Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Pride Month Manga Thread on Twitter

June 5th, 2018

To celebrate Pride Month I decided to share a LGBTQ manga recommendation every day on Twitter. (Disclaimer: Not every suggestion will be manga. ^_^)

We’re up to day 5 and I wanted to give you all the thread link, so you can follow along – and feel free to suggest your faves in the comments – you know I’m always on the lookout for good LGBTQ manga and comics!





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, June 2018 (コミック百合姫2018年6月号)

June 4th, 2018

I cannot explain to you the feeling of wonder I got, when I picked up Comic Yuri Hime, June 2018 (コミック百合姫2018年6月号), knowing that, for the first time since it has begun publication in 2003, I will read and enjoy more stories than I don’t. That’s rare for me with any magazine. I’ve always maintained that if I really like 2 stories and mostly like a few others, a magazine is worth continuing. To have a magazine with so many enjoyable stories is rare, and for that magazine to be a Yuri magazine is a miracle.

I absolutely adore the nothing that is “Goodbye Dystopia” by Hisona. We know nothing of the characters, nothing of their world. We can guess very little about them, as well. And yet we travel along with them through a ruined, but beautiful, landscape. I could read this for volumes.

I feel bad that I no longer trust Kodama Naoko-sense, but after the extended horror of NTR, the reality is, that I don’t. Nonetheless, “Oya ga Urusai no de Sempai (♀) to Gizoukekkonshitemita.” may be worthy of my trust. A woman who is clearly in love with her roommate and sempai, wants to help her stop the demands for marriage meetups from sempai’s parents. She proposes that they visit sempai’s parents and tell then that they are in a partnership. Yes, the plot is awful and eyerolly and yes, it’s ridiculously clear that the sempai will eventually have to fall for her kouhai, blah blah blah, but I kind of liked the idea that the Shibuya Partnership certificate was presented as a marriage certificate…like it’s meant to be seen as. The parents’ reaction was bad, the story is a comedy and I’ll never trust the author again, so I’m still on the fence. We’ll see.

“Shiori no Sagasu page-tachi” by Kumosususme has had it’s big reveal, thus resolving any confusion or tension in the plot. I have no idea where it might go now.

Still like Shiroshi’s “Roid” and looking forward to more.

This chapter of “2DK, GPen, Mezamashitokei” will clearly be the end of of Volume 7…and what a chapter it was! Aois’ wedding at last. Nanami asks Kaede if she recognizes any of the folks at their table from school, Kaede says she has no idea who the other people are. Nanami glowers, thinking that Aoi has put them at a table of her ex-girlfriends…and gets even darker when she realizes the other women are current girlfriends.(-_-);

I have no fucking clue what or why Prison Town exists or how anyone, (most especially Akari) got there, but I’m still happy to read “Prisontown e Youkoso!” by neji.

Nanatsufuji’s “Kimi ha Shoujo” actually makes me quite uncomfortable. But I’m still reading this story about a passionate affair between a young woman and an older woman in a sheltered town.

And Ameno’s “Takane no Hana ha Usotuski desu” also about a relationship between a a younger woman and an older one is equally as uncomfortable, but for different reasons. And yet, I am still reading.

The bouquet has been tossed and caught in “Yurikkon” by Hisakawa Haru, and Hinako comes home to her lover Mizuki, asking “Why haven’t we thought about getting married?” Mizuki exclaims, “Get married?” and Hinako is forced to rethink their entire relationship. But we can see that Mizuki’s reaction to basically everything is to question it and eventually she and Hinako choose a traditional Shinto service for their own celebration. Watching this are two women, holding the hands of two children, who ask the children if they’d rather see their mothers marry in a western or Japanese ceremony. The torch has been passed.

There were other stories both read and unread in this volume, but I’m going to have to say I am really like the current crop. So many grown up women, some same-sex marriage, some kissing, living together (or as Pearl might say, “a little death and birth thrown in!”).

Ratings:

Overall – I’m going with 9. It was that good. Different feels, styles, tones. I like it.

The July issue is sitting on my to-read pile. I look forward to it!





Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 6 (English)

June 1st, 2018

Volume 6 of MURCIÉLAGO, by Yoshimurakana, is a particularly nasty volume. Oddly, I found it easier to take in English than in Japanese. I do not know whether that is a function of the translation or simply because I read through the nastiest bits more quickly in my native tongue. 

