Archive for the Digital Manga Category


How Do I Turn My Best Friend Into My Girlfriend? Volumes 4+5 and Series Overview by Luce

August 30th, 2026

I’m Luce, procrastinator extraordinaire and- how did I end up with more books than I started??? – book hoarder. You can call me a bookwyrm. Mostly hoarding, but getting back into reading novels. 

In the first three volumes of what I call Best Friend Girlfriend or ‘BFGF’ by Syu Yasaka, we met Minami, who realised she has a crush on her childhood friend and next door neighbour, Yuzu, and decided to try and get Yuzu to see her in a more romantic light – and generally failing in her attempts. We found out that Yuzu, however, also likes Minami, so we were landed firmly in the ‘mutual pining’ section.

Volume 4 cover, it does Minami and Yuzu sitting against each other in ski gear In volume four, Yuzu gets a cold and Minami looks after her, Kamiya tries her best to talk Yuzu into telling Minami she likes her, and Christmas arrives with all the romantic implications it carries in Japan. In volume five, things get romantic on the school skiing trip, but misunderstandings abound. Can Minami and Yuzu finally just tell each other?

Pining, pining, pining. As a fanfiction reader, and writer, I’ve read it, I’ve written it. The delicious tension of words unsaid, hands not quite reaching the other person. The roadblocks characters will put up to avoid saying anything, only to trip over them and have to catch themselves. The moment it all comes crashing down as they throw over the cliff of no return, yet find themselves flying as the other person returns their affections (at least, in the ones with happy endings). But there’s an art to it. There has to be a compelling reason why one or both wouldn’t just say something. Something has to be in jeopardy if they were wrong about it, no matter how big, and the creator has to sell you on that.

Which is to say, how much you like this will depend hugely on how much you like, or can tolerate, mutual pinning, and people just not spitting it out. I enjoy it… sometimes. It’s a well worn trope for a reason, and can result in breathtaking scenes of self-restraint, where you just want to hug the characters… but it can also leave the reader with frustrations where you’re thinking ‘just kiss already! They obviously like you!’. This tips into the latter, unfortunately. I get that it’s hard to admit you like a friend romantically, and daunting to tell them that. But there comes a point where it goes a little past denial into ‘how thick are you?’. There are various moments in these last two volumes where, in my opinion, there’s no compelling reason for them not to tell each other. Look. If someone is also going in for the kiss, that’s a pretty good sign they’re into you romantically. Don’t then say it was nothing! If someone says ‘I want you’ and tries to kiss you, that’s not ‘getting your hopes up’. Reacting that way is absurd denial, or ‘authorial delaying’. Making pining work as a trope is all about making the reader believe that the character genuinely believed that their feelings were unrequited in that moment. They’re normally not correct, but only the audience should know that.

Volume 5 cover. Minami and Yuzu look happy, hugging each other. I guess my problem with this manga is that the pining was quite cute for the first two or three volumes, after which it got too stretched out. The older I get, the more interest I have in stories that cover making a relationship work – getting over hurdles, managing intimacy and boundaries, and especially when the characters are in school, trying to work out where the relationship fits, if it can, in their futures. Series like Kase-san and… and You and I Are Polar Opposites have both been exploring this to various degrees, and it’s been really refreshing. It makes manga like this, where they dance around each other, and not even particularly convincingly, less interesting.

It also ends up so focused on the dance/mess between Minami and Yuzu that everyone else falls by the wayside. Their friends feel like puppets to react to the dramas rather than people. There was some hints in the early volumes that two of them might be interested in each other, but does it get mentioned here? No.

In total, a cute series that overstretches its premise to its own detriment. There’s a fine line in pining between ‘come on, you guys can get there!’ and ‘get on with it!’. Unfortunately, this series falls closer to the latter.

Story: 6
Characters: 5
Art: 7
Service: 1
Yuri: 8
Overall: 6

Man, I really want to go read some good fics about mutual pining, now. As for manga that give me some of that vibe, Hirano and Kagiura (BL) and If I Could Reach You (Yuri) comes to mind. A Sapphic book, Six Times We Almost Kissed by Tess Sharpe also did pining very well (amongst other things). Any favourites for pining Yuri manga?





Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology, Guest Review by Luce

November 24th, 2021

A cropped header of the cover of Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology. (I have used the cropped one as the full image whilst not explicit, is not really safe for work)

I’m Luce and often my curiosity gets the better of me. See also: I read and reviewed it so you don’t have to! Gave Erica a break, anyhow. You can find me on the Okazu discord as farfetched, and on tumblr as silverliningslurk. Onward, at your own peril.

Double Your Pleasure is an erotic yuri anthology based around twins, from authors such as Naoko Kodama who has done Days of Love at Seagull Villa. I think this is what they call ‘Dead Dove content’, also known as ‘does what it says on the tin’. I don’t know if I was expecting anything different from what I got, to be honest.

This review could be as short as: a series of twins having sex in various places. That’s pretty much all this is. If that’s your thing, then it’s great. I do find twins interesting… but not so much in this context. As far as I’m aware, sibling relationships are much more common in Japanese media than they are in English media, as are teacher-student relationships. I don’t know why – someone more versed in Japanese culture might be able to comment more thoroughly on it – but for some reason, they seem to go down a treat, at least with enough people to get published. I somehow can’t imagine something like this being published in the western world, but this made it here, so presumably there is some demand. I could possibly guess the type.

To be honest, where a third party was included it was a bit more interesting to me, but the focus on twins being so obsessed with their differences felt quite odd. Maybe it was low-hanging fruit, but nearly all of the stories featured twins either trying to be exactly the same, or very focused on the few things that they matched in. I’m not a twin, so I can only imagine that it probably is something they are concerned about to a degree, but I feel like most twins (I happen to know two separate triplets, too) I know don’t like being compared, and are no more interested in their siblings than non-twin siblings.

Basically, this is a fetish-catering manga. There is a lot of focus on nipples, and the sex is shown. The preview on Bookwalker has one full short story, and it’s about the same from there. One of the ones that particularly irked me was a story where two twins are very different… but their weights are the same. Why? Because the one tries to match her intake and output to the other. Loosely linked to binary stars?

Basically, if you’re into it, you’re into it, and it does what it says on the tin, and does that pretty well. If you’re not, you’re probably reading this with a sense of horror. If you’re curious, read the preview on Global Bookwalker, (with an 18+ warning to click through) and if you hate that, it only gets better in the sense that the rest of the book isn’t quite as non-consensual. Oh, did I mention that? In the first story, the twins get annoyed that someone can tell them apart and force themselves on her as punishment. It’s my least favourite… not that I had any favourites. I won’t be reading this again.

Ratings:

Art – 7 – mixture of artists, all fairly decent.
Story – 1: twins have sex, sometimes someone else is included, in one it was a dream. I think.
Characters – 2 – few characters have any depth beyond ‘I’m obsessed with my twin and this correlates to sexual activity with them’.
Service (level of salaciousness) – 10. Lots of sex. Every story. Dead dove content, if you will.
Yuri –  10, I mean. They’re all explicit yuri, so…
Overall – 4.

Thank you to Seven Seas for the review copy. I’m off to read something a little more wholesome.

Erica here: Thank you Luce, for once again stepping in to give us a solid review of this jiggly collection.

For my part, I was merely sad that none of the creators tried to do something interesting with the premise. Like, an astronaut returns fall in love with another astronaut of a space station and they find they were separated at birth…or something. But as you say, this is “a series of twins having sex” so, if that’s a reader’s thing, then that reader ought to like it.  ^_^





Yuri Doujinshi: Kotonoha 1 (English)

November 13th, 2018

When Emi and Aoi were in school, they were best friends…until one day they kissed. But Aoi never confessed, Emi and she stayed just friends until they graduated. 

Years have gone by and Aoi now works in an office, When conversation turns to relationships, Aoi gets that look on her face as she remembers “that guy” she was in love with. Sakura knows that look and jokes that Aoi’s description of that lost love sounds awfully like a male version of the new designer that the department just hired. Aoi is shocked to see Emi walk through the door. 

Issue 1 of Kisu Gae’s Kotonoha is a solid setup for a doujinshi story and, more importantly, its available in English on Kindle for less than it would have cost to buy the actual doujinshi at a comic market (significantly less when you remember that you don’t have to take yourself to Japan to get it.)

