Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 3 (Part 1)

February 7th, 2006

It’s that time again! Time for me to sing the praises of the newest issue of Yuri Hime. And in this case there’s not only alot to praise, but some things to smirk and choke at, as well.

Starting, as I am wont to do, with the cover – for the first time in a really, really long time, it depicts Chika and Haruna from the serial Hatsukoi Shimai together. With the Drama CD for that series coming out later this month, and the end of the first part of their story later in the magazine, it was a fitting choice. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get Akiho and Touko for the next cover. I pray that it is so.

The first comic in this issue is the new serial, “Simoun”, which is slated for an anime later this year. The story of Simoun is a “speculative fiction” (what I’ve always called sci-fantasy, but I am, I have been informed, well behind the times in my labeling.) In the world where “Simoun” takes place, everyone is born female, and at their fifteenth birthday chose whether to remain female or become male. We begin the manga with a moody, pouty “Princess” Neviriru confronted by newcomer Aeru. Aeru asks Neviriru why she doesn’t fly, at which a cool, older butchy type scolds Aeru and walks her Princess away. We get some overview of the world, and the reasons that these girls must fight in fantasy mecha aircraft thingies, etc, etc. Ultimately Aeru finds Neviriru, and they fly. Happy, happy.

I was not overwhelmed by this story so far, but at least in part, it’s me. I’ve gone waaaaaayyyy off fantasy and I am never 100% in love with yuri stories where the protagonist may or may not be a woman. In this case, as the manga is running in Yuri Hime, I think we can be at least mostly certain that Aeru will (she hasn’t chosen yet, but she wants to fight and to do so must remain female.) I also found everyone’s clothes distressing, but the color page art is pleasant and watercolor-y. But I will withhold any real judgement until I’ve seen a few chapters, to know where its going and how it gets there.

The second story was a three-page preview for a new series starting in the next issue, “Tokimeki Mononoke Jogakuen”. From these three pages, I really am looking forward to it. It adds an extra measure of silly to the usual girls school story…all the students are non-human. Our heroine, who looks perfectly human, is actually a rain fairy. That’s all we can see from these three pages, but it looks like fun.

Morinaga Milk’s newest entry is once again following Hitomi and Nana. “Chocolate Kiss Kiss” brings us to Valentine’s Day at this particular all-girl school. Nana is surprised to find that all her classmates are unashamedly giving chocolates to female sempai (and girlfriends, unbeknownst to her…). She considers making chocolate for Hitomi, but fails at the hand-made part. In a discusion with Hitomi, Nana learns that , unintentionally, she hurt Hitomi last year by not realizing that the chocolates Hitomi was making were really for her. Nana feels terrible, and makes it up to Hitomi by, Hitomi suggests, giving her something sweeter than chocolate.

I like these two in general – and I’d like to see “next steps” manga for some of the other couples we’ve been shown as well. Nana’s unintentionally causing Hitomi emotional wounds reads as fairly accurate to me (even if Hitomi has to be a bit too patient and understanding.) And of course, the art is both cute and sexy in turn.

“One Room” by Mucchiri Muunii is very much the kind of story I don’t care for. In a nutshell, it’s a story in which one girl’s desire for the other must be forced out of her by a confrontation/forced kiss. This is exactly the same mentality that gives us the kind of yaoi stories in which the uke has to be raped to “understand” his feelings. But don’t let my rant fool you – this story is not nearly that extreme. Seme girl, Tsubaki, invites herself over to uke Umi’s room to stay over because she knows that Umi lives alone. Tsubaki forces a confrontation, but when Umi runs away, prepares to leave – at which Umi asks her to stay and admits she’s right, she does like Tsubaki. Gosh I just love passive-agressive manga…. Anyway, the art is not to my taste, but I’ve seen worse.

At last, we get to seen the final chapter of “First Kiss” by Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki. Ryouko gets an email message from Ayano on the evening that she is to meet her fiancee’s parents. She kisses him goodbye and runs back home, to find Ayano on her doorstep. Ayano screams at Ryouko that she’s loved her all along, and Ryokou screams back, her too. It was actually kind of a funny scene. Anyway, they fall into bed, and assumably live happily ever after. Cut back to school, where Takashima, the student from the first scene (and from the story “Female Wolf” before that)is about to leave the Doctor’s office. Ryouko tells her, in short, that what’s she’s feeling is love – and to go for it. Look for *that* story to continue next volume.

