Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Koudou Ryou no Seizana Hibi, Volume 1 (黄道寮の星座な日々)

June 9th, 2024

A blonde with short hair in a white school uniform and beige cardigan, embraces a brunette with pigtails, who reaches out towards us. Both smile as they look at us, surrounded by small cute girls representing the Zodiac signs at the Zodiac Dorm.One again, this review comes with a story. I was standing in Animate in Shibuya and saw a book I had been meaning to read for a while, so I nabbed it because it was one of the featured titles. Well, I got home and found that I had purchased Volume 2 of this series, so it was going to require me to get and read Volume 1 first.  As it turns out, I was incorrect – I absolutely could have started with Volume 2 and just jumped right in, but I didn’t know that yet. ^_^

So Bookwalker to the rescue, which is where I purchased Koudou Ryou no Seizana Hibi, Volume 1 (黄道寮の星座な日々) by Canno, creator of Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl.

A young woman comes to the “Zodiac Dorm” where every resident is referred to solely by the Zodiac sign they represent. Our protagonist arrives to explain the she intends to be the next Virgo. She seems passionate, and competent and all she needs to do is get the approval of all the other 11 (no Ophiuchus here) residents, which necessitated Virgo meeting all the other signs, being dragged into their drama and solving several conflicts before breakfast.  The rooms in the dorm accommodate two people, so there are some love affairs and personality conflicts. As far as I can remember Scorpio and Taurus are dating and, I think, Aries and Sagittarius.

And then, there’s Gemini. Gemini is…well Gemini. I’m not hugely into astrology, but if you know a Gemini, you know this Gemini.  She’s a human boundary violation. ^_^ And at the end of the tour, she rejects Virgo. Why? It’s a Mystery!

Only, it isn’t really and about then I realized I could have just read Volume 2 and have known exactly what was happening. No worries though, there’s nothing wrong with a little predictability. I’m watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix, I feel like it’s the equivalent of watching a Shaw Brothers movie (including the masterwork 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which is a must-watch for fans of the genre) – every line is pretty much predictable, every “reveal,” every scene. It’s okay to relax into that kind of thing and just let it wash over you.

What is Gemini’s deal? Who is the “Alice” that Virgo was told to protect by her older sister? Yeah…it’s the same story.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Not Canno’s best
Story – 7 Same as above, but that’s okay
Characters – Exactly as you’d expect
Service – 0 Unless you have an astrology kink
Yuri – 9

Overall – 7

So Volume 2 is awaiting me, but I’ll be shocked if I am shocked. ^_^ In the meantime, as the worst Virgo ever, I absolutely approve this Virgo as the new resident of the Zodiac dorm.





Assorted Entanglements, Volume 4

June 7th, 2024

A woman in sweatsuit and a girl in a school uniform sit close in a classroom as the sunset turns golden in the windows.by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

In the previous volume of Assorted Entanglements, a new couple joined our problematic posse with the 3rd year high school student Sugimoto and her perpetually maidenless gym teacher, Kujou. Everybody else is still on their normal bullshit.

Assorted Entanglements Volume 4, brings something that was sorely needed to the series: character development. No, really! The series up to this point was content with short four-page chapters that loosely hung together but were mostly setups for gags. About a third of the way through this volume, Mikanuji-sensei starts writing longer chapters that expound more on the girls’ histories and their evolving connections to each other. It’s something that I would not have explicitly asked for, but it greatly benefits the whole package.

Minami has a flashback to the time she spent with Shizuku after getting out of the child services facility, which prompts a crisis of confidence. Nevertheless, she continues to think only of Iori and how she might leave her someday. After another open-handed peptalk from her older lover [sigh], Iori admits that she is a terrible person (true!), but she says that they would not have met if either one of them were normal. It’s almost touching!

