Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Anime: Hayate Cross Blade, Volume 2

March 18th, 2005

Could Hayate Cross Blade get any better? I can’t imagine how. Unless Hayate grows up suddenly and she and Ayana kiss passionately…but even without that, this manga still rocks. (And you know, thinking about it…I’m not sure they really work as a couple…)

At the end of Volume 1, we leave Ayana and Hayate, our newly paired shinyuu having just fought off 18 other teams to move up an entire rank in one huge, embarrasingly amusing randori. Hayate is speaking to her friend, fellow first year Momoka, one of the very few unpaired swordswomen in school, about just why she remains without soeur…woops, I mean shinyuu. ;-)

Momoka tells Hayate that she has a person with whom she wants be paired – her old sempai from her kendo dojo, Riona. Rio-‘nee is a year older and entered the school first. When Momoka entered, she relates in a heart-rending tale, she found Riona paired with an abusive older classman. At that *very* instant, the two appear and we see Riona’s partner haul off and belt her across the face! Shock! Momoka challenges the upperclassman to a duel, to rescue her beloved Rio-‘nee. Hayate is moved to tears…

In the meantime, since Hayate is helping Momoka train, Ayana is left in peaceful bliss to fend off her randy roommate Jun. Jun is our resident openly desirous best friend type, who makes no bones about wanting to jump this particular sempai, but Ayana isn’t interested. (Of course, she’s still pining away a little for Yukari, her former shinyuu. You can tell by her reactions everytime she runs into Yukari.)

Does Momoka win the challenge? What do you think…of course she does! But the outcome is nothing like Momoka expects, as Riona opts to stay with her current partner, since she’s really not as abusive as she seems and in fact, being slapped upside the head every once in a while refreshes her. Erm, yeah. (And man, Momoka was so kewl and princely as she fights for the woman she loves…sigh…stupid Riona.)

Which is where the fun *really* begins, because the only other unpaired girl in the school (not every student is a fighter, but if you are, you can’t fight without a partner) has been haunting Momoka trying to get her to team up. I use the word “haunting” quite literally. Inugami Isuzu is the CREEPIEST girl ever. The art for her is brilliantly funny, drawing on alot of current horror movies and standard traditional horror tropes that you will recognize immediately. She’s got an evil black aura around her head and even the way she moves and talks are creepy. To top it all off, Isuzu is clearly a witch. I adore Isuzu…she’s so skin-twitchingly awful. ^_^

After resigning herself to losing Riona, Momoka makes Isuzu’s physical appearance a little more friendly looking, which actually on serves to make her *more* creepy. Hayate dubs Isuzu “Wanko” (puppy girl, a play on her family name.) At last, Momoka and her new shinyuu can join the battle.

I cannot *wait* for Volume 3.

I mean, chicks with weapons, tons of yuri fun, almost no fanservice….no, really, I can’t think of any! Can you believe it? Hayate Cross Blade is a strong favorite so far for best manga of 2005. It’ll be damned hard to beat, anyway….





Yuri Manga: Hayate Cross Blade, Volume 1

March 14th, 2005

From Hayashiya Shizuru, the author of Strawberry Shake, Yuri Shimai‘s Yuri love comedy, comes Hayate Cross Blade, a delightful mixture of whimsy, action and lots of lovely Yuri.

(07/28/07: If you have come to this review after reading that Seven Seas has licensed the manga, please feel free to click Hayate x Blade for all my reviews of this series!)

*Special thanks to Touko_no_doriru-san, who told me about this terrific series! Thank you so much for the heads up!*

I probably shouldn’t even be writing this review yet, as I haven’t had a proper read-through of this manga – but it really is so wonderful, I wanted to rave a little. I promise to read it more thoroughly before I review Volume 2. ^_^

To put it simply, Hayate (the redhead on the left of the above cover) is a heroine of the uber-genki, out-of-control sort. (Readers familiar with Strawberry Shake can easily liken her to Julia.) Hayate’s sister was supposed to have attended a special elite school, but is unable to attend, so Hayate decides to masquerade as her. Of course, this ruse is quickly uncovered, but she is allowed to stay…on a few conditions.

