Archive for the Staff Writer Category


Fragrance of the First Flower, Seasons 1 and 2

April 25th, 2025

A promotional poster for season 2 of Fragrance of the First Flower. The poster features the two main characters, Ting-Ting (foreground, with short brown hair), and Yi-Ming (background, with shoulder-length black hair). The two women are facing in opposite directions, with serious looks on their faces.Live-action yuri series from Asia often traffic in the fantastical even when they’re not explicitly fantasies: the implausible coincidence, the melodramatic plot twist, the deus ex machina that brings about an unlikely happy ending, the concluding wedding scene that’s not an actual wedding. It’s therefore refreshing to find a series like Fragrance of the First Flower (streaming on GagaOOLala and Netflix Asia) that eschews fantasy in favor of realism while still conveying a sense of optimism.

It’s no coincidence that Fragrance of the First Flower was produced in Taiwan, a country where the passing of marriage equality legislation means that one might attend a friend’s wedding and find that two women are getting married to each other in the next room over. Thus begins episode 1 of season 1, in which thirty-something Yi-Ming looks across her table at the reception and sees Ting-Ting, her former junior and ardent admirer.

It’s a plot not unknown in yuri works, in which a “passionate friendship” between two high school girls (here told in flashback) ends with graduation but is rekindled in adulthood. But real life intrudes on the potential romance: Yi-Ming is now married, and is torn between her desire for Ting-Ting and her responsibilities as a wife and a mother caring for a young autistic son by herself. (Her husband works in another city and comes home only on weekends.) Ting-Ting slowly enters Yi-Ming’s life again, and her family’s life as well: taking her son to the doctor, picking him up after school, even being invited to dinner by Yi-Ming’s unsuspecting husband. But this state of affairs cannot last; the last episode of season 1 ends on a scene of tearful emotion and a note of ambiguity. Season 2 begins after a time-skip, as Yi-Ming and Ting-Ting each find their lives changed in various ways, and once again find their paths intersecting, this time perhaps for good.

The story of Fragrance of the First Flower is relatively simple and straightforward, with only minor detours along the way (the most important one being an introduction of a new potential love interest in season 2). It’s the characters that make it worth watching, as portrayed by ZaiZai Lin (Yi-Ming) and Lyan Chen (Ting-Ting). (Both women won acting awards for the series—which also won an award for screenwriting for season 1 director Angel I-Han Teng.) Yi-Ming is a woman worn down by the twin burdens of being a wife and mother, guilt-ridden, emotionally closed off, and hesitant to say what she truly feels. Ting-Ting seems a free spirit in comparison—single, living with her mother, working a variety of part-time jobs, and (in season 2) playing in a band—but she has her own cross to bear: she’s desperately in love with Yi-Ming, more than perhaps is good for her, and agonizes over whether her love will ever be returned in full measure.

Fragrance of the First Flower is a “GagaOOLala original,” produced for the up and coming LGBTQ streaming service by its parent company Portico Media, with partial support from the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. (The Taiwanese government’s “tongzhi [gay] diplomacy” includes sponsoring media that promote Taiwan as an LGBTQ-friendly country.) The production values are generally high, and the English subtitles are idiomatic and almost error-free. The music is particularly noteworthy, with excellent songs for season 1 and season 2 by singer-songwriter Enno Cheng and another for season 2 written and sung by Ke Ching Li (a.k.a. Yao), who plays new love interest Xiao Ning. GagaOOLala has seen much success with the series (including being named one of the best international TV shows of 2021 by Variety); I hope it leads the service to produce more high-quality yuri shows in the future.

Ratings:

Story — 8 (painfully real at times)
Characters — 9 (no villains, no heroes, just flawed people trying to find each other)
Production — 8
Service — 4 (a few by-now-mandatory kissing scenes)
LGBTQ — 10
Overall — 9

Fragrance of the First Flower is an emotionally resonant and realistic drama with solid writing, production, and music, and excellent performances by the two leads. If you’re not already a GagaOOLala subscriber it’s worth trying out the service for this series alone.





