Archive for the English Manga Category


The Rose of Versailles, Volume 3

May 21st, 2021

As I sat down to write today’s review, it dawned on me that I had never covered Volume 3 of The Rose of Versailles. So today, we will nod towards it, as we stride past headed for the last volume to deal with the Revolution and it’s aftermath.

In Volume 3 of The Rose of Versailles, Oscar’s choices come piling down upon her head. In a complete reversal of everything she had been asked to do with her life, her father barters her hand in marriage to her rival since she was young, Captain de Girodelle. Unsurprisingly, this puts Oscar into a very uncomfortable place. Of course she does not want to be married off without her consent, and also she believed that acting as a son, her father would not just treat her as collateral. To find that she had accomplished so much, only to have it be treated as irrelevant is, obviously, enraging. To young feminists of the 1970s this would reflect the exact situation they were – and, let’s be real, still are –  facing in the workplace.

Oscar has a new uniform made for herself, and at last attends the balls of Paris, to seduce women and show herself supremely uninterested in Girodelle or marriage. Meanwhile, Andre’s eyesight is deteriorating and Oscar begins to think of him more as a man, rather than a servant. Andre tries to force himself on her, but they withdraw from one another. Pushed to her limits, Oscar dedicates her life to war, and leaves to visit the Queen one last time.

The story, then, becomes a kind of slow avalanche of horrible decisions made in the worst way for the worst reasons. The Dauphin dies and Marie holes up in the Petit Trianon, refusing to deal with the people of France at all. The commons try to meet and are locked out of the building, the army starts to split at the seams and Oscar sides with the common people. She learns the truth about her Gardes members, how family and friends are being killed or starved and she becomes enraged, demanding answers of people who don’t care. Alain and the Gardes help Andre cover his failing sight, but they all know that death is waiting, Andre ends the book wishing that Oscar and he might be lovers, even knowing that his wish cannot come true.

There are a lot of tears. We’re given more space here to sympathize with Marie Antoinette than we have before, but it’s still hard to see her as  a victim of anything except her own selfishness. Oscar will stress for many pages about her gender and sex. Had she been a man, Rosalie would have ended the conversation, but she is not and she is neither transgender nor a lesbian. She’s embraced her fate to live a man’s life as a woman, but in the end her father never respected that, even though it was his wish that she do so.

Ratings:

Art –  Sublime and Oscar in bell-bottoms.
Story –  Grim, but magnificent
Character – Everyone has a moment when it is impossible to like them.
Yuri – One almost feels bad for any woman Oscar pretends to seduces to show up Girodelle
Service – Shirtless Andre, attempted rape, Oscar in new uniform

Overall  – Hard to read, but absolutely compelling

If I were going to sum up this volume with one emotion, I’d say “anger.” It’s not a righteous anger, not yet, but the signs are all there.  In a sense it’s good that the end is on the way in the next volume. After the last few years of anger and inequality and the same kinds of violence and deadly economics as we see in this story, reading this volume feels too much like reading the news sometimes. Something has to break, and we all hope like hell that it’s not us.

Kudos to UDON for another glorious volume of this epic story. It was my very sincere pleasure to be part of that team.

Volume 4 and Volume 5 are now available for you to read and experience!





Superwomen in Love, Honey Trap & Rapid Rabbit, Volume 1

May 17th, 2021

When the evil Antinoids attack and human life is at risk, the hero Rapid Rabbit will appear to save the day! Buy what happens to humanity when Rapid Rabbit is almost defeated? This question is answered in the opening pages of Superwomen in Love, Honey Trap & Rapid Rabbit, Volume 1 by sometime, out now from Seven Seas.

What happens is, of course, that the evil Honey Trap, manager of the Antinoid Army, falls head over heels in love with Honjou Hayate, a part-time costume hero show actress and full-time real-life superhero! This grown-up version of a sentai show is both fun and a little creepy at the same time. In my review of the Japanese edition, Hero-san to Moto Onna Kanbu-san, Volume 1 (ヒーローさんと元女幹部さん) I wrote, “Sometimes, like Honey, we all just need a attractive, athletic, female hero to sweep our evil plans away.” But I also know from Volume 2 and Volume 3, the story will get a little darker and also a little Yuri-er. ^_^;  I’m going to trust sometime to give our heroes the redemption arcs they deserve and the power-ups we crave.

