Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 21 (Part 2)

September 23rd, 2010

The second half of Volume 21 of Yuri Hime, begins with a chronological “Timeline of Yuri” which they begin in 1902 with the creation of the first magazine for girls to be published in Japan, “Shoujokai.” (少女界）

This is followed by interviews with and “Top 5” lists from the editors. I pretty much don’t agree with their choices in the top 5s, especially as many of them are Yuri by association or implication, rather than actually having Yuri content, and therefore, not very helpful to anyone looking for suggestions of what to read or watch. But they are an interesting glimpse into the editor’s collective minds.

Color pages highlight some notable Yuri kisses in anime, follwed by coverage pf topics of interest to the Yuri Network, such as the surge in Yuri manga in shoujo magazines and the Live Action Maria-sama ga Miteru movie.

Kazuma Kowo’s “Sayonara Folklore” come to a close in which the original premise of the “Monday curse” is addressed, neutralized and set aside, so that Mashiro and Nanase can live a well-deserved happily every after.

“Sore ga Kimi ni Naru” hits an expected lag, as You realizes how painful her existence must be to Amane and how much she wants to see Amane anyway, while Amane realizes pretty much the same thing about You. Sadly for them and us, they just miss each other and have to keep on wanting for another chapter.

Miura Shion’s essay is once again about a story with which I am unfamiliar, “Nami no Ue no Tsuki.” Time to do some shopping, I think. ^_^ This story has been reviewed by Erin S. on her blog, if you’d like a western perspective. (Thanks for the link!)

“Moso Honey” continues to be a love triangle comedy in which Nonoka, because her eyes are fixed on Nozomu-sempai, fails to see how Kanade looks at her.

The penultimate chapter of “Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen” in which it becomes apparent to us, Arare and Kiri that poor Pero needs to be returned to the world of the yokai. Will they make it in time? And what will become of Kiri and Arare? The series’ second volume is already out, so you don’t have to wait to find out!

“Lunch Box,” by Mitsue Aoki delves a little deeper into Yukari’s feelings for the woman who makes her her lunches with such care and devotion, with a little side-track into leopard-patterned underwear. :-)

A love letter treated with cavalier unconcern is a matter for contention between a third-year and the second-year school prince in what is quite accurately titled “Kobun Miman.”

The final letters section is a farewell from the avatars that have shepherded us through so many letters section. The book ends with a two page ad heralding the next phase of the magazine.

And so, hopefully, we set aside our childish things and look forward to the new iteration, the post-adolescence (we hope) of Yuri Hime magazine!

Ratings:

Overall- 8





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 21 (Part 1)

September 22nd, 2010

We’re right on the cusp of the big merge now. Here were are at Volume 21 of Yuri Hime. One more volume of Yuri Hime S and then they will combine like two galaxies, which I’m sure could be a really funky extended metaphor if I had an ounce of energy to do it. ^_^;

This volume begins with a interview with Shimura Takako, creator of hit Yuri series Aoi Hana. Questions about drawing Yuri, love between girls and the BL and Yuri audiences are asked and answered.  It’s very much a public figure interview, so don’t expect massive personal revelations or spoilers for Akira and Fumi, but as interviews go – it was a good one. Most interesting to me was the use of the word “Yuri” to describe the work and the audience. It might not seem like a big thing to you, but it’s been a decade’s worth of work for me. ^_^

“Renai Joshika” starts to tie up loose ends, as Himeno and Shiraha shed some baggage in order to be able to move forward together.

In “Watashi to Kanoujo” two girls are together, while in “Hoshitotsu  Bokuro” two girls are separated.

Shio’s hair is really pretty and Kanako loves to play with it, but when classmates are unkind about their friendship, Shio puts some distance between them, in “Yuri Yuri.” After a short, tense time apart, they decide that they’d actually like to become closer and the other girls can suck it up.

Takemiya Jin’s “Love Aroma” follows a student who can’t get the scent of the new teacher out of her mind.

The Black Cat Mansion series tries something totally different – two adult women! Kumi and Nozomu are a great couple and ought to be very happy together…but aren’t, until a visit to the Black Cat Mansion forces them to have the conversation they weren’t having, but needed to.

Next up is a “commercial message” from Furutsuji Kikka, the creator of Knife-Edge Girl on the critical topic of her characters’ bust sizes. Oh, and don’t forget to buy the book!

“Hime Koi” and “Para Yuri Hime” are both short and forgettable, and the pages that follow outline manga that won the most recent contest held by Ichijinsha. We can expect to see some of the newcomers in the upcoming issues.

