Archive for the Guest Review Category


Yuri-themed Board Game Yuri Ranbou (百合乱慕), Guest Review by Lee Sanhwa

April 3rd, 2024

3 cute girls, one blonde, one red-head with slightly darker skin than the others, one with black hair and very pale skin, surround a girl with medium-length brown hair, wearing a flower barrette in her hair. Happy Guest Review Wednesday! I am so incredibly excited for us all today. We have a new guest reviewer!

Lee Sanhwa is a South Korean science fiction writer. He is best known for his Yuri cyberpunk detective novel An Error Has Occurred (오류가 발생했습니다, 2018). For a more detailed profile and full list of works, please visit his website.

He has happily volunteered to review a Yuri board game that I first mentioned in 2021. Please give Lee Sanhwa-nim a warm Okazu welcome in the comments!

***

There are at least hundreds of board games out there covering every possible niche theme from birdwatching to sharksploitation films, and Yuri is no exception. I’ll not say there are plenty of them, but still, there are some! If you are looking for a cooperative game with an emphasis on Yuri story-telling, then you should check out Yuri made by Everyone (which is basically a spin-off version of BL made by Everyone, a BL-themed board game). And if you want something more competitive, then here’s Yuri Ranbou, a “High-speed competitive Yuri harem building card game.”

General Information

Players: 2-3

Time: 10 Min

Age: 9+ (Difficulty-wise, not content-wise)

Yuri Ranbou is developed by Stromatosoft, a Japanese game production company now in development of 3D Yuri dungeon crawler RPG Witches & Lilies. In Yuri Ranbou, you become one of six girls and compete with your opponents to acquire as many other girls as possible. How? By declaring the relationship between you and each round’s love interest. Maybe she is your childhood friend. Maybe you really hate her. Or maybe you and her have kissed before……. Whoever declared the most effective relationship wins the girl.

Each game begins with a “Relationship cards” draft, where you choose which card to keep in hand and which to give away. Then in each round, a “Lover” card is presented and all players simultaneously play a relationship card from their hands. Each relationship has different strength points(1 to 10) and effects. Some of them are “Encounter” cards, which take their effect when you play them. Others are “Memory” cards, which take effect only after you lose a round by playing them. Some cards specialize in countering only the strongest relationships, so even if you play “Kiss of the Vow”(strength 10), you can still lose to “I’m Curious About Her”(Strength 3, makes the weakest card win this round). After completing all three rounds, whoever acquired the most girls wins. 

The whole game consists of 35 cards, but you only need 16 of them(6 lover cards and 10 relationship cards) to play. The rest are 3 rule summary cards, 6 character profile cards and 10 illustration cards. As you can expect, the gameplay is surprisingly fast. All three rounds can easily be finished in less than a minute! Truly a “High-speed” card game. But for its volume and playtime, Yuri Ranbou is quite an intense experience. Choosing the right card in card drafts, building your strategy, and guessing your opponents’ hands correctly in each round are all important to win the game. 

About its Yuri aspect, Yuri Ranbou shows some interesting considerations even at the game mechanic level. For example, if three players acquire exactly one girl each, it’s “True Coupling” and everyone wins! I also found it interesting that the “Childhood Friend” card is somewhat…weak, especially compared to “I’m Curious About Her” or “I Really Hate You”. Illustrations done by Aomushi (あおむし) fit well to the game, with their characteristic bright-but-omnious atmosphere. You will easily be able to imagine how the six characters world speak, behave, envy, cry, snap, etc. 

With its small volume and simple gameplay, Yuri Ranbou is surely not a game you want to play over and over again until you master it. And you may find it strange that the game allows you to acquire a maximum of three girls, which is only a bare minimum of what you can call a “harem”. But I think this simpleness and compactness are what makes Yuri Ranbou a well-designed game. You can bring it anywhere, play it anytime, and simulate a dramatic Yuri love story with anyone. That’s enough, isn’t it?

Ratings:

Art – 8
Gameplay – 7 (Simple but fun!)
Characters – 1 (Names and profiles provided, but they’re basically just stereotypes)
Service – 1 (There’s kissing, and that’s all)
Yuri – 7 

Overall – 7

I’ve purchased Yuri Ranbou at a board game store in Yodobashi Camera Shinjuku Nishiguchi. As far as I know, Stromatosoft’s official online store does not provide global shipping.  

