Archive for the English Manga Category


Me (A Guy)… Lesbian?!, Volume 1, Guest Review by Luce

August 11th, 2021

I had no idea this manga even existed, so how happy am I that Guest Reviewer Luce offered to take a look at it for us! ^_^ So kick back and Luce tell you a story about a story. Welcome back Luce, the floor is yours…

I’m Luce, reviewer of Dear Noman. That series didn’t quite work out, but today I’m here with a review of a series I thought would be terrible, and surprisingly wasn’t! Hope you enjoy the review, I can be reached on the Okazu discord (open to all) and on tumblr at silverliningslurk. Onwards!

In Me (a Guy)…Lesbian, Volume 1, available digitally on Bookwalker, Yuuki, a male high school student, is cycling home one day and accidentally knocks an inari statue over at a shrine. Panicked, he puts it back… and typical of a high school boy, adds a face to it when he sees it has none. The fox spirit within the statue is none too pleased about this face, done in permanent marker unknowingly over her own face, and as revenge for not being able to sympathise with a ‘women’s heart’, turns him into a girl. And magically enrols him into an all-girls boarding school. Now, she (I’ll refer to Yuuki as she for the remainder of the review) has to create ‘love relationships’ with girls to get the fox spirit, Yori to regain her power so she can turn Yuuki back.

I will admit, with that title, I was very sceptical of this being anything much at all, but I was bored, there was a Yuri manga sale, and I bought it. It’s 8 chapters, so I would guess slightly longer than one regular collected manga volume. It’s full colour, and it’s done nicely, although there is a bit more service than I’d necessarily go for. I still have trouble thinking that girls so casually undress around each other, but aside from that, it’s surprisingly heart-felt. It’s no grand epic, and there are all the ‘magically switched genders’ tropes that you’d expect – randomly turning back at inopportune times, the fear of getting found out, sitting and acting more like a guy than a girl normally would… But it is genuinely sweet. Yuuki gets things wrong, and apologises for them, she starts to get on with the various girls of the school and gets used to life in her female body. For such a short series, it actually gets quite a bit done, so it feels longer than it is, but in a good way – for me at least!

As for Yuri, well. There are definitely two girls who have romantic feelings for other girls, something that is displayed front and centre, although in the English, the word ‘lesbian’ only features in the title. Yuuki herself comes to have crushes, there is the girl prince that Erica has mentioned in several panels recently as a common Yuri trope, the childhood friends where one falls in love. I would imagine this series is meant to appeal to men with the fanservice (it never gets ridiculous or anatomically incorrect, but it is there), but equally, it has all sorts of women and the cast, Yuuki aside, is entirely female. But Yuuki doesn’t make any opportunities to perv on the other girls, getting embarrassed and/or respecting them enough to not look… even though ‘she’ wouldn’t necessarily be found out. I will say that the author does put her in these situations, but there are no drooling perverts here, thankfully.

If you’re looking for a deep dive into the intricacies of having a gender switched, this isn’t it. It doesn’t even mention Yuuki’s parents or friends, although I suspect Yori’s power may have been involved. However, by the end (I will spoil a little as I feel like it makes this stand out) Yuuki doesn’t elect to turn back into a boy. She seems to remain at the school, intending to live – at least for now – as a woman. Yori, the fox spirit, even says that she’ll have to work to be perceived as a girl by the one who knows Yuuki’s secret. That surprised me, as usually when presented with a way to go back, they do. I would say that if you enjoyed Kashimashi, you’ll probably enjoy this one, too. It even doesn’t have the creepy father!

Ratings:

Art – 6 – not the best art in the world, but pretty, readable, and all in colour!
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 8 – you will definitely see some cleavage
Yuri – 7

Overall – 8

For some light reading and a hopeful ending, I’d say it’s worth it. ‘Surprisingly wholesome’ would be my short review, honestly.

Erica here: Thank you very much for the review. I’m glad to know this is out here and that we have eagle-eyed reviewers like you. ^_^





Even Though We’re Adults, Volume 2

August 6th, 2021

Yesterday I said we were playing a “choose your own adventure” in reading works by creators you already had opinions about. Yesterday, we walked down Path #1 with a work that was pleasantly excellent. Today we’re doing a second path, as we look at Even Though We’re Adults, Volume 2 by Shimura Takako.

In Volume 1, we met Akari, a lesbian who has had some bad luck with partners and Ayano, a married woman, for whom Akari falls. If indeed that was the sum and total of the plot, it would be merely all right, but in this series, nothing ever is exactly what it seems to be.  Ayano is not at all the person she appeared to be and, we learn in this volume, there was a whole other Ayano in school, where she was tall and boyish.

