Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Orange Yellow

July 1st, 2010

We had been friends since childhood. After today we’re going to the same high school.

Embossed on the cover of Hiyori Otsu’s Orange Yellow (オレンジイエロー)
these simple words provide the driver of this collection of short love stories.

Myu and Jun have lived next door to one another since childhood. Myu has always been a bit of a doofus, but she’s a good girl and is totally loyal to Jun. And, she’s been telling Jun she loves her since they were little. Jun has always taken care of Myu. She once told her to go out with a boy if she wasn’t sure she liked him, so she could see if they clicked. But Myu never really clicks with any of the boys who ask her out – and she’s gone out with a lot of them. Jun surprises herself at how unhappy she is when she and Myu have a fight and is even more surprised when Myu kisses her that night after they make up. Jun tells Myu that their relationship has to stay secret, but Myu’s not so good at that and their “secret romance” is outed almost immediately. Jun gives in to Myu’s good-natured doofusy-ness good-naturedly.

Yamamoto-sensei once walked in on Mitsuki kissing another girl, but is shocked when Mitsuki graduates and becomes a teacher at the same school just to get an answer to her proposition from back then. Kei isn’t convinced that the “magic chocolate” her friend gives her can make her love her any more than she already does.

Ooishi falls in love with Mizuno, even when she realizes that Mizuno’s in love with their teacher.

In this collection of shorts by Hiyori Otsu, the same few scenarios are played from different angles by different  characters. It’s always pretty drama free in an Otsu collection and I, at least, find that and the almost complete lack of service refreshing.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 7

We walk hand in hand in the yellow morning sunlight,
and in the orange sunset…
What wonderful school days we spend together.

…reads the obi of the book. It’s as good a summation as anything I can come up with.





Yuri Manga: Shoujo Holic

June 29th, 2010

In Shoujo Holic (少女ホリック) Yui is an average middle-school student who suddenly finds herself in an awkward predicament when her parents inform her that they are moving to England. Yui decides that she will NOT be moving, come hell or high water, so she finds herself living with her very nice aunt out in the boondocks and attending her mother’s alma mater, a girls’ Catholic school.

(As an aside, it’s likely that if you total up all the nuns that make appearances in Yuri manga, they probably outnumber the amount of actual nuns in the whole of Japan by several orders. Just thinking out loud…)

On her first day, Yui meets, is befuddled by and befriended by Kaede, who strikes Yui as being rather monkey-like. She’s short for her age, energetic, tactless, has no boundaries and quickly becomes a very good friend to Yui. They grow closer as the book goes on, until suddenly Yui finds herself kissing Kaede – which throws poor Kaede into a tizzy. Kaede struggles with her feelings until Yui forces them both to confront the fact that they like each other…that way.

The rest of the book follows the reasonably natural evolution of a relationship. There’s nothing out of the pale for two girls in love, until their relationship is threatened not by graduation, but by Yui’s parents returning to pack her up and take her to England with them. In the only semi-significant handwave of the story, Yui and Kaede both take the exams to get into school overseas and move in together as roommates. A totally forgivable and acceptable handwave, I think, as it allows them to live happily every after. :-)

Aoii Hana’s art is not exceptional, nor is it terrible and it certainly was expressive enough to capture the emotions on display during this story. On its own, I’d probably not sing paeans of praise to Shoujo Holic, but compared to a lot of the Yuri Hime cell phone manga this story was sweet, sincere and pretty much right on the mark for a Yuri schoolgirl romance.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 7

I’m really over using “holic” in the title of a manga series, now. It’s time to let that one go, folks.





Yuri Manga: Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 1 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり)

June 25th, 2010

2010 has been good for Yuri in one way – there are even more Yuri Anthologies than ever before. Alongside of Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S and Yuri Hime Wildrose we now have more recent additions Tsubomi, Yuri Shoujo,  eclectic Rakuen Le Paradis and now, Hirari.

It will not probably come as much of a shock to learn that the bulk of the stories are focused on schoolgirls, with a few stories that touch upon the adult world. And, also not so surprisingly, the art doesn’t really ever communicate any adult sensibilities. In fact, one story made no sense to me until I realized that it was not, in fact, about schoolgirls, but about teachers. The certainly didn’t look like grown-ups, which complicated things for me.

Hirari, Volume 1 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) can be summed up in the line, “You don’t understand my feelings.” In many of the stories, one character thinks that the other does not like or love her the same way as she feels about her. In all of the stories they are wrong. This doesn’t mean every story is nothing but mindless repetition and I feel that there’s an actual effort to provide some variety in set-up and style. Unfortunately for readers such as myself, the lack of resolution beyond forehead touching/hand holding/smiling at one another means that, even though the stories are not *actually* the same…they still feel it.

Through no fault of its own, Hirari also lacks any really strong artists (I’m long past hoping for strong writers.)  Where Rakuen, Yuri Shoujo and Tsubomi (not to mention the Ichijinsha publications) all  have some popular doujinshi artists-turned-professionals, Hirari looks decidedly second-rate in comparison. I don’t hold that against the publication, though. There’s only *so* many excellent artists out there and everyone deserves a chance to pay their dues and learn how it works.

I admit that I did have to read the anthology through three times before any of the stories stuck with me, but a few have. The two teachers, one of whom is still dealing with a kiss between them from years earlier, a girl who needs sleeping pills to go to sleep, concerned about her friend who is happily sexual and seems kind of flighty, a story about pop idols that are forced to switch staff and a story in which the most visually striking piece is the cover page, as a girl arranges her shadow to make it look like she and her sempai are kissing.

While I did not fall head over heels in love with this anthology, I’m always willing to give a new publication the benefit of the doubt. So, if a second volume is published, I’ll probably get it.

