and pointless death.

Resine, having returned home, finds out about Simone’s death many months later and rushes back to the school. All she is able to do is learn the truth of Simone’s death and swear that she will continue living for the two of them, loveless and cold, forever.

It’s evil of me to say this, but it’s actually a pretty amusing ending, merely by being so hyper-melodramatic.

The story (as you might be able to guess from the names) is set is France, which fits well with the overblown melodrama of the story. The setting was current for it’s time – early 70’s – so the clothes are a scream and there’s underage drinking going on in very French-looking clubs.

Of course this has a tragic ending. Could we expect anything else? Not in the 70’s, no. But the love and physical attraction Resine and Simone had was real – not just akogare/admiration, but actual desire, which made it groundbreaking stuff.

I recommend reading this manga, if only to see one of the mama of Yuri manga and to appreciate our historical roots. Plus, the story’s soap-opera fun. You can still find copies in secondary markets like Amazon JP marketplace and used manga stores.

Ratings:

Art – very 70s. Give it a 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 10
Character – 10, just for Simone’s brooding Heathcliff-ness. ;-)

Overall – 9

Way back, when I was writing about things I didn’t want to write about, I wrote about Futtemo Harettemo. (降っても晴れっても)

Well, recently I revisted this old, “miserable classic” of Yuri by Fujimura Mari, which was published by Margaret Comics back in 1993. And I decided that it deserved a review of its own, not because it’s happy or unique, but because it’s neither. Unlike Pieta, Futtemo Harettemo, does not end with the girl getting the girl, but these two stories have more in common that you’d think at first glance.

Futtemo Harettemo is the story of Nagi and Hiro, two classmates who have instant and almost obsessively deep feelings for one another. This five-volume manga details their encounter, friendship, and the painful things that they do to each other to try and convince themselves that they don’t, in fact, love one another, or wait, maybe they do. This is a really ugly story at times, as Nagi and Hiro are hurtful, sometimes destructive and even homicidal at each other. Hiro ends up being cast as the more emotionally unstable of the two, while Nagi gets the award for being the more selfish. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there are some genuinely tender moments between the two girls. The internalized homophobia is all too real at times.

Since one of the storylines is Nagi’s conflict at being torn between Hiro (who is admittedly not a very dependable person) and a guy who is clearly and committedly in love with her, you can expect that these two will not get together any time soon. Hiro does get some credit for calling it love first and kissing Nagi several times, trying with increasing desperation to hold onto a girl with whom she is “more than friends, but less than lovers.” (This quote is from a short Japanese movie about lesbian romance entitled 3 Second Melancholy, and a very common Japanese phrase about intense relationships without commitment.)

So, given the fact that Nagi and Hiro do *not* end up together, unlike Rio and Sahako, and the fact that their relation is tumultuous and sometimes violent, why do I say that it has anything to do with Pieta? Because both of these manga, and many of the shorts that are currently being published in Yuri Shimai pair lesbianism with mental illness.

It wasn’t until I re-read Pieta and Futtemo Harettemo in the same week that I realized that both include characters that inflict violence on themselves and, in the case of Futtemo Harettemo, others as well. Which led me to notice that there are several stories in the three volumes of Yuri Shimai that pair lesbian love with a suicidal desire…and it dawned on me that we’re *still* reading the same damn stories from the early twentieth century, when lesbianism itself was considered pathological, and frequently paired with other mental diseases, especially depression. (Although Hiro acts more like a person who is bipolar, IMHO.)

And while I’m marginally annoyed, Pieta at least offers very reasonable and believable explanations for Rio’s behavior, while Futtemo Harettemo simply expects us to care about Hiro and Nagi while they duke it out on the battlefield of unhealthy attraction. If I were one of these girls’ mother, I’d call this relationship unhealthy and try to put an end to it.

Nonetheless, Futtemo Harettemo was, in the end, a kind of a bittersweet story (as so many Japanese manga were until recently, when the audience began to demand this thing called a “happy ending”). In the last chapter, Hiro and Nagi meet up at a class reunion years later. Both are married and happy, and now, at last, able to be happy for each other. Hiro introduces Nagi to her husband as her “first love,” which was kind of sweet and, at the same time, massively irritating.

Would this story be any different if it were written in 2004, as opposed to in 1993? I think not that much. Nagi, at least would still be married in the end. Maybe, maybe, Hiro might be with another woman, or perhaps she might have been portrayed as less emotionally unstable, but I think that these two could never have gotten together and lived happily ever after. Perhaps it was better that they just moved on. ^_^

In any case, Futtemo Harettemo turned out to be alot more provocative this time, than when I read it the last time and if you’re the kind of person who is interested in historical Yuri manga, you might want to look for this series in a used manga bookstore.

Ratings:

Overall – It’s complicated to rate something like this, since it is so much a product of its time, but…

Art – 7
Characters – 5
Story – 6
Yuri – 7
Service – 0

Overall – 6

Today I want to go over a few of the classic Yuri manga titles once again – a few that I already mentioned briefly, but have revisited recently, and a few that deserve revisiting for one reason or another. I’d like to start with Pieta, a surprisingly well-done little classic, by Haruno Nanae, published by Young You comics way back in 2000. (It seems a lot older than that, really.)

Pieta tells the story of Rio and Sahako, two girls in high school together. Rio seems cool and aloof and is the subject of many rumors in the school. Even though the girl’s uniform includes a tie, she wears it like a boy and is very boyish in looks and manner. Rio very overtly is dating one of the girls in her school and doesn’t seem to care what people think of her.

Sahako finds herself fascinated by Rio, and is very quickly drawn in by her charismatic, yet enigmatic, personality. For her part, Rio makes no bones about the fact that she’s interested in, and attracted to, Sahako, even going so far as to break up with her current girlfriend.

We learn that Rio, for all her external coolness, is actually a seriously emotionally fragile individual, with very painful memories of abandonment and rejection – and a classically evil, hurtful stepmother.

Very much because of this situation, Sahako is drawn closer and closer to Rio, until it becomes obvious to both themselves and everyone around them, that they belong together. The climax is not the final crisis, but in the end, there is a happy ending for them – and the girl does get the girl, which sets this story up among the few and far between.

On the whole, Pieta a slow-moving and sometimes painful story, but it is undeniably sweet and romantic – and in places genuinely touching. Watching Sahako watch Rio is so sweet and a little heart-rending. The plot is not earth-shatteringly new or unique, but it is tight and well-constructed, with a fair amount of tension.

While Rio is given a lot of depth, as a character Sahako is left a little fuzzy. Her family seem to disappear by the end, and there’s no conflict in her life, as there is in Rio’s…I keep wondering how her family reacted to what’s going on with her (remembering that my completely functional family certainly had a reaction to when I was falling in love the first time…), but we never see any of that.

The art is smooth and slow and very open, with white space and implications of motion and position, which goes well with the feel of the story.

All in all, you could do way worse than Pieta as a solid Yuri story.

I recommend that you get an actual hard copy, even though it’s out of print. You can usually find it wherever used manga is sold. Pieta would make *great* beach reading. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri -8

Overall – 8