Today, we have another guest review – this time by Friend of Yuri Eric P, who has become a right-hand pinky to me, if not a whole right hand. lol Eric sends us news items, suggestions of things to keep an eye out for and reviews, as well as always being a big supporter of Yuricon and ALC. So, thanks Eric – take it away!

Angel/Dust is a one-shot manga about Yuina, your typical plain-jane high school girl who never stood out much and preferred it that way.

One day an angelic woman literally falls from the sky in front of her. She reveals her code-name to be ‘Seraph’ and that she’s an Emulate, a bioroid from an alternate dimension of Earth. In the world she came from, Emulates were made to integrate with human beings on an atomic level, drawing out their latent capabilities.

While stranded on Yuina’s Earth, she forms a contract with Yuina(sealed with a kiss much to Yuina’s surprise,) exchanging memories and knowledge, and thus the typical plain-jane high school girl becomes a winged super-girl and, through this, discovers many aspects of herself. Another female Emulate named Lucifer arrives on the scene, forms a contract with Yuina’s classmate Akiho, who in turn regards Yuina as a (pathetic)rival. What follows is a customary battle between Good and Evil.

At this deceptively simple manga’s heart it’s about a young girl growing up, but there are still a range of plot complexities squeezed into just nine chapters. While trying not to go into real spoiler details, it sheds light on what kind of world Earth becomes in the future. Unless Yuina just bears a striking resemblance to the woman Seraph said was important to her, it even hints Seraph and Yuina may have known each other in that world, and regardless of the manga’s bittersweet ending they would find each other again. How that happens, it doesn’t say; it just leaves you wondering.

To try to describe this manga would make it sound like a condensed mess; while it might be condensed it’s certainly not a mess, at least in my opinion. What’s important are the concepts and themes it revolves around, such as living life and not running away from facing problems, and there it says everything it needs to say.

While not groundbreaking, Aoi Nanase’s artwork is really beautiful. Maybe readers have seen better, more finely-detailed angelic imagery in manga like Angel Sanctuary, or even anime like Haibane Renmei, but the designs in Angel/Dust are still lovely eye candy. When I first followed this manga in Newtype USA (before it went defunct), it was like seeing it all on a big-screen theater, especially with the Emulate battles. In its smaller-sized manga format, it’s like appreciating it on the home TV. The pictures are still pretty to look at, but it’s really something else when you get to read it in the original Newtype size.

Whatever Yuri there is, it’s all subtext. I know what you’re all thinking; if it’s subtext, it could easily be seen as not Yuri (Ms. Friedman made it clear to me in an e-mail she doesn’t believe there’s any trace of it in this title, and this review’s not likely to change her mind). We’ve heard this argument many times over, in such titles as Haibane Renmei and Noir, and Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, all of which have plausible deniability built right into them.

After when Seraph ‘forms the contract’ with Yuina, the latter wakes up in bed the next morning and finds Seraph in bed with her and screams. Later in the story, Seraph tries making Yuina breakfast, with imperfect results. These are classic/standard scenes out of almost all awkward romances that involve one of the two characters not being human. On the other hand, they can just be seen as usual comedy/fanservice scenes and nothing more. Yuina and Seraph have many moments together that could be interpreted either way.

So what example could make readers at least open up to the idea of the subtext? For a good example, I’ll have to reference the sequel manga, Angel/Dust Neo. In this story, average-joe Akito forms a contract with not one, not two, but three Emulates. The contract-sealing ‘kiss’ itself may mostly be to exchange knowledge/memories and to bring out the person’s latent potential, but their bond still develops into something more, and they all vie for his attention and affection. So if making a contract is a metaphor fors ealing a romantic relationship of some kind, why would it be any different between Yuina and Seraph? Maybe in their case, it could be seen as an example of that ‘intense emotional connection’ that Erica has touched on before, where it’s not consciously recognized as ‘love’ or ‘desire’ but the attraction’s still there on a subtle level. \\

Quickly regarding Angel/Dust Neo; it may have a more upbeat narrative than Angel/Dust, but I wouldn’t recommend it so much. Angel/Dust’s storyline may feel rushed, but at least it had a beginning, middle, and an end. Angel/Dust Neo has a beginning—then stops. Its ets everything up for what might have been a long-running series, but then just ends before the real story gets rolling; literally nothing happens. It’s a good thing it stops before we’d have to read through another generic, formulaic harem title (even here you’d find the amnesiac girl, punkish girl, and lolicon girl), but then what’s the point? The only two things that make Angel/Dust Neo worth reading would be to see more of Aoi Nanase’s artwork, and for Yuina’s(all-too-)brief cameo in the first couple pages, which provides a miniscule, cryptic clue to how her world bridges with that of Seraph’s world.

All in all, Angel/Dust is one of those stories where you can find deeper meaning to it if you want, and even if you just take it at surface level you might still find it enjoyable light reading. Just looking at the cover should give enough sense of what you’re in for.

Ratings:

Art – 9 (you can’t go wrong with angel-images, and AoiNanase does it well)
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 1 (I’d actually say 2, but I’ll just play it safe here)
Service – 0 (unless you count Seraph’s getup in thesecond chapter, then maybe 1)

Overall – 7

Erica here again. Thanks Eric, it’s always great to get a point of view that is not my own. It’s true that I don’t think of this series as Yuri, but plenty of people do, so I’m really glad that you wrote this review for us. ^_^

Today’s review is once again written by Guest Reviewer and Yuri fan extraordinaire, Sean Gaffney.

