Archive for the Staff Writer Category


Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl: The Complete Manga Collection

November 6th, 2024

An androgynous woman lights a cigarette, while a flustered woman looks on taking a picture with her phone.by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

When Okuma Satomi’s friend seeks her help wrangling guys for a crossdressing cafe, Satomi winds up with a boyfriend! Sort of. After asking her handsome and aloof classmate, Kanda Mizuki, to help out in the cafe, Mizuki agrees, but on one condition: the two of them must go on a date. Satomi eagerly agrees, delighted to have such a good-looking guy interested in her, but Mizuki realizes that Satomi has completely misunderstood something crucial: Mizuki is a girl!

Will this case of mistaken identity blossom into something beautiful, or will the truth leave both girls brokenhearted in Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl?

I’m a big fan of handsome/prince types in my yuri manga, so I was very much looking forward to this one.

This release combines both the original Japanese volumes into 1 omnibus English edition, and I have to say I enjoyed the second half much more than the first. The first half is mostly them getting to know each other, and a few awkward misunderstandings where Mizuki tries to stop Satomi discovering she’s a girl, whereas the second half has them actually confronting their feelings for each other and Mizuki telling Satomi she’s really a girl. For something described by the publisher as “light hearted”, I found it to be surprisingly sincere and accepting. I get the feeling that if this had been published a decade or so ago, the other characters might not have been so accepting of Mizuki’s cross dressing and tricking Satomi into thinking she’s a guy. As it is, Mizuki’s friends encourage her to tell the truth and promise to support her, as do Satomi’s friends when she tells them later on that Mizuki is a girl and they are still dating.

When Mizuki finally tells Satomi she’s a girl, Satomi doesn’t believe her at first, which conveniently leads us to a bath scene where she can confirm this revelation and oh boy does the service start from this point. The two of them finally admit their attraction to each other, regardless of gender and we all live happily ever after, apart from a few classic misunderstandings along the way.

Overall, I enjoyed this series and I would recommend it, but the pacing could definitely use some work. As is, it’s too slow in the beginning and too fast towards the end.

Ratings:

Art – 7. Nothing spectacular but the artist can at least draw naked bodies pretty well.
Story – 7. More heartwarming than you might expect for a goofy cross dressing/misunderstanding premise.
Characters – 7. Mizuki understandably feels bad about tricking Satomi.
Service – 8. Full frontal nudity with censoring down below. I’m legitimately surprised 7S rated this 13+.
Yuri – 7. Two women showing us that love can transcend gender.

Overall – 7. If the first half had been a bit shorter and the last few chapters had felt less rushed this would’ve been an 8. Especially recommended if you like this specific set of tropes.





Affair, Streaming on Youtube

October 30th, 2024

Promotion poster for the Thai yuri series Affair, showing the two characters Wan (Lookmhee) and Pleng (Sonya) holding each other.

by Frank Hecker, Okazu Staff Writer

After GAP and Blank we now have Affair, a recently completed Thai live-action yuri series available on YouTube. Like those series, Affair is based on a novel by Chao Planoy, interconnected with the other two, although the connection is rather minimal and barely touched on. It tells the story of Pleng (Sonya Saranphat Pedersen), the pampered daughter of a wealthy family, and Wan (Lookmhee Punyapat Wangpongsathaporn), the daughter of Pleng’s family’s housekeeper.

The two girls are fast friends, and perhaps more than friends: Wan is besotted with Pleng and openly declares her love. Pleng—though clearly in love herself—is more hesitant, and pushes Wan to get a boyfriend, in the person of fellow student Ek (Pop Pataraphol Wanlopsiri), who doggedly pursues Wan every chance he gets.

Then their life together is interrupted by a series of tragic events that separate the girls. Wan goes on to become a doctor while Pleng tries to make a living as a musician, until their paths cross again thirteen years later. In a perfect world the two women would mutually declare their love, resume their relationship, and live happily ever after. However, at this point we’re only four episodes into an 8-episode series, and there’s a lot more drama (and melodrama) to come, courtesy of Wan’s and Pleng’s bruised feelings, battered by the circumstances of their separation, the presence of Ek, who’s still hanging around like a bad case of the flu, and Wan’s mother (Um Apasiri Nitibhon, as toxic here as she was as Lada’s mother in The Secret of Us).

