Archive for the Guest Review Category


I Don’t Know Which Is Love Volume 1, Guest Review by Luce

August 30th, 2023
A woman with blonde hair looks excitedly at the women which we see reflected in her polished nails.Soraike Mei, on the day of her high school graduation, had her heart broken by the girl she’d had a crush on for three years. In college then, Mei swears, she WILL get a girlfriend! Absolutely! So… what happens when she suddenly has five candidates vying for her time and affections?!
 
Folks, we’ve seen this all before in het manga, now it’s our turn: the Yuri harem. I Don’t Know Which Is Love, Volume 1 does not hang around letting you know that, introducing all five love interests within less then fifty pages. Are you ready? Keep your hands and feet inside the carriage at all times, and hold onto the bars. We have:
 
Shirosawa Riri: first introduced as boobs (less skeevy than it sounds? Mei is just too gay to function) she is an idol of some sort… Potentially a more racy model than a singer, based on the pictures we see. Takes ‘first girl’ slot.
 
Todomeki Maria: Mei’s advisor, a professor in psychology, and the very opposite of a stuffy old man,  she’s ‘the older one’. She accurately guesses that Mei is ‘into girls’ (for some reason the word lesbian isn’t used), says that there are ‘lines you can’t cross’ with them being professor and student, turns on the professional talk about the advisor side of things… Then tells Mei to let her know if she wants to cross the line. At least Mei is also an adult here?
 
Minato: on the more butch side of things, Mei meets her when she goes to get a coffee, and again instantly falls in love with how cool she is. They meet again later and Minato persuades her to give her theatre troupe a try, as she really likes Mei’s voice. At a drinking meet up with the troupe, Mei then meets…
 
Ajima Karin: one of the actors in the troupe, designated by one of the boys as the ‘kiss-crazy’ senpai. And indeed, before she even knows Mei’s name, she asks to kiss her, Mei hesitates for 0.3 seconds (yes, it tells us this) and they kiss. Karin propositions going back to hers together, but Mei has to get back for her dorm curfew. Heading back to her dorm, her roommate isn’t in yet, but while she’s sleeping…
 
Kunimasa Kaoru: The roommate! Mei is asleep when she comes in, but she immediately stated that Mei ‘reeks of other girls’ and… strips her of her clothes and gets into bed with her. Then proceeds to call her a body pillow for the rest of the manga.
 
All introduced in 45 pages! A whistle stop tour of Mei’s college girlfriend candidates, but as she says at the end of chapter 1: she just doesn’t know which is love!
 
That said, I think with the explosiveness of this first chapter, I don’t think any are ‘love’ right now, definitely more lust driven. This is not a chaste harem by any stretch of the imagination: Kaoru (consensually, if slightly hesitant) sticks her face in Mei’s boobs to smell her, it’s implied that Minato gets off to Mei’s voice over a call, Mei looked up hot pics of Riri (seems to be a page 3 type model), and Karin is definitely going for more than kisses and cuddles.
 
I’ve not seen another manga go at such a breakneck pace. We get all the introductions, then a second encounter with each of the harem members, usually of a somewhat racy variety. The author stated that they differentiated the love interests by having them interested in different things about Mei, (like, uh, her scent… Her voice… I think it’s loosely ‘the five senses’ – Minato is sound, Kaoru is scent, Karin is taste, Riri is most likely sight, which makes Maria touch, I guess) which is a more novel take on it.
 
The concept does seem to get a little puzzling though – for someone who, in theory, expressedly came to college to get a girlfriend, Mei isn’t open about being a lesbian, which seems odd to me – I know we joke about gaydar, but surely you need to put yourself out there a bit. Wait, no, it’s basically a glass closet, because of how strongly she reacts to women: put it this way, no one questions whether she’s straight. What confuses me more is that towards the end, she states that beyond kissing is something you’d only do with a girlfriend – which feels somewhat in keeping with her as a sheltered lesbian, but also a little odd considering the rest of the book. I mean she’s been fine with girls’ faces in her boobs and being in bed naked with them, but now she objects? Although if she didn’t and decided to go with casual sex, the main conflict would go away, so.
 
