Catcher in the Rhyme (キャッチャー・イン・ザ・ライム) by Segawa Noboru is my new favorite thing ever.  ^_^

Takatsuji Satsuki suffers from that painful, paralyzing embarrassment that functions as a major plot complication in so many manga. She’s a lonely child, berated for not having skills no one has ever bothered teaching her. Unable to even manage a decent self-introduction, Satsuki is pretty sure she’ll be eating by herself forever.

While walking around campus looking at clubs she doesn’t have the bravery to join, she comes across Anzu and Ren, who are advertising for a “Rap Battle Club.” The prospect of rapping in public horrifies Satsuki, and although Ren and Anzu attempt to include her, she can’t…she just cannot…until she hears someone in her class unable to remember her name. And then another, and suddenly words pour out of Satsuki, many self-deprecating, some strikingly erudite, Satsuki ends with a loud, ringing pronouncement of her name, which is received with applause by the gathered students. Takatsuji Satsuki joins the Rap Battle Club. Or, it would be a club, if they had five members.

They are approached by another first year who wants to join, Harutsuki Utsugi. But first, she must let them know that she is a  transgender girl. The three girls respond with shock, then awe, and we see one painful panel as Utsugi can feel her hope slipping, then the three celebrate her joining…and she’s one of the club. It’s not that it’s never mentioned again, but when it is, there is a reason..because…

With four members, someone has to be a club president, so they have a short rap battle to see who wins. Ren takes on Anzu and wins, Satsuki beats Ren. Utsugi and Satsuki take on each other in a dozens that gets kind of rough. They both hurt each other a bit and although I personally thought Utsugi was better, she awards the win to Satsuki. Satsuki has now become the president of the Rap Battle Club.

The girls then turn their eyes towards getting a fifth and legitimizing member. When Anzu discovers Iroha Kaede on the roof, listening to some beats, we’ve found her. Break-dancing Iroha becomes our DJ and ta-da! we become an official club.

The rap rhymes are not brilliant, but I can follow most of the rhythm (which is indicated by font weight.). But, they are better than I could do, and fun and, as these are high school girls creating a rap culture for themselves by osmosis, it works just fine. Satsuki’s skill is to pull out complicated verbiage and rhyme it, but her stage presence has a long way to go. The school festival lays ahead of them now and that seems like a perfect goal for this manga.

I really like all the characters. For a Japanese manga, it manages a little diversity –  Satsuki is painfully shy, Ren is a tad vulgar, Anzu’s chubby, Utsugi’s a trans woman, and Kaede is a breakdancer, all things that put them on the outside of typical student life. It works well for a base to the plot and I’m a sucker for the sports-type competition manga when I like the characters. ^_^;

There’s no Yuri, yet, but I kind of think Satsuki and Utsugi would be cute together. 

Ratings:

Art – 6 Loads of funny faces and fonts
Story – 8 Give me that blood, sweat and tears 
Characters – 9 
Service – 2 Very little, surprisingly. Some lingering glances at Anzu’s chest
Yuri – .005 Headcanon for now.

Overall – 8

Right now, it’s a manga about youth and friendship and teamwork and rap. And it’s fun. You should read it.

A couple of months ago I came across a post by Ogata Megumi (Tenoh Haruka’s voice from the original Sailor Moon anime) saying that she was recording a version of “Moon Revenge” with Kastuki Masako (Kaoih Michiru’s voice actress from the original Sailor Moon anime) for a new album. With a little research I found that I had completely missed the chance to back that album, which she had crowdfunded. Woops! But the good news is that her campaign had been successful and so I did the next best thing I could do to support her work – I bought the album.

Animeg 25th (アニメグ25th) is a collection of songs sung by Ogata Megumi from franchises in which she’s featured. It begins with Platina, the second OP from Card Captor Sakura and includes songs from Angel Beats, GTO, Persona 3, Danganronpa, Evangelion, Hamatora and, of course Sailor Moon, as well as a few others.

