Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Comic Yuri Hime, September 2025 (コミック百合姫2025年9月号) 20th Anniversary Issue

August 14th, 2025

Two young women in festive kimono, smile and laugh as they walk along hand in hand, gold confetti sparkles around them and gold in their kimono flashes in the light.Slightly more than 20 years ago, Rica Takashima and I hosted Yuricon 2005 in Tokyo. Ichijinsha had just bought Yuri Shimai magazine and was relaunching it as a new Yuri manga magazine. The editor-in-chief at the time came to Yuricon 2005 and asked about the name “Yuri Shimai.” The event attendees and guests were pretty ambivalent about that name and recommended they change it and few months later, Yuri Hime magazine launched. It was quarterly at first. Then in the late 00s, it split into two separate magazines  – Yuri Hime, and Yuri Hime S, nominally “for women” and “for men”. These were quarterly on different schedules, so fans of Yuri could get up to 8 issues a year. 

In 2011, Comic Yuri Hime was relaunched once again as a bimonthly manga magazine. And, in 2017, Comic Yuri Hime relaunched as the first and only monthly Yuri manga magazine.

Today we celebrate 20 year of Comic Yuri Hime from Ichijinsha. Congratulations! It’s been an incredible two decades and I’m glad I’ve been able to be along for the whole ride so far. ^_^

Comic Yuri Hime, September 2025 (コミック百合姫2025年9月号) is an extra thick 772 page extravaganza of Yuri. Beginning with a beautiful celebratory cover, featuring our protagonists in festive kimono at 20 years old, naturally. Kimono patterns and confetti are given a gold gloss for a very luxurious feel. Today, they and we are together, celebrating the love of women. 

I’m not going to give a rundown of all the individual series this time, but I do want to mention that I am very much enjoying the series that focus on strong-willed women and girls finding ways to get what they want done – there are many of these right now and it feels so good to read these, along with more conventional high school stories. There is plenty of “adult” content for those that like that, and still a nice pile of fantasy and isekai and a bit of science fiction. I’m still waiting for sports queer comic is iespecially but we have some great action, and smart women making positive change.

We’ve come a very long way in 20 years and there is still a long way to go. Queer media is once again under attack globally, queer comic especially so. So while we celebrate where we have been and what we have done, I ask you all to please continue supporting Yuri and queer manga. We need unity and strength now to protect what we have gained against the forces that seek to – again- shove us back in closets and silence us. Sing your queer songs, write your queer stories, draw your queer comics!

And on behalf of Comic Yuri Hime and Yuricon – thank you for your support of Yuri!





Gakeppuchi Reijou ha Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!, Volume 2 (崖っぷち令嬢は黒騎士様を惚れさせたい)

August 11th, 2025

A woman with red hair, wearing a pink dress grabs the collar of a tall woman with long silver hair in a black uniform and leans in as for a kiss. Clarice is settling in to her new role as wife of Frost-sama the fearsome Lord of the March, slayer of monsters….and, Clarice learns from the maids, slayer of her own father. 

In Volume 2 of Gakeppuchi Reijou ha Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!, Volume 2 (崖っぷち令嬢は黒騎士様を惚れさせたい), still sure that Frost is misunderstood, Clarice goes shopping with a “disguised” Frost – which is to say she is not wearing her mask or armor. The people of the city have never seen her, so they speak freely about their worries as Clarice shops. 

Clarice maneuvers her bodyguard, “Schwarz,” into picking something nice for her. Although irritable about it Frost picks a pretty pair of earrings for her wife, that turn out to be magic stones for protection. 

They are approached by a girl who turns out to be the representative of the Goulart trading company, the de facto monopoly on all goods coming in to the city. Violet tries her best to maneuver Clarice into a gaffe, or a bad deal, but Clarice once again turns out to be sharp enough to avoid traps. Meanwhile Frost and Victoria’s bodyguard, the equally huge monster-woman, Shion, battle with swords outside. Clarice and Frost win their respective battles and are gracious in victory. A shady relationship between Violet and one of the castle maids is revealed.

Frost once again has a meltdown and demands to know what Clarice is playing at. Our hapless, but in no way helpless, protagonist insists her feelings for Frost are real and steps up to kiss her. Forcefully stating that she likes Frost, Clarice slams out of the room and immediately wonders what the heck she was thinking! 

