I said “reviews will resume” but I did not tell you that they would resume with a veritable masterpiece. Today, Guest Reviewer Bruce P offers up what I sincerely believe to be the most masterly review I have ever read, just in time for Halloween!

Lesbian III: Bloodsucking Women, (レズビアン3 吸血令嬢) is the latest volume of Senno Knife’s manga centered on lesbians, but not really. As was stated in a review of Volume I there have typically been no lesbians in these lesbian stories. And there are none in Lesbian III. There are only female vampires living in a world unaccountably devoid of men, so their targets are necessarily also female. And although they do seem to enjoy the lovemaking that takes place before getting down to business, those naked preliminaries appear to be of somewhat secondary interest to the women involved (if not to the intended audience). Unlike stories in previous volumes, Lesbian III is pure melodrama with a lack of actual love between any of the characters.

While the previous volumes consisted of short stories, Lesbian III is one long epic. This provides the author with less room for creating different artistic atmospheres, one of Senno-san’s strengths, but provides a chance to see if he can expand a simple idea into a sustainable narrative. Does he succeed? Heavens no. But it’s a pretty ride.

Asari-san, a beautiful woman, is in the vaguely 1930’s-style Capital City looking for employment, but has had no success. It’s dark. She’s despondent. And then an expensive limousine pulls up, from which a mysterious, beautiful woman emerges, offering Asari-san a ‘job’. In the live-action movie this is the point at which the audience yells “Don’t get in the car.” She gets in the car. She’s blindfolded. New to the workforce, she figures this must be what they call commuting. Arriving at a very gothic Japanese mansion she is led to a padlocked tower and informed that the beautiful woman’s daughter is languishing within, suffering from a mysterious medical condition. With a bit of a shove and a ‘good luck,’ Asari-san is locked inside. It’s only now that she gets a sense that something dreadfully peculiar is going on. And you wonder why employers were not terribly keen on hiring her.

The girl in the tower, Saya-san, is very beautiful. Actually, every character in the manga is either a beautiful woman or a beautiful girl, except for a few grumpy looking nuns who don’t get much page time anyway. Saya-san is charmingly straightforward about the situation – she’s a vampire, Asari-san’s a buttered scone, and it’s way past tea time. It seems that Saya-san has been bitten by one of those beautiful Eastern European piano teachers of whom you must be so careful. Asari-san is horrified by this declaration of hellish intent and thinks: oh such pretty eyes. So they undress and fiddle around a little before Saya-san gives her eternal life and all the issues that go with it. Recoiling at the enormity of her fateful actions, Asari-san thinks: pretty lips, too.

Existing now in a timeless, twilight world, undead and never-aging, Asari-san has no need for a pension plan and is much more employable. She is given a job teaching at Saya-san’s pseudo-Catholic school where she and Saya-san begin systematically seducing other girls to the ranks of the undead. Incidentally the type of vampire in this story, while preferring the night, has no real problem with daylight. Or with crosses, or presumably with the garlic in the refectory’s lobster bisque. This is most fortunate for a vampire teaching day classes at a Catholic school. Asari-san and Saya-san soon enough have their hands full. Teachers and students, each one prettier than the last, form a line to the couple’s door, eager to shed their clothes and join the army of the damned. It’s great fun. It’s a long line.

So everyone’s becoming a vampire. But like a plague that begins spreading and killing millions in a crowded city, eventually somebody’s going to notice, what with all the blood everywhere. The nuns turn for help to the dormitory guardian, a literally 10 foot tall armored woman who leads an elite troop of jack-booted hall monitors. Meanwhile Eliza, the piano teacher who started it all, reappears. She surprises ex-pupil Saya-san with an urn of ashes, the remains of that famous literary vampire Carmilla, who in this version had been burned at the stake by hooded executioners from the Vatican. Eliza intends to revive Carmilla in the crypt beneath the school.

Inserting Carmilla at this point is a little like when they put Dracula into an Abbott and Costello movie. You have to feel a little sorry for the old bloodsucker. The story of Carmilla, like Dracula, is of course relatively old, in a literary sense, with roots going all the way back to the Sakura Taisen Dramatic Card Game Series, and, um, possibly even earlier.

While it sounds very much as though the story has long since merrily degenerated into bad farce, you don’t notice this so much as you are reading. In fact if your reading consists of just looking at all the naked vampires you won’t see any problem at all.

Anyway at this point a great deal of swashbuckling hurly-burly takes place, naked vampires vs. sword-wielding storm troopers with pretty eyes. Carmilla is being revived with vampire blood, Asari-san has escaped the school dungeon but is about to be impaled with the dorm guardian’s two-handed longsword…

And then she wakes up. It was all a dream. Or was it? As she rides off in the moonlight with Saya-san and Eliza and an urn of Carmilla ash in Eliza’s expensive 30’s-style roadster she takes a nibble at Saya-san’s wrist. While you can argue that this ‘it was only a dream’ type ending is a lousy way to end a story, the greater disappointment, for the majority of folks who have made it all the way to the end, will be that as they disappear into the night they still have their clothes on.

Ratings:

Art – 8.  Precise, Paul Delvaux inspired mannequin-like characters and sharply drawn gothic backgrounds.

Story – Are you kidding?

Characters – 7.  They may chew on each other, but they’re very nice about it. Good vampires and bad pseudo-Catholics.

Yuri – 9.  100% women, but despite all the lovemaking, there’s little love in all that vampirism.

Service – 10.  It would be 9.9 because of the fully clothed ending, but when closing the book, the back cover probably gives it that extra tenth.

