Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Top Ten Yuri Manga of 2018

December 28th, 2018

Well, my friends, that time of year has come upon us once again. 2018 is coming to a close and I have never before had so many riches to work with. This has been the most remarkable year for Yuri I have ever seen in 20 years of obsessing about it. ^_^

I say almost every year, “may our tribe increase” and this year our tribe has surely increased by many fold. My Top Ten list will be as personal, capricious and enraging as always – I will forget things and not mention stuff you liked, some of which will have been there and been taken away multiple times  and some of which wouldn’t have been put there at all – so I welcome you all to add your thoughts in the comments! Which Yuri manga do you consider your top Yuri manga of the year? 

Note on titles: If a series has been released in English, the English title is being used. If not, the Japanese title is the one you see.

 

Sweet Blue Flowers/ Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl

Sweet Blue Flowers, this new classic of Yuri, wrapped up in 2018 and was already kind of dated a mere 14 years after it premiered in Japan. ^_^;  But this year we saw the completion of a definitive edition by Viz Media. This edition had solid translation and well-researched notes that enriched readers’ understanding of the context; which is just exceptionally important in this series, with its many literary homages and references. Now that we have this in one lovely, complete and exceedingly well-done collection, we can set it firmly on the  “Yuri Classic” shelf where it belongs and move forward into a new age of Yuri.

Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl is the exact opposite story – taking all the classic tropes, creating a few new ones and carefully crafting a story about people we care about out of them. It will end shortly in Japan, but we’ll have it here in the west for some time to come, so settle in and wait to see how it all pans out for Ayaka, Yurine and their friends and peers .

 

Yuri Anthologies (Éclair, Yuri +Kanojo, OL Yuri)

I’ve talked a lot this year about the important place Yuri anthologies had in the development of the genre. I quite like anthologies for the same reason most people dislike them: Anthologies give you a small taste of many different stories, art styles and concepts. The downside is when you really like a creator and the story ends, but the upside is you have someone new to follow! And these, days, with social media, you can literally follow them and see what they are working on right now.

I want to especially call out the new trend of grown-up Yuri anthologies; collections focusing on relationships between adult women. Yes, please!

 

After Hours

I adored this story when I read it in Japanese and am just that happy with it now that it is in English. It’s not something we see much – a whimsical and fun romance story about two women who live on the fringes of normal life without being outcast, or broken or weird. They just live their own lives. This story is overtly about building something together – a life, a rave, it’s all the same when you think of it, and you know I believe that with my whole heart.

 

My Solo Exchange Diary

I’ve never cared so much about a complete stranger as I do Nagata Kabi. I want to support her in her ongoing struggle to live a life with the very real problems she has has freed so many people, both in Japan and in the west, to speak more openly about. Graphic Medicine is, in actual fact, one of the fastest-growing genres in comics and manga. I think it’s important for a lot of reasons, the most important of which is (like coming out of any kind) to let people know they are not alone. Narratives like this remind me how lucky I am every day that I can wake up, work, play online, and write for Okazu. I’m literally one myelin sheath away from having all of that taken from me every day. 

For being one of the manga that has helped define a space where we can be more than one thing at once and still be seen as human, and also for making me hope that Nagata-sensei gets to live her life, My Solo Exchange Diary makes this list easily. 

 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) 

By now, you’ve probably realized that this list is going to have more adults on it than it ever has since I began doing this in 2004. 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei told a slow-developing romance story, abut two adult women living realistic adult lives in a real world. We saw Nanami pull long hours at the office and Kaede burning herself out building a career in manga, as well as quiet moments of eating food and seeing friends. There was enough fiction to make the real stuff work and enough real stuff to make the fiction fun. I am so happy that we have 8 volumes of this manga, making it the longest-running manga about adult women from Comic Yuri Hime. There was never any doubt in my mind that it would be on this year’s list. ^_^ 

 

Terano-sensei to Hayama-sensei  ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている)/ Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア)

I’m gonna keep talking about these two titles in the coming year, so get used to hearing about them. ^_^

Goodbye Dystopia is an apparently aimless wander through somewhere by two people for some reasons, very little of which has been explicated after two volumes. I love the art, the timelessness and placelessness of the story and would like it to never end. Imagine Thelma and Louise at walking pace, without any end in sight. Awesome.

Terano and Hayama are just the absolutely cutest things in the world. Two teachers at a girls school are dating and the girls think it’s cute, the administrator thinks it cute and I think it’s cute! I want them to be happy together forever.