The school is the sort that, had it ever truly existed, I would have moved heaven and earth to attend. ^_^ The girls all carry swords and rank at the school is attained by joining the “Star Taking” Hoshitori which basically means sword-fighting with the other girls to move up in rank. There appears to be compensation for high ranks – with a large prize at the very top.

Hayate lives with a young woman Chiharu, who runs an orphanage and who continually insists, quite forcefully at times, that she will marry Hayate. Hayate doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with this – she acts very father-like to the orphans. As it turns out, Hayate and her sister were raised there.

When she attends school, she immediately she runs into several problems. She falls foul of intemperate upperclassmen, of course. And the house she lives in is trashed by a greedy real estate agent. Along with the special circumstances of her being allowed to stay at the school, she now *needs* money and rank, so she joins the Hoshitori to attain both. In order to participate in the Way of the Sword, one needs a partner, so Hayate picks the most aloof, least attainable and easily the most skilled girl at school…a girl who was once the highest ranked ever who, for reasons that have many rumors attached to them, but no hard facts, has stopped being an active fighter.

Through sheer insanity, Hayate convinces this girl, Mudoh Ayana, to be her partner – but the Council makes one condition. Since Hayate is a beginner, they must both start from the very bottom of the ranks.

We learn very quickly that Hayate has some genuine innate hand-to-hand skills, even though her sword technique is rough, and that Ayana’s past history includes a deeply painful break-up with her former partner, now the highest ranked sword fighter in the middle school.

As you can imagine, this manga is filled with all *sorts* of hints about the relationships between the various partners, and there is overt akogare on Hayate’s part for her new uber-cool partner (which makes for a cute rivalry with Chiharu.)

Basically, you got the whole soeur thing going, with the addition of swords and fighting. This is very good thing, IMHO.  ^_^ In this case, the relationship is referred to as “shinyuu” which can be translated as both, “close friends” and “sisters-in-arms”.

The art is, again, familiar to anyone who has read Strawberry Shake, and the characters are all instantly likable. I definitely give this series a whopping big thumbs up.

Ratings

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Overall – 8

A solid entry to the Yuri lists, and one that I will follow with great enjoyment!





Yuri Anime: Maka-Maka, Volume 2

March 11th, 2005

Maka22After well over a year’s wait, the second volume of Maka-Maka is now available in print. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that this looks like the end of the line. The online version of Maka-Maka hasn’t moved past December 2004, so Volume 2 seems to be it. Unless the printed version is still running, and frankly, I’m too lazy to check. Feel free to do so and get back to me. ;-)

Volume 2 has color posters of Jun and Nene in poses that men seem to find attractive, but leave me wondering why and the usual hidden cover with naked girls underneath.

When we last left them, Jun and Nene were just on the cusp of a nearly monogamous relationship, looking forward to a bright future of lots of lesbian sex. Volume 2 follows our intrepid young protagonists as they gleefully enjoy sex in inappropraite public places and appropriately private ones. It would be all very nice if they didn’t drool so much. I am not a fan of bizarrely leaking bodily fluids, but I guess each to his or her own.

What is striking about this particular volume (other than the playing dress-up quality of it, which focuses as much on their clothes as any other one thing) as just how pathetic all the men in this series are. And yet, we are lead to believe that these two women still occasionally long for “the penor” as my language-impaired l33t young friends call it these days. It was okay, in the first volume, when it seemed Jun and Nene had, quite coincidentally, had miserable lovers at roughly the same time, which made them long for someone, anyone, better. In this volume, it seems as pretty much all their male lovers sucked – all their male lovers *ever* and pretty much every guy in the book comes off as a raging asshole.

But I’m kind of missing something somewhere when, after a string of abysmal encounters with men, they’re still sleeping with guys even though they are having not-at-all-abysmal sex with each other. I’m clearly missing something. Probably the requisite “penor.” If I had one o’them, it would make more sense…I guess.

