Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 5

April 22nd, 2010

You know the 5 Stages of Death? Well, Coming Out also has certain stages. 1) First, you have to admit to yourself you are /fillintheblank/. 2) Then you admit it to someone close to you. Just one person, because your sure it’s going to turn them against you. 3) Then you admit it to someone else – sometimes a perfect stranger, because that’s safer than family or friends. 4) The biggest hurdle is vocalizing it to your family. If that stage is not horrible (and for many people it is,) you start becoming more comfortable with the whole thing, until the final stage 5) Acceptance. For that to happen you have to accept yourself. It’s a bonus if the people around you accept you too, but it’s most important that you accept yourself.

In Aoi Hana Volume 5, Fumi has made it past the third stage. And really, she’s not sure how she got there. But it’s okay, because she’s well on her way to accepting herself. And she’s also already incredibly strong, although she doesn’t yet realize it.

It’s once again time for the Drama Club to put on their play and emotions are running very high. Despite themselves, last year’s first-years are turning into rather mature second-years that are admired by the new students. Kyouko stuns people with her performance in Mishima Yukio’s Rokumeikan. (The link is to the collection of plays in which Rokumeikan is included.) Even Akira, who comes down with sudden nerves, finds herself caught up in the moment and shines on stage.

Haruka learns that Fumi, too, is a lover of women, and we follow a flashback when she learned of her sister and Hinako’s relationship. When Fumi meets Haruka’s sister, she is keenly aware – and a little jealous – of their comfort level with each other.

Even Mogi’s clandestine relationship with Akira’s brother is noted.

Everyone is growing up.

I only wish I had “met” Fumi when I was young. I could have used a media representation like her.

With vacation planned and old flames coming back into the story, Volume 6 promises to be full of fireworks – can’t wait!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 9
Story – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 9

Does *anyone* like Chizu? The more we see of her, the less I like her.





Yuri Manga: GUNJO, Volume 1

April 9th, 2010

(Note to people looking for scanlations of this book. The author does not work herself to the bone and pay money out of her pocket so you can steal her work. Scans are not cool – they are theft. You want the book, click the picture and go buy it. Otherwise, you’re devaluing her time and effort and there is no justification for it, other than you are selfish.) 

“Is it settled?”

“It’s settled.”

With these few words begins one of the most profound, most emotionally engaging manga I’ve ever read.

Gunjo, Volume 1 (羣青 上)by Nakamura Ching is a journey from madness to madness, from profound misery to profound misery and from derision and fear into depths of despair where there is respect and even love.

It begins in the moments after a horrible crime has been committed. A woman has asked someone to kill her husband for her. She has asked someone she knows she can use – another woman, a lesbian, who has been in love with her since high school. The woman who requested the death is abusive, derisive. The woman who committed the crime is passive, almost apathetic. She flinches in the face of the other’s harsh words, but doesn’t fight back.

In between incredible, sudden violence, at moments when their existence is most tenuous, there is tenderness. No, it’s more like that there is only tenderness in the moments when they are most fragile.

We only learn later that the one woman has been serially abused by her husband, after a life with an abusive father. And we only learn later that the other woman walked away from a relationship and a life to commit this act of violence for her.

There is no real moral ambiguity here – these two women are violent and broken. They are insanely bad for one another and have together done something unspeakable. And yet, in the darkest moments, they realize they want to live and try to create something like a life out of the chaos they’ve created.

Nakamura-sensei’s art is detailed and realistic – and in those moments of terrifying violence it reaches the level of sublime. Her writing is subtle – and painful and hurtful – and breathtakingly beautiful especially when the situation is uncertain. There is a mastery of tension of just about every kind in every word and line of this story.

Moving, brutal, sublimely gorgeous and profoundly disturbing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say this – Gunjo is the best manga I have read to date.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 10

I would love to hear from those of you who bought Volume 1 of Gunjo – what did you think of it, now that you’ve had a chance to see it for yourself?





ChinMan Manga

March 7th, 2010

Before a manga artist gets a serial, they usually start with a few one-shot stories for a magazine. In this case, before she began drawing GUNJO, Nakamura Ching drew a number of one-shot manga stories that have been collected into a single volume, ChinMan (short for Ching Manga.) This collection is eclectic, odd and intruiging. Just the way I like it. :-)

The first story follows Sae, a young woman with a mysterious disease that causes extreme nosebleeds and some kind of internal convulsions when she’s over stimulated. ….Ahem. When’s she’s kissed deeply by a worried female friend, she realizes that her illness might not be so bad, after all.

Nanako listens to her grandmother’s story of how she and her grandfather lived through hard times and were parted during the war, but doesn’t really understand her grandmother’s feelings until she herself finds love.

“Sonny” is a boxer, whose son does not respect him, until he sees him give his all in the ring.

Noboru is a 19-year old slacker who decides that he wants to become a tattoo artist. He apprentices himself to a woman who really runs him through the traditional method of apprenticing – he cleans constantly, endures physical and emotional abuse until he proves himself worthy of taking ink and needle to the skin of his master. This was far and away my favorite story of the collection.

A local boy and girl have a very contentious relationship that ends with the boy becoming a hero eternally as a Kamikaze pilot.

“Lady Stanch” is a look at life among the bosozoku and the relationships that develop between friends, enemies and lovers in that world.

A young man faces the harsh real life of someone he admired when he was younger in “Cheerio.”

And the final story is a hyper-intensive look at an artist’s tools. I mean that literally. This is a manga about the pens, pencils and brushes and one woman’s over-the-top relationship with her writing utensils.

