Archive for the LGBTQ Category


Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 2

January 23rd, 2007

I’m a pragmatist. When I was a little kid, I had to get three allergy shots twice a week. Other kids would scream and cry and carry on, but I just went in and got them. They started using me as an example to the other children. If they left me alone for a second with the other kid, I’d always say, “Look, you might as well stop crying – they’re going to give you the shots anyway, and the longer you cry, the longer you’re going to be here.” And that’s pretty much my attitude today. Things happen, and sometimes there’s just nothing you can do to stop them. Sometimes you can see those things coming. It doesn’t make them any easier to deal with, but it makes it easier to get past them.

I think that this is an important lesson – and it’s the thing I took away from Aoi Hana, Volume 2. Fumi, for all that she is a crybaby, appears to be a pragmatist. I deeply respect that.

(For a quick overview of the characters in this series and the events of the first volume, take a look at my review of Aoi Hana, Volume 1.)

Volume 2 of Aoi Hana covers the big event, when both schools get together for their stage version of Wuthering Heights. Yasuko-sempai is extra super cool as Heathcliffe, as expected. And, unexpectedly, she seems to really be making an effort to reach Fumi as a person, not just as a girlfriend. Then the other boot drops. I saw it coming (and so, I think, did Fumi) but when it came, it came in a way that completely lacked melodrama. And that, in a nutshell, is why I like this series so much. The characters are just as unsure of themselves as any teens, but there’s a distinct lack of shrieking and threats of suicide.  In all honesty, when I read any book, part of what goes on in my mind is “Would I want to hang out with any of these people? Would I let anyone in this story come over for lunch? No one, not one character in Life would be allowed in my house – while just about everyone in Aoi Hana would.

Other stuff happens, of course. Akira remains cheerful and understanding, without ever being a sop. I don’t trust or like Kyouko, even if she seems to be a good person, for a few reasons. We meet Yasuko’s extremely interesting family, and learn Yasuko’s big secret, which isn’t one really, if you have more than one brain cell to rub together.

At the end of the volume, when everyone’s crying into their tea, I couldn’t find it in myself to be upset, or even annoyed. I felt a little lonely, maybe, but hopeful that much of what happened will be resolved in the next volume.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

It’s drama, not melodrama.





Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Sweet Blue Flowers Volume 1 (青い花)

March 31st, 2006

Aoi Hana, or Sweet Blue Flowers as it is translated on the cover, by Shimura Takako, is both cute and sweet – and I liked it quite a bit. Which is pretty surprising, as it is both genuinely cute and sweet.

In essence, this manga is the story of four schoolgirls: Fumi, Akira, Yasuko and Kyouko and their various loves and friendships. It is not loli uber-cute or gaggingly sweet, nor is it highly melodramatic. It’s actually more vaguely realistic, with an emphasis on the usual conventions and tropes of schoolgirl yuri – crushes on best friends, sempai, etc. The tone is quiet, the relationships realistic-ish.

Fumi comes back to the town she grew up in, for the first time since grammar school. She meets, without realizing it, her childhood friend Akira – a pleasantly energetic and cheerful girl. When they were much younger, Akira had been Fumi’s protector, keeping her out of harm of bullies and saving her from the unpleasant emotional consequences of common pre-school blunders like bathroom accidents. Fumi is now a tall, attractive young woman, but still shy and retired. Without realizing who each other is, they meet on a train when Akira saves Fumi from a pervert. (Although why Japanese women don’t simply break train pervert’s fingers at the bottom joint, I’ll never really understand…it’d be easy to ID the guy with the broken finger. But I once again digress.) Fumi and Akira are reunited as friends when their mothers get together and the light dawns upon them. This time around, they are going to separate girls’ schools.

Fumi learns that her cousin is getting married, but seems appalled rather than pleased…. We learn later that they were having a physical relationship and Fumi had no idea she was engaged.

Kyouko is Akira’s classmate at school. It’s club time and the two decide to join acting club together. Kyouko has a secret – she is in love with an upperclassman at Fumi’s school. Fumi, unbeknownst to anyone is also developing a massive crush on this upperclassman, Yasuko. Fumi joins the club Yasuko is in – not really caring that it’s theater, just to be near the older girl. When Fumi’s school theater club decides to visit Akira’s school – to take in the wonderful rarified air of this oh-so-glamorous place – Fumi happens to wander down a hall where Kyouko confesses her feelings to Yasuko….and is rejected.

Koyuko runs off, but as Yasuko leaves she sees Fumi crouching down trying to be invisible. Yasuko asks Fumi to go with her outside – and hits on her with subtlelty and charm. Fumi’s a goner. Yasuko asks her out and she agrees.

In the meantime Kyouko’s brother asks for help trying to set up an “aicon” – an arranged group date-thing. Akira wants to go, but her brother screws it up, causing mild emotional damage. Luckily Akira has pretty high hit points, so she survives.

In the meantime, Yasuko takes Fumi out on a date. Their relationship might actually have to win for one of the most real and normal I’ve seen in anime and manga. They do everything in the right order. Hold hands, kiss, etc. Not all at once and not after a gap of a gazillion years. Fumi is completely totally gaga over Yasuko and so far, at least, Yasuko hasn’t been a scuzzball. In fact, she’s been very sweet and romantic, which is good, ’cause Fumi’s fairly fragile. They share their first kiss in the library stacks – I approve. :-)

The *drama* of the latter part of the book is hardly even that. Yasuko asks Fumi if she can walk to school with her, but Fumi has already given that promise to Akira. An awkward meeting between the three makes Fumi feel that she has to tell Yasuko, quite overly-seriously, that she can’t walk with her. Yasuko laughs and wonders when she got involved in a grammar school conversation, but she’s fine with the whole thing. Fumi isn’t *quite* done, yet, and tells Akira about her relationship with Yasuko. Yasuko’s mightly impressed that Fumi came out to Akira, but still thinks the drama was a bit silly.

