Archive for the English Manga Category


Manga Mavericks Licenses Queer Manga Classic Sword of Paros

July 3rd, 2026

Last night at Anime Expo, Manga Mavericks Book announced the license for Sword of Paros, written by Kaoru Kurimoto with art by Yumiko Igarashi! /flailing hands/

This is being sold as a complete series in a deluxe print hardcover volume, with the most gorgeous design, including sprayed edges featuring the Sword of Paros itself. Dan Luffey is translator, I am editing, Jeanthrix Andres is doing the lettering and Darren Vogt is the designer. When I tell you that this will be *amazing* I am not using hyperbole. 

Here is the official synopsis:

The legends that speak of the Sword of Paros say that it can bestow either prosperity or ruin on its kingdom…depending on the heart of its wielder.

The kingdom’s current princess, the beautiful yet resentful Elminia, laments being treated as a soulless tool simply for being born in a woman’s body.

Accompanied by Count Yulias, Elminia rides as far away from the kingdom’s politics as possible. One day, Elminia meets a beautiful young girl named Fiona, and their lives and the kingdom are changed forever.

My 2004 review of this series missed a key point: Elminia (I favored ‘r’ over ‘l’ in my initial review)  is a trans masc or nonbinary character. Despite being told they have “two hearts” like Sapphire, Elminia is clear about not belonging in a woman’s body. I interpreted this in 2004 as Elminia being a masculine lesbian (as I interpreted Elminia’s desires through a lens of my own.) This book was written in 1986, and so the issue of Elminia’s gender could be the topic of respectful discussion, as Kurimoto was drawing on the “Girl Prince” archetype and playing with the idea of expected gender role vs gender presentation/gender identity. In a world where women are tools and men are free, the options are clear.  In our world, there is more nuance. I look forward to your thoughts.

I’m delighted to introduce this amazing, emotional, action-packed and incredibly beautiful queer manga Sword of Paros to the world!  Pre-order it today on the Manga Mavericks Store!  Direct orders are only for North America and UK. If you live outside US/CA/UK, keep your eyes on your local Amazon or check with your usual bookstore when the book is released.





What Does The Fox Say?, Volume 1

June 29th, 2026

A woman partially draped in a white blouse, shows her tattooed shoulder and back, as she smokes in bed.When What Does The Fox Say? hit Lezhin, it was an instant hit. (Which made it just that much weirder that the service terminated it in a purge of LGBTQ+ works.)  In some ways, I credit this series for the “toxic Yuri” phenomenon of the last few years. 

After many series set in schools, with apparently saccharine, immature romances, it makes sense that a generation of Yuri fandom, itself having graduated school and moved into the workplace, was looking for something more “adult.”

And where there are adults, there is “adult” content. Fans want their terrible people having sex. Every generation wants this. ^_^ Team Gaji had their finger on the pulse at the right time and place. 

In What Does The Fox Say?, Volume 1, Sungji, a young and attractive new worker at a company, is caught up in a very pointy three-way relationship. More accurately, Sunji’s boss, Sumin, has her eyes on Sunji, while also being the plaything of Seju, the company president. 

 The problem here for me is that everyone is passively just letting the situation become intolerable. Sungji is attracted to Sumin, who absolutely should not be encouraging that, but is, as an escape tor her own miserable relationship with Seju. No one’s particularly happy and absolutely nothing good can come out of anything as long as the pecking order stays intact. The other issue is that I prefer evil women over toxic. All that passive misery was setting my teeth on edge. Like, lean into it, do bad things with gusto! 

In terms of the technicals, the pages are a bit hard to read as they were transferred to a book format from online without adapting the layout. That leaves a number of pages with slow-paced empty panels, or the visual equivalent of mumbling, as words are squished on to a too-small page. 

All of this would have been fine if I could find interest in any of the characters. They may all be adults, but none of them were grown up enough to keep my attention. 

Ratings: 

Art – At the time it debuted, a beacon of adult women in a sea of children
Story – Pure 1970s soap opera
Characters – A bit flat
Service – There is sex. Some of it is quite uncomfortable-making
Yuri – 10

Overall – 7

This isn’t a bad manhwa, it’s just not the kind of adult content I’m looking for. Whether it wears well over time, will be very interesting to see. 

Thanks to Yen Press for the review copy, via ANN, where I am also reviewing this for the Summer manga guide.





Bad Girl!, Volume 1

June 19th, 2026

A dark haired girl wearing a blazer and tie with her mouth open and a shocked expressionby Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

Your enjoyment of Nikumaru’s Bad Girl, Volume 1 will depend entirely on your tolerance of the combination of 4-koma manga and misunderstandings so obvious that they must be deliberate. Even now, Azumanga Daioh is still the master of the genre in my humble opinion, as well as being one of the first yuri-adjacent series I ever encountered, back in the early 2000s.

