Archive for the Comic Yuri Hime Category


Yuri Manga: Rakuen no Jouken

January 29th, 2008

What happens when an lesbian mangaka draws Yuri manga for a female audience? Why, we have a winner, that’s what!

Morishima Akiko draws whimsically realistic, slightly angsty and decidedly delightful stories of love between women. Rakuen no Jouken is a collection of her stories from Yuri Hime magazine. This collection does not include her Yuri life illustrated column, just her manga.

Rakuen begins with the mini series about OL Sarina and her “friend with benefits,” freelance writer Sumika, as Sumi drops by unexpectedly. They immediately pick up where they left off, but Sarina realizes that she kind of likes having Sumi around. She asks Sumi to live with her, but you can’t cage a free bird, so Sumi returns the favor by asking Sarina to come with her on her next assignment to Malta.

This is followed by a story in which Sumi is unhappy because she has always loved Sarina, but knows that Sarina is more interested in getting a boyfriend. When Sarina breaks up with her current beau, she’s there to comfort her, but the relationship turns much more serious.

The next story picks up with them in Malta, enjoying living together, house and cat-sitting. Sarina angsts slightly over their relationship, because it seems like she’s getting more serious about Sumi than she expected. Since she forgets to use her inside voice, Sumi is able to hear it all and it’s too late to put the cat back in the bag so to speak. Sarina’s fallen in love with Sumi, too. Surrounded by light, love and cats, they look forward to a very happy future together.

The next two stories deal with a really cute couple, Keiko, a 30-year old art teacher and Emi, her 20-year old student. Emi asks Keiko out, and since she doesn’t have a boyfriend and Emi’s kinda cute, Keiko says yes. But Emi isn’t just cute – she’s young, perky, sparkly, bright-eyed, luminescent with life and youth and immediately, Keiko finds herself suffering a crisis. How could this prime example of youth and energy want her old, flabby aged body? (30 is old…. Yes, in 10000 BCE, 30 was old. Welcome to the 21st century, Japanese women! If you’re old at 30 – what do you do for the next 50 years? Sit around and moulder? Crichey.) Anyway, Keiko’s crisis is resolved when she realizes that her real problem is that she’s been in love with this girl since day one. This is followed by a night-over date, which is sadly on a very bad day for Emi. You know – *that* kind of bad day. Emi is full of wide-eyeness, so Keiko can barely take no for an answer. ^_^ I hope we get more of them – the age joke is exhausting, but I like them anyway.

Lalaa is a cosplay-wearing 29-year old loli and her 25-year old lover Shinobu is a editor and flute player. They’ve known each other – and pretty much been together – for 12 years, since they were young. The story revolves around Shinobu’s emotional breakdown in the rain, and Lalaa-sempai’s deep understanding and caring for Shinobu.

“Momo no aji” is a short story about a girl’s confession to an upperclassman and a response that involves a peach-flavored lolipop.

And the final story is a that of Sakura-hime and her guardian tree spirit Fubuki. The story is no less bittersweet than the original that ran in the magazine. A sort of classic melancholy, fitting for the historical setting.

Morishima is not afraid of service – she gleefully has her characters in various states of undress, costumes, and partial nudity for your viewing pleasure. But her art is so sweet and round and soft, and her characters so feminine, that it never feels like “service.” The sex tends to be on the snuggly side, with a blessed lack of gouting bodily fluids. Her humor tends to make me snort, rather than laugh, if you take my meaning. And her work is cute, cute, cute, all the way down.

If you’re looking for non-schoolgirl Yuri stories, especially ones that reflect actual women’s daily experiences, Rakuen no Jouken is just about perfect. (Even if there aren’t any lesbians in it.  ^_^)

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – variable, averaging out at about 8
Characters – an almost universally likeable 9
Yuri – 9
Service – 4

Overall – 9

Of all the Yuri Hime collections, this is one of the very best so far. I look forward to seeing it in English one day. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime S, Volume 3

January 13th, 2008

I was happy to pick up Yuri Hime S, Vol. 3 while I was in Tokyo and scan through it one evening at my hotel. Now, after a more thorough re-read, I have to say that it was a slightly mediocre issue. One of those issues between this one and that one, when plots are still developing and some of the stories are shortchanged as others get more page count – you know how it goes.