Ultimately, this is a lesbian fantasy manga. It’s just not that deep. Who will Mei pick in the end, if just one? Who knows. Normally in a harem manga, it would be the ‘first girl’ that tends to win out. It’s certainly still possible here, but as Riri’s not a childhood girl or has any sort of long standing relationship with Mei, she is on a more equal footing to everyone else. Mei is not really pro-actively pursuing any of them and is kind of just going with the flow, so it’s more down to the love interests than her, at the moment. Have your cake for now, Mei, it’ll probably work out.
 
 
Story: 6
Art: 7
Yuri: 11
Service: 8, no detailed nakedness, but plenty of roaming hands and bra shots
Mei being too gay to function: over 9000!
Overall: 7
 

If you want a daft, fairly raunchy Yuri harem… Well, this is your only one, I think. But it is fun, and you never really know what’s going to happen next – honestly, I have no idea. Join the lesbian roller coaster, folks. Or as Yen Press themselves tweeted, watch Mei pick up girlfriends ‘like Pokémon’. Collect your picture as you exit the ride.

…




How Do We Relationship Volume 9, Guest Review by Matt Marcus

August 23rd, 2023

A woman with short, dark hair looks on with distress as a woman with medium light brown hair put mayonnaise into the dish she's cooking.Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.

Last volume, Miwa finally got a new girlfriend, the surly but earnest Tamaki. Meanwhile, Saeko and Yuria are getting along well, their struggles with sex notwithstanding. Now our two leads begin the delicate dance of finding the right distance between them to be respectful to their girlfriends. Oh, and they agree to not let their partners know that they are each other’s ex. Or even that their best friend is also gay.

Really, How Do We Relationship Volume 9 is a Saeko-centric volume, and she really goes through it. She runs into a middle school classmate who cajoles her to go to her Coming of Age Ceremony, which is already a major point of friction between her and her mother. What’s worse is she witnesses Tamaki’s supposedly supportive friends engage in some Light Homophobia. Yuria does what she can to soothe her but she can’t be around all the time, so Saeko is left on her own, wallowing in her rising anger.

I have to continue to hand it to Tamifull that there is some really deft storytelling happening here. All three incidents that Saeko runs into here involve people who are generally good, well-meaning people, but there is just a strain of shittiness to them that is too stark to ignore. Her old classmate sympathizes with her choice to not attend the ceremony because of how hard her experience must have been…but still he takes one look over to Yuria and can’t help but comment “I guess you still swing that way, huh?” Tamaki’s friends are all vocally supportive to her face, but when The Gays aren’t around they say condescending things like, “they could have relationships with men if they want” and “oh, actually it’s noble of them to choose love over society’s acceptance”. Saeko’s mother, as we learned, doesn’t care who she dates so long as she acts a bit more feminine for her sometimes. It sucks. These aren’t people who are so wholly terrible that it would be an easy choice for Saeko to cut them out of her life, but their low-level hostility towards her identity understandably puts her on a hair trigger.

If this were earlier in the series, things would continue to devolve. Instead, a small miracle happens: Saeko runs into Miwa who invites her over for lunch. Miwa admits that its too hard for her to try to keep away from someone she truly cares for, and this gives Saeko the push to finally, finally tell Miwa about middle school. Afterwards, they have a cute snowball fight that is also a “I’m going to caringly tell you why you suck” back-and-forth. Saeko realizes that her fixation on staying away was the wrong idea, that Miwa is a special person to her, just not in the same way that Yuria is.

You know, I tend to shortchange Yuria in these reviews but she really is the MVP of the series so far. Every time Saeko has been struggling with something, she’s always had the right answer. She’s almost too self-actualized. Saeko awkwardly tries to rise to her level of Good Partnering, and there’s something really endearing about that, but none of it would feel right if Yuria wasn’t there. I also realized after the last review that she does share traits with Miwa (mostly romantic inexperience and naivete) in a similar way that I called out between Tamaki and Saeko. So, both girls ended up dating people who echo their ex’s personality, but not to the point of being overt duplications. It’s fantastic, subtle character work.

…That said, I have to give one demerit. Saeko and Yuria have a bit of a breakthrough in their sex life, and while the moment is meant to be a moment of vulnerability finally achieved, the way it articulates does feel a little hinky on consent. Having seen similar moments in other series, I want to chalk this up to cultural differences in the way women are “expected” to express themselves during sex in Japan, but I am frankly not the person to make that judgment. You could make a character argument for the way it is on the page but I feel like the same point would have been made stronger if the dialogue was tweaked to be more clear on consent. I may be making a mountain out of a molehill on this, but my honest reaction was to be a bit disappointed that in a series that generally avoids tropes, this one made it in and slightly soured an otherwise sweet scene.

