Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Yuri Manga: Sweet Blue Flowers, Volume 1 (English)

October 4th, 2017

Third time’s the charm. In 2012, JManga did a digital-only translation. Towards the end of 2014, Digital Manga Publishing also tried putting Shimura Takako-sensei’s new classic Yuri manga out as a digital publication. Now, in 2017 we have what is very likely to be the definitive English-language translation for the series, in omnibus format. Thanks to Jocelyne Allen, Jen Gruningen and the folks at Viz, I think we’re at peak Aoi Hana here in the west.

Sweet Blue Flowers, Volume 1 introduces us to Manjome Fumi and her old childhood friend, Okudaira Akira. They had been very close as children, but when Fumi moved, they fell out of touch. Now, as they both head to different high-end girls’ schools, they’ve met again. 

I was reminded as I read this book that although the opening and the ending are – in my opinion – very weak, the rest of the story is excellent. It’s got surprising depth and breadth. Characters that surround Fumi and Akira are as well-developed as they and as interesting. 

In the first half of this Volume 1 – the original Volume 1 that was, Fumi is charmed, then asked out by an upperclassman at her all-girl’s school. Sugimoto is not her first girlfriend, but may well be the first by her own volition. Their time together is brief, as it becomes very clear that Sugimoto carries a whole host of issues with her and Fumi recognizes that she’s worth paying full attention to.  By the second half of the volume, Fumi has learned a lot about herself, among them that Sugimoto is the third person she’s loved.

The school play gives a chance for the cast of both schools to mix and emotions to be be heightened. Wuthering Heights is an unsurprising allegory for the tensions and passions of the cast to swirl and come together and part, like a storm. 

But by the end of the volume we have Akira and Fumi still friends. Fumi has, in a very rare act in Yuri manga, comes out to Akira. It’s a tempestuous time in their lives, but they both know who each other were – and are – and are there for each other. 

This still, after all these years, stands out as one of Shimura’s most tightly put-together stories. Other series have sort of swirled and eddied around the same material without changing, but we can see the changes to Akira and Fumi and their friends in pretty steady progression, as they encounter, deal with and grow from challenging situations.

This is a series that has many (if not all) the hallmarks of a “S”-era story and in my Very Brief History of Yuri I call it and Maria-sama ga Miteru “S for a new generation.” We can, like Fumi, enjoy the atmosphere of an old girl’s school. We can enjoy the drama that comes along with the hot-house environment. And we get the added advantage of characters with society – friends and families, brothers and parents and teachers who are male and female and a modern sensibility, in which gay people exist, and have lives. This is all so critical to my enjoyment of a manga. We have this series in omnibus form (available in print and digital format) and it, like several other series available right now, will be on my short-list of books that embody the classic concepts of the genre of “Yuri.” 

Interestingly, since the author attempted (unsuccessfully) to visit Yoshiya Nobuko’s home, the grandmother of Yuri gets both a mention in the notes and is attributed as the women who pioneered Yuri in Japanese literature. This is true, but she’s even more important than the note accounted for, because she not only pioneered Yuri, but also a great deal of what we think of as shoujo literature and manga. Yoshiya Nobuko-sensei was the richest woman in Japan in her lifetime. She’s an inspiration and a hero of mine. (Here’s my report of visiting Yoshiya-sensei’s home, from 2013.)

This edition came with a lovely assortment of postcards from the Aoi Hana Meets the Enoshima Electric Railway collaboration event from 2012 (an event reported in excellent detail by Guest Reviewer Bruce P – with pictures!). The book itself is exceedingly well put-together, with those cover flaps that take the place of a dustcover, but allow readers to see all of the cover and flap art. Color pages are included – including the cover of the second volume as a interior color page. Even the font choice matched the original well. And the translation and adaptation are excellent. I really do think this is a “definitive” edition. We’re not likely to get better. There’s very little room for it to be better. 

This is the version we all wanted. There’s no excuse not to buy it and support the author and folks at the publishing companies that brought it to us! Volume 2 will be out in December, 2017.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Today’s review was brought to you by the kindness and generosity of Okazu Superhero and occasional Guest Reviewer, Eric P.! Thank you Eric, once more, for all your many years of support! 

If you enjoy our Guest Reviews here on Okazu, I hope you’ll help support the Guest Reviewers – the Okazu Patreon is a mere $34/month away from being able to pay our writers. Every dollar will get us closer to that goal. If you’re a regular reader here and have enjoyed Eric’s reviews, I hope you’ll consider supporting Okazu on Patreon so we can pay him for his work! 





LGBTQ Manga: Otouto no Otto, Volume 4 (弟の夫)

September 22nd, 2017

Tagame Gengoroh-sensei’s Otouto no Otto, Volume 4 (弟の夫) completes the series in Japanese. This final volume is exactly as it should be, tying up the loose ends of Yaichi’s inner story in a very satisfying and wholly unpreachy way.

