Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Sayuri-san no Imouto ha Tenshi, Volume 1 (小百合さんの妹は天使)

February 23rd, 2018

It’s come-clean time. We’re down to the dregs of the pile of my November impulse purchases. That means we’re scraping the bottom of the Yuri barrel. I’m probably not at the bottom yet, but this one is way down there.

  • Sayuri-san no Imouto ha Tenshi, Volume 1 (小百合さんの妹は天使) Yuri. I’m not denying that. And I acknowledge that what I like (sensible stories with great characters that work well together) is not what other people like. But. And I say this with my gentle voice, with all due respect, this book makes no fucking sense.

Sayuri and her little sister were separated when her parents divorced (because in the world of manga, kids are like endtables or armchairs. You get one and I get one.) Saiyuri, now an adult working at a flower shop, and living a normal, if bland life, misses her little sister, but apparently has no access to phones or computers. Or paper and pencil and stamps. Or transportation. So she has not seen her in 13 years,

So one day when she sees her sister again, she’s amazed! But her sister has a halo. And wings. 

Now, I’m just asking for a friend, here, but, if you saw a member of your immediately family with halo and wings, would you not immediately want to know how they died? And when? And then I would wonder why some other member of your immediate family neglected to mention this?  Of course Sayuri does none of these things.

So the book then goes forward with a generic incestuous relationship between Sayuri and her dead little sister.  

Ratings:

I did not pay full price for this book. I bought it at Book-Off for 260￥.There are three more volumes of the series, if this sounds like your preferred tincture of Lily.





Yuri Manga: Sougou Tovarisch, Perfect Edition, Volume 1 (総合タワーリシチ 完全版 上)

February 21st, 2018

I cannot stop telling you how amazing it was to walk into Animate in Ikebukuro and see a giant sign in the middle of the ground floor that  said “Yuribu.” Nor will I stop gushing about shopping for Yuri now that the various bookstores are actually setting up “Yuri sections” on the shelves that are multi-publisher and multi-format, so you can find manga, magazines, light novels and novels in the same area. It’s awesome. 

It also allows me to pick up stuff I wasn’t going to get when I had to ship it to the USA. Most importantly, it allows me to find stuff that I frequently would never otherwise have heard of or seen (and often forget about as soon as possible. ^_^)

Sougou Tovarisch, Perfect Edition, Volume 1 (総合タワーリシチ 完全版 上) by Arata Jiri falls into this last category. ^_^;

Imagine, if you will, a version of Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl in which Ayaka is almost completely unlikable. That’ll get you close to the dynamic here. Kana is neither smart nor stupid, but the existence of cool, calm and likeable Yuu enrages her. This volume mostly consists of Yuu being pleasant and friendly and Kana losing her mind about that. In fact, the story is so strung out with Kana screaming over imagined transgressions, that I finally skipped to the end. Yuu does, in fact, kiss Kana, although I cannot imagine why. Surely there’s someone else less shouty she could fall for. The cover gives you a good idea of Kana’s typical sour expession.

But, if you like the dynamic of a competent and likeable person falling for a shouty person like Kiss and White Lily, in a school that’s less filled with Yuri couples, but characters do have friends, then this series is probably a good bet for you.

Ratings:

Art – 6  It’s busy being busy.
Characters – 6 Kana annoys the heck outta me
Story – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 6 Not terrible, certainly not bad enough to be funny, just kind of “yup, that again.”

I’m going to skip on the second volume and instead plug through the rest of the “I have no idea” pile I got last year, before I go back and pick up more who the heck knows what. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Kase-san and an Apron (English)

February 18th, 2018

Yamada’s life has changed radically since she’s started to go out with Kase-san. She’s always been kind of average and had no confidence in herself, except in relation to the greenery committee at school. But being with Kase-san has taught her some important things. 

In Kase-san and an Apron, the 4th volume of Takashima Hiromi’s high school Yuri romance, during the school festival a tired trope about jealousy is turned into a lesson is about speaking your mind.

Yamada has always been jealous of Kase-san’s talent, her athleticism, her popularity. But when she learns that Kase-san has felt the same way, something important takes root in her, a germ of self-confidence that will continue to grow through the volume. Kase-san has been teaching her to value her own strengths – her persistence, her desire to do things for the joy of it. Guilelessly, Kase-san is also teaching Yamada that she’s attractive just the way she is.

Yamada’s best friend Miwacchi has also started noticing the changes. In her own offhand way, she praises Yamada for deciding on a college in Tokyo, rather than shooting for a local school and a less interesting life. 

The chapters that comprise this volume were originally distributed variably online and in print,  and the collected volume itself came out in Japan just after the official animation clip was released. (I reviewed the deluxe edition which included the Blu-ray of the clip here on Okazu last autumn.)

This series, which got it’s start in a quarterly, now defunct, Yuri magazine, has continued to chug along with surprising strength. This summer that little animation clip will get a theatrical release as a OVA movie and  we’ll be getting more Yamada and Kase-san in days to come! The Kase-san series is the little Yuri series that could. ^_^ It is everything I have looked for in a high school Yuri romance. It’s got honesty and growth and humor and a likable couple who have friends and teachers and family and interests outside the romance. And in the meantime, the artist’s skill has grown considerably. Her panels are tight, her lines are deft and her use of body language (which has always been good) and expression have gotten stronger.

