Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Okazu Top Yuri Manga of 2020

December 29th, 2020

There were so many wonderful Yuri manga series in 2020, I make no pretense to this being a countdown of any kind. There is no best one manga this year, just ever-widening, ever-lengthening bookshelves worth of amazing Yuri manga treasures! The top four are basically tied for first place, we’ll talk about why when we get there.

I’ve included links to both JP and EN volumes when they are available.  Almost all of these titles are available in English. The few that are not are available as print from Amazon JP or e-books from Bookwalker JP,  which also has e-books in English available on Bookwalker Global.

Please join me in enjoying some of the many Best Yuri Manga of the year. ^_^ 

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Tsuki to Suppin (月とすっぴん) / Night and Day

Akegata Yuu’s odd couple story, Tsuki to Suppin, is so…nice. Nothing happens, and there’s so little drama it almost seems like it might not be worth it, but it always, always is worth it to me. Watching a couple who just *work* together and understand one another is so absurdly refreshing. The simple art and the apparent lack of complexity is appealing. Everything about this series is Shodensha doing the exact kind of Jousei Yuri I want to see in the world.

And now you can read this series in English as Night and Day for free on Manga Planet or decide to subscribe and support them in getting more. ^^

Available in English from Manga Planet

 

 

 

 

Hitogoto Desukara! (ヒトゴトですから!) / It’s Personnel

Now that Shakaijin Yuri is an established subgenre, it’s easy to feel that the initial office romance plots have become stale. Rather than girl-meets-girl, we have woman-meets-woman. But, in Yuni’s comedy drama, Hitogoto Desukara! (which is so clearly written to adapted into a live-action television show!,) we get playgirl vs playgirl in the office…in the one department where they can’t really be in competition, but have to find ways to work together. There’s a lot of insight to the kinds of office politics one sees in large corporations – with exactly the right amount of rage as a response. ^_^ Once again, Manga Planet offers you a chance to try this out before committing, much like the characters of this story. And extra points for the stellar naming sense for It’s Personnel. ^_^

Available in English from Manga Planet

 

 

 

 

Still Sick & Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana (付き合ってあげてもいいかな) / How Do We Relationship

Both these series, Akashi’s Still Sick and Tamifull’s Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana made this list for the same reason – they show adult relationships that have some complicating factors. Personal experience and external influence both have impact on the characters here, which means that these are not necessarily the healthiest relationships. As Yuri develops as a genre, I don’t want our romances to become WE TV, with endless flogging of stereotypes and trauma to create the tension, but it’s also good to have more than one-note romances on our shelves. Both these series have characters we’re rooting for…even as we can see they have a lot of stuff to work through.

Still Sick is available in English from Tokyopop

How Do We Relationship is available in English from Viz Media.

 

 

 

Yamada to Kase-san  (山田と加瀬さん) / Kase-san and Yamada 

In Yamada to Kase-san we encounter old friends once again. Having left their hometown and traveled to the big city, both Yamada and Kase-san are now spending their days building adult lives, making friends and trying to fit each other into this new construct. There is no doubt that they love each other a great deal, and it is a joy to be able to continue to watch over them as they build their lives together..and to know that we’ll get to spend more time with the characters we’ve grown to care about. What a great way celebrate our tenth anniversary with this series!

Available in English from Seven Seas.

 

 

 

Yagate Kimi ni Naru (やがて君になる) / Bloom Into You

Yagate Kimi ni Naru makes the list for three reasons, all of which are meaningful to me as a reader, as a reviewer and as a fan of Yuri. Let’s take them in reverse order. As a fan, I am delighted that a whole new crop of folks have discovered Yuri through this series as their “gateway Yuri.” ^_^

As a reader, this series provided me with both a lesbian character and functional adult role models for that character – the two things which were my favorite quality about the story…then gave me the added bonus of light novels telling that character’s story in more detail.  As a reviewer, the journey we took in this series felt whole. We didn’t stop midway, there weren’t handwaves where they just would go on to be happy off-screen; there was a terrific balance between school life romance and bildungsroman. It felt…complete and well told. At the beginning I had so many doubts, but by the end, I had none. And for all of that, Bloom Into You definitely deserves a place on this year’s top list.

Available in English from Seven Seas

 

 

 

Éclair Yuri Anthology series

If you are a regular reader here at Okazu, you know how important a place in the history of Yuri I give to anthologies. They gave Yuri creators a community where there was none previously, they give established creators a place to expand their art and a place for introducing new creators to a wider audience. I am delighted once again that you’ve had the opportunity to experience a Yuri anthology series, with all of it’s varieties of creators and stories so that you can decide for yourself whose work you love. For their importance in the past, the present and, I hope, the future, the Éclair Yuri anthology series makes this list.

Available in English from Yen Press

 

 

 

 

The next four manga are all basically tied for first, because they share a key quality among them that I believe is the single most important quality in any media I want to see right now:

 

 

 

Hello Melancholic! (ハロー、メランコリック!)