The art in this manga are very action series-like, with loads of power ups, explanations of  armor and weapons and interpersonal bantering in the middle of battle. There’s also some cute art when it comes to Honey and Hayate’s personal relationship and while we get slightly suggestive comments and fantasies, there’s very little actual service beyond the costuming. As a result of the art being so action-y, I want to call attention to Mercedes McGarry’s lettering which in some places was superlative. I know exactly how complicated it is to replace art s/fx and I always appreciate when a letterer has the skill and is given the time to do so. While the dialogue is not literary, I also want to nod at Amanda Haley’s translation which has to make sense of nonsensical gadgets.  As always, my thanks to everyone on the Seven Seas team for an authentic reading experience.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 4 Bikinis
Yuri – 4

Overall – 7

A villain falls in love with a hero and they team up to fight the bad guys, but will love save the day? Find out in Volume 2, which is  heading our way in late summer!





My Alcoholic Escape from Reality by Nagata Kabi

May 14th, 2021

Right now the first Virtual Toronto Comic Arts Festival is underway on Youtube and this week we had the pleasure of watching Deb Aoki doing a pre-recorded interview with Nagata Kabi, the creator of comic essay My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, and its sequels. This interview will be available online until May 21, so definitely watch it while its available – its not often we North Americans get a chance to see our favorite manga artists.

This month also saw the release of Nagata-sensei’s newest work in English, My Alcoholic Escape From Reality, detailing her bout with alcohol-induced pancreatitis. As with her previous works, this book covers a number of personal details, physical and emotional. She made it very clear in the interview that she has regrets about the way she talked about her family in previous books and she addresses that in the book, as well.

In my review of this book in Japanese, I said, “We’ve watched Nagata-sensei struggle with food, with alcohol, with depression, and now with her pancreas. It’s all very heavy going, but as a reader I don’t feel like I have the luxury of wallowing since, for any bleak feelings I might have, I have to believe that it’s harder for her. To some extent, the only thing we can do is be distant, abstract cheerleaders on the sidelines of the parts of her life she chooses to share with us. We have to know were not getting the whole story – and we have to be okay with that. So we mentally pull for her and send good thoughts.”

And, indeed, we do mentally pull for her and send her good thoughts and she could see that in the interview chat, if she was interested. Especially now that we’ve put a face to the name, I imagine fans will care about her even more. Which makes this book harder to read, not easier, honestly! But there are two things I want to note – one, the second half of the book is less about her struggle with her physical body and more about the creative struggle…which I interpret as a very positive thing. The creative struggle, while no less real, is also much more abstract and requires the ability to think about something other than the pain in one’s abdomen. I’m sure we can all identify with how difficult it is to work when we don’t feel good. It’s a testament to her strength of will that she could work in such circumstances.

The second thing I noted in my review of the Japanese volume was that she’s back with East Press for this book. They aren’t the biggest publisher she’s worked with, but I’m kind of happy that she’s with them again. They are a very pro LGBTQ content company. Her newest book series is with Futabasha, another company that has been really positive for queer manga creators and content, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they do together!

Following this all up, Seven Seas announced the license of her next book, Meisou Senshi・Nagata Kabi(迷走戦士・永田カビ) as My Wandering Warrior Existence. You can read this online in Japanese on Web Action. This has a projected release date in English of March 2022. But wait, Nagata-sensei is working on *another* series now, Meisou Senshi・Nagata Kabi Gourmet De GO!  (迷走戦士・永田カビ グルメでGO！) the first chapter is also available on Web Action in Japanese. This is the story she alludes to in this volume – a food manga. I am really looking forward to this, as it’s an audacious and amazing concept having a food manga written by a woman with eating disorder and a contentious relationship with food. It should be fascinating.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Her style has really grown and visibly become more confident
Story – 8, by which I mean it can be gut-wrenching
Character – 9 ^_^;
Service – ? There’s some details in there.
LGBTQ – N/A, but wait. The next book is about her gender and sexuality

Overall – 8

Watch her TCAF interview and then take a look at this book translated ably by Jocelyn Allen. I also want to nod in the direction of the lettering and retouch folks, Karis Page and Gwen Silver, since Nagata’s pretty heavy on the in-art sound effects here. Thanks to the entire Seven Seas Team for their work on this book, and to TCAF staff, Jocelyne Allen for her delightful translation and interpretation and Deb Aoki for another great interview.





Dear Noman, Volume 1 – Guest Review by Luce

May 12th, 2021

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today we have a new Guest Reviewer, Luce, who is going to take us through a series I haven’t even had a chance to look at, so yay, I’m totally ready to learn something new. ^_^ Please give Luce you attention and consideration!

I’m Luce, long-time follower of this blog, and I own too many Yuri manga. Not that that’s much of a bad thing, though… I can be found as silverliningslurk on Tumblr, and farfetched #1235 on discord. Anyway, on with the review!

Mashiro is ostensibly a normal school girl—except she can see ghosts and spirits. After a terrifying encounter with one, she meets Bazu, a crow Noman (the name this series gives to anything not living) and Nelly, who both work for the Border Preservation Society. Due to an accidental bond (read: kiss) with the vitriolic Bazu, Mashiro ends up deciding to work with them to bring Nomans to peace and prevent them eating souls.