Akira isn’t upset, but she’s not really sure *what* to think. She asks Kyouko what she’d say, hypothetically speaking, if Akira told her that she was in love with a girl. Kyouko is still smarting from Yasuko’s rejection, but she smiles and responds with the same question. Akira thinks about it and decides she couldn’t care less who her friends are in love with, as long as they are happy.

Kyouko runs into Fumi and asks her if she’s in love with Yasuko. Fumi, blushing and stuttering admits she is. Kyouko tells her that Yasuko’s wonderful – and Akira’s a really nice girl, then wanders off mysteriously.

That night Yasuko calls Fumi. They share the usual sweet nothings, telling each other that they love one another (it was very “aww” inspiring). Before she gets off the phone Yasuko asks about Fumi’s first love. Fumi thinks briefly of the cousin she was playing around with at the beginning of the book, but realizes that her first true love was back in grammar school, when she fell in love with Akira.

To Be Continued, the end of Volume 1 says.

Really, this was just a very pleasant yuri manga. No fanservice, no fetish (except for the schoolgirl thing, but the uniforms are really dull and uninterestng and not at all unreasonably fetishy.) It’s just a nice, semi-realistic tale of first loves and friendship among girls. I imagine it will remain almost completely unknown as a result.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

If you are looking for something that isn’t lowest common denominator Yuri – you’ve found it with Aoi Hana. I’m definitely looking forward to the next volume.





Yuri Manga: Plica-chan

February 28th, 2006

Time for a review of a 100% Yuri manga that is almost unknown here in the West.

Plica-chan, written and drawn by Amamiya Sae, is the bittersweet, realistic story of Plica, a young lesbian looking for love in modern Japan. Emphasis on the bitter, rather than the sweet – not because Plica doesn’t find love, don’t get me wrong! Bitter ’cause she’s just a bitter kind of gal.

The manga, which is written in 4-panel strip style, originally ran in Anise magazine, and now runs in the LOUD News, the newsletter for the LOUD organization. Youcan find the comic archive here. Plica’s comments are often on the nature of sexuality, the relationships between men and women, and between women and women. Erin S. has a section of her Yurizuki site dedicated to synopsizing some of the Plica strips, so you can get an idea of what’s going on.

The whole strip starts on a low note, as Plica returns from an ex-lover’s wedding. But not too long into it, Plica meets Mari, for whom she starts to have feelings pretty soon. But, like most butches, Plica is too unsure to try anything. (I have a theory about most butch women actually being really neko/uke…which begs for an essay on the perception and reality of butch/femme, neko/tachi and uke/seme. But I digress.) Thank goodness femme Mari is, like so many femmes, perfectly willing to go after what she wants. She and Plica have been together since. As I said, it’s a bittersweet comic – rather more real than fanciful, so don’t expect roses and lillies. ^_^

There was one collected volume of Plica-chan, with a section translated into English by none other than internationally known BL scholar Mizoguchi Akiko (a lesbian herself, and one of our guests at Yuricon in Tokyo.)

The art takes some getting used to if you’re used to the more traditional manga style but it’s good to take a break from the usual now and then. :-)

I particularly liked the comic posted on Feb. 21, 2006, where Plica comments that she finds Mari very sexy in a suit, but doesn’t want to tell her, yet, because it sounds so dirty old man that she’s afraid Mari will stop wearing them. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6 (minimalist, but not unpleasant)
Story – 7 (more bitter than sweet)
Characters – 7 (like real people, they are sometimes very annoying)
Yuri – 10
Service – 1

Overall – 7

Plica-chan is the almost exact opposite of yesterday’s Shoujo Sect – substance over style. If you’re looking for a more realistic look at lesbian life, take a look at Plica-chan.





Carmilla, Issue 5

December 14th, 2004

It’s lesbian, its Yuri, but I still don’t get it.

Carmilla magazine took up the slack in Japan’s lesbian community, even as Anise was failing.

Where Anise was a sort of light-hearted look at the lesbian and bisexual community in Japan, there’s an edge to Carmilla that I just don’t really “get.” In my opinion, it reads like a parody of a lesbian magazine written by gay men.

Like its predecessor (and the lesbian mag before that, Phryne,) Carmilla runs reviews of lesbian/gay/bi/trans hotspots, parties, movies, books, etc. There’s some short manga series – all of which seem to be BDSM-heavy, with lots of bondage, rape and animals – and a few short stories, which I’ve never had the fortitude to try and read. And there’s always, as seems inevitable in Japanese lesbian magazines, interviews with various couples. I cannot, for the life of me understand why people give a rat’s ass about two other people who are not them, but it’s a thing. I get over it.

Overall, there’s an, I don’t know exactly, hardcore drag queen-type sensibility to the magazine that kind of puts me off.

Now, to be fair, I do not regularly read *any* lesbian/gay/bi/trans magazines, not since my free subscriptions at my last job dried up. But while I may be bored by one of the major English-language lesbian mags, Carmilla leaves me feeling…icky. I had read Issue 2 way back when Rica Takashima had brought me an issue as a present, and it hasn’t changed much by Issue 5, which I read last week. So clearly, this is what the mag is, and any problems I have with it are my own. Deep in my heart, I wish for a magazine that reviews art/music/books/films without the usual “Oh look! It has a lesbian in it! We must all rush and support it, even though it bites!” attitude. Interviews with people are usually, tedious. Skip ’em. Give me stuff to watch and read and drop the rest. You know…like this blog! ^_^;

I can’t really rate this, as everything in the mag is variable, but overall, I don’t care for it too much. It makes me long for Anise.