Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


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I am formally letting go of the now-outdated idea in my head that Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari  (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) is the “also ran” Yuri anthology.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.





Yuri Manga: Shuden Niwa Kaeshimasu (終電にはかえします)

February 14th, 2014

Amagakure Gido’s Shuden Niwa Kaeshimasu (終電にはかえします) is a collection of shorts from Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari magazine.

The first story is a lovely two-part ‘Story A.’ Asaki rides the train every day and everyday she sees a tough-looking first-year student. Boyish, with dyed hair and wearing a mask (allergies, she says, when asked) the first-year turns out to be a sincere, awkward girl with the old-fashioned name Tsune.

Tsune and Asaki become close and each comes to the unnerving conclusion that she likes the other. In the second chapter they go out on a date and find that they like each other a lot. The story takes on a bittersweet feel when they realize that Asaki will graduate soon, but they kiss anyway, trusting that the future will be bright enough for them.

“Shoujo Planetarium” is a slightly unsettling story of two girls who meet in a fantasy setting. The story kept edging towards the creepy, then veering away, leaving me with the idea that it originally was meant to be something else entirely.

A like triangle is impossibly resolved by all three people agreeing to keep their relationships as is in “Isshun no Asterism”. A ghost waits a lifetime to get the girl in “Eien no Shoujo”.

The final story is also a strong entry. A younger sister has to completely rethink her opinion of her older sister, when she falls for what turns out to be her older sister’s lover. In the end, she decides that she had it all wrong all along.

The collection has no unifying theme (with the exception of the two astronomically themed titles), but it made the book perfect for short reads before bed. Not every story is happy, but the collection as a whole left me feeling good…which is a nice feeling.

Shinsokan has moved to a smaller format than they were using previously, away from the A4 size to a more common A5 size, which makes the book smaller, lighter and more portable.  I like the tighter new look…and I note that the volumes cost a little less than they did previously (although not on the same scale as larger publishers.) Hopefully Hirari won’t be forced out of print by costs. (Readers who insist on print really have no idea how much money print costs and what pressure it puts the publisher under.)

Ratings are variable, but averages are:

Art – 8
Story –  7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 3

Overall – 8

An enjoyable little collection of Yuri manga shorts.





Yuri Manga: Ashita Mata Kimi no Uchi e (明日また君の家へ)

January 27th, 2014

The obi of Ashita Mata Kimi no Uchi e (明日また君の家へ), tells you in English and Japanese that the stories inside are about childhood friends, a student and teacher, sisters, and classmates, all neatly pre-packaged in pairs for your non-thinking pleasure.

What the obi doesn’t indicate that the art will make it awkward to tell which character is which and that all of them look like the prototypical blobby-headed moe face that looks vaguely 4-year oldish on account of having no facial features.  The combined affect of phoned-in story telling and art left me with the impression that I had just read a volume of “blow-up doll theater.” (Which, now that I think about it, could be a very funny idea, but even if someone did it, it probably wouldn’t be all that funny, really.)

I remember vaguely not minding the classmates story, trying to read the teacher/student thing, but not finishing it,  and finally giving up and paging through the interminably long sisters story. By the time we got to the childhood friends, I was unable to identify which character was which and decided to read the next volume of Drops of God (神の雫), in which the adult cast look and act like an adults, and the lead female is smart, not at all blobby-headed and much more my idea of attractive manga art. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 3 at best
Characters – None, all characters were “types”
Story – None, it’s a PWP anthology
Yuri – I didn’t get the sense anyone like each other much, but, 9
Service – 10

Overall – N/A

This book had all the appeal of an actuarial audit. ^_^;

Thank you to the man who reminds me to sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights, Okazu Superheo Dan P. for his brave sponsorship of today’s review!





Yuri Manga: Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story, Volume 2 (百合☆恋)

January 24th, 2014

A few weeks ago, I reviewed  Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story, Volume 1 , a Yuri anthology in which I found basically one good story. Today, we take a look at Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story, Volume 2 (百合☆恋), in which there is only one good story….and it becomes substantially less good.

In the second chapter of “Yuri ni Tanpopo” we learn more about Mizuho – how she’s a good girl, honor student, reliable and all those other horribly burdensome qualities that society praises, but does not reward. We also learn that Mizuho and Ena have been going out since Ena confessed her feelings. Inexplicably, this becomes a crisis. Kanae reacts as if Mizuho had said they were going out since Ena killed Mizuho’s dog or something. Mizuho acts like it’s a shameful secret and Ena overhears this conversation. It’s all awkward tension that night between the three of them and the next morning, Ena’s gone. I’m left with a story revolving around a plot complication that seems of no importance to me whatsoever and I have no idea why. Everyone’s unhappy, me and the characters…

There were, surprisingly, a few other readable stories, most of which stayed in that “discovering love” phase so beloved of doujinshi artists and fanfic writers.

The rest of the stories were the more typical unrealistic fetishtry one excepts from a Yuri anthology.

Now I’m in a quandry. Do I get get Volume 3, knowing that 1) I am only getting it for one story that 2) will probably suck, or do I give up on the series completely? I guess I’ll just punt like I did on the last two volumes and stick it on my Yuri Wish List on Amazon JP and feel like  failure for not being able to just stop.  ^_^;

Ratings:

Overall –  Frustrating, with moments of okay.

My very sincere thank to Okazu Superhero Dan P. for facilitating my passive-aggressive relationship with this series by sponsoring today’s review!