Erica here: We can use a buying service like Buyee or a shipping service, if you have an account with one to get it shipped out of Japan if you’re motivated to grab a copy.

Thank you so much for the terrific review!I just picked up a copy of 오류가 발생했습니다 on BooksonKorea.com – they do overseas shipping. I can’t wait to read it!

 





Monthly in the Garden With My Landlord, Volume 2, Guest Review by Frank Hecker

March 27th, 2024

A woman with dark collar-length hair standing in the kitchen and a woman with long blonde hair sitting on the veranda, both wearing casual clothing smile as they speak to one another.In the first volume of Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord, manga editor Asako Suga, dumped by the latest in a series of girlfriends, finds both a new place to live and an unforeseen housemate, her landlord Miyako Kitano — who turns out to be a former idol. It’s a premise not unknown in adult yuri manga, in which manga artists and their editors frequently appear, along with the more-than-occasional idol, and it’s common for two women to go from sharing a house or apartment to building a life together. It is thus, not particularly ground-breaking within the yuri genre. Rather it’s a very well-executed example of its general type, deftly blending slice of life, comedy, idol intrigue, and at least one potential romance.

Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord, Volume 2 combines two plot threads. In the main story Asako and Miyako (“Landlord-san”) settle in to life together, each displaying their characteristic personality: Miyako is somewhat lazy and more than a bit of a slob, and takes child-like enthusiasm in even the most mundane aspects of her life with Asako. For her part, Asako finds herself picking up after Miyako, cooking for her, caring for her when she’s sick, and in general behaving more like a mother than a potential lover.

But love is indeed in the air, as shown in a hilarious sequence in which Miyako finds herself growing jealous of a houseplant, the pachypodium that Asako brings home, nicknames “Packey,” and treats like a new pet. Before long it’s obvious how Miyako feels about Asako. However, Asako herself isn’t sure exactly what their relationship is and should be, even when later circumstances force her to express a judgment on it.

In her review of volume 1 Erica Friedman speculated whether readers of just that volume would see this as a yuri story or not. I’ve seen others argue that Miyako’s relatively young age (she’s still 19 in this volume) and the mother-daughter dynamic she has with Asako make a romance between them both implausible and problematic. I disagree.

Miyako was likely working as an idol since her middle teen years (another Elm member is only 16), and as such would have lived a very sheltered and constricted life. By Miyako’s own account her parents placed lots of restrictions on her even before that time. Her grandmother gave her more freedom, but “Matsuba-chan” was often absent and away. It’s therefore not surprising at all that Miyako might develop feelings for someone who is with her every day and lavishes her with care and attention.

For her part, Asako is a very giving person (“too nice for her own good”) who finds enjoyment in helping others. However, at least one of her past girlfriends, and perhaps more than one, found that behavior quite off-putting. I can well believe that the ideal girlfriend for Asako would be one whom she can mother more than a bit, and that Miyako might someday fill that role after she comes of age. Since this is marketed as a yuri story, it’s more likely than not.

The other plot thread in this volume concerns Miyako and the other idols in Elm, now reconstituted under the leadership of Ruri Samukawa. Miyako opens up to Asako about her past as an idol and why she retired, and contemplates reconnecting with the group members she left behind. That process is helped along by Ruri and Elm uber-fan Hato Hatomori, who in volume 1 was flabbergasted to find her fave living with Asako. In this volume Hato is almost literally pulled into the middle of the group’s affairs, a development that both delights and disconcerts her. It’s a fun subplot, one I’m definitely invested in and would like to see more of.

The main characters of Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord are all fundamentally decent people with their own distinct personalities — people you might enjoy having lunch with, to use a traditional Okazu criterion. The art is a style I particularly like, clear and clean, not overly cartoony, with dynamic and varied panel layouts. It’s well-suited to showing both Miyako’s beauty and the comedic situations she and Asako find themselves in. The translation reads very well as English, the lettering is quite readable, the text appears to be entirely free of typos and related infelicities, and the overall look of the volume is attractive. Kudos go to translator Stephen Paul, letterer Elena Pizarro Lanzas, and the Yen Press editorial and design team — Fortune Soleil, JuYoun Lee, and Wendy Chan — for their work.

