Archive for the Comic Yuri Hime Category


Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime November 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 11 月号)

November 24th, 2015

CYH1115-275x389The November 2015 issue of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫 2015年 11 月号) is one of those issues where I basically began paying attention about halfway through, as the first half has stories designed to entertain people who are not me.

Kurata Uso’s “Yuri Joshi” now follows the adventures of Yuri fangirls, but I find it as remote a characterization as I did the fanboys in Yuri Danshi. It is of course possible that there are girls who are fans of Yuri speaking to near-magical onee-sama in abstract terms, but it’s still feels like an unreal fandom and not at all like the actual women I encounter who enjoy Yuri. James Welker wrote of Yuri Danshi as a meta-look at Yuri fandom, but I can’t see anything resembling actual Yuri fandom in this series.  Oh well, at least it’s about girls, and not crazy hyperactive fanboys. ^_^;

Ohzawa Yayoi’s “2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei” took an interesting turn, away from mangaka Kaede towards hypercompetent, but lonely, Nanami, and her burgeoning friendship/mentorship with coworker Yuuko. Will this force Nanami to admit she likes Kaede or will she find her interest turning to Yuuko? Now I’m intrigued.

Takemiya Jin’s story made me really happy in a melancholy way. “Hatsunatsu Souhi” follows Misaki, who has returned for Obon to the town where her first love lived before she died. Misaki’s an adult now and when she sees a young woman who looks like Yuuko did back then, she’s taken aback. When the girl, Sa-chan, befriends her, Misaki doesn’t have the emotional strength to walk away. They visit the local festival together and, as they watch fireworks, Yuuko’s ghost takes over the girl’s body. “It’s Obon,” she reminds Misaki, the time of year when the dead return to our world for a week. Misaki is able to say good bye to her old love and move on. Sa-chan says she wants to see Misaki again and, as Misaki returns home,  confesses that she’s fallen for her.

“Kanaete! Yuri Yousei” by Minamoto Hisanari continues to be incredibly silly. This chapter the two women already had feelings for each other, and both the Yuri Yousei and the Shirayuri Yousei get hanko stamps on their cards. It’s win-win all around.

“12-pun no Etude’ by Nakahara Tsubaki finally becomes a little Yuri and not where I thought it would. Wakana is finally improving and is allowed to play with the band again. Hatsumi’s famous sister Ai arrives to cheer them all on with her friend Kotone. Hatsumi is unspurprisingly cold to her talented sister who, it turns out, is really hurt by this. Ai and Kotone talk about it later and it turns out that Kotone is not Ai’s friend, but her lover. Okay, I like this way better than Wakana crushing on Hatsumi.

Ratings:

The stuff I enjoy – 8
The stuff I didn’t enjoy – 4 (I’m being kind, some of it got really nasty, in particularly “Prince Princess,” which had been a little service-y, went totally gross.)

Overall – 6

As always, there are many other stories, some of which you will like even if I didn’t care for them. I’m not ecstatic at the higher level of fanservice in this volume. A few stories actually made me feel quite nauseated, even paging past them. But the mix means more people will find something for them to enjoy.





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, September 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 09 月号)

October 7th, 2015

CYH0915-275x392Comic Yuri Hime‘s September 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 09 月号) issue marks a major milestone in Yuri manga history – Comic Yuri Hime turns 10 years old!

I can think of a number amazing ways to celebrate this occasion, (cover art of older issues as color pages, the return of popular previous artists for one-shots, a history of the magazine, a timeline….) something, really anything, but the editorial staff chose, for whatever reason, to do pretty much nothing. So the issue is just another issue. Okay, Happy major milestone anniversary, whatevs.

The magazine does start off with a single reprinted chapter, a story that originally ran in Comic Yuri Hime S,  Konohanatei Kitan, (此花亭奇譚) about fox-eared girls running around, sort of old-fashioned and Taisho-esque. It was re-released by Birz comics last spring. Of all the possible old series to reprint, I found it almost predictable that they managed to pick one I couldn’t stand to read when it ran in the magazine. Figures, right? ^_^

Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, GPen, Mezamashitokei” takes a tremendous leap away from hedging it’s bets on what kind of story it wants to be when it grows up, to being a grown up story. I take back my complaints from the first volume. This chapter was terrific.

Minamoto Hisanari’s absurdly amusing “Kanate! Yuri Yousei”  still manages to be absurd and amusing as it explores yet another Yuri trope, with love.

