Archive for the Guest Review Category


The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Guest Review by Paul S. Enns

June 28th, 2023

A princess in pink and a dashing young courtier in purple pull a grilled cheese sandwich apart so the oozy cheese is visible.When the whole point is to be cheesy, of course you lean into it fully.

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich is as cheesy as can be. It was inspired by the real-life courtship between the writer/artist Deya Muniz and their now wife, Emily.

With it being so cheesy, it’s no spoiler to say that the main characters end up together. As usual, it’s the journey that makes it interesting. The theme naming used reminds me of the old Asterix books: every name is a cheese or cheese related, including place names, with one exception, and even that name is a food.

Our first hero, Lady Camembert, disguises herself as a man, rather than be forced to marry a man to inherit her father’s estate. To distance herself from people who might recognize her in Gougère, she moves to Fondue, the capital of Fromage, with her most trusted servant, Feta.

Our second hero, Princess Brie, has long been an advocate for changing the antiquated laws of her kingdom. Her friends, Gorgonzola and Ricotta, figure out that Camembert and Brie are in love with each other, as well as recognize that neither Cam nor Brie realizes it of the other.

Thus, the comedy of errors proceeds along somewhat predictable grounds. Cam has to protect her secret or risk imprisonment, and Brie—still accepting the traditional role of the askee and not the asker—waits in vain for Cam to court her. Brie’s friends are having none of that, and do their best to help things along. Unlike a lot of stories where misunderstandings are a major part of the plot, I didn’t want to scream at the characters; Gorgonzola, Ricotta, and even Feta took care of that for me.

The story has a point, but it doesn’t feel like it’s using a club to say it. While important topics are discussed, they arise naturally from the premise and setting, rather than forcing you to read a long-winded diatribe. The point is, naturally enough, anti-patriarchy.

The art is wonderful. Every character, even minor ones, are easy to distinguish. The colors used are vibrant, and themed around the characters. So Cam is usually surrounded by blues and purples, while Brie is surrounded by pinks and reds. The depictions using deformation are not quite chibi, but look inspired by it to me. The cross-popping veins are the most obvious manga-inspired art convention.

Given the whole nature of the story, it would be absurd to knock it for the anachronisms. The story seems to take place in a pre-industrial world, yet has modern kitchens, advanced printing technology, and Nintendo Switches. These may be safely ignored. Do we really want to put up with real-world accuracy for this story? Absolutely not. While I don’t think being accurate would detract from the story, the juxtaposition provides additional humor. Be sure to note the t-shirts Cam wears.

Ratings:

Art — 9 A tad cartoony at times, but overall excellent.
Story — 10 I laughed through most of it, and when I didn’t, I teared up along with the characters.
Characters — 10 Gorgonzola and Feta are standouts as secondary characters.
Service — 2 Lots of plunging necklines.
LGBTQ+ — 10 We have lesbian, agender, and questioning covered.

Overall — I’m going to go ahead and give this a 10. I’ve read it three times already, and not just because I’m reviewing it.





Soulmate, Volume 3, Review by Laurent Lignon

June 21st, 2023
It is time for us to go back to the story of Qi, a Chinese lesbian teacher whose mind has been switched in time with her past teenage self. Will she then be able to save the woman she loves from the disease that is slowly killing her? This review contains some spoilers for Volume 3 of Soulmate written by Wenzhili and illustrated by Keranbing.
 
“Soulmate” has been released as a webtoon in Mandarin Chinese by Kuaikan Manhua and in English by Tapas/Comic Panda, while the printed version has been published in French by Nazca Éditions.

