Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Sempai, Oishii desuka? Volume 2 (先輩、美味しいですか?)

May 17th, 2023

A woman with long black hair, wearing a tan blouse and red skirt hugs a woman, wearing gray slack and a white blouse, with her brown hair in a bun, from behind. Huh. It was almost exactly a year ago I reviewed Volume 1 of Mikanuji’s Yuri + food manga. At the time I said, “I can definitely recommend it with some significant reservations.” Today I am looking at Sempai, Oishii Desuka? Volume 2 (先輩、美味しいですか?) and I find that the reservations are mostly the same, and the story is not what I wanted it to be.

To begin with Miho spends the majority of the book wallowing in significant low self-esteem churning over whether Sempai reeaaalllllllllly likes being with her or not because of things other people tell her. When sempai kisses her we are treated to chapters of her worrying what sempai meant by it. Miho gets blasted drunk on non-alcoholic something, which is impossible for me accept and made the final pages of the manga unpalatable. Mori is not free of criticism, but her issue is in a post-COVID world not entirely impossible to understand.

The failure here is simply trying to insert conflict where it just didn’t need to be. It would have been lovely to just have Miho make food with Mori and them enjoy it. Turning up Miho’s “there MUST be a crisis” meter to 1000 – while relatable for those of us who overthink everything – really just drained the enjoyment of two women and food and possible romance.

Which brings me to the Yuri. I noted in Volume 1 that Mori regularly violated Miho’s boundaries. In Volume 2, she still does, and Miho has to be “drunk” to just tell Mori she’d like to kiss, in a creepy and boundary violating way. This is just so unnecessary! They are both adults with an interest in each other, they could just get together. That they don’t is fine, but the way they are portrayed is so…weird…and not healthy. Just have a conversation, ladies.

The end result is, as much as I like Mikanuji’s work, I don’t find this manga all that enjoyable and will stop reading. That said, if you like awkward boundary-pushing, but not really adult behavior in your Yuri, you might find this manga fun. And you’ll learn how to cook as a bonus.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Characters – Miho drops to a 5 here, Mori is a 6
Story – 7
Service – One too many “funny” boundary violations
Yuri – 5, but I’m not convinced they’ll be good for each other

Overall – 7  





Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon, Volume 4

May 15th, 2023

Two women face us , holding hands. One with long brown hair wearing a brown skirt and white blouse, smiling brightly, shorter woman with short black hair, where pants and a white blouse, smiling gently. "Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon" is written in orange letters, with a chocolate glazed doughnut for the letter O, and a crescent moon just above and to the left of the O. Number 4 in the upper left hand of the page, a squiggle line, the Art & Story by Shio Usui.When Kaketa Tsuki to Donuts, Volume 4 (欠けた月とドーナッツ) landed in summer 2022, I said this about it, “…this was the perfect, most exactly correct ending to this series that we could have hoped for.” Now, in 2023, as I read Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon, Volume 4, I would not change a word of that. This was the perfect ending for this series. We could not have asked for better.

Hinako is every person who has been measuring themselves against a set of criteria that do not fit at all. Asahi is everyone who is spending their energy on someone else so they don’t have to think about themselves. When they meet each other, their ill-fitting facades begin to crack. Neither of them have ever had the leisure to develop any adult relationships. Asahi, because of her parents death, has kept her one old friend, but been unable (unwilling?) to make others. Hinako’s friendships are – she believes – based upon the construct she had created to pass in society, while she blames her failures to build romantic connections on herself.

This is a lovely, gentle story of lonely people breaking out of the habit of loneliness that they built up as the cornerstones of their lives.

This manga checks off so many of the things that makes  a good manga for me – adult women building different kinds of relationships with the women around them, emotional intimacy of differing kinds with those women and adult women breaking free of the constraints put upon them by society, family and themselves. Joyfully, this manga is also full of adult friends who continue to be friends when their friend basically stops pretending to be someone they cannot be.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Character – 10
Service – 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – 10

Asexuals are getting their time in the manga limelight right now, as well – if you were looking for a book about adults understanding themselves better, this should definitely be on your list.

