It’s time for another quarterly rave about Rakuen Le Paradis (楽園 Le Paradis), magazine! This issue, Volume 16, was chock full of great stories, as usual.
On the Yuri side, Nishi UKO-sensei’s new chapter of “Collectors”, as usual, had me smiling in fond alliance with Shinobu. No one will ever accuse me of being a clothes horse. I bought one new sweater this season. But books? I got a lot. ^_^
Sengoku Hiroko’s continuing story of a student and the teacher she likes is turning rather serious. I don’t know where it’ll go at all, and that intrigues me.
Again, Nishi UKO presents a standalone story “que rico!” in which two lesbian couples prepare and share a dinner. It was all so normal that it took my breath away.
Unita Yumi’s “Nemurinohime” about a girl who sleeps too much but, while asleep, can access god-like powers, has joined the list of my top 4 series in the magazine. In this issue she works really hard to help a girl, a classmate, who stays up too late texting her boyfriend. At the end, the two find that they actually have a lot in common and a new friendship is born.
As always, Mizutani Fuuka’s “14-sai no Koi” is excruciatingly cute.
Ratings:
Overall – 8
Always an enjoyable and challenging read. Every single issue.
Volume 17 will be out at the end of February.
This collection from Team Pärvelö had so many qualities that I liked. Variety in art, and story and setting – protagonists of color in a queer manga anthology, how wonderful is that? (Finland seems especially good at diversity in representation.) Refreshing, delightful, fun, smart. Lepakkoluola is the kind of thing that gives me hope for the future of Yuri. I know Hanna-Pirita’s gonna have a heart attack when she reads this, but Team Pärvelö – you did good. Your collection is #10 on this years’ list. ^_^ Please keep drawing and writing!
I wasn’t really sure that this was even a Yuri series after the first volume, but I liked the energy, and the characters and the use of the setting to tell some real, not always all that pleasant, stories about girls’ lives. And then it ended up being Yuri after all. And Morinaga Milk was once again able to draw girl cops. ^_^
Tanaka Minoru’s Rock It, GiRL! was different. The art was intentionally ugly, the characters, too, and the story never went where one might expect. And in the end, it was a loopy, quirky, and kind of charming look at nothing anyone of us would ever see. This isn’t cute idols or meteoric rise to fame – this was a story about blood and guts and singing your heart out and hoping like hell someone might listen, then being told you’re not good enough. I liked it precisely because it wasn’t the same story we’d seen time and time again.
This story was a bit of a dark horse this year. I figured it was a one-shot, lame Maria-sama ga Miteru clone, with no real meaning, but I was dead wrong. Not only was it delightful, it continues!
Amano Shunita’s Philosophia is, as I mentioned in 
I’ve raved about Takemiya Jin’s work a million times. I love, love, love her characterization, and she captures shocked realization in a way that I adore. What really sets this volume of her manga apart, is her unrestricted and unrepentant embrace of not only lesbian culture, but also otaku culture. This book is about us, with our fetishes, and our obsessions, our lusts and loves. Reading game is like looking into a disturbingly accurate funhouse mirror at ourselves, the otaku-rezu who read (and create and write and talk about) Yuri. ^_^;
From volume to volume I had no expectations for this series. I never knew where it might take me. And right to the very end, I had no idea whether it was going to string me along and dump me, or lift me up. As an emotional roller coaster, it was pure brilliance. The art, the story telling and the tension all combined to make this series one of my favorite manga of the year.
Whispered Words marks two major developments in English-language Yuri manga. A new publisher, One Peace Books, is setting up shop on the block and a major Yuri series that I didn’t think we’d ever manage to get over here is here! Sasamekikoto explores every possible Yuri trope all at once and manages to be sad and moving and funny and wonderful. And now we have it. I can guarantee that unless something *amazing* comes out in 2015, Volume 3 will be my top slot next year. ^_^ The ending is just that good.
I’m unabashedly besotted with Nishi UKO’s artistic sensibility. Her people are people – okay, ridiculously beautiful people, but people, nonetheless. They can be petty, snarky, obsessed, in good moods and bad, hungry, lonely, and she communicates these emotions with simple, short stories, exquisite art and a mature aesthetic that is rarely found in manga, much less Yuri.
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