Archive for the English Manga Category


Cocoon Entwined, Volume 3

September 3rd, 2021

When I reviewed this volume in Japanese, I noted that at last, two of the three participants in this love triangle are aware of the fact. But, as strands of hair are cut, braided, tied and woven, the cocoon becomes ever more claustrophobic.

As I re-read Cocoon Entwined, Volume 3 in English, I think I was premature to assume that Hana is looking towards Youko as salvation. She is, finally, looking at Youko, but she’s also looking past Youko at something – someone – else.

For the first time in this series, we see Hana outside the school with her family. She’s really suffering at playing the school Prince, but how does one explain to a family member that light-hearted jests cut like razors? Hana spends this book running, and even when Youko finds her to bring her back, she’s still looking for an escape route.

I half-jokingly refer to Hana as “this manga’s Sei,” and it seems pretty likely that there is some homage there. But both personality and treatment of Hana and Sei are different enough that it’s only a joke. Hana is doing her duty as Prince, but it’s eating at her. And that is what intrigues me, as it does, apparently, Youko. Can Youko be prince to an unwilling prince or will she fail to save her from herself? Tune into Volume 4 of Cocoon, Entwined, which will hit shelves in December of this year.

I adore the cover of this book. It’s everything about this series in one image. Great work by Hara-sensei. Amanda Haley is lifting some heavy weight in the translation. The story and language are simple…but no, they aren’t really. This school is full of ghosts and they walk around built into the clothes, the buildings, the traditions and the ever-present hair. Erin Hickman’s lettering is clean and easy to read which leaves the art plenty of room to do the work it needs to do.

Ratings:

Art – Outstanding
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Service – N/A
Yuri – 7 One side of the triangle is filled in

Overall – 8

Cocoon Entwined is captivating and beautiful, more as a psychological horror series than a school romance. I continue to be surprised at how much I really enjoy this series.

Thanks very much to Yen Press for the review copy!





Yuri is My Job, Volume 7

August 19th, 2021

In Volume 6, Mituski poured her hear out to Hime and instead of bringing them closer, as she hoped, it may have separated them forever.

In Yuri is My Job, Volume 7, everyone at Liebe Café is trying to patch up the rift between Hime and Mitsuki. Except one. Kanako has absolutely had it with what she sees as Mitsuki’s self-indulgent attitude to Hime. She’s not wrong…but she’s not right, either.

Hime has come up against a wall that she has long wanted to avoid. There are only two people in the world she has trusted with her truth and they each need something from her she can’t give them. Hime’s decided to take herself out of the story, in order to keep anyone from being hurt…and thereby hurting them both.

Sumika wants things to stay the same, Kanako’s ready to be there for Hime, Mitsuki wants someone to understand her for once, and Mai, attempting to smooth over the rough areas, causes cracks to appear elsewhere.

This is an extraordinary volume in what initially appeared to be merely a Marimite parody. We are full on in deep emotional drama and although I read this with every issue of Comic Yuri Hime, I have absolutely no idea where it might take us or how we will get there! That’s always very exciting.

Extra chapters here take us a little into Miman-sensei’s life last year and character and café trivia. Everything about this book kept me on my seat. Lots of emotional moments and I’m just so interested to find out what happens!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 1
Yuri – 7

Overall – 8

Wrapped in old-fashioned school uniforms and Yuri tropes, Yuri is My Job is a compelling Yuri drama, wholly grounded in the present.





Whisper Me a Love Song, Volume 1

August 16th, 2021

Himari is suuuper excited to be in high school and suuuper happy to see the different clubs, but when she sees Yori on stage performing with a band, it’s just too much for her. Moved by the performance, she seeks out Yori to tell her that she’s fallen in love with her!

Yori’s not usually the kind of person to perform in public, but when a really cute girls says this to her, she can’t not feel something, right? Indeed, Yori does feel something. But what Himari feels isn’t love for Yori, she was just so moved by the music. And so, despite the initial misunderstanding, Yori and Himari start to build a relationship. Where it will go or what will happen is still unknown, but the possibilities in Whisper Me a Love Song, Volume 1 by Eku Takeshima are endless.

If you’ve got the print volume of Volume 1 in front of you, you know what I think of this series, it’s right there on the back cover. ^_^ I was indeed charmed from the very first pages. I absolutely adore this series. It is among the several I head straight for when new issue of Comic Yuri Hime has arrived. Yori’s slight introversion, and how adorable she is when she’s trying to be cool, and Himari’s enthusiasm for just about everything, is just too cute to dislike. I love Takeshima-sensei’s art. When she wants Yori to look cool, she looks very cool indeed. The characters have layers, and sometimes you get a glimpse of the adults they will become.

I’m somewhere in what will be Volume 4 in Japanese and I love this series as much now as I did back in Volume 1. For a first-love, high school girl-meets-girl story, that’s pretty amazing.

Before I forget, I think the cover design on this edition is fab. Love the rough background and the spot-gloss image. Well- done Matt Akuginow! Translation by Kevin Steinbach is on point. At one point, Yori said something and I just shouted, “Yed, that was absolutely it!” Great lettering by Jennifer Skarupa and editing by Tiff Ferentini is invisible, which is exactly what one wants in an editor. ^_^ Great work by Team Kodansha on this, one of my favorite series right now.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8 There is none. It’s very nice.
Characters – 9
Service – 10000 where the “service” is two girls who are having a great time as they learn to love one another
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

Keep your drama to yourself, this series doesn’t need it. ^_^

Whisper Me a Love Song by Eku Takeshima hits just the right notes for a light-hearted sweet Yuri romance. Volume 2 and Volume 3 are out now from Kodansha!





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.