You know all the stuff I keep saying about Rakuen Le Paradis? That the stories are written for an adult audience who wants to be treated like adults, and it takes couples beyond happily ever after? Well…none of that applies to Pure Yuri Anthology, Hirari, Volume 4 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり).

In fact, very few of the stories even read “Yuri” to me at all. If they called it “Pure Friendship Anthology Hirari,” I would say it was more accurate that calling it Yuri. In fact, if anything, calling it Yuri stretches the definition of Yuri even past what I’m willing to admit Yuri is. Hirari is, mostly, stories of girls developing emotional closeness with other girls. Call it best friends or, maybe, in some cases, more…but not really. Almost every story in this collection is so removed from love or desire that I find it honestly ridiculous to call it that. Maybe a few stories have some light crushiness, but most of them sound like this:

In Hakamada Mera’s “Black and White,” creepy-looking, magic-user Kurosawa enters a new school and resigns herself to being alone as she always has been. Until another girl becomes her friend. But, when Kurosawa gets good grades on a test, she is accused of using magic and is ostracized. Until her friend comes and rescues her from class-imposed solitary life and forces the other kids to apologize. And…that’s it. It’s a great story of a nice friendship. Perhaps, maybe, it will develop into more, but after several chapters, referring to it as Yuri is just stretching the truth.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) is making a valiant effort to stay relevant in the Yuri magazine game. At Volume 3, it has yet to really build character, but it’s trying, I think. Both older sister magazines, Comic Yuri Hime and Tsubomi have some big hitters on their team, but little sister Hirari is not backing down from the challenge.

And so Volume 3 begins with Hakamada Mera as leadoff batter. Certainly Mera is a big(gish) name in Yuri, but her stories are more bunt than single. In “Salomelic” a dark, potentially gloomy girl with the word “black” in her name, whose interest is witchcraft is befriended by a shiny, happy “light” girl. They become friends and somehow, we’re to understand that it’s more.

And that, in a nutshell is the single biggest problem I have with Hirari. The stories are mostly sweet and frequently end with two girls as friends or two friends renewing their bonds of friendship. So rarely is there more than hand-holding, that I’m often hard pressed to see this as “Yuri,” as opposed to nice story about girls who are friends. And when they go past friendship, it’s mostly an uptick in heartbeat and “what is this feeling?” I’m not looking for hot lesbo sex, but there’s so much more variety and depth than this in a relationship, it seems such a waste to keep pitching the same one pitch over and over.

Probably the best story in the book for me was “Pulchrima” by Fuji Koyomi. Her style is quite reminiscent of Hakamada’s, but the characters were not. Of all the stories, this was the one I am absolutely able to say is “Yuri.”

The other story that stood out of the pack in a good way was “Under One Roof” by Fujio. (There were a few that stood out for not particularly good art or confused story telling, but I don’t feel like being a drag and either you’re buying this or you’re not. It’s not likely that you’re waffling on Volume 3 of an anthology.) This story, which is well down the batting rotation, sets up a situation with a young woman getting a roomshare with another woman who – gasp! – likes women. I’m hoping future chapters remain peppy.

I’m torn between wanting to kick Hirari in the ass and root for it like the underdog it is, but right now, it’s just not really ready for the big league.

Ratings –

Variable – 6

Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 2 has some good qualities and some less good ones.

Many of the stories don’t actually seem to be “Yuri” at all. Two girls meet and, um…they meet. But there are others that are less preliminary and a few even go so far as to lightly touch upon some semblance of emotion.

The best of the bunch, in that regard, was “Yubisaki no Koe,” by Maeda Tomo. Not because it was a good story, per se, but unlike many of the other stories in the collection, where we have to just assume that the two girls are interested in one another *because* this is a Yuri anthology, there was a palpable feeling of tension between the two characters.

Also, “Nanami-sempai to Arisa-chan,” while I didn’t like the art at all, did a shift halfway along that created some unresolved (and kind of unresolvable) sexual tension. When Arisa learns that her interest in one upperclassman is hopelessly unrequited, she simultaneously learns that what she thought was a rivalry with another upperclassman was nothing of the sort.

The most unique story, although not necessarily the most satisfying, was Minagi Asaoka’s “Anata to Ireba”‘ when a young woman accidentally encounters her namesake, who is a famous figure skater. They end up having a heart to heart talk. We get a rather sudden epilogue ten years later, when the skater asks her namesake to marry her. This story was indicative of the collection as a whole. “Here’s two girls,” we’re told as we’re handed two girls at random. “This is a Yuri anthology. Therefore they must like each other.” Even if we never actually see or feel that. Or, in something like Scarlet Beriko’s “Mine,” we’re shown a friendship that, at some barely-anything kind of provocation, suddenly is love (and desire.)

As a perfectly fitting ending, there is a short story by Sakaki Kazuki, illustrated by Hirao Auri, the creator of Manga no Tsukrikata. I haven’t read the story yet, but I felt that the choice of illustrator was somehow characteristic of the collection as a whole. Manga no Tsukurikata is also a series in which the interest and tension between the characters largely has to be assumed by the audience, because we see little actual sign of it in the story itself.

Ratings:

All things Variable. Overall – 6

It’s not that it’s a bad collection, it’s just sort of still in prep stages and not quite ready to be cooked.

2010 has been good for Yuri in one way – there are even more Yuri Anthologies than ever before. Alongside of Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S and Yuri Hime Wildrose we now have more recent additions Tsubomi, Yuri Shoujo,  eclectic Rakuen Le Paradis and now, Hirari.

It will not probably come as much of a shock to learn that the bulk of the stories are focused on schoolgirls, with a few stories that touch upon the adult world. And, also not so surprisingly, the art doesn’t really ever communicate any adult sensibilities. In fact, one story made no sense to me until I realized that it was not, in fact, about schoolgirls, but about teachers. The certainly didn’t look like grown-ups, which complicated things for me.

Hirari, Volume 1 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) can be summed up in the line, “You don’t understand my feelings.” In many of the stories, one character thinks that the other does not like or love her the same way as she feels about her. In all of the stories they are wrong. This doesn’t mean every story is nothing but mindless repetition and I feel that there’s an actual effort to provide some variety in set-up and style. Unfortunately for readers such as myself, the lack of resolution beyond forehead touching/hand holding/smiling at one another means that, even though the stories are not *actually* the same…they still feel it.

Through no fault of its own, Hirari also lacks any really strong artists (I’m long past hoping for strong writers.)  Where Rakuen, Yuri Shoujo and Tsubomi (not to mention the Ichijinsha publications) all  have some popular doujinshi artists-turned-professionals, Hirari looks decidedly second-rate in comparison. I don’t hold that against the publication, though. There’s only *so* many excellent artists out there and everyone deserves a chance to pay their dues and learn how it works.

I admit that I did have to read the anthology through three times before any of the stories stuck with me, but a few have. The two teachers, one of whom is still dealing with a kiss between them from years earlier, a girl who needs sleeping pills to go to sleep, concerned about her friend who is happily sexual and seems kind of flighty, a story about pop idols that are forced to switch staff and a story in which the most visually striking piece is the cover page, as a girl arranges her shadow to make it look like she and her sempai are kissing.

While I did not fall head over heels in love with this anthology, I’m always willing to give a new publication the benefit of the doubt. So, if a second volume is published, I’ll probably get it.

Not “recommended” per se, but I’m not warning you off, either.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

The rating is a little lukewarm, and so was the anthology. I’m still looking for those stories between “Story A” and porn. A little passion wouldn’t kill this book.