Archive for the English Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Bear Storm, Volume 2 (English)

December 9th, 2019

We met Kureha, a human surrounded by bears, and Gingko, the bear princess with whom she falls in love in Volume 1.

In Volume 2 of Yuri Bear Storm, what is already a confusing story, takes on extra layers of obfuscation as Lulu, another bear in love with Gingko, shows up. The three of them end up living together, and we begin to learn that Gingko and Kureha are linked by a long list of connections, not the least of which is that their mothers, and Yurika, the school principal, were apparently lovers in the past.

While every piece of the plot is presented as a “Once upon a time” fairytale, none of those pieces seem to fit together, quite, although they clearly belong to the same puzzle. By the end of volume 2, we can see that Gingko and Kureha are bound by fate, but how, exactly and what that fate is, are seen from two sides of a one-way mirror. Each girl knows the other is there, but they can’t quite see….

And added to the equation is the appearance of Bear Witch Sumika, (Kureha’s lover from the anime.) She appears to know something about Kureha that the girl doesn’t know about herself. What that is, we might learn, but equally, we might not, in this Ikuhara Kunihiko story, stamped all over with the seal of a lily, but frequently without plot threads that connect.

I really love this manga for Morishima Akiko’s art, and the cognitive dissonance between her cherubic characters and the significant psychological (and, occasionally, physical) violence of the story. These are the cutest bears disemboweling humans you’ll ever see.

Translator Katie McLendon does heroic work making this story make as sense as it possibly can, while the entire Tokyopop team does a fine job of giving this book the feel and finish it deserves.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8 We get more Yurika!
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 8

For an adorable fairytale about multiple three-person relationships, death, destruction loss and love, Yuri Bear Storm is a pretty amazing (if not “good”) story.





The Rose of Versailles Manga, Volume 1 (English)

December 8th, 2019

The Rose of Versailles, Volume 1 is a definitive edition of Riyoko Ikeda’s magnum opus. I say this with absolute conviction in and knowledge of the amount of work – and love – that went into it’s making. 

Oscar François de Jarjeyes is a young noblewoman raised as a son by her father. As commander of Marie Antoinette’s palace guard, Oscar is brought face-to-face with the luxury of King Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. Joined by her servant André, Oscar is privy to the intrigue and deceit of France’s last great royal regime.

I am quoting the editorial slug for this book because I wrote it in the first place and I think it stands as a perfectly fine synopsis. ^_^

Volume 1 begins at the beginning, with the births of three of the main players in our drama, Hans Axel Von Fersen in Sweden,  Oscar François De Jarjayes in France and Royal Highness Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne de Lorraine D’Autriche, in Austria, known to her family as Maria Antonia and to history as Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.

The story takes us through Oscar and Maria’s childhoods, through the moment their lives converge upon Maria’s arrival in France to marry Louis-Auguste Bourbon, the Dauphin of France all the way to Fersen’s confession to Oscar of his love for Marie and Oscar’s patronage of Rosalie Lamorliére, an orphaned Parisian girl. It’s 498 pages of high drama. And, for the first time ever, color pages have been restored to their original chapters, as they were seen in the original magazine run. (For those of you wondering why there was a such a long delay between the license and the printing, finding good quality versions of these images was among the many things the publisher needed to do. The original magazine files were no longer available through the Japanese publisher. And all of the placement had to be approved by the creator. )

The book itself is gorgeous. Hardcover, with raised red and gold lettering, and a truly brilliant cover design by Andy Tsang. The only touch it is missing is gilt-edging, but I guessed (and the publisher has confirmed) that that would have pushed the cost per book up significantly. Still… it would have looked sweet.

The biggest surprise to me, having never read the entirety of the story before editing it, was how much less decent a person General De Jarjayes is in the manga than the anime.

As I edited the book, I kept capturing Oscar’s face from various panels. The end result is a fantastic short version of her evolution as a character. ^_^ Here she is at the beginning and the end of Volume 1.

The art is very of its time, the story more compelling for the characters we meet and begin to care about. Translation was done with painstaking research, and I sure as heck did my best with the editing!

If ever you have thought that you want to buy the kind of book that will be with us 40 years later and still be as timely and meaningful…this is that book.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Uhhhh, Oscar in a uniform is service, so 6
Yuri – 1 for the court scenes, 2 for Rosalie

Overall – 9

The Rose of Versailles is a remarkably accurate telling of a true story from the perspective of a wholly fictitious character. It is also disturbingly timely as we move inexorably towards a similar climax here in the USA and, based on other protests we’re seeing globally, we can be pretty sure which way the cannons will point.





Yuri Manga: A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Volume 1 (English)

December 6th, 2019

Konatsu’s father has been transfered overseas, so she is now living with a relative in a small seaside town in Ehime. Although she is from Tokyo, Konatsu is a little reserved, afraid to assume and careful about making friends. Even when the girl who sits next to her in class is outgoing and friendly, she’s worried about seeming too forward. But compared to the school star Koyuki, Konatsu is downright outgoing. A chance encounter bring the two girls together and almost immediately they feel something much more than mere friendship. In order to be near Koyuki, Konatsu joins the aquarium club. They help each other out in club, but also out of their social shells. When they both find themselves able to express anything, it seems to be more than they expected.

