Archive for the Hentai Category


Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! Volume 1, Guest Review by Matt Rolf

March 1st, 2023

A partially dressed pink-haired woman is surrounded by three other partially dressed women.Letters read Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! Vol 1, story and art by Kuro ItsukiIt’s Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu and today we welcome back Matthew Rolf who will take a look at this new 18+ manga series from Seven Seas!

Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! does not convey an air of nuance or subtlety. The cover of the book shows our protagonist being ravished by three other women, with four sets of breasts barely covered by clothing or the book title. On the back cover, our heroine stands with her nightgown open the length of her body. Asumi gazes at the reader while another woman places her hands on her butt.

It’s true: this manga contains graphic depictions of lesbian sex, and the back cover helpfully contains a parental advisory for “explicit content.” Author Kuru Itsuki set out to create a “comical, sexy yuri manga,” and has succeeded. This volume contains five episodes in a story that now extends to at least three volumes.

Asumi is a sexually inexperienced college student pining for Mai, a slightly older girl who kissed her back in grade school. Asumi’s friend Ouka thinks she’s seen Mai in the lesbian sex trade. Ouka makes Asumi an appointment with a sex worker, so that she might find Mai. So begins Asumi’s adventure of hiring women for sex until she can find and sleep with her childhood friend.

This book is as unapologetically gay, sex positive, and kinky as it is implausible. Just one sexual encounter contains kink elements of cosplay, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and edging. Other encounters tease rope play, domination, puppy play, group sex, and a few other things. There are no men in this book.

The sex scenes are rendered both in cartoonish and more realistic styles, depending on the encounter. Some effort is made to show a variety of body types within a narrow range, and the chest excesses of the cover are mostly avoided in the story. There is nothing unusual in the artistic presentation, but the blocking and rendering of the intimate encounters is a strong point. The sex workers Asumi encounters are given at least some characterization.

There’s no gender play, and the book feels less queer than it might for being so kinky. The slick presentation feels inspired by mainstream pornography. That likely makes the book more appealing to a wider audience, including men, but will probably turn off some readers. It’s a minor criticism for a work that brings its protagonist to climax no fewer than four times.

This book owes more than a little to Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. One can imagine an editor wanting a pitch for “Kabi’s book, but with hotter sex and without all the mental health issues.” Itsuki’s story delivers to the point of reading like an advertisement for the sex trade in places. Kabi’s work is undoubtedly more touching, moving, and real, but Itsuki’s work is pure fantasy to help you get off. This book is in a different genre with a different purpose, and I have veered between feeling it’s a salacious ripoff or just fine for what it is.

Asumi-Chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! is entertaining, explicit, and doesn’t ask much of the reader. If you like your lesbian sex manga explicit with a small side of kink, consider picking up this book the next time you need to get in the mood. The English translation of volume 2 comes out later in 2023.

Final Verdict: Gold Star Yuri Erotica.

Published by Seven Seas Entertainment, through an arrangement by Kodashana Ltd., with translation by Lily Aspen and lettering by Ash Works.

Ratings

Art – 7 – Sparse, mostly anatomically correct.
Story – 6 – Meticulously constructed to get to the next erotic encounter as quickly as possible.
Characters – 5 – Here for the boning.
Service – 10 – Non-stop lesbian sex.
Yuri – 10 – Gold Star.
Overall Score – 319 (referencing the apropos Prince song of the same title)

Thanks so much Matt!

Volume 1 is available in Print on Bookshop and RightStuf, and digital on Bookwalker. Amazon has Volume 3 listed, but not V1 or V2, presumably because of the covers.

There were a lot of lesbian sex worker stories that popped up after Nagata’s initial work. We’ve reviewed some here. Of them, the one I’ve really enjoyed is BariKyari to Shinsou.

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We’re always looking for guest reviewers, especially as there is so much coming out in English and Japanese, I can’t keep up. If you are interested in reviewing for Okazu – I am particularly interested in hiring non-white writers here  and queer folks, as well. I have a review copy of Futaribeya, V9 going begging. So if you like this series, and want a shot at a paid review gig, drop over to our Submission Guidelines and put yourself forward!





Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology, Guest Review by Luce

November 24th, 2021

A cropped header of the cover of Double Your Pleasure Yuri Anthology. (I have used the cropped one as the full image whilst not explicit, is not really safe for work)

I’m Luce and often my curiosity gets the better of me. See also: I read and reviewed it so you don’t have to! Gave Erica a break, anyhow. You can find me on the Okazu discord as farfetched, and on tumblr as silverliningslurk. Onward, at your own peril.

Double Your Pleasure is an erotic yuri anthology based around twins, from authors such as Naoko Kodama who has done Days of Love at Seagull Villa. I think this is what they call ‘Dead Dove content’, also known as ‘does what it says on the tin’. I don’t know if I was expecting anything different from what I got, to be honest.