Lookhmee and Sonya (collectively “LMSY”) play well together, one of the better couples in Thai live-action yuri. Lookhmee has a delicate beauty that the camera loves, and particularly excels in portraying Wan’s times of anger and despair—which occur fairly frequently. Sonya has more of a “girl next door” vibe, a vibe she subverts as Pleng and Wan tease and flirt with each other—again, the show has a lot of that, and they do it well. Lookmhee and Sonya both do a good job of portraying characters who are flawed in various ways: Wan, traumatized by her separation from Pleng, is overly possessive and prone to fits of jealousy, while Pleng often hides her feelings and is reluctant to commit.

Affair was produced by Change2561, a sister company to BL powerhouse GMMTV and the same company that produced Love Bully. The production is high-quality, with often inventive cinematography, good background music, and a blessed absence of annoying sound effects and “comic” relief. However, being based on a Chao Planoy novel, Affair has more than its fair share of over-the-top drama, including a would-be kiss interrupted in the most melodramatic manner possible. Like season 2 of Blank, Affair also hits its peak short of the finish line, frittering away some of its remaining time on a pointless BL moment and one last bit of interpersonal drama.

Ratings:

Story — 5 (not one [redacted] by [redacted] scene but two, and a [redacted] subplot to top it off)
Characters — 7 (some of both Wan’s and Pleng’s behavior is hard to understand at times)
Production — 8
Service — 4
Yuri — 10
Overall — 7 (1 point deducted for the Ek subplot)

Affair is a worthy companion to GAP and Blank in the Chao Planoy Extended Universe, although those allergic to melodrama should note that Affair goes harder on it than either of those series.





Spoil Me Plzzz Hinamori-san, Volume 1

October 11th, 2024

On a background of bright yellow and white radiating stripes, a girl with long dark hair grabs a girl with lighter collar-length hair by the waist, surprising her.I’m Luce, one of the staff writers here at Okazu! I hope you enjoy my review of this new Yuri manga!

Yaya Suo is the darling of the school: admitted by everyone, she is academic, athletic, and kind, to boot! Ichigo Hinamori is one of her admirers, even though they’ve never spoken, and Suo doesn’t know she exists. However, later on, Ichigo hears some pathetic crying coming from the nurse’s office – on investigation, she finds Suo, desperate for some relief from being the model student! Turns out, she’s actually quite needy in private, and wants someone to dote on her. Now the secret’s out to Ichigo, the illusion of the perfect Suo is broken… But Suo won’t leave her alone!

Spoil Me Plzzz, Hinamori-san, Volume 1 is undoubtably a gag manga about the gap between the public and private personas, the joke being the especially wide gap in this case. However you could argue that it’s also a very real thing that the pressures of society can be suffocating. Why Suo is putting herself under such pressure to be perfect at school isn’t explored in this volume, but clearly she’s attached her self-worth to being liked, and to her, that means being perfect.

Surprisingly, her behaviour doesn’t annoy me. Maybe it’s just so over the top, or that each individual episode of it only usually lasts a few panels… or maybe it’s just that, imperfect as I am, I can sympathise with the weight of expectation and societal norms being too much. It’s also quite funny seeing how quick Ichigo, faced with a pretty girl in tears, will do as she asks.

Ichigo doesn’t say the word ‘lesbian’, but she states on the page that she’s ‘into girls’, and was turned down by her senpai in middle school because she was too immature, essentially. This has stuck with her – the reason she admired Suo was that she appeared mature, and she wanted to be like that. Safe to say, that quickly changes, but even by the end of this volume, she’s catching feelings…

I was expecting to dislike this, but I actually really enjoyed it. The only gag that didn’t quite land for me was the love letter, but only because I didn’t quite get the issue. I think the point was it wasn’t on the right kind of paper, rather than the text itself – I think the flower with a spiral in it is a symbol used for ‘well done’, so considering it’s a rejection, possibly not great – I would have liked a translation note on that, but there are none at all, so.

Speaking of which, I wanted to call attention to the translation, lettering and such, as it’s not a ‘straight’ translation, but it really works (ie, having a girl says ‘oklie doklie’ really amused me). They’ve also gone to the effort of having different handwriting for the two girls, as it’s a gag, which must have been some effort for the retouching and lettering teams. I don’t normally notice this kind of thing unless it’s done badly, but I wanted to praise them!

