Hatsumi and Sakura are best friends. Together they have entered Otowa Gakuin, an elite school for girls. Situated in a deep forest the students are known as the maidens of the forest of wild roses (hence, the title.)

The star of the school is Izumi and her partner Mayuko, who look and act like a Takarazuka Top Star couple.

But Hatsumi thinks it’s more than just an act – she saw Izumi and Mayuko in the forest kissing! And when Izumi saw her and Sakura, she said that the two of them were suitable for the elite squad known as the “Sousha Lights” group. Izumi asks Hatsumi and Sakura to be part of the group as representatives of their dorm.

Hatsumi is absolutely obsessed with Izumi, and obsessed with the idea that she saw Izumi and Mayuko kissing. More confusingly, Izumi responds to Hatsumi with seductive behavior (for which Mayuko scolds her for “playing” with the girl’s feeling and Izumi replies that she’s not playing at all.) Hatsumi’s confused about everything, but when she’s asked what she thinks of Izumi, she says that she’s not attracted to women.

This pronouncement has a bizarre effect on Sakura. She has cheerfully accompanied Hatsumi everywhere, but when Hatsumi says she isn’t attracted to women, Sakura acts like she’s been slapped. That night, she finds Izumi embracing Hatsumi (under the pretext of practicing for the school dance) and drags her friend out of Izumi’s arms, warning the school star off. As the chapter ends, back in their room, Sakura pushes Hatsumi down on the bed and demands to know what she really thinks about Izumi.

Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi (野ばらの森の乙女たち,) by Shirasawa Marimo, is currently running in Nakayoshi magazine. It reads like Strawberry Panic light. :)

Again, my confidence that it will remain as blatantly Yuri as it is right now is low, but it certainly has the potential to surprise me. I would be totally okay with it if it remained Strawberry Panic light. ^_^

So for the first time in quite a while, there’s a small uptick in Yuri in shoujo magazines. And with the Marimite manga picking up again next month, I’ll be buying more shoujo that I have in ages for the next few months!

And, should anything develop in this garden of wild roses…I’ll be sure to let you know. ^_^

Probably a few of you are familiar with Ribon , the monthly shoujo manga magazine.

One of the current series is “Blue Friends,” (ブルーフレンズ) a story that starts out Yuri (and is quickly destined to leave it, but for now…)

Ayumu is good at sports and popular and Misuzu is slightly creepy, totally distant from everyone and hates men. In chapter 1, Misuzu kisses Ayumu, who spends most of chapter 2 wondering what
it meant. Misuzu says it was just between friends, but Ayumu doesn’t know, really, if it was.

Now, not only are the other girls talking about them, making snide comments about are they “that way,” they are also plain old mean about Misuzu, so Ayumu has to keep defending her over and over. When Misuzu drives a guy who confesses to liking Ayumu away, Ayumu begins to wonder if she’s picked up a stalker….

Ayumu’s feelings are totally confused and although it turns out that Misuzu was, really, acting in her best interests, she’s really not sure what to make of the new threat in the form of a transfer student that keeps hinting about something terrible in Misuzu’s past. And, unbeknownst to Ayumu, Misuzu is getting threatening messages in her locker.

Blue Friends, by Eban Fumi, is a relatively new manga that runs in Ribon. It’s only three chapters old and is already moving away from the fake Yuri into something else. There’s at least one horrible secret that will either split the two of them up or possibly bring them closer. It will, I have no doubt, also be the reason that Ayumu hates men. I expect it to be vile.

My guess is that the story will ultimately be non-Yuri, but I don’t think I’ve even seen fake Yuri in Ribon before, so I’ll follow it until it becomes intolerable…which ought to be the next chapter. :-)

Here’s the first chapter online on the Ribon site so you can decide for yourself.

This is the first of a few shoujo manga stories supposedly with Yuri running this summer. I’ve got another one on tap…I’ll let you know how it goes. :-)

This one started out promising, but quickly devolved. I’ll check back if something actually develops.

Takeuchi Sachiko is a lesbian comic artist in Japan. She has detailed some of her life as a lesbian and her experiences in the LGBT Tokyo community for DaVinci, a mainstream women’s magazine. These experiences were gathered in the two volumes Honey x Honey and Honey x Honey Deluxe. After she and her lover split, Sachiko started seeing a transgender friend Kai, who ultimately underwent surgery to full transition to being a man in Otoko ni Naritai! Sachiko and Kai are still together, and now she’s explaining her other secret life to the utterly “normal” women who read DaVinci magazine. Because, you see, Sachiko is a fujoshi　(腐女子.)