Girls Made Pudding

April 16th, 2025

A view of a winding highway, surrounded by green hills, A girl with long silver hair in a long black tee shirt leans on an old military motorcycle, a cat-girl with purple hair wearing a maid's uniform, holding a pot with a leek in it, stands in the foreground looking at us over her shoulder.By Christian LeBlanc, Staff Writer

Girls Made Pudding is an adventure game and visual novel from Kazuhide Oka and KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO, which just came out on April 10th for $9.99 US (but is currently 17% off until April 23rd). It is available on both Steam and on the Nintendo Switch Virtual Store; this review is of the Nintendo Switch version.

Joining the ranks of Japanese Yuri-adjacent media featuring girls riding around on bikes together (Super Cub) at the end of the world (Girls’ Last Tour), Girls Made Pudding is a soft, gentle game about the end of the world and the last few remaining humans in it. Also, it’s an exploration of intersubjectivity and shared realities. Also, it’s about pudding, made by girls.

Aside from briefly showing you how to use the camera and move the characters, the game tells you little about how the game works (aside from some tips on loading screens), so for the first little while, you’ll be figuring out the mechanics as you go (muscle power and brain power both deplete as you accomplish certain tasks, while your hunger meter constantly ticks down, and you also have a time meter that marks morning to night).

Cooking two-or-three-ingredient meals not only replenishes your meters, but is also the way to unlock certain conversation topics. Girls Made Pudding is a visual novel, you see, but instead of passively clicking a button to advance the story, you’re riding around on a motorbike exploring deserted towns, collecting recipes and ingredients, finding places to spend the night, and dealing with obstacles in the road (including groups of cats you can pet to restore your brainpower). Zooming forward is what advances the conversation, so you’re always on the move.

When I first started playing I was worried about getting lost and whether I should be making maps, but it turns out you’re always in one of several types of locale (forest, countryside, city, seascape, factory area) that repeat. Houses with items replenish their stock when you return to an area later, so it is impossible to get lost or miss something important.

You can change the difficulty so that your meters don’t deplete, but it’s so low-stakes you may as well leave them on, just to make the game feel a little more like a game. One time I used up all my brainpower and the girls just decided to finish their day early, which meant I had to re-start a conversation I’d been in the middle of. No game over screens. I did reach a game over scenario once from a conversation path I wasn’t supposed to go down, but I was able to continue from a better spot and not lose any progress. I didn’t even have to worry about branching storylines or alternate endings; again, low stakes.

To accompany these low stake adventures and conversations had while zooming through deserted neighbourhoods, there’s a beautiful guitar score (with the odd math rock flourish) by Daijiro Nakagawa that, along with the lovely art and character models by Zumochi, gives the entire game a pleasantly cozy feel.

Which brings us to our characters: Nikomi is a cat-girl in a maid outfit who drives the motorcycle, cooks, and goes with the flow, and she is riding with no-nonsense, white-haired Sumibi. Very early into the game, Nikomi expresses how she thought the two of them were dating to marry, which Sumibi immediately shuts down; an exploration of what these two mean to each other takes place concurrently with the exploration of deserted locales and what happened to humanity.

And just what has happened to humanity? You’ll have fun puzzling this out as you go along, but all you’re given up front is that people just started disappearing. You do meet a couple of other characters during your travels who both shed light on what happened, and while the science behind the fiction may not always feel right, I recommend just going with it so as to catch the right feels from the social commentary that’s being made.

So, is this a Yuri game, you rightly ask? Yes, and no. But also yes. The game gives details about Nikomi and Sumibi and how they interact with each other, and I don’t wish to spoil any of that. I will say that the game definitely wants you to consider these two as a potential couple, and that a lot of cliches are refreshingly avoided as we observe how two people can be important to each other.

 

 

 

Girls Made Pudding does have a few rough spots: it can feel a little exposition-heavy near the end, and while the game does a decent job of giving you the right ingredients at the right time, you’ll occasionally find yourself driving longer than you should looking for an egg so you can cook some buchimgae on the side of the road so you can ask someone about a photograph (a common theme in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, probably
I still haven’t read it). I’ve included instructions in the comments on how to beat one particular mini-game, because it is not at all intuitive. The translation also gets a little rough in places, especially in one late-game sequence where it labels the wrong character as talking, but for $10 you’re getting six to seven hours of entertainment, a mystery, some science fiction, some deep thoughts, delightful music and scenery, and some cozy Yuri content. And, a liminally wonderful lack of crowds.

