Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yoru to Umi, Volume 3 French Edition, Guest Review by Laurent Lignon

September 21st, 2022

Welcome back to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu, where we welcome back our French language Journaliste/Chroniqueur, Laurent Lignon. Laurent is finishing up this series for u s – don’t miss his reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2. Please give him your kind attention – the floor is yours, Laurent!

NOTE : this review is based on the French translation of the third and final volume of the series, Yoru to Umi, Plongée dans la nuit, released in stores by Taifu Comics http://www.taifu-comics.com/

“I learned the secret to let it go a long while back. If everything I held had to disappear at some point, then I’d be better if I’ve never cherished them in the first place.”

A third year has passed for Tsukiko and Aya, and both girls starts to think about what the future will hold for them and their relationship. Aya is sure they’ll keep some sort of contact, despite going to different universities, but has no ideas of what to do with her future life. Tsukiko feels the same, unsure of what she want to do but having already assumed that their relationship will stop when both of them will leave college.

This pushes the story in three different directions.

Aya understands what was already revealed to the reader in the previous volume: the swimming pool in which she spent most of her time is representing her teenage years, and she needs to go out of it and face newer swimming challenges to actually move on in her life. Having understood that, she’ll try to confront her greatest fear: swim into the ocean. And while that first ‘confrontation’ goes as humorously badly as expected, it helps Aya understand that it is time for her to enter adult life and carve her own path. However, she is not ready yet to leave Tsukiko behind.

On the other hand, Tsukiko finally unlocks from her memories the reasons behind her attraction to Aya. And, most importantly, why there is nothing more that she loves than to see Aya swimming. Having understood that, she also finds what her purpose in life will be but comes to the conclusion that her presence will prevent Aya from moving on with a life of her own. Thus, she takes the hard decision to cut the ties gently with Aya.

The third path is, once again, a vision of their relationship through the eyes of a secondary character. This time it is Jûmonji, a friend of Maihara who hides her own aromanticism behind her only hobby : otome video games. Thus, she is quick to understand the dynamics between Tsukiko and Aya, comparing their roles to characters found in her favorite games while not understanding why none of them goes any further in their relationship.

Goumoto-sensei likes to play with the expectations of her readers. When the separation finally comes, it is with a soft wind and not a storm. This is done with the perfect level of emotional writing, and Tsukiko is clearly written as aromantic despite liking the time she spends with Aya. This looks like a bittersweet ending, but then the epilogue (with its brilliant humorous double plot twist) gives us everything we hoped to see while respecting the personality of each of the characters. This is complemented by a bonus chapter, which takes place after the epilogue, and which shows how much each of them has matured, with Tsukiko doing something she has never done before for anyone else.

This is the story of a different type of love, one that isn’t based on romantic or sexual elements. An aromantic story ? Perhaps, at least from Tsukiko’s point of view. But as Aya said as the final word in the book, finally acknowledging and understanding how each woman feels about the other :

“This distance between us is our bond.”

ART – 9 : as usual, some magnificent backgrounds especially in the epilogue
STORY – 8 : a different Yuri, yet a beautiful if unusual story
CHARACTERS – 8 : this is good to see both girls mature and understand what must be done to move on. But once again, there are barely any secondary characters save Jûmonji.
SERVICE – 1 : swimsuits, mostly
YURI – 8

OVERALL – 8

Erica here: Well, that ending sounds like it’s worth reading! I’ll have to take a look at this. This manga IS licensed in English as The Evening and the Sea by Houbunsha through the MangaPlaza manga platform.Maybe I’ll give this a chance to test out the platform. ^_^

Thanks so much Laurent!

 
 




Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Manga, Volume 4 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

September 15th, 2022

Grab a hankie, it’s time to read, Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 4 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) In this pivotal issue, the Commoner Movement arc develops quickly and comes to a climax, one that specifically affects Claire. Not only is she a noble, and thus stands in opposition to the commoners, but the collateral damage of this arc will damage her, personally. And, while the commoner’s movement is quelled, we are given to understand that it was also covering up a larger plot, one that will engulf everyone in the cast.

