Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 5 (やがて君になる )

March 29th, 2018

It’s summer vacation and the Student Council is very busy. Between organizing the school festival and practice for the Student Council’s original play, Yuu doesn’t have much time to spend with Touko. They do squeeze in one date, but for the most part, Yuu’s spending her time with Kanou, who is struggling to find an appropriate end to the play.  In the middle of a crisis, Kanou meets one of her favorite writers and is surprised to find that the author is a woman.  Kanou writes a letter to Renma-sensei and, with renewed vigor approaches the script. 

This is not a side chapter. Kanou struggling with a script is really very much the core of Volume 5 of Yagate Kimi ni Naru (やがて君になる ). I say that because, when Kanou decides on a course for the play, it’s Yuu who stomps it down. Why, she asks, no, demands, should the lead even have to be any one of the people that the people around her insist she be? It’s a shockingly profound thought, to Kanou. Even though we can see that Yuu is thinking at least as much of Touko herself, it’s a massive breakthrough for Yuu, not just in how she thinks about Touko, but how she approaches their relationship.

Yuu’s breakthrough leaks into other parts of her life. She encounters a classmate who is crying after her feelings are rejected and says and does the right things. But not only is Yuu shown being supportive and humane, a male classmate joins them and also says and does the right things. This scene was worth my money as it’s an excellent example of a really decent guy handling a woman’s emotions with empathy and decency. A how-to on embracing non-toxic masculinity. It was really sweet.

Ultimately, the only one Yuu has not made any changes for is herself. Until, in the tension before the play, Touko grabs her and pulls her to a back of the building for a kiss. Yuu holds Touko off. She explains that she’s not for Touko, but she does support her, and will continue to do so, but will not be used by her. At which I sat back and said “Finally!” Yuu also demands Touko shed the burden of living up to her deceased older sister and do the play for herself. Which she does. 

A final chapter covers Yuu trying to decide where to hang the charm she got at the aquarium on her date with Touko and all the situations in which it would become awkward. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 
Characters – 8 As they become more complicated, I like them more 
Yuri – 3
Service – 1

Overall – 8

This is the first volume we’ve seen Yuu push back at Touko and my interest in this series grew three times as a result. I guess I’d been waiting for Yuu to be an active participant in the narrative; 5 volumes into it, she finally has become one. I now look forward to seeing what becomes of her.

Bloom Into You, Volume 5 will hit shelves in June 2018 in English so you’ll be reading this pretty soon!





Yuri Manga: Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka (クロユリ学園大奥学科)

March 27th, 2018

Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka (クロユリ学園大奥学科) by Yoshizawa Miyabi runs in Young King Ours magazine. Maybe that means little to you, but it meant that I kind of knew what I was getting into when I started reading this. What it meant, specifically, was it was likely to be weird and sleazy. ^_^;

Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka was, in fact, weird and sleazy. ^_^

Minazuki Miu, whose hairstyle indicates that she’s a “gal,” finds herself at Kuroyuri Gakuen, a school for (apparently) well-trained rich girls, blah blah. When the Student Council President demands Miu present herself for acceptance into the “Seijyo” (which could mean order of holy women, or female saints of Vestals or anything you feel like translating it as because the word is irrelevant to the circumstance,) Miu finds her life getting substantially unbalanced. First she’s ordered to strip. And bathe. In front of the President who approves of her “mark of the Seijyo.” We are eventually shown a number 6 on her shoulder blade.

Miu appears to be befriended by another first year, who then starts to harass and bully her because…she’s a split personality. Oh, okay then. Miu fixes that  by being extra decent. The mark of the Seijyo disappears from her new friend’s body.

From then on Miu alternately seduces (without particular enthusiasm) or befriends others, but mostly she ceases to care what bullshit the others pull. The book ends with an orgasm-off for reasons I barely cared about in the first place and don’t remember now. Miu won and evil #8 loses her mark.

The art is ornate without being good, the story is meaningless drivel and both nakedness and sex are insincere. And yet, it’s at least slightly original. If the characters were more interesting, I might even read the next volume. I still might if I can find it at a used book store. ^_^;

Ratings: 

Art – 6 Competent
Story – 5 Less so
Characters – 2 I have rarely cared so little for characters in a story. Miu’s lack of fucks is the best part.
Service – 10 Sex, nudity and lasciviousness of many kinds
Yuri – 6 See above, without a shred of affection.

Overall – 5

It’s half “what did I just read?” and half “why did I keep reading?” ^_^; There is a Volume 2 for those of you inspired to read it for yourself. 





Yuri Manga: Roku + Ichi Gurashi (ロク+イチ暮らし)

March 21st, 2018

We remember Hidamari Sketch (licensed in English as Sunshine Sketch), don’t we? Aoki Ume’s series about a bunch of women at a trade school apartment building was nice. It was cute and silly and extremely, bizarrely repetitive. In 8 volumes of manga covering the 2 years they’d be at the school, they must have celebrated Christmas 7 times, maybe more. It also had a serious problem. Hiro and Sae were obviously a couple only Sae refused to admit it. Hiro was painfully aware that Sae was pretending that they weren’t a couple and it became painful to me to watch the shenanigans of plausible deniability that no one wanted. I cannot have been alone in thinking that it would have been nice if Hiro and Sae just were a couple.

