Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Koi☆Girls Love Story, Volume 3 (百合☆恋)

March 28th, 2014

In February, I hit a wall on the Yuri manga anthology, Yuri Koi☆Girls Love Story (百合☆恋). The one story I was interested in had gone quickly from interesting to excruciating and I wasn’t sure whether I’d get Volume 3.

An Okazu reader by the name of Tim assured me that the story got better. Tim lied. Okay, okay, he probably didn’t lie, and he was looking into much later chapters, but…. ^_^

So, in Volume 1, in the lead story “Yuri no Tanpopo”, we meet Mizuho and her lover Ena through the eyes of Mizuho’s younger sister. In Volume 2, Mizuho is a jerk to Ena. In Volume 3, We see Mizuho through the eyes of Ena and even accounting for Ena being biased, Mizuho is a much, much worse jerk than we guessed.

In fact, this story so depressed me, I have been unable to bring myself to read the rest of the stories in this book. The bland moe stories don’t interest me, but a few of them don’t look so bad…but I can’t do it.

Ratings: Mizuho, you jerk. You’re ruining  it for all of us.

 





Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 13 (楽園 Le Paradis)

March 17th, 2014

Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 13 (楽園 Le Paradis) is more of the very pleasing same.

We get the usual adorable stuff from Mizutani Fuuka and Kowo Kazuma, and the usual creeptastic stuff.

We get a deeper look at the mismatch that is Takako and Shinobu in “Collectors.”  Each has such a unique perspective on life that they can’t even give directions that make sense to the other.

In “Kakera no Omoi,” we have indeed turned our attention from Mayu and Mika, to the eternally suffering best friend with an unrequited love, Saki. Unfortunately for Saki, her conversation with Mika about Mayu is overheard…by Mayu. Now Saki’s worst fear has come true – Mayu knows her feelings. What will Mayu’s reaction be? Tune in and find out. What would yours be if you found out that your best friend was in love with you?

And in “Au,” Nishi Uko tells the story of an entire relationship from meeting to breakup and makeup in art and words in the “-au” verb form.

And filling out the Yuri in the lineup is Harumi Chihiro’s “Hankagoto” in which school girls learn they are on the same page after all.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I love this magazine. It hurts, it’s weird, it’s wacky, it’s adorable and it’s lovely in equal measure.

 





Yuri Manga: Plastic Blue in GEN Monthly (English)

March 10th, 2014

PlasticI’ve mentioned GEN manga a few times in the past few years, but let’s start with a recap, shall we? GEN manga is a small independent manga that licenses doujinshi directly from artists for their GEN Monthly manga. The February issue of GEN Monthly includes a Yuri story, “Plastic Blue.”

The story is competently told by creator Aji-Ichi with an overall sense of sweetness, without any of the creepy faux “innocence,”  that is so popular now.

“Plastic Blue” is available with a GEN Monthly subscription and GEN has a few sample pages up for you to check out.

This is a not-too-stereotypical beginning for Yuri’s first appearance in GEN’s anthology – here’s hoping we’ll see more Yuri in GEN Monthly!

 





Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 12 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり)

March 9th, 2014

I am formally letting go of the now-outdated idea in my head that Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari  (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) is the “also ran” Yuri anthology. That is empirically not true. At this point, it is a strong equivalent contender with Comic Yuri Hime, with solid artists and series.

In Volume 12, Isoya Yuki starts the book off with a heartbreakingly sweet “love at first sight” story, “Shoujo no Mateki,” in which a high school girl falls for the older woman she sees crying and how – despite everything – they find themselves drawn together. I really hope this series continues.

“Ajisai to Kase-san” continues the excruciatingly adorable relationship between Yamada and Kase. Once more Yamada fears to infringe on Kase’s privilege, only to have Kase reassure her with a kiss.

Morishima Akiko’s “Shoujo Paradigm” takes a bit of a serious turn, as we look at the actual relationship behind the Takarazuka couple, school stars Reika and Yuki….what brought them together and what keeps them apart. Lily forces them to address the gap between them and it turns out to be more of a practical matter.

In “Under One Roof” Fuuka finds herself in the rather awkward predicament of protecting Miho from awareness of the LGBTQ community of which she is a part. Yuri crushes are one thing…”being gay” is another.  Miho and Fuuka are on a collision course that only readers can see.

“Tsubakuma” was 50% perfect, and 50% awful and the whole was wholly impractical. A former soldier (with and eyepatch!) is looking for work and gets the job of being nanny to a willful child. Since the idea that Yuri will somehow be a thing between an adult and a child of 4 or 5 makes me very unhappy, the + of former soldier with an eyepatch merely goes to waste. Blergh.

I love “Nigetai Shoujo”. Two stereotypes as a couple, tough girl who always gets in fights and moody nerd. Swoon. That this is a series just boosts my love 10x. ^_^

Two more stereotypes: Demon girl and hikkikomori perv…not so much. It’s full of sex, but has no soul. Well, duh, I guess.

And that’s just first half of the book.  The second has a lot more typical school life stuff and another demon girl story, and is variably good, depending on what you like.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

An extremely strong volume from Hirari…and I get the feeling that more strong volumes are on the way.





Yuri Manga: Bousou Girlsteki Mousou Renaiteki Suteki Project, Volume 1 (ボウソウガールズテキモウソウレンアイテキステキプロジェクト(B・G・M・R・S・P))

February 21st, 2014

When I read the first chapter of Kawai Roh’s  Bousou Girlsteki Mousou Renaiteki Suteki Project (ボウソウガールズテキモウソウレンアイテキステキプロジェクト(B・G・M・R・S・P)) in Comic Yuri Hime, I actually was pretty excited for the series. It was an all-girl harem battle! The uber-cool boyish girl versus the feminine girl. It sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun.

And indeed, the premise starts off well enough. Unfortunately, the story handicaps itself right from the start. Beniko, the apparent ojou-sama type, likes one of the underclassmen, but she seems to have become attached to Aoi, the otokoyaku type. Instead of charming Shino away from Aoi, Beniko has hysterical fits and Aoi appears the type of person to trip someone in the cafeteria.

Instead of putting cool, athletic Aoi and beautiful honor student Beniko on equal footing, the two start, continue and end by making snarky asides, trying to cheat and accusing each other of cheating. By the end of the second chapter you sort of desperately flail around looking for someone to like. Shino, the first-year they fight over, is nice, but one-dimensional, a human-shaped stuffed animal. Their mutual friend Kimi seems to have her head on straight, so you sort of glom on to her as a bright point.

The second half of the book completely loses coherence. The student council president is, apparently, the character I expected Beniko to be, but she’s underhanded and manipulative. She coerces Beniko and Aoi to run for the council then makes Beniko be part of her harem through the misuse of a beauty contest.

By then end of the volume, I wanted to go back in time and whisper in the creator’s and editor’s ears to throw all of this out and write a good story.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 4
Characters – 3
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 4 and I’m being nice about it.

Seriously disappointing. Of course I had been reading the chapters as they were run in Comic Yuri Hime and have been progressively more disappointed, but I kept hoping that when I read them in a volume, it would all gel, as it so often does. The months in between me reading chapters means I lose threads so, often the stories hold together better when I read them in volume form.  This story was the opposite, it worked worse all together, when I couldn’t forget how nasty Aoi had been or how hysterical Beniko was last chapter.

The best part of this story is the title.