You may remember from Volume 3, Yaichi receives a call from Kana’s teacher. As we feared, he is calling under the guise of “concern” that there is a gay man in her household. Yaichi’s transformation from a man who does not say what he thinks about saying, to a man who says exactly what he thinks about saying in 4 pages is magnificent. As he leaves the teacher’s office, having made it plain that the teacher’s “concerns” are neither legitimate nor appropriate, the sun breaks past the clouds and shines upon him. I said it didn’t preach – I didn’t say it doesn’t visual allegory all over the place. ^_^

As the last remnants of Yaichi’s bias slips from him, he asks Mike to share some of his life with Ryouji. For the first time, Yaichi faces the brother he knew – and wanted to know – nothing about. When he sees Mike’s parents in Mike and Ryouji’s wedding pictures he feels stupid for not being there. To make up for it, Yaichi takes Mike with himself and Kana to clean his parent’s grave so, he says, he can introduce Mike to them before he leaves. It was a really nice touch. 

Kana’s issues with her friends are cleared up, and there is a nice little digression about Romeo and Juliet that makes up one of the nicest moments of the book. There’s also time taken to deal with the local gay kid’s story, and let us know he’s in an okay place emotionally.

Watching Yaichi accept Mike fully was exactly as heartwarming as one might expect. ^_^ And one hopes that this manga was able to shepherd other Japanese men through the process with Yaichi and, maybe, help a few young people to find a way to talk to their families. For that alone, this would be a an important book, but it’s also just a really good read. Tagame-sensei deserves every award this series gets.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 10

We don’t yet have a date for the final omnibus volume of My Brother’s Husband by Pantheon – as soon as I do, I’ll post it!

 





LGBTQ Webcomic: Always Human

September 12th, 2017

Webcomics are one of the most fascinating niches in the comics market and it’s long past time that we talk about them once again..

Webcomics became a “thing” in the late 1990s, and by the early 2000s, it was already possible to find LGBTQ content on any number of platforms. By 2003, I was keeping bookmarks of aggregate lists of lesbian and “Yuri” webcomics from half a dozen sites. Finding webcomics wasn’t hard, but finding really good ones, well that’s always been the challenge.   ^_^ As time has passed, webcomics have gone from being a junior league for upcoming artists to being a marketplace in their own right. Webcomics can successfully raise money from backers for print books, publishers are looking at Pixiv and deviantart for talent, and with Patreon and Webtoons, comic artists can get get paid for the work, as well as for the finished project. This particular niche in the comics ecosystem has only just developed those bridges to the larger comics landscape, and I don’t think we’ve more than just barely begun to see their potential. 

Which brings me to one of the best webcomics I have read. Ever. Today we’re talking about Always Human, by Ari North.  Ari sent me a message in 2016, asking me to mention her comic to you as part of a YNN report and I was glad to. I’ve been reading Always Human on Webtoons ever since. This week I finally had a chance to catch up and complete it and all I can say is that this is one of the best uses of the Internet for comics that I’ve seen. 

Ari’s art is colorful watercolor-like washes, with a vertical scroll and a lot of white space. It could, of course, be  reformatted for print, as Pulse was, but the larger, more open format of the online page, means that you can enjoy the details that fill up your screen, and not lose any of it. Often chapters comes with an original soundtrack, which you can listen to for free on Soundcloud. This really added to the atmosphere of every chapter. 

The story is sweet, honest and realistic. It’s also a lot of fun. Set in a future Earth, where virtual reality allows for body modification, gaming, communication – humans are working in deep seas and space- the people who populate Always Human are indeed quite human. Designer Sunati meets college student Austen, and they fall in love.  

While the story is primarily romance, it’s a romance that doesn’t isolate Austen or Sunati. Theirs is a world with colleagues and friends and family, which is so important to me as a reader. Unlike mainstream media, which seems to want to wallow in alternative worst scenarios, without  allowing us to work through our uncomfortable realities first, Always Human provides a more progressive world for us to spend time in. Austen has two fathers and Sunati’s parents have a boyfriend, and none of that is a “thing” that must be dealt with, beyond the stress of meeting one’s lover’s parents, which is – as we all know – stressful enough in itself.

Sunati and Austen are adults living adult lives, but they are still young adults, so they are neck deep in the process of creating the lives they hope to live. They aren’t perfect, they make mistakes and deal with the consequences, as we might expect. Even when they annoyed me – and they did – I was rooting for them As Ari says about her comic,”This is a story about nanobots, genetic engineering, and two girls falling in love. No matter how technology changes us, we’ll always be human.” And so they are.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Characters – 10
Story – 10
LGBTQ – 10
Service -1 on principle

Overall – 10

If you’re looking for a really good webcomic to read, I recommend Always Human. Luckily for us, Ari’s working on another comic for Webtoons. I’m waiting with bated breath for more from this talented artist.