***

I’ve been enjoying a manga from Viz, Ouran High School Host Club. The basic premise is that a high school girl is mistaken for a man by the school’s Host Club, a group of bishounen parodies that walk the earth. They induct her into the club, and then resolve to keep her secret after it’s revealed (she wasn’t really hiding it, she just dresses in men’s clothing). The club itself seems designed to part high school girls from their money by pandering to their fantasies.

The manga is filled with yaoi parodies. The two twins are Fred and George from Harry Potter in Japanese clothing, and Hunny and Takashi are a cross between Momiji and Hatori from Fruits Basket and the couple from CLAMP’s Suki. Everyone at some point plays gay for the girls, who all go “SQUEEEEEEEEEE!” just like American yaoi fangirls do. :)

In any case, in Volume 3, Haruhi (our heroine) is accosted by 3 members of the nearby Saint Roberia Women’s Institute White Lily Club (also known as the Zuka Club). They’re the female counterparts to our heroes, and Zuka is short for Takarazuka. The club is known for their dramatic productions. Naturally, the Host Club immediately thinks one thing about these girls: “L-L-Lesbians!?” (Something which, for once, isn’t denied by the girls, at least not in this volume).

They insist they will get Haruhi to join their club instead, and the Host Club are worried, as they’ve wondered before, what with Haruhi wearing male clothing and enjoying the attention of the women who go to the Club, if she’s a lesbian.

This is only one chapter of the volume, but the chapter ends declaring that the Lily Club is a ‘new rival!’, so I presume we’ll see them again. The manga is quite funny, being a broad parody of yaoi and bishounen cliches, with this chapter also parodying yuri. The back says it’s for Hana-Kimi fans, but it reminded me more of Greenwood.

–SG
Viz’s footnote: Lily = YURI!

***

Erica here again: I noted some interesting things about this manga when I read it. Notably, the girls of the Zuka Club appear in regular school girl uniforms, but they are imagined by Haruhi and the guys in full-blown Takarazuka outfits. ^_^

And it’s kind of amusing that fans of Hana-Kimi, in which a girl dresses like a boy to gain access to an exclusive boy’s school in order to be with the guy she likes, are assumed to want to read a story about another girl who dresses like a boy and goes to a boy’s school. Now…what kind of person might like that kind of story, in which the major feature is a girl in a suit? I wonder…. Maybe I ought to have someone do a story like that for Yuri Monogatari. ^_^

Again, my thanks to Sean for his guest review!

Once again, we bring you a guest review of Negima! Magister Negi Magi by the redoubtable Sean Gaffney! Yaaaaaay! (Say this last bit in a Kermit the Frog from the Muppet Show voice.) Sean’s review is quite timely, because as you know, I loathe Akamatsu’s work and didn’t feel like writing anything today. :-)

Let me take this opportunity to thank Sean, also, for having been one of the most AMAZING staffers we had at Onna!. He was a whirlwind, handling not only the panels, worksops and demos, but also stepping in to handle many of the Programming events, which freed me to do important things like tell people where to find paper and pens and interview for 80 minutes with people who quoted me for less than 20 words. LOL Sean, you have my eternal thanks. No foolin’.

Without further ado, here is Sean’s review of Negima, Volumes 6 and Volume 7:

The manga and anime Rurouni Kenshin is known for its Kyoto arc, which is generally considered to be lightyears ahead of the other arcs. Likewise, Negima really steps up with its own Kyoto arc, dropping most of the comedy for a Volume to focus on action and drama, as Negi and the others are under attack from their rivals.

The action is fairly well drawn, with little of the confusion that mars series like Trigun. We get a few more girls finding out Negi is a wizard, though Mana and Ku Fei don’t seem very surprised. Negi’s secret is still one of the worst kept ever.

Then there’s the Yuri. Aside from the ‘grasping at straws’ couples (“Look! Kaede is holding Yue in her arms after rescuing her! It must be love!”), there’s still just Konoka and Setsuna. Luckily, that’s more than enough.

Setsuna in this volume reveals her other big secret – she’s half demon, and has big wings. Setsuna is convinced this will make everyone loathe and fear her. But these aren’t bat-like wings, they’re big, fluffy bird wings – everyone notes they look cool. So Setsuna races off to save Konoka, who notes that they make Setsuna look like an angel. OK, self-worth crisis over, mostly.

(In the Negima anime, they kiss. But the Negima anime is awful in so many other ways that I can’t recommend it even to the staunchest yuri fan unless they just get one episode, watch the kiss, then delete it.)

In Volume 7, there’s less of a focus on the two. However, we see Konoka being told that with training, she could be a very powerful mage. She chooses to begin the training, and wants Setsuna as her partner.

This is the best part of the volume. Konoka relates to Negi that Setsuna says that girls shouldn’t kiss, but she wants Setsuna to be her partner, so is there another way to make a pact? It’s very clear from Setsuna’s denials that what she meant was that when the two of them kiss, it shouldn’t be just for a simple magical pact, but for something deeper. Her expressions are very cute.

One last thing to note on the yuri front is Kazumi, the sly newspaper girl, who is clearly amused at Setsuna’s blushing denials, and notes that ‘It’s just a kiss. Girls our age experiement with that stuff all the time’. Which again is a nice bone to throw to those seeking more yuri in the series than Konoka and Setsuna. OK, it’s a tiny fragment of a bone.

Negima continues to be far more interesting than it should be, considering the artist and all the shounen fanservice. And indeed the 10-year-old hero. Despite all that, it’s still a page-turner, and more and more characters are gaining depth as they get focused on.

Oh yes, and in the Translation Notes, Del Rey will tell you what a paipan is.

Erica here: Once again – thank Sean! (Insert wild applause, again in Muppet Show style)