There are likely a good many series that deal with a supernaturally gifted human teaming up with a supernatural being to fight monsters, and I doubt this series will do anything new, per se. We have the initial monster, the one the new girl manages to talk around from violence, and the more obviously sentient one. I haven’t read too many of these, so it’s not a tired trope for me. It’s interesting enough, even if the grading system the Society uses for these monsters confuses me somewhat. I hope future volumes will shed some light on it.

What is probably slightly more novel is a canon lesbian. Well, at least one. It’s not the happiest of stories though, as she is a Noman… But it is possible it could take a turn for the better. Another character states that her death happened at least a few years ago, and says that things have ‘changed for the better’. Not that that helps her much, at the moment. This volume leaves that story on something of a cliffhanger, albeit a low stakes one, so we’ll have to find out in the next volume. As for being yuri between the main characters, it has potential. The only problem is the visual age gap. I say visual because Bazu, being a crow Noman, doesn’t have a stated age, and clearly didn’t age by human standards whilst alive, so it’s hard to tell. Her body is most definitely adult, while Mashiro says she is fourteen, and looks younger partly because she’s small, and partly because she’s drawn to look young. Age is a funny thing in manga anyway.

Quite a lot happens here, although the pacing didn’t feel rushed to me. I’m curious to see what happens with the lesbian noman, and with what I imagine to be foreshadowing, in that Mashiro frequently writes letters to her deceased older sister. I also want to see Bazu and Mashiro evolve and grow, regardless of whatever it will turn into a relationship or not. Bazu is pretty harsh and aggressive initially, although we see later than she has a good reason for her hatred. Mashiro is a little naive, and perhaps blunt, but she does genuinely care about Bazu, and wants to learn more about her. I’m intrigued to see the effect they have on each other.

All in all, for a series that looks like it could be quite light, it gets surprisingly dark, but it balances these quite well. I like it, and I’m looking forward to the second volume, slated to come out in English from Yen Press in June.

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – Bazu has, to borrow another character’s comment from a different series, ‘some mad cleavage’. It is, thankfully, not used in a servicey way, and there aren’t many lingering close ups. I’d say 3.
Yuri – there are kisses between women. They don’t mean a great lot emotionally… Until they do? We shall see. Canon lesbian puts it up to 5.

Overall – 7

Erica here: Sounds like it could be worth a read. Thank you very much for the fab review! This series reminds me a bit of Ghost Talker’s Daydream, with it’s tragic lesbians. ^_^;

You can find Dear Noman, Volume 1 on Amazon, Comixology/Kindle, RightStuf, Global Bookwalker and manga stores near you!





Strawberry Fields Once Again, Volume 2

April 23rd, 2021

As the pages of Kazura Kinosaki’s Strawberry Fields Once Again, Volume 2 opens, I am primed to find spanners in the works and, indeed, that is what happens, in several ways at once.

To begin where we left off, Akira has kissed Pure and in time-honored fiction fashion, Pure has passed out/overheated. Having kissed Pure, Akira pulls away, inexplicably telling herself that the woman who professes her love like 5 times a day, would have been put off by a kiss. (This is how you know Akira really is a lesbian. ^_^;) So that’s one spanner in the works.

Then we find that Pure has pushed Akira to go visit her father who, it turns out is alive and well and has a new family. Which she does and and has a lot of complicated feelings about it, quite naturally. Akira’s distancing from the world is making more sense now. Spanner number two. When Ruri, her brother confronts Pure with a question that seems out of the blue, then we might be forgiven for wondering if we’ve missed something critical because that seems a really big spanner. In a sense yes, we have, but it hasn’t happened yet, so we can be forgiven for forgetting that this is not just a school life Yuri drama. It will however have to remain a mystery as to what it is, until Volume 3. Unless you read my review of the Japanese volume, or remember the advice from my review of Volume 1. Then you know what it is and why the spanners are flying from every direction.

The art gets both tighter and more detailed and sketchier and less detailed in places. Akira’s face undergoes a massive change from the affectless face of Volume 1, as she runs through a gamut of expressions right until the end of this volume, where the biggest spanner of them all throws everything we think about this story into question.

When I originally read Volume 1 in Japanese I had little idea where the story was going, so put off reading Volume 2 for a while. By the time I got through Volume 2, I knew I had to read Volume 3, but was a little intimidated by it, for reasons that will become clear. Nonetheless as I finished the series, it was pretty well put together, with the kind of non-linear storytelling that keep me engaged.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

Thank you very much to Yen Press for the review copy, I really appreciate it and am looking forward to Volume 3 – which will be released in June of this year- very much. Thanks to everyone at Yen for bringing this story to an English reading audience.