Iwami Shouko’s “Flower Flower” starts off the magazine with color pages and more of Princess Nina’s tsundere ways. Shuu continues to be sincere and lovable, and for a moment we think Nina’s thawing, but no, she’s just drunk. Hopefully this story will do something soon, because “I like you, no I don’t” doesn’t really count as a plot to me.

And *speaking* of twincest, “Himawari Saita,” by Kuromasa Shisei is a story drawn in that drippy-wet style, about twins. One twin, Himawari, is desired by an obnoxiously persistent sempai who will not take no for an answer. But Himawari does not want to be severed in any way from her beloved sister, Nasuna. Nasuna has a brain cell, however, and explains patiently to her older twin that its a good thing that she find someone else who loves her, differently than she can. Nasuna gives her blessing to Himawari to find love, and walks off thinking that she also ought to find a nice person for herself. This was quite possibly the first twincest story I’ve ever actually enjoyed, mostly because of Nasuna’s emotional maturity. The art all made them look wet, though.

Kurogane Kenn hit his stride with the completely characteristic “Konohana Link” which appears to be the first chapter of a series. Two stories parallel each other. In one, a student confesses to her sempai, in the other, new student Suzuki Chieri comes to the school. The two girls are kissing when Chieri sees them, as she walks around the school. But, as she watches them making out, she can’t help but notice that one of them is looking back at her! Kurogane does slick PWP work, but the salaciousness factor on his stuff is high. I wonder if he can manage to make his characters 3-D enough to satisfy a female audience….

“Cassiopeia Dolce” continues to be a typical Takagi Noboyuki story with lots of underwear, maid outfits, bathing, Yuri and doll-faced characters. His art has always left me cold and this chapter doesn’t move the story forward at all. In it, newbie Anna stresses about the many girl-girl kisses that are going on here at the store. Olga seems to be okay with all the kissing, but Elza seems to have selective memory – worse, Anna’s starting to fantasize a bit about Elza. And she does a day’s work, too.

Finally! A Hakamada Mera story I *liked*. It had to happen one day. “Kaichou and Fukukaichou” was cute. The Student Council President is gaga over her Vice President, but the feelings may or may not be returned. In the meantime, it’s up to the Fukukaichou to keep the flaky Kaichou on track. The characters almost looked their ages and for some reason, I just liked this story. ^_^

Koumei Keito’s “Hana no Yurina-gumi,” which is probably meant to spoof “Asuka no Hana-gumi,” I pretty much skipped. It’s one of those stories with a shrieking hysterical “cute” munchkin of a creature that dogs the steps of normal looking characters. I just couldn’t do it. I’ll never be able to.

“Tainai Kaiki” by Yoshitomi Akihito managed to be fetishy and still not suck. Two girls are in the school pool when it begins to rain. They end up in the curtains in the multipurpose room. Mayu had previously confessed to Akami, but had been rejected as a lover, although not as a friend. But for some reason, Akami is moved to kiss Mayu today as she sleeps. Mayu wakes up, asks if she was kissed and when she is told yes, takes control of the situation. They kiss until the heat inside the curtains is intolerable and when they go outside, the walk on the water in the schoolyard together.

“Nanami to Misuzu.” Another skip. Something about sleeping arrangements.

Kaori has fond memories of a girl she knew when she was younger – and she remembers the day she gave that girl a pair of earrings. Imagine her surprise when Ayabuki shows up at her school in Kurata Uso’s “Pierce.” On the night of the school festival, Ayabuki arrives at Kaori’s fortunetelling booth with a guy she likes and Kaori falls apart. But Ayabuki pursues her and at least they can be friends…and maybe more?

