Archive for the English Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 5 (English)

August 22nd, 2018

Bloom Into You, Volume 5 is a fairly major turning point in this story – characters are starting to be more honest with themselves and about themselves and, as a result, running into far more complicated questions about who they really are.

Touko and Yuu spend some time together during summer vacation. For a little while they get to be just two teens having a nice day together. It feels good. But once back at school the school festival is getting close and Yuu has become even more convinced that ending of the play must be changed – for Touko’s sake and for the sake of the play.

Which brings about an unusual shuffling of allegiances in the student council. Sayaka, who likes Touko and has always been by her side, betrays her for her own good. As they wait for their time on the stage to begin, Touko finds Yuu demanding she leave the idea of her sister’s unrealized legacy behind and be who she is. Forced by the play, and her best and closest friends, to give up everything she though she was, Touko has nothing but belief in Yuu left.

This volume feels different in a lot of ways. We and Yuu have been watching Touko define their relationship, but in this volume this changes. Now it’s on Yuu and she’s never seemed more confident. I’ve said from the beginning that I want to believe in the creator and hope that she will carry this story through. In this volume I think I can see where she’s going. Touko had no idea who she was, and neither did Yuu. Once Touko finds herself, if Yuu finds that she does have feelings for Touko it won’t feel like nearly so much of a punt. Ultimately, I really kind of hope that this isn’t a manga that ends with Yuu and Touko together, but I expect to be in a minority of one on that. ^_^

There’s also a side story about playwright Koyomi learning that her favorite writer is a woman and being surprisied by that. She’s forced to rethink her own expectations about meeting the author. I wonder, every time I have read that scene, just who it was for. I feel so strongly that there’s a semi-private conversation gaining on between Nakatani-sensei and someone specific there. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8 As they become more complicated, I like them more
Yuri – 3
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Quoting from my review of the Japanese volume, “This is the first volume we’ve seen Yuu push back at Touko and my interest in this series grew three times as a result. I guess I’d been waiting for Yuu to be an active participant in the narrative; 5 volumes into it, she finally has become one. I now look forward to seeing what becomes of her.“





Yuri Manga: After Hours, Volume 2 (English)

August 21st, 2018

In After Hours, Volume 2, Emi finds herself lost in the cracks of her own life. She likes being part of what Kei is doing and she likes the team, but she has no confidence in herself, or the choices she’s making.  And the fact that she’s never told Kei about her boyfriend, her apartment and the life she walked away from is driving a wedge between them.

In the meantime, the team has added a new member, Midori and navigated more than one breakdown in teamwork. But they’ve got a location and equipment and music and a designer and Kei and Emi are working together pretty well…so why is neither of them all that happy?

Luckily for them, Emi snaps and comes clean, and finally asks the question that really is eating at her – wat, exactly, is she to Kei? She’s a little surprised to find that Kei’s answer is conventional and they get to say to each other that being together is what makes them happiest. 

And then…it’s the night of the event. 

The characters in this series – especially for such a short series- pretty well-developed, but we still have to a do a fair bit of reading into the characters, particularly when it comes to motivation. I can’t help wonder why Emi makes the choices she makes. Kei, who was presented as a bohemian free spirit, turns out to be pretty traditional after all.

Ratings: 

Art – 5
Story – 8 
Characters – 9 
Service – 2 
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

For a seinen magazine, and for a story that is mean to frame sex scenes, the frame is pretty solid and the sex scene in’t too pandery.  

Volume 3 will be available at the end of 2018, and we’ll get to see what happens when Emi and Kei are able to work in sync, at last.





Yuri Manga: Sweet Blue Flowers, Volume 4 (English)

July 9th, 2018

Of Volume 3, I wrote “This volume is, in my opinion the strongest of what Viz will release as four volumes. We can see the progress the young women make as people, before the story turns back into itself to fulfill the requirements of a romance series.” 

Volume 4 of Takako Shimura’s Sweet Blue Flowers, begins with a  problem. Akira is dating Fumi. They have a physical relationship and she’s not unhappy with it, but…she’s not happy, either. Fumi’s interest is sincere and intense, but Akira is going along with it to make Fumi happy, not for herself. This is not a problem that will go away with time.  

The ladies of Fujigaya and Matsuoka schools are all heading into their third year. Once again, the focus is on the school festival, the play and, this time, the class trips. Fumi and Akira’s friends all scramble to find themselves as high schoolers, before they are asked to become adults. Lives and loves are in turmoil as they decide at 18, what will affect them for years to come. 

Akira goes to London, where she seeks out Sugimoto, who seems to have found herself at last. Sugimoto gets Akira to admit that there is a problem with her relationship, but it remains unaddressed – and Sugimoto walks any criticism back.  Which, as an adult reader, made me want to storm into the room and sit them both down. 

