Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, November 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年11月号)

October 19th, 2017

The cover of Comic Yuri Hime, November 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年11月号) continues the apparently sweet, but actually creepy story. I sort of dread reading it, because on the one side, it appears to be all peaches and cream, but it really depresses me that the precious cover space is being wasted on a story of horrible people being horrible.

Nonetheless, once we move into the contents, there was a lot to keep me entertained. 

The first story, “Shiori wo Sagasu Page-tachi” by Kumo Susume, took a rather nasty twist right away but was engaging enough that I’m interested to know what’s going on. 

In Miman’s “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” now that the first major crisis is past, the story circles back to something we were told in the first volume, but this time it takes on a more menacing meaning. We knew that Kanako was obsessed with Hime…but just how obsessed is she?

At last! We get the rundown on Kaede and Aoi’s prior relationship from Kaede’s perspective. What that will mean to Nanami, we’ll have to wait and see.

“Seme x Uke Sanbon Syoubu!” is a very silly one-shot that ignores the actual complexity of lesbian relationships for an apparent “seme x uke” contest. As goofy as it was, it wasn’t completely inaccurate.

Omiya Miyami’s “LilyMaria to Wakaseyo” is another goofy story, following an uninspired manga artist who is visited by a fairy who only wants her to draw a Yuri manga…the one thing she really doesn’t want to draw.

And takekawa shin has put together a nifty little dystopian magic with goth-loli costuming story “Mansoufutou Dystopia” that starts off with a death, so you just know it’s going to be cheerful. ^_^

As always, there are many stories I did not touch upon, and Yuru Yuri is still on-going which, like Eli Manning’s continued position as Giants’ quarterback, never ceases to amaze me and interests me just as much.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

The December issue has hit shelves already, so we’ll find out what’s happening in these new stories soon enough!

 

 





Yuri Manga: Yuunagi Marbled Complete Volume (夕凪マーブレット完全版)

October 16th, 2017

Yuri manga artist Momono Moto is well-known to us here on Okazu. She’s working on my current favorite story in the quarterly Galette magazine, “Liberty”. But in the meantime, she also has the honor of creating the first collected volume from Galette Works, the publishing team behind Galette.

Yuunagi Marbled Complete Volume (夕凪マーブレット完全版) is a collected volume of one of Momono-sensei’s doujinshi series, from beginning to end. 

The cover, like all the Galette covers, is beautiful, with a light, prismatic polka dot pattern over the image, giving the cover the feel of watching water or flower petals sparkling in the light.

Ena is a typical highschool student. She’s out walking her dog when she sees a girl about her age, standing on the ocean’s edge. The girl turns and mouths a word. Ena is convinced that the word is “Sayonara.”

The next day, that very girl is a transfer into Ena’s class. Although she is aloof and hard to like – and there are rumors about her – Ena befriends Nanjou Mishio, that girl from the water’s edge. 

Ultimately, Ena and Mishio start to have feelings for one another, although their relationship is complicated by truth of Mishio’s past, which included an affair with a teacher and an attempt at suicide. But they make it past that.

Ena and Mishio graduate and move to Tokyo and completely by accident run into the teacher who was Mishio’s former lover.  Mishio finds that there is nothing left tying her to Rika, and she and Ena end the volume by visiting the ocean, together.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Slick and professional in every way
Story – 7 Good without being compelling.
Characters – 7 Mishio is another Simone/Sachiko/Mei, while Ena is every Resine/Yumi/Yuzu ever. I’m not saying I’m tired of classic beauties who mope….except yes, I am. I’m tired of mopey leads.
Service – 1 On principle only.
Yuri – 8 This is Yuri 101

Overall – 7

Yuunagi Marbled Complete Volume is a fairly typical Yuri story, but tightly told, and well-drawn. If schoolgirl stories are your boom, this is a very good example of the breed. Nothing new in this plot, but all the pieces were well-put-together. For myself, I’ll be waiting for “Liberty” with bated breath. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl, Volume 3 (English)

October 12th, 2017

Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 3,  follows the drama of the school’s garden club into which resident school genius Kurozawa Yurine is roped.

Yukina, the Gardening Club President  is determined to save the school rose garden despite the opposition of the Student Council. Only, it turns out that they aren’t the real problem at all. 

As I said in my review of this volume in Japanese, the story here is about love and betrayal and growing up. The drama of the Gardening Club  is watching characters having to deal being betrayed and betraying others and still finding some sense of hope and growth, much like the roses that are at the center of the drama. 

This seems especially true when we spend a few moments with Yurine and Ayaka. Ayaka’s protests are getting weaker as Yurine’s honesty and, for lack of a better term, purity of intent, have worn down her resistance.

Despite the big lie that drives the plot, this volume leaves one with a feeling thaat, rather despite themselves, the characters are growing and changing. One hopes, of course, for the better.

Jocelyne Allen again is doing an excellent job of translation, preserving each character’s unique voice  The Yen team’s technical reproduction, lettering, touchup are all clean. When you pick this book up, you get to slide into an authentic  manga reading experience without being thrown out of the moment by anything. I’m old enough to remember how many years this wasn’t true and to still appreciate it every single time. ^_^ I also want to shout out to the really excellent work on the cover – and especially the spine design, that perfectly captures the font and feel of the delicate text used on the original. It looks really nice. 

