Archive for the Tsubomi Category


Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 3

October 8th, 2009

Yet again, I find myself almost completely forgetting every story mere days after reading the third volume of Tsubomi.

Really, it’s not that they are particularly bad or anything – they just have almost no substance. And the continuing saga of two older (barely pubescent) sisters who lust after each other’s younger sisters is so…ugh…that the fact that it starts and ends every volume does not help at all. In my desire to wipe these stories out of my mind, I seem to lose grasp of the rest of the content, as well.

Tsubomi is settling into an even fetishier space than Yuri Hime S. With a high percentage of May-December stories (she says euphemistically) and a lot of simply nothing stories I strongly feel that a number of talented artists are having their time completely wasted on stories that do nothing to showcase their skills.

Morinaga Milk’s story is wallowing in a space where nothing at all is happening, and Kurogame Kenn’s story pretty much looks like everything else he’s done. No one is pushing to do anything other than retread the same old tired tropes. I don’t know if this is a good thing for the artists – it’s pay after all – but as a reader it’s really annoying me.

The two stories I have the most hope for are Horii Kyosuke’s (of Junk-Lab/Raku-gun, an artist I really like) “Pedal ni Nosete” and the ongoing saga of Hotei and Ebisu in which nothing happens, but at least it’s not happening to adults.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

I’m edging closer to giving up on this magazine…unless at least one story has some sticking power.





Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 2

July 30th, 2009

I was about to sit down this morning, at an obscenely early hour, while the sun rose into my living room (bringing light and heat, but not joy) when something important happened.

I picked up my copy of Tsubomi, Volume 2, (つぼみ) all ready to damn it with faint praise – how the stories were like eating Spicy Thai potato chips – pretty good, sort of painful and, after a while, you can’t really taste them, because you’ve gone numb. I opened the magazine to realize that if I did so, I’d be lying.

Because the stories weren’t like eating Spicy Thai potato chips (recommended by the way) they were like that hard candy your grandmother had in a dish on the living room table. They were candy, it’s true, and they were different flavors, but somehow they just never satisfied your craving for sweets.

I was going to rag that Volume 2 was just like Volume 1, sort of bland and the same. I was going to hold up one solitary story, “Hotei and Ebisu” as an example of the only different story in the book. But when I started to flip through it, I saw any number of not-schoolgirl stories. Easily a half dozen or so. Why didn’t any of them stick in my head?

Perhaps I was so charmed by the name of the above story (named for two of the 7 Lucky Gods, patrons of mine) or perhaps I wiped the rest away with my usual disdain for Story A. Or, perhaps, I read them when I was dead tired and simply forgot they existed.

While Tsubomi, Volume 2 is not a pinnacle of the art form, I don’t want to do it a disservice by painting it as bland, either. There are, in fact, stories of adults and young women and sisters, yes, and a step-mother and her step-daughter. There are friends and lovers and more than friends, less than lovers and “S” and others.

As I pondered this today (while I wrestled with a complex periodic safety update for the health authorities,) it came to me what the real problem is here. It’s obvious that the stories are not the same and, really, they aren’t even all that similar. The problem lies not in the execution, but in the intent. Most, if not all the stories in Tsubomi live in that ambiguous, tense space before anything is said, through just after something is said, or at least admitted to self. So few of these stories go on to portray a “couple” in any way that resolves itself in my head as life as a “couple,” that all of these vaguely-not-quite-together non-couples all begin to blur.

Nonetheless, after a second read through, I note some stories that begin to stand out. I also notice that many of them include a relationship which would be considered um, illegal, here in the US. I don’t mind May-December relationships, but I prefer the spring chickens to be out of the egg. If you will.

Anyway, upon sober reflection (hey, who knows, maybe my first time through this volume was accompanied by one girly drink in a bottle too many….) Tsubomi Volume 2 is tilling different ground than Yuri Hime. It remains to be see if I genuinely like the garden being planted, or not.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

I’m not throwing it out in disgust, I’m not giving it a place of honor. Let’s see where we are in three months, shall we?





Yuri: Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 1

March 2nd, 2009

YNN Correspondent Erin S. and I began to chat about Tsubomi (つぼみ), Volume 1. I was going to review it anyway. Here’s what we said.