This is the volume where everything, all of the goofy light-hearted comedic moments, fall away and what remains is social justice withheld, love perverted into betrayal and a new, unpredictable, danger. We finally meet Salas, the King’s right-hand man, a key player in the oncoming storm. I mention him because it is often stated how attractive he is in the novels – in fact, without him being attractive, his character fails to make sense…so I was really interested in seeing how he was portrayed. Not at all coincidentally, we also meet Lily, the nun, who also become a major player in the narrative, for the first time.  I believe now all the primary pieces are on the board. The game begins with a huge loss. If you’ve read the novels, you know how huge a blow it will be for Claire, and as the end of the volume comes with a letter from Susse, what that means to Rei having to battle for her.

That’s about all I can say without spoiling anything in this highly emotional and action-packed volume. Aonoshimo-sensei’s art is really just fantastic. Everything, from Salas’ cold beauty to Relaire’s adorable jiggles, is just so good. inori-sensei’s characters come alive in these manga volumes. I hope this series can continue through to the final LN volume, because so many reasons! Nur, the dance, the *wedding*, Dorothea, the Demon Queen, that ending. Let’s all keep telling Ichijinsha how much we love this manga series!

Now that we’re past this volume, I can set aside the handkerchief and get ready for the coming of butchy Manaria-sama, and Rei’s greatest trial for Clarie’s love – until the next one. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 6, since it’s not the focus. But it soon will be.
Service – Rei in that outfit at the end is definitely service. Hope we get a standee of those looks.

Overall – 9

I am reading the exact same same scene in this month’s Comic Yuri Hime and in Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou -Revolution-, Volume 2 , so that’s kind of fun, getting the scene described, then seeing it drawn.

Volume 3 of I’m in Love With the Villainess manga, in English will be hitting shelves this month!





Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Deluxe Edition, Volume 1

September 12th, 2022

After climate change begins to flood coastal cities and the remaining human population grows smaller, what will become of us? In Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Volume 1 by Hitoshi Ashinano – a series I have loved for many decades, – the end is inevitable, but gentle.

Alpha is an android. She’s a pretty advanced android, because not only does she look human, she cares about things like good coffee and beauty and can taste and cry. Alpha runs a coffee shop in what used to be Musashino City, and is now a small, sparsely populated area where the waving grass is slowly reclaiming roads.

In the pages of this series, we will be asked to experience things both common and fantastic from the perspective of someone who is always open to being moved by those things. Nothing happens in this series, but it often happens in the most breathtakingly beautiful ways.

Among the people we meet in Volume 1, is Kokone, another android . She is both more human, in that she can consume animal products and  also less, in that she worries quite a bit about fitting in with the humans she meets. Alpha will change her world, merely by being Alpha.

This deluxe edition is quite beautiful with color pages and color artbook images.  Yes, I have the artbook. ^_^ I also love the music from the Drama CDs and the stunning animation of the anime, which I would love to see be re-licensed, just for the beauty of the final scene over Yokohama.  I can’t lie – I’m with Kokone and find just staring at Alpha to be utterly entrancing.

The world in which this series is placed is so familiar and yet has elements of both fantasy and science fiction that make one question one’s own sense of reality. Shopping and fireworks and coffee…but also a giant ship shaped like a bird and a wild nature spirit and androids delivering packages… it can be our world, but would we want that? What will have to happen for us to have it?

The dialogue is simple, the scenarios are wholly about experiencing and feeling. There is no plot here. Just have a seat and a cup of coffee and watch the grass. At the end of the world, that’s all that’s left, anyway.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – A bit
Yuri – A little more than a bit, Kokone becomes infatuated, as we do, with Alpha

Overall – 9

My only criticism is that the word “android” is repeatedly translated as “robot.” As a science fiction fan, I don’t understand this choice at all. It is clearly “android” in katakana in the Japanese and the word android has been a word in the English language since 1837, as it happens. It simply makes no sense at all to translate this as robot.