It was a very pleasant album to listen to. The music was – as anime music tends to be – banal and appealing. Ogata-san is singing most of the songs in her mid and lower voice range, which I quite prefer. I’m at that point in my fandom lifecycle where I’m not watching that much new anime and don’t game at all, so while I have seen at least  some of most of the series covered here, I haven’t seen all, and haven’t seen that much of most. I know of the the Persona franchise but have seen none of it outside promotional ads, Even Angel Beats, which is a fairly old franchise with surprising longevity in Japan, is something I know about, rather than know. Nonetheless, I notice that many of these franchises are keeping MO busy and for that, I’m pleased. 

But I know you want to know how “Moon Revenge” was? It was loads of fun and very easy to imagine Haruka and Michiru singing it a karaoke and pissing the Inners off because it sounded so good. That was how I imagined it, anyway. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9 

This was a brilliant CD to have on in the background while I weeded my doujinshi collection. Just perfect. ^_^

In Volume 1 of Soirée Gakkyuu, we met Beni and Ruri, two close friends who attend an unconventional high school with a host of other characters for whom the traditional high school model is just not going to work. The story is told, generally, from the perspective of one of their classmates who becomes their friend, Yanagi.

In Volume 2, the final school festival of their time at this school approaches and they decide to actually do a thing. They set up an elaborate haunted house with effects and costumes. Beni is in charge of getting people in – challenging at this school, where participation is not required.

While at the festival, a couple of guys mack on Beni and take pictures of her in costume. When they appearoin an amateur photo site, she’s not all that displeased. We get a little more development of Beni as a person, but then, something happens. Ruri can see something has happened – they all can all see something has happened, but Beni isn’t saying.

Ultimately we learn that Beni’s family is moving to Shanghai. They offer her a chance to stay and finish up school, but she’s torn. When she finally tells Ruri, we can see she feels guilty for wanting to go and live a different life completely. Ruri sees it too, and lets Beni go. Any threads that might have held Beni back are unraveled as they admit the importance each other has in their life, but they need to move on.

The book wraps up with each of the characters graduating at their own pace and moving on. An epilogue five years later brings Beni and Ruri back together for a night, in which they talk like they used to – just like old times, but nothing more or less.

I’m not going to lie, I was a little sad at the end, when I felt that the writing skirted any of the things that might have been said, but it also seemed consistent with the story as we were told it. And then the mangaka’s notes at the end of the volume went on in detail about the office chair she sits in, so maybe it was okay that it ended that way.

Ratings:

Art – 6 
Story – 6 
Characters – 6 
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 6 it had potential, but stayed where it was and ended up a nice enough thing to read but nothing that has to be read again.

Probably-a-vampire Yuri manga number 3
Was not just a waste of a tree
It was dumber than hell
And it knew it quite well
So I’ll read Volume 2…maybe.

Makioka Shizue is starving. 

She’s living alone, in penurious circumstances, has no money for food, no way to cook it. As Shizue drags her hungry ass in to school at Yomaiyocho Girls’ School, she sees two girls in what appears to be a compromising situation. As she hurries along, she realizes that 1) that girl with the dark hair was her classmate Endou Yasuko and 2) she wasn’t kissing the other girl…she was sucking her blood! Horror fills Shizue, so when Endo Yasuko catches up with her, she quite naturally asks if Yasuko is a vampire. 

No, Endou Yasuko replies, I’m a serial killer. (The kanji for which indicates an “abnormal eater.”) Oh okay then.

Welcome to Endou Yasuko ha Yomaiyochou ni Kakureteru (遠藤靖子は夜迷町に隠れてる). This gets my award for best title of the year. I’d probably go with “Endou Yasuko Disappears into the City of the Night” if  I had to translate it. 

Yasuko has a problem – finding food can be difficult. It keeps running away. Shizue has a problem, she also wants food. Yasuko proposes a plan – Shizue be food for her and can live in her spacious apartment, she’ll cook for her. It’s win-win…as long as Shizue doesn’t mind being Yasuko’s meal plan. She doesn’t mind. 

Another schoolmate hates Endou Yasuko. So much so that she rents an American Vampire hunter to track her down. Only Ashley Nelson turns out to like Japanese food and manzai comedy more than vampire hunting, so she sticks around and slacks on the job.