This is one of two series on this list that is not translated. I hope that will change. I’ve loved Ohsawa Yayoi’s work for years. She’s got a way with characterization that is wholly unique and her art style has really developed into something stylish and fun. Hello Melancholic, a tale of a girl who is able to rekindle her love for music, touched me. The characters around her all felt real and…fun. It was a story about finding love – and about finding and learning to believe in one’s self.

It just wrapped up in Japanese and I really hope that you’ll all be able to experience it one day in English. Because it is just…lovely.

 

 

 

 

Kaketa Tsuki to Doughnuts (欠けた月とドーナッツ) / Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon

Hinako is a woman who has been told her entire life that she must present herself in a certain way, and seek certain things from her life. In Kaketa Tsuki to Doughnuts, despite the fact that it made her miserable, she never questioned any of it, until she meets someone at work who simply ignores all the rules. As her life begins to change, Hinako discovers herself and love. I love Usui Shio’s art. It’s everything I want in a Jousei romance story.

It’s a pleasure to know that shortly you’ll be able to enjoy this series along with me, as Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon. I hope you find it as quietly triumphant as I do.

Available in English from Seven Seas

 

 

 

Itoshi Koishi (いとしこいし)

Takemiya Jin is a fixture here on my end-of-year lists. I really wish someone would license her work, because she is the one manga artist working in what we might now call “mainstream Yuri” manga who consistently has lesbian representation in her work.

This year, in Itoshi Koishi, we got a character who knew who she is and what was important to her and knew she wanted to share it all with her closest friends. It took a few volumes, but when Hina comes out to her best friends, they reiterate their love and acceptance for her. It was a beautiful manga about a couple that is supportive and caring and who are supported and cared for in return.

 

 

 

 

Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている) / Our Teachers are Dating!

In Ohi Pikachi’s series, Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている), Hayama Asuka and Terano Saki are two adult women who find love for the first time and everyone around them is so charmed by their pure joy in each other, that there is complete approval from their peers, their administration, their students, random strangers on the street….

As a parable of acceptance, it’s perfect. As a model of what can be, it’s the kind of fantasy I want a million tons of, until I get sick of it, thank you very much. Ohi Pikachi’s art is adorable and sexy. Asuka and Saki’s love and their joy in one another is wholly adult and totally squee-worthy.  I hope you’re reading Our Teachers Are Dating and enjoying it all, too! This is Yuri manga presenting the world I want to see.  ^_^

Available in English from Seven Seas

 

By now, you may have figured out what all these have in common. Love and acceptance of self was the theme of the year. All the best Yuri Manga of 2020 was about learning to love and accept one’s self, and be accepted in return. 2020 is the year of “acceptance fantasy” in Yuri and I am totally here for it. ^_^

As always, please feel free to share your top yuri manga of the year in the comments!





Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 1 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ)

December 18th, 2020

In the Yuri world Ikeda Takashi is best known for Sasamekikoto / Whispered Words in English, from One Peace Books. That series made fun of every Yuri trope, balled them all into one funny, poignant and, in the end, beautiful comedy-drama with the perfect ending. It’s been about five years since we got the ending of that in the west and, whike Takashi-sensei has done other series, few of them have wandered into our territory.  Until now.

Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ) is a slice of life manga about two adult women who are a couple, and who are happy and settled in their relationship. Sakuma Eri is a writer and Inuzuka Wako is an aspiring voice actress. Together they eat and sleep and do work and spend their days happily in one another’s company.  We meet some of their friends and colleagues and, ultimately family, which puts this story into one of the very few Yuri manga that provides the main characters with something that resembles an actual life.

The art is very chill and adult, even as Ikeda-sensei still uses wacky expressions and visuals. Since the scenes take place in their apartment or sometimes at the recording studio, there’s little detail or frivolous background. The story is very much centered on the relationship between Wako and Eri, and how they react to one another’s needs, both spoken and unspoken.

By the end of the volume, the story starts to take off, as Sakuma shows her understanding and appreciation of Wako’s hard work, and we finish the volume off with a visit from Wako’s mother to meet Eri that is only the normal amount of “mom is visiting” stressful and not angst from coming out or hiding. As we’ve seen mom earlier, all excited about meeting her daughter’s special person, we know it will go well. Overall, the story is comfy and not at all stressful, with added bonus heartwarming moments.

This is a story about the everyday life of two people in a functional relationship, with low drama and very comfortable affection and caring. Ikeda-sensei still knows exactly how to end a volume. Such a terrific way to end this week, honestly, and I look forward to Volume 2 when it comes out. ^_^ (Update: Volume 2 was even better.)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 5 a bit, it’s a story for adult readers
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

This volume is available on Amazon JP, of course, and if you’d like to read it digitally outside Japan, it’s also available on Bookwalker Global, where you can also check out a few sample pages.





