We enjoyed the Revue Starlight anime, didn’t we? It was fun, with an edge of wtf. The music was appealing, the fights were colorful…there was a giraffe instead of a creepy obsessed adult human which would have made us feel bad.

So, I’m walking around Melonbooks, looking for Junna x Banana doujinshi (and finding a couple of non-skeazy ones!) and I see this: Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― SHOW MUST GO ON Manga, Volume 1 (matinee) (舞台 少女☆歌劇 レヴュースタァライト ). The title takes up approximately 50% of the cover. I liked that. I thought, well, how do you create a comic out of a surreal musical action show? So I picked it up.

The only problem with this book is the same problem the anime had – Hikari is unlikable and I don’t care if she ever shines again. But that aside, Ayatsugi Tsubaki does a pretty amazing job of rendering this particular nonsense in comic form.

What hooked me right away was the girls introducing themselves in song. It was loopy and a little gonzo. Of course we must imagine the music, but we can see the words, and the graphics indicate the tenor of the song.  But…the story, when ripped away from the shiny graphical rendering of symbolic fights, suddenly turns darker. I mean that literally. The girls find themselves fighting the faculty, other classes and each other.

I keep mentioning the giraffe, because it is objectively creepy for a bunch of young women to be forced to fight in order to excel on stage. Even more creepy, they sing songs about about their internal struggles, their hopes and dreams and fears. This is not the hallmark of a cutesy story, it is the hallmark of a horror story. Baring their souls, these girls “perform” combat for the ability to star in a horrible, tragic miserable play. The person overseeing the fights being an adult human male would be intolerably horrible. He would immediately become a vampire, feeding off their secrets. And that would suck. (hah) So we get a giraffe, and it gets put into the WTF box.

Here in the manga, the giraffe is merely a symbol of the audition, and the driving force behind the combat is…a creepy adult human woman! Not much less intolerable and yup, she sure comes off as pretty darn vampirey. Everything about her is drawn that way – broad, dark lips, pulled back in a carnivore smile, long dark hair, crazy eyes. And suddenly, this story which makes sense as a triumph of will only if you don’t poke too hard at it, looks about as creeptastic as possible. Hikari’s anger, Karen’s refusal to see the truth, Maya’s ego, Claudine’s self-esteem issues, Junna’s rejection of her true self, Banana’s desire to be loved, Mahiru’s dependence, on and on….the “audition” is a therapist’s office where each girl is forced to lay bare their weakness.

If I thought for a second that the second volume of the manga would not just be a facile reminder of friendship, love, trust, teamwork and belief in self will, triumph, I’d get it. While there’s a lot that could be done with this set up…I’m convinced none of it will be done. I will be happy to be proven wrong.

Ratings:

Art –  7 Really interesting more than good
Story – 7 The way it is rendered is again more interesting than the plot itself
Characters – 7 Still decent, except Hikari
Service – 7 for emotional vampirism, otherwise none
Yuri – Nope

Overall – 7

For a sequential graphic rendering of singing, dancing, and fighting, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight ―The LIVE― SHOW MUST GO ON, Volume 1 (matinee) is a fascinating visual exercise.

While I was binge-shopping in the various Yuribu of Tokyo this past February, I repeatedly encountered this attractively put together photo collection of Yuri “poses”, Yuri Sekai Hikareau Futari wo Kaku tame no Pose Shuu (百合世界 惹かれ合うふたりを描くためのポーズ集). It looked quite slick and interesting…and large enough that I left it on the shelves and didn’t try to stuff it into my overfull luggage. ^_^

Now that the magic of overseas shipping has delivered this book to me, it was time to give it a closer look. The book is broken into three sections, which feature three pairs of women in various poses dressed as a high school couple, a couple in college and a pair of careerwomen in the office.

The point of this book is ostensibly to provide life drawing poses for a Yuri couple. The number of shots is astounding, and the variety of perspective is quite exceptional. If you’re an artist and cannot afford a model, this book would be an asset. It also provides key visuals of cloth draping or pulling, how shadows fall or lighting hits parts of the body.

Also exceptional are closeups of individual scenes,  so you can see hands from a variety of angles; how a hand crumples the material of a blouse when on a shoulder and specifics like that.

All of the photos are clothed, there’s nothing suggestive or creepy, but I’m not going to lie, after the 30th angle of two people almost kissing, I felt like a stalker. At some point I felt my skin crawl at the idea of the photographer circling the models taking photo after photo after photo. ^_^; 

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If I were in any way artistic, this would be a valuable resource.

Oyasumi Sheherezade, Volume 1 (おやすみシェヘラザード) (Subtitled in English “Nighty-Night Sherezade) by Shinofusa Rokuro is a Yawara Spirits webcomic that is surely in the running for the strangest thing I have ever read.

