Suga Asako finds herself alone quite suddenly when her partner decides their relationship is just not working. But her friend Hato isn’t listening because she’s more upset that Miyako, the lead singer of her favorite group, has walked off stage and disappeared.

Asako doesn’t give herself too much time to mope. She finds a new place to live. It’s a cute little detached house, with a garden and a room she can use for her work as a manga editor. The landlady seems super nice, so Asako takes it and gets settled in. Then one day, she notices a ladder to an upstairs room, where she finds her landlady chilling. The landlady calmly points out that,yes, she did not mention she was living in the attic room, but on the other hand, Asako did sign the contract which read, “maitsuki niwatsuki ooyatsuki.” Monthly, with garden, with landlady.

It’s not like the landlady is a creeper. Asako ends up cooking for both of them, as the landlady is fairly useless at that. But that’s not really a problem. Asako is sure, however she’s seen the landlady somewhere. Yep, you guessed it. Her landlady is he former lead singer of Elm, Miyako. This volume wraps up with a whole chapter of a minor conflict that is wrapped up instantly. 

What follows in Maitsuki Niwatsuki Ooyatsuki – Monthly With Ooya (毎月庭つき大家つき) is a nice comic about two people who have had their lives uprooted, trying to set down some new roots for themselves. This makes three books in a row for me with this same theme. ^_^ I swear it’s not on purpose, but I have to say that most of my favorite stories right now are about adult women forming connections with other adult women, not just romantic or sexual attraction, although those sometimes are in the mix. What is appealing to me, specifically, is the idea of intimacy that does not rely on sex. That said, I didn’t pick up this book knowing that this was the story! I picked this book up on the strength of the artist’s name. We seen Yodokawa-sensei in any number of Yuri anthologies. They’ve had at least one collection of short stories, but this is the first serialized book I’ve seen from them and I was totally willing to take a chance on this. So far this is not Yuri, per se. There’s implication and possibility, and Yodokawa is the creator., so we have a high chance of Yuri.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 0
Found family  – 8

Overall – 8

Whether it becomes a romance or stays a found family narrative doesn’t matter to me in the slightest. As it is, my to-read pile is 80% found family, intimacy between adult women – with and without romance and I’m just delighted, frankly. ^_^ More of this please!

I know no one notices this, but I almost always take a new photo of the Lucky Boxes that are going out. ^_^ These are the actual Lucky Boxes that have been put together for this time.

This time we have 3 Lucky boxes! They are full of comics and manga and poetry and magazines and and other random things to marvel at.  All of these boxes include other flat fun things like stickers, bookmarks, comics, or postcards which are equally random and frequently bizarre (and often not at all Yuri.) And candy. I particularly like the hana kuchizuke  candy and hope you do too.

This time we have 2 Large boxes and 1 Medium Box.

As always, I assure you that this is all 100%, unadulterated stuff. Lucky Boxes are created by me shoving a bunch of things in boxes. I don’t remember what went in, so I can’t tell you what is in each box. I do try to put random things in there to make the unpacking process an adventure. ^_^ You’ll get random things in random things.

Here are today’s choices:

Large Box 1 – $40 – Claimed

Large Box 2 – $40 – Claimed

Large Box 3 – $25 – Claimed

***

To be eligible to buy a Lucky Box, follow these instructions carefully. Please. Thank you. Failure to follow all of these instructions will disqualify you. It’s not personal, they are all claimed pretty quickly and I don’t have time to track you down for a piece of information.

1 – You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs. This is disappointing for me too, so I apologize. Nothing in here is worth the amount of money it would cost to get it overseas.

2 – You must be over 18, I am not policing books or recipients.

3 – Email me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with the subject “Lucky Box”. Use an email you check regularly. Because I will reply asap. The first person who responds to my email gets the box.

4. *****Please include your name, age, mailing address. ***** Tell me which box you want. Even if you’ve given me your address previously, please include it, I am very lazy.

5- I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger. Thanks in advance. These will be shipped out asap, as well; the whole point of this is to get these out of my house. ^_^

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness, as usual. ^_^

Ready? Get your Lucky Boxes!

Last month on Yuri Studio, I made a video about Girl Gangs in Anime and Manga. I enjoyed making it quite a bit and it motivated me to pick up a series I mentioned in the video – Sukeban Deka Pretend, Volume 1 (スケバン刑事Pretend).