Meanwhile, Miwa and Tamaki are getting along fine, though–stop me if you heard this before–they are not gelling sexually (“and so…they were both bassists”). It isn’t an intractable problem, but Miwa’s needs are going to be challenged, both because she needs to actually ask for them and also because Tamaki passed the entrance exam for her first choice college and is going to transfer. Aside from the two-faced nature of how Tamaki’s friends talk to her and about her relationship, this volume doesn’t focus on these two all that much.

We do get a chapter from the perspective of Saeko’s mom, and as a recent parent myself (of a little girl, no less), I found it really moving. Being a parent is hard. Things won’t play out like you always imagined they would, and it takes some fortitude to roll with those punches. As I said above, Mrs. Sawatari has got her heart in the right place and is doing her best, despite the friction she causes about Saeko’s lack of femininity. You feel for her, which is a hell of a thing to pull off with a character whose full name we still don’t know.

From a macro-plot perspective, we can still see tendrils of attachment that still entangle our leads: Saeko still has some lingering romantic feelings while Miwa just cannot forget how good the sex was. Now, if we are to believe the end-of-volume “commentary tracks” [SIGH], these would be the avenues that will lead the girls to get back together in the future. I don’t like the idea, frankly. I prefer them as close intimate friends, but the seeds are clearly there for them to get back together down the road.

Regardless, the thrust of this volume is how the girls managed to bridge the awkward distance between them and it’s super satisfying. The scene that’s depicted on the cover of the girls improvising their way through cooking fried rice together and ending up with a fantastic dish that they couldn’t replicate if they tried is a perfect metaphor for their current relationship: it’s some great fucking food.

Art – 9 The art is in its groove, though I’m starting to notice a habit of flipping which sides two characters are on back and forth in some scenes.
Story – 9 The one demerit aside, the story continues to be compelling and satisfying
Characters – 10 The nuance of the characters, even in the secondary cast, continues to impress
Service – 5 The sex is more sensual and plot driving than “servicey” per se, but I’m keeping the score up
Yuri – 10 / LGBTQ – 10 Bumping this up for the non-romantic yuri and the crushingly realistic depiction of bad allyship

Overall – 9 A delicious dish, best served with your closest friend

If you didn’t know already, the series is now being localized and released alongside the biweekly Japanese serialization on the new(ish) VIZ app. Unfortunately, there is an 11 chapter gap in English between the end of this volume and when the simulpub chapters began, and if RightStuf is to be believed, volume 10 won’t come out until late January. Just imagine me sweating profusely every time I see a new chapter up.





Monologue Woven For You Volume 3, Guest Review by Matt Marcus

August 16th, 2023

The role of Reviewer will be played tonight by Matt Marcus. He is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the author of the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing the manga series How Do We Relationship.

The stage is set: Haruka has resolved to hide her acting past indefinitely while Nao has resolved to break the impasse once she passes her next big audition. Are all the secrets going to spill out? Are we going to finally learn what happened with Haruka in high school? Is Yuki going to ask out her still-in-high-school coworker?

The answers are yes, yes, and thankfully no (for now). Hope you all enjoyed the show! See you next time.

…OK that’s a bit too underwhelming even as a joke, but to be honest the story itself doesn’t fare much better.

Woe be me to think that this story centering around The Theatre wouldn’t be extra dramatic. A Monologue Woven For You, Volume 3 starts out the gate with Haruka having a minor health scare that motivates Nao to rush to her side, even though her audition is the next day. So what’s Haruka’s conclusion? Is it that her lover cares very much for her wellbeing? No, it’s that she is going to drag down Nao, snuffing out her shot at thespian greatness. She wrestles with what to do until she discovers the program for her last performance in Nao’s bag, showing that her past was known the whole time. She decides that after seeing Nao off to her audition she will ghost her. You can’t become a great artist without a little trauma, right?

