There’s something to be said for judging a book by it’s cover, sometimes. ^_^ Avalon ~bitter~ is a Yuri anthology of troubling, distressing and bitter stories by extremely talented artists. It’s not that the stories are bad, it’s that this is not the collection for you, if you’re looking for happy endings. 

I found Mikanji’s “Sukininaru nante arienai” to be typical of this collection. A girl who had been a bully, is sexually harassed by the girl she bullied when they were younger. But it’s okay now because they can bully each other. … … …

But the story that encapsulated the whole anthology for me was Shoukabuki’s “Bara bara” about a lesbian and the woman she seduces. The lesbian’s kouhai is a little appalled at her sempai’s casual disinterest in the woman afterwards, but when she hears the woman dismissing the sex, because she’s not really queer, she understands a bit better that people use each other for their own ends.

This volume is pretty much a collection of stories in which people use each other, with some manipulation, sexual harassment and a bit of light betrayal, in a variety of settings, both realistic and fantastic. Overall, both writing and art is very good, which actually serves to increase the bitter flavor of the work. ^_^;

Ratings:

Overall – 8 Although I didn’t enjoy it, per se, it was very good.

The publisher is “girls x garden” which is a new imprint for me. I’ll be interested to get the other available Avalon collection, which seems to have a similar roster of contributors but perhaps a different focus.

The third Yuri + Kanojo Yuri Anthology Yuri + Kanojo Heroine-doushi no Happy End (百合+カノジョ-ヒロイン同士のハッピーエンド-) isn’t about heroines so much as about happy endings.

The first of the series, Yuri +Kanojo, established the first-person aspect of the stories. In  this book, we were the protagonist, as if the stories were all dating sims. In the second anthology, Yuri+ Kanojo Suki ni Nattemoii? (百合+カノジョ 好きになってもいい?), we were introduced to stories of characters that extended past school life into adulthood. 

In Yuri + Kanojo Heroine-doushi no Happy End, we are treated to stories that move through time. The girl we meet and fall in love with in school is still with us in college and the two of us will be together as young adults. The woman we met in college will be the face we wake up to in the morning as we build our careers.  And the woman we met in the office, is there for us when we turn 40. 

Most of these stories are told in three parts  – our earliest days together, a few years later as our relationship is more settled and finally as we are an established couple. The stories once again begin in high school, move backwards to middle school, then progress into adulthood. 

There is no lesbian identity here, but in one of the stories about adult lives, an engagement ring makes an appearance. This volume also includes two stories about “foreign” protagonists, American Diana Lauren and the last story follows Italian Laura Leone. You can tell, because they each say random things in their native tongue. ^_^

Ratings: 

Overall  – 9 I really like the passage of time and the characters growing older.

Of the Yuri+ Kanojo collections, it will come as no surprise that I like this one the best, as it looks into adult life. It’s a fun Yuri anthology that requires no commitment or engagement and passes by in short vignettes. in which the girl always gets the girl.

Kadokawa’s Yuri Drill anthology is an interesting exercise in exploration of common Yuri tropes, as depicted by 39 Yuri manga artists. And also an exercise in the persistence of these same tropes, as expressed in the subtitle “including the supreme scenes of girls.” When it feels a little mind-boggling that publishers so often turn to really banal tropes of Yuri like “School life Yuri” “Childhood friend Yuri” “Sempai x Kouhai Yuri,” this book will remind you that it’s gonna take a heckuva literary crowbar to pop off this stone and release some different, weird and gods helps us, original Yuri, from the cave.

In the meantime, we have these commonplace scenarios explored, analyzed, even parodied at times, by 39 different Yuri artists, many names of which will be familiar to readers of Okazu.

If you’ve ever wondered Amano Shuninta would make of a workplace sempai x kouhai  trope or Mikanshi’s look at “Fantasy Yuri” or Kodama Naoko’s image of a workplace romance, you can flip through this book and do just that. 

Ratings:

Overall – 7

This is not a must-have for Yuri fans, but it’s an interesting game idea. “Improv Yuri drawings – keyword phrase is “not already done to death! Go!”