Ratings:

Art — 9
Story — 8
Characters — 9
Service — 2 (for idols)
Yuri — 4 (“Okay, it’s happening!” but where it will go is as yet unclear)
Overall — 9

Volume 2 of Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord is an entertaining continuation of a solid volume 1. If you’re a fan of adult yuri who missed the first volume, this is the perfect opportunity to catch up on what promises to be an excellent series. Volume 3 is slated for release in English on August 20 of this year.

 





Mr. Right Turned Out To Be A Younger Woman!? Guest Review by Em Evergreeen

March 20th, 2024

Two office women stand close, one leans in to whisper something into the other woman's ear as they both grip a folder between them.Content warning: there is one scene with sexual aggression and non-consensual touching, and the narrative doesn’t meaningfully explore any relationship consequences this might have.

I’ve enjoyed Kozumi Miura’s contributions to Yuri anthologies (White Lilies in Love BRIDE’s, Yuriquer Alcohol Yuri Anthology,

and to creator-owned magazine Galette, as well as her collection of one-shots, Totsuzen Nantonaku Tonari no Seki no Douryou to Kiss Shitaku Narimashita, so I was quite excited to see her office worker romance Mr. Right Turned Out To Be A Younger Woman!? made available on digital manga site Renta. It’s not only the first of her works to be translated into English, but also the longest Yuri story she’s created so far. Originally published by iProduction’s women-focused web manga label Comic Donna, the story was expanded from a one-shot to about the length of a single print volume.

Our heroine, Haruki Shiina, is a 33-year-old marketing professional who’s stalled out in romance and at work. She feels like her time is running out to find a boyfriend, get married, and have children, and she’s built up quite the reputation around the office as a energy-drink-guzzling, hard-partying, almost salaryman-like figure. So when she awakens after a night of drunken revelry with her co-workers to the clear aftermath of a one night stand, with vague but positive memories, she’s hopeful that it’s going to be the start of a magical office romance that’ll lead straight to marriage. There’s only one problem – she’s not quite sure who the previous night’s paramour was!

We know from the first page, however, that her opposite number is none other than her workplace rival, the serious and high-achieving 23-year-old Risa Takagai. Risa treats her coldly, makes competing marketing proposals, and interrupts her when she chats up her male co-workers. Though the two frequently butt heads, they also inspire each other to do their best work. We see a magnetic attraction quickly develop between them, culminating in the early reveal of Haruki’s anonymous lover.

The characters and their chemistry are compelling enough that I’m glad the story was expanded beyond the original one-shot, and that we get to see their relationship develop beyond this point. There’s a lot packed into these 6 chapters, but as a result, many interesting threads feel under-explored, and the dramatic tension comes and goes a bit erratically. There is a sustained focus on Haruki coming to terms with dating a woman for the first time, and on the pressures that the difference in their ages puts on the relationship, topics that are depicted realistically and with care. There’s even some attention paid to lesbian culture and the issues faced by queer women in Japan, though it ends up feeling a little “Lesbians 101” at times.

The anonymous translation, credited only with “Localization by Renta,” occasionally stumbles a bit, and the quality of lettering similarly isn’t up to par with releases by the major US publishers. More than the sometimes-stilted language, though, my primary issue with the translation is that it introduces a somewhat misogynistic tone to certain scenes that’s not present in the original work. This is a shame for a manga that otherwise draws on the best traditions of female-focused manga in its heart-pounding moments, emotional introspection, and appropriately-adult sexuality without unnecessary fan service.

Mr. Right Turned Out To Be A Younger Woman!? is absolutely worth figuring out Renta’s points system for (bad news: it’ll cost you $15 to buy, and you’ll end up with 300 points afterwards. sigh). The art really shines. The important moments are lovingly rendered, as are the outfits, and the jokes are paired with deeply funny reaction faces. I quickly got invested in Haruki, Risa, and their happiness, and was glad to see the story reach a satisfying ending. Our pair and the rest of their co-workers are realistically flawed, but there are no villains here, and our cast comes together to support one another when it matters.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 3
Yuri – 8

Overall – 7

Em Evergreen is a lonely lesbian with a manga addiction. Find her at linktr.ee/em.evergreen.