IN THE PRESENT : Teenage Qi is finally reintegrated in her job as a teacher, a remark from her director pushes her to question the reasons that had led her to practice this profession in the first place. An incident allows her to discover who was the anonymous slanderer who outted her on the school social network, while at the same time discovering why she became a teacher and what price she had to pay for it : in order to have a regular income to help pay for Yuanzi’s medical expenses, she refused a contract to publish her first short story. Finally confronting the slanderer in person helps Teenage Qi realize the extant of her love for Yuanzi and decide to fulfill her dream of becoming a full-time writer with her help

IN THE PAST : Something is wrong. Adult Qi has told Teenage Yuanzi that she was in love with her, yet Yuanzi does not react accordingly to the news. Is something missing, maybe Yuanzi hasn’t fallen in love with her yet? Or perhaps it has something to do with the play their friend Keke is about to produce, a play that Adult Qi knows fully well that Keke’s father didn’t came to watch in her original timeline. To be sure that her own future will change and that she’ll be able to save the life of her loved one, Adult Qi decides to ensure that Keke’s father will be there to see his daughter ‘s first success as a play director.

Well, a lot of things happen during those 326 pages ! The stakes keeps getting higher and it is funny to see Adult Qi acting like an adult while in a teenage body (like when she literally break some would-be intrusive flirting boys in a single sentence). The chapter dedicated to the theatre play is perfectly drawn, showcasing some interesting part of the Chinese culture (the play is an adaptation of the classic tale “Tang Buo and Chow Heung”, which was adapted as movies in 1969 and 1993) and allowing Adult Qi to finally understand what is missing for her to fix everything and go back in her own timeline. When that event finally happen, it is in the most romantic way possible.

As for Teenage Qi, it’s a pleasure to see her mature this way and finally accept who she will become. This is to the point where she thinks she will never go back in the past and decide to carve her own path for the future, reciprocating Yuanzi’s feelings for her and accepting that their love will be short, for Yuanzi cannot be saved now. Unless…

Really, too bad that the gorgeous cover art is spoiling the ending ^-^

The secondary characters are what makes this volume so good, each one getting one or more chapters dedicated to how their own issues impact Qi in both timelines. Perhaps the most interesting one is Xinjue, Teenage Qi’s student who outed her anonymously : we finally learn why she did it, as well as the troubles she has in accepting her own closeted homosexuality. While she ends getting a well-deserved backlash for her actions, I still believe it is perhaps too much a strong one… Yet, this allows the story to be more realistic as this is probably what would befall Xinjue if she had done such acts in the ‘real life’. And I can’t help but to feel some pity for a girl who acted on impulse in trying to get herself loved and ended in losing everything she had.

Luckily, not all is dark and there is also a lot of humor, which helps to de-dramatize the most serious moments (my fave ? The reactions of Adult Yuanzi, desperately wanting to have some love action with Teenage Qi… But unable to pass the block of knowing that, even if stuck in an adult body, it’s a teenage girl completely unexperienced in sexual matters that lives with her)

As said before, you’ll know the end just by looking at the cover and it’s as romantic as you could expect (if not more). Those ladies deserved their happy ending, and it’s all wrapped up simply and with cuddly feelings oozing from every case.

ART : 7 – Lizi WENHZI knows how to draw good looking characters, I’m less of a fan of her super-deformed faces for comic relief but that is never a problem. The background are well drawn, and the colors aren’t too artificial looking despite being computer made.

STORY : 8 – Too bad for the cover art spoiling everything, but all the threads are wrapped up nicely until the end. The bonus chapter doesn’t bring anything new or useful, but is still a nice touch showcasing more how Qi and Yuanzi couple works as adults.

CHARACTER : 9 – Every character is relatable to, even the bastard ones like Keke’s father : we all know people like this, whether they’re good or bad persons. They may be just imaginary characters, yet we all know people who are like them. And we love them more for being that way.

SERVICE : 0 – Even with the few sexual innuendos of Yuanzi really turned on by accidentally seeing the naked body of her lover (barely shown on page).

YURI : 10 – As per the two previous volumes, of course.

OVERALL : I’m a sucker for well written love stories that end well and for well written science-fiction/fantasy : having both in the same manhua is a delight and, while Soulmate doesn’t break new grounds as a general rule, it is well worth your time.

I wish the World could be filled with more people like Qi, Yuanzi and all their accepting friends and families : it would surely be a better place.

“In tens of thousands of spaces and times, I will always love you.”





