Hitogoto Desukara, Volume 1 (ヒトゴトですから!) , by Yuni is a very funny, outrageous and ever-so-slightly enraging workplace comedy manga.

Komori Mio is a self-proclaimed sales ace. She’s got skills closing contracts, especially with beautiful female clients. Komori hopes – and expects – to be rewarded for those skills…and is quite put out when the next transfers are announced and instead of a high-flying position overseas, shes transferred into HR. In HR she is assigned to very plain Yamanobe Kyouko to learn the ins and outs of helping employees with their problems.

Let me stop here and unpack this situation, (and my feelings about it.) I don’t know the specifics of how internal company transfers work in Japanese companies, beyond that annual transfers happen regularly between departments and locations but, based on 4 decades of working with larger corporations I have some thoughts:  1) This is enraging. We know no top male sales employee would be be transferred into a support position. 2) This is ridiculous. A top sales person in any industry is usually moved up into management where those same skills that are great for sales are toxic for managing people.  3) This is parody. Every company I have ever met has HR for one purpose – to protect the company from the humans they employ. This is not to say that all HR everywhere is terrible, it’s just that I have never met, or heard of any, that isn’t. ^_^;

One night Yamanobe and Komori end up running into each other as they, separately,  bring a date – female in both cases – to a hotel. They suddenly realize that, for the first time ever, they have a true peer in the company and agree to support one another in their womanizing. And so Komori learns that the skills she used closing contracts and getting women into bed, work for reassuring coworkers. And, separately, getting women into bed.

4) This is a comic. Let’s just agree that we should accept that absolutely nothing we’ve seen or are about to see can be used to be angry about this enraging, outrageous, ridiculous manga, shall we? If we don’t agree on that, we’re just going to spend 174 pages being angry. ^_^

Despite this appalling premise, Komori and Yamanobe are serious about their job.  After a young employee fails to return to the office, they visit her, only to find that she really hated everything about the job. “Kids today,” Komori says, and Yamanobe who, like Komori is not old at all, says “Do not go there.”

Under Yamanobe’s guidance, Komori begins to really get the hang of HR and helping people find solutions to their problems. Komori’s a little intrigued by Yamanobes refusal to take on a lover, but we can guess that powerful, beautiful, annoying as fuck, Kujou Natsu might be at the root of that.

Komori’s passion for HR comes to a screaming halt at the end of the volume, when Yamanobe declares her disqualified to be an interviewer. Why? Tune into Volume 2 to find out!

I love Yuni’s stylish art, I think the characters are a riot and the premise is so awful that I enjoyed it immensely. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – I won’t. I can’t.
Service – 1? Even in bed, everyone is covered up
Yuri – 9 Between the two of them, we see them with at least half dozen women

Overall – 8

I’ll be definitely getting the next volume. This is not so much a Yuri story in the office, as an office sitcom about 2 lesbians.

Yuri Anime

RetroCrushTV is adding more new titles that were fundamental back in developing Yuri fandom a few decades ago. They have Key The Metal Idol, Vampire Princess Miyu, Devil Lady.

Alex Mateo reports on ANN, at the end of August, RetroCrushTV will be adding Riyoko Ikeda’s shoujo classic Dear Bother. This series is pure shoujo, no magical girls, no aliens, with high melodrama and it really holds up as some of the director Dezai Osamu’s, best work. If you have never had a chance to see Dear Brother this is a great opportunity to watch it legally, free, ad-supported.

RetroCrushTV has also launched an ad-supported linear streaming network available on Roku and other smart TV platforms.

Sentai Filmworks has pulled their entire catalog from Crunchyroll, doubling down on their investment in HIDIVE. Miles Thomas on Crunchyroll has the list of titles that are leaving. Sentai also announced a dub cast for Fragtime. Joseph Luster  has the report for Crunchyroll News.

Not Yuri that I know of, but I just wanted to make a rude noise about the title of the Cartoon Network/Crunchyroll collaboration anime title, Fena: Pirate Princess. Seriously? Xena: Warrior Princess might have something to say about that title. Adria Hazra at ANN has the details about the series.

Quinta Brunson on Twitter announced that she’s playing Alex on SYFY’s upcoming Magical Girl Friendship Squad, a magical adult women, no BS comedy. Click the link for the profanity-laden teaser. ^_^

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Yuri Manga

Via Senior Corespondent Louise P, Yuri manga creator mk has a lovely little series call Osananajimi no Yuri Fu~fu Seikatsu (おさななじみの百合夫婦生活) that you can purchase for digital download or physical copy with worldwide shipping on the creator’s Booth.pm page. The story is about two old friends who are now a couple. ^_^

ANN’s Alex Mateo once again has news, this time that Square Enix has licensed Otherside Picnic manga and Okura’s manga I Think Our Son Is Gay.

Yen Press on Twitter has revealed the cover to Éclair Rouge: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart, the fourth entry in the Éclair anthology series.

Other News

Yoshiya Nobuko’s story from Hana Monogatari, Tsuriganesou was made into a movie…twice. The 1935 original and a 1940 remake. Here’s a YouTube clip from the 1940 version of Tsuriganesou (釣鐘草).

Via Grace Ting, I want to share this beautiful short story, Patient. Written by Wong Yi, translated by Jennifer Feeley for Asymptote‘s “In This Together: Writers from Around The World Respond To The COVID-19 Outbreak” series. This story is part of Wong Yi’s “Ways to Love a Crowded City.”