More color pages – this time for the climax of “Hatsukoi Shimai.” Haruna suddenly develops a personality and defends Chika publically against the charge of cheating. Unlike the Koi Shimai Drama CD, in which it was the teacher who accused her, and Chika had to take a make-up exam, in this case its just a jealous Teshigawara whose made the accusation. Teshigawara gets dissed by the other students, and of all people Akiho has to tell her that she understands how she feels. Trust me – Akiho isn’t any happier about it than we are. To celebrate, Chika and Haruna go out to a cafe for souffle’. In a scene also not in the original Drama CD Haruna admits to Chika that in the past, she also had a much admired sempai, but was basically told that, as cute as she was, she could hope for nothing more. It broke her poor little heart, which is why she was so cold to Chika. Whatever. But the completely out-of-character end of the story is the same, as Haruna, in public, leans over and licks souffle’ from Chika’s face, causing the younger woman to explode. This will also continue next issue – and keep your fingers crossed that it’s the much better arc where Touko-sensei arrives.

This takes us roughly half-way, and I’m home sick today with fever, etc., so I think I’ll stop here.

As always, you can get Yuri Hime 3 from Amazon Japan through the Yuricon Shop – and your support is greatly appreciated, believe me! Feel free to come over to the Yuricon Mailing List to chat about the series in Yuri Hime or other fun Yuri anime and manga!





Yuri Manga: Broken Angels, Volume 1

February 2nd, 2006

Today’s review is once again by Sean Gaffney, because I am utterly exhausted and seem to be coming down with a cold. Sean is my hero.

Just got a new manga from Tokyopop, Broken Angels, by Setsuri Tsuzuki. The basic premise is that a girl at the local high school has incredible power to control water, and uses it when solving the problem of those around her, or defending herself against threats. She’s intriguing, and insists on dressing in the male uniform, but has all the sexuality of a throw rug.

However, then there’s the Class President. She has the best grades in class, is gorgeous… and is completely insane. After dedicating herself to the heroine after the first chapter, she proceeds to try to lure her to bathhouses, and dresses in the school nurse’s French Maid outfit (?!) to feed her lunch. I will admit she’s not 100% lesbian; when a guy accidentally gropes her breast, she responds by groping his crotch. She also declares herself a fan of group sex. She is a huge freakey freak, and I haven’t immediately loved someone as much as I do her in quite a while.

There’s a little more yuri in the book later, as an underclassman gets a crush on the heroine and demands they exchange class pins.

This isn’t the focus of the book, of course. The focus is our heroine, her amazing powers, her mysterious past, and hiding this from the rest of the world. The yuri is used as a comedy spice. That being said, it achieves an excellent balance by doing so, and I found the first volume read very fast. There are apparently five volumes of this series (Kowarehajimeta Tenshi Tachi in Japan), so I definitely look forward to more.

Recommended. And yes, there’s nudity, so throw in a highish service rating as well. :)

–SG

Once again, thank you Sean! This sounds like a lot of fun and I’ll be sure to look for it.





Yuri Manga: Strawberry Shake Sweet Volume 1 (ストロベリーシェイクSweet)

January 30th, 2006

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be able to review the first volume of Strawberry Shake Sweet. Here are some of the reasons why I think that this manga is particularly important:

1) It’s the first time that Hayashiya Shizuru has professionally published a volume 100% Yuri story, for an audience of Yuri fans. It’s not like she hasn’t written tons of Yuri into her works, both professional and doujinshi, but this is the first time that a professional story by her has Yuri as the target genre.

2) This volume is explicitly *marketed* as a “Girls Love” comedy, with a cover obi that reads that “Girl falls in love with girl at first sight!!” Yuri has, of course, been marketed as Yuri in the past…but that was and is usually explicit Yuri for a primarily male audience – this is fun Yuri for a primarily female audience. (I got that info firsthand from the editor of Yuri Hime, so you’ll have to trust me on that.)

3) This is one of the first manga volumes put out by Yuri Hime Comics, collected from the body of Yuri Shimai and Comic Yuri Hime magazines. It’s a very decent showing. Large-size format makes it easy to read, the color pages that appeared in Yuri Hime are reproduced (instead of that yucky dark black look that many color pages turned B&W get.)