Asamiya Saki is dead and gone.  High schooler Yasaki Asami (see what they did there?) never knew her. Nonetheless, their lives will become intertwined, when Asami – whose one goal is to make 10,000 friends online – finds a mysterious yo-yo. Well, actually, the yo-yo finds her. It literally drops from the sky as she’s up on the school roof. When she sees a bunch of kids bullying another kid, Saki’s spirit appears and instructs her to fight evil, as Sukeban Deka Pretend!

…kind of like the world’s greatest delinquent is now a magical animal mascot.

In any case, Asami does transform and saves the guy…but he is not interested in being friends. In fact, he kind of loses his grip and turns out to be doing crime. He’s the guy responsible for the new “snake” marijuana in school. The snake tattoo on his forehead awakens and he completely goes off the rails. Asami has to transform and subdue him.

Then Asami helps a girl whose uniform has been stolen, the end result of which is that she turns up a whole ring of stolen school items. The girl whose uniform was stolen turns out to have a snake tattoo that possesses her, as well. She’s actually sold her uniform for money – but was that before or after the snake?

In each case, Asami sets out to help someone, only for them to turn on her, become possessed by something snake-themed, and turn out to be the actual bad guy. I appreciate that snake theme, honestly, calling back to the giant snakes at the end of the original series.

But this all gets really wonky in the final arc of the volume. Chisato is the Vice chair of the Morals committee, a powerful group in the school which rules with an iron hand. She and Asami work together in the stolen goods arc, and they learn that there is actually a blue yo-yo as well! Who has it, or why, neither of them know. When the Chair of the morals committee is possessed by the snake…whatever-it-is, Asami stands ready to fight, but before she can transform, the Morals Chair slaps her down. At which Chisato stands forward with that blue yo-yo and she becomes Sukeban Deka Principal!

Also…Saki’s handler (and lover) Jin seems to be a teacher at the school.

Okay. Yes. Thank you. This was perfect, in a mad as a porridge knife way. Saki being part of the story, while remaining dead is a total thumbs up, as is the whole snake theme. Another thumb for the second yo-yo and another for Jin being right there, and apparently knowing what’s going on, but not lifting a finger to do anything. Four thumbs up for this story. It’s…bonkers in a way that only a reworking of a 50 year old cultural phenomenon could be. A bit like the Brady Bunch Movie. You can’t take the original seriously, but you can’t just lampoon it, either…it was a formative part of the cultural landscape. So you have to hold it with love and make it sillier. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 0

At the end of this volume we have Asami and Chisato as paired Sukeban Deka, so maybe we’ll get some good partnership-relationship there. The evil snake theme is certainly a thing and now we just need to know how the Principal is involved, because, duh~~ she is clearly involved. Will I get the next volume to find out? You bet I will! Volume 1 only came out in April and this series appears to be still running in Princess magazine, so yeah, I’m all in on this. ^_^

Deliquent girls forever!

This week has seen it’s share of excitement. TCAF has walked back a questionable choice of guest, (without yet addressing any of the issues around why the guest was chosen or the damage done.) But today, I want to address something very serious – the well-being of the people who make the manga we love. 

This month, employees of Seven Seas declared intent to unionize. They were asking for absolutely reasonable things, like fair pay, time off and healthcare.  I honestly expected management to engage reasonably, because of course one would assume that. Management chose not engage. And still, I hoped that management was making sure the union would be formed fairly. The United Workers of Seven Seas have announced that they have a 78% supermajority in favor of a union.

Seven Seas called for a formal vote and said they will abide by the result of the election, but, ahead of that election has hired the second-largest union-busting law firm in the United States. This is a law firm hired by the worst people to stop employees from doing a thing they are legally entitled to do. (Click that link above to see just how awful a choice of law firm it is) This is an act of war against the union. As of now, UW7S is not asking for a boycott, but they are completely aware of their situation. They suggest you follow them on Twitter, tweet your support, use their hashtags and mascots.

I’m appalled. I honestly cannot imagine treating employees this way. Seven Seas has grown so much, so fast, and has such hard-working, decent folks. All they want is the company which is making a lot of money to fairly reward the employees who make it profitable. 

I and everyone at Okazu stand in solidarity with the United Workers of Seven Seas. I hope you stand with me.