I was *sure* that Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon was a shoo-in for a best Yuri manga of the year when Volume 4 hit, but it has to compete with Birdie Wing and She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat, both of which are so outstanding. That said, this is an excellent manga and you should not miss it!

 

 





Catch These Hands, Volume 4

May 7th, 2023

Two women picnicking in a park, one of them tries to keep food away from a jumping dog.Decades ago, I was doing a number of community-centered activities, and I noticed that people who came into community spaces often had no idea how to act. In some cases, they were ND, but in many cases, it was people who came to that community with a focus that was important to them and no real interest in other people. For instance, we had a number of events where people with food limitations would walk into the space and before saying “Hello,” they would look around, ready to be angry and say, “Is there anything I can eat here?” I really sympathized with that, having grown up with food (and other) allergies that other people ignored. So, I took it upon myself to greet people at events and point out amenities, facilities, food options and restinq/quiet places. Which everyone who knew me, found hilarious, as there are few people who care less about other people than myself. ^_^

All this is to say that there are a lot of people who are faking their way through social interactions – including me. ^_^ I ask myself what the extroverts around me might do, if I want to social, or I huddle in a corner, if I don’t.

Takebe and Soramori have both hit a wall on how to social. As young people, their interactions were competitive and physically violent. Now that they like one another…they have no idea how to act.

In Catch These Hands, Volume 4, they have hit the limit of faking it, and have to overcome the final hurdle between them – actually having a conversation. It’s fraught. Even between pointless interruptions and  Rube Goldberg complications, they manage to learn a little bit about each other and finally have that last battle between them where they are honest with one another. It’s awkward and lovely and I wanted to grab them both and give them hugs for doing it.

The lesson of this volume is – what you are thinking people think about you is probably completely untrue. Stop assuming. When Soramori and Takebe stop assuming, the world suddenly becomes a brighter place for them.

Amanda Haley’s translation and Bianca Pistillo’s lettering, were fantastic. It’s clean, easy to read and gets the gruffness and awkwardness across beautifully. I can also thank Jacquelyn Li and Carl Li for their editorial work, and Wendy Chan for the design. Gimme those credits, Yen! Everyone deserves a credit. Nice job by the Yen team. So glad we got this fun little manga series.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 7

Overall – 8

Murata-sensei really sticks the landing here.

This series was goofy and relatable (despite the fact that I was never a gang girl. Well…once, for a day, but that’s a silly story) and I recommend it for being something you can just relax and enjoy.





Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 4 ( 雨夜の月)

May 7th, 2023

Two young women appear to be wrestling and laughing on a sofa in a room with sound-proofing, a piano, and boxes of books.Well, wow. A whole lot of story happened in this volume. First, Saki finds Kanon’s former best friend – the one Kanon feel betrayed her – and learns the whole story.  It was pretty heart-rending, with a strong element of children being forced to take on adult responsibilities without money, time or ability. Saki’s reaction may change a lot of things, because she sees both sides and really understands what happened in a way that Kanon could not. She then assures the other girl that she was really trying to be a good person – something she had never considered and with no one to tell her, she believed she was the bad guy.

Saki and Kanon’s days change rapidly as the school festival becomes the talk of the class. Kanon is encouraged to write a story for the upcoming short story contest and Saki is tasked with creating an arrangement of music for the chorus. The song she picks is surprisingly profound. But in doing so, the classmate she was paired with – who seems to carry some kind of grudge again Kanon  – stops coming to school completely. I feel another systemic failure by adults coming on.

But last and not at all least, Kanon decides that she’d actually like to sing with her class, rather than just lip sync and enlists her mother to at least give a fair review. She’ll need work.

The story here is that both Saki and Kanon are allowing new things into their lives and they have each other to thank. Kanon, especially, is taking Saki’s advice and pulling down the walls around her, learning to take risks, and in doing so…has come to realize how important Saki is to her.

