Archive for the Luce Category


Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, Volume 2, Guest Review by Luce

February 9th, 2022

It’s Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu and again we welcome back Luce for continuing coverage of Eri Ejima’s school life series!

In volume one, we met Mitsuki Aya, a girl who had given up fighting games prior to joining a posh game-banning school on schloarship, and ‘Shirayuri-sama’, a girl who is highly revered for her poise and elegance… And just so happens to love fighting games! The two embark on matches together, but their previous safe haven had been locked. They can game outside at the weekends if the weather is good, but that’s not good enough!

Thus, in volume two of Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, we see them try to find a place indoors where they will be able to game. There happens to be an empty room with a broken lock, but just when they think it’s safe, there’s a knock on the door… The Dormitory Affairs Committee!

The second volume is as daft as the first, but we gain some teammates. One isn’t so good at fighting games – or rather, has become disillusioned with losing to online players, and they set her to training. The other craftily joined the committee so she could have a single room and therefore game to get hearts content. Those closest to the law, and all. With the four of them in one of the Dorm Affair senpai’s room, they are free to game. And game they do. Surely that lack of sleep has got to catch up with them?!

Amusingly, who we thought was called Shirayuri-sama… actually isn’t called that at all. It’s a nickname unwillingly given to her by the gushing school girls: she’s actually called Yorue Mio, and Aya’s agreement to use her name makes her pretty happy, but also opens up rumours around school that they might be dating. We have in-universe yuri shippers. This flies over their heads because they’re far more concerned with mentally strategising about beating each other to a pulp (in their fighting game).

There is a lot of fighting game talk in here. I’ve never played fighting games, but I have played some other games, so some concepts are more foreign to me than others. For the people not in the know, there are notes peppered around if something can be easily explained, but at the end of each chapter, there’s a more thorough debrief of the concepts included, so you don’t feel too alienated by the talk. It’s actually nice to see someone doing a manga around something they are clearly passionate about – and choosing to do it with notes helps with not having heavy exposition laden text. I applaud that decision, as conversation flows better, and means we don’t have to have the token newbie who knows nothing like usual. 

The art, as ever, cracks me up. It feels very real to have two teenagers complaining that they’re going to die if they can only game at the weekend. It’s actually really nice to see those tumultuous emotions not applied to romance. As for romance, clearly their schoolmates think they’re dating. They clearly aren’t, and I’m on the fence, but it’s so self-aware of it looking like a romance that I could probably see someone getting together at least. Maybe those senpais…?

I’m enjoying this series a lot more than I thought I would, starting out. It’s ridiculous, but in a good way.

Story – 7 (now I think about it manga about girls gaming feels kind of rare?)
Art – 8
Service – 3? Aya is in a bath, but it’s never purposely salacious.  
Yuri – 5? The in universe shippers certainly think something is going on, but some frames…
Overall – 9

I think this is actually one of my favourite new series coming out at the moment! I’m looking forwards to more. Next time: a tournament! Looking forward to seeing how these girls practice and sneak out of school for that one. 

 
 




Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology, Guest Review by Luce

November 24th, 2021

A cropped header of the cover of Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology. (I have used the cropped one as the full image whilst not explicit, is not really safe for work)

I’m Luce and often my curiosity gets the better of me. See also: I read and reviewed it so you don’t have to! Gave Erica a break, anyhow. You can find me on the Okazu discord as farfetched, and on tumblr as silverliningslurk. Onward, at your own peril.

Double Your Pleasure is an erotic yuri anthology based around twins, from authors such as Naoko Kodama who has done Days of Love at Seagull Villa. I think this is what they call ‘Dead Dove content’, also known as ‘does what it says on the tin’. I don’t know if I was expecting anything different from what I got, to be honest.

This review could be as short as: a series of twins having sex in various places. That’s pretty much all this is. If that’s your thing, then it’s great. I do find twins interesting… but not so much in this context. As far as I’m aware, sibling relationships are much more common in Japanese media than they are in English media, as are teacher-student relationships. I don’t know why – someone more versed in Japanese culture might be able to comment more thoroughly on it – but for some reason, they seem to go down a treat, at least with enough people to get published. I somehow can’t imagine something like this being published in the western world, but this made it here, so presumably there is some demand. I could possibly guess the type.

To be honest, where a third party was included it was a bit more interesting to me, but the focus on twins being so obsessed with their differences felt quite odd. Maybe it was low-hanging fruit, but nearly all of the stories featured twins either trying to be exactly the same, or very focused on the few things that they matched in. I’m not a twin, so I can only imagine that it probably is something they are concerned about to a degree, but I feel like most twins (I happen to know two separate triplets, too) I know don’t like being compared, and are no more interested in their siblings than non-twin siblings.

