Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru, Volume 5 (姫のためなら死ねる)

October 21st, 2015

KnTnS5In Volume 5 of Kimi no Tame Nara Shineru (姫のためなら死ねる) Sei Shonagon of The Pillow Book fame has hit a slump. Not just a slump, but a debilitating, crushing and potentially career-damaging slump. And near-constant harassment from the onmyouji “Abe no Hito” isn’t helping.

Not only is Shonagon suffering because of this slump, but Teishi-sama is starting to think that Shonagon doesn’t care for her any more, as her requests to read new entries in the diary are met with vague promises, and excuses. Shonagon, it turns out, is fearful of showing her mistress the uncensored delight she has in the Princess. Too embarrassed and too scared to let anyone know what she’s feeling, she is unable to write anything at all.

Koshikibu and Benkan are alternately worried about and annoyed by Shonagon, but it’s Murasaki who shakes her out of her slump and encourages her to pen openly adoring verses about Teishi-sama. Teishi-sama is likewise embarrassed at the near-worship of Shonagon’s Diary, but they reconcile at last.

As the book comes to a close, Murasaki Shikibu is confronted the disorder known as “reading fanfic about your characters.” And, as it usually is in the real world, it’s not a good thing.

The gags are, if anything, becoming denser. There’s a lot of research that goes into this book and it shows. It’s also getting harder to follow for this reader, as my knowledge of the Heian-kyo is superficial to say the least. ^_^; But what is funny is funny and even when there are hints of somber things to come, it’s all jokes all the way down.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 7

Luckily for me, in between the otaku humor, there’s more “Shonagon is gaga over Teishi-sama again.”





Yuri Manga: Rakuen Le Paradis (楽園 Le Paradis), Volume 18

October 20th, 2015

RlP18Rakuen Le Paradis Volume 18 (楽園 Le Paradis),  is an example of a magazine that has hit it’s stride. And there is both good and bad in that. I know what I’m getting, and it’s all extremely high quality…but.

What I am getting is both exceptional art and storytelling by unusual, prolific, stylish and not-typical artists. There’s never any doubt in my mind that the artists are writing for people like me – adult women, who are not rejecting school stories but really would like to enjoy some time in adult life.

And the magazine gives readers tremendous variety, from the stylish slice-of-life stories by Nishi UKO-sensei to Samura Hiroaki’s funky, dense violent/scifi-ish work, with room for Kumeta Koji’s oddball social commentary and Mizutani Fuuka’s romance.  I especially love Unita Yumi’s fantasy “Nemurime-hime,” and find it both interesting and disconcerting to see Ume Aoki’s story be so straight an incest-y. There’s BL from Nakamura Asumiko and Yuri from Sengoku Hiroko and all manners of adult heterosexual relationships. This magazine spans a tremendous range of story-telling style and art. It has fully spread it’s wings and begin to fly on it’s own, confident in the risks it takes…and now I’d like to see it take a few more new risks. Let’s see where this can go. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I always look forward to the next volume. It’s consistently one of the most fascinating and challenging Japanese magazines I read. Quirky, weird and bizarrely human.





Yuri Manga: Tsuki to Sekai to Etoile, Volume 4 (月と世界とエトワール)

October 14th, 2015

Tsukitosekai4-275x393We have reached the climax to Takagami Yuriko’s Tsuki to Sekai to Etoile (月と世界とエトワール). There is no one more surprised than I that I read this series to the end.

In Volume 4, Yozora has made her way through last of the befuddling “tests” of the current Etoile, Umiyuri, and came out shining. She, and her chevalier, Sekai, vow to be together forever .Everything is looking up, until she returns from the final test (which appears to have been singing in front of a combined audience of orphans and the elderly,) only to find that in the three hours she had gone Sekai broke the promise that, mind you, she made Yozora make. Sekai is suddenly, confusingly, engaged to a underclassman. Yozora is clearly fictional, so she loses her voice in shock, instead of going postal.

She runs into Kagami, the former Etoile candidate that Umiyuri destroyed, and learns that Kagami has returned to school and will continue to sing anyway. With the realization that she needs to sing  – and wants to sing with Sekai – Yozora find her chevalier and conjures up enough voice to ask her what is going on. Sekai admits that it was all another cockamamie “test”, this one by Towa, for the chevalier. Reunited, they swear their love, and presumably go on to live happily ever after with song.

There’s nothing remarkable or memorable about this series except that it made it 4 volumes. And I bought and read all 4, so I guess that is remarkable, but probably not memorable.

As bad guys, Umiyuri and Towa were tremendously unfocused. I never knew whether they actually knew what they were doing or not. The trials they created were banal and the story never seemed to know whether we were supposed to pity or dislike them, so I ended up doing neither. I hope Sekai and Yozora are better at screwing with the next “Lu Couple.” (I don’t speak French, but neither does Tagami-sensei, apparently)

Ratings:

Art- 8 Utterly moe, everyone looks 6, but also kind of weirdly elegant
Story – 7 Inconsistent, oddly paced, unbelievable, and yet I kept reading…
Characters – 5 I kept waiting for Umiyuri and Towa to be outright evil, but no.
Yuri – 5 Kisses and intense vows of eternity
Service – 1, purely moe/innocent

Overall – 6

So why did I keep reading this all the way through? I think it was because of Sekai and Yozora’s earnest earnestness. I can’t think of any other reason, so they had to appeal to me as a “Lu Couple” or I surely would have stopped reading.





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, September 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 09 月号)

October 7th, 2015

CYH0915-275x392Comic Yuri Hime‘s September 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 09 月号) issue marks a major milestone in Yuri manga history – Comic Yuri Hime turns 10 years old!