You can probably figure out the rest from there. Nao is panicked. She tracks down Jun, who isn’t very helpful until she decides to try, at which point she isn’t very effective. Haruka meets Rei, the high school theater geek, who unsuccessfully tries to guilt Haruka into un-quitting acting. Somehow, Nao takes a wild leap in logic to deduce that Haruka is sulking in the auditorium in which she last performed. Nao confronts her, prompting Haruka to finally tell her why she quit.

After beginning acting at a young age, Haruka joined a local theater troupe while she was in high school. There she became close friends with a girl a year older who was an accomplished child actor. Haruka looked up to her as her role model. All of that comes crashing down when Haruka beats her out for a leading role. Her friend has a meltdown, blaming Haruka for stealing her golden opportunity, and quits acting altogether. Haruka comes away from this with a deep sense of guilt for “killing” the acting career of someone she thought was truly talented. And that’s it, that’s the trauma on which this entire plot hinges.

Haruka is still wallowing in this guilt until Nao pushes back, saying that Haruka saved her from quitting acting, and that it is her dream for the two of them to act together on stage. They reconcile, and a year later the two succeed in co-leading a play for their college drama club. Nao goes on to be a professional actor, while Haruka continues to act as a hobby. They move in together, and everyone’s happy. Cue the orchestra.

I will be honest: I thought the melodrama was both over the top and contrived and the payoff a bit rushed. I don’t think after two volumes of teasing that I would ever be satisfied with Haruka’s inciting incident in high school, and what we get is more or less as pedestrian as you could get. I had mentioned in my review of Volume 2 that I wasn’t sure if the story wanted me to trust in Haruka’s decision never to act again. Seems a bit foolish now to think that she could have chosen to stay in the audience, but given the way the story framed her stance I think my confusion was warranted. A slightly less storybook ending could have demonstrated Haruka’s outlook maturing as she looks back on the opportunities she threw away. For most people, there are times in your life where you have to give up on participating in something you love but you discover a new way to appreciate it, like an injured athlete becoming a coach. You can wring a lot of impact from such stories of loss, however it would fall flat here because Haruka’s decision to leave the troupe was not foisted upon her; it was entirely self-inflicted. Seriously, someone should have just told her that the fault lies with the girl who quit over a bruised ego. Like, maybe her parents. Or Jun. Or Nao! (I have the “it’s not your fault” scene from Good Will Hunting running on loop in my head now.) Given where Yasaka-sensei wanted to take the story, it would have been better to seed more hints that Haruka was drawn to act again, but felt ashamed about it.

To pivot away from the story, there is one interesting part of the art that didn’t strike me as obvious until this review, which is the use of blur to show depth of field. There are of course cinematic perspective tricks used in other manga, but the way it is implemented here feels somewhat unique. It had been there the whole time–hell, it’s on the Volume 1 cover with the cherry blossoms–but for whatever reason I only noticed it in this volume. Aside from that, there is only one bit of art that I felt was really well composed and drawn, which is the cover page to chapter 15, with Nao standing under a streetlamp at night.

All in all, this series ended up very “mid” as the kids say. The story could have relied less on contrived and stretched out tension, the art is fine but not amazing, and I don’t think it draws out all of the potential out of the college setting. That said, it’s not a bad time. If you want some fluff with a heaping of melodrama, you could do worse.

Art – 7 The art stayed consistent throughout
Story – 6 The melodrama was overwrought
Characters – 5 They’re acting to the rafters but they can’t elevate the script
Service – 0 Nada
Yuri – 8 / LGBTQ – 1 They teased a second ‘ship but didn’t commit

Overall – 7 Would give it a perfunctory standing ovation





GunburedXSisters Volume 3 & Volume 4, Guest Review by Eric P

August 2nd, 2023

Two women with Catholic church-themed clothing glare at us, holding weapons.Where last we left off in Volume 2, Shannon had been clued into Maria’s non-human nature, Dorothy came across colder than ever in her intentions with Maria, and the insane Doctor J vowed to take Maria’s power while leaving the latter a clue of her sister’s well-being—then the volume left us with an image foreshadowing that Maria may well not like the official answer.

