Archive for the Series Category


MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 14

November 13th, 2020

In Volume 14 of MURCIÉLAGO, we find ourselves revisiting a cast of characters that, perhaps, we had assumed we’d left far behind. Sensibly so, since the last time we saw Rose Marie was hanging from a basement ceiling with a meat hook through her chest. But when Narumi turns up and so do corpses with bites taken out of their necks, we get to see what became of the leader of the Virginal Rose and she’s not looking any better. Grafted literally onto her demonic sibling Rose Marie, they are reduced to haunting the sewers and finding victims to feed their lust for blood.

Of course Kuroko and Urara handle the problem with not much more than the usual difficulty. Narumi recognizes another Virginal Rose alumna, Carina, who is pivotal in the final battle. Narumi, formerly Teresa, is able to thank Gold Marie for having saved her, before she dies.

While this is happening, Hinako and Chiyo-chan are visiting the pool, beating up random folks and For our purposes, Chiyo spends a moment fantasizing about marrying  Kuroko, as unrealistic as that seems. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 On repeat: In so far as it is conveying horrific violence, I think it’s getting better.
Story – 8 Creepier than usual, which is saying a lot
Characters – 8
Service – 5 less than usual, skimpy bathing costumes
Yuri – 4 Chiyo is the Yuri carrier drug here, and I’m okay with it

Overall – 8

There’s not much one can say about a series that is basically thin plots wrapped around creative ways to kill people.

 





I’m in Love With the Villainess, Light Novel Volume 1

September 17th, 2020

I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 1, written by Inori, illustrated by Hanagata, out from Seven Seas, was an extraordinary read. I mean that in the most positive way. This book was surprising in ways I would never have imagined it to be, in ways that blew me away.

Oohashi Rei, an adult who has always loved games, finds herself waking in the world of Revolution, her favorite otome game. Armed with encyclopedic knowledge of the world of Revolution, and skills given to the PC, Rei, now known as Rae Taylor, sets out to do the one thing she wants most….to romance the villainess, Claire François.

From the beginning, there were little touches that had me intrigued. For instance, the novel lacks Truck-kun. No one dies. Rei simply wakes up in the game as Rae.  Although Rae is a teenager, she has not lost her adult perspective and there are decisions or commentary we get from her which are decidedly mature. About a third of the way through the story, Rae discusses something with us, the reader, and I just sat back and said, “huh.” No child thinks that way. It was about that moment, I realized I was reading something completely different.

In my review of ROLL OVER AND DIE, I said, “The premise makes it completely possible to kill your brain cells reading [the violent scenes] and not feel much. In that, I think the author does the readership a disservice.” and I’ve called My Next Life As A Villainess, “lazy writing.” These are not capricious comments. I believe in world- and character-building being key elements in making an excellent story. I have been a voracious reader since I was a child, I’m usually reading 6-8 things at once. I was a comparative literature major in college. I care about the way writers write as a reader and as a writer. I expect that world-building be done with a thoroughness that provides the story a solid three-dimensional base, even if most of the details don’t apply to this story specifically. Overwhelmingly, light novels do not do this and isekai (or isekai-adjacent) LNs tend to rely on tropes and handwaves to skip the relevant world- and character-building. I’m in Love With the Villainess does the work.

And then you hit a moment when Misha, Rae’s best friend, roommate and foil, turns to Rae and asks, “Are you gay?”…and the characters have a frank discussion about sexuality. Rae analyzes her experiences and feelings and we watch her do so – in so many words – then watch her reach an unusual conclusion, given that this is a webnovel.

But wait, there’s more. This little web novel, this penny-candy confectionery of literary effort, doesn’t stop there. There will be discussions of abuse of authority, and unfair sentencing, of political protests and economic inequality. And, they will make sense in the context of the story. The otome game is called Revolution, after all. ^_^

While all of this world-building is happening, Rae is cheerfully teasing Clare into bullying her, and enjoying every second of it. Never for a second does Rae stop enjoying herself. The more we learn about Rae, the more we come to learn about Oohashi Rei, who seems like a decent person, one we might be able to be friends with.

The only complaint I sincerely have is that there is a scene (I refuse to spoil) that ought to have been illustrated but was not. That is the only negative for this book. Thankfully…there is a manga! Yesterday I mentioned that I’m reading the manga for this series as it runs in Comic Yuri Hime magazine. There are some small differences in functionality, with each medium providing positive and negative qualities. We have not yet reached that specific scene in the manga, but I fervently pray for a few good screencaps. This is where the manga will definitely provide a benefit. On the other side, the novel format allows Rae more internal monologue and she is, IMHO, more relatable as a result.