Each story in this collection is filled with remarkable intensity. The female characters really stand out as having some strength and every character shows resolve in a way that is bound to make a reader feel like s/he too can overcome any obstacle. But these are not comforting stories, even when they are funny. They are edgy in a very real sense.

I’m particularly glad to have had the chance to read the tattoo story, and in general to have gotten a glimpse at the early work of a woman I not only respect as a manga creator, but respect personally.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable – 6-8
Characters – 7-9
Yuri – In the one story, 7
Service – 1, just on principle

Overall – 8

Before there was GUNJO, there was ChinMan.

And it was good.





Lesbian Novel: Futari no Hitori Asobi

January 25th, 2010

It’s always a pleasure to read a collection by Mori Natsuko, and today’s short story collection Futari no Hitori Asobi (二人のひとりあそび) is no less stimulating than any other.

The primary differences between this collection and the previous two of Mori-sensei’s work that I’ve reviewed, Sempai to Watashi and Himeyuri-tachi no Houkago are twofold: In this volume there is more straight sex than in the previous two and there’s less outrageously funny behavior. In fact, more than once, I thought to myself, “I think she’s getting old, because everyone in this book is all love-dovey and warm-hearted.” There’s less sadism in her BDSM in most of the stories, except the very first.

The first story was about a young woman who is cruelly tortured in class and falls in love with the sadist (female) who rescues her. This ends with a three-way relationship between the sadist, the protagonist and a guy who is everyone’s bitch.

This was followed by a number of straight stories that involves some light B&D and cross-dressing by the guys, including a strange story from the perspective of a crazy woman who has fantasy sex with her dead (male) lover. And a few group sex stories.

Probably the most disturbing stories follows the love/sex triangle of two men and a woman and the plant-boy that they find on a park bench and one of them takes home and raises. I can’t properly communicate how odd this story was and how awkward, as it started as porn, then sort of became sci-fi then bounced unhappily between horror, sci-fi and romance, sorta. And then there was the very yucky father/daughter incest one which I had wiped out of my head until I flipped back for this review.

As always with Mori, you have to expect at least one incest story. In this case, there was the one above and a lesbian sister with a little non-consensual sister loving. Since the older sister was named Reina, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining Elina and Reina from Queen’s Blade, which probably made the story more interesting for me than it might otherwise have been. ^_^

My favorite stories – other than the first one, which started pretty harshly, but I began to like the sadist when she responded to “I like you” by slapping the protagonist across the face – were the last two.

In the next to last story, a woman starts to recognize that she may be a lesbian, and is approached by a classmate who confesses that she is, in fact, gay. Kanae then offers to help Noriko learn what women do in bed. As their relationship develops, Noriko realizes that Kanae actually is in love with her and she sheds her childish crush on another classmate. Their relationship deepens a bit and threatens to become an actual thing, as the curtain is drawn on them.

The final story is the title story. If you know any Japanese (or indeed anything about Mori-sensei’s work) you’ll know exactly what the story is about. Nao meets Isako on a chat board and they play with themselves, together.

So, as I said, it was an entertaining read, but it definitely lacked the crazy humor and hard edge to the BDSM that I expect from Mori-sensei. All the warm, soft feelings for people in the throes of bound ecstasy was sort of cute and fuzzy, but I think I like her better when she’s making me shriek with appalled laughter.

Ratings:

Story – Variable, from 3-8
Characters – Same
Lesbian – 10 when it’s a 10

Overall – 7

The last two stories might be something I’d hand to another lesbian, particularly the next to last one. It actually dealt with some of those “what does it mean to be a lesbian” questions that Yuri rarely deals with.





Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 4

January 7th, 2010

Aoi Hana (青い花) is, IMHO, a story about strength. Fumi may be gentle and quiet and a crybaby, but she is doing her best to be herself. It takes a lot of strength to do that at any age, but especially, especially in high school.

In Volume 4, the second year has begun for Fumi and Ah-chan and already the question of the school play is in the topic of conversation at both schools. When the play title was unveiled I have to admit, I did a double-take because, sure, Mishima Yukio is a classic Japanese writer, but I didn’t really think anything he wrote would be suitable for a high school play. Rokumeikan is a story of a clash of cultures, genders and expectations, so it’s actually a pretty great choice.

The Fujigaya Drama Club gains a new member, a loud, slightly scatterbrained first-year, Haruka, whose older sister is the friend of a teacher who is rumored to have a female lover. Ah-chan dies a few deaths as the gossip-mongers in her class go on about how it all grosses them out. Ah-chan’s seatmate, a tall girl who reminds her a lot of Fumi, saves her from having to swallow more bile. Ryouko and Ah-chan become friendly – Ryouko is even drawn into the Drama Club when her recitation of Rokumeikan for the Library Club is overheard.

Fumi too, is drawn back to into the Drama Club’s play, but her voice is too soft and her shyness too great, so she backs out – but not before she meets Ryouko, or Haruka.

Haruka lets slip to Fumi that she thinks her sister likes women. Fumi ponders the meaning of this and later that night confesses to Ah-chan that she had a physical relationship with Chizu – and that she wishes she had that same relationship with Ah-chan.

You see what I mean? Where Sasamekikoto is a series about Sumika’s inability to say anything, her weakness in the face of her feelings, Aoi Hana has Fumi facing up to her feelings and admitting them out loud. At any age, that takes a lot of strength.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 8

This series is definitely on my license wish list for 2010. I’m looking at you, Vertical.