After the typical monster-of-the-week formula of the first two volumes, things are finally ramping up to something serious—against the church, the town, and even other members of the grotesque. Standing front and center of the building apocalyptic chaos is none other than Noelle, the beloved sister Maria had devoted all her time and being into searching for. All personal relationships are put to the test, for it is no longer a simple battle between good and evil which, in retrospect, it certainly never has been. Shannon’s loyalty to Dorothy—and cartoonishly obsessive infatuation (they made Dorothy dolls as a hobby)— has amounted to no payoff as they recognize the bond between her and Maria, and their desperate resorts afterwards only puts them at odds with Dorothy and make them question whether they can continue as a Holy Knight. And Dorothy, the same deviant nun who we came to know as confident and cleverly manipulative of the people around her, has discovered she herself had been manipulated her whole life. Conspiracy gets unearthed of the Church’s true relationship with the vampires, and their actual objective in maintaining balance/power with the town, shaking her world and putting her at a loss for once in her life. The ultimate question becomes whether our protagonists can pull together, individually as well as a team, in time to fight for what matters most, and especially figure out just what that is.

Reading Mariko S.’s review of the first volume intrigued me enough to check it out, while at the same time remain cautious in whether or not this was the kind of series I would continue reading. I was left curious enough to check out the next volume—before I knew it I consumed all four and found it to be a strangely pleasant surprise. The best way to describe GunburedXSisters to give newbie readers an accurate idea of what they are in for is like a cross between Chrono Crusade and Murcielago. It has the religious-themed fantasy action entertainment of the former, while spiced with the borderline deviant humor/morality of the latter—not to mention the hardcore ugly lesbian sex.

A girl with animal ears, holds a nun in red in her arms.This series had just the right amount of crass humor and profane language that fit the characters as well as the story’s tone, making it feel it could work as hard R-rated entertainment if it were ever adapted. For that much I give kudos to the translator for bringing a natural-sounding art to the voices. Where I would knock one point back in the translation is Shannon’s pronoun reference. Shannon is made out to be non-binary as I came to understand, but especially in Vol. 3 the same characters seem to bounce between referring to Shannon as a “she” and “they” in the same few pages, which at least I found confusing.

If you were starting to think the whole Yuri focus of this series would center on Dorothy and Maria with Shannon on the side, you are in for a treat as the story’s second half broadens its scope to Shannon and a love-at-first-scent werewolf girl named Kiki, who knowingly places herself as Shannon’s rebound girl without shame/apology. And with the escalating crisis, two veteran Crimson Sister nuns named Helen and Miranda are called into action, a duo that the author himself admitted was inspired by a certain Sailor Moon couple. It can be enough to make readers think back on Helen and Miranda and realize, “Ah yes, I see it now.” Even with all the additions it is of course the star couple of this series that shine more than ever. Dorothy, who right out of the gate came across like a sadistic sociopath, we find out that she—still technically is, but does have a heart in her own way regardless. And Dorothy and Maria’s relationship is able to evolve from the slave dynamic to that of true partners on every level, in a way that made sense for both them and their story, while contributing to the evolution of Maria’s powers.

Everything culminates to a fitting climax, if not so much a definitive conclusion. While the story does finish on a closed loop, the open end still leaves room for a continuation if the author ever feels like returning to this title—an idea he entertains in the afterword, and something I certainly wouldn’t mind happening when all is said and done.

Ratings:

Art—10 It’s as good as it should be for a series like this, with facial expressions especially top notch

Story—8½ This was pretty much a story about how only outcasts and people of otherness are able to bring needed change to a set system—a prevalent theme without going deep and deterring from the mindless action/sexual romp that the series was still meant to be

Characters—9 Everyone comes into their own before the end, and all new characters like Kiki were able to easily jump in without throwing anything out of place

Yuri—9 Chloe is the only odd girl out in a series that ended up otherwise packed out in Yuri-friendliness

Service—10 Yep, enough said

Overall—9 For everything it was supposed to be and set out to do, I believe it did it well enough—the only problem being that there could’ve been more to it, which there may or may not be in the future.





Anime Expo 2023 Event Report by Alfiq

July 7th, 2023

Welcome to Okazu for a very exciting event report! This past July 4th weekend, at Anime Expo, Yuri had a significant presence. Kodansha and Comic Yuri Hime partnered for a really exciting booth that prominently featured Yuri titles. Kinokuniya hosted Aonoshimo-sensei, the artist for the I’m In Love With The Villainess manga, and the I’m In Love With The Villainess anime episodes 1 and 2 made their worldwide premiere!  To tell us all about it, please welcome Alfiq, who was there in the thick of the excitement!