It’s gonna be hard to beat this for best of the year, I think.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Character – 9
Story – 8
Service – 2 It’s dropped considerably since moving to Wings.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Thanks very much to the folks at Seven Seas for the review copy! This is hitting shelves here in the west this week, so get out there and get yourself a copy!. I’m hoping to take a physical copy of the book with me to Japan and get it signed by Takashima-sensei. ^_^ Fingers crossed.





Yuri Manga: Akaneiro no Kiss ha Okujou de (茜色のキスは屋上で)

February 13th, 2018

Even as Momono Moto-sensei is working her butt off with Galette magazine, Ichijinsha has been licensing some of her work, as well. Akane-iro Kiss ha Okujou de is one of these collections. 

In the first story, Megu asks an older girl at a shop to go out with her, over the loud opposition of her friends. Luckily for her, the other girl  is not all that opposed.

Two friends realize their friendship means a lot to them, and maybe even more, just int time for one to move away. Years go by and they are reunited.

A girl is approached by the subject of her crush and she just has no idea how to react.

A lesbian and straight friend have drunken sex, which leaves two of us – the lesbian and this reader – unsatisfied. I hate this kind of self-loathing “in love with a straight friend who uses the lesbian as a life size vibrator” kind of story.

A childhood mentor and tutor becomes a lover. This story kind of squicked me primarily because we’re told their specific age difference. I’m never comfortable with that, even though I don’t always dislike the concept of an generation-difference story itself. A bit hypocritical, but, I’m human.

And finally, the title story in which to friends discover that they love one another and share twilight kisses on the school roof. A nice, arm, fuzzy ending to a collection by an artists who specializes in the bitter and uncomfortable forms a relationship might take.

I really like Momono-sensei’s art, and while her stories tend to focus on the awkward and uncomfortable bits of lesbian-relationships, when she pulls out the stops and gives characters a happy ending, it’s always quite beautifully done.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, say 7
Characters  – 7 much less unlikable than in some of her previous work
Yuri – 10
Service – 5 Some sex scenes, a little nudity

Overall – 7

You know I’m going to say this….I cannot wait for Momono-sensei’s “Liberty” from Galette to be collected!





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime March 2018 (コミック百合姫2018年3月号)

February 8th, 2018

The March 2018 issue of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫2018年3月号) was pretty darn good. Some of the longer serializations are settling in for the ride, others are flailing a bit and some are pivoting from a one-shot to a longer serial, which can be either good or bad, as you like. 

I’m quite enjoying the stories from the Yuri Hime@Pixiv that have been filling the back pages of the volumes. A few have been good enough to make me bookmark the page and start checking regularly. It’s a good idea for them to have a web comic page to gauge the popularity and potential of new artists and stories. They’ve never had a sample page of titles on their website like so many other companies have, but this page provides any number of first chapters for free. I recommend taking a look!

After a tiresome photoshoot, showing two women touching, zOMG and interview with the voice actresses for citrus, the first manga is one that I was both intrigued and appalled by, by Tamasaki Tama. A waif wanders in to a military school in some kind of fantasy Japan and ends up being accepted. She will now get three meals a day and a bed to sleep in, but who know what will happen to her if she’s sent to fight. Also one of the girls is already hitting on her. And stuff.

“Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto desu!” by miman is going exactly where I expected, but through an interesting pair of eyes. Sumika has accidentally learned of Kanoko’s unhealthy obsession with Hime, and finds herself concerned for the girl. She’s watching her with a new perspective and starting to reach out, surprisingly delicately, given that in her real life, she’s a brash Gal and not the gentle Tachibana-sempai she is at work. 

But the winner this month was Fujimatsu Mei’s “Miageta Kimi ha Kyou mo Hohoemu” which I finished up  with a quiet. “Well, that was adorable.” A small, strange and kind career woman falls for a woman at a shop. They go out, crisis occurs, they live happily (ever after, implied.) It was absolutely squee.

“One Night Friend” by Kayako was a sadly typical “drunken one night stand means one thing to you, but another to me” story. Until it wasn’t and they also are presumably in for some happily, if not ever after.

And now, we have to talk about Aoi in  Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, GPen, Mezamashitokei.” She’s a jerk. I mean, we get it, sh’s not living her life honestly. When we thought she was, her teasing was just that but, knowing that she’s a hypocrite made this chapter very hard to take. Yes, it was predictable that she, too, had fallen for Kaede, but still. On the technical side, writing a harem manga in which both the leads are at the center of a Venn diagram of wannabee lovers has got to be an interesting challenge. 

And “Kimi ha Shoujo” which was kind of lovely went straight to WTF territory in this second chapter. I kind of hope she’s a vampire just so I can dislike it honestly. ^_^

“Shiori wo Sagasu Page-tachi” took yet another turn. I’m not sure if I keep just expecting it to be something other than it is, or it doesn’t know what it’s trying to be.

In contrast, “Watashi ni Karada Urutteminai?” started well over the shark and I’m just going along for the ride. Tsukasa’s father died leaving her mired in debt to a lot of unsavory characters, among them a tall, beautiful woman who offers Tsukasa a deal – let me buy you and I’ll pay off all the debts. Well, gosh human trafficking sure is a wholesome premise for a romance isn’t it? ^_^;

There were many other stories, most of which I read, and just a handful I didn’t (and most of those are the usual suspects…) so there’s a good bet that you’d find something to appeal to you in this volume.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

A good strong volume this month and I look forward to more. Conveniently, the April issue will be out shortly.