Ratings:

Art – 7 (it’s the right level of exaggerated and comic for this kind of manga)
Yuri – 8 (it’s established in the first chapter that not only is Ichigo attracted to girls, but even confessed to one)
Translation, Retouch, Lettering etc –  9
Service – 3 (the only thing I can think of is Ichigo licking Suo’s finger, and it’s more cute than salacious)

Overall – 9

This is not a manga that is taking itself too seriously, and I mean that as a sincere compliment. It’s because of this that I can recommend it – even on second viewing, I laughed at some of the panels. If you enjoy a silly Yuri, this is definitely worth checking out!





How Do We Relationship?, Volume 11

October 4th, 2024

Two girls holding guitars, standing before an orange background decorated with posters. One girl with long hair, wearing a green blouse open over a white t-shirt, smiles broadly, making a fist bump towards us, the other girl with her dark hair in a red bow, wears a dark blue tee shirt, and a tentative expression. by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

Content Warning for discussions of sexual coercion

My grandfather remarried when I was seven years old. This was fantastic news for me, since both of my grandmothers passed before I was forming permanent memories. Most summers of my childhood, my family would visit my grandparents at their second home in the Poconos (I never learned why they chose that area; perhaps the Catskills were too posh). During one of those visits my step-grandmother served a peach Jello mold for dessert. For whatever reason, my eight-year-old palette was delighted by this dish, and told my new grandmother this emphatically. She was, of course, ecstatic to hear this, so much so that she would remember to serve it every time we visited.

Every time we visited.

For fourteen years.

Peach Jello, mixed from a box, formed in the shape of a bundt cake.

I can’t remember exactly when I started to dislike eating it, but it had to have been early in my teenage years. Loathed was I to admit that I no longer enjoyed this loving gesture from the only grandmother I have ever known. I still made sure to eat it, of course. To do otherwise would be simply inconsiderate. But the taste no longer appealed to me.

Volume 11 of How Do We Relationship? will be many reader’s peach Jello.

Where we left off in Volume 10, both of our deuteragonists’ relationships had started on downward trajectories. Miwa and Tamaki still seem to not be connecting in the bedroom, while Yuria’s seemingly sudden mental health struggles start to erode her relationship with Saeko, who is doing her damnedest to support her as much as possible.

The volume opens up where the previous volume left off with the visit to Yuria’s hometown, including her backstory. Seeing how hairdressing pulled her out of a depressive hole is nice and all, but the thing I really appreciate is how her difficulties didn’t feel tacked on or written in the moment; if you go back to Yuria’s introduction and pay attention to what she says here and there, most of what is covered here was mentioned, if not elaborated upon. I think it’s a sign of strong writing (or at least good planning). And while I’m not super convinced on the turn their relationship has taken, the conversations Saeko and Yuria have here are affecting. Still, despite their willingness to discuss their vulnerabilities, Yuria’s mental state does not seem to be improving.

I do like that we see some moments of Saeko listening to Miwa’s problems and offering her support, though I wish she would be more forthright with Miwa about sharing her struggles with Yuria. I thought that they would be a little tighter after Volume 9 but that hasn’t quite come to pass. It makes sense that they aren’t attached at the hip like they were freshman year, given that they are juggling class, part-time jobs, band practices, job hunting, and spending time with their partners (including summer trips), but it does feel like a half-step back in their friendship.

Chapter 100 lands in the middle of this volume and it’s hard not to see it as a bit of a fanservice victory lap. This is because Shiho comes to Tokyo on the job hunt and meets up with Miwa to catch up. Miwa’s pain from volume 5 had healed, and now she sees her first crush as a dear friend. It’s really sweet! Sure, I’m a bit bummed that this basically wraps up Shiho’s part in the story with a nice little bow, but I’m happy at least that she’s still a part of the tapestry. Also, in lieu of an artist comic, Tamifull-sensei included a short story of Shiho and her younger sister which is also cute.

There are some other subtle story-telling things that I caught, such as how Saeko upgraded her guitar from a no-name S-style to a Dakota Red Fender Telecaster. That’s a big upgrade, and it shows that she’s taking her band with Tamaki seriously without even a line of dialogue. Now, unfortunately drawing instruments have never been Tamifull-sensei’s strong suit, and there are a couple panels where the guitars look truly awful. It’s really the only mark I have against the art at this point. That said, I have to say that I love the cover art for this volume. It feels like a lost riot grrrl album cover, and I think it would look fuckin’ rad framed on my wall in my house (please, Shogakukan, VIZ, SOMEBODY make this happen).