Apparently, no, I was not alone. The suspiciously-pseudonymous Umehara Ume (eyeroll) agrees, and so here we are talking about Roku + Ichi Gurashi (ロク+イチ暮らし) which is pretty much Hidamari Sketch with Yuri. ^_^

Suzume has arrived at a trade school to study early child development in order to work in daycare for little kids. In her apartment she meets several other students, among them Nanao, with whom she promptly falls in love.  Her taciturn neighbor, Kie is in love with Sae look-alike Ai, who is love with Kouko.  Sachi is not in love with anyone until she sees the landlady’s daughter, and Ai’s fellow business student, Shiori. 

Unlike, Hidamari Sketch, this is not a gag comic, so we get little vignettes that have dramatic, rather than comedic punchlines. Kie and Ai compete in a Mr/Miss contest in the school and, although Kie ends up finding strength to confess to Ai, she’s gently rejected, which gives Ai the impetus to confess to Kouko. They are a nice couple, so we’re happy for them, as we are for the others. The story ends with Suzume making us a promise that she’ll become a terrific daycare provider. 

It’s all quite sweet and cute. A little too tidy, but so was Cirque Arachne, which “fixed” a similar “problem” with Kaleido Star. When you’re fixing someone else’s mess, you can skip all the details and just get to the meat of the story and pair the girls up already. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8 Fixed that right up
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 4 That Mr/Miss contest was for no other reason but to dress Sae, erm, Ai and Kie up in wedding clothes.

Overall – 7

I’ll be very interested to see if “Umehara Ume” ever publishes anything else. ^_^





Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 5 (English)

March 20th, 2018

In Yoshimurakana’s MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 5, little girls wearing yellow boots and carrying blue umbrellas are turning up strangled and the police are stumped.

Kuroko works on the case…and one of the bereaved mothers. She also finds time to meet with her erstwhile opponent at Virginal Rose, Teresa, now going by her real name, Narumi, who has gathered the Virginal Rose survivors and is trying to make a safe space for abused girls. Kuroko offers to underwrite the shelter/school if they work as informants, an idea that has been used in some of my favorite literature for centuries, so I approve.

In the meantime, we are subjected to the trials of Sora, who was kidnapped by the killer, so that we can be creeped out by the storyline. It is successfully creepy.

 Kuroko wraps this storyline up swiftly, for which I am now twice thankful. Even more thankfully, the end of the book see the return of weird-eyed Reiko the sniper in a new, exceptionally violent chapter. 

Final chapters are both silly and awful in equal part. Hinako is coming across as ever more unhinged. 

Reading this manga has taught me a lot about myself. I’ve known since Ikkitousen days that I do not mind violence as long as it is between two equally matched people. Exploitative or abusive violence enrages and disgusts me (probably much as the kind of violence I don’t mind makes other people feel, I imagine.)  I like weapons expertly handled. There is no form of hand-to-hand combat that I find dull, but man, do I really dislike the idea of people being beaten to death by skillless jerks with bats. Pisses me off no end to see people beaten by cowards who have to gang up or sucker punch victims. Huh. So, this too, goes into the folder of “no” when it comes to tolerable violence. On the other hand, I have a mental folder for tolerable violence. Huh. 

Yuri? Yes. Kuroko’s amassed quite a harem by Volume 5. Chiyo is her steady, of course, and we see her with Nanami and Matoi and of course Yuria, the medical examiner (who I had completely forgotten by Volume 10 in Japanese, which I was reading along side of this. Good thing she was here to remind me who she was. ) 

Ratings:

Art – 6 No less ugly than usual
Story – 5 Violence against little girls is in the no folder.
Characters – 8 Manipulative and vile, but I like ’em.
Service – 10 Nothin’ but
Yuri – 8  Having a lesbian psychopath as a protagonist definitely keeps this rating high. ^_^

Overall – 9

I love the next arc and any and all time spent with Reiko. Spider ahoy!





20th anniversary Revolutionary Girl Utena Manga: Beautiful Thorns (少女革命ウテナ20年記念日新作)

March 18th, 2018

Image Restored/Edited by abbysayswords for The Empty Movement, 2018.

In my review of the first chapter of the 20th anniversary Revolutionary Girl Utena manga, we discussed Touga and Saionji and how they regained some memory of Anthy and Utena after 20 years had passed.

Today, before I begin discussing the 2nd chapter of the 20th anniversary Revolutionary Girl Utena manga by Saitou Chiho and Be-Papas,  which ran in the March 2018 issue of Flowers magazine, I ask you to take a moment to think back on high school. For most of my readers, that will be long enough ago for memories to have begun to fade. Think back 20 years ago. Who were you then? What did you want? I remember little of high school and even less of myself in my early 30s. It’s a long time ago.

Arisugawa Jyuri (we have an official transliteration of her name at last) also remembers little of the past. On the eve of a photo shoot, she dreams of drowning.