Not “recommended” per se, but I’m not warning you off, either.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

The rating is a little lukewarm, and so was the anthology. I’m still looking for those stories between “Story A” and porn. A little passion wouldn’t kill this book.





Yuri Manga: Shitsuji Shoujo to Ojousama

June 16th, 2010

What’s not to like about a manga called Butler Girl and Senorhita? (English translation provided by the book cover, so don’t bother correcting me.) Well, sadly, in the case of Shitsuji Shoujo to Ojousama (執事少女とお嬢様) there was way more not to like than one might reasonably expect.

When I opened it up, I had already violated a few of my sanity-preserving expectations rules. I expected it to be light-hearted, I expected it to be fun and for some reason, heavens knows why, I expected it to have a good plot. Probably because of all the potential plots *I* might have chosen, most of them were fun and light-hearted and a fair number were good. So when I started reading and the plot immediately bogged down into depressing and emotionally torturing, I was not pleased. Nor was I amused.

Hinata is a nice, slightly lazy girl whose parents run away to another country to avoid a debt, leaving her behind. She’s offered a position working for the family that sponsors the elite girls’ school she attends, by the chairwoman of the school. She’s not thrilled but, it’s be a maid or live on the street, so Hinata agrees. Unfortunately, she’s a) not going to be a maid and b) not working for the lovely and cultured chairwoman, Tsugeyama Saori. Hinata is going to be a a) butler and b) be working for Saori’s younger sister, star of the school, Saki.

Even more unfortunately, while at school Saki is lovely, gracious and cultured, at home she’s a spoiled, tempermental brat with a sister complex. Hinata is thrown to this wolf, who quickly sees a chance at making someone with no power to fight back miserable…and does. Saki is horrible in every way she can imagine.

At the point where she drags Hinata in wearing long butler morning coat and a collar and chain, I really almost stopped reading. Shades of Maria + Holic and abuse of the weak as “comedy.” Ick.

I will says this for this book, every time it got *just* on the edge of intolerable, it pulled away quickly and found a not-horrible way to solve the problem. It was apparent that the creator had a strong sense of where that line was and why it should not be crossed. Nonetheless, the story kept veering close to that line, over and over. And over.

At school, Saki wants no one to know about the whole butler thing, but still insists that Hinata serve her…which makes it look like they are too close for comfort. The story comes out so at least Hinata’s best friend knows and can help them to preserve the farce.

Saori’s butler, Haruna (also female), tells Hinata that her Number 1 priority is to love her mistress and with that, Hinata works hard at not trying to keep up with Saki’s antics, but to lead her on the path of righteousness. It works. Saki stops acting out so much and starts to appreciate Hinata more. Using the old Cutey Honey maxim that all S&M Queens want, in reality, to be dominated, Hinata starts to dictate the terms of their relationship, all the while wrapping herself in the role of “butler.” In a chapter that should have been touching, but wasn’t really (for a lot of reasons) it becomes apparent that Hinata’s feelings are starting to approach more than just a butler’s love for her mistress.

When Saki’s admirer from another wealthy family, Sorako, arrives, things spiral downward fast, ultimately ending up in a shooting (no, you didn’t misread that – Sorako attempts to murder Hinata)  that makes Saki start to realize that Hinata means something to her after all. And in a grand finale that again, wasn’t really anywhere as near as wonderful as it could have been with loads of icky groping, fake kisses and other tediousness, Hinata becomes the prince to Saki’s damsel in distress.

And then the book ends in a massively unsatisfying non-joke. Sigh.

I spent the entire time it took me to read this ready to stop reading at any moment. With such hi-larious antics as beating up innocent Hinata, random men feeling up Saki in public, school bullying and other yucks, I felt half-brutalized myself through the series. I spent the entire time thinking how it *didn’t have to be this way.*

Ratings:

Art – Moe, of course
Story – Pissed me off
Characters – Coulda been contenders
Yuri – Gatchi Yuri
Service – Obviously

Overall – 4

It could have been a great book, with a fun fantasy setup and a happy/romantic/sexy butler and her mistress ending…only, it wasn’t. And it makes me kind of angry that it wasn’t. There ought to be a law that a love comedy should be free of demeaning sexual and emotional harassment. Sheesh.





Yuri Manga: Yuri Pop

June 14th, 2010

Yuri Pop, subtitled Girl*Girl stories, reminds me a lot of playing with dolls. Specifically the little SD characters one gets at arcades, or with candy.u

“Hi, I’m Miharu,” we say, moving the little toy back and forth so you know it’s “talking.”

“Hi,” someone else moves another little piece up and down while they speak in a ridiculous falsetto, “I’m Yuyu. Miharu, I like you.”

“Really?” we reply as if talking to a child, moving the little figurine in our hand. “I like you too!”

Then the two figurines are slammed together and each of us make a “mwah!” noise to indicate that the two plastic figures are now “kissing.”

Reading this book is just like this same scenario, with 10 little dolls. The stories we create are a little different and, because we’re quite creative, some of them are kind of fun. Is Haruka-sempai really stalking Yuki? (No, silly, she just wanted to get to know her better….) And what is with Erika and that white cape? (It looks cool, DUH.)

And in the end, we get all 10 dolls into the story and we have a good laugh and then Mom brings us cookies while we watch cartoons.

More importantly for me, Yuri Pop wins as the only Japanese manga I have ever read that uses the words, “Namby-Pamby” and “Herkimer Jerkimer.” In English. Spelled right. Used right. Which has to win some kind of award, really.

Ratings:

Art – 6, but what do you expect of SD characters?
Story – 8, surprisingly, for variety and fun
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 2

Overall – 8

Best page of the collection is the back cover. I stand agape with respect for the sheer freaking whimsy with which this utterly silly collection was built.