UPDATE: I was mistaken about all of this. CW kindly informed me that it indeed “robot.” My memory was incorrect.  The translator was 100% correct. 

This one quibble aside, I cannot believe I am getting to read this series in English! Thank you to everyone at Seven Seas for such a beautiful volume for this poignantly beautiful series.





Secret Love (シークレット・ラブ)

September 8th, 2022

Are you are the kind of person, like myself, who reads everything in a book? I begin with the beginning reading the introduction, any foreword and, if I’m diggin’ the book, read right through notes, glossaries and even acknowledgments.  Well if you, like me, love to be nosy and see who the author thanks and what secret messages are in there, and you have picked up a copy of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga, you will see among the people I thanked, Rachel Thorn, scholar, translator, and gentlewoman.

Rachel Thorn is one of the preeminent scholars of shoujo manga. While not all her work is available in English, you can find quite a lot of interesting essays on her blog (which still uses her deadname and is now some years out of date, so don’t be surprised.) Rachel is a professor of manga studies in Japan and is an old friend. SO, when I received an email with some commentary on By Your Side, I stared at the email nervously.  Actually, no, I didn’t, because Rachel is a lovely human and made sure there was kind commentary in the subject line. ^_^ She did have some small changes to suggest and the name of a manga I hadn’t before heard that had a proto-Yuri story from before Shiroi Heya no Futari, the manga I tend to refer to as arguably the first Yuri manga.

Having now read her suggestion, I could recognize some early echoes of Yuri, so today we are talking about Secret Love, by Yashiro Masako. “Secret Love” is a one-short story in a collection of the same name that was published in 1978.

The story begins with a girl telling us that her first love was a beautiful girl. Atsushi-chan, our protagonist, is at school, painting Fuyuko. Atsushi has short dark hair and keeps to herself in the art room. Fuyuko is the star of the school, with many admirers. Because she is close to Fuyuko, the other girls do not care for Atsushi and avoid her. With her introverted nature, Atsushi is fine with that, but does not like the whispers she hears about how strange she is and how she is too close to Fuyuko. She also does not like to hear that Fuyuko may have a boyfriend. She spends a lot of time mooning over the feelings she has for Fuyuko for which she knows no name and has no outlet other than her painting.

One day Atsushi meets a young man on the street who tells her he’s trying to become a great photographer, He asks for her name but Atsushi tells him no and runs off. The next day when she’s painting, the guy comes to visit Fuyuko in the club room. Atsushi is livid that Makio has horned in or her time, but when he starts to snap her photo, she becomes hysterical, even threatening him with her palette knife, and collapses.

When Atsushi regains herself, Fuyuko apologizes, but  it’s Atsushi who feels that she did wrong. She seeks out Makio and apologizes to him and he returns the favor, apologizing that her didn’t ask permission. Honestly…I loved this bit where everyone recognizes where they stepped out of line and hurt someone else, even if it was unintentional.

Fuyuko, clearly in love with Makio, asks Atsushi to take some Valentine’s Day chocolates to the photographer, but when he finds that they are not from Atsushi herself, he rejects them. Fuyuko becomes jealous of Makio’s interest in Atsushi and causes an accident in the chemistry lab that could have hurt Atsushi. Appalled at herself, Fuyuko runs away.

Atsushi and Makio track Fuyuko to the ocean, Makio goes in to save her, but he is too late. In the final panel, Atsushi tells us that, after the incident of Fuyuko’s death, Makio ran away to some other town and she has not spoken to him. But Fuyuko smiles, eternally beautiful, in the portrait Atsushi painted of her.