There are still students alive in “Shoujo Shikaku” by Kawai Roh. You’d think there’d be way fewer, though. If the student body is halved with every round, we should be down a lot more students. Also, I can’t help wonder where do the dead bodies go? I know, it’s bizarre to think about stuff like that, but it’s a massacre manga, what else is there to think about?

“Seeesaw Game” by Takemiya Jin wraps up with the tall girl and the short girl getting together and it’s all rather sweet and typical.

“Ore to Yuri”, the second “Yuri Danshi” series, is slighly more interesting as it folds in female fans to the mix. So the Yuri doujinshi festival now isn’t all male fans or creators. The way-over-the-top tone of voice hasn’t changed at all, but it’s not just Yuusuke screaming. Now we have a half dozen female otaku (and what they hope to get out of Yuri) to match the half dozen guy screaming about purity and love. I’m not convinced that the girls are actually representative of actual fandom any more than the guys are, but at least they have a place in the narrative as fans, not just objects of fantasy.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Paging through this 10th anniversary issue, I don’t want to say I’m unimpressed, because 10 years is an amazing accomplishment, but a postcard set with cover art for the 4 #1 issues so far (original Yuri Hime, relaunched Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S and re-relaunched Comic Yuri Hime) would have been swell. There’s nothing in this issue that gives any sense of it having been 10 years other than it having been 10 years and saying so on the cover. I can remember vividly, the editor of the not-yet-launched Yuri Hime at our 2005 Yuricon in Tokyo event asking the attendees what they wanted to see in the new magazine. I guess he doesn’t remember it as vividly. ^_^; But this magazine making 10 years is an important moment in the history of Yuri.

Having said that, Happy Anniversary Comic Yuri Hime magazine! Here’s to another 10.





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, July 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 07 月号)

July 7th, 2015

CYH072015-275x395Following on from my conclusion after reading the May 2015 issue, Comic Yuri Hime for July 2015, (コミック百合姫 2015年 07 月号) is a fully-featured magazine with something for nearly everybody.

For me, it has two somethings that had me bounding around the room like an, well, like an otaku. This issue of Comic Yuri Hime included not only a chapter of “Iono-sama Fanatics,” but also one of “Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan,” both by Fujieda Miyabi and both as wonderful as I remember. ^_^

In addition, I enjoyed a new chapter of “2DK, G Pen Mezamashidokei”, which introduced a new character, and a new series by Takemiya Jin. Also fun was the goofball Yuri series following an earnest Yuri fairy by Minamoto Hisanari, “Kanaete Yuri Yosei” remains entertaining. There were other stories I enjoyed, as well and many that I did not, which means those of you who like things I do not will enjoy those. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 7

A reasonable mix.





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, May 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 05 月号)

May 22nd, 2015

CYH052015I’m nervous. I’m really enjoying Comic Yuri Hime these days, but nothing lasts forever, right? As I read Comic Yuri Hime, May 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 05 月号) I couldn’t shake the feeling that the boot will drop and soon.

It appears to me, that the magazine has finally struck a balance between the – to me – unfathomable needs of Japanese fanboys and my own unfathomable needs as an American lesbian fangirl. ^_^ Sure, you guys can have your weirdly shaped breasts and bizarre crotch obsession and teary blobby-headed little girls, I’ll take the adults, the depth of emotion, the violent fighting and Iono-sama. ^_^ Deal?

If you don’t like what I do, then there’s “Netsuzou Trap – NTR”, a creeptastic story about two girls with boyfriends who get naked and do stuff on each other while their boyfriends are conveniently not in the room with them, “Citrus,” (on which I have officially given up completely, when a bad old trope that we’d already wallowed in and discarded comes back for a second appearance) and “To Lie-Anguru,” which I will never mention again. ^_^ “Yuru Yuri,”of course, and the “Yuri Danshi” narrative continues on in a slightly altered form with input from male and female Yuri fans in “Ore to Yuri.”

Almost everything in this volume continued on from last time, but there were a few highlights that stood out for me. Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, G Pen, Mesamashi Tokei.” went exactly where I had hoped, and shifted from “competent woman hustles while slacker slacks”, to “two adult women figuring out their lives.”

Nakahara Tsubaki’s “12 Minute Etude” is still cute in a non-intrusive way, as is “Inugami-san to Neko-yama -san,” and the excruciatingly adorable and fun “Kanaete! Yuri Yosei-san” which I still believe may be Minamoto Hisanari’s masterwork effort, in that he can combine the silliest of Yuri tropes, an absurdly adorable moe fairy and still have a lot of fun telling a story. ^_^

To scratch my itch for a little light violence, there’s still “Love Desu” and “Shoujo Shikaku”  for horror and major violence fans.