“Girls Love” by Morishima Akiko is a series of 4-panel comics about Hana-chan’s not at all secret crush on Kaori-chan. Every single person in her art class knows – including the very enabling teacher. Everyone except for the seemingly clueless Kaori. And of course Hana doesn’t have the guts to tell her.

There is nothing wrong with “Minus Literacy” per se. I just can’t figure out what the hell it’s about. But hey, I’m not alone, because Iinchou is still figuring it all out. If Matsudaira is the head of the household, why does it seem that her maid, Miharu runs the place? And what on earth is going on with the girl with mad miko skills? I’m kind of on Iinchou’s side on all of the madness.

“Gretel” by Sudou Kaoru opens with Yuu waking up to find herself sharing a bed with a provocatively clad Nagi and Mari and her brain full of memories of kissing them both deeply and fighting off monsters. Mari wakes to find Yuu in the middle of a puddle of nose blood, in front of Nagi’s prominent breasts. Then we shift scene to get some exposition about the Formika and magic use at the school. At which point our resident Goth-Loli girl shows up in cat paws and ears so thems as who likes that can squeal or whatever.

And finally, Tsubaki Asu’s “Honey Crush” is a few pages of reaffirming by Kyouko and the ghost that they think the girl they like is worth pursuing, even though she isn’t.

In retrospect, I’m not sure that the volume was really mediocre, just that I had hoped that “Gretel,” and Kurogane Kenn’s story would have been given more pages – I’m not loving “Flower Flower”. And I was disappointed that there was no “Otomeiro Stay Tune.” So let’s revise mediocre to vaguely dissatisfying. :-)

Ratings:

Overall – 6

The next post will be my 900th. Huh. How ’bout that. That’s a lot of anime and manga. And btw – 263 posts in 2007. That’s about two every three days.





Yuri Hime News and ALC Publishing News

January 12th, 2008

Two quick things of note:

I will be doing a book signing of 100% Yuri from ALC Publishing on Wednesday January 16th at 6:30 PM at Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan, as part of a Prism Comics night. I’ll be joined by authors JD Glass and Abby Denson.

JHU is located at 4 West 33rd St. on 5th Avenue, just across from the Empire State Building.

If you are in the NYC area or can get there for the event, I’d love to see you there!

***

Ichijinsha has announced that Comic Yuri Hime is being made an independent entity from Ichijinsha’s popular comic magazine Zero Sum. Akiba blog reports that to celebrate, the 11th volume, on sale on Jan. 18th, will include the Petit Yuri Hime extra, which is a collaboration of artists from Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S and Yuri Hime: Wildrose. (If you read the announcement on Comipress, they misreported YH as an add-on to Zero Sum – it wasn’t. It was financially dependent upon it and now it’s paying for itself. Also, since this isn’t their area, they didn’t realize that the “Petit” extra was the collaborative effort. FYI, in case you were going to write in ask why the discrepancies.)

This is excellent news, but I can’t help still being worried about the salaciousness of the magazine. More and more of the stories are moe/loli and the “Petit” extra has traditionally been pretty high on the service scale, based on the authors. (The first two volumes were offered as Comiket extras. I do not have either, but have seen Vol. 2.) I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and offer my congratulations to Ichijinsha for making “Yuri” a profitable category!





Yuri Drama CD: Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Gyakushuu no Akazukin-chan

January 10th, 2008

There is a difference between people who read manga or watch anime and “fans” of anime and manga. Fans want more than just to read or watch – we want to interact with the work, to spend more time with the characters, to be more *involved.* In part, this is why fans create parody art, fiction, comics, games, etc., of their favorite series and characters.

In fact, Umberto Eco defines literature as works that have escaped the bounds of their original text and have taken on new lives and iterations. Think of a few of your favorite series, not just anime, but books, movies, any media. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind for me – a character that has been reborn and re-envisioned every generation since his actual conception. Or how about Jane Austen, a writer who not only has spawned any number of reinterpretations of her own work, but has inspired legions of Regency romance writers as well, and who has now been reimagined as a detective.