All in all – this volume marks a significant movement forward in establishing Yuri in Japan as being both *by* women and *for* women. Something that I feel fairly strongly about. :-)

Okay, so let’s move on to the actual manga. I’ll pretend that neither you nor I am familiar with the story, just as an exercise. Strawberry Shake Sweet is the story of young pop idol Tachibana Julia who, at 16, is both popular and busy in her entertainment career. She is asked by her agent (a dorky little guy) to take a new upcoming talent under her wing, show her the ropes, etc. Julia objects flat out. She’s no dummy – and this new kid would be her rival. There’s no *way* she’s going to train up the person who might end up stealing her career!

That is, until she opens the office door and finds herself face to face with Asakawa Ran, the tall, attractive upcoming new talent. Julia does a complete 180 and demands to be the new kid’s mentor.

The next few chapters cover the utterly psychotic way in which Julia, tormented by her desire to be near Ran, but also to keep herself distant, treats her poor junior. Ran, luckily, is a little doofus-y, and starts to assume Julia’s mania is really a form of tough love.

It’s not until their overstressed manager, Saeki Ryouko points out that Julia’s in love with Ran (after carefully pointing out that a girl/girl scandal would NOT be good for anyone). Julia, who had no idea that she was in love, is both relieved and energized. Now she has a name to put to this insane feeling! Saeki immediately regrets mentioning it at all.

Saeki is the series’ constant “straight man”. She fends Julia off of Ran, beauty parlor owner/operator, lesbian and former classmate Shinjou Kaoru off herself, and generally is the butt of many a gag. I quite like her – and the fact that she’s clearly a lesbian magnet. Not only is Kaoru openly desirous of her, Saeki’s junior in talent management is also wanting her pretty badly. Surrounded by lesbians as she is Saeki starts to wear down…eventually. But we’ll get there later.

Also contributing to the high lesbian quotient is Ryou, the lead singer from “hyper visual band Zlay.” Zlay has four members, all female, split into two couples. Ryou’s partner is Goth-Loli Reki, the creepy cute doll-like synth player. Ryou pops into the story suddenly and quite literally sniffs out Julia’s desire for another woman. But later, when she meets Ran, crushes Julia’s hopes by saying that Ran does not have the scent of onnadoushi. (Don’t worry – Ran later tells Julia that she is an important person to her. And let’s face it – it’s a girls love story. They’ll get together…*eventually.* lol)

Last, and kind of least, is babydyke Haruna, who is another idol, but a year younger than Julia. She is out and out in love with Kaoru, who doesn’t dislike the attention one bit. (In fact, in the most recent chapter from Yuri Hime, it’s fairly obvious that Kaoru and Haruna have a genuine thing going on, as Kaoru shows up drunk at Saeki’s door to complain about her relationship with Haruna.)

By the end of Volume 1, Ran has made Julia happy, sad, pychotic and elated about a thousand times, and the two of them are so inevitably growing closer, that you can just *see* Saeki wilting and her ability to keep the two of them apart starting to break down. But more importantly, Ran’s big debut has arrived at last and both Julia and Ran are left alone, desperately desiring to see one another – but holding back to try to be strong. And the maddening thing is – this takes us to the last chapter but one, and I don’t know what’s going to happen!!! Arrrrgghhh!!! (The last chapter was a New Year’s gag issue, so we’re still waiting to find out how Ran handles her debut for an art magazine.)

Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 3

Overall – 8

If you’re familiar with, and like Hayashiya’s art style, you’ll be familiar with, and like Strawberry Shake Sweet. It’s the same kind of physical humor, gags, bops on the head, nosebleeds and the like that you’ll find in her doujinshi as Jesus Drug, and her professional art in series like Hayate Cross Blade.

Oh, and gosh – a story of a lesbian pop idol…now where have I heard THAT before? Just for the record, Shoujoai ni Bouken came *first*. ^_^

If there’s one down side to this story it’s got to be that Yuri Hime is, at this point, quarterly. Which means we can’t expect a new volume for at least two years! Sob…





Yuri Manga: Air Master, Volume 26

January 13th, 2006

Sorry about being away so long, but I needed a break from doing mostly everything – and a long holiday weekend celebrating the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King and the people who believed in his dreams and made them real, was a perfect fit for my much-needed R&R.

