Archive for the English Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Nameless Asterism (English)

April 9th, 2018

Nameless Asterism by Kina Kobayashi, is a school life story. It begins with three girls, Shiratori, Washio, and Kotooka who have been friends for years. Kotooka has a boyfriend (a new one in a string of boyfriends, apparently) and Washio and Shiratori are determined to be supportive. But as Shiratori watches Washio, it becomes obvious to her that Washio has feeling for Kotooka. When she discovers Washio kissing a sleeping Kotooka, she lets Washio she knowsn. Washio admits her feelings, but promises that the three of them being friends is more important to her than her feelings, so she will say nothing.  Only, the love polygon doesn’t end there and the end of the volume adds, rather than subtracts, people from it.

This manga presented me with a bit of a personal mystery. As I read it I felt absolutely certain that I had read this story already.  But I could not, for the life of me, remember where or when. 

In Japanese manga volumes that collect magazine chapters, one of the technical credits in the back indicates where a story chapter was first published – what magazine, which issue, whether it is original for this book or originally published as a doujinshi…that kind of thing. Sadly for me, English-language volumes do not typically provide anything more detailed than the name of the creator and publisher.  I’m not complaining, really, I know I’m one of few – if any – people who care, but it would have saved me a few moments of searching. ^_^ It turns our that this is  series is from Gangan Comics Online. by Square Enix. As it happens I am reading a Gangan Comics Online comic right now, Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu by Kuzushiro . But other than that one, I don’t read many Square Enix titles. However, after more research, I found a review here on Okazu for an extremely similar one-shot story called “Isshun no Asterism” about three schoolgirls – one of whom sacrifices her love for another to preserve their friendship – by Amagure Kido a few years ago. So that explains that. ^_^ 

In any case, the characters here are sympathetic, if a tad uncomplicated for this adult reader. Even in high school, even in love, I remember having more of an internal monologue than just one thing.  But the characters are not unlikable and while I hold out no hope whatsoever that Washio will end up with Kotooka, nor do I think she’ll find space in the narrative to come out to herself or anything, really, it’s  a pleasant and swift read. And with Seven Seas, you can always count on consistently high quality of reproduction and translation. 

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Service – 1 on principle
Yuri – 4

Overall – 7

Nameless Asterism is a completed 5-volume set in Japanese. In English, Volume 1 and Volume 2 are currently available and Volume 3 will be hitting shelves this autumn. 

Many thanks to Seven Seas for providing a review copy!





Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 5 (English)

March 20th, 2018

In Yoshimurakana’s MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 5, little girls wearing yellow boots and carrying blue umbrellas are turning up strangled and the police are stumped.

Kuroko works on the case…and one of the bereaved mothers. She also finds time to meet with her erstwhile opponent at Virginal Rose, Teresa, now going by her real name, Narumi, who has gathered the Virginal Rose survivors and is trying to make a safe space for abused girls. Kuroko offers to underwrite the shelter/school if they work as informants, an idea that has been used in some of my favorite literature for centuries, so I approve.

In the meantime, we are subjected to the trials of Sora, who was kidnapped by the killer, so that we can be creeped out by the storyline. It is successfully creepy.

 Kuroko wraps this storyline up swiftly, for which I am now twice thankful. Even more thankfully, the end of the book see the return of weird-eyed Reiko the sniper in a new, exceptionally violent chapter. 

Final chapters are both silly and awful in equal part. Hinako is coming across as ever more unhinged. 

Reading this manga has taught me a lot about myself. I’ve known since Ikkitousen days that I do not mind violence as long as it is between two equally matched people. Exploitative or abusive violence enrages and disgusts me (probably much as the kind of violence I don’t mind makes other people feel, I imagine.)  I like weapons expertly handled. There is no form of hand-to-hand combat that I find dull, but man, do I really dislike the idea of people being beaten to death by skillless jerks with bats. Pisses me off no end to see people beaten by cowards who have to gang up or sucker punch victims. Huh. So, this too, goes into the folder of “no” when it comes to tolerable violence. On the other hand, I have a mental folder for tolerable violence. Huh. 

Yuri? Yes. Kuroko’s amassed quite a harem by Volume 5. Chiyo is her steady, of course, and we see her with Nanami and Matoi and of course Yuria, the medical examiner (who I had completely forgotten by Volume 10 in Japanese, which I was reading along side of this. Good thing she was here to remind me who she was. ) 

Ratings:

Art – 6 No less ugly than usual
Story – 5 Violence against little girls is in the no folder.
Characters – 8 Manipulative and vile, but I like ’em.
Service – 10 Nothin’ but
Yuri – 8  Having a lesbian psychopath as a protagonist definitely keeps this rating high. ^_^

Overall – 9

I love the next arc and any and all time spent with Reiko. Spider ahoy!





Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 4 (English)

February 27th, 2018

In Bloom Into You, Volume 4, as the Student Council goes into a stay-over training camp in order to work on their play for the school festival, the principal characters encounter issues they’ve brought with them from their past into their present. 

Sayaka is forced to deal with a memory being pissed all over by her first lover. The sempai, in attempting to absolve Sayaka of any blame for their gay relationship, forces her to use Touko to make a point about being gay anyway. Touko doesn’t mind, but the whole thing is awkward and uncomfortable. Sayaka’s then brought into close quarters with the girl she desires, but cannot have. She cannot not see Touko’s interactions with Yuu, she cannot not know what they mean. She has no course at all but to be stoic, which is in unfair step down from just having an unrequited fantasy. I am still primarily reading this series for Sayaka and really want to see her happy by the end of it.

