Archive for the English Manga Category


My Idol Sits the Next Desk Over, Volume 3 Guest Review by Luce

April 20th, 2022

Once again, it is my great pleasure to welcome guest reviewer Luce back to Okazu!

In volume 1 and volume 2, we met and got to know Sakiko, a shy girl who is a big fan of an idol group Spring Sunshine, and Chihiro, her favourite member, who sits next to her in school. Alongside is Maaya, an obsessive fan who is very focused on Chihiro as well, and their school lives together.

Volume 3 of My Idol Sits the Next Desk Over begins with the fallout of the confession – Chihiro thanks him but doesn’t accept, and is not impressed by Sakiko and Maaya’s interference, unsurprisingly, seeing it as unfair to her and Tanaka. Sakiko has a photography club competition with the theme of friends – but she can’t put a photo of Chihiro in as it goes on the website. They change into summer clothes and Sakiko notices. They have swimming lessons and her and Maaya both notice. They have finals at the same time as an album release, and Chihiro has some doubts about her idol life…? Finally, Spring Sunshine are announced for a big summer rock festival! Whilst this means Chihiro isn’t free much, Sakiko and Maaya are still thrilled. Upon getting there, though, they meet up with the girl in their class who was somewhat disparaging of Spring Shine…?

I’ve noticed that this series has a lot happen, because things wrap themselves up quite fast – not too fast, but they’re not endlessly dwelled upon. There aren’t many ‘wasted’ panels, not so many lingering looks or agonising thought monologues. It does what it needs to do – it helps that Chihiro, by nature of her being away from school so often, has to make the most of it when she is there, and Maaya is always driven to get closer and interact more with Chihiro, so we have two driving forces who are not shy about what they want. Sakiko is almost a different person from who she was in the first volume, which as I said last time, is great to see. Being able to be up front about her interests and becoming friends with Chihiro has done her a world of good.

This volume brings them into summer – which means summer uniforms with shorter sleeves, a heat wave, and swimming lessons. As such, the yuri quotient has gone up – not in a service kind of way, but Sakiko outright thinks herself a pervert for noticing Chihiro in a way she hasn’t really before. It’s pretty innocent, really, things like her pale upper arms and her neck, but it definitely makes it onto the yuri front. The swimming chapter is pretty funny, as Maaya distinctly can not deal, although Sakiko only does a bit better. When Sakiko promises to cheer for any prospective crushes Chihiro might have in future, Maaya… can’t. Possession? Love? I’m still not sure.

We get a bit of backstory for Chihiro in this volume, and some focus on her doubts about the reality of being an idol. One of the things that I actually really like about this manga is that it doesn’t idolise Chihiro – Sakiko and Maaya do, but the manga itself portrays her as a real person, who happens to be an idol. It actually does the same with the rest of Spring Shine. But she works through her doubts and fears about missing things and, with the help of the other two, comes out more sure of her direction. It was nice to see.

Story: 8
Art: 9 (I’ve noticed that everyone’s face is subtly different, something I like in manga)
Yuri: 6
Service: 3? Swimsuits and short sleeves. It’s the tamest service I’ve ever seen
Overall: 9

I’m a little sad this isn’t coming out as a physical book, honestly, I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. In Volume 4, Sakiko meets the girl who made fun of Spring Shine at the festival, and the summer concert! 

 




Yuri Espoir, Volume 1

April 15th, 2022

Kokoro has just learned that when she graduates high school, she is to be married to someone to whom her father owes a significant favor. She is not happy about this, and refers to it as “dying” after graduation. As a result of her impending “death,” Kokoro wants to live a happy Yuri life while she is in high school. She may never get to date the girl of her dreams, but she can at least draw pictures of the Yuri couples she observes and imagine their lives. Kokoro enlists her best friend and fellow art club member, Amami, in her plan.

Yuri Espoir, Volume 1, seemed like it might be fun. It quickly became…extraordinary. Yes, Kokoro sees Yuri couples, then draws what she imagines their story to be. The next chapter the tells us the reality of their story. As it tuns out, Kokoro has solid Yuridar. She gets the basic situation right, but the details are different and more complicated than her imagination. Everything in this book is more complicated than Kokoro imagines, in fact. Amami’s feelings, their art club advisor’s secret…everything. 

 I loved that we got the story of the Yuri couple and that those stories are truncated. We get bits and pieces, and maybe the wrap up…maybe they don’t. We may never know what happens to them, or we might, but it was compelling.  Unpredictable, ebullient, with a complicated and much vaster plot that it initially seemed, every chapter was a revelation. I couldn’t put it down.  What a fun and unusual manga!

Mai Naoi’s art is not practiced and slick, but solid enough that both Kokoro and Amami has vastly different styles that are themselves recognizably different from the main narrative.