I can think of a number amazing ways to celebrate this occasion, (cover art of older issues as color pages, the return of popular previous artists for one-shots, a history of the magazine, a timeline….) something, really anything, but the editorial staff chose, for whatever reason, to do pretty much nothing. So the issue is just another issue. Okay, Happy major milestone anniversary, whatevs.

The magazine does start off with a single reprinted chapter, a story that originally ran in Comic Yuri Hime S,  Konohanatei Kitan, (此花亭奇譚) about fox-eared girls running around, sort of old-fashioned and Taisho-esque. It was re-released by Birz comics last spring. Of all the possible old series to reprint, I found it almost predictable that they managed to pick one I couldn’t stand to read when it ran in the magazine. Figures, right? ^_^

Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, GPen, Mezamashitokei” takes a tremendous leap away from hedging it’s bets on what kind of story it wants to be when it grows up, to being a grown up story. I take back my complaints from the first volume. This chapter was terrific.

Minamoto Hisanari’s absurdly amusing “Kanate! Yuri Yousei”  still manages to be absurd and amusing as it explores yet another Yuri trope, with love.

There are still students alive in “Shoujo Shikaku” by Kawai Roh. You’d think there’d be way fewer, though. If the student body is halved with every round, we should be down a lot more students. Also, I can’t help wonder where do the dead bodies go? I know, it’s bizarre to think about stuff like that, but it’s a massacre manga, what else is there to think about?

“Seeesaw Game” by Takemiya Jin wraps up with the tall girl and the short girl getting together and it’s all rather sweet and typical.

“Ore to Yuri”, the second “Yuri Danshi” series, is slighly more interesting as it folds in female fans to the mix. So the Yuri doujinshi festival now isn’t all male fans or creators. The way-over-the-top tone of voice hasn’t changed at all, but it’s not just Yuusuke screaming. Now we have a half dozen female otaku (and what they hope to get out of Yuri) to match the half dozen guy screaming about purity and love. I’m not convinced that the girls are actually representative of actual fandom any more than the guys are, but at least they have a place in the narrative as fans, not just objects of fantasy.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Paging through this 10th anniversary issue, I don’t want to say I’m unimpressed, because 10 years is an amazing accomplishment, but a postcard set with cover art for the 4 #1 issues so far (original Yuri Hime, relaunched Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S and re-relaunched Comic Yuri Hime) would have been swell. There’s nothing in this issue that gives any sense of it having been 10 years other than it having been 10 years and saying so on the cover. I can remember vividly, the editor of the not-yet-launched Yuri Hime at our 2005 Yuricon in Tokyo event asking the attendees what they wanted to see in the new magazine. I guess he doesn’t remember it as vividly. ^_^; But this magazine making 10 years is an important moment in the history of Yuri.

Having said that, Happy Anniversary Comic Yuri Hime magazine! Here’s to another 10.





Monthly Comic Cune Magazine, Volume 1 (月刊コミックキューン)

October 5th, 2015

CuneOne of the best parts of this gig are when I get to witness the birth of a new magazine. One of the strangest parts of this gig is witnessing the birth of a new magazine.

I became an anime fan back in the day when characters were drawn to be look more mature than their age. So, the slide into extreme moe has not favored my tastes at all. I keep thinking that, at some point, there has to be a swing back to grown-up looking characters, right? The existence of Monthly Comic Cune says, flat out no, Erica, you are wrong, bzzt, fuggedaboufit, there is no end point to the round, featureless, infantile blobbiness of this art style and it will never go away. Even more poignant is the magazine’s tagline, which couldn’t be wronger in my case, “Made for you, a new 4-koma comic.” ^_^;

This is the land of giant heads on baby bodies, characters labeled specifically 15, 16, 17 years old who unremittingly look 4 years old. Not for me, no, thank you.

So, why, you must be thinking, am I even bothering? I don’t write posts to whine (hardly ever anymore, it’s boring saying “this sucked.”) so clearly there must be a point. Right? RIGHT?

Yes. The point  of all this is that I really enjoyed the inaugural volume of Comic Cune. I mean honestly. It was fun.

Let’s get the important stuff out of the way – there are a handful of Yuri artists  in this magazine – Fujieda Miyabi, Kuzushiro, Hisanari Minamoto, Namori, all have contributed. And for them alone, it was worth getting this volume. Both Fujieda-sensei and Minamoto-sensei had Yuri in their stories, and Minamoto-sensei’s actually talked about Yuri, and their’s were not the only stories that had girls embracing each other. There’s lot of squeezing and love-love going on between girls here.

But the two stories I enjoyed the most were both comedies based on paranormal creatures (of which there were quite a number of in the issue.) I particularly enjoyed “Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san” (The Vampire Next Door) and “Dokuro-san ga Miteriru” (Skeleton is Looking), which stars the famous giant skeleton from this picture, living with a young girl, and looming distressingly large over her.

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Yes, it’s one joke, but it is a very funny joke.

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But wait, there’s also “Goshuujin-sama ha Ningen ja nai” starring a maid for a super-creepy alien mistress.  I mean who wouldn’t want to read that? ^_^

So, yeah, the Yuri’s great, and it’s nice to see artists I know and love in another magazine…and I’ll just ignore the big blobby heads and “zOMG so cute, aren’t they so cute being cute?” moe art. But what’s going to keep me reading this is the utterly weird monster comedy that made me laugh out loud.

This is a Kadokawa publication, so maybe, if we ask nice, they’ll put this on BookWalker.

Ratings:

Overall – 8 I enjoyed it way more than expected.

You see, it’s giant skeleton and it looms, staring with big blank eyes, but it’s really a nice guy…but it’s so big and loomy…. Trust me, it’s funny.