I Don’t Need A Happy Ending, Guest Review by Eleanor Walker

February 14th, 2024

A woman and her maid embrace gently, on a bed surrounded by draped cloth.Hello, it’s 3 opossums in a trenchcoat disguised as a person back for another review. You can find me dotted around the Internet as @st_owly. Today I’m reviewing I Don’t Need  A Happy Ending, a collection of short stories,  by Mikanuji, the creator of Assorted Entanglements. I liked that series well enough to go in blind on this one when I saw it in the bookstore so here we go.

I’ve always had a soft spot for short stories. Telling a complete tale in a limited amount of pages is a skill unto itself, and a good short story anthology should have something for everyone. With that in mind, I cannot recommend the first story in this book, “I’ll Never Fall In Love With You”. It’s rapey, creepy and everything I dislike about yuri manga written for the male gaze all rolled into 36 convenient pages. 

Happily, the second story in the book is much more pleasant. This is the titular story “I Don’t Need A Happy Ending” and features a historical forbidden love story between a mistress and her maid. Unlike in the first story, the characters actually feel like people rather than sex objects, and without giving too much away, they do get their happy ending. I will freely admit I’m a sucker for historical romance and as someone who adores Victorian Romance Emma, by Kaoru Mori, this scratched the same itch. 

Back to the present day for “I Don’t Know What Love Is,” which features a nihilistic college student and her adoring kouhai. I didn’t particularly care for this chapter either, but it did at least have more plot than the first one and the characters are adults this time. The author also really likes drawing people having sex in (semi) public places.

4th in the collection is “A Day off from Work” in which two childhood friends finally realise their long held feelings for each other. Short and sweet, it’s always nice when two people find each other.

The penultimate story in this volume also appeared in “Whenever Our Eyes Meet: A Women’s Love Anthology” which is also available in English from Yen Press. Another office romance, this time the new temp at the company is the main lead’s fling from the night before, and she’s not out at work. More semi public sex and everyone is happy.

Finally, we finish with a sequel to “I Don’t Need a Happy Ending,” which begins with a timeskip of several years, and that is merely a convenient plot device for more illicit sex. It takes 3 pages before they’re at it.  

Overall, your mileage may vary. as to be expected with an anthology. The author definitely has certain tastes which are reflected in this collection, and if her tastes don’t align with yours you might leave disappointed. For me “I Don’t Need a Happy Ending” and sequel were by far and away the standout of the book, with the others ranging from “get me the brain bleach right now” to “ok that was cute but utterly forgettable.”

Ratings:

Art – 8. The sex scenes are well done and the boobs don’t look like balloons. 
Story – Anywhere from 3 to 7
Characters – Anywhere from 3 to 7
Service – 10. This one is rated M and shrink wrapped for a reason
Yuri – 7. It got better as it went on. 

Overall – 6.5

 





Finding the Good in Bad Media or, a treatise on Interspecies Reviewers by Mash Whitehouse

January 31st, 2024

Mash Whitehouse is a transwoman who never updates her blog at mashforxp.com and has written several tabletop RPG books. She can also be found refusing to say anything succinctly about Video Games, Anime, and everything else @mashforxp.bsky.social

After a rousing discussion on bluesky, and a failed attempt to bring Erica in as an expert witness, I found myself deep in thought about fantasy sex work. The only sex work that isn’t real work. When I’m not picking polite fights on social media, I write about RPGs or pretend to be an expert on them. Common consensus is that sex and D&D don’t mix, but you’re lucky that we’re not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about a manga I like and the anime of it that I hate.

I’m talking about Interspecies Reviewers. Wait, please don’t leave!

IR burst into the western consciousness in a spectacular fashion, when the anime’s release was canceled by Funimation. In the age of streaming, before every company became one congealed Tetsuo-esque amalgam, the many services were scrambling to grab every launching anime they could. Any one of which could be the next One Piece, the next Goblin Slayer, or something actually good. For the 2020 season, Funimation picked up the anime for Interspecies Reviewers, a gag manga about the worst adventurers trawling through the red-light district in a fantasy world, looking to experience the many sensual experiences such a world has to offer, and then publishing their opinions for fellow adventurers.

The premise rides a line to be sure, but perhaps in the days before streaming, with a chance to review the product before purchase, Funi wouldn’t have jumped in blindly. Instead, they found themselves with a very raunchy anime and pulled it, 3 episodes in. I found the situation farcical, but it also piqued my morbid curiosity. My proactive wife bought me the first volume of the manga before I could find a source for the anime.