When I reviewed Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru, Volume 1 (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる ) I called this “a charming little love story about two girls and a cute salamander.”  A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Volume 1 is still charming and the salamander is still cute.  Both Koyuki and Konatasu live very much in their own heads, are a little fearful of expressing intimacy. Unusually, this puts them in the position of falling for one another before actually being friends (or frenemies, even,) something we don’t see all that much right now in Yuri romance.

This Viz edition looks lovely. The cover is made to look very much like an aquarium, but more importantly, the binding is lovely. I have no idea why I am enamored of the binding, but I picked this book up and the first words out of my mouth were, “wow, what beautiful binding.” ^_^ All in all, it just looks great. Other than marine life jargon, the dialogue here is not complicated, nonetheless translator John Werry, Eve Grandt’s lettering and touch-up (a fantastically difficult job that does not get enough attention!), Yukiko Whitely’s design work and Pancha Diaz’ editorial touch made this a relaxing read. I was able to just settle in to the narrative and let both Konatsu and Koyuki do the worrying for me.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 1 on principle only, there really isn’t any
Yuri – 7

Overall – 8

I know what’s coming and I’ll just warn you all to be patient. There will be no rushing this story, I assure you.

Volume 2 will be released in February.

Thanks very much to Viz Media for the review copy!





MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 12 (English)

November 29th, 2019

I’ve never reviewed Volume 12 of MURCIÉLAGO because it’s probably one volumes with the least lesbian content in the series. It does, however, contain a tale of obsessive love that, while incredibly bizarre, is not at all creepy (in the sense of it being straight up horror and not sexual in any way.)

Someone is killing the traditional swordmasters of Japan. Kuroko and the gang are called into to track down the killer, who appears to be a phantasm. In actual fact, she is a phantasm, the soul of a deeply broken woman who would have been the greatest sword wielder had she lived. Instead, killed by her sister, she has possessed her sister’s body and in enacting her vendetta. To combat her, Kuroko challenges her to a duel, but Kuroko may have, at last, met her match.

This volume still has more straight up action than almost any previous volume, which is both really interesting and not at all interesting, as the art is less worried about the specifics than the general effect.

A short epilogue lets us join in with Kuroko as she takes sniper Reiko out for some new clothes. We get to see Reiko play dress up and are left knowing that she’s buying them for her girlfriend, which is the only Yuri we get in the volume, but I’ll take all the Reiko I can get. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 For this series, it’s quite good
Story – Same as above
Characters – 8
Service – 3
Yuri – 1

Overall – 8

An even more action-packed and fight-filled volume of MURCIÉLAGO than usual.

Next up, we’re gettin’ weird. Again. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Still Sick, Volume 1 (English)

November 20th, 2019

We are edging ever closer to the event horizon where Yuri manga in English is coming out at the same time as in Japanese. It was only March of this year when I reviewed this book in Japanese. Here we are, a mere 7 months later and we’re looking at Akashi’s Still Sick, Volume 1 in English, from Tokyopop.

Shimizu Makoto is a hard-working team leader for an engineering group. She’s also an otaku, with a hobby of drawing Yuri fanzines for comic markets. When she’s discovered by her coworker, Shimizu is desperately afraid that Maekawa will use the knowledge against her. Instead, Maekawa turns out to have a secret of her own. The two of them grow closer almost against their will. It’s not a bad relationship, but it isn’t a good one either. Maekawa uses Shimizu’s emotions against her to protect herself, Shimizu is hiding from everything to protect herself. It’ll take some serious work for the two of them to move forward. In the meantime, they are becoming more of a team and closer as friends…it’s all very messy and human.

There are a number of translation choices that are worth noting. “Fan comics” and “fanzine” for doujinshi are spot on, and I laughed at the use of “headcannon” because…yes. ^_^ The definition of “onee-sama” as being used by bottoms to address tops is a bit dodgy. It’s not wholly incorrect, but not really correct, either. In any case, I probably wouldn’t have described it that way. ^_^; The discussion of Yuri in between chapters was solid, no complaints here. Overall, Katie Kimura did a decent job translating. Tokyopop’s technicals are solid, all the visuals and the font are comfortab;ly legible, even in digital format.

Of all the working society Yuri manga I have been reading, this is one of my favorites. The characters are slightly broken, in a very human way, and the outcomes of their exchanges are not at all predictable. Still Sick gives us a very otaku view of office relationships, and a very human perspective on Yuri.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Solid, not outstanding
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 3, with a lot of potential
Service – 0 so far

Overall – 8

This is not girl meets girl, girl falls in love, the end. This is broken woman meets broken woman, they don’t fall in love, but they kind do, only not really, and there’s some other stuff they need to work on, not the end.

Thanks very much to Tokyopop for the review copy.