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8 Less cute and sweet before, but more complicated instead.
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 on principle only

Overall – 8

Many sincere thanks to the team at Yen for an excellent work and now, having moved past the weakest volumes of Kiss and White Lily, we can buckle down for a more complex, and more compelling, story. Volume 4 will be out at the end of November, so get ready for more!





Yuri Manga: Kase-San and Shortcake (English)

October 9th, 2017

Kase-san and Shortcake, by Hiromi Takashima is awkward and painful and wonderful and sexy and excruciating and delightful. In other words, it’s a bit like adolescence itself, except that I’m perfectly willing to re-read this volume and not at all willing to relive adolescence. ^_^

Yamada and Kase-san are facing their final summer in high school and, with it, the blank slate of their future. Kase-san is, of course, busy with track and she’s being scouted by a big Tokyo college. Yamada’s aspirations are much more local. But if Yamada stays and Kase-san goes what will become of them? 

However, the one thing Yamada has going for her is resolve. And no matter what obstacles are put in her way, when she’s made a decision, she goes for it. In a fit of passion, she jumps on the train to go to Tokyo with Kase-san. And comes face to face with her next obstacle.

Is it true that Kase-san was dating her old sempai  on the track team? If so, how will Yamada deal with the jealousy…and how far can she let jealousy build before it becomes toxic? The answer, as it usually is in this series, is just to the breaking point. And almost always, it’s Kase-san who snaps first.

What Yamada hasn’t quite figured out is that for every reason she’s jealous or worried or low self-esteemy, Kase-san is, too. But in every case, they work it out together and we’re more and more convinced that they might make it.

Takshima-sensei’s art has settled down in to a distinctive style now, and her facial expressions are quite wonderful. More importantly, she less reliant on gimmick.

As usual, Seven Seas provides us with an authentic reading experience. No eye-rolling weirdness in the translations, clean reproduction makes the book easy to read psychically and the technicals never drop you out of the story. This is a fun Yuri series, and deserves the kind of handling that doesn’t get in the way of just enjoying it. Great work, team Seven Seas! Thank you for the fine job. 

Ratings:

Art – 8 
Story – 8
Character – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 5 They are still working through what it means to be sexually attracted to one another.

Overall – 8

There’s only one more volume to go. Kase-san and Apron will be out in February and our time with Yamada and Kase-san will be over. (So far, there are as-yet uncollected chapters, and we have no news so far of any future plans.) Let’s enjoy it as much as Yamada and Kase-san enjoyed that final summer at school. ^_^ And we’ll have that Asagao to Kase-san OVA to look forward to. ^_^

 





Yuri Manga: Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 4 (やがて君になる)

October 5th, 2017

In my previous reviews of Volume 1,  Volume 2 and Volume 3 of Nakatani Nio-sensei’s series I have expressed, at length, my discomfort with this series as a whole and in specific. I won’t beat that same drum today. And, as the book is available in English now, (Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3 are available in English and Volume 4 will be out in winter 2018 ) you can decide for yourself whether you share my perspective.

In Volume 4 of Yagate Kimi ni Naru, (やがて君になる), a new plot complication enters the ring, which is already quite crowded. And once again, I’m not sure whether it’s there as a tiresome plot complication or a really deeply complex emotional conflict that is given no words with which to be expressed. 

The Student Council is going to perform a play for the school festival. Written by one of Yuu’s classmates, it strikes much too close to the truth for the actor’s comfort, but they put everything they have into the play. They decide to spend a few days at the school in a training camp to practice. This puts Sayaka, Touko and Yuu in close proximity for several tense days as their mutually exclusive desires keep any one of them from breaking the detentes.

More critically for Touko, in the course of the training she meets a man who knew her sister in school. For the first time she’s able to see past the glamour to get a glimpse of the person she’s always been running after, who may not be what she thought.

And most critically, we meet a friend of Yuu’s from school who notes that Yuu’s current level of normal whining about her club activities being so exhausting is kind of refreshing. Natuski notes that when Yuu was on softball team she never seemed to have any opinion about anything and made no decisions.  Now, Natsuki notes, she has an an actual interest. Are we meant to understand this as an important quality in Yuu – a crippling indecisiveness that she’s just now moving past? Or is this just a standard manga handwave, like Hazumu’s inability to make even the simplest decisions in Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl?

I don’t know and you’ll get to decide for yourselves, when Volume 4 comes out in English in February.

I call this the most problematic book I’m currently reading. I just can’t like Yuu or Touko, but I quite like Sayaka  and really want her coming out the other end of this only nominally scathed.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 5 This issue has issues
Characters – 8 
Yuri – 7
Service – 4 Bathing scenes with three girls, two of whom are lesbian.

Overall – 8….

I don’t see a way out for anyone as of yet. I hope to heck Nakatani-sensei has a plan here. I very much want to believe she’s not just jerking us around, but this is a Dengeki series, so I’m really not all that sure.