There’s also a very cute and funny post-game sequence; be sure to play some more after you’ve beaten the game and then check through your inventory for something that wasn’t there previously, and that will trigger a hilariously self-aware conversation.

Art – 8
Graphics – 7
Story – 8
Sound – 9
Control – 7
Characters – 7
Service – none, unless just seeing a maid outfit does it for you. And/or cat ears.
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

Get on the same wavelength as Girls Made Pudding, and you will find a fun Yuri game that gets you thinking about relationships and shared realities long after all the pudding has been finished.





Throw Away The Suit Together, Volume 3

April 2nd, 2025

By Matt Marcus, Staff WriterTwo women in business attire stand on a boat pier hold hands, looking out at the reader with serious expressions

“…This has been a really great conversation. We’re really excited for the possibility of you joining our team here at Island Industries.”

“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” I hear myself say. I clench my jaw, thinking It better be, after six interview rounds.

“We just have one last question for you. More of a case study, really,” says a man with closely cropped hair and narrow rectangular glasses. I’ve already forgotten his name, but I do know that he is some kind of VP. “We dug into your background and found your little, ah, ‘side hustle’ at Okazu.”

I chuckle nervously. “Oh it’s more of a hobby, really—”

“We were hoping that your review of
that series with the android would give us some insight about your skills in the field of AI, but, alas.” My eyes dart quickly between him and the two other members of the interview panel, looking for some kind of reaction. None show any readable expression. “What we found more interesting was that you have yet to review Throw Away The Suit Together, Volume 3.” 

My pulse accelerates, and I can feel perspiration dampening my shirt under my suit jacket. “Um, yeah, that’s a strange one. Hard to get a handle on it.”

“Well, we feel like this role requires someone who is able to forge a clear path in the face of ambiguity. It’s a demonstration of decisive leadership.” The man pulls out a paperback book from behind his chair and places it on the conference room table. He spins it around so I can see the cover properly and slides it towards me. Two young women are dressed in office clothes, holding hands and looking straight at me with resolute eyes. “I want you to tell us, what is Keyyang-sensei trying to say with this series?”

I try to swallow the panic that rises in my throat. This is crazy, I think. The recruiter didn’t tell me there was going to be ANOTHER case study. And what the hell does this have to do with this job??…You know what, fuck it. I need this job. Just remember your interview training. My voice shakes slightly as I begin. “O-OK, so let me start with laying out the situation.

“In Volume 2, Haru and Hinoto lucked into some part time employment at a dive shop, which manages to buy them a few weeks of time before needing full time employment. However, neither are willing to actually make a realistic plan for the future. Instead, they revert to trying to hunt for the same kinds of jobs they were running from and find it impossible on this remote island. Haru overhears Hinoto call the college and ask about readmission, clearly setting up a conflict.

“So, their relationship begins to break down because each side is feeling more and more desperate and are failing to communicate. Both manage to get interviews but neither land a job, so they rip up their marriage contract and go back to Tokyo and return to the grind they tried to escape.”

They also have a lot of desperate, sad sex, but I’m going to leave that part out. 

“So, do you think the story is about the dehumanization of people who are forced to participate in capitalism?” asks a stern middle-aged woman, her hair pulled back into a tight bun that accentuates her sharp facial features.

“I mean, that is one part of the story, clearly. But that doesn’t sit fully right with me as the central theme. The story is so laser-focused on these young women and their misguided decisions. A lot of escape stories like this would lead to the main couple living with little money but a lot of joy, and instead neither partner can give up the idea of joining a large established company. Not only is being, um, ‘low income’ off the table for them, but they both tried to get jobs without going through proper channels or getting the credentials that would qualify them for those positions. It’s like, they feel that they have the privilege to skirt around the issue of qualifications and merit, if only because they find doing things the ‘proper way’ too stressful.”

“Do you think capitalism is inherently meritocratic?” The VP asks.