Yuu learns from a friend and teammate from middle school that her current state of dissatisfaction at being overworked with Student Council stuff marks a pretty major shift from her previous lack of engagement with pretty much everything. I read too much manga, I know, but my mind went directly to another MediaWorks manga that used pathological lack of engagement as a plot complication, Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl. Is this a key development moment for Yuu, or just a thing that is told to us to explain her ambivalence? Unfortunately for readers, we cannot be sure if anything we’re presented has weight of meaning. It could easily be a handwave.

We can be sure that something came to some kind of head when we all see Touko get extraordinarily emotional as they rehearse the play. Kanou-san just got way too close to the truth (as Yuu notes privately,) with her script. Touko is competing with the ideal of a dead older sister  who turns out to have actually been a bit of a jerk. She learns her sister used the people around her and is then told, quite incorrectly, that she’s nothing like Mio. But we readers can see that she is much more like her sister than anyone knows.

If the book took a direction that made me happy, Touko would confront her own behavior in regards to Yuu and change. Yuu would be then given a chance to decide if she wanted to be with this Touko. And Sayaka would meet a nice girl. But realistically, I’m just waiting for the magic handwave that will make Yuu decide she loves Touko and they’ll get married on a rainbow-bathed chapel in the sky. Oh, sorry, switched to Kashimashi again. 

Seven Seas has given us an excellent, authentic manga reading experience with this volume, so we can relax and be perplexed by the story. ^_^

Ratings: (quote directly from the review of the JP volume)

Art – 8
Story – 5 This issue has issues
Characters – 8 
Yuri – 7
Service – 4 Bathing scenes with three girls, two of whom are lesbian.

Overall – 8….

I really want to like this series. I just still don’t know if I do. Huh, just like Yuu feels about Touko. How ironic. ^_^

Volume 5 in English hits shelves in June 2018.  Thanks very much to Seven Seas for a review copy, but I had already gotten it for myself. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Kase-san and an Apron (English)

February 18th, 2018

Yamada’s life has changed radically since she’s started to go out with Kase-san. She’s always been kind of average and had no confidence in herself, except in relation to the greenery committee at school. But being with Kase-san has taught her some important things. 

In Kase-san and an Apron, the 4th volume of Takashima Hiromi’s high school Yuri romance, during the school festival a tired trope about jealousy is turned into a lesson is about speaking your mind.

Yamada has always been jealous of Kase-san’s talent, her athleticism, her popularity. But when she learns that Kase-san has felt the same way, something important takes root in her, a germ of self-confidence that will continue to grow through the volume. Kase-san has been teaching her to value her own strengths – her persistence, her desire to do things for the joy of it. Guilelessly, Kase-san is also teaching Yamada that she’s attractive just the way she is.

Yamada’s best friend Miwacchi has also started noticing the changes. In her own offhand way, she praises Yamada for deciding on a college in Tokyo, rather than shooting for a local school and a less interesting life. 

The chapters that comprise this volume were originally distributed variably online and in print,  and the collected volume itself came out in Japan just after the official animation clip was released. (I reviewed the deluxe edition which included the Blu-ray of the clip here on Okazu last autumn.)

This series, which got it’s start in a quarterly, now defunct, Yuri magazine, has continued to chug along with surprising strength. This summer that little animation clip will get a theatrical release as a OVA movie and  we’ll be getting more Yamada and Kase-san in days to come! The Kase-san series is the little Yuri series that could. ^_^ It is everything I have looked for in a high school Yuri romance. It’s got honesty and growth and humor and a likable couple who have friends and teachers and family and interests outside the romance. And in the meantime, the artist’s skill has grown considerably. Her panels are tight, her lines are deft and her use of body language (which has always been good) and expression have gotten stronger.

It’s gonna be hard to beat this for best of the year, I think.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Character – 9
Story – 8
Service – 2 It’s dropped considerably since moving to Wings.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Thanks very much to the folks at Seven Seas for the review copy! This is hitting shelves here in the west this week, so get out there and get yourself a copy!. I’m hoping to take a physical copy of the book with me to Japan and get it signed by Takashima-sensei. ^_^ Fingers crossed.





Yuri Manga: Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 4 (English)

January 11th, 2018

Mizuki is facing a crisis. It’s her senior year and her last chance to make the nationals in track. But her longtime friend and her inspiration, Moe, can see that it’s not so simple as just ramping up training.

Moe insists that Mizuki stop using her as a muse and find it in herself to run because she wants to. In Volume 4 of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Mizuki loses the battle, but wins the war when finds her love of running again, and she and Moe get to admit their true feelings for each other.

This is, to date, one of my favorite volumes of Canno’s series. The set-up feels more honest and less “plot complication”-y than most of the scenarios in the series so far. I also quite like Moe because she’s says what she’s thinking, a quality not often see in Yuri romances. Additionally, the series has sort of settled in for a longer haul now, and we can turn our eyes almost completely away from main couple Kurozawa and Shiramine without fearing that the entire series will disappear in a puff. So, while Yurine and Ayaka do make an appearance, it’s almost a walk on, until the amusingly snarky final chapter, which was all obligatory Valentine’s Day stories ever, all at once.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7 Cute, sweet, etc
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 on principle only

Overall – 8

The English-language Volume 5 has a release date of late February, and I’m working on Volume 7 in Japanese right now. At this rate of release you’re all gonna all catch up with the Japanese series by next summer!