The opening chapter plays out like this: The Elf adventurer, Zel, has a penchant for spending his rewards from adventuring on a middle-aged human “Succu-girl” (this fantasy world’s term for a sex worker), Stunk the Human questions why he would pick her. The very well named human brings up how wonderful he thinks Elven girls are, and Zel counters with the fact that most Elves are pushing 800 years old, as opposed to the youthful 50 year old woman that Zel frequents.

As the argument heightens in their local tavern, other regulars join in to review the two species. A myriad of different fantasy people, from Halflings to Kobolds all participate in the ridiculous activity, resulting in the middle-aged woman winning, with each barfly giving reasonable reasons for why the idealized and unachievable beautiful elf is not their preference. The gag that won me over was the presentation of the reviews. Four of the barflys write up Famitsu-style critiques: brief paragraphs and 0-10 scores. Excellent. This is an ongoing bit for every chapter. It helps keep the conceit of the title going. To me though, it helps create a theme of sexual positivity, overcoming sexual repression, and acceptance of varied body types and their beauty…while also rating women’s bodies.

Enter Crimvael; the reason this manga would merit a Lambda Award. Crim is a wonderful intersex angel (he/him), and I mean angel literally, his halo is damaged, keeping him from returning to heaven, so he ends up slumming it with these losers. With their “help”, he begins to discover his sexuality, what the mortal world is like, and maybe finds love along the way. On his journey, Crim meets Elza the Gnoll. For those not in the know about fantasy creatures, Gnolls are hyena people, and just how the real world Spotted Hyena have pseudo-penises, (go look it up, nature is amazing!) so too does Elza.

While this is a fun and subtle joke connecting Gnolls and Hyenas, Elza herself is never made out to be a joke, she is cool and arguably sexy, unlike the portrayal of many gender non-conforming characters in media. Crim’s experience with Elza is given a 9, and he leaves no further expounding details. It is a wonderfully affirming queer moment, and Elza shows up from time to time, clearly having left an impact on Crim. The rest of that chapter is focused on the other reviewers getting to experience “lesbian sex” at the Gender Swap Inn. This is treated in much the same way as men’s yuri or lesbian content. Unfortunately.

The manga definitely falls on the seinen side of the seinen/josei divide, and the only regular female character is the harpy bar owner. Who acts like a harpy, in the sense of the derogatory term for women. Of course, the men are no better, constantly drinking, focused on sex and generally being of a low brow demeanor. They are not portrayed in a positive light, but they are at least portrayed. Crimvael, the only queer character of the main cast, is at least likable.

Now we come to the anime. It has a stigma about it. One that is earned. The anime is just softcore porn. The Japanese channel AT-X aired it with no censorship, followed by other channels re-airing with blurred censorship.The manga used diegetic censorship of hair, Crim’s halo, another character, swords, etc., to create consistent background jokes. Which are lost for a chance to show bare nipples and tout a lack of censorship on TV. The conversion to animation damages the message and shifts the focus. A prime example: The Will o’ Wisp Succu-girls, Light Elementals in humanoid form, glow so brightly that you cannot see anything “fun”. A good joke. In the anime, they are just glowing nude women, everything bare for the viewer to gawk at. A joke lost. Without the joke, you are left only with the smut.

So, Because of the widely known fiasco that is the anime, I hesitate to even recommend the manga, despite the amount of charming and queer moments. I would have to give a giant preamble if I ever wished to attempt such a futile endeavor, and if you have to begin any conversation with “I’m not a pervert, but-” you’re not starting from a strong footing. So, I’m not a pervert, but-

Ratings:

Art – 8Story – 4Characters – 3Service – 9 (Anime 11)Yuri/Queer – 4

Overall  – 7

All 9 volumes have a space on my manga shelf. Along with vol 1 of the spin off anthology Darkness.

If you have a secret place to read, or access to blank dust covers, the manga is available from Yen Press. If you’re interested in watching the anime, I recommend getting on a dating app, being honest on your profile, don’t include a picture of your dog, and you’ll find someone that likes you. 

Note: Links lead to Global Bookwalker, as not all volumes of the manga appear to be available elsewhere.