 

AX 2023: A Yuri Odyssey

(or, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Con”)

 

They came from far and wide–from every corner of the US, from across the Pacific, and from other far-flung locations.  They came by plane, by train, by car, and on foot.  Their destination was the Los Angeles Convention Center, set to join the teeming mass of otaku humanity otherwise known as Anime Expo 2023. While not the first, the sheer size and impact of the event had me borrowing the tagline of another Southern California institution: this was the granddaddy of them all, a con that multiple people told me I was crazy to attempt to attend, especially as it would be this older otaku’s first-ever anime con.  But the power of yuri compelled me, as this would be an opportunity I could not allow myself to miss.  Aonoshimo-sensei, the mangaka for I’m in Love with the Villainess, would be there for a signing event on the first day, and then on the final day the ILTV anime would have its worldwide premiere–a first for the yuri genre.

But first, a little introduction is in order.  My friends in the ILTV fandom call me “fwwr” (usually said like “fwer”) or, alternatively, Alfiq.  I can be found on Twitter at @alfiqrailbaron or on Discord at fwwr_alfiq.  I first got into anime two decades ago, as a college student with a Japanophile roommate.  I still remember the day that he called me over into the living room of our shared off-campus apartment, put a DVD into the tray and suggested that I give this particular anime a watch with him.  It will be fun, it’s hilarious, et cetera.  The show was Project A-ko, and I was hooked.  For the remainder of our time at college I was helping with my roommate’s Sailor Stars fan-subs and watching along with other shows, from mainstream names like Cowboy Bebop to less-familiar titles like Mamotte Shugogetten.  As is always the case, however, time and fate kept marching onward, and after graduation we largely went our separate ways in life as my enjoyment of anime and related media receded into dormancy.  It wasn’t until almost twenty years later, while stuck at home thanks to Covid isolation and lockdowns, that I would stumble across a “cute and funny manga” that would touch my heart in ways I didn’t know were possible, change the entire trajectory of my life, and introduce me to an absolute wealth of wonderful people and amazing stories.  I’m in Love with the Villainess was that manga, which led me to the novels (two were out in English at the time), which led me to the webnovel, which led me to feeling personally compelled in ways I had never felt before to seek out the greater community of fans with which to talk about it.  ILTV was something I never knew I needed, but now could never imagine my life without.  When news broke of the goings-on for AX, my wife even pushed me to go for it.  “This is a big deal, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, just go and make it happen.”  I cashed-in untold frequent flyer miles and Hilton points, and negotiated to split costs with another dear friend in the fandom.  The stage was set, and before I knew it I was touching-down at LAX and meeting up with my partner in Yuri and dad-jokes, Kit.  The morning of Day One would be an experience, and we got what sleep we could.

Day One dawned and a local friend from the fandom picked us up bright-and-early at the hotel.  I can’t stress enough the importance of having knowledge from an AX veteran, as witnessed when our friend readily identified “fake lines” and other pitfalls that would very likely have ensnared us without her help and expertise as a previous attendee.  Before I knew it, we were inside, a part of the massive agglomeration of people pushing ever forward into the Exhibitor’s Hall to be among the first to partake in special limited bonuses.  Our eyes were on the prize as we scooted towards the Kinokuniya booth and slowly made our way to the registers, the crush of people behind us pushing our bodies against the front of the booth as people handed what merch they could through and over the crowd.  One person in the throng was overheard to say that he had been offered a $500 bounty if he could obtain Aonoshimo-sensei’s autograph!  I could see the pad of tickets for Aonoshimo-sensei’s signing slowly dwindle, but in making it to the cashier table with my companions close behind, our victory was all but assured.  I spent my required $50 minimum on ILTV products and then carefully made my way out of the booth, waiting patiently for my friends to join me, and thankfully once we all rendezvoused we all held autograph tickets in our hands.  Success!  We then proceeded to the Kodansha booth next door, where we could get Yuri-themed buttons for participating in a couple of activities (one led by an attendant dressed as Hime-chan from Yuri is My Job), and then slowly worked our way over to the King Records booth in the Entertainment Hall, where we obtained ILTV postcards.  After that, we managed to find a relatively quiet room with vending machines and tables where we were able to catch our breath and rehydrate, and talk about the experience so far as we waited-out the clock until 1pm.