Takemiya Jin provides “Sakasama Oni-gokko”, Kano makes a debut with two stories and…to my absolute joy, Fujieda Miyabi is back, with a spin off of “Iono-sama Fanatics” called “Kokono-sama Fascinates” which follows the entirely unobjectionable adventures in love and lady-in-waiting gathering of Kokono, the daughter of Iono-sama and Eto. Squee.

So, see? We can all be happy.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If they can just keep this up forever, I’ll be satisfied.  ^_^





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, March 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 03月号)

April 23rd, 2015

downloadIf you’re a regular reader here, you’ll know that I haven’t been really happy with Comic Yuri Hime this year. Too much pandering to the low and uncreatively-minded, too little actual girls in love with each other and almost no creative content.

So you might imagine how surprised I was to be able to say that the March 2015  issue of Comic Yuri Hime, (コミック百合姫 2015年 03月号) was very good. Like…actually really “Good” with a capital “G” good, meaning that, while I personally didn’t like everything, they are stretching the genre a bit again, so that it’s not the same one story over and over.

The magazine did not start off well for me, with a cell phone “comic” of two girls in maid costume and cat ears, so I was not feeling open-minded when I started reading. But, I was intrigued with the opening manga chapter “12bun no Etude” which began as a track club story that segued into a band story, with strong overtones of the few good bits of Sora no wo to. Trumpets, but I’ll be magnanimous and forgive that. ^_^

It was “Shoujo Shikaku” that blew me out of the water. I hated it, but it’s the first horror comic we’ve seen in the pages of Comic Yuri Hime in ages. I hated it precisely for the reasons I’ve discussed; the balance of power is held by someone other than the protagonist and the scales are balanced against them. It was also full of service-y creepiness, which is not to my taste, but as much as it is not at all for me, I was glad to see horror in the magazine once again. It’s seemed to me that recently manga magazines are finally finding their way back to horror stories after decades of sort of avoiding them.

I was a little disappointed in Ohsawa Yayaoi’s newest which, although it was about two adult women, went over some well-trod material and ended up being a watered down What did You Eat Yesterday? Waste of a good character. I hope we see more/better from this setup.

“Chou Chou Nan Nan” from Takemiya Jin came to a climax that was not unexpected, but still was sweet.

In “Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san” an actual for real Yuri couple finally appears and it’s Ryuuzaki Otome and and Torao Mari. Okay by me.

“Tsuki to Sekai to Etoile” also comes to a kind of climax and for the moment, everyone is playing nice. That was a nice change of pace. ^_^

Aoto Hibiki’s “Yurino-onee-san” (which could also be read “Yuri no Oneesan”) was also a refreshing change of pace. Told from the point of view of a young boy, about the two women who live next door, Yurino and Miyako, we get to see Shintarou recognize what their relationship is, how it works and how much it means to them. He’s  a good kid and his fresh eyes give us a chance to understand that love is love. It was sweet.

Then we come to “Love Desu,” again by Kuzushiro-sensei. In start contrast to the horror story, this ridiculous thing pits two evenly matched, psychotic and violent people in a deadly love/hate relationship. This time one gets stabbed, but she’s the one who gets the kiss, so by the standards of this story, I think she won this round. ^_^ Again referring back to my discussion of violence – they are evenly matched and fully aware of what they are doing. This series is, therefore, perfectly enjoyable to me.

Last, but not least, was “Kanaete! Yuri Yousei” by Minamoto Hisanari-sensei. I think, honestly, he’s hit his pinnacle here. It’s all the moe he could ever want, and an actually amusing story about an old Yuri trope. I actually laughed at out loud at it. And what a perfect way for me to end this issue.

Except that it wasn’t the final chapter in the issue. Instead, we had a chapter of the Yuri Danshi side-story “Ore to Yuri”. Oh well.

As always I’ve left a number of stories out, and I’ll never talk about “To Lie Anguru” which I want to burn with fire, so if you’re not moved by these, trust me, there’s plenty of Yuru Yuri and other moe comics to be found.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

For the first time all year, I can actually say I enjoyed an issue of Comic Yuri Hime. The May 2015 issue has already been released and July is available for pre-order. All of these – and any back issues that still exist  –  are available on the new Yuricon Store in the Japanese Manga Section  – just click C in the alphabet header, or search for it by name!