Run Away With Me Girl Volume 2, Guest Review by Matt Rolf

June 14th, 2023

Two adult woman sit up in bed, half dressed, gently touching.What happens when a woman gets to question the path she’s on in a supportive environment away from negative people and the weight of societal expectations? Battan gives their protagonist the space to do just that in Run Away With Me Girl, Volume 2, and the result is a book far more enjoyable to read than Volume 1.

Makimura still holds a torch for Midori, who is still pregnant and engaged to a man. At the beginning of the book the women are not speaking. But, as Midori contemplates the weight of her impending life changes, she breaks down and lets Maki back into her life. Maki takes the opportunity to invite Midori on a trip to see Maki’s friend Komari, a school girl with whom she chats online. Midori, wanting to escape her own life, takes Maki up on the offer, and the women immediately leave for Shōdoshima Island where Komari lives. 

The bulk of the book takes place on Shōdoshima, keeping the reality of Maki and Midori’s real world at bay. It is here that all three women connect with each other and take stock of their lives. The adults find awe in Komari’s fearlessness and honesty as she grapples with the challenges she faces in trying to live her identity. All three observe and encourage each other and use the information to consider what it is they really want from their lives and relationships.

I strongly support the plot choices made in this book. At least some of the characters in this volume are working toward healthier choices than Volume 1, and that’s to Battan’s credit. As with all vacations, there is a bill to be paid upon Midori and Maki’s return.  The bill does not come due in this volume, allowing the characters to bask in the possibilities of a hopeful future.

The artwork is improved in this volume. The dreamy quality of the series overall is accentuated on the island. The backgrounds are more interesting and help set the scene better than Volume 1. Battan wields frame-breaking character features with skill, and uses them more effectively here than Volume 1. My biggest critique is that at times Komari is drawn in a very elfin manner. This accentuates her youth and the un-reality of the island vacation, but at times she just looks weird.

While yuri, this book still exists in a space where the relationships and commitments of the characters are left unstated at important places. A group bath scene with excellent artwork is the service highlight. The scene is tasteful and well-done, and anything more explicit is just not what this series is. The real relationship payoffs are emotional. Midori is moving toward making definitive statements about the sort of relationships she wants, and Volume 3 will give her an opportunity to make good on those movements.

Final Verdict: Leave your troubles behind and get yourself sorted in a steam bath with other women.

Published by Kodansha Comics, with translation by Kevin Steinbach and lettering by Jennifer Skarupa.

Ratings

Art – 8
Story 8 – Not as harsh as volume one, and that’s most welcome.
Characters – 7 We’re getting there.
Service – 5 We don’t have to take our clothes off to have a good time.
Yuri – 8
Overall – 8





If I Could Reach You, Guest Review by Luce

June 7th, 2023

A woman stands looking out onto a purple night sky, holding a sitting girl's hand.Welcome once again to Guest Review Wednesday! We have a whole bunch of guest for the next few weeks, so let’s this part started! Today we once again welcome back Luce, who will be taking a look at a completed series. Take it away, Luce!

I’m Luce, collector of books and sometimes I even read them. I come bearing a review of a series that’s been out for a while and is complete, If I Could Reach You by tMnR. Enjoy!

The very first pages of the manga, tinged with blue, show us the exact moment Uta realised that she’d fallen in love – the exact moment her sister-in-law became her crush. A year later, Uta is in high school and is living with Reiichi, her older brother, and Kaoru, the aforementioned sister-in-law. No matter how she tries, she cannot get over this love, her ‘too late’ love. If I Could Reach You is the examination of this binary star system of Uta and Kaoru, and how they keep circling each other, never quite able to clear that distance, nor leave.
 
A tragedy, to me, is a story in which fate cannot be fought. It marches on, tramples over all in its path, and death seems the only escape from it. Is this a tragedy? No, not really. But I think it shares some similarities. It is circular, somehow, an invetability to the telling of it. Uta loves Kaoru. Uta knows it’s hopeless, but cannot give it up. She knows that Kaoru sees her as a sister only, which only makes it worse – Kaoru wanting to be closer in a familial way speaks to what Uta wants, but not for the reasons she wants it. The manga is seven volumes, so it’s not so prone to the endless circling that some romance manga seem to get into, but it’s certainly not decisive in its action. It moves quite slowly, building up layers of paint onto the canvas, until you finally get the whole picture – or is it? Some things are left untold even by the end, left to our imagination.
 