This review could be as short as: a series of twins having sex in various places. That’s pretty much all this is. If that’s your thing, then it’s great. I do find twins interesting… but not so much in this context. As far as I’m aware, sibling relationships are much more common in Japanese media than they are in English media, as are teacher-student relationships. I don’t know why – someone more versed in Japanese culture might be able to comment more thoroughly on it – but for some reason, they seem to go down a treat, at least with enough people to get published. I somehow can’t imagine something like this being published in the western world, but this made it here, so presumably there is some demand. I could possibly guess the type.

To be honest, where a third party was included it was a bit more interesting to me, but the focus on twins being so obsessed with their differences felt quite odd. Maybe it was low-hanging fruit, but nearly all of the stories featured twins either trying to be exactly the same, or very focused on the few things that they matched in. I’m not a twin, so I can only imagine that it probably is something they are concerned about to a degree, but I feel like most twins (I happen to know two separate triplets, too) I know don’t like being compared, and are no more interested in their siblings than non-twin siblings.

Basically, this is a fetish-catering manga. There is a lot of focus on nipples, and the sex is shown. The preview on Bookwalker has one full short story, and it’s about the same from there. One of the ones that particularly irked me was a story where two twins are very different… but their weights are the same. Why? Because the one tries to match her intake and output to the other. Loosely linked to binary stars?

Basically, if you’re into it, you’re into it, and it does what it says on the tin, and does that pretty well. If you’re not, you’re probably reading this with a sense of horror. If you’re curious, read the preview on Global Bookwalker, (with an 18+ warning to click through) and if you hate that, it only gets better in the sense that the rest of the book isn’t quite as non-consensual. Oh, did I mention that? In the first story, the twins get annoyed that someone can tell them apart and force themselves on her as punishment. It’s my least favourite… not that I had any favourites. I won’t be reading this again.

Ratings:

Art – 7 – mixture of artists, all fairly decent.
Story – 1: twins have sex, sometimes someone else is included, in one it was a dream. I think.
Characters – 2 – few characters have any depth beyond ‘I’m obsessed with my twin and this correlates to sexual activity with them’.
Service (level of salaciousness) – 10. Lots of sex. Every story. Dead dove content, if you will.
Yuri –  10, I mean. They’re all explicit yuri, so…
Overall – 4.

Thank you to Seven Seas for the review copy. I’m off to read something a little more wholesome.

Erica here: Thank you Luce, for once again stepping in to give us a solid review of this jiggly collection.

For my part, I was merely sad that none of the creators tried to do something interesting with the premise. Like, an astronaut returns fall in love with another astronaut of a space station and they find they were separated at birth…or something. But as you say, this is “a series of twins having sex” so, if that’s a reader’s thing, then that reader ought to like it.  ^_^





LGBTQ Comic: Sunstone (English)

February 18th, 2015

sunstone1If you’re paying attention to the larger world of comics, the name Stjepan Seijic will be known to you. A popular webcomic artist, he has recently taken over as artist on the Image Comics series Rat Queens – presumably after Top Cow had picked up this work by him, and after the previous artist was arrested. I had encountered this work some months ago and since then, it’s being poking at me, reminding me of…something. I just figured out what that something is.

Sejic’s series Sunstone is a very adult comic, about two women who are into BDSM and who encounter each other online. Ally and Lisa meet and find that they are very compatible with each other and each other’s lives.  There is no “plot” per se. This is a slice-of-life where the lives are lived by two adult woman who enjoy BDSM.

I have long said that BDSM is well-suited to a format like text or comics, where everything can be beautiful and sensual without any banal reality. In Sunstone, Sejic’s really captured everything I mean by that. The characters are attractive and sexy. No one has acne, or is glumpy, or has a verbal tic. Even when they fret and stress it’s idealised and cute. Which works, but also leaves me wishing someone had a verbal tic or something. ^_^;

As I’ve said, there is no plot – as Lisa tells us right way, in fact. There’s no evil wizard, no rescue from the tower, just adult lives that intersect, intertwine…and, assumably, at some point in the future, part.

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On the positive side, this book is really beautiful. On the negative, I found myself wandering off mid-scene a few times. Lisa and Ally are too flawless as people, and the subject of BDSM, while sort of interesting for me for a ten minute conversation isn’t interesting enough for me for an entire comic.  I did find the “Making of” section in the end and the lots of pretty pictures very much worth my time. I’m definitely not complaining.

There was just that something poking and nagging at me as I turned page after page feeling like I had read something like this somewhere before….

…and then it hit me!

