Katakura Ako’s Ashita no Kimi ni Hanabata wo (明日の君に花束を) is a collection of shorts from Comic Yuri Hime and while there are a number of reasonably typical setups – sempai and kouhai with varying levels of complexity – but there is one story that really stood out.

“Lily Maguerite to Kasumisou” – which supplies the cover image is a multichapter piece about a girl who falls for her friend’s mother…and another chapter about the friend’s feeling about this. It’s hard to feel completely comfortable with the story, though, as the mother is married and the father is alive and well. This story fills most of the middle of this volume. It both likable and unlikable in mesure – and often for the same reasons. For the feeling of being made uncomfortable by a story one is actually enjoying, this is worth reading. It’s good leavening.

All the stories get one-page epilogues in the final section of the book, and to be honest the epilogue for “Lily Maguerite to Kasumisou” is no less unsettling.

Katakura-sensei’s art is pretty solid, vaguely reminiscent of Konno Kita, without the air of refinement.

Ratings:

Art – 8 YMMV, but I like it
Story – 6
Characters – 6 We have no time with anyone, except Yukuko, through whose eyes we see the relationship between her mother and friend
Yuri – 7
Service – 3

Overall – 7

I probably would not suggest this book to a Yuri beginner, but it’s a decent enough collection.

The September 2014 Issue of Comic Yuri Hime  (コミック百合姫) was the most unreadable issue since Comic Yuri Hime S was re-absorbed into the main publication.

Unless you like sisters in love, animal-eared fetuses in frilly dresses, stories of friends in which no feelings of romance exist at all, and all the other not-two-girls-who are-together-and-the-story-happens possible permutations of “Yuri” there is very, very little for you to enjoy.

There was very little for me to enjoy here. Which is not to say there was nothing. Just not much. Continuing stores continue, there are a few bright spots here and there.

Comic Yuri Hime, having driven away almost all my favorite artists, and having boxed the remainder into “infantile moe schoolgirls” has set the clock back to 2000, with an audience who likes Yuri waiting for someone to publish a decent Yuri magazine. Even as Yuri as a genre is getting serious attention,Yuri anthology magazines have hit rock bottom.

Well, time to shake ourselves off and start again! I will be here when they get back. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 2

I’ll be honest, the continuation of Yuri Danshi and Yuri Yuri enrages me. Enough already. They are not funny, not entertaining and not Yuri. End them already and give that space to something with actual Yuri. Please.