The drama felt pretty realistic and down to earth. It’s fairly obvious that Kaoru and Reiichi’s relationship isn’t quite working even at the start – the blurb of the first volume tells you that – but the actual reason is kept right until the end of the manga, as the issue comes together. The fall out is realistic. It’s not so much a soap opera of a shoujo manga, but a more melancholic tide of no one quite being happy, but none are able to address it, nor particularly face it, so it continues.
 
Having said that, I don’t see this as a depressing manga. It doesn’t feel hopeless, to me. It feels like a snapshot of lives not my own, just watching them play out, unable to impact them in any way. There are plenty of moments of levity, and characters that change the tone, not interested in dwelling in pity. Kuro, and her relationship with Miyabi, is an interesting aside, and Konatsu, although she has her own regrets, has her own unique way of dealing with things too. I think this manga is about uneven relationships, really, where feelings don’t quite match each other, and the strain that can put on them – and whether they can survive it. I’m not so keen on the portrayal of love as some unending emotion, unable to be shaken or swayed, but I can forgive that, as I do with many manga.
 
The art is fairly simple, but gives itself space to breathe – the emotions come through clearly. There was a panel in the first volume, where Uta has a dream in class about Kaoru kissing her – the panel of her jolting awake is the thing I remember most. The despair, the horror, perhaps the relief that it hadn’t actually happened, or the disappointment. It was this panel that really caught me, and made me carry on with it. There are lots of big panels and expressions which made me stop – if I had one complaint, it would be that everyone is a little stretched, with long limbs. It’s not unusual for manga, but does make me wonder about everyone’s heights, sometimes.
 
Although I enjoy this series, I’m having trouble with who to advise might like it. It has a little of the realism of How Do We Relationship? But isn’t so swift in its story-telling. It doesn’t really have the clear narrative of many shoujo, and it’s neither a wholly happy story nor a big drama. Perhaps if you like stories with something of an open end, this might appeal. If I had to compare the mood of it, it would be to Solanin by Inio Asano, in its relatively mundane, melancholic realism in depicting messy and imperfect relationships.
 
Story: 6
Art: 6
Yuri: 5
Service: 3 (the odd bath scene, not done salaciously as far as I recall)

Overall: 6

E here: Fantastic review, Luce. “…this manga is about uneven relationships” really puts it all into perspective for me. Terrific. Thanks so much!

 
 




Yuri Espoir, Volume 4 Guest Review by Luce

May 31st, 2023

A girl with lavender hair sits at a table with two water glasses and a carafe looking directly at us, against a purple background with colorful stars.Once again we welcome you to Guest Review Wednesday and welcome Luce back as a Guest Reviewer. This is an ongoing series – we have reviewed Volumes 1-3 on Okazu –  so we’ll get right into it. Take it away, Luce!

Yuri Espoir, Volume 4 opens where the third volume left off, with Kokoro on her date with Mr Hanakago, and goes further into her discomfort with him and the way the world sees her. Amami and Mitsuru see Mr Hanakago, and it turns out Mitsuru knows something of his past, that we get glimpses of, but not a full picture. Amami and Kokoro spend the night at Mitsuru’s house, then we get a few imagine spots by Kokoro about Yuri couples, as per usual.

I will start by saying this volume, and therefore review, has some trigger warnings for self inflicted throwing up, homophobia, depression and suicide.

Some good things about this volume: I liked the relationship of Mitsuru’s parents, and how she doesn’t care how other people see them. They’re all happy, and that was nice to see. There are also three female schoolmates, now grown up, that live together happily, which sounds pretty ideal to me. Kokoro does have two imagine spots, and it’s nice to see her enthusiastic about something, doing her drawing and thinking about cute relationships. I quite enjoyed the last chapter in the main story, the reality being two step-sisters learning to get on, as their parents have moved in together. I do like the variety of relationships portrayed. We also get to see Mr Hanakago’s face and an allusion to his past, the implication is that it wasn’t great.

