Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Renai Log (恋愛ログ)

February 16th, 2017

Are you the kind of person who saves the best for last or who goes for the good stuff first? ^_^ When there’s a new shipment of manga in from Japan, I waffle back and forth. Half of me wants to binge read all the best manga right away and half wants to hold it to the very end. The first half usually wins. ^_^ Especially, as the second half of Hana Monogatari has had a surprising number of deaths and I keep finding myself really weepy and needing something happy to read before bed. (T_T)

Of course, one of the books on the “good pile” is Takemiya Jin-sensei’s newest collection, Renai Log (恋愛ログ). This collection, although a Yuri Hime Comics publication, wholly consists of doujinshi by Takemiya-sensei. 

Of the storie,s the opening two-parter was my favorite. In “Otonari-san” a young woman becomes aware that her neighbor is a lesbian and, after the neighbor has been left by her lover, starts to have feelings of her own for her. I really enjoyed this story, as it took a fairly long time to develop. The ending was deeply satisfying, as well.

The middle stories were a selection of bittersweet “wth is happening” and “goodbye” stories that hit me in already tender emotional spots. 

But the final story, “Chocolat Orange 2” was absolutely lovely. Just the treat I needed, along with “Otonari-san,” to wipe away the melancholia left by people dying in my evening literature. 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, average 8
Characters – 8 A lot of sympathetic characters
Yuri – 8
Service – 0 Really. There just wasn’t any

Overall – 8

I had waited as long as I could before reading this and, as usual, was really glad I got to it. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime March 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年3月号)

February 13th, 2017

Comic Yuri Hime March 2017 (コミック百合姫2017年3月号) continues with the same variety of Yuri that we’ve come to expect from magazine this year. That said, there’s a definite slant towards the moe….understandably, as it’s easier to drawn simplified faces than it is to draw detailed art.

Which is why I genuinely treasure Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei”. About to go into a 4th volume (yay!) this series continues to be very much about adults and, in this chapter does something completely unexpected. Well, at least I certainly didn’t expect it. ^_^ As an aside, I wonder if Nanami is at all aware that pretty much every other woman she has ever met has fallen for her.

In “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto desu!” The one stereotype the Yuri cafe doesn’t cover – the best friend with a crush – rears it’s head and the cafe ends up with a new employee. I have no idea if this story will develop into anything particularly, but I’m willing to ride along for however long it stays silly.

Hitoto’s “Shuumatsu nanishini ikou?” sticks with giving us more detail about keeping fish than I, uh, expected it to. Fish it is. Okay then.

“Holmes-san ga Suiri dekinai” by Nemachi Dorumaru continues to be a parody of every mystery series ever and Ohi Pikachi’s “Demi Life” is already getting self-referential. I hope they will both break out of their niches and become real stories soon.

“Roku + Ichi Sodarashi” is still pretty much Hidamari Sketch, by a different artist, with Yuri. That part’s refreshing.

I still love Mikanuji’s “Now Loading” for it’s how-to tutorial on game development and honest look at the hours one pulls working in a small gamedev company. That this story feels “real” to me is the best part about it. That it also is Yuri is just icing on the cake. ^_^

Comic Yuri Hime is advertising pretty hard for editorial assistants right now, so if you’re still young and want to work in the manga world, are located in Japan and looking to get a position with a company that has never been positioned better to grow, take a look at the Comic Yuri Hime‘s advert for people wanting “Yuri Work.”

Ratings:

Overall – 8

This March issue appears to be sold out in print on Amazon JP at the moment, but folks with Japanese IP addresses will be able to get it through Kindle and you can get it digitally outside Japan on Bookwalker Global as a single issue or as a subsciption.





Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 1 (English)

February 12th, 2017

Nakatani Nio’s blockbuster manga has debuted in English as Bloom Into You, Volume 1 from Seven Seas.