At this point, whether Saki and Kanon become a couple is entirely irrelevant to me. What I keep coming back for is a story of two girls forming a friendship that makes space for other people and new challenges and support for each other.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 4

Overall – 9

The first volume of The Moon On A Rainy Night will release in English on my and Guest Reviewer Matt’s  birthday, so I am declaring it an official Okazu event! Grab your copy, read it and come by here on or around Sept. 5, when I do a review and drop your review of that fantastic first volume in the comments! Depending on how I feel, there may be prizes. I’m super excited than Kuzushiro-sensei is getting a print series here in English at last and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.





Otherside Picnic Manga, Volume 4, Guest Review by Sandy F

May 3rd, 2023

Two women face us: One with medium brown hair and heterochromia hold a rifle, the other with long blonde hair holds a semi-transparent left hand out towards us.It’s Guest Review Wednesday and today we welcome back Sandy Ferguson with his enthusiastic continuing look at the Otherside Picnic manga series. Share your kind words in the comments and let’s snuggle in for some Yuri weirdnesses. ^_^

The manga edition of Otherside Picnic, Volume 4 consists mainly of the conclusion of the Time, Space, Man story with an introduction to The Kisaragi Station Marines Rescue Operation Story. There is also a bonus short story where we listen to Kozakura as she deals with being involved in the dumpster fire that is Sorawo and Toriko trying to figure out what is going on between them.

For the most part the action centres around the misadventures of Sorawo and Kozakura as they search for Toriko in the Otherside.  Though on the surface it may seem like a buddy comedy, we are shown Kozakura’s anger of being dragged into this situation.

There is lot to explore in this volume.  We are given quite a bit of background information about Sorawo and Toriko.  We are given some background about Satsuki and her involvement with Toriko and Kozakura.  And there are the complexities of the various relationships between all of people.

And then to complicate matters more, there are the musings on the Otherside itself and the functions of the various entities that exist within the Otherside and in between.  We are invited to explore the possibility that the Otherside is trying to establish a mode of contact with our world, if so, what does that look like?

And we are reminded of how the Otherside can pull people into its reality, illustrated when Sorawo finally reaches Toriko, as scene that gives me the chills when I reflect on it.

One of the reasons I enjoy Otherside Picnic so much is its exploration of trauma and its consequences.  In this volume we are introduced to the traumas that shaped the lives of both Sorawo and Toriko, the traumas that as Sorawo says have put holes in both her and Toriko.  And how these traumas shape the nature of the relationship that Sorawo and Toriko have with one another, with Sorawo struggling to make sense of what is happening to her through allowing Toriko to become part of her life.

Sorawo’s own tale of trauma is particularly harrowing.  In a series that explores the otherworldly horrors of the Otherside vividly, here we also encounter the horrors of our own world as Sorawo shares with Kozakura the events of her life, describing an account of the terrible abuse she endured.  Yet Sorawo does so in such a way that it sounds like she is describing a trip to the shops, “not really much of a story” much to Kozakura’s shock.

The artwork as always does a wonderful job of evoking the wonders and terrors of the Otherside, with a gorgeous front cover and some good colour images inside. One thing about the manga’s art I appreciated is how it sticks to the tone of the novels as opposed to the anime.  One scene comes to mind where in the manga Toriko is depicted in regular expedition gear as opposed to the anime where she is depicted in a Halloween version of a bride of Christ outfit.

All in all, a great read, sometimes a bit exhausting with the odd moment of whiplash as we go from one intense subject to something quite different, which I think helps to give us a sense of the disorientating nature of the Otherside!

Ratings:

Story: 9
Character: 9
Service: 3
Yuri: 6, we are getting there!

Overall: 9

Erica here: I agree that the manga art really “gets” the LNs. I’ve begun thinking of the anime as the Woody Allen Casino Royale, as compared with the manga’s Daniel Craig version. ^_^; Thanks so much for the review!

Volume 5 will be hitting shelves in June.