Asato hears rumors of “the 13th witch” who lives in Room 13 in her dorm. Should she ever be taken into that room, she will never come out the same, she is told. But one night when the dorm mother is about to catch her out on a late-night bathroom trip, the door to Room 13 opens and Asato is pulled in. And it turns out that rumor, as far as it goes, is true.

What Asato sees is a voluptuous young woman, dressed in sexy lingerie…who begs Asato to keep her company. Herezado Shie was used to talking with her mother as she fell asleep and being in this huge room by herself makes her lonely. What Shie wants is to tell Asato about the movies she loves. If Asato is able to stay awake all night with her, she will receive a “treat” of undetermined nature.

Initially, Asato is sure that this treat will involve physical intimacy, as Shie is very sensual and free with her body. Asato metaphorically girds herself to have a sexual experience with Shie, but, no, all Shie wants is to talk about (and sometimes act out portions of) movies. Asato, who has no particular interest, ends up falling asleep every night.

Asato shares her story with her friends who are delighted and cheerfully freaked out. When they meet Shie-sempai, one of them turns out to share her love of movies, but her friends are bored to tears. Partially because Shie talks about the movies in great, yet random, detail. Even movies I know sometimes are hard to follow. And Shie’s acting looks more like scenes from a horror movie.

As volume 1 comes to an end, we learn that there is a history between Shie and Asato’s super-strict and apparently uptight class President. I am not sure whether I actually wish to know what it is. I was torn between finding this so bizarre and ridiculous that I couldn’t stop reading…and kind of boring, so that I’m not sure if I’ll keep reading. Like Asato, I don’t much care about movies.

Shie is actually kind of cute in an obsessed way and Asato and her friends are pretty normal. The weirdness is only in the setup, within which everyone seems kind of nice. The art is quite good when it comes to pinups of Shie and purposefully mediocre at other times, which I quite like.  I just don’t know if I like it enough to keep reading.

Ratings:

Art – It can be as high as an 8, but often isn’t
Story – ????? I have no idea how to score this at all
Characters – Same
Yuri – 1
Service – 8 All cheesecake

Overall – I don’t know! 8? 3? I have no idea! Even if you like movies, I think it would still be really strange. Let’s call it a 7

If you wish to experience this series in all its unique strangeness, then catch the newest chapter on the Yawara Spirits series web page.  You’ll at least get to see what I mean about Shie’s lingerie.

Volume 2 is already available and Volume 3 will be released at the end of May.

Something about Tokuwotsumu’s art really appeals to me. I have no idea what it is. Something about the way Tokuwotsumu creates characters also appeals to me, but this time I know exactly what it is. 

Ise-san and Shima-san, Volume 1 (伊勢さんと志摩さん) is not a Yuri manga. It is, however a delightful manga about two close friends and roommates who are very comfortable together and who challenge each other to live their best lives. It’s honestly a delightful manga about absolutely nothing.

We meet Ise-san and Shima-san, coworkers and roommates as they are contemplating their “Challenge” sheet, on which they decide upon things with which to challenge themselves. These include things like giving each other a surprise, or staying up all night. It’s a fun life and one without too much emotional strain. Ise-san and Shima-san actually quite like each other, and have a lot of fun together.

We learn how they didn’t quite have a chance to become friends in school, because they ran in completely different circles but, when Ise-san was assigned to break in the newbie at work and it turned out to be Shima-san, they’d been friends ever since.

What appeals to me about the characters is the lack of drama and the open friendship they have for one another. They support one another, confide in each other and just generally are very good friends without complication. It’s really nice and very rare to see friendships between women portrayed without drama in manga. As a result, this manga about two best friends is a perfect palate cleanser after yesterday’s review. ^_^;

When Kisaragi Mayu joins the Art Club in Warui Onna no Ko (わるいおんなのこ), everything goes to hell.

Mayu is, as the title says, an evil girl. Through manipulation, both sexual and emotional, physical torture and blackmail the entire club becomes her slaves or is injured and even killed for resisting. The pages of the volume close on the teacher for the art club showing obeisance to Mayu and being tattooed by Mayu’s slaves.

It’s a cheerful little manga, as you can imagine. ^_^

Crazy eyes and shock eyes inhabit most of the panels. The art is all the more disturbing because it is good. The story is disturbing because it is disturbing.

When I heard that Complex Age creator Sakuma Yui was drawing a Yuri manga, I had no idea what to expect. I expected a Yuri manga, at the very least. This story isn’t Yuri, so much as uses the frisson of Yuri as one of the various forms of predatory grooming and psychological manipulation. So…that was fun. (-_-);

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 4
Characters – 3 One has hope at the beginning. Not so at the end.
Service – 5 It could be worse, but there is a lot of blood
Yuri – 1

Overall – 4

Depending on what you like, but I found it dire. If you like trainwreck stories starring creepy assholes successfully being creepy, you’ll love it.