So, despite an unsolved mystery of three missing students and a blood sucking demon in class, we turn our attention to the school festival! We’re doing a haunted house….duhhhhhh……

I have really come to love Shounen Gahosha titles. They are trash, but they are unrepentant, fun, trash. FLOWERCHILD is having a lot of fun with this story and we might as well get the popcorn out and have a good time reading. The art is about what I’d expect for a Young King title, with busty characters drawn just not right, and a dollop of random undressing, but otherwise competent.

This not a Yuri title, but it is a vampire-at-a-girls’ school title, so some service. Shizue and Yasuko are beginning to truly care for one another by the end of this volume.

Most importantly for us here in the west, Seven Seas has licensed this title for English release as Hungry For You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night, which will be hitting shelves in May 2018! 

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – An utterly absurd 8
Characters – 9
Service – 5 Vampire-at-a-girls’ school
Yuri – 2, maybe, but you can make it work if you want.

Overall – Entertaining, trashy 8

I declare that henceforth, all vampire Yuri will be reviewed by limerick on Okazu. ^_^ This one was a joint effort by my wife and I. 

Today we’re doing that thing where a series is on Yuri lists for so long and so consistently even though it’s really obvious that there isn’t any Yuri,  that we can only avoid it so long. And we’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding it, I have to say. Three years of pretending it just doesn’t exist, in fact. ^_^  

Over the years I have developed a little mnemonic device for myself when in Tokyo – Look for it in Book-Off first. (“Duh~~~~~” is understood.) This come from years of buying a book in Toranoana or wherever, then finding it used at Book-Off or K-Books for a few bucks. Took me like a decade to really grok this, but eventually it sunk in and now our first shopping day in Tokyo is confined to used book stores, then after a couple more shopping days, I now know what I want, then I go back to Book-Off and really look for stuff. Which is how I found this volume for 400￥. Which, I guessed is pretty much what it would be worth to me.

Well, I was right about the Yuri, but I was totally wrong about it’s worth. Because Shinmai Shimai no Futari Gohan, Volume 1 (新米姉妹のふたりごはん) is really a lot of fun. I’m definitely going to be looking for the next volume and I really hope it never actually becomes a Yuri manga, to be honest. 

Sachi and Ayari are sisters by marriage and while their parents are off on an extended honeymoon, move in together. Sachi’s a little afraid of her somewhat unfriendly new little sister. But, when a Jamón Serrano arrives, as a present from Dad, it turns out that Ayari’s one real passion is cooking. Sachi’s one real passion is eating, and so the  sisters begin to bond. 

Each chapter is centered around a not-at-all-simple recipe, often with relatively exotic ingredients and Sachi and Ayari getting to know a bit about one another. Sachi, having been thrust into a position of being an “older sister” is a little overwrought about being a good older sister. The absolute saving grace of this manga is that as Ayari is good at cooking, which is exactly what Sachi needs, Sachi turns out to be good at math and helps Ayari out on her problem subject at school. Once Sachi settles in to the role, she makes a good older sister, taking her lonely sister out for a movie and shopping, introducing her to her friends and just being really appreciative of Ayari. You can see that having Sachi in her life  is good for Ayari. By the end of Volume 1 they are lightening up a lot around each other.

As I read this volume, I’m obviously comparing and contrasting it with another sisters by marriage manga, Saburouta’s citrus. Hands down, this story wins. Yes, the premise is stupid and so are the absurdly complicated recipes (Oh, sure, I just nip out for a wheel of raclette,) but it’s 100x more fun to read.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story  – 6 Ridiculous, but fun
Characters – 8 Both Sachi and Ayari would be welcome over for lunch (especially if Ayari cooked)
Service – 1 if you think like that
Yuri – 0

Overall – 8 

So where’s the Yuri? There is none in Volume 1 and  my guess is that it is primarily in the heads of fans who cannot imagine a non-romantic show of affection between female two human beings. Doesn’t matter, I’ll definitely look for Volume 2.