The problem builds quietly until, just as quietly, Fumi and Akira break up. Once again, as a reader, I was relieved. And I was thrilled to see, through Akira’s eyes, Fumi with someone else. If the book had ended there, I would have been satisfied. But it didn’t. Was Shimura-sensei pressured by her editor or the fans? Did she have no particular conviction? Or was this the plan all along? I don’t know. 

As I said in 2013 when I reviewed the end in Japanese, “Without spoilers, I will assure you that you the ending does not bring closure. It has the one thing I had hoped for – ambiguity.”

Other relationships, however, get my blessing. Ko and Kyouko, having gone through so much, maybe have a chance, but the one wedding that I wish we had spent more time on was Yamashina-sensei and Ono’s big sister, who come out to family as a couple, even if their families aren’t ready to accept them.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters –  9
Service – 3
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 9

Here’s the the thing that’s amazing about Sweet Blue Flowers – it started serialization in 2005. It’s 13 years old. More than a decade ago it was a beacon of Yuri. In 2018, it’s an important stepping stone to where we are now, and now that we have a definitive edition for this in English, it’s time to move forward into a genre that has matured.





Cutie Honey-A-Gogo Manga (English)

July 8th, 2018

From the moment you see the brokeback pose and the modern-yet-Op Art cover, you know that you’re in for a ride with Cutie Honey a Gogo. And then you look at the credits: Original Story by Go Nagai, Honey’s creator, Story & Art by Shimpei Itoh, creator of Hyperdolls and artist for Taisho Yakyuu Musume, with cooperation from Hideaki Anno, the Director of the 2004 Cutie Honey Live-Action Movie and you know that this manga is going to be out of this world. 

And so it is. 

Cutie Honey a Gogo is a 2007 iteration of the eternal heroine Kisaragi Honey, aka Cutie Honey, a transforming android, who fights against the grotesque and violent Panther Claw, run by Sister Jill. 

This volume has everything I could ever want in a Cutie Honey story. Nat-chan is strong (and angry) and goes a little soft because of Honey, Sister Jill is obsessed, useless authority figures abound, random and pointless BDSM is inserted and, in the final pages, at St. Chapel Girl’s School (woo-hoo!) we get a sweet little bit of Yuri between Naoko and Ayu.  Couldn’t ask for anything better. 

If I haven’t been clear, let me be plain – this is a bluntly violent manga in which there are many casualties, but not as violent the original manga in which no one survives. 

But then, as someone on Twitter noted (but I cannot find the post to credit) Dirty Pair sounds filthy, but it’s not and Cutie Honey sounds innocent, but it’s not. It never has been. When you step into a Cutie Honey story, expect fanservice and death to follow.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Shimpei Itoh was a great choice
Story – 9 For a Cutie Honey story, this pretty much is exactly right.
Characters – 9 Same
Service – Yes, duh. Itoh does a terrific job of translating Honey’s transformation into sequential art
Yuri – Dribs and drabs. Let’s call it a 3

Overall – 8

I’m so glad to see this most excellent iteration of such  a timeless, yet always questionable, series. ^_^ 





Yuri Manga: Éclair: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart

July 6th, 2018

Éclair: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart is the first-ever Yuri anthology to be translated into English. Featuring work by Canno (Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl) and Nio Nakatani (Bloom Into You), along with other well-known names in Yuri circles, sucha Shuninta Amano, Hachi Itou, Taki Kitao, Sakuya Amano, Auri Hirao (whose Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu is being made into an anime later in the year)  and others. 

The stories primarily focus on school-life scenarios, with a few forays into adult life. Nakatani-sensei’s opener sets the tone, with a complex and nuanced look at how complicated attraction can be. This continues throughout the volume, in which love is not as simple as “A girl likes another girl.” More often, the girl has much more layered approach to the other girl, as in Shuninta Amano’s “Human Emotion” in which a girl finds her essential humanity by caring.

I especially like Kagekichi Tadano’s “Game Over” in which two girls appear to be living in a post-apocalyptic story, but aren’t. No one will be surprised that I like Taki Kitao’s “Two Apples and Us,” as I’ve been a fan of her work for (erk!) decades.

For a slick, professional look at “Yuri” as seen by a number of unique artistic voices and styles, Éclair is a great example of one of the foundational blocks of the Yuri market from the days before Yuri manga magazines – collected stories by talented artists in a thematic anthology. I hope you all enjoy Éclair and clamor for more – there’s at least three more in the series,  rouge, blanche and bleue. ^_^

Ratings:

All ratings are variable as its an anthology.

Overall – 7

For a glimpse of people doing their own work in the confines of a major publisher’s rules, Éclair is an “original” work. In English, it’s unique.