There are some obvious connectors to early Yuri here, the main one of which was that Atsushi’s feelings as a kind of pathological illness that cause her to react with hysteria and violence to Makio.  Like so many other hysterical Yuri characters, her reaction could be understood as that of an abused child, reacting not just to Makio’s maleness, but to the idea of being photographed – even though we know that the mental instability here was specifically being tied to her feelings for Fuyuko.  This story was also set in a all-girls school and Atsushi was boyish in the sense that she had short hair. More importantly, she also had a “dark” brooding, intensity to her feelings for Fuyuko. Fuyuko is the perfect cheerful lighter-haired partner with ribbons in her hair, thus making them a close fit for what would become the iconic Yuri couple.

The manga artist was best known for her Yoko Series  (according JP wikipedia) which went for many volumes with “detailed depictions of everyday life, fresh eroticism, and a wide range of styles” and she influenced Moto Hagio and other artists.

The story looked and felt more like something from the 1960s, than the 1970s, with tight panels and dialogue and simple art. The whole thing felt very pre-Sexual Revolution/49ers in a way that Shiroi Heya no Futari, with it’s psychedelic backgrounds and hip clothes, does not. 

Ratings:

How do I even rate this? It’s like a heavy dose of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening combined with a school girl drama. Mei from Citrus would feel right at home, though.

Art – 8 very of a specific style that speaks of the age just before the Magnificent 49ers
Story – 7 Full of unexplored trauma that in a modern manga would feel overblown
Characters – 7 One hopes that Atsushi was able to find herself and be happy, eventually. She’d be just a little older than me. ^_^
Service – 0
Yuri – 7 Unfulfilled longing and loss, a classic Yuri story

Overall – 7

As this is a one-chapter story and Shiroi Heya no Futari was published as a full volume (again, thank you Rachel,) I’ll stick with that one as my “first,” but… I agree that Secret Love is another important piece of our Yuri past.  ^_^





Comic Yuri Hime, September 2022 (コミック百合姫2022年9月号)

September 2nd, 2022

Comic Yuri Hime, September 2022 (コミック百合姫2022年9月号) offers some dramatic Yuri as the seasons turn.

In “Kimi to Shiranai Natsu ni Naru” by Kiiyang, our protagonists suddenly are confronted with the fact that summer doesn’t last and neither do summer jobs. What will they do for money during the off-season?

In “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou.,” Rae is confronted by the fact that, even with her power levels and skills, she’s no match for Manaria. Will she lose Claire to her rival?

The SS Girls get together for a strategy session, (but it’s more like therapy, amirite?) in “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau.”

In “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” Nene has had it with the straight-girl combo of Sumika and Kanako. And, frankly everyone has had it with Kanako…except Hime who is increasingly worried about her friend. The boot is about to drop, and damn is it gonna be an ugly one.

Sora and Ayaka spend a last high school summer festival together in “Lonely Girl ni Sakaraenai” and it dawns on us that this story is over and we’re just lingering….which is fine by me, because I don’t want to say goodbye, either.

“Hibiku Koe” by FLOWERCHILD is a meet-weird about two coworkers, one who is masked all the time, and their encounter that takes them to bed together.

A traditional crisis has appeared in the form of a friend with a previous, tenuous, and grasping claim on Ruriko’s affection in “Onna Tomodachi to Kekkonshitmita.”

In “Natsu to Lemon to Overlay” our aspiring voice actress and the woman who has hired her to read her final wishes go on a date…and it is as confusing to Yunimaru as it sounds to us.

Inui Ayu’s “Kyou mo Hitotsu Yane no Shita” wraps up the final chapter and what will be a second volume, as Inui-sensei and Kon-san go to buy matching rings. Congrats to them; my tears are not because I cry at weddings, but because I will miss these fun little snippets of lesbian life. ^_^

As usual, there are many other stories I have read in this volume. It’s a very solid volume with something for folks who like the cute, the sweet, the strange and the adult!

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I have the October 2022 issue right here and am cracking it open tonight! Can’t wait to see what happens in several of these stories. ^_^