I really like this story and, if it seems a little slow going in  making inroads into Frost’s paranoia and isolation, it really has to be. Volume 3 will begin to reveal just what kind of trauma Frost is living with and how Clarice will find her way to the real Frost. In the mean time, we get to see another side of Clarice – she’s brave when she needs to be, smart in a crisis, and now, good at negotiation and political maneuvering…even if the entire time, she is propping up what she knows is a sham marriage. She’s a fantastic protagonist. I very much hope she gets the room to get into Frost’s heart.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 8, Clarice is a 10
Service – Frost and Shion have absurdly large chests
Yuri – Good question! Nothing and everything

Overall – 8





Toi et Moi (トワ・エ・モア )

August 6th, 2025

In sepia tones, two girls sit at a garden table, One with long hair, wearing a long skirted dress -style school uniform. holds her chin in her hands as she leans forward. The other girl, short-haired, wears a suit and slacks for her uniform, oxford shoes and no socks, as she sits with her legs crossed. Both gaze relaxedly at us.by Akatsukinoluna, Guest Reviewer

I first came across Toi et Moi (トワ・エ・モア ) in Yurihime’s February 2024 magazine, and was instantly struck by the uniquely beautiful artwork and characters, and mature tone. It was only five months later that I excitedly discovered it wasn’t a oneshot, but has a tankōbon, and is serialized on Palcy (Kodansha’s shoujo & josei manga app). The catch copy for the series reads “More than love with the one she admires. More than friendship with her best friend. A ‘girl meets girl’ story of 4 girls at an all-girls school.” (憧れの人、恋以上。親友と、友情以上。女子校に通う4人のガール・ミーツ・ガール)

Set in all-girls high school, the story is split into four chapters (Silence, Boheme, Ombrage, and Portrait), and focuses on two couples: Okawa Seiran & Nose Chigusa (prince and princess) of Class B, and I-eshima Yae & Arisugawa Yukiyo (writer and actor) of Class A. Seiran is seemingly your typical aloof girl prince, but under the surface is merely a socially awkward and misunderstood lone-wolf. Chigusa, the shy and misunderstood, solitary doll-like princess, stands out for her elegant, lolita-esque fashion, and always walking under an umbrella outdoors.Both are misunderstood by their classmates, who assume they are being looked down upon. Seiran, initially afraid to approach Chigusa, wonders “are flowers merely meant to be gazed at?”, and maintains her distance. But when a group project gives them a chance to connect, they waste no time in growing closer to each other. 

In “Boheme” we are introduced to two childhood friends, Yae & Yukiyo, as the narration asks “What is the point of stories (monogatari)?”. Yae is an aspiring writer whose manuscripts are never quite good enough, and boyish Yukiyo is an actress who is constantly sidelined and mistreated in the school drama club. More than friends, less than lovers, and quietly harboring affections, these two are each others’ reason for their craft, and each helps the other overcome their flaws and hardships. While their relationship can be a bit tricky, as long as they have each other, they’ll be alright.

“Ombrage” & “Portrait” set the stage for our 2 couples to befriend each other, and the story and relationships unfold from there. From a school picnic, to rooftop conversations, with various casual and intimate moments, we get to see everyone grow from within and outside of their respective relationship. Yukiyo’s carefree nature forces Seiran to confront her own jealousy of Yukiyo & Yae’s friendship with Chigusa, while Chigusa reassures her (without cutting off her new friendships). Yukiyo learns that the emotional intimacy she so strongly yearns for is closer to home than she thinks — a realization she has through her conversations with Seiran. Confiding in Yukiyo, she finally understands what’s held her back all this time — and what she truly wants to depict — while Yukiyo can finally voice (quite passionately) what she truly wants to act.

The artwork in this series is gorgeous. It’s very finely detailed, soft but firm, and the eyes particularly are quite captivating (though some might find them a bit uncanny). There is simultaneously a very elegant and warm feeling, and a sense of definition. Having four visually distinct, well-developed characters with unique relationships is really refreshing — as is the lack of cheap tropes and fan service (though there’s plenty of doki doki moments). The characters all learn something unique from each other, in their interactions. And the contrast between Seiran & Chigusa’s very fast, emotionally intimate and communicative bonding vs Yukiyo and Yae’s very drawn out yearning, pining and unspoken affections is delightful. Despite being set in a school, the story is not at all focused on the usual school rhythms (culture & sports festivals, elections, valentine’s, career plans, etc), but on the characters’ personal growth. Finally, a quick shout-out to the beautiful eye-catches, and the author’s beautifully legible afterword.

Ratings:

Art – 10, elegant and distinct — especially the eyes
Story – 9, the volume ends before it gets to the really good parts
Characters – 10, unique and well developed
Service  – 0, but lots of shoujo-style doki-doki moments
Yuri – 10, very touching, well-developed, and sometimes steamy 

Overall   10

 
 

 

 





Tough Love At The Office: The Complete Yuri Collection

August 4th, 2025

A woman with ripped blouse and bloodies face and body, scowls at a pair of woman's legs in white heels and a pink skirt.CW: Extreme personal violence, rape, emotional and psychological abuse in a workplace setting.

