Archive for the English Manga Category


Mahou Sensei Negima, Manga Volumes 6 and 7, Guest Review by Sean G. (English)

October 18th, 2005

Once again, we bring you a guest review of Negima! Magister Negi Magi by the redoubtable Sean Gaffney! Yaaaaaay! (Say this last bit in a Kermit the Frog from the Muppet Show voice.) Sean’s review is quite timely, because as you know, I loathe Akamatsu’s work and didn’t feel like writing anything today. :-)

Let me take this opportunity to thank Sean, also, for having been one of the most AMAZING staffers we had at Onna!. He was a whirlwind, handling not only the panels, worksops and demos, but also stepping in to handle many of the Programming events, which freed me to do important things like tell people where to find paper and pens and interview for 80 minutes with people who quoted me for less than 20 words. LOL Sean, you have my eternal thanks. No foolin’.

Without further ado, here is Sean’s review of Negima, Volumes 6 and Volume 7:

The manga and anime Rurouni Kenshin is known for its Kyoto arc, which is generally considered to be lightyears ahead of the other arcs. Likewise, Negima really steps up with its own Kyoto arc, dropping most of the comedy for a Volume to focus on action and drama, as Negi and the others are under attack from their rivals.

The action is fairly well drawn, with little of the confusion that mars series like Trigun. We get a few more girls finding out Negi is a wizard, though Mana and Ku Fei don’t seem very surprised. Negi’s secret is still one of the worst kept ever.

Then there’s the Yuri. Aside from the ‘grasping at straws’ couples (“Look! Kaede is holding Yue in her arms after rescuing her! It must be love!”), there’s still just Konoka and Setsuna. Luckily, that’s more than enough.

Setsuna in this volume reveals her other big secret – she’s half demon, and has big wings. Setsuna is convinced this will make everyone loathe and fear her. But these aren’t bat-like wings, they’re big, fluffy bird wings – everyone notes they look cool. So Setsuna races off to save Konoka, who notes that they make Setsuna look like an angel. OK, self-worth crisis over, mostly.

(In the Negima anime, they kiss. But the Negima anime is awful in so many other ways that I can’t recommend it even to the staunchest yuri fan unless they just get one episode, watch the kiss, then delete it.)

In Volume 7, there’s less of a focus on the two. However, we see Konoka being told that with training, she could be a very powerful mage. She chooses to begin the training, and wants Setsuna as her partner.

This is the best part of the volume. Konoka relates to Negi that Setsuna says that girls shouldn’t kiss, but she wants Setsuna to be her partner, so is there another way to make a pact? It’s very clear from Setsuna’s denials that what she meant was that when the two of them kiss, it shouldn’t be just for a simple magical pact, but for something deeper. Her expressions are very cute.

One last thing to note on the yuri front is Kazumi, the sly newspaper girl, who is clearly amused at Setsuna’s blushing denials, and notes that ‘It’s just a kiss. Girls our age experiement with that stuff all the time’. Which again is a nice bone to throw to those seeking more yuri in the series than Konoka and Setsuna. OK, it’s a tiny fragment of a bone.

Negima continues to be far more interesting than it should be, considering the artist and all the shounen fanservice. And indeed the 10-year-old hero. Despite all that, it’s still a page-turner, and more and more characters are gaining depth as they get focused on.

Oh yes, and in the Translation Notes, Del Rey will tell you what a paipan is.

Erica here: Once again – thank Sean! (Insert wild applause, again in Muppet Show style)





Sister Red, Volume 1

June 14th, 2005

Another first today for Okazu! But a rather bizarre one, I admit. Today I am reviewing Sister Red a manga with absolutely *no* yuri at all whatsoever, except in the most peripheral sense.

Once again, I’d like to offer my gratitude to Touko_no_doriru-san, who gave me both volumes of this manga in Tokyo. Subsequently I have learned that Comics One has translated it into English. Sister Red, Volume 1 is available through Amazon.com.