 

Galette (ガレット)

If you’re a regular reader of Okazu, this cannot possibly be too much of a surprise. This crowdfunded, creator-owned collaborative effort by so may excellent Yuri artists is always exciting to read, to see what has been done and by whom. As it wraps up its second year of existence, it’s giving space to great established artists and finding space for new pros and I cannot wait to see what it will do in the future.

 

Enjoy the Okazu Top Ten Lists?

I always pause here, because as capricious as I am for my likes and dislikes, the top three always are put here for a reason – they are special. This year’s top three positively encapsulate Yuri for 2018 with their breadth of storytelling, style and intent.

 

Bloom Into You

Sometimes a series just hits the right note. For better or worse, this is Bloom Into You‘s time. With an anime that has done the spirit of the manga a good turn, a novel (which I am reading and it is nailing Sayaka’s inner tone, so that’s good) and an ongoing manga which is shaping up to be much better than I could have ever expected, really, it deserves our attention.

It’s time for me to give Nakatani Nio the credit she deserves. Bloom Into You is my #3 manga for 2018.

 

 

 

 

Kase-san Series

I always refer to this series as the “little series that could” because of it’s irregular past, but it has become something much bigger than itself with the jump to animation. The manga continues, and it continues to grow, to change, to lead by example. It’s done so many important things including moving people to see it as more than a “love story between girls.”

This series has and is still dealing with things like body issues and self-esteem and friendship. Kase and Yamada are facing the adult world together which is both terrifying and remarkable in a Yuri manga.

Reading the Kase-san series has very much been like watching real people grow up. Yamada’s journey from being someone who did not believe in her own future and whom the people round her thought of as plain old Yamada, has been so much like watching a flower bloom that the analogy becomes a “duh” moment. The series is called “Kase-san” but we – and Kase-san – are always watching Yamada. And it’s been very rewarding watching her grow.

In other years, the Kase-san series has been number 1, but this year comes in second to…

 

Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼 ))

So, yeah, I’m spoiling the heck out of this series for you, but I want you to understand just what we’re in for. ^_^

This is not a Yuri manga. It is an LGBTQ manga. It is fully, wholly, 100% grounded in the real world in which kids who even slightly kind of think they (or, who other people think) are not cisgender and heterosexual, deal with very real consequences. This is a manga in which people spew harmful stereotypes and have to be educated over and over and over again, until they, maybe, get it, a little. It is a manga of confrontation, of accepting one’s self even when others don’t. It’s a manga with adult role models, some of whom will never be able to get a happy ending – and how important it is, for those of us that do get that, to share it and let the seeds of it grow.

I am so excited that you’ll all be able to read this in English next year, which is why Kamatani Yuhki’s Shimanami Tasogare is my top Yuri manga of 2018!

 





LGBTQ Manga: My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2 (English)

October 28th, 2018

In Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2, (Volume 3 and Volume 4 in Japanese) Yaiichi begins to confront other people’s – and his own- homophobia.

Yaiichi, his ex-wife Natsuki, Mike and Kana all visit a hot springs resort together and Yaiichi tells Natsuki about his dream of Kana being a lesbian. Natsuki is delightfully unsympathetic, forcing Yaiichi to see his “concern” for the discomfort it is.

When they come home, while Yaiichi is confronting the “concern” expressed by others, the penny drops that his “concern” and their is the same bias. Mike meets a former classmate of Ryouji’s and learns the justification he uses to stay in the closet. There is a line here that sums it up beautifully; the classmate says he doesn’t want to make any special effort to be out, and Mike thinks, but you’ll make a lot of special efforts to stay hidden. …That’s the glass closet in a nutshell. Instead of letting people in, he uses a complete stranger to dump all his problems on. Mike knows that’s what he was there to do and not surprisingly, he isn’t particularly thrilled.

Yaiichi has to confront the kind of homophobia that takes the form of suffocating “concern” from good people and is able to find a way to thread the needle. As I noted in my review of the Japanese, this scene is a bit of heavy-handed allegory. And then, the story draws to a sweet, emotional ending.

The criticisms I have seen of this volume fascinate me. Queer western readers have objected to it being too preachy and Japanese queer readers have objected to the protagonist being Canadian. Those are of course valid criticisms, but also miss the point they are making.

Since Japan does not have same-sex marriages, it could not have plausibly been a Japanese gay man as a protagonist. Unless you flipped the script and had had Mike die and Ryouji come home, but then, he’d understand that why and how and what of passive homophobia and would not be foreign enough to have no cares about existing outside that. Ryouji might be worried that he’s ruin Yaiichi’s reputation, or Kana would be bullied, where Mike is outside society enough to not think about that. The narrative is a bit heavy-handed because it is openly uncovering things that are never spoken of and forcing a non-unhappy resolution on them.