Elsewhere in the city, a meaningless spat between Shizuku and Saori* leads to the two girls not talking for some time. Shizuku, never one to be fully honest with herself, finds herself feeling lonely enough that she goes out of her way to patch things up by laying out her point of view for Saori: that she is a fundamentally broken person who cannot relate to “normal” people, and thus despises them. Saori accepts this, finding common cause as maladjusted girls with twisted, unfulfillable loves. It’s kind of endearing!

Kujou’s girlfriend quest hits a snag as she gets a harsh dressing down from the cantankerous manager of the lesbian bar. Sugimoto is still trying to push her along, her last act in the volume being to offer her teacher an aquarium date as a “girlfriend test” (we all knew this was coming). We do find out in a bonus chapter that Sugimoto found the gig at the maid cafe after finding herself too gripped with panic to deal with the social stressors at school, and that seeing Kujou outside the bar everyday gave her the motivation to go back to class. It’s nearly sweet!

While all the other couples are angsting it up, Heke-san and Shinohara are still slowly circling towards each other like a binary star system. They are still the most wholesome couple here. It’s refreshing!

You may be detecting a theme here. With some space to stretch out, Mikanuji-sensei is able to add more contour to the characters and, despite all of my kvetching and faint praise, there is a core here that I do indeed like about this series. It’s still a hard recommend, but if you’ve stuck it out through three volumes already this one is worth picking up; it’s the best the series has been so far.

Art – 7 No major changes here, but Shizuku does give one the best “silent seething rage” faces I’ve seen put to page
Story – 8 It’s not going to win an Eisner but at least it’s trying
Characters – 7 Everyone’s schtick is firmly established here, yet there is some growth
Service – 2 Points are mostly for Minami’s tattoos
Yuri – 9 / LGBTQ – 9 Kujou gets a lesbian dating app

Overall – 8 Normality is overrated

Volume 5 of this ensemble story of Sapphic misfits is coming our way in June.

*I hadn’t noticed until recently that while the localization by Eleanor Ruth Summers has been excellent, Iori’s sister’s name has ping-ponged between Shiori and Saori throughout the series, even within the same volume. It’s an odd editing miss. Either may be technically correct, but after some discussion in the discord we have decided to go with Saori.

Matt Marcus is a serial enthusiast whose range of appreciations include guitars, watches, and a particular genre of Japanese popular media named after a flower. Outside of writing for Okazu, he cohosts various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, where he frequently bloviates about video games, anime, and manga. He also hosts a blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.





Comic Yuri Hime June 2024 (コミック百合姫2024年6月号)

June 6th, 2024

From within an ornate gold frame on a dark green background, two girls in dark red school uniforms with whit collars look up and out from a window into a rainy garden.Teenager angst is such a staple of fantasy literature that we don’t really question is any more. We all know that been an adolescent is fraught, (complicated, unnerving and frustrating) as well as full of unknown excitement and opportunity. So of course it’s a fertile area for queer and queer-adjacent works to suggest alternatives to this reality. Comic Yuri Hime, June 2024 (コミック百合姫2024年6月号) begins with one such new story.  “Genjitsu Sekai Demo Shiawasenishite Kudasai Ne?” follows Machino, a girl who is deeply, obsessively a fan of manga. When the president of the manga club introduces her to an Isekai game in which she can play the love routes as a girl or a guy, she falls hard.  She plays the game over and over, playing all the routes as a girl. When the princess appears in her room one night and confesses to her, things are (clearly) gonna get wacky.

This is followed by “Gakeppuchi Reijou ha Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!” in which a hapless princess is trying to find the way to her heartless Black Knight fiancee’s heart through…food. A time-honored strategy.

Shiho *finally* has her come-to-god moment! It’s really about time, She’s just been so intolerable. Now she’s merely annoying in a totally normal way, in Takeshima Eku’s “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Uta.” In case you’re watching the anime and wondering if she ever gets less appalling Yes, eventually.

