Galette, No. 20 (ガレット) wraps up the 5th year of this crowdfunded, creator-owned magazine. In these past tumultuous years, they’ve put out 20 issues of the magazine, 18 issues of Galette MEETS and almost a dozen collected volumes. A pretty amazing feat especially as their main method of sales, comic markets, have been severely hamstrung for 3 years now and the pandemic (and shifting crowdfunding sites) caused havoc in their fundraising.

I follow a lot of creators on their Pixiv Fanboxes and the pandemic has wreaked havoc in another way, too. Creators are suffering, folks. Their opportunities have been cut off, a lot of them are depressed, and the lack of funds is hurting them, too. It’s pretty rough to read posts sometimes. If you can support your favorite creators by throwing them a buck or two on their crowdfunding sites, please do.

So here we are at an amazing moment in time, Galette has been in print longer than any Yuri manga magazine except Comic Yuri Hime! Even if it were to fold this year, it has done a lot and every one involved should be really proud.

Galette No. 20 (ガレット) features a full half dedicated to Hakamada Mera’s series Aikata System (相方システム), the first two volumes of which I have reviewed here on Okazu.

As always I really enjoyed Kitta Izumi and Momono Moto‘s Liberty, and Morinaga Milk’s Watashi no Kawaii Neko-chan, which has been licensed by Seven Seas as My Cute Little Kitten.

But tops for me this issue was the final chapter of a series that I have been following since the beginning,  Sora-iro Melancholic, which ended with an epilogue that dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. It was a perfect ending to that series, the first volume of which I have also reviewed! ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Another fine volume of Galette! This one is not up on Bookwalker, I don’t know if it will be, but you can get it on US Kindle in Japanese, as well as Amazon JP in print and digital.

The 5th anniversary volume is now up on Amazon JP, and I can’t wait to see what it offers.

Galette No. 19 (ガレット) magazine is, happily, still chugging along with quality series by popular Yuri manga artists. This issue is probably the smallest we’ve seen so far, which had me worried, but apparently, the team is persisting through the various challenges of crowdfunding a magazine during a pandemic, when the shows that sustained sales have until recently dried up.

One of the main points of success for Galette was the various streams of income it was able to generate, between online and in-person sales. I know all too well how nearly impossible it is to have a major stream of income cut off in publishing. That said, the comic shows are coming back. Winter Comiket is scheduled to be in-person this year. Attendees will have to be vaccinated or prove they have a negative PCR test. (If it were my event, I’d have a vaccination booth outside the event, to encourage folks to get those vaccines.) Comiket is kind of a strange animal, with all the side doors open in Tokyo Big Sight, it’s inside, but also open to the outside, which might make people a little less concerned. However, there are always a *lot* of people at Comiket. But, I digress.

There are 5 continuing stories in this volume, a few of which are now into a second volume and ought to see collected tankoubon soon.

Additionally, this volume includes one of the Galette team’s “Collaboration” projects, with a paired manga and a short story, a concept I quite like. It feels very much a throwback to doujinshi circle works where folks would do a similar collaboration around a theme or a story. In this collaboration, the story comes first and the manga finishes up.

This is followed up by the editors’ notes and an ad for the 5th anniversary issue No. 20, which hits shelves in Japan this coming week. I’ve already seen the cover on the pre-order for crowdfunding backers; honestly Pen’s covers have been consistently one of my favorite parts of the book! ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I’m really hoping that the return of comic markets will bring in renewed vitality for Galette. It’s still totally worth getting, but I’d still love to see it consistently over 200 pages, and hope to see some of my fave artists return to its roster. ^_^

Since I’m doing books that include my A-Team creators this week, it seems like a good day for talking about Galette, No. 17 (ガレット). And, much like my post yesterday, I really wanted to talk about it for one specific story.

Those of you who follow Morishima Akiko’s series Hanjuku Joshi when it ran Yuri Hime, will remember that there were two main couples. We’ve been enjoying the return of Yae and Chitose in Motto Hanjuku Joshi, and this chapter we see the return of Mari and Ran! Now that Mari is in pre-med, we might expect their relationship goes more smoothly, but…nope! ^_^ The reason why is the subject of this issue.

Akiyama Haru’s story is very short, but absolutely lovely, with a magical portal to a ryokan in a women’s basement. “How come we don’t have one of those?” my wife asks.

And the remaining stories give us a number of ways to look at relationships and the people in them. Interestingly, Hamano Ringo’s “Sora-iro Melancholic” continues on and wow is the Bun-chan we see here a different person. She’s really grown since that first volume that I recently reviewed.

The magazine has seen some changes in the past few issues, as I’m sure both artists and supporters have found their circumstances altered by the pandemic, but makes me happy to go through the list of supporters and see some of your names there! I know that as long as I can, I’ll be helping to make this magazine, because I think it needs to exist. They’ve opened up a Pixiv Fanbox in addition to their Fantia page, so now you have another way to help good Yuri manga be created.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Every day Galette exists is a good day for Yuri. ^_^