In case you missed it, I did a review of the two sites bringing us legally licensed translated Yuri doujinshi, Lilyka and Irodori Sakura.

One last item from Alex Mateo on ANN is the news that Niantic has committed money from the last Pokemon GO event to organizations that support Black game developers, Black trans folks, and Black Lives Matter groups.

Which brings me to this week’s editorial. Comments on this will be heavily moderated.

In case I have not made it clear, the Okazu family and I believe Black Lives and Trans Lives Matter. I regularly donate to a local BLM group, support queers creators of color with our Okazu Microgoals on Patreon. There is nothing capricious about the way I choose the people we support.

When comics, and anime, and gaming keep saying “We have a problem,” and the problem never seems to go away, there is not just one problem. Comic and Gamer gates are groups dedicated to the harassment of women, queer folks and people of color. This is not “a problem.” They are *the* problem – that there really honestly are, at all levels of all industries, men who think their skin color and the fact that they have a penis makes them better at all the things.  This specific belief kills people every day.  This belief is destroying our planet.

Anyone arguing that “politics” needs to be kept out of art is a not arguing from a strong position. Art is political. Business is political. People’s lives are inherently political. You’re being political when you choose to back companies and individuals who rage against empathy and diversity or who pretend to support it, then make it somehow impossible for non white, non-male  employees to move up in the ranks. You’re being political when you choose to support marginalized creators. The Hugo Awards last night showed that the Worldcon membership was ready for and welcoming of a diverse future…and leadership chose a rambling old man whose derivative book series remains unfinished, who spent most of his time praising a fascist while host and presenters mispronounced people’s names *and* their winning titles. The problem is that no one in Worldcon leadership thought to make sure this didn’t happen….again. For the umpteenth year in a row. During segments that were pre-recorded, for fuck’s sake.

Be political. Give your money and time and attention to creators and companies who foster environments where everyone’s work is valued, where people are treated like people, not like replaceable resources. 

One last thing, for readers in the US, please make sure you are registered to vote and do vote. If we do not, this may be the last election we’ll see in our lifetime. Not hyperbole. We are on the very brink of not being a democracy. The President has told us that he will do everything to make sure this election is declared invalid. He has told us and shown us. This must be a landslide. Be political.

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an important part of the Okazu family. I couldn’t do it without you!

Ikemen Onna to Hakoiri Musume, Volume 1 (イケメン女と箱入り娘) is written by Mochi_Au_Lait, and drawn by majoccoid for REX Comics, one of Ichijinsha’s other imprints. Honestly, I think both art and story are not bad. I kind of like this story and also it kind of bugs me, so I talked it over with my wife and I know why it kind of bugs me and why I kind of like it, but I still don’t know whether I like it more or don’t like it more. ^_^ Get settled and we’ll see if we can’t work it out, together.

Satomi is a college student who has fallen for Kanda-kun, a classmate. She asks Kanda-kun to go out and is thrilled when she says yes. Kanda Misaki is an extremely handsome and cool woman. Satomi is fine with that, she’s actually just happy to have a partner.

Satomi is very sweet and she really likes Kanda-kun. Kanda-kun is likewise quite nice, showing a lot of consideration for Satomi. Satomi is, yes, naive, but so is Kanda-kun and they are missing each other’s cues, which is about half the humor. Ultimately, they really do like one another, that’s obvious.

There’s just…something wrong with the joke. Update: I could have sworn that Kangda-kun actually mentions that she’s a girl, but I am apparently mistaken, which makes the joke even less funny.

Kanda-kun is perfectly fine going out with another woman, and doesn’t mind being treated like a boyfriend, but always thinks, “but I am a girl” when Satomi does that. Which gets tired.

In the final chapter, the what-might-be-a-gender-mindfuck-in-some-other-story sort of comes to a head when, at an arcade, Kanda-kun wins Satomi an ugly zombie doll and they are hit on by some guys, who turn out to be friends with Kanda-kun. She grabs Satomi’s arm and tells them that Satomi is her girlfriend. Satomi squeals happily and she and Kanda-kun have a private side conversation about Kanda-kun being the zombie doll’s “papa,” and Kanda-kun gently reminds the zombie to keep it’s eyeball attached and they laugh and head off, while the guys all act confused. “Does she know Kanda-kun’s a woman?”

So, it was a sweet story and I certainly want them to be happy….but it was often very annoying as well. Not because the character or situation is problematic. Kanda-kun is not hiding that she’s a woman, but she’s also wearing a corset (like an industrial one, not a Victorian one) to ostensibly “protect” her chest, because she’s so ticklish, and she wants Satomi to be able to hold her arm, which is the thinnest excuse I have ever heard for wanting to be bound in my entire life. And she’s not just telling Satomi.

I really want to like this manga.  The art being by majoccoid helps so much, I won’t lie. Kanda-kun looks cool when she’s supposed to. Satomis is cute. Mochi_Au_Lait just does not have the style for this. The characters are likable, the situation is not problematic, but it is, nonetheless, a problem.

Ratings:

Art – 9 majoccoid’s work is definitely right in my wheelhouse
Story – 7 *So* close to being good
Characters – 9
Service – 2 Light, nothing horribly creepy, more situational
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

I especially enjoyed the fashion checks for the filler pages. There were no judgements about who was wearing what, just contrasting styles on display.

It was just so >close< to being really good. CW says that “as well as being serialized in Comic Rex, chapters go up on majoccoid’s pixiv and twitter. Chapter 11 is the most recent.”  Thank you very much!