Issue 2 completes the set. Buy the both of them for under $5 and it’s still probably cheaper than it would have been if you bought one volume in print. ^_^ 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 Decent set-up anyway
Characters  – Same
Service – Not much in this issue, no idea yet what Issue 2 will bring us. ^_^
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

It’s a whole new world opening up in digital, now that Yuri doujinshi are starting to appear on Kindle. 

 

 





Yuri Doujinshi: Yuricon Jimoto Hougenhen

August 24th, 2017

Today’s review is not so much about content as is about form.

Yuricon Jimoto Hougenhen, available in Japanese as ユリコン: 地元方言編, is a Yuri doujinshi collection based around characters who speak in specific Japanese dialects. Artists include names well-known to us here at Okazu, Kitao Taki and Takemiya Jin as well as others whose work I’m now interested in tracking down, Ichiji and Kanarase.

Accents focused on are Kouchi, Saitama, Hokkaido and the inevitable Osaka. The stories are all cute rather than fetishy or compelling, with a goofy idea behind the collection as a whole. But very interesting is the fact that we can get this doujinshi on our Kindle devices/ apps! Now that is amazing.

The collection is untranslated from Japanese…this is not an English edition. But it is the very same edition that Japanese readers can get on their digital devices, which makes it a really awesome shift in the globalization of digital works AND a great way to practice reading Japanese dialects at the same time. ^_^
And, because this is a doujinshi – and therefore creator owned – you know the folks who made it are getting paid from your purchase. It’s a win all the way around!

Ratings:

Overall – 8 A little goofy and sweet.

I’m not going to lie to you…getting this is cool but not nearly as cool as buying directly at a comic event. However, as most of us can’t pop over to Japan for every event, getting doujinshi digitally is running a close second. And you won’t have to have ever say things like you’ve organized quaternary storage for your collection, which I did, last weekend. ^_^; Here’s all of Yuri Shimai, Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S, Yuri Hime Selection and Comic Yuri Hime from 2003-2016.

I love digital books. Just sayin’. ^_^





Kase-san Manga on LINE Comics, Guest Review by Verso S

April 5th, 2017
Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday here at Okazu! We’ve had more guest reviews than ever this year and they are all so fantastic If you’re enjoying the Guest Reviews, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to Okazu, so we can pay our Guest Reviewers!  
 
We reported on YNN that the Kase-san manga series was being continued on Japanese phone platform LINEManga (LINE マンガ – ).  Today Verso S. is writing to us from Hiroshima to let us know how it’s working! 
 
For those of you unfamiliar with LINE, it’s a phone app that began as a communication platform, based in SMS, like the popular BBSs were, but expanded out past person- or group-based communication as a publishing platform. Of course there are also companies with promotions, that almost gos without saying. There is a LINE that can be downloaded in th US, but it is not as fully featured as the JP version. However, even US LINE can be used for SMS communications in Japan, which has been useful to me in the past. 
 
Please welcome Verso who will give us a walkthrough of the Kase-san manga on LINE!
 
 
The Kase-san series started over free of charge from “chapter 1, Asagao to…” on LINEManga, while the “Shinshokan viewer” gives free access to the latest chapter.
 
LINEmanga: Weekly serialisation. The second chapter, “Jitensha to” was simultaneously hosted and became immediately available to those who share it (LINE, Facebook, Twitter). Without sharing that second chapter becomes accessible after one week, on next Tuesday, when “chapter three, Love song to” will be added on the same conditions. etc. 
 
Chapters released appear to remain free. Operation is smooth and glorious, on computer and mobile app.  No frills. Flip pages or use of clickable arrows and a zoom function.
 
The series is tagged: Love story. There is no Yuri tag on the platform. The brief description on the series’ own page does include a tiny Yuri reference since it is mentioned, and also tagged Hirari in addition to tags for the names of the mangaka and the publishing company – so it appears in the lists for those respective categories in the LINEmanga catalogue. eBooks of the first tankoubon will be available for a charge, ¥864, on LINEmanga as well.
 
“Shinshokan viewer”:  No registration required. Gives free access to the latest chapter for a limited time (Month). As standalone or as part of the web magazine Wings. In addition, however, the publisher’s page for the series also gives free access to previews from the existing three tankoubon as ebooks. With the option to purchase them as full ebooks. They also sell their print editions. Ebook operation is as smooth and glorious, on computer, as reading the chapters. No frills. Flip pages, arrows and zoom. 
 