So, well-rested and relaxed I come back to the topic of Yuri. I haven’t mentioned Air Master in a very long time. The manga and anime both have Yuri in the form of Mina and her overt love and desire for our heroine, streetfighter Maki. I suppose some people could argue that Maki doesn’t return the feeling, but I really would have to disagree – there are several scenes in the manga, especially, which convince me that she does. She’s just a doofus and not the kind of person to even admit it to herself. I trust Mina to wear that down eventually.

In any case, the anime ended some time ago, and while it was licensed, will not be released here in the US past Volume 3. Geneon is not shipping Volume 4…although I am not sure they have officially announced that. I know through back channels.

It may surprise some of you to know that long after the anime finished, the “Fukamichi Ranking” arc of the manga is not *yet* complete. In fact, Maki, who lost her battle with the ranking number one fighter, Byoubou, has been all but absent from the manga for the last several volumes. Sometimes we would see her nearly unconscious body in the distance. Last volume she moaned. In this one, she manages to ask Miori to massage her limbs so she can try to move again. In the meantime, we are focusing on one of the most agonizingly dull fights ever – five of the fighters trying to take down Byoubou. Of them, only Kai is marginally interesting to me.

I guess I’m not the only person who complained that the manga is called Air Master and why are we watching five fighters who are not Maki endlessly?, because in Volume 26, we are given an omake story with not only Maki, but her four goofball school friends. In a game of “What do you want to be when you grow up?” not too many of them have a clue what they could actually become. Maki is at a complete loss beyond her immediate occupation. But Mina joyfully proclaims that she wants to be Maki’s wife, complete with fantasy image of blushing Maki in tux and Mina in bridal dress. Michiru and Yuu both proclaim that impossible and they move on.

There you go – the longest time we’ve spent with Maki in oh, about three/four volumes has a nice little Yuri moment inside Mina’s head. :-)

Ratings:
Art – 3 (I think it’s getting worse, if that’s possible)
Story – 2
Characters – Omake only? 8, Rest of volume 4)
Yuri – (Omake only 8, rest 0)
Service – 8

Overall – 5

I’m totally ready for Byobou to go away now….





Yuri Manga: Steady Beat, Volume 1

January 11th, 2006

As I mentioned on the Yuricon Mailing List, I’d been meaning to mention Steady Beat for a while, but just kept forgetting. In fact, I’d stare at my “to review” list and say, “Gee, wasn’t there something I wanted to add to this?” But thanks to Erin, and her review on her LJ, I am not only motivated, but have remembered long enough to mention it, at last. Thank you, Erin!

First off, this is the first “American manga” I’ve purchased (if you don’t count publishing Yuri Monogatari that is.) I bought my copy at Onna!, and didn’t get to read it for several months afterwards. The art is, IMHO, typical of American-style manga art, with more rounded everything, less clean lines, and an uneven grasp of panel structure. But it’s not unpleasant to look at.

The plot, such as it is, involves Leah, a slightly underachieving (compared with her perfect older sister, anyway) high school student finding a love letter addressed to her sister Sarai. The letter is signed “Love, Jessica” and it’s not a confession letter so much as a “let’s meet again in the usual place” letter. The first volume is built around Leah attempting to figure out what the deal with her sister is, while not getting in trouble with her over-protective and over-critical mother. Somewhere in the middle of this Leah ends up meeting a guy, which is assumably our eventual love interest. The volume ends with a dramatic confession by Sarai to us, out of Leah’s hearing that the answer to Leah’s question is “yes.” Said darkly and with great big sad eyes.

The book is not bad, really. It’s supposed to be a bit “wacky hijinks” and goofy, and there were definite funny moments. The complication of the perfect sister with the unforgivable flaw is a bit melodramatic, and I think it might be worth emailing the author Rivkah and asking her to make sure the girl gets the girl, as a preventative measure. :-) It’s hard to say whether plot and characters are developed – or even developable – as the first volume is short and no new volumes have been released as yet.

All that having been said, it’s a nice story, and I’m all for manga fans expanding their horizons and supporting non-Japanese artists…especially as this sort of thing is clearly the wave of the next decade.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 2

Overall – 6

If you’re looking for manga in English with Yuri themes, you could definitely do worse than this. ^_^