We returned to the Kinokuniya booth to find that things had fallen into a much more organized pattern, with shoppers being let into the booth in one line and the autograph queue in another.  We took our spots in line and slowly moved forward, and before long found ourselves at the front of the line before the partition that would let people into the corner where Aonoshimo-sensei was.  All was not running entirely according to plan, however, as apparently Kinokuniya had given out a few more tickets than the advertised fifty, and this realization had become clear just as we reached the front of the line.  Aonoshimo-sensei took a break at this time, which we presumed also involved her gathering materials and preparing additional drawings for the remaining people in line, since she had graciously created drawings for everyone as a special gift in anticipation of there being fifty total participants.  (She’s indeed a superwoman, as series author Inori-sensei herself often tweets!)

Finally, the signing session resumed.  Kit was the first into the signing corner, and then it was my turn.  The butterflies in my stomach felt absolutely tangible–I was about to meet the mangaka behind the manga adaptation of the story which has brought so much joy into my life these past few years.  And then, there I was, face-to-face with Aonoshimo-sensei herself!  I know virtually no Japanese, but there were a couple of Kinokuniya employees there to help.  What followed only took a few minutes at most, but will be seared into my memories for all time. (Twitter link to the drawings from Aonishimo-sensei)

In a word, Aonoshimo-sensei is adorable.  She came across as very happy and eager to meet the fans, and she felt honored that I had traveled from relatively far away to be there.  I was wearing a button with an illustration of my favorite character that she had previously drawn for me in a raffle win (said favorite character may appear in the manga in about five or six years, so please keep supporting it!), and upon recognizing the illustration her face absolutely lit up with joy and excitement.  I also retrieved a makeshift wand from my pocket and mimicked a casting motion, revealing that I had been in a sort of “low budget, washed-up Rodd Bauer” cosplay all along, and she was very excited to make the connection!  She pointed to a chibi of Rodd and I nodded–that was me, for the day!  I had brought a copy of the Japanese edition of Volume 5 of the manga to be signed (those who know, will know about “that scene” that we finally got to see in it!) and she signed it, adding a Relaire that included an identifying feature tied to my favorite character.  (I noticed her using my button as an off-the-cuff character reference!).  Along with my book, I received a beautiful mini-illustration of Lily Lilium in her AX outfit and, as a special surprise, a color card of the ILTV AX chibis hand-signed by Inori-sensei herself!  All too soon, my moment was over, and I shook Aonoshimo-sensei’s hand and wished her safe travels before returning to the rest of the Kinokuniya booth.  With that, I had met Aonoshimo-sensei herself, and had in my possession her autograph personally-obtained along with Inori-sensei’s as well.  Exhausted from the early start and packed-like-sardines conditions, Kit and I returned to the hotel and called it a day.

The next two days we largely did our own thing; on Sunday Kit and our local friend attended several sessions and a vtuber concert and had an absolute blast, while I took advantage of the Metrolink $10 weekend pass to indulge in another of my passions, railroad photography.  We met back up for dinner along with another local friend in Little Tokyo and enjoyed a spirited discussion of Madoka: Rebellion over ramen and drinks.  Monday, Kit and I ventured into Artist’s Alley where many purchases were made, despite my wallet crying out to Jupiter and beyond the infinite.  One artist as I browsed her booth even opened her catalog to reveal a Project A-ko print, as if she somehow sensed that it would have importance to me.  (It most certainly did!)  We finished the day with another trip to Little Tokyo, browsing shops and the Kinokuniya store, before capping things off with another wonderful dinner with more friends from the fandom.

Tuesday, we had precisely one objective: attend the ILTV world premiere.  We stationed ourselves in-line as the prior session was letting folks in, and patiently waited for our turn to enter the large premiere room.  We eventually did, and took our spots front-and-center.  Time slowed to a crawl as people slowly filtered in behind us, until eventually one of the Crunchyroll staff announced the proceedings.  ILTV had top-billing in the listings I had seen, but an unannounced additional series, Reign of the Seven Spellblades, would have its first episode shown first.  It looks interesting, and I may investigate further as I understand that Inori-sensei has tweeted about enjoying the series’ novels in the past, but it received relatively tepid applause–it was clear what series people were there for, and as the room absolutely erupted when Rae Taylor appeared on the screen.