Fujoshi are, commonly speaking, female otaku. As Sachiko points out in Kusare Fujoshi! In Deep (くされ女子! In Deep) there’s more to it than just being a a fan of Boy’s Love, although that seems to be the major commonality. She also explains to her audience – by way of two fellow fujoshi Mai and Shiori-sempai – that there are lesbians who are fujoshi and even men, gay and straight, who are fujoshi.

At some point Mai hits on what I think may be one of the key factors of being fujoshi vs being otaku. Fujoshi, Mai says, love men. Not that they necessarily have to love them in the flesh, but that they love the idea of men and, by extension, love romance and sex between these idealized images. On the other side of the aisle, you can pretty much say the same for otaku – they may or may might not love real women, but love their idealized idea of women. I personally have always considered myself otaku as opposed to fujoshi, so that kind of fits.

Kusare Joshi explores some of the various facets of being a fujoshi. Host bars; cosplay; sexual titillation when reading BL and how it can be a shared sexual experience between women; what moe means to a fujoshi and even the differences between real gay men and Boy’s Love stories. This section contained what is perhaps my favorite scene. When her gay guy friends learn of her interest, they hound her asking if she is moeru over them – and insist she “Say it! Say it!” That bit had me laughing out loud.

As I said in my review of Honey x Honey, Takeuchi’s art is simplistic but it fits her message well. Her story is meant to be an introduction to a “lifestyle” that her audience thinks they know nothing about and considers alien, perhaps gross. Her straightforward autographical style takes the sting out of even the most pointed commentary (she points, for instance, out the unfairness of the fact that women who get all hot and bothered over guys having sex are “fujoshi”….but the guys who do the same over women having sex are considered perverted.) Or when she briefly touches a few times on Yuri and finds that most (especially straight) fujoshi reject it as being disgusting.

Also, because her book is an autobiography it carries the weight of verisimilitude – these are real people, doing things for real. And, she assures us once more in the Afterword – having a hell of a fun time doing them!

This book is an insight on the side of the store I almost never find myself on, including the secret of what, exactly, is kept inside those suitcases that fujoshi drag behind themselves.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0 Lesbian  -5
Loser Fangirl – 10

Overall – 8

Many, many thanks to George R. for offering up this book for review! George, you can shop for me in Tokyo anytime! :-)

I’m out of the office for the next few days with limited computer access. I’ll do my best to approve comments, but it might be some time before I reply to anything. If I don’t approve your comment or reply to it I am either away from the computer, do not have computer access or am ignoring you. Pick whichever works best for you. ^_^

I’ll pick up with the news reports next week. Thanks for your patience!

No promises on a review today, but I’m going to try. Instead, I’m starting your morning off with some random clean-up. :-)

First up, announcing the winner of the Jormungand, Volume 2, manga giveaway: Milz, a winner is you!

And the “winner” of the El Cazador manga contest: Emma! I promise to send along something that doesn’t suck as well as the manga that does, so you can have something for you to chew on, along with your dog!

Please email me here at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com and *please* use the subject line: Okazu contest. Send me your shipping address and things will arrive as if by magic, eventually.

I also have a DVD giveaway going on at the Yuricon Mailing List that has a few days to go, do drop by and take a look!

Secondly and rather significantly for me, today I start a gig at Noah Berlatsky’s Hooded Utilitarian, a blog associated with The Comics Journal. (which, along with Journalista, you should read regularly because they are smart, entertaining, and about the comics and manga industries.) I’ll be doing a column on the first Sunday of every month – amazingly, I have my posts planned through October. I hope you drop by and post some positive feedback to “comment offset” the inevitable negativity. My column is called Overthinking Things and my obligatory wankerish self-introductory post is up.

“Comment Offset” – lol

I like it.

I don’t really have time in my life for another writing gig, but Noah’s argument was very compelling – write whatever you want, I really don’t care. Oh, well, who could refuse that?

Thank you all for all your support – emotional, monetary, humor, everything – and for your cheerful participation in my ass contests! I adore all of you, I really do. You make it all so worth every minute of every day to do this.