Jyuri is an accomplished famous fencer. In her mid-30s, there’s no reason to assume her skill is any less now than it had been. In the final match for the World Title, her opponent appears….it’s a man, who wears a rose ring! They fight, but the electrical system shorts out due to a lightning strike and the match will have to be postponed. She wonders who that man was and Miki, who had attended the match to cheer Jyuri on, comments, confused, “What are you talking about? Your opponents were all women.”

As we might have expected, beautiful, long-limbed and graceful, Jyuri is also a professional model. And, as we watch, our eyebrows crawling ever higher, she does a photoshoot…is that fucking Ohtori?! Yes, it is Ohtori, and she stands in the greenhouse, or sprawls across the chairs with signs that literally point to the waiting room, while our skin crawls. 

Jyuri is also with Shiori. I have a lot of conflicted feelings about this. I hate series that act like the only possible pairing is among the characters in the story. But bear with me here, because it’ll get even more conflicted. Shiori is Jyuri’s agent and manager. She rejects a costume that shows too much cleavage. “We have to protect Jyuri’s image as a dashing fencer.” Which leads Jyuri to talk about something on her mind – she’s thinking of leaving fencing. Shiori says, well I have to tell you something, too. And standing there is the man who Jyuri fought in the fencing match! Wearing a Rose Seal ring. And, as the Jyuri watches, he poaches her manager. Shiori leaves Jyuri, on the arms of Ruka. Jyuri breaks down crying that she needs Shiori.

We see Jyuri in those days before she took up the uniform of the Student Council. Just another female Ohtori student, as she sees a little Shiori, looking like a princess. A princess, she reasons, needs a prince. So, when Shiori arrives at Ohtori and comments she finds the fencers admirable, Jyuri took up fencing and managed to obtain Shiori’s admiration. She would be this princess’s prince. One day, Ruka find Jyuri on her hands and knees, desperately searching for her locket in a field where she thought she dropped it.  Ruka and Jyuri fight. She is unable to defeat him in this informal bout, but he gives her the locket she has been missing….he knows. He knows what she is.

Ruka and Jyuri face off again. This time he brings them to the dueling ground where Shiori is the Rose Bride. Pushed to her limits, Jyuri has a vision of a young woman, (we recognize Utena,) who floats down from the castle and gives her the “Power to Revolutionize the World.” 

Jyuri sees Shiori sitting by the river, slipping in, and jumps in to save her. She is drowning….she is being left to drown…she is being drowned. We know this scene. We recognize that bench. We can hear the music. We know it and we know that it never happened to Jyuri. 

Young Jyuri wakes in a hospital, where Shiori tells her Ruka died saving her. Jyuri wanders down a hallway and finds herself in a chapel, where child Utena sleeps in a coffin full of roses. The child calls her a goddess of battle and Jyuri remembers that Ruka had called her his “Goddess of Battle, Lily.” The child begins to walk away, Jyuri asks, “where are you going?” The girls replies, “I want to see that girl again.”

Back in the present, Juri finishes the fencing match and fingers the locket, still around her neck. Her opponent removes their mask and it is indeed not Ruka whom she fought, but a woman, (who looks rather put out.)

In the locker room after receiving the championship cup, Jyuri tells Shiori that she’s done. Shiori begins to cry – are you really not going to fence anymore? “No,” Jyuri says, I’m not going to fight for you anymore. I’ve been fighting to be your prince, to protect you.” She accepts that she really just loves fighting and will do it now for herself. 

Shiori seems to understand. She tells Jyuri that she had had a dream of Ruka walking away from her, with a smile telling her that Jyuri has found the thing she was looking for.

Jyuri opens up the locket and we see that it still contains that old picture of Shiori. Carved by hand into the metal of the inside cover it says “Fight Jyuri!” in English. 

The last page shows Ruka and Jyuri walking away from one another. The page says 「戦え樹璃」with furigana that reads “Fight Jyuri”.

Phew. 

So many feels. But what actually happened?

Jyuri experienced three things in this chapter that never actually happened to her. We know that. She did not fight Ruka in the championship bout, she did not see Shiori drown, and…Shiori did not leave her for Ruka. Not 20 years ago. Not now.

It calls into question everything we know about her. What if Shiori never did any of the things we thought she did? The Black Rose arc was clearly feeding off of participants’ dark fantasies. What if Shiori wasn’t ever a master manipulator and was – and always has been – Jyuri’s closest friend who wants what was best for her? We may never truly know. 

As I have been saying repeatedly, Saitou-sensei’s art has really grown in 20 years. The aesthetic here is even more gorgeous than we remember it. And I’d be okay with an artbook of Jyuri playing dressup. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9 Gorgeous
Story – 9 I’m re-reading every word trying to pull out more meaning. Sometimes doing that is ridiculous, but here, it’s always worth the effort.
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4 I don’t know if Shiori and Jyuri are a couple, but they are certainly a partnership
Service – 5 – Jyuri playing dressup as a swordswoman and a lesbian. ^_^

Overall – 9

I am 100% in favor of Jyuri finding herself at the end of this chapter. I am 100% in favor of Utena looking for Anthy. 

The next chapter will have to be Miki. 

Tune back in two months from now when the next chapter is released in the May issue of Flowers magazine!