While the management of Comic Yuri Hime focuses on their blitz of creepy Yuri anime this summer, the rest of the reading audience might be expected to just suck it up in front of the promotional wave.

Oddly, this does not happen. Of course there is a focus on series I’m not interested in covering here, but once we move past those, there’s actually some really good stuff in Comic Yuri Hime September 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年9月号).

“Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto desu!” by miman has gone somewhere unexpected and typical, but what it will do there and why are still unpredictable enough that I’m still reading. 

Tokuwotsumu’s “Tsume no iro” was pleasant, as as Hisona’s “Ha no Hanabatake to Hakashirube.”

In Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, GPen Mezamashitokei” Nanami’s confession has thrown everyone – Nanami, Kaede and Koyuki – into a tizzy. Koyuki tells Nanami that’s she’s confessed to Kaede which officially puts this series into love triangle mode.

As usual there are any number of other entries, both ongoing and one-shots that are worth reading. Overall I felt like, yes, this issue still has a metric ton of schoolgirls, but the stories themselves felt a little more varied. I am a bit concerned about the shift into gimmick (schoolgirls with animal ears or who are game prodigies or are half-human) but I still found this issue to be readable.

Ratings:

Overall – 8  

For “2DK, GPen Mezamashitokei,” alone, this issue would have been good.

HAH! I’m almost current.

The August issue of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫2017年8月号) had much to recommend including an amazing opening, climactic chapter of “2DK, GPen, Mesameshitokei.” (A climactic chapter, but, one hopes, not the climactic chapter.)

Up until now in Ohsawa Yayoi’s adult life story, we’ve been fully invested in Nanami. Her interactions, he inner life has been 95% of what we’ve been watching. And, now, suddenly, after 5 volumes, we realize we know next to nothing about Kaede. Hopefully, we will now.

Of course, continuing series continue. But more importantly, there are several stories by new creators that are reasonably good, I particularly liked “Otona to Kodomo to Koi to Melty Black” which felt like every doujinshi I bought in 2005. ^_^.

Beginning in August, several new stories are starting on Pixiv including a new series by Mimoto.

Ratings: 

Overall – 7

Overall, a solid collection, even if the stories the editorial staff like best and the one’s I don’t like the most seem to be the same ones. ^_^;

We hit that moment – I am officially behind with reading Comic Yuri Hime. ^_^ I knew monthly was going to get me one day – I’m just kind of glad it took 7 months. ^_^

The cover story – as pink and gauzy and moe as it is, is actually pretty lesbian, “I fell for you at first sight, let’s be together forever.” Uh-huh. Might as well have had a U-haul catalog on the bed with them.

But, more importantly, Comic Yuri Hime July 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年7月号) issue was good! 

It starts off with an absolutely slappable plot complication for “Watashi no Yuri  ha Oshigoto desu!” to which I say, learn how to write a fucking story. No, you did not meet each other in school and then one of you *completely* forgot the other one. It was like 3 years ago, not 30. Look, people are not complete idiots. I was standing at the airport having trouble with a Global Entry machine and a DHS guy walked up and said, “Hey you taught Tai chi!” and I looked at this guy with a beard and said, “Oh my god, Marc?” We hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade, and he hadn’t had a beard and I had long hair and we were out of context and I’m terrible with faces and names…and we still remembered each other. If I can remember a guy I saw weekly for a few years, after 15 years, this character can reasonably be expected to remember a friend she saw every day and hurt really badly a few years later. /rant

“2DK, GPen, Mezmashitokei” went there. At last! I’m so happy it took so long and hope to all the gods they don’t just wrap it up, the end. Please oh please give us a few more volumes.

I still can’t get a bead on “Shuumatsu nani shi ni kou.” but I enjoyed (almost despite myself) Fujimatsu Mei’s “Aisareu Watashi no Monogatari” in which a lonely woman hires her favorite novelist -who has writer’s block- to write her a love and a family…and, in the process, they become both to each other. It was a really nice meta-fanfic.

“Kai to Alterna-rock” (オルタナロック is short for ‘alternative rock’, but if it is anything else, I don’t know what it is. Suggestions welcome) made me laugh out loud. I have read this “mean boss” and employee  who fall for one another story about a hundred times, but I still like it anyway.  ^_^

Takemiya Jin offers up another fan and idol story, so far, the best of the bunch in “Musou Artifact.” No surprised as it’s about my specific kind of geekdom, so yeah, of course I like it. Duh. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

As always, there are any number of other stories and some you will like and I will not. But this issue was pretty strong for me so I’m extra glad I finally had time to read it!