Akari …well, she’s a decent human and it’s hard to not like her. She’s just looking for someone to be happy with and it’s not at all making her happy that she has feelings for a married woman. In fact, she’s pretty damn pissed about it. In this volume we also learn that she has previously been down this road and it did not go well for her, so we can completely sympathize.

Even Ayano’s husband Wataru is decent. He’s a guy whose life has been thrown into a series of chaotic situations and he’s trying to stay afloat. When his father becomes ill in Volume 2, he and Ayano get roped into moving back with his abrasive mother and shut-in sister. He too, one can completely sympathize with.

So, you may wonder why I consider this a path down the “what is this going to be like?” game. And to explain that, I have to tell you a secret. … I don’t actually like Shimura Takako’s work that much.

I don’t hate it, I just think she’s either a straight (or officially closeted) woman who has made a career of writing queer characters who…don’t act like people actually act. Her works has been insightful only rarely and sometimes torpedo their own good intentions.  As a result, she’s gotten a huge amount of queer cred, most of which I think is unearned. More damning, her storytelling has been…inconsistent. Sweet Blue Flowers is a narrative mess with flashes of brilliance, but Wandering Son is literally filled with repeated scenes and conversations.. On top of that, her endings are occasionally pat and irritating. So, call me very pleasantly surprised that all the characters here (except, so far as you know) Mom, are written with nuance and sympathetic perspective.*

These characters have been written with the kind of nuance I crave in manga…especially manga written for adults. Sure, sex and violence have their place, but surely being adult means we can more layered and thoughtful writing, too, not just more violence and sex. Here everything is just working in concert to create a strong whole.

So for a creator whose work has, in the past, left me feeling disappointed or even exploited, Even Though We Are Adults is an absolute masterwork of storytelling. The art is perfectly fine, but it still is finding its stride and I talk about that in my discussion of Volume 2 in Japanese.

Ratings:

Art – 7 with flashes of 9
Story – 8 Not easy, but well told
Characters – 7 easy to sympathize with, but like? That’s another story.
Service – 0
Yuri – Yes, definitely. Akari is gay, Ayano may be bi or questioning but it’s all question marks now.

Overall – 7

*I’m not the only one to feel exactly this way, as the Mangasplaining Podcast spent an entire excellent episode talking about this series and they touch on all these things. I love this podcast, not just because some of the folk on it are friends. ^_^ It’s a great podcast for folks who love manga, I recommend it highly

Volume 3 will be available in October and while I have already reviewed it in Japanese, am looking forward to it in English as well. Translator Jocelyne Allen’s work is always fantastic. Casey Luca on adaptation,  Rina Mapa on lettering and retouch, Hanase Qi’s great cover design and Shannon Fay on Editing; The entire Seven Seas team is doing excellent work here for a terrific reading experience of a complicated, adult story.





Farewell to My Alter, Nio Nakatani Short Story Collection

August 3rd, 2021

Farewell to My Alter, Nio Nakatani Short Story Collection, from Yen Press works equally well as a Yuri collection, a science fiction/fantasy collection, or a collection of Nakatani-sensei’s stories from the Éclair anthologies +. Anyway you look at it, this book has a variety of stories that all are firmly rooted in “short story” telling beats, with a requisite number ironic, ambiguous or open endings.

My favorite story is probably the most obvious, as a Virtual Designer fails to notice the reality right in front of her.

The art for this collection spans a pretty good range of time before and during Bloom Into You, and it’s not hard to see that Nakatani-sensei’s earlier chapters are less polished than her later. As I wrote in my review of the Japanese volume:

“If you’re a huge fan of her work, or you like short manga stories with slightly uncomfortable edges, you’ll want to get this collection. It definitely is an excellent overview of her art changing over the last decade or so. as it evolves quite considerably from beginning to end in a way that would not be obvious if you didn’t see the stories laid out one after the other…”

Technicals here are well-handled by the team at Yen Press. Since they only give me two names, I can only call out translator Eleanor Summers  and letterer Erin Hickman for their efforts, and so I will. It’s never easy to do this and I always appreciate the care and attention they give to it.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

For fans of Bloom Into You, this is a great way to survey a creator’s artistic development, along with some solid speculative fiction by Nakatani Nio.

Thank you very much to Yen Press for the review copy!





The Conditions of Paradise: Azure Dreams

July 26th, 2021

It was 2009 when I read this book the first time. Here was what I wrote at the time,

In Ruri-iro Yume (瑠璃色の夢) Morishima Akiko gets to realize a dream of hers … . She is able to draw a series of stories about adult women in relationships with other women.

As I read that now 12-year old review, I find that I could have cut and pasted a great deal of it into this one, as most of the references she’s made to her other series still have not been licensed. Hanjuku Joshi had a brief sojourn in English with JManga, but is otherwise not available here. Neither are Renai Joshika (Volume 1 and Volume 2) or Renai Joshi File (レンアイ・女子ファイル) .