“We sure like to pretend it is, but obviously those with money—and therefore power—circumvent the rules all the time. Maybe in this case, these girls simply weren’t wealthy enough to pull off this plan of theirs.”

My last words hang in the air. Thirty seconds pass as we all sit in thought. Then, the third panelist, a stout, balding man with small, deep-set eyes who had been oddly quiet this entire interview, leans forwards and asks, “What do you think about the marriage license?”

I reply reflexively before I can formulate my thoughts. “I
I think it’s treated as the albatross weighing both Haru and Hinoto down, but also because it represents a non-legally binding relationship due to the lack of marriage equality in Japan, it kind of also represents nonconformity? It’s, like, more radical than just bailing from the bustle of Tokyo and trying to make a life somewhere else.”

My pupils begin to dilate as the words flow out faster and faster. “It’s as if the problem isn’t the girls’ impulsiveness or the economic system. The core problem is more fundamental than that. It’s simply that they don’t follow the basic rules of society. They decided to stick out, and society punished them for it. So they must conform. Go back to Tokyo, get those degrees, throw out the dream of legal partnership. But that message is so hollow, isn’t it? ‘Don’t get too big for your britches’? ‘Know your place’? Sure, their relationship survives this ordeal. But you could almost see a breakup down the road because the ‘dream’ will always be too heavy a burden to bear. It tries to end on a hopeful note, but it ended up leaving a really sour taste in my mouth.”

The small man stares intently at me, but then leans back in his chair and presses no further. Mr. VP chimes in, “I think that’s all we have on our side. Do you have any questions for us?”

Yeah, I do, like what the fuck just happened to this interview. “So, I guess Yuri is pretty popular in the office, yeah?” I try to joke. “It’s an essential part of the job, it says so right in the posting.” the woman replies. I look down at the printout next to my notepad on the table. Reading the page, I knit my eyebrows in confusion. Yuri Solutions Architect? The hell is
?

After a beat, the VP says, “HR will be reaching out to you for our final decision. Thank you for your time Mr. Marcus. Oh, and don’t forget your scooter.”

“My scooter
? I don’t own a
.” I look to my right to see an old, well-worn moped revving up in the corner of the conference room. I recognize in terror that it’s Hinoto’s scooter, threatening to drive me toward ruin like it did it’s owner. Startled, I scramble out of the swiveling office chair and back away until I hit the full-length exterior window covering one wall of the room behind me. The scooter accelerates towards me, and the scream doesn’t have time to leave my throat before—

My iPad falls onto my face, startling me awake. I am on the living room couch in my apartment. I groggily tap the device to be greeted by my lock screen, an illustration page from Otherside Picnic. In the stark black and white image, two young women carry assault rifles down a side street of a derelict Japanese town. Superimposed atop the picture is large text that reads 3:12 a.m.

As I go to put the iPad away, I briefly see a LinkedIn job posting notification for a role at some company called Island Industries. I pay it no mind as I half-consciously shamble off to bed.

Art – 5
Story – 6
Characters – 5
Service – 3 
Yuri – 9 / LGBTQ – 4

Overall – 5

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.





How Do I Turn My Best Friend Into my Girlfriend? Volumes 2 and 3

March 28th, 2025

The cover to 'How Do I Turn My Best Friend Into my Girlfriend?' Volume 2. It shows Minami and Yuzu in bikinis. I’m Luce, here to cover the next two volumes of the manga I have ‘shortened’ to ‘Best Friend Girlfriend’ by Syu Yasaka. Let me know if you have any better suggestions…

In the first volume of Syu Yasaka’s series, we met Minami and Yuzu, and after figuring out that she likes Yuzu romantically, Minami decides that she’s going after what she wants. The volume ends with them going on a date to the planetarium, and happening upon their friends afterward…?

In volume 2 of How Do I Turn My Best Friend Into my Girlfriend?, we get the aftermath of the date, in which Minami comes clean to Unohara, the friend she told about the date, but not that it was with Yuzu – luckily, she’s supportive. Later, when Minami asks Yuzu if she’s interested in anyone, she says Hinori! What does she mean by that? Finally, the group pass their exams, so it’s onto summer – that means the beach, but Yuzu doesn’t do well with the sun, sea, sand and crowds. Will she cope to have a trip with her friends?