Overall – 6.  A fine example of the fact that just because something is bad – and this one is bad – there’s no reason that you can’t say what the hell and enjoy it.

Erica here: Bruce, you’re killing me. Please write all my reviews so I can just read them….!

My favorite day of the week has arrived – Guest Post Day! Once again we welcome back Okazu Superhero and Friend of Yuricon, Bruce P! It’s always a treat when he writes a review, so let’s curl up somewhere comfy and have a read, shall we?

The year is 1925, and the Oukakai have shown that they can compete with the boys head-to-head at the game of baseball. Their self-confidence has grown through their own efforts in the dust and sweat of the playing field. But now the games are over, and Suzukawa Koume is back to her normal school activities: attending classes; studying English; causing other girl’s hearts to bang like marimbas. All the while inexplicably losing the self-confidence she’s just acquired, as though never having lifted her spikes to break up a double play.

Teito Takoyaki Musume is a manga sequel to Taisho Yakyu Musume. In one sense this is a pleasure, as the members of the Oukakai baseball club are a set of characters worth spending time with. On the other hand, the original Taisho Yakyu Musume is a wonderfully self-contained story, for which a sequel could easily seem a cranked-out franchise extender. In Teito Takoyaki Musume you can hear the gears.

Koume is back to the books, but finds that she is pathetically behind everyone in schoolwork. Kawashima-san is obsessed with Koume, and with keeping her on the path of academic progress. But she is confronted at every turn by Tomoe, whose interest is in keeping Koume happy, progress be damned. These three make the triangle that impels the story. Interestingly, Akiko is relegated to a relatively minor role. Frustrated by Tomoe’s cool competence, Kawashima-san is desperate for any advantage, so she contacts her stylish, look-alike Kansai cousin Momiji for assistance. Bad idea. Momiji’s a handful, and unexpectedly appears in the Chancellor’s office to make cutting remarks about, of all pertinent things, Tokyo cuisine, and the poor comportment of Tokyo schoolgirls, whom she has observed acting most unbecomingly – she had encountered Koume and Tomoe sharing dango (you know… ‘Say aaaan’) on a rendezvous in Shinjuku. Well, the crisis is now truly at hand. Tempers rise. Anna-sensei takes control by proposing that the Tokyo and Osaka schools settle their culinary differences by engaging in a ‘food stall battle’ to determine who’s cuisine reigns, um, tastier.

The remainder of the story involves the Oukakai attempting to develop a recipe that will be a winner, or at least something that doesn’t cause them to gag, which takes a surprising number of pages. They learn about food stalls, and street food – how to eat soba noodles, an uncouth activity, which Anna-sensei demonstrates with immodest pleasure. They eventually hit on a recipe for Tokyo takoyaki, predating the actual development of this Kansai specialty by about ten years. On the big day Koume is paralyzed by yet another attack of self-doubt – and with Prozac so darn far in the future, too. But at last with support from her friends she succeeds in making wonderfully aromatic takoyaki that delight the festival crowd. Though not before Kyouko has had to dash off to find some necessary ingredients… if only she can make it back in time… she does. It’s all very dramatic. But victory still hangs in the balance until Tomoe and Shizuka surprise everyone by doing a Takarazuka thing, arriving in a large box, gotten up as a pair of living dolls (male and female) to attract the customers.

Lyndon Johnson won election to the senate in 1948 by flying around Texas in a helicopter yelling down at the gathering crowds. Nothing beats spectacle to draw the saps, and after the living doll show the game is over. Momiji has no choice but to concede defeat. But only to offer the Okaitai a further challenge – on the baseball field.

There is more Yuri in this volume than in either the anime or the quirky, original Shimpei Itoh manga (the very Shimpei Itoh manga – U-boats and rocket launchers and aluminum bats). Koume is surrounded by adoring fans, enough that at one point even she has to ask why so many of the girls like her so much (akogare). An excellent question. Her quivering lack of confidence in all things is unbecoming and very annoying. Tomoe on the other hand is poised, cold and intelligent. But she melts with happiness when alone with Koume, on a date or when they share a futon. Happy couple #2 – Yuki and Tama-chan – also share a futon during the same overnight. Yuki has orchestrated the entire evening, from the partner selection (which sounds less innocent than it is) to the insufficient supply of futons. Tama-chan doesn’t mind. Throughout, Anna-Sensei and Kawashima-san are drawn to each other; it’s an intellect thing, but if they were a lot closer in age it’s not hard to guess that Anna-sensei’s kiss would have been a little less maternal. And then there’s Momiji’s cross-dressing pal Sakura, looking good in shirtsleeves, suspenders, and knickerbockers, who takes a special interest in Koume at first sight.

In Teito Takoyaki Musume the Yuri is gentle but fun. The story, though, seems artificial and the drama forced. But the real let down is that, rather than striving to accomplish something wildly unprecedented, which no one believes they can do, or even thinks they should attempt, the girls are… cooking. And fretting about it.

Ratings:

Art: 5 Adequate, but only. There are some odd proportions on occasion.
Story: 5 Artificial. Hey everyone, let’s put on a play!!
Characters: 8 A great ensemble.
Yuri: 6 Cheerful and sweet.
Service: 0

Overall: 6

I have to admit I like series set in the Taisho era – Sakura Taisen also comes to mind (at least to my mind). It’s not nostalgia, I don’t remember crystal sets and scarlet fever, but the mix of old and new is intriguing.

Thank you again, Bruce. I have only one question, Service – 0? Really? ^_^