Which brings us to “Love DNA Double XX” which is steadfastly not going where I thought it would, for which I am very, very thankful. Aoi and Sakura begin a duel over competing ideas of honorable behavior and do not conclude it quickly at all. In fact, I think I really actually began to like this story, when 20 minutes later they are still fighting – and their audience is getting tired and bored. ^_^  Does the end come in the shining flash of a sword – tune in next issue to find out!

Which brings us halfway and to the “Petit Yuri Hime” 5-year anniversary pamphlet. 5 years. That makes Yuri Hime the longest-running Yuri/lesbian-focused magazine in Japan. Something to be proud of, for sure!

In ten more years, when Yuri Hime turns 15 and Yuricon 20, I wonder what the Yuri landscape will look like?

Short overview today, because it’s been a really long day today. I’ll finish it up tomorrow!





Yuri Manga: Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesium, Volume 1

September 14th, 2010

Most folks, after spending years honing their craft, improve at whatever they set out to do. Some with marginal skills may never be great, but can at least reach “competent.” For instance, I was never going to be a concert clarinetist, but when I was practicing 4 hours a day, I got better.

Some people, though, become less good, for any number of reasons. There may be less of a drive to excel; time crunches, over-extension, professional commitments, life all take their toll on some people. And a few just run out of something to say. You can see this in bands, particularly. They start out life all young and angry and edgy, but by the third album extolling the virtues of fatherhood and married life you’re ready to vomit at the blandness of their work. ^_^

And some people…well, some people just get worse.

All of which is to say that the “creative” team known as Kaishaku has absolutely surpassed themselves in crappily executed crap with the creation of Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesium (絶対少女聖域アムネシアン).

I won’t bother summarizing the plot because, frankly, there is no point. The plot serves as the thinnest possible frame around a series of service-y violence, much of it sexual, against the ever-popular punching bags of Himeko and Chikane.

Amnesium is a blivet of a manga, filled to the brim with fetishes, rape, mostly-nude, but you know, not *totally* nude nudity, sexual harassment, more rape, more fetishes and more sexual harassment.

Kaishaku’s writing has regressed to the point that I either have to imagine them chained to desks, staring helplessly at an editor holding a whip, mumbling, “rape Himeko, okay, rape Chikane, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay” or sitting around in the asylum slavering. Because, frankly, this iteration is just…sad. Himeko had a sister Chikane, but she died and now a person who looks and sounds *just* like Chikane-oneesama, with the name Chikane, has arrived, but isn’t Chikane-oneesama, has unsisterly intentions, but may have been the one to kill her sister. /mumble/okay, okay, okay, okay/mumble/

The art is no better than it ever has been, so any action scene is hard to parse, but since they are all the same – attempted rape, Himeko’s and/or Chikane’s clothes are shredded (crotches are miraculously never visible, of course) fighting occurs, Chikane wins when Himeko commands her to – it doesn’t really matter anyway. Whee.

Ratings:

Service: 10

Overall: 2, but only so there’s somewhere down to go for Volume 2

Today’s book was sponsored by LFB-in-training and Okazu superhero Dan P.! You are so getting these Dan. You need them. You *want* them. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Fidanzato no Tameiki

September 13th, 2010

Fidanzato no Tameiki (フィダンツァートのためいき) by Tanaka Rin, is a collection of Yuri Hime cell phone comics that take place at “Himeyuri Jogakuin,” a fictitious school of the girl’s private variety.

Each story is a short “plot, what plot?” in which a short set-up is followed by sex. The stories vary in quality from the highly suspect first story (to which my reaction actually was “Augh!” at the suddenness of the moment the characters are making out.) Because these stories are short and focus on the sex, they have all the weakness and strengths of most fanfic – they may not be to your taste, but are quickly over. And they very, very much read like a Yuri Hime cell phone series.

The first story touches upon a cool, competent swim team sempai who is quite inexplicably wowed by the adorableness of an incompetent, blubbering kouhai.

The second story contrasts a beautiful, sweet-tempered, and easily distracted Student Council President and her long-suffering Vice President.

In what is probably my favorite story, “Restrizione” two members of the Fine Arts Club have little in common but their feelings for one another. Thinking about it, I probably like it best because the characters are closer to being equal in status than most of the characters in the other stories. I also felt that the sexual tension between them worked where in some of the stories, it was a hand-wave that we had to accept existed, but wasn’t actually there.