pkChinensis> I read Tsubomi. It was better than I expected.
Rosa_Foetida> Hi Youko.
Rosa_Foetida> It wasn’t bad.
Rosa_Foetida> My only real takeaway was that there was little that stood out.
pkChinensis> Yeah.
Rosa_Foetida> I have to re-read it to review it, but I can only remember two stories off the top of my head.
Rosa_Foetida> But it is only a first issue and as it goes on, it will probably develop more of a personality.
pkChinensis> There was one artist whose style reminded me a bit of Shimura Takako’s.
pkChinensis> Yeah.
pkChinensis> Which two stories?
Rosa_Foetida> Yes – I thought that too, and double-checked the name. :)
pkChinensis> :)
(Answered later, but placed here for continuity) Oh – which two stories? Morinaga Milk and the office non-romance with art that made everyone look puffy, like they were all on steroids.
pkChinensis> I liked the art style of the ghost story, too.
pkChinensis> Though that one wasn’t very yuri.
Rosa_Foetida> I found it very wood-cut like, but it really wasn’t very Yuri.
Rosa_Foetida> Not something I’d put in the second position for the book, myself.
pkChinensis> Yes.
pkChinensis> Well, maybe the second part will be… not holding my breath, though.
Rosa_Foetida> Me too.
Rosa_Foetida> I felt that a lot of the stories were retreading the same old safe territory, crush/love/unrequited/kataomoi
pkChinensis> Yeah.
Rosa_Foetida> Nothing was really – “we’re a couple, now here’s the story.”
pkChinensis> Right. Well, that’s fairly rare to begin with.
Rosa_Foetida> I know. I was just hoping that this was not going to reinvent the same wheels.
pkChinensis> Oh, Erica, you and your foolish hopes. lol
Rosa_Foetida> I know, I’m a romantic at heart.
pkChinensis> (I’m sure you’re not alone.)
Rosa_Foetida> But with a name like Tsubomi, I really didn’t expect much.
pkChinensis> Right, and from Manga Time Kirara.
pkChinensis> It was actually better than I expected, so… :)
Rosa_Foetida> Exactly.
Rosa_Foetida> Agreed.
Rosa_Foetida> Every story could be called “You’re always on my mind”
pkChinensis> lol.
pkChinensis> Maybe not EVERY story.
Rosa_Foetida> Maybe. But an awful lot.
pkChinensis> Right.
Rosa_Foetida> In my mind, the color of Tsubomi is gray. I felt like I was watching a Black and White TV, because the stories had little depth or contour or color.
pkChinensis> Hmm.
Also from later, but added in now for continuity
pkChinensis> Some of the stories were just plain stupid–like the one about the girl who’s really the spirit of the flowers the other girl gave her crush.
Rosa_Foetida> Absolutely.
Rosa_Foetida> The last one, by whathisface waren’t all that anything, either
Rosa_Foetida> just girls sitting around talking, really
Rosa_Foetida> I [need to write] an emphatic note of reality to all the delusional fans who think that the Morinaga story is somehow going to be Nana and Hitomi.
Rosa_Foetida> I find it hard to believe that so few people understand that Morinaga does not own that story.
pkChinensis> Well, Morinaga keeps talking about it on her blog.
pkChinensis> So she must think she has some chance of drawing it somewhere else.
pkChinensis> Yoshitomi Akihito? Yeah, that story didn’t grab me either… just “Ha ha, two sets of sisters in love with each other.” (In other words, the one girl’s love is the other girl’s sister.)
Rosa_Foetida> yeah
Rosa_Foetida> whee
Rosa_Foetida> I don’t think she’s going to be able to with the same names.
pkChinensis> Well, she can always just use the same basic character designs and change the names… again. lol
pkChinensis> I don’t think it’s necessarily the specific characters people are attached to as the stage in their relationship the later stories are about.
Rosa_Foetida> I agree – what they want to see is “the next step”
Rosa_Foetida> But the sisters thing didn’t strike me as “love” so much as “moe”. “Oh you’re so cute, like a little doll I just want to eat you up” kind of thing and crushiness
pkChinensis> I didn’t read it that carefully, so it probably was.
* Rosa_Foetida admits she didn’t read it that carefully, either
pkChinensis> lol
pkChinensis> Some of his Yuri Hime S stuff was interesting, but this… wasn’t.
Rosa_Foetida> Yes.
Rosa_Foetida> Hey, Youko?
Rosa_Foetida> Can I ask a favor?
pkChinensis> Sure.
Rosa_Foetida> Can I just use this conversation between us as the review?
pkChinensis> lol
pkChinensis> If you like.
Rosa_Foetida> Because, it’s pretty great, looking back at it.
pkChinensis> Haha.
Rosa_Foetida> I was going to cut and paste comments from it, but the whole conversation thing works.
pkChinensis> Cool.
Rosa_Foetida> You’re officially a guest reviewer on Okazu now. :-)
pkChinensis> :)
pkChinensis> Do I get a cookie?
* Rosa_Foetida gives Youko a cookie.
pkChinensis> Yay.
pkChinensis> Thank you.
Rosa_Foetida> You’re welcome.
Rosa_Foetida> And there you have it.

Ratings:

Me – 6

Erin – 5

Here’s hoping it grows up fast.

One last note. No, The Morinaga Milk story is not the continuation of Nana and Hitomi’s story.