Anyway, other than the drool and the guys, this was a pretty nice book. LOL I think it’s funny how Nene is such a crybaby, and I quite like Jun’s casual nihilistic style. Plus, she looked really cute in the kimono that Nene made for her. :-) This volume also includes each girl telling an angst-ridden backstory which explains their character. It’s not terribly convincing, but it makes a nice change of pace, and teaches us once again that (shock!) guys are assholes – a lesson about which I retain a healthy skepticism. If they were that awful, I can’t imagine that that many women would sleep with them – or maybe I’m overestimating straight women? I’ll leave that question for the philosophers.

Is it worth getting? If you like almost completely realistically portrayed explicit lesbian sex -yes. If you like sweet romance with flower-laden backgrounds -nope.

For what it’ s worth, I quite liked Maka-Maka Volume 2, even though they never sent me one of the scale figurines from Vol. 1. Boo hoo.





Yuri: Manga: YajiKita Gakuen Dochuuki, Vol. 25

February 4th, 2005

It always gives me great pleasure to be able to discuss one of my favorite series, but in this case, not only does YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki (YajiKita’s School Diary) have Yuri, this time its not just classic…it’s now.

I have reviewed this series before, once on January 13, 2004 and it even made my 2004 Top 10 of Yuri manga, and yet, hardly anyone knows about it, which is a crying shame, since it is truly a wonderful, wacky and Yuri-filled, girl-gang shoujo manga.

YajiKita originally went for 22 volumes, from 1984 to 1992. The plot was, basically, that two second-year high school students – blonde, cool Shinokita Reiko (Kita) and fiery tempered brunette Yajima Junko (Yaji) – move from school to school fighting corruption, Yakuza, bad gangs (as opposed to the good gangs which, yes, do exist in the story) and running into more ninjas and black-suited, sunglass-wearing men than you could ever have imagined.

Both Yaji and Kita have extraordinary hand-to-hand fighting skills, which they actually work on improving. Yaji’s family runs a dojo, so no surprise there, and Kita’s father is a police captain. They nominally work for the head of the eastern area gang association (Kantou Banchou Rengo no Souchou, for those of you who care) an exceptionally pretty rich boy named Yukiya, who looks like – but does not act or talk like – a girl. (One of the things you can absolutely guarantee in YajiKita is that the boys will often be as pretty as the girls.) Yuikya is served by an even prettier ninja boy named Kotetsu, who is always running around saving an even *prettier* ninja named Sagiri, whom I loathe. (Sagiri whines. Alot.)

In the beginning Yaji and Kita can’t stand each other, but after a dozen or so volumes that disappears. Sometime around the time Kita gets shot, Yaji realizes that she quite likes her partner…and Kita begins to act a little more possessive of Yaji, as well, often acting like her boyfriend. (Kita out of school uniform and without her glasses is seriously bishounen. People constantly think she’s a guy at first.)

There are about 877,636,345 other characters who linger in this series, so it would be hopeless to enumerate them all.

However, on to the Yuri. I’ve already pointed out in my earlier review that Kita is a girl magnet. Sometime towards the end of the original series, the mangaka threw caution to the wind and had Kita get a part-time job at a host bar. As “Rei” she danced with many a woman, and looked damn fine in a tux. Yaji even brought Misuzu, a girl that had honest-to-god fallen in love with Kita earlier in the series, just to watch her drool. Poor Misuzu was *dying* as “Rei” danced with the other women…and when one of them, a rich girl named Ruriko, goes so far as to *kiss* Kita, Misuzu is out of her seat and punching Ruriko faster than you can say “Hey! Get your hand off my Reiko!” :-)

Anyway, that was back in Volume 21 or so. About 12 years ago.

Last year YajiKita picked where they had left off 13 years before. With no interruption, no aging – no change at all, the next collected volume came out…as Vol. 23. In which not a single moment of time had passed. It was really charming and wacky. Not a single change had been made – unlike the New Hana no Asuka-gumi whioch had at least updated to include cell phones.