A bomber is threatening a school and Kuroko and the team have been called in to investigate. What she finds is that a ring of kids have been bullying a girl practically to the point of a psychotic break. The keyword is “practically”. Although Minako is sure that her lover is responsible for her abuse, she’s not all that angry because she’s a “get even” kind of gal. By the end of the series, Kuroko has left Minako with a penchant for domination, a slave and a desire to commit controlled violence. 

The bomber, it turns out, is also looking for revenge for a one-sided same-sex crush gone toxic. All in all, a school full of terrible people. 

Kuroko gets to kill a few inconsequential children, Hinako gets her kunoichi on, and everyone lives happily ever after, except for the people dead, beaten, abused, raped, and otherwise emotionally and physically traumatized. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6 
Story – 5 I still prefer adults beating the crap out of one another
Characters – 8 Violently insane, so thumbs up from me
Service – 10 
Yuri – 8  Extra Psycho Lesbians for your money! ^_^

Overall – 8

My review yesterday of Cutie Honey Universe seems to have surprised some new readers. Let me assure you that while I find tiresome service tiresome, I am wholly fine with horrific violence and psychotic lesbians. ^_^





Yuri Anthology: Yuri + Kanojo Suki ni Nattemoii? (百合+カノジョ 好きになってもいい?)

May 30th, 2018

Recently, we took a look at the new Yuri anthology,Yuri + Kanojo (百合＋カノジョ). It was fun, with some unique design and story elements. Well, the folks at Be Comics must have hit on a successful formula, because on the tail of that anthology, they put out Yuri + Kanojo Suki ni Nattemoii? (百合+カノジョ 好きになってもいい?).

Like the first anthology, the stories are told from a first-person point of view in which “we” are the protagonist. Each story is short, and is more often a set-up, rather than a fully formed narrative. 

The stories here begin with high school, then move backwards to middle school, on to college, working adult society, finishing with a largish section for “After Forty” stories. Needless to say, I was delighted to see stories imagining individuals and couples who were no longer young. Even better, the final story ended exactly the way I would have liked to have seen the entire collection come to an end. I’ll leave you to guess what that might be. ^_^

Because most of these stories are 6 pages, there’s little room to do much more than setup a scene, but still some of the scenes were fun. A later story set in a bar was so dependent upon MIST magazine-like character design for the bartender, I can only imagine that that person has never actually been to a bar, just read about them in Ladies Comics. ^_^

“We” see a bit more of ourselves than in the first anthology and quite often “our” perspective is so far off reality “we” must be hovering boom microphone-like over ourselves or “we” have unnaturally long necks. On the other hand, all of the art is much better than anything I can do, so I’m won’t complain too much. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9 with the additional point for being so heavily weighted towards stories about grown-ups.

Another fun Yuri anthology in this series. I’d be glad to read more.





Yuri Anthology: Yuri + Kanojo (百合＋カノジョ)

May 24th, 2018

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Yuri anthologies. They serve a unique purpose for a niche genre, as a gathering place for up-and-coming artists to have their original (or parody, in the case of series-focused anthologies) work highlighted. Yuri anthologies often end up being full of creators who are not yet famous enough to warrant their own series, but who have built a following at comic shows. Read a few contemporaneous anthologies in any niche and you’ll start to see the same names over time. 

Today we’re looking at Yuri + Kanojo (百合＋カノジョ), a fun Yuri anthology that lives on the intersection of Yuri manga, and Yuri Visual Novels.

The format of the book makes it clear that Yuri VNs are the inspiration for the story. It begins with “Now Loading….” and then moves on to a chapter labeled “Episode of high school students.” Each vignette is short, and we, the player character are not seen in full any of the vignettes, we are merely spoken to (although we do see peces of ourselves, like our hands or feet.) Credits for the stories are presented like game controls and after each short vignette ends, (they run about 6 pages each,) the final page shows us character design and bio for the “other” character, our love interest. 

This book is already kind of fun and unique, but it adds one more nice feature – only the first chapter happens in high school. “We” then move into college and the workplace and life. We go on dates, take jobs, go out with friends, have lovers, and continue, one chapter and one individual at a time, to live life vicariously through the PC point of view. 

Because the vignettes are short, there’s very little story-telling. “Two women on a date” is not a plot so much as a fleeting thought. But, as a series of scenes written around the prompts, this was a very enjoyable exercise and a very unique volume.

Ratings:

As an anthology, it’s all variable, but for the adult art and thinking about life, I give it a solid 8

This book sold out incredibly quickly on Amazon JP, so I was absolutely thrilled to find a copy on display at the Shosen Yuribu in Akihabara. Yay Yuribu!