[This next section may be triggering for some readers; if you would like to skip, head to the next note with brackets]

So, I’ve done enough beating around the bush: we have to talk about Miwa and Tamaki. We have seen trouble brewing in their relationship for some time, and so the only question was how badly would it go when it does break bad. And it is nearly as terrible as you could imagine. After an incident where Tamaki angrily tells Miwa how frustrated she is that every date night ends in sex, Miwa decides to forgo sex completely. This also angers Tamaki, who isn’t wholly against sex but just doesn’t want it with the same frequency.

Things boil over after the amusement park gig and Tamaki demands to have sex. Miwa wants to stand firm on her celibacy stance, but she ultimately gives in, both to Tamaki but also to her suppressed desire. It’s a very upsetting scene. While it is a bit of a meme that Miwa as a character only exists to suffer, this is the first time I felt that the story was intentionally cruel to her. As someone who explicitly states that sex quells her anxiety over whether she is loved, the fact that her body responded as it did in a very unloving context is an extreme betrayal. 

I found this situation very similar to the one the Okazu staff discussed over Yuri Is My Job! Volume 12. As a character development-focused plot turn, it makes perfect sense. But I did not enjoy reading it and felt that the point could have been made without the intensity shown here; to go back to my mixology metaphor from my previous review, it’s as if Tamifull-sensei spiked the Negroni with moonshine. It also makes me really dislike Tamaki, a character I have grown quite fond of—and who has some fantastic moments in this very volume. The way the story is paced here, every happy moment within this relationship is immediately tainted by how each outing has ended. I have to again contrast this with Saeko and Yuria, who have had heartwarming moments and opportunities to grow; Miwa doesn’t get such luck.

I think the worst part is where the volume cuts off, leaving Miwa at her lowest moment. Knowing what happens next (thank you simulpubs), it would have been a much kinder stopping point if this volume were three chapters longer. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like to have to sit in this moment for 6 months waiting for Volume 12.

[End of section]

I think ultimately the biggest criticism I can levy here is that we, the readers, can tell that both of these relationships had to be blown up for the sake of the ultimate ending. At this point, I’m almost relieved by the Commentary Track comics that all but explicitly say that Miwa and Saeko get back together, because it makes this difficult stretch feel less gratuitously nihilistic. Tamifull-sensei created this series on the premise of exploring relationships between mismatched people, and thus far we’ve seen several ways in which that can cause breakdowns, but I wonder where this story will draw the line on what constitutes a “happy compromise” that leads to a stable, loving partnership. The only such relationship we know of is Yuria’s sister Erina and her boyfriend Kaito, and we don’t get all that much of them here.

The full wrap on this volume is that it really is a whipsawing experience. Reading through, I find there are many funny moments, several good scenes of characters talking through their problems, and even joyous highs, but it can be difficult to enjoy those moments when the tone dips so low with such regularity. Also, knowing what happens over the next few chapters, I really hate where this cuts off. I’m still ride or die for this series, but I know this volume will turn off quite a few readers and it pains me to think that for them this story will become a flavor that was once loved, but is loved no longer.

Ratings:

Art – 9 The art is still great but Tamifull-sensei did Pete Townsend-level damage to those guitars, yeesh
Story – 7 The bright spots are dragged down by the heavy ones
Characters – 7 There are still good moments of talking through stuff, though it’s mostly with Saeko and Yuria
Service – 9 Only scoring this as a Shiho Appreciator
LGBTQ – 10 You know the score by now

Overall – 7 The dosage here makes the poison

Volume 12 of challenging college romance story will release in January 2025

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.





Is You and Don’t Mess with Senior

October 2nd, 2024

Promotional poster for the Cambodian yuri series Is You. At the top of the poster are Kun (left) and Sour (right), nuzzling nose to nose. At the bottom of the poster are Sour (left) and Neang (right); both have pulled-back hair and bright red lipstick, and are staring at the camera, not smiling.Continuing our tour of Southeast Asian live-action yuri, we come to Cambodia, a country that has a much smaller population than either Thailand or Vietnam, and a per capita GDP as small relative to Vietnam’s as Vietnam’s is to Thailand’s. It’s therefore a surprise to find that Cambodia has produced a number of live-action yuri series, due primarily to the work of media entrepreneur Bun Channimol and her production company Sastra Film. Thus far Sastra Film has produced almost a dozen yuri series (some short-form, others longer), distributed through its own streaming app and on YouTube. Here I look at two series chosen at random from its output.