Maka-Maka. You remember it, right? Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Kishi Torajiro, were put out by Media Blasters in 2008 and 2009. These two volumes were arguably the very best work MB ever did in print. The story followed two women, Nene and Jun, and their friends-with-benefits relationship.The art in Sunstone is prettier, and the BDSM is portrayed very sincerely and positively (no 50 Shades-ish lack of consent or comprehension here) but there were specific expressions that were so similar I had to laugh. I’m not saying Sejic copied – I doubt he even knows Maka Maka existed – just that some of the character’s expressions, are similar enough that the one reminded me of the other. Lisa’s expressions, particularly, reminded me of Jun on a few panels.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 5 Slice-of-BDSM-life
Characters – 7 Likable, which makes it all work. No one here is a jerk.
Yuri – 8 Ally and Lisa definitely like each other. Love could happen.
Service – How do I even score this!? The story is pretty much a collection of nudity and sexual situations.

Overall – 6

It was not a compelling story for me, but it was beautiful to look at and I’m glad to have had a chance to read it. If you are interested in BDSM, you’ll get more out of it. For those who are interested, Volume 2 will be available in May 2015.





LGBTQ Novel: Atashi no Kanojo (あたしの彼女)

January 22nd, 2015

anknWe’re very familiar with Mori Natsuko-sensei’s work here on Okazu.So, it comes as no surprise really that her newest Atashi no Kanojo (あたしの彼女) is another romp through various forms of adult play and BDSM.

Notably, this novel comes with a cover drawn by Morishima Akiko-sensei which, as far as it goes, actually is pretty good illustration of the content. There are no other illustrations in the book, as it is not a light novel.

Sae is a college student, in love with her classmate Hanano. Hanano returns the feeling, but in a private conversation, explains she is not interested in sex, only masturbation. If Sae wants to be her “lover”, she’ll use Sae’s sexual exploits as masturbatory fodder. (The word in Japanese for this, btw, is “Okazu”. That was one of the meanings I had in mind when I chose the name for this blog. Okazu is more commonly use to describe little dishes of various food items, as well, which fit into the idea that the blog covers this and that. And, finally, it’s a nickname for lesbian sex, as it’s not “the main course”, but a “side dish.”)

Sae agrees to Hanano’s term and find herself torturing a nice, attractive male classmate, Eiji, for Hanano’s pleasure. Hanano also sets up a session with a butch lesbian Midori. Sae becomes increasingly unsatisfied with her “relationship” with Hanano, as she never gets to so much as touch the other woman. When she meets up with Midori on what she thinks is her own, she finds that Hanano is already there and is watching them.

One last time, Sae is the top to pretty (and rather sweet) Eiji, but Sae’s thoughts stray towards Midori. She’s attempting to break away from Hanano, but finds that her “lover” is two steps ahead of her. Midori straps Sae down, then calls both Hanano and Eiji to join them, As Midori directs Eiji to have sex with Sae, Sae suddenly realizes that all along, Hanano was the sadist and she, like Eiji, has always been a masochist.

Like Sae, I grew a little tired of the “relationship” about halfway through the book. It was an easy read and I suppose it was sexy, if that’s what one is into, but there was never any kind of emotional development for any of the characters that convinced me to like them. This was very much a case where I would have liked to see Sae be plucked out of this book and find someone nice in another story. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 6

It was okay. All of Mori’s typical fetishes, without any of her fabulous outrageous humor or geeky wonderfulness. In the end I decided that the one thing I never, ever want in my porn is an ironic ending. ^_^;





Yuri Manga: Ashita Mata Kimi no Uchi e (明日また君の家へ)

January 27th, 2014

The obi of Ashita Mata Kimi no Uchi e (明日また君の家へ), tells you in English and Japanese that the stories inside are about childhood friends, a student and teacher, sisters, and classmates, all neatly pre-packaged in pairs for your non-thinking pleasure.

What the obi doesn’t indicate that the art will make it awkward to tell which character is which and that all of them look like the prototypical blobby-headed moe face that looks vaguely 4-year oldish on account of having no facial features.  The combined affect of phoned-in story telling and art left me with the impression that I had just read a volume of “blow-up doll theater.” (Which, now that I think about it, could be a very funny idea, but even if someone did it, it probably wouldn’t be all that funny, really.)

I remember vaguely not minding the classmates story, trying to read the teacher/student thing, but not finishing it,  and finally giving up and paging through the interminably long sisters story. By the time we got to the childhood friends, I was unable to identify which character was which and decided to read the next volume of Drops of God (神の雫), in which the adult cast look and act like an adults, and the lead female is smart, not at all blobby-headed and much more my idea of attractive manga art. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 3 at best
Characters – None, all characters were “types”
Story – None, it’s a PWP anthology
Yuri – I didn’t get the sense anyone like each other much, but, 9
Service – 10

Overall – N/A

This book had all the appeal of an actuarial audit. ^_^;

Thank you to the man who reminds me to sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights, Okazu Superheo Dan P. for his brave sponsorship of today’s review!