Is there a regional block on access to LINEmanga? Have you tried login in to the messaging app via either a LINEme account or with a Facebook ID to set up a LINE account? Provided there is no geo-restriction, that ID will then work with the LINEmanga readers too. The set-up is done by registering a new account within the messaging app on a mobile device. Requiring either Email or sms code verification.Once authenticated the general LINEme ID and Password will then give access to the LINEmanga readers as well.  The same geo restrictions may apply for the Shinshokan reader as well… 

LINEmanga: Kase-san stayed on schedule. “Story 3, Love Song” was posted at midnight, Tuesday. Immediately available for those sharing it or available next week for those who don’t. 

The next installment will be interesting. If the pattern from other series is followed, these first three chapters will remain free, as preview chapters. The fourth chapter and subsequent releases will eventually slip behind an individual chapter paywall, usually after one month. For that one month period the later chapters can be read free of charge, but after that first month a small fee, ¥30~50 will be charged per chapter to gain access.

This is turning into running LINEmanga software commentary rather than a readers first impression of the Kase-san series on that platform. Which has been positive for us in every regard.

The series are all well behind the actual release schedules in the official magazines, print or web, for ongoing series but for titles re-serialised on LINEmanga the last four installments will thus be free at any given time throughout the re-release period on that platform.

Each tankoubon will be made available on that platform’s schedule as well. Usually the first chapter of each volume will be offered free within that tankoboun, as a preview. For other titles the entire first volume may remain free, as a preview. Kodansha’s Chihayafuru is such a title. Currently the first three volumes are listed ¥0 and they can be downloaded or added to a cloud-like bookshelf in their entirety. Though ongoing that series is not serialised on LINEmanga, however. Just the books are offered.

A lot of different publishers are present on LINEmanga and their titles are all offered on the same software without the necessity to hunt down each publisher’s own site. Without the necessity to switch apps when you want to continue reading the “next” chapter of a different series from a different magazine or publishing company, though it won’t be the “very latest” chapter. Each company comes with their own pricing arrangement and slight variations in their conditions for access. Minor variations like any other one-stop book store before eTexts.

Kase-san and all the other series do look very good, picture wise, on our systems, crisp images, nice and easily readable text, and they all function to our satisfaction but there are slightly different experiences with the operation that I should be careful not to conflate. Some titles which are accessible on our iPad but can’t be opened on our Mac, for example, though they’re accessed from the same LINE account. As noted before, someone with a Phone Number based LINE account seems to have the smoothest experience with its operation. Which seems to have more to do with the Phone Number based set up than with the OS, based on the “error” messages … though that’s out of my league to assess more broadly.

The same is true for Kuzu no Honkai, a currently ongoing manga series with a currently airing anime and Live Action drama adaptations.

All six volumes of Octave are also available as tankoubon on LINEManga for  ¥540 per volume. One other Akiyama title is also offered.

Fx’s Aoi Hana is here too, while Shimura’s Koiiji is being re-serialzied from Kiss magazine.

A lot of Hirari titles are here as well. So are some of the Tsubomi titles, though not tagged as such. Mizutani Fuuka’s series for example. Tagged with the mangaka’s name, with Hakusensha and with TL. And so is  Takemiya Jin, represented with 12 titles, with the same tagging system, but with different pricing. Some of her tankoubon are tagged Comic Yuri Hime, publisher and TL.Steps is priced ¥648 p/volume, Omoi no Kakera ¥802, Seasons ¥864.

There is a TL tag and a BL tag but there are no Yuri or GL tags on LINEmanga, for the moment.

It seems petty to complain when confronted with such luxury but there are also the Geo-location barriers. Which place me on the other side of the wall compared to you. I can get access to previews of Kodansha USA’s recent Chihayafuru eBook release in English, for example, but I can’t buy that book nor their other English titles because of my location. I can stroll into a bookstore, brick and virtual, minutes after the latest Japanese edition in that series becomes available.

Erica here: Well, wow. That was an amazingly comprehensive review. Based on all of this, I still think Kadokawa’s Bookwalker might have an advantage, since there appear to be no geographic restrictions, but LINEManga has made pretty fast progress in that area!

Thank you again Verso for this  detailed review of the LINEManga system!