When I originally reviewed Volume 1 of Yagate Kimi ni Naru, I said that it was “a sweet little Yuri romance that I both enjoyed a lot and also have several real problems with.” My opinion has not changed for the better as the issues with it have not abated, but intensified. (And for those of you new here, I’ve also reviewed Volume 2 and Volume 3 in Japanese. No need to try to “explain” the series to me. Thanks. You’re welcome to disagree, but you won’t change my opinion. ^_^)

On the ANNCast Friday, Jacob Chapman delved into the stereotype of the predatory gay man as a thing that really put him off. I briefly spoke about the line where it becomes victimization that really bothers me. But I wasn’t able to address the other part of that…something that bothers me in all manga, not just LGBTQ characters – coercion. I dislike it immensely when a character uses their perceived or real power to coerce another character into a situation they don’t want to be in. This is as true for Strawberry Panic! as it is for Shitsurakuen. And it seems obvious to me that the entirety of Bloom Into You can be summed up in this single panel (read-right-to-left): “Why not just tell her no?”  “I tried, but Nanami-sempai won’t give up on the idea!”

That’s just a deal killer for me. “No means no” whether someone says it about being a campaign manager or a girlfriend and whether the person asking is male or female. It wouldn’t be cute if it was a guy insisting and it’s not cute that it’s a girl.

Moreover, it’s even more obvious to me this time that Sayaka was just dissed right to her face. It’s really hard for me to like Touko ever again.

Part of the problem here is that this is a manga, although rated Teen by Seven Seas, was written for a magazine for adult men, and it adheres to the standard male romantic lead plot – stalk her, bug her, insist your feelings are sincere and magically she’ll realize she loves you. This is horrible in Hollywood movies and it’s no less toxic here. No, this is not how one convinces a girl to like one. Nor is Akari’s plan to wait until the reason the guy she likes uses to not go out with her runs out, a sensible one. These are stupid lessons and stuff that sets my teeth on edge about any “romance.” If feelings aren’t returned, it’s okay to feel shitty about being rejected, but not okay to just keep insisting they’ll come around.

The delusion so many of the characters live under make me sympathetic only to Sayaka who seems to see the whole thing most clearly, right down to her own unfulfilled desire. She’s basically the only reason I’m still reading this series.

Very unusually for Seven Seas, this volume also contains several name translation mistakes. Nanami Touko is  at least once referred to as “Nanako” (a mistake I noticed on the Amazon description, and had meant to, but completely forget to, email Seven Seas about, woops, sorry) and Saeki Sayaka is sometimes referred to referred to as Sanae Sayaka. The page reproduction is the usual high quality we’ve come to expect, however.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 6 My reservations remain and have increased over time. The transition into English has not helped and the translation inconsistency (while quite probably because they had two proofreaders but no managing editor,) just sort of felt like an extra stone in my shoe.

“Sometimes love just takes time for the other person to get in to, right?”

Argh.

I really wish I liked this series, but I still have a lot of trouble with the premise. So, if you really like it a lot, I invite you to write in a short review for this volume in the comments and if you’d like to write about Volume 2 when it comes out in English, do let me know!





Yuri Manga: Gakuen Polizi, Volume 2 (English)

February 5th, 2017

Time is a funny thing. I first reviewed Gakuen Polizi, Volume 2 when it came out in Japanese. And, since then, I’ve found myself increasingly dissatisfied with the narrative. So much so, that I reviewed Gakuen Polizi, Volume 1 in English in 2014(!) and have been stalling on Volume 2 since.  Today, at last, I’m sitting down to talk with you about Gakuen Polizi, Volume 2 in English from Seven Seas.

Why? You don’t have to ask, because obviously I am going to tell you. ^_^

You know the phrase Women in Refrigerators? It was coined by comic writer and amazing human, Gail Simone. I’m going to be lazy and quote Wiki here:

It refers to an incident in Green Lantern #54 (1994), written by Ron Marz, in which Kyle Rayner, the title hero, comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator. Simone and her colleagues then developed a list of fictional female characters who had been “killed, maimed or depowered”, in particular in ways that treated the female character as merely a device to move a male character’s story arc forward, rather than as a fully developed character in her own right.

In subsequent years, we’ve had many discussions in comics and other popular media about “fridging” and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s “sexy lamp test” about which she said

“If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.”

In a nutshell, these issues are part of the disenfranchising of female characters. And, to some extent, they are also part of the de-nuancing of the villains. In the weekend after watching Steven Universe “That Will Be All” in which we were gifted with fabulously nuanced and evocative performances from the villains of the story, it’s kind of brute-force narrative to have to turn to a manga in which a female character is almost gang raped on film just to show you how bad the nameless baddies are. UGH.