The cover of How Do I Turn My Best Friend Into My Girlfriend?' volume 3, Minami and Yuzu are in animal maid costumes. Yuzu has hamster ears on, while Minami has cat ears. In volume 3, Minami and Yuzu take a bath together, and the group go to a festival – it seems Nitori is in a similar situation to Minami. Returning to school, the cultural festival is coming up, which makes the cover make more sense – the theme is animal maids! Minami’s on the committee, and one of the first years has her eye on her?

This manga could do with a character chart. Different characters call each other variously by first names and family names, so it can be a bit hard to tell. Plus I kept getting Hinori/Unohana and Yuzu/Nitori confused, although I’m not quite sure why – my tip would be to focus on their fringes, not that it always helps. That aside, what I do enjoy is that they are a group of friends, and they have different relationships with each other. It feels less like them having token friends to chat to and more of a group of people that naturally came together.

Of course, we get the ‘interested in someone else but not actually’ plot. I’m not a great fan of misunderstandings as a plot device, but at least the people around Minami are pretty blunt with her about the fact that she’s being a bit ridiculous. Hinori is straight up uncomfortable with Minami pushing her and Yuzu together – what I really like though, is that Minami actually apologises for her behaviour. I don’t need or want perfect therapy speak from characters, but it’s nice to see characters actually admit when they’ve done something wrong.

We find out that Nitori seems to like Unohana, mostly because she asks if Minami likes her too. Maybe Minami has it a bit more together than it seems if Nitori didn’t guess, because on the page she’s nearly always melting down about something or other. Her loving Unohana is actually confirmed in Vol 3, leading to a nice moment between her and Minami, commiserating on falling for their best friends.

Kamiya, the ‘rival’ introduced in volume 3, was a little on the pushy side, but equally, it was nice having a character that knows she’s into girls and says it? This also forcing Minami to basically admit she’s Yuzu-sexual, which is… not a favourite trope of mine, but at least someone in this manga seems to actually identify as a lesbian – or a wlw, because the word ‘lesbian’ doesn’t come up. I quite liked Kamiya by the end of the volume, so I hope she pops up again in a friendly capacity. Maybe with a girlfriend.

Towards the end of volume 3, prompted by a bit of a push from Kamiya, we finally get Yuzu’s side of things, to a degree. There were hints that Yuzu is not as chill with Minami-related things as she seems to be, and I really liked the subtlety of that. It makes you wonder about the things you said meaning one thing that were taken a different way. That said, way too much emphasis on what young kids say. Not that they don’t mean some things, but to take anything like that as a lasting commitment… Use your words, Yuzu! And Minami!

Finally, I want to praise the translation, done by Matthew Jackson- it does a good job at sounding casual without being too ridiculous. The lettering (Giuseppe Antonio Fusco) and retouch is also great, I couldn’t pick any faults with the out-of-bubble words, and the type facing matches well, too.

Ratings:

Story – 7, the old classic childhood friends will-they-won’t-they
Art – 8, bright, peppy, cute! My only fault is I’m not very good at telling the characters apart
Service – 4 In these two volumes, there is a bathing scene, beach and therefore swimsuit scenes, and Minami has a few imagine spots… But none of it feels particularly skeevy, and feels more ‘teenagers dealing with emotions’ than anything else
Yuri – 9 (I’m sure there are boys in this. They’re in the backgrounds)

Overall – 7

An enjoyable Yuri romp that feels pretty fresh. My hope for this series is that one they get together, the series will continue, at least for a bit, as I think navigating a relationship would be interesting to see. Minami is definitely not emotionally prepared for it.





Who Knows Girls’ L

March 26th, 2025

Poster for the Chinese series Who Knows Girl’s L, showing the lead characters Cheng Zhijin (left) and Gu Yi (right).Once a rarity, live-action yuri series have now spread throughout East and Southeast Asia, most famously to Thailand but also to Taiwan, South Korea, and Cambodia. One major exception to the trend has been the People’s Republic of China, where the publication of LGBTQ-related works has been discouraged by cultural norms and government policies. Small wonder then that baihe (yuri) works (including many of those scheduled to be published in English) often are set in past times and make considerable use of subtext.