Is You is an adult yuri series, with six episodes plus a final “special episode” available on YouTube with English subtitles. It tells the tangled tale of TV host Neang (Ya Sophanmai), her husband, actor Kun (Sok Sunny), and fitness trainer Sour (Rachana Ravady). Neang is secretly married to Kun, who chafes at her reluctance to make their relationship public. Sour, a guest on Neang’s show, is also (unknown to Neang) Kun’s girlfriend from many years ago. Kun seizes the opportunity of Sour’s reappearance (and his apparent single status) to renew their relationship. After learning of Kun’s infidelity, Neang strikes back by beginning her own affair with Sour (as one does).

Unfortunately for yuri fans, this turn doesn’t occur until the end of episode 4. A good part of the first few episodes is taken up with Kun’s and Neang’s frustration with each other and Kun’s gloating to himself about having found a new love. After Kun is exposed and Neang and Sour begin their affair in earnest, the final episode destroys any goodwill one might have had toward the series: First Neang tests Sour’s love for her with a cruel prank that Sour should have slapped her for, and then Kun ends the episode monologuing like a B-movie villain about his desire for revenge. This implies that there may be a second season, but frankly I have zero interest in watching it.

Story — 5
Characters — 4
Production — 5 (mediocre subtitles, with some episodes on the Sastra Film app lacking them entirely)
Service — 3
Yuri — 5 (Neang and Sour get together because it’s ostensibly a yuri series and the plot demands it)
Overall — 3

Promotional poster for the Sastra Films yuri series Don’t Mess with Senior, showing the lead characters Dy and Lin.After watching Is You I badly needed a palate cleanser, and fortunately Don’t Mess with Senior fit the bill nicely. Season 1 is on YouTube and the Sastra Film app, with a second season starting October 19. (There’s also a short form series, Don’t Mess with Senior: Part-Time Love, that’s set after the events of season 1 and presumably before the events of season 2.) Its premise is a classic yuri trope: first-year university student Dy (short, brown-haired) enthusiastically pursues her senpai Lin (taller with black hair), who initially resists Dy’s advances but eventually finds herself responding to them.

As we saw in Blank: The Series, there are two keys to making this trope work: the actor playing the younger pursuer must walk a fine line between being cute and being annoying, while the actor playing the pursued character must effectively portray the transition from being annoyed to being intrigued to being in love. An Mengly (nickname “Lily”), who portrays Dy, does about as well at this as Yoko did in season 1 of Blank, playing things a bit too broadly at times, while Som Monipich (“Pich”), who portrays Lin, isn’t as convincing as Faye in her character’s evolution. Nonetheless Lily and Pich as Dy and Lin play well together and make a cute couple, even when Dy’s antics get to be a bit too much.

Don’t Mess with Senior is also noteworthy for its setting: most of season 1 takes place on a university trip to rural Cambodia to study the local ecology and plant mangrove trees (which entails everyone schlepping around almost hip-deep in the water). The trip offers plenty of occasions for Dy to try to get closer to Lin, to play pranks on her fellow students (including Lin) and their professor, and to get jealous at Lin’s being friendly with the professor’s daughter.

The season ends somewhat inconclusively, with the final episode being a combination of recap episode and a Q&A session with the two leads. The latter features questions a bit bolder than those posed to other yuri leads, including asking Lily whether she and Pich are in a relationship off-screen (“No!”) and what she thinks of homosexuality (“I can’t see anything wrong [with it]. I want our society to accept them as well.”). Lily adds that people tried to discourage her from appearing in the series (her first role) based on the subject matter, but “I don’t care at all.” For her part, Pich is happy to have been cast in Don’t Mess with Senior: “I’m into that kind of series. Now I’m able to act in my kind of series.” Lily and Pich conclude by thanking their supporters and asking them to watch the upcoming season 2; I think I’ll take them up on that suggestion.

Story — 5 (you’ve no doubt seen it before, and likely more than once)
Characters — 6 (somewhat one-note, but often amusing and endearing)
Production — 6 (location shooting greatly improves the look and feel of the series)
Yuri — 6 (a reciprocal confession from Lin must await season 2)
Service — 3 (a drunken kiss)
Overall — 6

Is You is eminently skippable, but those interested in live-action yuri beyond Thailand might want to check out Don’t Mess with Senior, especially if you want a break from the typical urban settings of Asian TV series.