Basically, this is a fetish-catering manga. There is a lot of focus on nipples, and the sex is shown. The preview on Bookwalker has one full short story, and it’s about the same from there. One of the ones that particularly irked me was a story where two twins are very different… but their weights are the same. Why? Because the one tries to match her intake and output to the other. Loosely linked to binary stars?

Basically, if you’re into it, you’re into it, and it does what it says on the tin, and does that pretty well. If you’re not, you’re probably reading this with a sense of horror. If you’re curious, read the preview on Global Bookwalker, (with an 18+ warning to click through) and if you hate that, it only gets better in the sense that the rest of the book isn’t quite as non-consensual. Oh, did I mention that? In the first story, the twins get annoyed that someone can tell them apart and force themselves on her as punishment. It’s my least favourite… not that I had any favourites. I won’t be reading this again.

Ratings:

Art – 7 – mixture of artists, all fairly decent.
Story – 1: twins have sex, sometimes someone else is included, in one it was a dream. I think.
Characters – 2 – few characters have any depth beyond ‘I’m obsessed with my twin and this correlates to sexual activity with them’.
Service (level of salaciousness) – 10. Lots of sex. Every story. Dead dove content, if you will.
Yuri –  10, I mean. They’re all explicit yuri, so…
Overall – 4.

Thank you to Seven Seas for the review copy. I’m off to read something a little more wholesome.

Erica here: Thank you Luce, for once again stepping in to give us a solid review of this jiggly collection.

For my part, I was merely sad that none of the creators tried to do something interesting with the premise. Like, an astronaut returns fall in love with another astronaut of a space station and they find they were separated at birth…or something. But as you say, this is “a series of twins having sex” so, if that’s a reader’s thing, then that reader ought to like it.  ^_^





Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games! Volume 1, Guest Review by Luce

November 17th, 2021

Cover image of the manga Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games by Eri EjimaI’m Luce, several time reviewer here and long-time book collector who is very much a tsundoku exhibiting person. I’ve been reading my manga though, including this one, a small gem from Seven Seas who are probably my new favourite company. Not that I really have those, but they do a lot of Yuri. I’ll ignore some of the other series they do. Anyhow! I can be found on the Okazu discord as farfetched, and on tumblr as silverliningslurk. Ready, fight!

In Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, Mitsuki Aya is one of the only new students in Kuromi Girls Academy, a prestigious private school, attending on a scholarship. She’s trying her utmost act as ladylike as the other (mostly rich) girls in the school, but none more so than Shirayuri, the epitome of elegant grace and another new student. At least… That’s what everyone thinks, including Aya, until she catches her late at night not only playing fighting games, but violently trash-talking the person she just trounced. Outing herself as a gamer to Shirayuri accidentally, Aya is asked to join a match, but she’s given them up – or at least, tried to. Aya’s own previous obsession with fighting games and a new-found rivalry between the two aside, there’s a big problem here – all games are banned at the school!

It sounds ridiculous. It kind of is ridiculous. It clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously, with the name ‘Shirayuri’ (literally white lily) being pointed out in the translation as something incredibly flowery and a highly unusual Japanese name. But it’s good. The way that Shirayuri flips on a coin from a lovely girl held on a pedestal to someone downright crass is funny, and some of the responses to things that Aya says are hilarious. For example, Aya starts saying how she eschewed fighting games to become a ‘proper lady’ and all this noble speak… And Shirayuri basically responds with ‘wtf you talking about, fight me’.

That’s pretty refreshing, honestly. Shirayuri clearly has no intention of leaving something she loves to fully become the mask she portrays everywhere else, and doesn’t see why Aya is so hung up on this ideal. They have several virtual matches, which are pretty well drawn and narrated as such by Aya’s thoughts, breaking down her predictions and actions in a way that feels pretty smooth and close to what I feel like a slow motion fight scene would feel like. They get caught… and their escape is just as ridiculous and funny as the reactions. The series flips quite well between the elegant lady aesthetic and a caricatured ugliness of real emotion. The mangaka does both quite well.

As for yuri, well, I’m not 100% sure that it will be yuri, but if it is, it certainly won’t be something fluffy like Girlfriends. They’ll be fighting all the way along. But some of the scenes and panels on their own make me feel like this series could well go on a yuri-ish direction. There is clearly a lot of idol worship towards Shirayuri that could lean that way, but even other than that, some of the art just makes me think this will be yuri. Natsume, Aya’s roommate, clearly thinks they’re together. I mean, Shirayuri, her name aside, is introduced with lilies in the background. Bookwalker told me it’s yuri, so I’m going to believe it, since it feels too self-aware to not be.