Absolutely shout-out to Jenn Yamazaki and Nibedita Sen for the translation and adaptation here. Some of the translation lines were in and of themselves, sublime. I’ve never thrilled so much at the use of “There it was.” George Panella’s logo also gets a tip of the hat from me. Everyone at Seven Seas really pulled out the stops here for what is definitely, positively going to be one of my Top Ten Yuri of the Year. No question, this is the series to beat right now.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Adequate, but once again fails completely to illustrate anything significant or interesting
Story – 9 Takes the banal set-up and flies
Characters – 10
Yuri – 7 one-sided in this volume, but…
LGBTQ – Yes!
Service – 2 Implied and some other stuff

Overall – 9

Author Inori thanks their partner in the author’s note. That might have something to do with that discussion of sexuality.

I’m in Love With the Villainess is available digitally on Kindle and Bookwalker Global next week, in print at the end of November.

The novel series, Watashi no Oshi ha Akujyaku Reijou! (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) is available in full in Japanese on webnovel site Syoetsu ni Narou!. Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3 are available in Japanese on JP Kindle. The covers for V2 and V3 are full of spoilery goodness.

Along with Yagate Kimi ni Naru Saeki Sayaka ni Tsuite, Volume 3,  which will make it over here as Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 3, in December, Yuri Light Novels got a lot gayer in 2020. ^_^

Many thanks to Seven Seas for the review copy.





Revisiting Old Friends and Celebrating Yuri Anniversaries in Doujinshi!

September 9th, 2020

Some of you may have followed the saga of my recent package from Japan, that sat in a warehouse in Kawasaki for 7 weeks because it was supposed to take 8 weeks, so they made it take 8 weeks and then took 4 days to actually ship. ^_^; Today I want to share the partial contents of that package, because it will give us a chance to catch up with old stories and celebrate some anniversaries. All of the doujinshi I’ll be speaking of were purchased online at Melonbooks, and shipped from there to Tenso, which shipped it to me.

I used to joke/complain that the decent artifacts from Yuri Shimai / Yuri Hime had the most complicated histories. (Although nothing beats Hatsukoi Shimai.) Well each of today’s doujinshi practically comes with it’s own guidebook. ^_^

 

In 2003, before Hayate x Blade, manga artist Hayashiya Shizuru started serializing a story, Strawberry Shake, in the new quarterly Yuri manga magazine, Yuri Shimai, a manga that really honed her “baka” style of physical comedy. The series was ported to the new Yuri Hime magazine in 2005, was renamed Strawberry Shake Sweet and eventually was printed as a two-volume collection, both of which were reviewed here on Okazu. Volume 1 in 2006, and Volume 2 in 2009.  A single omnibus volume re-renamed Strawberry Shake  was printed in 2015 by Shueisha, with a new extra chapter.

The story followed two goofy, clueless “talents” (that is, they model, or do TV shows, or commercials, or whatever) Tachibana Julia and Asakawa Ran, as they meet, fall in love and almost never manage to get it together. When we meet her initially, Julia has just made a splash on a TV drama, and Ran is a new talent who is scooped up for fashion modeling. They are surrounded by a group of wacky characters who are nearly all also lesbian. It’s a tale told with Hayashiya’s bloody, violent comedy and I know it isn’t for everyone, but she’s  been one of my favorite artists since. ^_^ In fact, she may be the first artist I followed specifically, now that I think about it.

She’s continued the series in doujinshi over the years in a – so-far – 4-issue series titled Berry Strawberry Shake. Volume 1 | Volume 2| Volume 3 | Volume 4. The running gag in these are the same running gags in the original. Ran is still a doofus and Julia is still a baka. They are in love, but not in sync. Their manager Saeki is still uptight. The super-lesbian hairdresser Kaoru is still teasing her old schoolmate Saeki and getting into fights with her girlfriend and the very very queer band, which is less visual kei than visual gay, Zlay, is still super gay. All these many years and surrounded by all that gay, and our protagonists still haven’t managed a night together!

Well, this year in, Berry Shake 4, only 17 years after meeting for the first time, Julia and Ran manage a night together. Mostly.  There are…technical difficulties. ^_^;   I’m so glad to be able to check in on Julia and Ran and see that, as goofy as they are, they are happy and successful and…I note that they both are wearing matching rings.

 

 

On a quiet, greenery lined street in a little town, at the end of the road is a tea shop, where you can get delicious tea and patisserie and bask in the company of cute Yuri couples, all enjoying conversation and the pleasant atmosphere. Welcome to the Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan; Seriho and her partner Sarasa are your gracious…and always adorable…hosts.

Fujieda Miyabi‘s series, Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan began its life in Yuri Hime magazine in 2006. No, wait, it actually started in 2005 in a one-shot done for the [es] ~ Eternal Sisters, Volume 2 anthology. The series began serialization in Yuri Hime beginning in 2006. It ran for some years and was eventually collected into 2 volumes: Volume 1 in 2009, and Volume 2 in 2012.