We were not shown OPs or EDs for the series, so we jumped right into the action.  The first two episodes tracked relatively closely to the manga, with just a few details differing or being slightly re-ordered.  We also were not shown credits, so while we heard several new-to-us voices, we don’t know for sure who the VAs are.  Those that we did encounter for the first time were almost universally spot-on to my impression of what they would have been.  I remain just a bit unsure of Rodd’s voice, as it came across as slightly too immature-sounding to me, but yet (as Kit reminded me) Rodd himself starts the series as an immature “bro” type of character.  I suspect his voice will grow on me greatly as the series continues onward.

The visuals were absolutely gorgeous.  Claire’s gazebo, where Pepi and Loretta so often commiserate with her over Rae’s hijinks, looked stunningly beautiful in a painting-like setting with water and forestry adding to the environmental effect.  The instrumentals were perfect, with wonderful piano and string motifs (particularly appropriate, in fact, for those of you who have read the spinoff series SSCC) providing an aural feast to accompany Rae’s taunting and Claire’s screeches.  And, of course, that magnificent ojou-sama laugh of Claire’s could finally be heard in all of its villainously villainess glory!  I won’t spoil specific content here, but suffice it to say that I was smiling from ear-to-ear for the entire time, and cheers and applause from around the room erupted at many key scenes and revelations.  ILTV absolutely had a solid following present, and even fans sitting near us who had said they were there for other series still found plenty to laugh and cheer for in ILTV.  Indeed, upon ILTV’s conclusion, over half of the room emptied-out despite a concluding Spellblades autographed art raffle having been advertised at the beginning.

With that, our time at AX itself was complete.  There were challenges, to be sure, and I don’t think my legs and feet have forgiven me quite yet from all the walking and standing that were required.  Cost and time are finite commodities, and I know that I was lucky to have some external factors (such as frequent flyer miles) come together to help make this happen for me.  But regardless, the memories made and the experiences shared with friends in the fandom are going to stick with me for a long time yet to come.  It was important to me to be there–a sense of obligation and compulsion that I hadn’t felt since when I first finished ILTV, and immediately knew that I just had to reach out and find others to talk about it.  The passion that grew from that experience carried me to AX, and now I feel almost as if I’ve evolved as a fan to a higher level of existence.  As one friend said, “if you can survive AX, all the other cons out there will be a breeze.”  While I’m not in any particular hurry to test that hypothesis, I certainly have more confidence in myself now about it.  It’s ultimately yet another way that ILTV and yuri have helped me to continue to grow as a person.

Now, if only I could find a way to enter cold-sleep until the anime airs in October….

 

****

“Hime-chan” at the Kodansha booth

 

Yuri is My Job banner hanging above the Kodansha booth

Whisper Me a Love Song banner hanging above the Kodansha booth

A giant Comic Yuri Hime mock-up as part of the Kodansha booth.  Sharp eyes may spot where Aonoshimo-sensei surreptitiously signed the ILTV illustration in-person.

 

Posters in the Kinokuniya booth for ILTV, Whisper Me a Love Song, and Yuri is My Job

ILTV merch in the Kinokuniya booth

ILTV banner, prominently hanging among many others promoting upcoming Crunchyroll offerings

ILTV banner, prominently hanging among many others promoting upcoming Crunchyroll offerings

 

VICTORY!

Erica here: Well, what a fabulous time and a fabulous report! I was grinning ear-to-ear myself reading this. I remember the enormous scale of Anime Expo from 20 years ago, I cannot imagine what it is like now. Thank you so much Alfiq for giving us an insider view of the Yuriest Expo ever.

E here: Just as a footnote – there have been three Yuri anime that have had premiers in the US. Yuricon 2007’s Yurisai event held the US premiere of Simoun, Anime NYC had the North American premiere of Kase-san and Morning Glories in 2018, but as far as I know, this was definitely the first Yuri world premiere!

Also, let us talk about the fact that two different Yuri publishers had a presence on the floor, and industry panels and with an anime. I’m only sorry that Seven Seas wasn’t there and that I also was not there. ^_^;

Thanks again Alfiq for the great report.