If it ain’t yuri, then why am I reviewing it? Because it’s the second series by manga artist Hayashiya Shizuru, creator of yuri series Strawberry Shake and artist for the mostly-yuri doujinshi circle, Jesus Drug. It is therefore of interest to me, and perhaps to other fans of her art.

To put it simply, Sister Red is a vampire story, although the word “vampire” is never used.

We are introduced to our heroine Mahito, during a typical school day. Mahito lives with her father and her cousin, Erika who is very like a sister to her. Erika is a little spacey, and has a tendency to be weak physically and emotionally. Mahito loves Erika and is always there to protect her, but is also, deep inside, a little resentful that Erika doesn’t fight back more for herself.

One night, on the way home from school, Mahito decides to take a shortcut home and is promtply hit by a car. As she bleeds into the street, the men in the car see her dying and run off without calling for help. Mahito sees a mysterious woman in a black trenchcoat who says inexplicable stuff about her heart. She closes her eyes – only to find herself at home in bed, with a doctor in attendance. Unfortunately it wasn’t a dream, as she learns when the mysterious woman, Alice, appears again and explains that she has given Mahito part of the heart of Scarlet in order to keep Mahito alive. Because, in fact, Mahito did die because of the accident. Now Mahito is one of the walking undead, and is developing mighty weird powers.

The plot of Sister Red is actually rather complicated – Alice is being tracked by her half brother Yuri who wants the heart back so he can become truly immortal. But who Scarlet is and why Alice has her heart is still a mystery to Mahito at present. In the meantime, she is forced to deal with other Night creatures – some of whom masquerade as human and prey upon real humans. Mahito starts to embrace her powers when another night creature seduces and kills her kouhai, an innocent and sweet girl. (This is the only even vaguely yuri-ish bit in the story, btw, since the creature was masquerading as a girl – and implies that she had her way with the kouhai before killing her.)

It’s a dark story, moody, and really, really violent. Lots of blood and beheaded bodies and mangled body parts and the like, once again showing that Hayashiya-sensei is not afraid of a little gore and random acts of extreme violence. Some of the action scenes are exceptionally well executed – especially in the second fight with Yuri’s first lackey, whose name escapes me at the moment. And I’m not just saying that because she’s an eye-patch wearing kick-ass chick. lol

The only downside is that the character development is a bit rushed, because it’s a short series.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 6
Yuri – 0.5

Overall – 7

All in all, a dark, creepy, gory, yet fun to read, vampire story from Hayashiya Shizuru





Yuri Manga: Passion Fruit, Vol. 1: Sweat and Honey

March 28th, 2005

From the only publisher who has really attempted to market Josei manga, Tokyopop, comes the first volume of an intriguing collection, Passion Fruit: Sweat and Honey. I say “intriguing” because while it had some definite merit, and I’m glad I read it, I’m not entirely sure I *enjoyed* it.

Special thanks to faithful reader and beloved sycophant Sean Gaffney for pointing me in the direction of this volume. ^_^

Folks who read Cookie magazine will be familiar with the artist of this particular anthology, and you’ll see the familiar style of Okazaki Mari, who was also a contributor to Yuri Shimai magazine. Clearly a “friend of Yuri’s.”

(Wouldn’t that be a fun new code to use? Everyone knows the old “friend of Dorothy”. right? Yuri fans could say that we’re “friends of Yuriko”. LOL)

This collection had several stories that included some Yuri-ish interaction, but none of the stories end with the girl getting the girl…in fact, in most cases that was a relief. As with most short story anthologies, the characters were rather more dysfunctional than usual and the endings tended towards pat. But that’s a fault with short stories in general and shouldn’t put you off this particular collection.

The first story, “After Sex A Boy’s Sweat Smells Like Honey,” is an ambiguous tale of two female cousins. One of them is initially repulsed by the other’s fragility, but in comparison to the men she is seeing, comes to find her more and more appealing.

“About Kusako” was, to me, a very disturbing story. Moeko finds a girl growing out of the ground, like grass, as she walks her dog. (Hence the name, “Kusako,” which would mean “grass girl”.) Kusako is incapable of moving, so Moeko waters her and shields her from the hot sun and generally grows fond of Kusako. Moeko returns to the field after a prolonged period of time to find Kusako withered and dying, but small Kusakos everywhere. If this kind of stuff lived in my head, I’d be creeped out.