Fujieda-sensei took his series to Drama CDs. The series had 4 DCDs and a 5th which was a crossover with his other contemporaneous series,  Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo, Madrigal Halloween, which is still the absolute finest Drama CD I own and arguably, ever made. The cast from this series and locale also makes constant cameos in his other series, including Alice Quartet and even Iono-sama Fanatics. He loves his crossovers as much as he loves Drama CDs.

Sarasa is a high school girl who frequents the local tea shop because she is in love with Seriho, the woman who runs the place. Seriho is sweet and a bit of a bubble-head, but she and Sarasa make a good team. Over time, Sarasa takes on the event planning and marketing and the cafe’s regular clientele eventually boasts a famous Yuri novel series author, a witch, a miko, fashion designers and a god. ^_^ (I bet it tortured Fujieda that his series Twinkle Saber Nova was set in the future….) The series ends with Sarasa and Seriho buying matching rings before Sarasa heads off to school to be become a pâtisier.

When the series wrapped up in Yuri Hime magazine, Fujieda-sensei created his own Yuri anthology doujinshi, Lilyca, in which Sarasa and Seriho, continue to live happily and adorably. I have two of the Lilyca volumes in print and the final two in digital form. It was my great luck to happen upon a collected volume of these stories The Ame-iro Kouchakan Tanhenshuu (飴色紅茶館歓談短編集) on Melonbooks and nab a copy before it sold out. This volume was created for Girls Love Fest in 2018, according to his Pixiv account.

I fell for Fujieda’s gentle stories full of happy Yuri couples, and his clothing design. To be honest, this cover is probably the least good clothing I’ve ever seen him create. Where other artists drew stuff like this – highlighting breasts and crotches for no good fashion reason, Fujieda rarely did that.  He was probably the second Yuri artist I followed specifically.

Time has passed, but all of our favorite couples are doing well. Sarasa is clearly a talented pâtisier now, the shop is known for delicious pastries as well as tea. Also doing well are DCD characters Shuri and Sayu and novel author Manaka and her manager. Sadly we don’t get to see what became of Letty the witch and her miko partner, Tsumugi. But it’s still good to see Sarasa and Seiho happily “married.”

 

 

Speaking of “marriage.” In 2010 – 10 years ago, Yuri Hime magazine was split into two separate publications, Yuri Hime, ostensibly for women, and Yuri Hime S, targeted towards men. Each came out quarterly for a total of 8 issues a year. Almost inexplicably, the February issue of Yuri Hime S premiered a series called  Fu~Fu (ふ~ふ) by Minamoto Hisanari who was, I believe, one of Fujieda-sensei’s assistants, and a member of his Atelier Miyabi/Moonphase circle (which spawned a couple of Yuri artists, in fact.) I say “almost inexplicably,” because Fu~Fu was about Kina and Suu-chan, an adult couple who were moving in together and celebrating wedded bliss without the wedding.  It was great having a series where moe-style art didn’t equate to either infantilized or grossly oversexualized..or worse, both at the same time.

Fu~Fu was a romantic comedy, very much in the Moonphase house style, sweet with explanations of lesbian lives and why marriage equality ought to be a thing. Kina is sweet, bubbly and Suu-chan is serious and a hard worker. They meet other Yuri couples and, when Suu-chan gets them matching rings, their friends and neighbors demand a wedding ceremony. This was collected into a two-volume set. Volume 1 at the end of 2011 and Volume 2 in spring 2013.

Well, this year is Suu-chan and Kina’s 10th anniversary, you see…and Minamoto-sensei had planned a special doujinshi for it…and the pandemic hit and Comitia was cancelled. But he participated with the online Comitia and released ふ~ふ 10th anniversary, act. 1 as a print doujinshi and in digital format which you *can* buy if you are outside Japan.  Act 2 is supposed to be released with the next online Comitia this autumn.

This 10th anniversary doujinshi starts with our two happily nested lesbians watching a movie together. Then a chapter about how all the characters use their cell phones and finally how Kina and Suu-chan met in school. It’s all very “awww”-inspiring.

So here we are, more than a decade since these three Yuri pioneers laid down bricks so many have followed. I still greedily consume everything Hayashiya-sensei creates (including her newest doujinshi series that features Yanki girls, food and Yuri, Yankoi Shokudou, and is therefore the most perfect thing ever created.) I hope publishers will pick them all up again, if they hope for that, or hope they tell the publishers to fuck right off, if the digital economy makes that easier for them.