LGBTQ Manga: Shimanami Tasogare, Volume 2 (しまなみ誰そ彼 2)

September 11th, 2017

Last month, I reported on a fascinating series called Shimanami Tasogare. In Volume 1, we met Tasuku, a young man who hadn’t, as of yet, come to terms with his homosexuality. When he meets a bunch of older gay folks working on a cat shelter, he finds a cause to volunteer his time for, and a place to open his heart.

In Shimanami Tasogare, Volume 2, (しまなみ誰そ彼) Tasuku gets to see what self-loathing looks like from the outside. One of the people who visits the consulting room is a young kid still in elementary school. Misora visits to change into female clothes and life. But Misora never seems particularly happy and is clearly struggling with what puberty is doing to her.  And, she has an ugly tendency to lash out whenever she feels that Tasuku gets too close.

Tasuku is starting think about his own feelings more honestly, and has now realized that he has a crush on an attractive classmate, Kiku-kun. Misora is not at all kind about the bits of information Tasuku shares. And every time Tasuku feels as if he’s gotten a little closer to Misora, she attacks him with a vitriol with which  – we can see  – she means to scar herself. The volume ends on a particularly harsh note, with Misora attacking Tasuku in public in front of the guy he likes at a festival. 

Tasuku retreats to to the unfinished shelter, to lay the shards of his emotions next to the broken beams of the building. The strong visual imaging this series gives to Tasuku’s emotions are just stellar.

Meanwhile, we are led to believe that Tasuku’s secret is out to a classmate we don’t know whether we can trust or not.

It’s an uncomfortable ending to an uncomfortable volume filled with the damage self-loathing does to one’s self and others, without a moral of the story to pretty it up. I’m compelled to read it nonetheless and am very interested to see where it leads.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters- 8 
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 0

Overall – 9

The mysterious Dareka-san functions as a kind of guardian angel but, as a result, I really don’t want to know anything about her. I feel as if we’re going to learn it anyway. ^_^





LGBTQ: Steven Universe, Season 6

September 8th, 2017

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In Season 1 of Steven Universe we met and learned about the Crystal Gems, friendly alien invaders from space. In Season 2 we began to really understand their history. Season 3 deepened our understanding of all the series’ characters and Season 4 brought the first major plots to fruition…and expanded our cast. In Season 5, Steven and we begin to understand that Rose Quartz was not necessarily the beacon of Good that she had been held up to be. As we learn about her flaws, Rose becomes exponentially more interesting.

In Season 6, we begin, at last to put all the pieces we’ve been given into some kind of picture. And the picture we’re getting is nothing like the one we expected.

We’re introduced to Blue Diamond in person. With the chance to directly compare her and Yellow Diamond, we start to get a little bit of a picture of an imperious royal class that understands little and cares not at all about the beings it rules. We spend a lot of time in space this season since, realistically, having neutralized The Cluster, any further contact with the Diamonds would have to be in space or on Homeworld, or Earth would be at risk. Space it is, then.

Several really significant things happened this season – Greg was introduced to just how vast the story in which his son is embroiled actually is. Steven is now very visibly showing signs of super strength, and becoming more confident with his powers. We visit Homeworld and learn that in a strictly defined hierarchy, there’s still an outcast underclass. Amethyst meets her family and finds that she’s just one of the gems after all.  I learned about Holly Blue Agate , a stone I had never heard of before. (Fairly remarkable, as I’ve been collecting semi-precious stones for decades…) and Lars…well…no,that’s a spoiler, I will not spoil.

We get to see that both Yellow and Blue Diamond have genuine affection for Pink Diamond (and I can’t help but wonder what White Diamond, who has never once been mentioned, but whose symbol we’ve repeatedly seen, is like.) In fact, during “What’s the Use of Feeling Blue,” we get the distinct feeling that Yellow Diamond surprises herself when she speaks of missing Pink Diamond.

But once again, the climax of the series is unexpected in ways that we couldn’t even have predicted. Once again we learn that the truth isn’t what we we were told it is, and it isn’t what others think it is, either. So…what is it? The fan theories are flying, thick and fast. ^_^

The last significant thing that happened is that my wife is hooked. Hah. ^_^ Now I can obsess and she’s totally into it. Gotcha. Hee Hee. Hee.

Art – 8
Story- 10
Characters – 10
Service – 1 on principle
Queerness – 7 Fluorite is a lovely nod to polyamory.

Overall – 10

Can’t wait for Season 7. Seriously.