“Sister” was my favorite story. A young woman’s older neighbor passes out nearly every night on her doorstep. Out of duty and kindness, she drags the woman in and tucks her into bed. Eventually, she confronts the neighbor about her miserable life, only to learn that she knows *nothing* about her…except that she loves this “old hag”. I won’t give away the ending, because I really liked it. :-) No, it isn’t Yuri, but it was pretty great.

“The Land Where Rain Starts To fall” has a *very* similar feel to the “Shibuya” series Okazaki-sensei wrote for Cookie. It’s a vignette of an apparently dysfunctional couple – Kaya, who refuses to come to school and Kumi, who seems appallingly low self-esteemy-y. They engage in some sexual play, ostensibly to seduce or annoy Kaya’s older brother. The vibe off of Kaya is heavily incestuous, Kumi seems more like a plaything. But she’s actually completely aware of Kaya’s machinations, and goes along with them willingly. In the end, the girl does not get the girl, but this series has, perhaps, the happiest ending in the volume.

The last story was written by Hiratsuka Mari, and is a bittersweet nostalgic look at boys in school and their too-sexy-for-her-own-good teacher. It was cute and fluffy.

I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with her art or her storytelling. The art is too loose for me to find appealing, while the stories are too tense…but those are the very qualities that make her stories, even the short ones, work.

Ratings would be variable, so let’s call it an overall 7.

No, it isn’t the 100% yuri we all long for, nor is it happy, really, but I definitely think Passion Fruit Volume 1 is definitely worth getting. Support Josei manga, support Yuri themes in Tokyopop manga and cough up a few bucks for Sweat and Honey.





Yuri Manga: Aria, Volumes 1,2 and 3 (English)

February 8th, 2005

Today is a first for Okazu. Never before have I reviewed a manga from the translated English version that I haven’t read in the original Japanese at least once. What is this world coming to?

I’d been meaning to get around to Aria for a long time. I’d run into the title a few times on some of the Japanese yuri weblogs I scan, and a few people, notably Mr. Sean Gaffney, had pointed me in its general direction. But until very recently, I simply hadn’t gotten around to it. By the time I did, the first three volumes were translated by ADV Manga (here are links to Volumes 1, 2 and 3 on Amazon), so I just picked it up in English. I know it’s completely snobby-pretentious of me, but I feel like I’m cheating. ^_^

In any case, Aria is, like Yokohama Shopping Log, an “ahhh” story. The little slice-of-life scenes are pretty much all about enjoying the moment. The overall setup of the story works well to help foster this feeling.

The main character of Aria is a gondolier (undine) in training in the town of Neo Venezia. Akari is a sweet girl who appears to enjoy all seasons, and nearly anything life throws at her. She is accompanied for most of her adventures by another trainee, Aika, who in any other series would probably be her rival. Akari’s mentor is an older undine, Alicia, who Aika is crushing on pretty heavily.

In Volume 3, we are introduced to another undine-in-training, a prodigy neophyte named Alice, and she takes up the rival position…for about three seconds, until Akari’s “my pace” personality sucks the will to resist out of her. LOL

In general, the yuri is very low-key, as befits the entire series, with Aika’s schoolgirl crush on Alicia flaring every now and again into a severe case of akogare/desire. And, if we turn the yuri goggles waaaay up, (but keep those rose-colored lenses in place) you can easily see something between Alice and Akari developing. Maybe. One day. ^_^

What really makes Aria work, though, is the sense of whimsy that fills the pages. As Akari takes us on a tour of the canals of Neo Venezia, we see wonderful things and have lovely experiences – moments of magic pop up again and again as we travel along with her. From a fox’s wedding (which was bizarrely appropriate around my house right now, as “we” have acquired a sudden kitsune obsession) to a lone sakura tree illuminated with electricity in a field, every chapter is filled with some moment of life that was totally worth having been there for.