However. The first scene, we see Kokoro have what looks to be a panic attack. Feeling ill during her date, she tries to make herself throw up, and panics when she can’t, seemingly because if she takes too long, Mr Hanakago will tell her father. It appears to be a one off thing, but still, not exactly what I wanted to see.

But the thing that really got me was that the truth behind one of those imagine spots is, in my opinion, needlessly dark. A girl who clearly has depression starts dating another girl in her class who likes her. Fine. This relationship continues for several years it seems, as they move out and attend college. But her depression stops her from appreciating it, and they start fighting more and more frequently. Snubbed by her girlfriend, they go home separately, and she then sees her girlfriend kissing another of their friends. It turns out that earlier she had killed herself, which is shown on page, and was following them as a ghost – maybe? The time line is a bit confused. But she is a side character. Her death does not advance the main story. The chapter ends with that. It is not discussed, nor the impact shown. The girlfriend’s reaction – whose mother had killed herself when she was younger – is confusing. Not sure if that was a translation thing (seems to be alright for the rest, so possibly more likely the original thing). I might have missed something with regards to that.

If a manga is going to include suicide, I would rather it show the aftermath, not be an afterthought, not shown for the shock value. It may be an end for the person who has died, but it has reverberations for everyone left behind. It happens, I know that. But it’s so far away from what I thought this manga was going to be, I can’t recommend it. It’s been descending into darker tones, with the previous review touching on Yuri Espoir‘s somewhat tone deaf approach to sexual assault allegations, and I’m very disappointed it’s continued this way. I’m also quite disappointed that no helplines or advice are shown at the end of the volume, as it often done when things touch on these topics.

It also concerns me that with the manga going darker – Kokoro has said that she will ‘die’ after high school if she has to marry Mr Hanakago. This was, I believe, started to be that she would cease to be herself in that marriage, but with this volume, I cannot help but wonder if this has a more literal interpretation. I hope I’m wrong, I am hoping for a happier ending right now, but. Who knows? I want to see how it continues for now, but don’t be fooled by the cover – this is no longer a cute Yuri manga.

Really, I feel like this manga can’t decide what it wants to be. Does it want to focus on Kokoro and Amami? Kokoro and Mr Hanakago? Mr Hanakago and Mr Asahina? The Yuri subcouples? Instead it seems to do everything and not really succeed at much. I’m not against having various story threads, and it has been some time since I read the last volume, but it all seems confused. Additionally, I understand that acting against your family can be difficult, but we don’t see Kokoro try much. She complains that the world sees her as a guileless girl who needs help… But she’s not really done much to even give the reader much evidence to the contrary. About the most subversive thing she does is draw Yuri couples and imagine their life. But she’s doing that for her own benefit, basically just shipping strangers together. It was a nice mechanic when there wasn’t so much else going on, but now it’s just cluttering up the book, especially with such dark stories. I want to see Yuri joy, or even just interesting relationships, rather than darkness.

I’m hoping that this manga turns a corner soon – that Kokoro herself makes a real effort to avoid what’s being decided for her. But with whole chapters dedicated to one off stories, I think the going will be slow.

Story: 5, there are lots of words and not much action
Art: 6
Yuri: 8, mostly for Mitsuru’s family
Service: 0
Unexpected trigger warnings: 9

Overall: 5

I will end as Tokyopop didn’t: suicide is not an answer. There are helplines and advice, and things can and will get better. You are more than your darkest hour, and people will miss you, even if you think they won’t. Please seek help.

Erica here: To continue from Luce’s last point. Here in the United States, 988 is the Suicide Help Hotline. Please call.

Thank you Luce. I also hope this story turns a corner soon. It had a great premise, but is still taking itself very seriously in a way that isn’t working for the story…or for me.