Still REALLY liking “Salvia no Bouquet” with its focus on finding joy and sharing emotional bonds through magic. There is a lot of fntasy in the magazine right now, as I have pointed out, so it’s good that some of it is…nice.

I have a lot of big feelings about “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” by Miman. Kanako has come to some important conclusions for herself but in doing so, has still forgotten that Sumika is on her own journey. I am  – as I have been all along – hoping that the to of them can be sisters to one another in a supportive way.

In “Odoriba ni Skirt gag Naru,” Shion is finally given space to think about her relationship with Kiki. My hope for them is that they lean into a friendship based on healthy competition.

Kodama Naoko’s “Utsotsuki Hanayome to Dousei Kekkon-ron” is moving into it’s “crisis because we can’t have a conversation” phase. I’m sure all will be well, since as dark and bitter as her set-ups are, they tend toward fluffy endings.

Ciel  rips her father a new one in “Kiraware Majoureijou to Dansou Ouji no Kon’yaku” as a distraction (and confession) while the rest of the cast tries to figure out some clues to the dozen or so secrets laying around the story.

In “Ooto Gohan Wo Gossho Ni” food is bought and then prepared and eaten outside. Please the gods this story never develops a plot. It’s fine just the way it is!

“Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijo.” gives a Rae, Lily and Claire working for the Crown, but maybe against their fathers? and the infamous Mito Koumon reference, which I am pleased to note makes this the second Yuri manga to reference this series. ^_^

I have no idea where “Gan no Hime” is going, but I guess I’m okay with wherever it is. As basically the only scifi in the magazine right now, it is carrying a lot of weight for me.

And also of interest to me was this moth’s film review which took a look at Sakura no Sono – a 2008 remake of an earlier 1990 movie of the same name that I reviewed based on a manga by Yoshida Akimi, creator of BL classics Banana Fish and Lover’s Kiss.  Katherine Hanson reviewed the manga for Okazu,  I really enjoyed this movie when I watched and reviewed it in 2013, so click the link above to read my thoughts. ^_^

As always there’s a lot I read, but didn’t mention, or just didn’t read, but flipping through, I am reminded that I’m reading about half the stories here and enjoying most of those – and of those, I am enjoying very much, so that’s an excellent percentage.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

I’m back on my normal schedule now, reviewing one volume of Comic Yuri Hime just as the next comes in to the bookstore. It was nice being ahead for a month or two! ^_^ The July issue is on Japanese bookstore shelves now and, once again, waiting for me at Kinokuniya.





Cheerful Amnesia, Volume 2

June 3rd, 2024

A woman with short dark hair in onsen yukata stands open-mouthed and blushing at us, as a cheerfully gaping woman also in yukata with long brown hair stands behind her.In a review of Spy Classroom: A Glint In Monika’s Eye, Sean Gaffney said, “Generally speaking a large chunk of fiction, especially fiction written for drama and starring teenagers, revolves around one major problem: the entire plot would not happen if only the characters would communicate with each other.”

To which I replied to the universe at large as I began reading Cheerful Amnesia, Volume 2, “Not just teenagers.”

In Volume 1, we met Arisa, a woman newly aware after amnesia and her long-time love Mari, who is struggling with this new, oddly clueless girlfriend. In Volume 2 of Cheerful Amnesia, by Tamamushi Oku (also creator of I Don’t Know Which Is Love), the struggle continues, getting ever stupider and needing more and more imagining ridiculous complications by all parties to make it make any sense.

Dear readers, it never makes any sense.

It’s so senseless in fact that I considered just stopping midway this volume, as two adult women who share a home and a bed and mealtimes and all non-working hours of the day who just *cannot* find time to discuss their relationship after one of them had amnesia, was impossible to accept. It did prompt me to promise my wife of 41 years that if ever either of us had amnesia to just start from the beginning and not be like Mari.