Happy 17th anniversary to Julia and Ran, Happy 14th to Sarasa and Seriho and a very happy 10th anniversary to Suu-chan and Kina! Our fictitious “friends” are all well, as married as they can be in contemporary Japan, and I’m happier than I expected to be to see them again. ^_^





Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 2

August 17th, 2020

Saeki Sayaka would probably not, if you asked, consider herself nostalgic. Nor would she likely think of herself as capricious, I don’t think she’d go far as to say that she was any more logical than anyone else. I am confident, however, that she would agree that she is a thoughtful young lady, who considers her choices carefully…and considers the consequences of those choices very deeply.

In Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 2, we meet Sayaka after she has experienced love and loss in middle school and after she has fallen in love once again in high school. It’s a love that isn’t going to be realized, we know, but she’s in the middle of it. While she might have an inkling that she’s put herself in an untenable position, she’s allowing herself a kernel of something like hope, a promise to herself that if she should want to reach out and bridge the distance between her and Touko, she could…she just doesn’t want to.  It’s a pleasant little story, that becomes a lie in the beginning pages of the book and Sayaka knows it.

We can relax into this book because, of course, we already know happened, but we really should take a moment to appreciate how much work the writer, Hitoma Iruma, put into it. They could not relax at all, as the readers already know what happened. ^_^

There are number of nice touches in this volume too. Classmates Manaka and Midori are a lot of fun. I read an early passage in which Manaka said that joining a club would be useful, because “…if you exercise enough, you’ll be ready if something happens and you need to make a quick getaway.” I hope we all had a laugh remembering the friend in high school who said stuff like that. (Honestly, in my crowd, any one of us was likely to be “that guy.” ^_^)

Physically, this book was lovely, with extra flourishes by interior designer Clay Gardener – the original Japanese volume had undecorated pages. I thought this was a very nice touch. All the other technicals were likewise excellent. Translation and adaptation were spot on for the serious Sayaka we see in the anime.

I enjoyed this volume immensely – again. As I said in my review of the Japanese edition, “I am pleasantly surprised to have fully enjoyed a novel by Iruma Hitoma, in which the tone and feel of the character as we know her is captured well.” I look forward so much to the third volume in December, in which we see Sayaka exist apart from Touko, as she becomes the Sayaka she will bloom into.

Ratings:

Art – 10 Art by the series creator
Story – 8 A stronger sense of Sayaka’s feelings for and about Touko
Character – 10
Service – 1 Not really this time
Yuri – 7 This book is chock-full of Sayaka’s thoughts about being attracted to Touko for all the reasons.

Overall – 9

My impression of the third volume in Japanese, was that I grinned throughout. I hope you do too!

Thank you to Seven Seas for the review copy. As a result of their generosity, I have an extra copy to give away!  Enter by putting a funny story about a friend in high school saying something goofy and you’ll be entered. Use an email you check regularly. I’ll pick a winner by Sunday, August 23. (The winner has been contacted!) Here’s my story:

In high school I was sitting with some friends in the cafeteria and one of them had decided that she was head over heel in love with some senior boy. She asked us all to say what liked best about him and my future sister-in-law said, “His absence.” I absolutely lost it and haven’t stopped laughing about it since. ^_^





Bloom Into You, Volume 8

August 11th, 2020

As we pick up Bloom Into You, Volume 8 by Nakatani Nio, out now from Seven Seas, it’s almost inevitable that the unctious strains of “My Way” come floating into our minds. ^_^

Yuu and Touko at last find each other and, more importantly, find themselves. They let go of the bonds they had imposed upon themselves, and in that, find freedom to be themselves, together. It is a fitting ending to a series that had such a tenuous beginning that I could not see them together without them losing parts of what made them, them. I wasn’t wrong, but Nakatani-sensei did it all her way…and, it worked.

When you’ve waited 7 volumes for a narrative climax, it’s often easy to feel vaguely let down by the end. For Bloom Into You, it’s very much the opposite. I originally expected a train wreck at the end, but the story and characters were given the time they needed to develop. I’m confident that Yuu and Touko can be happy together, maybe even moreso because they took the long way around.

An epilogue is always appealing to me. This volume’s epilogue is filled to the brim with catching us up on everyone and everything. If there is a flaw to this volume, its that everyone has done too well, and is too happy. ^_^ But I’m not complaining, as that is still rare and precious enough to just be enjoyed.

More importantly, we have a tantalizing glimpse into Sayaka’s future….a story that is currently playing out in Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 1, Volume 2 which is out now in paperback and digital and Volume 3, which will be available later this year. I happily recommend all 3 volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – There is a sex scene. Whether you consider that service or not is entirely up to you.
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Several of the after-series publications mentioned in the afterword have come to pass already. I’m currently reading the short story collection of Nakatani-sensei’s work from the Éclair anthology series, Sayonara Alter (仲谷鳰短編集 さよならオルタ). I have not yet obtained the artbook, Astrolabe, (アストロラーベ). If someone has it and would like to review it, drop me an email!