Very quick note. I have spent the last few days in the hospital, and Rica is also sick, so our NYCC plans fell through. If all goes well, Saturday I will be there for a short time, but Rica’s signing sessions are canceled. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Also, my blogging schedule might be considerably altered for a while, due to health issues. My apologies about that as well.

In Part 1 on the Study of Yuri, I introduced what I consider to be the origin of what will later be called “Yuri” in a novel entitled Yaneura no Nishojo. During the same period in which she found success with this novel, the author Yoshiya wrote a series of short stories that catapulted her into enduring popularity (if not critical acclaim) in the Japanese literary world. These stories, the Hana Monogatari (Flower Tales) are considered to be one of the masterpieces of a new genre – Japanese girls’ literature – in the early 20th century.

The Hana Monogatari are not Yuri, but as stories of girls coming of age in a newly westernized Japan, they include a few examples of same-sex platonic love. These are all of a type, in which a younger girl at a boarding school or “mission school” admires an older student with slightly more emotion than mere friendship. This emotion, what we might refer to as a “crush” in English, is called “akogare” in Japanese.

Since the 1920s saw an expansion of both adolescence and extended education for girls and boys, and literature and magazines for adolescents of both genders was expanding equally as rapidly.

I’m utterly fried and I need a weekend off.

Go read a book or watch something and we can catch up again later. ^_^

In 2005, I wrote a review of a manga called Ultra Sword by Hayashiya Shizuru. It was a series based upon demon rape and violence. I thought it was…not too bad, considering. Well now, more of her stories from Hot Milk comics have been collected into a volume called Jigoku NEET  (地獄ニート).

The title comes from the first half of the book, in which we follow the slacker daughter of the King of Hell as she and her sister are exiled to earth and refuse to become productive members of society. Instead, they lay around and whine, go around naked when it’s hot, accidentally burn their house down and end up homeless and naked in a park. When the younger sister dies, she ends up in Heaven, where she becomes an angel. To save her younger sister, Sangaria, Jingaria the older sister, leads the legions of hell against the angels. Sister takes on sister and in their final battle, they end up sending themselves to a desert island somewhere, where it can be just the two of them, naked, forever. This story actually made me laugh out loud in places.

Oh yeah, it’s that kind of comic.

This is followed by attempted rape by a spirit in a hospital who is thwarted by a very attractive hermaphrodite, a disturbing story about two bunny girls and wacky life with a Christmas fairy.

The title story was so wackadoodle that in comparison the rest were pretty weak, but it really didn’t matter. I’m not the audience for Hot Milk Comics. Presumably, they really like these kinds of things. More importantly, I really hope Hayashiya-sensei has a lot of fun creating them.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – /coughcough/
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – there are not enough numbers

Overall – 7

One reads this kind of thing because one is a Hot Milk Comics kind of person, or a Hayashiya kind of person.