Arisa I can kind of, almost forgive. In some ways she is a child again, relearning some things about life. There is no excuse for Mari, though. Imagining insane complicated nonsense instead of just asking “what are you doing?” is not funny. It’s deranged.

What is meant to be comedic but I found intolerable, was that they both want each other. They already live together and are lovers. There was literally nothing standing in their way, except a tortured plot device that screamed for help from every panel.

Thankfully, before this volume ended they have a fucking conversation. But they still don’t have sex. How hilarious. Will a conversation be enough to save the story? I guess we’ll find out as a copy of Volume 3 has landed on my doorstep and awaits reading. ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – 7 Noticably better than the first volume
Story – Maybe it will be better next volume
Characters – They are adults who need to grow up already
Service – Nudity should not be gasp-making, but amnesia, so it is
Yuri – 9

Overall – 7

If pointlessly unresolved sexual tension as comedy is your thing, then this series ought to tickle you pink. Jen McKeon’s translation does good work with Arisa’s endless cheerful cluelessness and Mari’s unshakable ability to guess wrong about mostly everything. Chiho Christie’s letter manages to retouch as often as possible, and uses a lot of bold, as Arisa….heavy sigh…shouts…almost every other page.

Fingers crossed that next volume moves forward a bit.





This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Volume 1

May 31st, 2024

Two girls in sailor-style school uniforms stand on a bridge in front of the Seto Inland Sea. A girl with reddish brown medium-length hair wears long sleeves under her summer uniform, hands clasped on her school bag. The other girl stands on the outside of the bridge railing, leaning on one arm, face in one hand. This Monster Wants To Eat Me, Volume 1 is a tale that is creepy and dark and yet somehow full of kindness, set in a seaside town on Seto Inland Sea in Japan.

It is one of the best manga series I am currently reading.

Hinako has some event in her past that has kept her from participating fully in life. Her best friend Miko is relentlessly cheerful and kind, but when Hinako encounters a girl who is decidedly not human, her quiet, featureless life begins to change.

Shiori is not, as she notes, a human, but as a human she is bewitchingly beautiful. She is also quite deadly, when she protects Hinako from threats around her. Most notably, Shiori is interested in eating Hinako…just not yet. What Shiori does not realize is that Hinako would welcome death as a respite from a life burdened with extraordinary loss.

The tone here is the kind of crawling psychological horror I quite like. There is violence here and we are meant to be frightened by it, and I’ll CW this series for suicidal ideation, but both are presented more as a overwhelming sense, than as an action. This book offers chills up the spine, rather than jump scares and gross violence. With it’s seaside setting it’s almost Lovecraftian in tone, without, y’know, the racism and xenophobia.

Caleb Cook offers up an amazing bit of translation work here, he second this week after yesterday’s rave review. You can almost hear the the soft sigh of the ocean in Shiori’s voice and the yap of Miko’s effervescent jollity. Bianca Pistillo’s lettering is in Yen house style – so, subtitling the sound effects rather than retouching – but there are places where her touch is quite subtle, such as the moment when the word “uncomfortable” is lettered in a way that feels off-balance and, yes, uncomfortable.

I reviewed this volume in Japanese in 2021 – every volume since has been amazing. I’m completely hooked. I have been begging Yen to license this series, so you can imagine how happy I am that they have and that you can read it, as well!

Ratings:

Art – 8 Intriguing and dark
Story – 8 Intriguing and dark in different ways
Characters – 7  There are depths we have yet to see (didn’t want to say “intriguing and dark” again, but…)
Service – Blood. Violence. Monsters From the Deep. Secrets.
Yuri – Miko is possessive, Shiori is infuriating, Hinako is infatuated

Overall – 8

This Monster Wants to Eat Me is a creepy-shivers up your spine story about a girl who didn’t die and all the supernatural creatures who either want her dead…or want her alive. This book is hitting shelves in June, so grab it now for a perfect beach read – presuming you like your beaches populated with deadly threats and supernatural creatures.