The intended audience for this book is not LGBTQ folks (although clearly we are going to read it.) It is the straight – mostly clueless about LGBTQ people and issues – Japanese men who read the magazine in which it runs. It needed to be heavy-handed so they got the point, and so they were emotionally rewarded for getting that point. It wasn’t for us – it was about us for someone who, like Yaichi has never once thought about us (or if they had, had done so with passive fear and loathing society bolsters in a million ways.)

So, when someone says “it’s too preachy” I respond, “It’s exactly the right amount of preachiness for the intended audience of adult straight men who would, like Yaiichi, be horrified to the point of shutting down communication, if they learned a relative was gay.

I also found reviews by men amazed at the way the male bodies were drawn to be highly entertaining. ^_^ (“Wow, this guy draws really beefy dudes!” Yes, yes he does. ^_^)

More than anything My Brother’s Husband is the kind of wholesome, family-friendly book you could hand to a relative who just was not getting why their “confusion” or “concern” about your sexual identity was painful to you. So go ahead, get a copy for the grandparents, uncles, aunts or parents…

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 2

Overall – 10

…while you’re at it, give a copy to the library. There’s kids out therewho will need it.





LGBTQ Comic: Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Part 3

September 16th, 2018

The final volume of Legend of Korra: Turf Wars has dropped! 

In Part 1 and Part 2, Korra and Asami were rudely interrupted on their vacation in the spirit world by the intrusion of a greedy real estate developer on the spirits’ domain, a humanitarian aid crisis being mishandled  by the Republic City government and a violent gang turf war. All of which had it been written in 2014, might have seemed absurd happening all at once but, in 2018, feels a bit on the nose.

Because this is a 3-part American YA comic that was meant to be a sequel to a popular cartoon, the plots and any and all emotional complications were wrapped up relatively quickly and neatly. Any discomfort family and friends had with the idea of Korra and Asami as partners is wiped away in a panel or two per complication, long traditions of homophobia are declared “need to be changed.” The greedy real estate developer – after having been saved more than once by Korra – comes around to the only actual sensible idea. Asami asserts her corporate power, Zhu Li takes over the Republic City government (and I weep with joy at the idea of a world in which police, military, corporate and political power are all held by women with a sense of responsibility, wrested from the grasping hands of selfish and greedy men.)

Art is once again handled beautifully by Irene Koh, who has reported on her Tumblr that a sequel series is in the works, although she won’t be working on it.

It would all be perfect, except for one nagging thing. Several times this volume Korra and Asami agree that they “should talk.” I understand that thin page count means that neither plot nor development get the time they deserve in this comic, but the thing that annoys me most is that they never have that talk. A panel or two where they agree that they work better as a team isn’t really the talk they need, and while I deeply appreciate that the final pages are focused on their love for one another, I really wish we had seen them have that talk. ^_^; On the one hand, I think it’s that I’m just more used to manga, where longer page counts means that talk takes two chapters, and on the other, I’m old and that talk is really an important tool in terms of healthy relationships. ^_^

On a lot of levels, though, I’m not unhappy that we get the end we wanted from the cartoon here in the comic, with Sato Asami and Avatar Korra saying “I love you” to one another, as they celebrate the victory of peace and progress in the city they love. There’s a bunch of young readers out there, for whom this will be a life-changing comic.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – A very solid 9

Thank you very, very much to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for his sponsorship of this series! 

If we do indeed get a sequel, I’ll be really interested to read it. (And I look forward to whatever Koh has planned, as well. She’s definitely someone to follow.)

What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

 





LGBTQ Manga: Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼), Volume 4

August 27th, 2018

The fourth and final volume of Kamatani Yuhki’s Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼 ) covers an enormous amount of ground.

What began as a story of a young man being bullied for appearing to others to be gay, (a sexuality he hadn’t come to terms with for himself) quickly becomes a tale of the community and family people who are sexual, romantic and gender minorities create for ourselves. 

Here in Volume 4, we get to experience stories about some of the individuals in Tasuku’s new community. Some of these bring us resolution of one kind or another. 

Haruko comes home to find Saki in hysterics. Her family has learned about her relationship with Haruko and she’s devastated. 

We learn that Chaico’s lover is dying in the hospital and he has only limited access because he is not family.

Tsubaki’s father is outing the folks at the salon all over town and it’ll take an act of bravery Tsubaki isn’t ready for to shut him up. Luckily for Tsubaki, Tasuku is ready to act now and he is at last able to stand up and say “I’m gay.”