The main narrative may or may not be good in the end, but the individual chapters are a fab collection of Yuri tropes remixed in and out of “reality.” I cannot stress this enough – I have not seen a story like this before. It was really very interesting. You may not like it, but I’m going to say Yuri Espoir, Volume 1 was worth reading.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Stories – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 9

Great job to Caroline Wong on translation and  to the entire Tokyopop team for a surprising Yuri manga. Thanks so much to Tokyopop for the review copy! I hope you’ll pick this up when it hits shelves this summer; it was genuinely intriguing. I’ll definitely be grabbing Volume 2 when it’s released in October.





Dick Fight Island, Volume 1

April 10th, 2022

Today we’re doing something a little different. I sincerely mean that. too, because while it might seem that Dick Fight Island by Reibun Ike, is as far from Yuri as you could get, it has more in common with some of the issues I’ve talked about here on Okazu, than not.

Some while back I did an article on problematic content and why you may still enjoy it, you should also be aware that your enjoyment comes at the price of someone else’s dehumanization or, perhaps, trauma.

Dick Fight Island (it’s Japanese title is a much more staid  “8 Fighters”) is a story about Haruto, a young man who comes from a small archipelago of 8 islands, where once every 4 years a representative is chosen to “fight” in order to become the King of the Islands. The form of battle is a sex contest in which the winner makes the loser ejaculate first. This is entirely representative of world politics and also utterly ridiculous at the same time.  ^_^

Haruto has a lover on the “outside,” but he returns home to participate in the battle. That is basically 98.5% of the plot. Most of the book are the “battles” themselves, which, like the premise, are ridiculous. But when the battle part is done, it turns out that there’s a series of romances inside. Haruto’s lover arrives on the island and they are reunited, other pairs that were working out stuff in the battles live happily every after and I’m thinking that maybe just everyone could have kept the old king without all this mishegas.

The art in this volume was outstanding, honestly. Even aside from creative dick armor, the designs of the battle costuming was lovely and utterly exploitative. The fighters wore the male equivalent of elaborate chain mail bikini for female fighters. There was no question that this was supposed to be that very thing, and done beautifully. 

And then there are the “battles” themselves. If you can imagine gay porn where the participants have sex in an arena, and they and people around them comment on their techniques, you have the idea. I was reminded of a current manga running in Comic Yuri Hime called “Asumi-chan is interested in lesbian sex work!” (彩純ちゃんはレズ風俗に興味があります！) where different kinds of sex play are “explained” through teaching Asumi her job.  In both cases, the “explaining” isn’t making the act any sexier, in my opinion, it just casts the audience in the role of innocent/clueless voyeur. I imagine, based on how many porn stories utilize this role for the viewer, that it’s a popular one. Frankly, I far preferred the snark-filled worldliness of Sakuran. (I don’t think I ever reviewed it, but Kate Dacey’s review is a very good one.) When sex is stripped of intimacy, I’m inclined to accept thinking it of as a business more readily than as a contest.

I felt kind of icky reading about these “islanders” and their weird sexual ritual as a form of entertainment, as well. That just sailed right off the coast of historical fetishism of indigenous cultures and was impossible for me to ignore.

And lastly, as a gay person, fetishizing gay sex always makes me uncomfortable. The English title of this book establishes the tone for the story pretty solidly. This is meant to be “tee-hee”d at.  Treating gay sex as something to be “tee-hee”d at is still pretty problematic in my book.

So all this said, what did I think of Dick Fight Island? I don’t think I enjoyed it, honestly. I can see where BL fans would and it doesn’t quite make me happy.  I think it has some outstanding art and some lovely costuming choices – even beyond the battle armor. The characters were good enough that I probably would enjoy a slice-of-life around their fantasy islands more than this story.

As I said in my previous article, “It is perfectly all right for you to like problematic content but it shows you’re a decent person if you’re mindful as to why that content might be problematic to someone else.”

As a title with which to revisit this idea, Dick Fight Island was perfect.

Dick Fight Island is available on Amazon,  RightStuf or wherever you get your manga.

For what I presume will be a completely different perspective, check out the Mangasplaining Podcast, which will be covering this same volume in third season!
 





My Idol Sits the Next Desk Over, Volume 2 Guest Review by Luce

April 6th, 2022

Please welcome back Luce, who will take a look at the remaining volumes of this series for us!

In the first volume, we saw Sakiko get over a good part of her shyness and awe of Chihiro, the girl sitting next to her that happens to be her favourite idol in a group called Spring Sunshine. She also manages to somewhat wrangle Maaya, a Spring Sunshine superfan, into their group, and there was a surprise concert – they all go, of course, but now Sakiko is awestruck by Chihiro again!

Volume 2 of My Idol Sits the Next Desk Over starts where we left off. Sakiko, having had Chihiro wave at her from on stage, is elated… But also awestruck? Having seen Chihiro as Chiro-chan the idol has made her nervous about the distance between them, although it seems somewhat evident to the audience that may only be half the problem.

Next, a sports festival, in which Sakiko tries to protect Chihiro’s identity from her photographer senpai so she doesn’t get outed as an idol. The three of them go on a ‘chic-nic’. Chihiro faces some criticism from classmates. And Sakiko and Maaya try to protect Chihiro from possible scandal in their own ways…that may not be very conducive. Finally, someone confesses to Chihiro! A lot happens in these chapters!

