Last December the Yuri world thrilled at the announcement that for the first time SF Magazine was going to be publishing an issue featuring Yuri stories. SF Magazine, Featuring Yuri (SFマガジン2019年2月号 百合特集) sold out pretty quickly and had to be reprinted, which is very gratifying.
Before I get into the review, I have to tell you something about myself. When I was very young, I read a lot of science fiction. I mean, massive, metric tons, because I read whatever my Dad read and he was a member of the Science Fiction Book Club (remember that?). So my reading was 98% stuff I absolutely positively should not be reading at that age. ^_^
When I was like 9 or 10 my father told me a version of the story Knock by Frederic Brown. I have a standing bet with myself that all scifi collections I read will begin with some iteration of this story. I have never lost that bet. ^_^
When I hit 13 or 14, I remember my enthusiasm for scifi being ground down by, specifically, short story collections. The Best Science Fiction of /year/ collections were full of so much UGH, that after a couple of years of clones killing their originals and lots of rape and dystopia, all by men and mostly white men, I just got bored. I remember vividly the two stories that were the last straws for me. Of them, the one I blame most was an excruciating story by Stanislaw Lem, the punchline of which was “What do you take me for, a Phool?” at which point I walked away from science fiction for approximately a decade, until I found cyberpunk. Last time I read a scifi short story collection, it was likewise full of ugh, although this time by women. ^_^; My experiences with science fiction short stories have not be overwhelmingly positive. ( SF Novels, otoh, have been better than ever in the last few years!)
I am telling you this so you understand some of my ambivalence about this issue of SF Magazine. The rest of my ambivalence is because imagining stories by science fiction fans that were specifically written to be Yuri, caused me to imagine all sorts of new ugh to be experienced. As you may imagine.
Well, I won the standing bet, but otherwise, the Yuri in this issue of SF Magazine has been interesting and not ugh at all. Your mileage may, of course, vary, but I found the stories mostly to be sweet and a little sad, rather than creepy or gross.
Following the first few stories and a manga, is an interview with Comic Yuri Hime Editors in Chief Nakamura and Umezawa. I’m very pleased at their discussion of the heterogeneity of the Yuri genre and was delighted that Umezawa also begins the history of Yuri with Yoshiya Nobuko.
This interview is followed by an interview with Tsukimura Ryoue, with whose work I am wholly unfamiliar, so I look forward to learning something about him when I read the interview. (Edit: It turns out he is the screenplay writer for the anime Noir, among others, so it turns out that I am familiar with some of his work, just not his novels.) I was kind of surprised they didn’t do an interview with Fukami Makoto, since his science fiction often includes lesbians. ^_^
Following this is a series of suggested titles for fans of science fiction and Yuri and, whether we consider a series in this list “Yuri” or not fills many of the posts here on Okazu.
The magazine continues from there with what seems to be more general non-Yuri science fiction. What I have read so far has been quite decent.
Ratings:
Overall – 8
Overall a surprisingly pleasant experience with little that I would call exploitative,. and a lot that I would consider explorative. The February issue of SF magazine has been a fine experience with science fiction short stories featuring Yuri. ^_^
When Kisaragi Mayu joins the Art Club in Warui Onna no Ko (わるいおんなのこ), everything goes to hell.