The art is easy on the eyes, the characters are all likeable…which is really creepy. Even the cats don’t bother me. The *only* problem with the book that I can think of is that all the main female characters’ names start with “A” which was moderately confusing, since I started the series with Vol. 3 and it took me sometime to sort everyone out. (Akari, Alice, Aika, Alicia, Akira….I mean really…) To make things a tad more awkward, the character designs are all similar, so Alicia and Akari look kind of alike while Aika is a sort of younger Akira. It all hurt my head, for about ten minutes until they all fell in place.

But I’m really, really stretching. For normal people who are reading these volumes in order, this won’t be a problem. ^_^

The usual rants about translating honorifics…they don’t. “-sama” becomes “Miss” and all the others disappear, which makes me sad. Most of the sound effects are added in near the original Japanese, and some of the asides as well. If it was too hard to cover over, ADV took the easy way out and just put the English close by. Cheaters. Actually, this doesn’t bother me at all, I’m just thinking of the 64,247,897 hours I spent redoing complex backgrounds on Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and I get jealous. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4
Overall – 8

Nice art, lovely relaxing story, cute chracters, great historical atmosphere and a little light yuri, Aria gets the gold star for English manga this week.

In fact, I liked it so much, I’ll add it to the Yuricon Shop Manga page this week!

And, if you’ve read Aria and want to chat about it (which I would LOVE to do!) don’t forget to join us on the Yuricon Mailing List!





Yuri Manga: Chirality (English)

September 2nd, 2004

chiralityWhat do you say about an artist who likes his women well-endowed, mostly or partially naked, and shiny, as if they have been simonized? I guess you say, “Oh, look it’s Urushihara Satoshi.” (And many thanks to alert reader Tatjana who noticed that I mistyped his name!)

Urushihara has a long history of drawing women with women, from random artbook pieces to full-blown manga stories. Chirality stands out as one of the strongest of his many Yuri-friendly works. Translated by CPM Manga, by 2010 this series wass out of print, but you can still find it, sometimes. It’s worth looking for! As you know, I strongly recommend you actually buy your Yuri and support it in the only way that is meaningful.

The story is shounen sci-fi stuff – in the future humans are being atttacked by GMs, a kind of virus machine produced by an uber-machine whose original job was to protect humanity. To fight (and hopefully reform/uncorrupt) Gaia, several beings were created with that contained all of the DNA of every living creature in the world. These beings were called Adam and Eve.

Of course, nothing is ever easy – Adam became corrupted by Gaia and Eve became bonded to a young human girl, Shiori, in her “immature” form. As “Carol Guardian,” Eve vows to protect Shiori at all costs. Time passes and Carol and Shiori meet once again.

Carol is able to transform into a male form at first to protect Shiori, but when a mishap occurs and Carol accidentally injurs Shiori, she finds herself unable to transform. Meanwhile, Shiori begins to remember their original meeting, and realizes that she is in love with Carol, in any form. In fact, more in her female form.

Yes, they do get together, in a very real sex-filled way. And Shiori and Carol not only protect each other and everyone they love, but they save the world while they’re at it. Plot-wise, the story is a little sketchy, the science is very bad (and mostly organized around the women wearing clothes that make them look naked) but as a fun sci-fi Yuri story, where the story is really a frame for the Yuri, Chirality is pretty good.

CPM published Chirality originally as a series of pamphlet comic books, but you can find it as a set of four graphic novels – unless you obsess about the cover art, the GNs are a better deal and a little easier to find. Despite its age, this particular GN holds up pretty well – the translation is fine, the cost is reasonable.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 9
Service – 8
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8

For hardcore Carol and Shiori fans, Urushihara did do a follow-up story about Rachel Shiori Guardian, Carol and Shiori’s daughter, and her sempai/lover Kaede, in a book called Ragnarock City (link totally Not Safe For Work). It’s mostly torso shots of naked girls – not much by way of story.

Once more, from alert reader Tatjana, Ragnarock City is available in a German language version, for all you Yuri fans who can read German. ^_^