The next story covers pervy sempai/cute, incompetent kouhai territory with a Yuri take on “Beauty and the Beast.” The irony stick is a little heavy for this one, as Beauty’s final monologue is about loving the beast despite her being so different from everyone else.

A track sempai let’s the whole school know she and her kouhai are lovers – in no uncertain terms – in the fifth story. This one wasn’t too bad; there was a little jealousy-conflict that made sense in the context of the story.

In the sixth story, a teasing Literature club president seduces the quiet girl with her words.

And in the final story, a student of Astronomy considers her teacher a heavenly body (and yes, I realize I deserve to be beaten for that pun.)

I can’t say that I loved this collection, but other than the first story, I really didn’t dislike it, particularly. It is what it is – collection of cell phone “ecchi” Yuri.

Ratings:

Art – Call it 7 – sometimes I really like Tanaka’s art…other times not so much
Story – 7, except the first one
Characters – 5 They left no impression
Yuri – 8
Service – 8

Overall – 7

Because the title was a little awkward in Japanese, I did a bit of research. Fidanzato is “engaged” or “fiancée” in Italian, but it’s in the male form. The title ought to be “Fidanzata no Tameiki.” You think any one but me cares? (^_^)

Today’s thanks go to Okazu Superhero Dan P., for sponsoring this item from my Amazon JP Wishlist! It was pretty bad, Dan. But wait, because the next one…through the roof.





Yuri Manga: Ebisu-san to Hotei-san

September 10th, 2010

Ebisu-san to Hotei-san is one of the several Tsubomi series that have made it to a collected volume. Unfortunately for me, I felt it was full of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Hotei-san is a woman working in a largish company. Not as a OL, she’s a regular worker bee. Also working for the company is Ebisu-san, a woman who has lofty career goals. Because she is focused and driven – and because she leaves every day at 5 o’clock on the dot – the other women in the office are, predictably, resentful and bitchy about Ebisu-san.

At first, Hotei is convinced that she too can’t stand Ebisu, but as she gets to know more about the other woman, she finds herself admiring her. And, as Hotei is sort of accidentally drawn into Ebisu’s personal life and learns about the niece she raises when her sister doesn’t feel like being a mother (which is all the time,) she starts to have totally unprofessional feelings for her.

The end of the book is more implication than explication. We understand that Hotei and Ebisu are a couple now, but there’s a certain coyness in the way it’s handled. As an omake, we see the relationship a few years later from Ebisu’s niece’s point of view, trying to explain that she has three mothers – her mother, her aunt and her aunt’s “friend.” It was sweet, but left me just as unsatisfied as the rest of the book with the coy “I just can’t explain it” thing.

The other problem I had with this book was *utterly* absurd. (You might see the above as absurd, especially if you love this series. This next thing *I* see as absurd too.) I was entirely vexed by the pointless puns in the characters’ names.

Ebisu-san’s full name was Ebisu Mayo. The word for “shrimp” in Japanese is Ebi, so Ebi Mayo – Shrimp Mayo. That’s just dumb. I know parents give their kids horrible names all the time. Why do writers do that to their characters?!?

The other pun is just…. Ebisu and Hotei are 2 of the 7 “lucky gods,” the shichifukujin . I’d say I draw the line at slashing the gods, but I’ve done it, so forget that. I dunno, I just think you have to draw a line – you don’t write Arjuna x Krishna BL and you don’t slash the Shichifukujin. ^_^

The book itself is attractive enough and if you either like the art, or this particular spin on “Story A” the content is good. I happen to feel that it’s a lot of something over nothing and all handled extra super delicately and coyly as if the topic was really too hot to actually touch. I like me my “love between adult women” but this really just lacked substance for all the tears that were shed.

My favorite scene was when Hotei was asking herself, if this person was the opposite sex, and older by a few years, what would I be calling these feelings? I thought this a nice, concise way of summarizing the whole story.

Ratings:

Art – I wasn’t terribly impressed. YMMV, but I say 5
Story – 5 There’s this woman, and she likes another woman. And the other woman likes her back. The End.
Characters – 5 “Evil bitch”- i.e., woman focused on her work – has backstory that makes her lovable. How original
Yuri – 5 Breast grope /= Yuri
Service – Given the character design for Hotei, I’m going with 7

Overall – 5

Now, having sat through all that, here’s the good part! Today’s review was sponsored by the lovely and generous AudioErotica, who not only bought a copy for me to review, she donated extras! So, along with my review copy, we have *3* copies of this book to give away!

In the comment you’ll find entries for a previous contest in which contestants came up with the most horribly punny one-line Yuri story they can manage. Enjoy. ^_^