Sal Jiang’s Black & White, the  3-volume series of violent and psychopathic competition at highly competitive Japanese financial firm is now available in English as Tough Love at the Office: The Complete Yuri Collection and it asks us to ask ourselves what is really important to us….but not until we grin through 400+ pages of two women who are trying to eat each other for lunch, in all the meanings of that phrase. 

Kuroda Kayo comes in to her new job brimming with confidence and acclaim and immediately runs into Shirakwa Junko, who has her eyes set on power. The two of them instantly dislike one another, but also cannot stop having violent, angry sex that is clearly meant as rape to destroy the others’ will. Both are equally matched in smarts, skills, popularity and desire to destroy the other. 

I loved the first volume of this in Japanese and I still think it is the strongest part of the story. To quote myself from my review of the JP Volume 1, “Jiang’s art is terrific – clean and stylish, cute and approachable, and nasty af, in turns as the narrative requires. The characters are terrible people, but they sometimes do good or kind things, which gives them nuance. Neither of them is a sadist to the pleasant office drones around them. They are, however, two dominant humans fighting for dominance in every way possible. Yeah, baby. I’ll take as much of this as I can get.”

When Kuroda and Shirakawa are teamed up by a scheming senior executive, he gets exactly what he hopes for – an unethical power-hungry machine to take down his enemies. But then they are turned on one another again. When Kuroda makes a misstep on an overseas trip, she causes a chain reaction that will ultimately lead to the end of the series…

…where we are asked to consider what is truly important to us. The answer to that question for both Kuroda and Shirakawa may surprise you. 

This is not a Baihe-style “in love with my cold, tough boss” story. This is a potentially/eventually disturbing exploration of deepest, darkest expressions of five of the seven deadly sins. But what this story also is is pitting two evenly matched competitors against each other in a evenly balanced match. And for that reason, I can enjoy the heck out of it (although I admit, I would have ended it differently. ^_^) 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 7 Not a lot of nudity, but a lot of sex and violence
Yuri – 7 See above

Overall – 10

 

 

Alexa Frank’s translation and Asha Bardon’s adaptation does everything it can with the blurry “business” stuff . The Seven Seas team does a great job here as usual. 





Rainbows After Storms, Volume 4

August 1st, 2025

Two girls in Japanese sailor-style school uniforms of white blouses with blue collard, blue skirts, red ties, sit close on a bench, one sleeps, while the other gestures us to be quiet.In Rainbows After Storms, Volume 4, Chidori and Nanoha are still dating…and still keeping it from everyone. ^_^

Summer has arrived and there is a LOT going on for these two – sleepovers and a day at the beach bring our to lovebirds closer, even as they are trying to keep their relationship hidden. On sleepover night, it seems obvious that their friends are trolling them, about it, but not so obviously that they notice. 

Then the school festival arrives and with it, that troubling piece of Chidori’s history allude to in the last volume. Because, as we see, Chidori wasn’t her first love. The story is a familiar one in Japanese media, Chidori’s sempai initiated an affectionate that she then withdrew when Chidori returned the emotion. We’ve seen this story before, most notably in Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka. Here, when Igarashi snidely asks Chidori if she and Nanoha are really an item, Nanoha throws the truth in sempai’s face, in what they will later remember was their first coming out. In my review of Volume 4 in Japanese, I name Igarashi a “fairly stereotypical Yuri villain” who “realizes that she might well have made a terrible mistake with her life.”

Chidori had already been admonished by Nanoha to open up to her and rely on her a bit more.  At this point, Chidori has nothing left to hide. On the night of the fireworks festival, they kiss.

We’re only a third through this series, so there’s a lot more of Nanoha and Chidori yet to come, but be warned…they will still imagine that they are hiding their increasingly obvious feelings for one another.  ^_^

I did want to mention that one of the folks over on the Okazu Discord noted that every chapter tells us this same thing, but the words themselves are always a slightly different. “The two of us are dating…but its a secret…from everyone.” “Chidori…and Nanoha… They’re keeping it a secret from everyone… but they’re dating.” Each chapter begins ever-so-slightly differently. It’s an interesting touch and one that I admit I never noticed. So thanks to akatsukinoluna, for noting that. 

Viz Media has done nice work with this volume. David Evelyn’s translation feels true to the tone of the original and to the characters. The lettering by Annalise “Ace” Christman is outstanding. I always will like it when full touch-up is used, since it allows us the time to just “read” the story.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 4 Bathing suits and showers. So…ugh

Overall – 6

As I said of the Japanese volume, “For a series which, until this moment, had climaxed with hand-holding, this was a big volume.”