Next volume, they decide they have to find something safe to game inside. I hope Aya comes to a revelation that she can enjoy things and be elegant, or just… enjoy things and not worry so much over what other people think. I’ll be looking forward to it.

Art – 8 – does both pretty and grotesque quite well. The comic violence in and occasionally out of the in-manga game is good.
Story – 6. It’s ridiculous. I have questions. But it’s fun.
Characters – 8
Service (level of salaciousness) – 2? Aya is in a form-fitting turtleneck at one point, but that’s about it, and it’s not played for anything. It’s also not a male-gaze type of form-fitting. The skirts are not magic, either.
Yuri – 4. For the moment.
Overall – 8

My questions are mainly: how many first year students with long white hair can there possibly be, and how can you be (presumably) that loud and not get caught. It’s not meant to be serious, so they’re not serious questions. I also want pg115 on my wall, it’s glorious. Other than that, check it out!

Erica here: Thank you very much for this fantastic review. I hope you’ll all take this chance to pick up and enjoy this silly story. ^_^





School Zone Girls, Volume 1, Guest Review by Luce

September 22nd, 2021

Another Wednesday, another Guest Review – and this one comes with a built in bonus, as Volume 1 will be followed next week with Volume 2! Please welcome back Luce, with a review of School Zone Girls, Volume 1, out now from Seven Seas in print and digital. Luce, the floor is yours!

I’m Luce, the owner of a book collection too big for the room I currently inhabit. I own a lot of yuri manga, and Erica kindly asked me to review Volume 1 of this manga. I can be found in the Okazu Discord under the name farfetched, and on tumblr at silverliningslurk. Now, on to the review! 

School Zone Girls shows us the daily lives of two friends; Sugiura Kei, a short-haired, short-statured generally sensible girl, and Yokoe Rei, a beautiful but nonsensical girl. Alongside their fellow students, it depicts their high school lives and adventures. Or misadventures, as we see very quickly.

In many ways, this feels much more like what actually happens at schools than any shoujo. Romance drama? I don’t remember much of that, more having daft conversations with friends, the weird things you were into and all the things school said you had to do but you didn’t want to. School Zone Girls is very much this. The chapters are short, with a four-koma style comedy about them, despite being normal manga form. There are no school princes of any gender here, just people in often ridiculous conversations and situations of their own making. Kei and Yokoe are the kind of friends that you don’t really know how they’re still friends – and neither do they – but they do care about each other underneath the bantering. I love it.

One of my favourite things is the expressions. They’re not ridiculous (most of the time), but get the emotions across very well. The characters also look distinct from each other, with different eyes and such, which I appreciate. There are a set of twins who look very similar, and they’re about the only ones you would mix up, but they have different uniforms, as they go to different schools, so that’s sorted too. Speaking of uniforms, I really like the uniform of this school. I haven’t seen anything else like it in manga. Never mind all the sailor uniforms, this is the one I’d want.

As for yuri, the blurb on the book makes no secret of the fact that Kei and Yokoe like each other… but maybe can’t admit it. This isn’t so much a blushing rom com though – more of the comedy, without the stupid set-ups. By halfway into the book it’s clear that Yokoe is very aware of her feelings, whilst Kei is… not really there. Mainly, Yokoe is usually annoying her too much to actually dwell on it while they’re together. There is a great scene where Yokoe confesses because she thinks Kei isn’t listening… Turns out she was kind of listening. But misconstrues it anyway. When you consider that Yokoe often proposes to Kei when she’s in her post-exam ‘anaphylactic shock’ (nothing to do with allergies), perhaps it’s not so weird. It feels like a character that is so often daft that she no longer knows how to be serious about something even when she wants to, something that’s touched on more in the second book. If anything, I find it hard to believe they will get together, just because it almost feels like them getting together might ruin the dynamic of the manga. But we’ll see how that goes! I’ll trust in Ningiyau, since they’ve done a good job so far.

Ratings:

Art: 8 for the faces. The ‘serious’ art is pretty nice, although pretty standard for decent manga
Story: 6 
Characters: 9, I love them all, but I hope the twins reconcile in later books
Service: 1 purely because a bra gets mentioned once. I guess they were in swimsuits at one point? It’s not a male gaze series at all.
Yuri: 6? More friendship based at the moment than romantic

Overall: 8

It’s daft, but I really enjoyed it. Second book in the series is already out in digital and print, which will have a guest review next week, and the third will be along shortly I believe. 

Erica here: Thanks so much for this heads up. I know I could sure use a goofy, fun series on my  tablet these days. Next week we will indeed have Volume 2 on tap, with a review from Chris.
 




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. ^_^