So, yeah, that’s why. ^_^

There are some other problematic things about the story. The relationship between a student and a teacher might be sincere, but will always be fraught. It was presented with some, but not enough context, just enough to make both characters sympathetic and the story less ham-handed, but the situation was still creepy.

Sometimes, when I write a story, I find it taking off into a dark place. I’ve cut out tens of thousands of words in stories when the idea needed to be treated with a light hand and kept crawling into a dark corner. This story needed that. It worked best when it was dealing with moments of human frailty and not big crime rings. 

The ending makes sense best if you recognize the characters from a doujinshi Morinaga-sensei drew decades ago. To be honest, I assumed from the beginning that that story was the kernel for this manga. 

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – 8 Way more service than the first volume

Overall – 7

I would not rate this series among Morinaga-sensei’s best. I’m glad it’s in the past and that she’s moved on to Hana to Hina ha Houkago, which will be coming out in English as Hana and Hina Aterschool this spring. 





Yuri Manga: Season Theater Theatrical, Volume 1 (シーズンシアターシアトリカル )

January 31st, 2017

In Season Theater Theatrical, Volume 1 (シーズンシアターシアトリカル ), Manabi is a director and Taiyo is an actress and together they create Yuri-themed musical performances for online streaming site Play Play Douga. But Manabi has bigger dreams. She envisions an all-Yuri musical performance revue! 

Enter Shinomiya Kise, the young, exceedingly cute CEO of the Shinomiya Group. Kise has never really had too many friends, but she loves sitting and watching performances on Play Play Douga. And, of all the performers, she likes Taiyo most. She really likes Taiyo. So, when Kise-chan approached Taiyo and Manabi with an offer they can’t refuse – use of a custom built theater for Yuri-themed plays – they don’t refuse. And, so, the Season Theater (named after Kise) is born.

Taiyo falls almost immediately for Kise’s personality, (which is so shy and scared, she reminded me of a small prey animal. A shrew perhaps, or a vole.) Kise’s maid, Aoba is multi-talented and Manabi integrates her into the staff immediately. 

Now, they just need a cast! Manabi decides to do auditions on Play Play Douga, using popular Yuri couples from the streaming site. She ends up with the two members of  duo “Jewel Box,” Jueru and Hakobe, as the supporting cast. And, when all is said and done, they perform “Yurizukin-chan” a “yurified” version of Little Red Riding Hood 

This manga is drawn by Minamoto Hisanari, creator of Fu~fu, for Comic Cune, which, while it does have Yuri, is more focused on the moe than the Yuri. So, yes, there are Yuri couples and yes, they are all adults, but they all look like they are toddler to 4 years old and everything is extra, super, teeth-grindingly adorable. The plot is amusing, there’s very little drama and it’s a fun read, without being even slightly stressful.

That said, there is one moment when I absolutely wanted to hug this manga. Jueru shows up at the audition with Hakobe all attitude and tsundere. She’s pretty obnoxious, actually. And when she and Hakobe come in second to Taiyou and Kise for the lead roles.  Jueru is all ready with a dramatic exit. “And so, the losers will take their leave!” she says and begins to sweep her way out of the theater. Manabi reminds them that they need other actresses, too, so they are kept on to play the little sister (rather than the grandmother) and the wolf. But the meme Jueru inspired,  “The losers will take their leave!” is granted eternal life on Play Play Douga. Aoba is right on it, and starts to mock Jueru, before the end of the scene. This shows some insight on online cultural dragging and I really appreciated it. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – erm….moe. REALLY moe
Story – Goofy, lovable
Characters – Also goofy, lovable
Yuri – Yep
Service – Nope

Overall – YMMV but I’m feeling generous, so let’s say 8

The story is ongoing and I can’t say I’m hooked, but it’s certainly worth following for some light reading. “Our Theater” the cover reads. How I wish it was….

I particularly like how, according to the author’s note, Minamoto-sensei became hooked on all-female musical review troupes as he did research for this series. “I’m off to Osaka!”” he says to Fujieda Miyabi-sensei, “Wanna come?” “Um..no, that’s okay.” ^_^