As a fan, I know that when I encounter characters I find appealing, I want to spend more time with them. This is why I write fanfic and it is why I listen to Drama CDs. The Drama CDs I enjoy most are not only a chance to spend more time with the characters, they are a chance to get more information, enjoy new adventures, get more detail about those characters. My favorite Drama CDs contain original stories that are not in manga or anime, like the Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo to and the El Cazador DCDs. There are also Drama CDs that add a layer of complexity and life to material that is already in the original text, like the second Hayate x Blade DCD. In the case of the Marimite DCDs, we get more of the text from the novels than is covered in either manga or anime and we get to enjoy the 3-dimensionalizing effect of the voice actors, giving actual life to mere words on a page.

All of this is to explain why I found the Drama CD of Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Gyakushuu no Akazukin-chan (Red Riding Hood’s Counterattack) to be a disappointment.

It’s true that the characters are brought to life by the seiyuu, but…. The mini-DCD that came with the manga covered the first chapters of the story in which Akiho and Haruka and Fuyuka and Natsuki meet and develop their relationships. As I have mentioned in my reviews of that mini DCD (which also lists the voice actresses involved) and the manga, these were the weakest and least pleasant chapters of the story, making the DCD of those chapters something I have no intention of listening to again.

I had hoped that the full DCD would include the “First Kiss” arc that dealt with the teachers Reiko and Ayano, but no luck. This DCD also does not include the final chapter where the four girls take an overnight trip to the beach. What we do get is a retelling of the chapters where the four meet, Fuyuka pursues Natsuki and is rebuffed, the crisis that Akiho engenders when she declares that she is in love with Fuyuka and Fuyuka and Natsuki’s reconciliation.

None of this is particularly awful, it’s just – we’ve been there already. It’s nothing new, no extra information, no extra detail. In fact, the DCD is pretty much word for word from the manga. Not even an extra non-manga scene to fill any of the characters out. Since I was not enamored of the story in the manga, I found it no more enchanting this time around. And I still maintain that, as much as I like her, Noto Mamiko was not the right choice for Fuyuka’s voice.

Given that the other Yuri Hime Drama CDs were different than the original texts (and especially as the MikoMajyo DCDs were *so* fabulous,) I had hoped for more than this. However. If you LOVED the original manga and can’t wait to hear it performed by well-known and talented actresses, then you will not be disappointed. In that aspect, it was very good.

There was one random thing that completely puzzled me. In the cast comments at the end, Kawakami Tomoko, who played Reiko-sensei, comments that this was her first time playing a Girls Love role. Really??? Has she looked at her credits recently? In case you don’t remember, like she apparently doesn’t, she played Utena in Shoujo Kakumei Utena and Kris Kristopher in Battle Athletes and Battle Athletes Victory. I know all the arguments for Utena not being a Yuri character, but you will never ever convince me that Kris is not. (Or Sayuri, from Kanon, or Satsuki from Uta-Kata, etc….) Or maybe I was half listening and it was someone else who said that, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Ratings:

Story – 5
Characters – 5, except for Akiho, who is a 7
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 5

Better than the mini DCD, because we’ve left the heavy-duty sexual harrassment behind, but without the “First Kiss” arc and the final manga chapter, kind of weak. If you love the story and the seiyuu, then go for it. Otherwise stick to the manga and save your money for a better DCD.





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 1 (百合姫 Wildrose)

December 13th, 2007

Comic Yuri Hime: Wildrose, Volume 1 (百合姫 Wildrose) is an anthology from Ichijinsha, the folks who put out Yuri Hime magazine. Many of the artists are already contributors to YH, and some are known for outside series.

The stories in the collection are variations on the “two schoolgirls in love” theme, much like the ES ~ Eternal Sisters and Yuri Tengoku anthologies. Most of them involve sex, very few of them involve plot or characterization.