Bad Girl is the source material of the titular anime adaption, reviewed here on Okazu and available streaming on Hidive. Our protagonist Yuu Yuutani has a crush on the head of the school disciplinary committee, Atori Mizutori, who’s so popular she has her own fan club. Yuu therefore decides to become the titular “bad girl” to try and attract Atori’s attention. Unfortunately for her, she has good grades, perfect attendance and has never been in trouble ever and her idea of being bad is to write in the condensation on a window. Hijinks ensue.

This series is basically “Notice Me, Sempai” the manga. Yuu’s attempts to be bad are kind of adorable, like a little kid acting out to try and get the adults around them to pay attention to them. Like all 4-koma/gag series this is like popcorn, best consumed a few pages at a time, otherwise it gets tooth rottingly sweet and outstays its welcome very quickly. Don’t think too hard about it, otherwise it all falls apart. Just enjoy the silliness.

Ratings:

Art – It’s definitely cute. The colour pages at the beginning are nicely done.
Story – What story? It doesn’t need one though.
Characters – A lot of silliness
Service – n/a
Yuri – Mostly just an unrequited crush at this stage.

If you like your cute girls doing cute things with a yuri flavour you’ll probably enjoy this series. Volume 2 is scheduled to release in English later this summer, and the series is up to 5 volumes in Japan. I am curious as to how much story we’ll actually get out of this premise, so I will at least stick around for volume 2.





Monster-Colored Island, Volume 2

June 15th, 2026

Two girls wearing bathing suits, bathed in bright light, look startled at our appearance.Having set up a tale of ritual scapegoating and relationships with a genius loci from the ancient past that bleeds into the present, Monster-Colored Island, Volume 2, turn up the volume on the thin, wavering line between then and now.

Kon and Furuka, both strangers to the people on the island, take refuge in each other, while the island beckons them deeper into it’s secrets. They enter a cave that should not be entered, and find a fantastically large pile of shells. They fall even deeper into the cave, trying to avoid who or whatever is watching them. But more mysteries are occurring. 

A new player enters the game and there’s no way to know if she will uncover things that need to be uncovered, or end up being hidden away herself.

This manga is very much a tone pone. Moody, creepy, slightly overblown with analogies to puberty and self-awareness, but mostly just creepy. I feel like both art and story are trying to do too much as once and are suffering ever so slightly.  Having read it twice now, I’m still not sure what I think of it. I guess I’m just going to keep reading, and see. ^_^

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story  – 7
Characters – 7 
Service – There is, yes
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Volume 2 is out now from Yen Press!





The Delinquent and the Transfer Student, Volume 1

June 10th, 2026

A girl in school uniform kneels properly and smiles gently, next a delinquent who squats in the same uniform, with a long skirt, dyed hair and a scowl.If you are a regular reader of Okazu, you are probably aware that one of my greatest pleasures in manga is reading stories about the worst people. I love lesbian assassins and psychotic queers, woman who have just fucking had it, and women who cause trouble. I especially love the tradition of girl gangs, delinquents and girls who rule the school. 

It is very apparent to me that Fujichika feels exactly the same way. In The Delinquent and the Transfer Student, Volume 1 we are indulged in our love of this stereotype, with a broad stroke of attraction between our protagonists.

Riri is a recent transfer student into this school and, from the moment she met Atsuko, a girl with a reputation as the fiercest fighter among all the school, Riri is captivated. She loves listening to Atsuko, in her gruff gang patois, saying the most ridiculously cute and fluffy words.

As Riri and Atsuko come in to contact with one another in class, and handling school activities, they start to find that their feelings for one another are maybe more than just friendship. They both realize that they really, really, want to hang out with the other…a lot. All the time. Maybe, forever?

This is an impossibly cute book. Not only are Riri and Atsuko fun, the students around them seem pretty normal…except when Atsuko’s second takes exception to Riri taking up so much of her time. But even she has to admit that Atsuko gets to make her own decisions. 

You don’t need to be steep in girl gang lore to follow this book, but if you are…it won’t hurt. There are a few jokes that land better if you get the reference. 

Because I do love the world of  1980s Japanese girl gangs and delinquents, I was always going to like this series. ^_^ I had read some of the chapters when it came out in Japanese, but forgot to keep up, so I am very thankful to Seven Seas for picking it up in English. As I said of this manga in my ANN review for the Summer manga guide, my only criticicsm is that they didn’t bother trying to approximate the gang patois. It is a reasonable choice to avoid that, but it is kind of the key point in Atsuko saying words like “giggle” and “tiny” in that rough way. Even with that, this is a very enjoyable, shockingly wholesome, series.  

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – Delinquents are service for me, YMMV
Yuri – 3, with plenty of room to grow

Overall – 8

Thanks to Seven Seas for proving the reviewer copy to ANN. 

Delinquents and Yuri are a perfect match. ^_^