In Vol. 24, Ruriko, having had her desire for “Rei” thwarted for a decade and a half, (metaphorically speaking,) seemed even more determined to possess poor Kita. She concocted a variety of methods by which she tries to maneuver Kita out of her clothes and into a tux. Of course, I approve.

Which brings us to Vol. 25. Yaji and Kita are rushing around looking for a kidnapped (and escaped, yet still missing) Yukiya, and come across Ruriko and Tamehiko (another one of the many resurrected characters) at a pleasant little cottage in the country. Ruriko locks Kita in a room with her and slinks up to her “Rei” asking her to stay. Kita draws back and apologizes, telling Ruriko that she can’t work for her. At which Ruruiko is appalled. “Employee?” she keeps asking. “What are you saying? I want you to be my lover!”

I have to admit – I applaud Ruriko’s frankness.

Kita excuses herself…she’s not interested in women, at which Ruriko trots out the old chestnut that she doesn’t like girls either…she just likes “Rei.” Kita bails, but Ruriko is unfazed. I’m looking forward to the next plan she comes up with – all the others have been so wonderfully stupid. :-) And maybe we might just get Reiko back in that tuxedo!

In the meantime, however, Kita has been noticeably *there* every time Yaji faces unwanted attentions from men. Maybe Kita isn’t interested in women, but she might just be interested in Yaji. :-)

Okay, not. But I like thinking about it. ^_^

Anyway, despite the fact that you actually *do* have to read this series from the beginning to get what’s going on – Volume 25 offers yet *more* women who desire Kita-san, which keeps it in my top ten, even after 20 years.





Yuri Manga: Eve no Ringo/Eve’s Apple Manga, Volume 2

January 19th, 2005

Now *this* is good trash!

Eve no Ringo, (Eve’s Apple,) tells of the continuing misadventures of high schooler Kirika, an up-an-coming young manga artist, as she tries to break into the professional manga world. You may remember from Eve’s Apple, Volume 1, that she was hired by Blue Velvet, a S&M Ladies Comic.

In Volume 2, Kirika gets a brief chance to move into a much more popular shoujo manga magazine, but the Kind Editor’s offer is quashed by a self-proclaimed evil rival. Not content with simply trashing Kirika’s dreams, her rival, Mio, sends faxes to Kirika’s school, telling anyone who finds them what Kirika is doing in her spare time. Insane rival has fantasies of Kirika being gang-raped by drooling guys who assume that she’s a pervert. Instead, when she arrives, rival girl finds that mostly no one knows Kirika, except her small group of friend who think she’s plenty nice.

Why didn’t the faxes work? *Because*, they were faxed to the Doctor’s Office and the person who found them, the school doctor, LOVES Ladies Comics! She gets no less than 5 titles a month! She was so excited to meet Kirika, one of her favorite artists…and then she indulges in a spot of “seduce my favorite artist.” Apparently the school doctor is doing research on sex and what turns people on – and she gets Kirika right in the erogenous zone. But the doctor was only testing out her thesis, so poor Kirika is left gasping and moaning, but quite unfulfilled.

The crazy hardcore older mangaka Miyamae-sensei from Volume 1 seduces away Kirika’s best pal and “research” buddy Matsuda, which leads to a few moments of agonizing and confusion. And Evil Editor takes Kirika on a ride to explore the tawdry world of car sex. No, they don’t have car sex, you goofs. Although Kirika was worried there for a moment, too. ^_^

And, in the end, Kirika explores S&M with Yumiko, who doesn’t “get” it, but wants to make her boyfriend happy. Kirika ties Yumiko up, but she doesn’t enjoy that at all. However, when she’s got Kirika at her mercy – it all begins to make sense, now! And off Yumiko goes. So, once again, poor Kirika is left alone, gasping and moaning with nowhere to go.

Poor Kirika. That was the refrain all through this volume. This is, as I keep saying, utter, dire trash. But it’s funny and fun, and for crap, it’s pretty wonderful. :-)

I really hope Kirika gets some of her own in the next volume, I’m kind of feeling bad for her!