The entirety of the collection can be summed up by describing one story, drawn by Morishima Akiko, in which the two protagonists, having kissed, wonder out loud “What’s next?” And as they progress to “what’s next” we get a sort of shortened version of every lesbian’s internal coming out – without the lesbian identity, of course.

Which leads me to today’s digression. Recently, on the Yuricon Mailing List, we had a discussion about how few Yuri characters are “out and proud.” The majority of posters said that it was enough for a character to be “obvious” to be considered “out,” with me disagreeing, as usual. lol I feel that in order to be considered out, one has to actually be able to say, “I am a lesbian.” Otherwise, you’re just “obvious.” Not the same thing at all to me.

This all made me realize something I hadn’t ever put into words before, so here we go – “Yuri” is, almost by definition, a character with lesbian interest who is *not* lesbian-identified.

Even my beloved Queens of Yuri, Haruka and Michiru, never came out. They were obvious, but never once did they say “we’re a couple” or “we’re lesbian.” Yes, the creator later said that. And yes, they were characters in a shoujo manga in 1994. But the point is – they are not “out” in the context of the canon. In fact, when confronted directly in the anime, Haruka denies that they are a couple (I have a theory about that, but I’ll skip it for now) and in the manga asked in return if it really mattered whether she was a man or a woman? This was probably as close as Takeuchi could get to coming out at the time, but it was still ambiguous enough for many people to deny their “obvious” relationship.

If a character self-defines as a lesbian, then she’s out. But the LARGE majority of Yuri characters are not out – they are “just, in love” with this-person-who-happens-to-be-female. Much like the large proportion of BL characters who are amazingly not gay, although they only have sex and relationships with other men.

When pressed, obviously “lesbian” characters in manga will often say, “I like women” or “I don’t want to be labled” rather than say “I am a lesbian.”

I imagine that some of this can be chalked up to the Japanese preference for obfuscation and some to the fact that ambiguity sells better. And to add to this, the fact that long-term couples in real life don’t walk around saying “Hi, we’re lesbians,” so in actual *lesbian* manga (and real life,) you still don’t have overt “outness.” Rica and Miho going to Gay Pride, are rare indeed. There’s far more like Nene and Jun, who have sex, fall in love, and generally are a couple, without *ever* acknowledging that that is what they are. You know – “More than friends, less than lovers.” (A phrase that I later commented allows a person to have her cake and eat it too. Pun intended.)

So most of the stories in Wildrose are in this space – girls in love, having relationships – and sex – with other girls, but they’re not lesbians. Just, you know, in love.

Here is what I thought was the best story of the collection. It begins with Yumi and Sachiko clones. The Yumi clone, Mari, tells us – and all her classmates – that she and the Sachiko clone, Michika, are in love. And we see them sitting next to each other in class where Michika passes Mari an eraser, their eyes briefly meeting not particularly meaningfully. Then Mari tells us that they go out for a bite after school together, so we see them sitting next to one another at a snack counter – but apart as if there is no connection. In fact, it becomes apparent that the relationship is one-sided and our cheerful little Yumi clone is a stalker. Her friends freak out and try to stop her, but she gets away from them as she follows the subject of her desire. Her friends go one way, but we see behind the wall where the two girls are now together, embracing passionately. Mari and Michika make love, and Michika apologizes for not being more forthcoming recently. Of course she is forgiven. The next day at school, the classmates all demand to hear that they have a relationship directly from Michika’s mouth. “From my mouth” she says, and leans over to kiss Mari. The classmates all apologize for their doubt and we’re left smiling, because it was a stupid, but fun, almost-Marimite parody story. With no lesbians.

Ratings (variable, so everything is averaged):

Art – 6
Stories – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 9
Service – 7 (lots of undressing)

Overall – 6

If what you like best is young women finding love and sex with one another Wildrose is perfect. If you’re looking for something with more awareness of lesbian identity, go re-read Rica tte Kanji?! :-)