Night and Day by Akegata Yu on Manga Planet

December 17th, 2020

I’ve talked about Tsuki to Suppin by Akegata Yu a few times. Here on Okazu, I’ve reviewed Volume 1 and Volume 2, and I mentioned this series as a “someone oughta license this” in my Recommendations video. About fifteen seconds after I mentioned this title in the video, Manga Planet licensed the series and has now released it as Night and Day.

Akari is fashionable and trendy and Shiho isn’t…in fact, her collection of utterly meh t-shirts is a running gag in the series, in part because her day job brings her to concerts by small, less-well-known bands. In part, because she’s just like that. The two have been together for a while now and, they are very much a solid, comfortable couple. As you will see.  They get each other.

This is not a series with high drama, and workplace shenanigans, like Hitorigoto Desu Kara!, which Manga Planet also has licensed and cleverly titled It’s Personnel!. This is a quiet, simple story about two women who are as different as the moon and turtles, as different as chalk and cheese, who just…work…together.

Manga Planet offers a subscription service. For $6.99/month, you can read as much as you’d like on their platform, and they are investing quite heavily in Yuri right now. If that is too much, you can still read quite a lot for free. They are clearly running on a thin staff as multiple credits go to a few people. So props to Ian O’Connor and Amimaru and the whole MP team for their work on this.

Chapter 1 of Night and Day is free to read, and makes a great introduction to this super low-key, enjoyable and sweet Jousei Yuri series. Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – . 5 A very little dress-up with Shiho

This is a series that gets better and better as one reads it.

I love this title, I love that Shodensha is still putting out Yuri and that Manga Planet has licensed it and the Yomuco “super light” novels. I’d been holding them all in my queue for future reading and now I’ll be able to blow through them in English instead of piecing together time and energy to read them in Japanese.  Excuse me, I have to go read Kitao Taki’s Two Guns Under The Sheet now!





Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 2 (山田と加瀬さん)

December 16th, 2020

Happy anniversary to Takashima Hiromi-sensei for 10 years of Kase-san and Yamada.  Who could have imagined that, when the series debuted in 2010 in Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, we’d be still  be following Yamada and Kase-san a decade later? It’s an absolute triumph of will that here we are at Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 2 (山田と加瀬さん).

College life has presented a number of challenges to Yui and Tomoka, both personally and relationship-wise. They are no longer able to see each other every day. Yui still has an unfortunate tendency to default to low self-esteem thinking, but a trip to the seashore with Mikawacchi and Hana seems just the thing to kick her out of her funk. Once there, she discovers that Tomoka is staying at the same inn! Only, of course, nothing is that simple. Tomoka and Yui eek out a few moments of time, and work on their own jealousy issues.

In the background a couple of interesting things are going on. Aikawa, Tomoka’s high school rival is hanging out with Fukami, Tomoka’s roommmate. And what on earth is going on with Fukami? Because something…definitely…is. 

We have watched over a decade as Takashima-sensei’s art has grown stronger and the characters become more who they are. And here we are, able to continue to enjoy that very thing Yamada and Kase-san in love. What a fantastic way to close out a brilliant (if slightly surreal) year for Yuri. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 5 a bit of skin
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Happy 10th anniversary to Yui and Tomoka, and to Takashima-sensei…and to us! We’ve all come a long way. ^_^

I couldn’t wait for this to arrive in print, so I picked it up on Global Bookwalker.  ^_^





Comic Yuri Hime December 2020 ( コミック百合姫2020年12月号)

December 8th, 2020

The final issue cover for this year by Rolua, is beautiful and poignant….and sadly relevant in this year of the plague, as the characters are released at last from the confines of this life, with a prominent “Memento Mori: And Two Borders Disappeared” across the cover, in case we didn’t get the point. ^_^;  Beautifully drawn, thoughtfully conceived and touching, this is still one of my very favorite cover art-novellas this magazine has ever had. What an amazing way to begin at the end, for Comic Yuri Hime December 2020 ( コミック百合姫2020年12月号)

The major series ending in this issue is tMnR’s series “Tatoe to Todokanukeda Toshitemo,” which…ended. After all the angst, it wraps up with a big old handwave. I’ll allow it. ^_^

I’m still impressed by the adaption of SukeraSparo’s VN “Kudan Folklore” and I’m sorry that Ohsawa Yayoi’s “Hello Melancholic!” looks to be heading for a climax next month, but I’ve really enjoyed the ride. ^_^

Some of my favorite ongoing series are Takashima Eku’s “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau” which just continues to be sweet as can be, even as we are getting a set-up for some kind of conflict, Hanagata’s “Watashi no Oshi ha Akujaku Reijou” and I like “Odoriba ni sukaato ga aNru” by Utatane Yu. A couple of the one-shots this volume are also interesting, at least visually.

A decent end of year volume. 2020 definitely was a great year for Yuri overall, and for Comic Yuri Hime, in general.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

The January 2021 volume is already and out and content wise, it’s starting the new year with a bang!