Now that Sakiko has come out of her shell a lot, the whole thing is a great deal better. That said, she has her hands full dealing with/mitigating the effects of Maaya. I think these two are intended to show two sides of fandom: the invested but respectful, and the obsessed and possessive. Due to Sakiko’s influence, Maaya never quite succeeds on her schemes, which largely involve singling Chihiro out and getting rid of any ‘interfering’ parties (in her opinion), but it is annoying. Her stalkerish tendencies will never become comfortable, and I hope she leaves them behind either by force or by choice. I feel a plot point in a future chapter may well be Chihiro linking Maaya and the forum aggressor as one and the same, and her reaction. But her view currently is clearly ‘Chihiro belongs to me’, and it is uncomfortable. Her actions towards Sakiko at times and some other characters are definitely not alright – if you can ignore them, the manga can be quite enjoyable. If it’s too close to home, maybe give it a skip. Vol 3 came out and by the end of that she’s not much better, Sakiko is just working more as a conscience engine for her. I await further developments.

Sakiko is another story. Being friends with Chihiro (and Maaya) has helped her immensely – we see her converse with other people in class quite freely by midway through, and it’s lovely to see her grow into herself. It seems fairly clear to us that she at the very least has a crush on Chihiro, and their growing closeness unsettles Maaya, who reacts in a… very Maaya way. It could be worse, and it’s resolved fairly quickly. One of her photography club senpais even thinks to herself about whether Sakiko is in love with Chiro-chan. So on the yuri front, I would say it is increasing. For her part, Chihiro seems to have had a bad experience in junior school, so her friends are very important to her, although she tends towards Sakiko – could we see something into this?

We get a few more characters in this book, which is nice. A thought I had is that’s its nice to have male characters who aren’t portrayed as creepy and aren’t just there for plot drama. We get some people who aren’t into idol groups, and announce their discovery of Chihiro as an idol in a slightly unfavourable way, which is greatly frustrating to the three of the main characters – but Chihiro deals with it in her own way, which was lovely to see. Especially with the other two seeming to think she needs to be protected – she is a bit clueless at times, so there is some reason – it was good to see her stand up for herself in her own way.

Story: 8
Art: 8, its bright and sunny, suits the story it’s telling.
Service: 1
Yuri: 5. Sakiko hasn’t made it there yet. Not sure if Maaya is in love or just obsession. Possibly both.
Overall: 9

The story is tending towards Spring Shine getting more popular, even if just within the class, but if they do, that could change things quite significantly. Maaya is uncomfortable at times, but over-ride-able in my opinion. I’ll be staying tuned – Volume 3 and and Volume 4 have come out as of 5th April!





MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 17

March 28th, 2022

It has been 2 years since I last reviewed a volume of this manga. Not for any particular reason, just that these two years have been full to the brim of incredible, groundbreaking Yuri and I just sort of forgot to keep reading this series. ^_^ But here we are once again, as I play catch up with the volumes I read in Japanese, and get ready to switch over to the series in English, since it has caught up to where I was when I left off.

As I pointed out in my review of this volume in Japanese, this series does not hesitate to make us feel deeply uncomfortable about our reading habits. MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 17 does something unusual in this regard. This volume introduces a new horrible human being as the bad guy, Sendou, and we are shown quite clearly his being sexually excited by his acts of violence. It is, frankly, quite unusual to be so blunt in this message, precisely because the audience is expected to be men who are sexually excited by the violence in this series. Straight men are generally very oversensitive about looking at male genitalia, as if the admission that they too are turned on by this is too much to handle. But, having been required to be audience to some extremely explicit and unrealistic lesbian sex, I think this is a good thing for the remainder of the audience. Now we can all trade stories about how this series made us feel uncomfortable. ^_^ That said, the one place in the world I’m not interested in staring is some guy’s crotch. (-_-);

On the Yuri side, there is a surprising leap in Chiyoko’s admission that Kuroko is 1) her girlfriend and 2) important to her. Who would have imagined that an actual relationship is forming the maelstrom of monstrous killers in this series? And that Chiyo-chan and Kuroko enjoy a healthy sexual relationship? Certainly, not I.  And yet, there we are. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Because it’s gotten better, it’s actually messier than usual. More detail, means more gore.
Story – Uh….
Characters – Senpachi’s cool, emotionless old Yakuza guys are boring. Chiyo’s actually kinda cute for once?
Service – We are literally staring at this guy’s crotch constantly and it’s not serving me, I’ll tell you that. (-_ -)
Yuri – Not-ugly lesbian sex, so that’s a win.

Overall – ?

What do ratings even mean when it comes to this series? My commendation to Christine Dashielle on translating and Alexis Eckerman on lettering this weird, violent, lesbian grandchild of  HP Lovecraft fanfic. ^_^

Now that Yen Press has caught up on MURCIÉLAGO, I’ll picking these up digitally…they long ago chewed up too much space on the shelf. Volume 18 has already been released and has been added to the Yuricon Store.