So here we are, getting to see what Morishima-sensei was thinking about more than a decade ago – and it may be even more relevant to today’s Yuri than it was then, now that adult women and their dreams are the subject of more Yuri than ever before. Here we are at The Conditions of Paradise: Azure Dreams.

As a collection of shorts, this volume holds up rather nicely, I think. Morishima-sensei’s art style is still cute, and this look at different couples and different kinds of relationships makes for a nice variety. I summed up that 2009 review with, “In any case, Morishima’s art is super-duper cute. But her stories are smart, poignant and often very real. And, okay, sometimes her stories are super-duper cute, too. ^_^” And that holds true today. ^_^

Interestingly, in a kind of time warp, the characters from Hanjuku Joshi (from whom you met Chitose and her fujoshi sister) are back again, in “Motto Hanjuku Joshi” which runs right now in Galette magazine. It’s still a delightful series and one half the most problematic couple has aged out of school, so the problematic part of their relationship is less so. ^_^  Is today’s the motto, “everything old is new again” or “old Yuri doesn’t die, it’s just moves magazines”? In any case,

I really like that these three books are being sold as a series and I hope one day you’ll get to read the rest of the stories from which several of these shorts have been spun off.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 9

It is so lovely to see Elina Ishikawa working on a Yuri manga again – we worked together on the Jmanga volumes. ^_^ Very fine work from Asha Barton on adaptation, CK Russell’s lettering and retouch is a thankless job, so appreciate those sound effects! Nicky Lim’s cover design work is on point, as always, and let me just say, I weep with joy at seeing the proofreaders and Dawn Davis and Danielle King, credited along with editor Shannon Fay. The one thing Seven Seas does that I love most, is give you a glimpse of the entirety of the number of people who work to make this book happen. My sincere thanks to Rhiannon Lissa, and Julie as well. It’s a team effort and most readers have no idea how many folks have to put time in to get a book on their shelves. Thanks so much to the team at Seven Seas.

It has been absolutely wonderful to see more of Morishima-sensei’s art in English! Now, can I ask favor? I really want to see Takemiya Jin’s work in English, too. Pretty please? ^_^





Strawberry Fields Once Again, Volume 3

July 23rd, 2021

In Volume 1, we met Akira, a withdrawn loner and Pure, an outgoing and positive transfer student who tells Akira that she’s from the future where they are lovers.  In Volume 2, Akira slowly and surely grows to love Pure, only to find that the other girl has disappeared.

In Strawberry Fields Once Again, Volume 3, we find ourselves in a cascading series of fractured timelines. As we watch Pure and Akira miss each other over and over, we begin to pick up the thread of the story and it turns out that indeed Pure was from the future!

Akira and her brother Ruri, after the death of their mother, each chose to withdraw from life in a slightly different way. Akira dedicated herself to otome games and unbeknownst to her, Ruri dedicated himself to repairing what he believed was the true timeline. But – and this is really an important point in real, life, I think – Ruri only sees his parents from a child’s point of view and doesn’t account for them having lives as adults that he’s not privy to. From his immature and self-serving perspective, the timeline he’s seeking to restore is the “correct” one…but as we learn, there is no timeline in which his family is restored in the way he wishes.  But selfishly, he puts his energy towards stopping Pure, rather than himself, becoming what passes as this series’ bad guy.

When Ruri is confronted with this truth, he relents and Pure and Akira finally meet up after a series of failures in Pure’s time-travel attempts.

In the end, the timeline for Pure and Akira are restored enough for them to find one another and be married, and what started out as a kind of weird little typical school drama, ends as a weird little time-travel story with a Yuri wedding and a happy ending for mostly everyone.

So yeah, this book travels a long distance from that first chapter, but now that we’re here at the end, it was definitely an interesting ride. In Japanese I ended up reading this volume through 3 times, just to make absolutely sure I understood it and, if I had not, I probably would have had to read this English-volume through more than once. ^_^ Amanda Haley does a fine job on the translation, so it’s not on her – honestly a very excellent job, as she helped me clear up some small details I had missed or ignored, and I enjoyed the clean look of Abigail Blackman’s lettering – also, not credited, but whomever did the editing, nice job! (Yen, could you please give folks credit when they work on a book? ) The rough-texture of the cover stock is intriguing addition, I think this series might have been better served by glossy, but I kinda like the feel of this anyway.

Overall, a strange little series that was totally worth reading.  ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Character – 7
Service – 2
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

The main weakness of the story was character, it was very hard to actually like anyone until after you understood the whole picture and by then, it was too late for about half of them. ^_^;