Haruko and Saki visit Saki’s family, and facing them together, say that they want to be married. Saki’s mother rejoices, and her father comes to accept the thing he’s never wanted to admit.

Chaico’s lover’s son calls Chaico to his lover’s bedside so he is there when he dies.

And before the wedding Tasuku has a chance to invite Misora, so she can be there with her friends.

But the thing I really want to talk about is Dareka-san. I wondered out loud this morning how Dareka-san’s name will be translated. The character whose fearless leap off a roof begins this story remains a mystery at the end. It’s most likely that Seven Seas will go with a direct use of Dareka-san, and I hope that they will include a note that “dareka” means “Who is it?” or “Who?” This a no-name word, Mrs. Whatsit-like in it’s ambiguity. And while “Who” has entered the lexicon of fictitious name-construction with The Doctor and a Wrinkle in Time‘s Ms. Who, I would hope that rather than use a gendered English honorific, Dareka-san might get something more appropriate to their ambiguity, like Mx. Who. Probably all my thought on the topic is moot, and Jocelyne will just go with Dareka-san, but it’s still worth the mental effort of imagining how it might be rendered in a way that works in English and keeps both meaning and sense.

This volume front and centers issues of homophobia, harassment of and access, equality and representation for sexual and gender minorities in Japan and, while it’s not pointed, it doesn’t let society off the hook. But it probably can’t help itself when it ends with  a smile. This is the second LGBTQ media in a row that ends with a same-sex wedding in two days and this series is doing some groundbreaking of its own in Hibana magazine, side-by-side with Nishio Yuhta’s  After Hours. 

While 4 volumes seems too few, Shimanami Tasogare is a tightly wound, beautifully told story of the LGBTQ community in Japan, with both obstacles and triumphs laid out neatly for anyone to understand. 

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 1 on principle, there’s nothing salacious

Overall – 9

I look forward immensely to this series coming out next year in English and getting to hear your opinions!





LGBTQ Cartoon: Steven Universe, Season 7

August 26th, 2018

Steven Universe, the blockbuster cartoon about a magical boy is groundbreaking in a dozen ways. In previous seasons, it has dealt with complicated feelings about family, shown us both abusive and functional relationships, discussed war trauma, and repeatedly discusses betrayal, trust, loyalty, friendship and love in its many forms. In a cartoon. For children.

In Season 7 (by Amazon’s reckoning,) Steven Universe delves deeply into those concepts of betrayal and trust. Very deeply. Very, very deeply. This season also complete the process of humanizing the Crystal Gems. In the first few seasons, it is very clear that human relationships are genuinely not a strong point for them. We see this even more starkly in flashbacks to their lives before Steven. In this season, we see the Gems resolve and move through a number of lingering issues by taking part in that humanest of excuses to party – a wedding.

The season begins with secrets, chaos and confusion and geas.
The season resolves with love.
The season ends in chaos and confusion and we have no idea what’s to come.

This season was amazing.

There was not one iota of rebuke or snark in Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding. This is not an episode – heck, it’s not a series – that ever thinks to say, “in your face, haters!” As Steven sings clearly for all of us, caught in the middle of interesting times, for just one day, let’s only think about love…

…and Nell Brinkley. And cowboys. And when the next soundtrack album will be coming out. And holy shit that ending! And all the other stuff. What a season. What a series.

I have repeatedly said in public – often on forums for which this is wildly inappropriate – I want a Peridot/Lapis fusion. I want them to become Azurite. And I want to talk about why. So buckle in.^_^

Someonesomewhere commented that they didn’t want a Peridot/Lapis fusion because they felt that fusions were always about “love.” But I want to talk about fusion, because while Sapphire and Ruby’s fusion is absolutely about love, we’ve seen so many kinds of fusion, from Rubies fusing to make a larger Ruby, to Amethyst and Pearl, whose Opal fusion is not once driven by love – but is instead driven by desire to protect Steven. And we’ve seen non-consensual fusion.

For me, fusion is about trust. Garnet’s words bear that out when she tells Greg that to fuse one must have a gem of light at the core of one’s being and a person who can be trusted with that light.

Lapis has been horribly emotionally scarred, from long before we met her and repeatedly after we do. She can’t trust. She’s never seen trust. Peridot keeps trying to trust Lapis, and getting hurt when she betrays that trust. The moment they fuse will be a profound change for a gem who has been our PTSD poster child. And, selfishly, I really want to see that moment. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 I love, love, love, the capsule-shaped fog on the Beach City Boardwalk
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – Sapphire in a tux counts for 4
Yuri – 9

Overall – 10

Gahh! January is so far away!