Thus it was a surprise to see Who Knows Girls’ L (谁矄锊意) pop up on YouTube, set in present-day China and proudly billed as “the 1st Chinese gl series . . . for sapphic ppl like you and me!” As one might expect, it was not created and distributed by a mainstream Chinese production company. Instead it’s being produced and released by a group of film students in Shanghai, who have been very forward about promoting the series and raising funds for its production. (Their initial budget was the equivalent of only $2,700 US.)

Who Knows Girls’ L is still ongoing: it’s projected to be 28 relatively short episodes (up to 15 minutes long), with eight episodes available thus far; completion of the series depends on the success of the fundraising efforts. I’m reviewing now to bring it to the attention of fans who might be interested in following it, and also as a hedge in case the series goes on indefinite hiatus for lack of funds or other reasons.

But enough throat-clearing, how does Who Knows Girls’ L stack up against the many other yuri series currently airing or scheduled to be aired? Let’s go to the tape:

The plot is a weak point of the series, combining as it does a noxious trope, an implausible plot turn, and a power-gap romance: Cheng Zhijin, a young film studio project director who’s struggling with problems on her production, drowns her sorrows at an industry party and afterwards encounters an older woman, Gu Yi, busking on a public street. Zhijin meets her again at a bar where Yi works as a singer, drinks some more, then goes home with Yi and proceeds to have a drunken one-night stand. In the office the next day Zhijin is flabbergasted as the previous night’s fling turns out to be the chief shareholder in the studio, who’s now decided to actively involve herself in the company’s operations. The plot proceeds from there, as Zhijin and Yi try to navigate the troubled waters of an employee/employer relationship.

The production values are uneven but improving, marred by occasional lapses: a slightly off camera angle here, a brief mistake in focus pulling there, problems with color grading between some scenes, and some non-idiomatic translations. (There are also several scenes in which the faces of Zhijin and one of her friends at work look unnaturally white; I don’t know if that’s a production problem or reflective of a cosmetics fad among young Chinese women.) However, the series looks significantly better than one might expect of a student production. It makes good use of multiple location shots and has an effective soundtrack, with a banger OP introduced in episode 7.

Working actor Kaiyi portrays Gu Yi, while Cheng Zhijin is played by law student Qianyue. Kaiyi gives a solid performance, while Qianyue reminds me of Yoko Apasra Lertprasert of Blank: The Series—not so much in the characters they play (Aneung’s teasing and flirtation is 180 degrees away from Zhijin’s sullen passive-aggressiveness), but in seeing a striking debut from an unexpected source. As for the scenes between Yi and Zhijin, the director and actors have clearly closely studied GAP and its successors and strove to emulate their steamier aspects; if the results don’t quite come up to Freen and Becky at their finest, it’s not for lack of trying.

Ratings:

Story — 5
Characters — 8
Production — 6
Service — 5
Yuri — 10
Overall — 6

Its status as the self-proclaimed first Chinese yuri series and a crowd-funded student project is the hook, but Who Knows Girls’ L has an appeal beyond that, based on the increasing sophistication of the production and the performances of Kaiyi and Qianyue. It’s definitely worth watching the series, following the saga of its production, and (for those so inclined) financially supporting its creation.

P.S. Some final trivia: The Chinese title of the series, 谁矄锊意 (ShĂ©i zhÄ« jǐn yĂŹ), contains some untranslatable wordplay that puns on the characters’ names: 谁矄 (ShĂ©i zhÄ«) is “Who knows”, 矄锊 (zhÄ« jǐn) is the given name of one of the characters, and 意 (yĂŹ) is pronounced the same as 濆, the given name of the other lead character. Also, 意 has “intentions,” “thoughts,” and “feelings” among its meanings. So, the title can be read in multiple ways: “Who knows [Zhi]jin/Yi?” or “Who knows [Zhi]jin’s intentions/thoughts/feelings?” (Thanks go to Reddit commenter _fancy_pants for pointing this out.)