Archive for the Yuri Anthology Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 7 (百合姫 Wildrose)

August 15th, 2013

Does 2010 count as a “the past” yet? If so, Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 7 (百合姫 Wildrose) anthology is a blast from the past. The last original volume, Yuri Hime Wildrose 6, was released back in 2010,  and there was a selected re-release  of curated stories in 2011, Wildrose Re:Mix disk a and disk b. And, I thought, that was the last we’d hear of the Wildrose series. But…no.

Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 7 picks right up where 6 left off, with a stable of new creators, working on doujinshi-length “Plot, What Plot-style?” stories, where the setup exists merely to frame the sex. In most cases, the sex is accompanied by sincere affection, sometimes even love, which tempers the feeling one inevitably gets as one reads, of being cast by the story as “horny voyeur”.

Saburo Uta’s opening bid, “Partner” is a nice enough place to begin. Kusabe and Ogihara are paired in everything from tennis to academics, but it turns out that they actually like each other, as well. ^_^

“Encore!!!!” by Amano Syuninta was, by far, my favorite story as her art and storytelling hit all my sweet spots and avoided most of the sour ones. This cheerful tale of two pop idols in a girl group was silly and weird, with moments of sexy thrown in.

And Nanzaki Iku submits a new chapter of one of her Shizuru x Natsuki clone pairs in a story that wasn’t thrilling, but was ultimately – as her’s so often are – sweet.

If this is the kind of story that gets your heart pounding – and might just get you practicing your Japanese –  it’s a good bet you’ll enjoy this volume.

Ratings:

Variable – 6

A couple of the artists are just doing art that I can’t really enjoy, but I’m not running this through the shredder or anything. It’ll probably be part of my next Lucky Bag giveaway, though.  ^_^





Yuri Manga: Yuri Anthology Dolce Due (百合アンソロジー dolce due)

April 15th, 2013

Almost a year ago, I noted that the Yuri anthology field in Japan was holding steady – and indeed, showing a little growth. Comic Yuri Hime and Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari are still in print, Tsubomi is still updating regularly as a digital comic and Enterbrain’s Yuri Anthology Dolce  must have done well enough, because they released a second volume, Yuri Anthology Dolce Due (百合アンソロジー dolce due).

Like its predecessor, the stories in here are more for the Yuru Yuri crowd, than the Collectors crowd. We have stories about schoolgirls in school clubs, schoolgirls who fall for their best friends, schoolgirls and teachers, schoolgirls, schoolgirls and more schoolgirls…and one random drunken OL story which really stands out because it is the only story in which both characters are not in a school uniform.

The cover art was a “really?” moment for me, as my first thought was, “They got Hibiki Reine to illustrate the cover? No way! …Yes way. The dustjacket and actual book front cover are full color Hibiki Reine works. You remember, she was the original cover illustrator for Yuri Hime, right?  Aside from being the artist for the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels, she set the artistic pace for many of the early Yuri Hime artists. Here, she’s done a sweet duet of a girl and her loving maid and I wish that sentence didn’t make me sad. (-_-); But it does.

Dolce due does not suck, but it’s twenty steps back into the bad old days of Yuri anthologies about girls vaguely kinda liking other girls. It’s so 2003, it’s almost nostalgic. But not in a good way.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

Come on, Enterbrain. You can do better than this.

 





Yuri Manga: Hirari Special Girls’ School Life Anthology Houkago! (ひらり、別冊 部活女子アンソロジー ほうかご! )

November 27th, 2012

I know some of you are planning a pre-Xmas order from Amazon JP, in order to score your copy of Collectors, and I thought you might want Hirari Special Girls’ School Life Anthology Houkago (ひらり、別冊 部活女子アンソロジー ほうかご! ), too. ^_^

Let me be plain, where Collectors is the greatest Yuri manga ever published, Houkago is absolutely not. ^_^ But it definitely scratches a specific itch. From the folks who bring you Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari magazine, Houkago is a collection of one-shots by the same artists who contribute to Hirari. This means you’ll get stories by names you recognize like Morinaga Milk,  Mikuni Hachime, and Hakamada Mera, and some you might recognize, like kashmir, Hirao Auri and others.

The premise of the book is simple – school clubs.  Not all the stories are Yuri, some are just really nice stories about friendships and rivalries in school clubs. But a few are very Yuri indeed.

The story I liked best was one of the not-Yuri ones, about two goofball girls who befriend an injured, bitter and angry ex-athlete. The story was in no way Yuri, but the cheerful goofballs were refreshingly open and their happy doofusness completely changes the way Kawasaki views life. I was not previously familiar with the name Oshima Tamaki, but I’ll be looking for it now. kashmir’s story had a character who turned every scenario into a Yuri murder story. Hakamada Mera once again got to mention witches, even though her story was actually about Mah Jong. Morinaga Milk’s story about science club looked a lot like her manga about cooking club. ^_^

So, not *quite* a Yuri anthology, but I did like the  focus on clubs, which allowed the artists to trot out their own personal interests in the guise of storytelling. ^_^

So, yes, this anthology is no Collectors, (nor was it the Yuri sports anthology I eagerly await some genius editor in Japan to come up with one day, and be surprised that no one ever had come up with that idea before, because they do not use the internet) but for a solid showing by veteran Yuri and schoolgirl story artists, Houkago is a fair showing.

Overall – 8

Only one or two stories made me actively stabby, a pretty good percentage for an anthology.





Yuri Anthology Dolce (百合アンソロジーdolce)

June 26th, 2012

Now that Ichijinsha, Hobunsha and Shinsokan have steady Yuri anthologies with Comic Yuri Hime, Tsubomi and Hirari, Enterbrain has thrown its hat in the ring with Yuri Anthology Dolce (百合アンソロジーdolce), yet another moe Yuri collection.

Because of the preponderance of large heads, giant eyes and infantile stylings, there weren’t too many stories in this collection that appealed to me. The stories are set firmly in middle and high school with nary any respite.

Even so, there were a few stories I can remember off the top of my head – a girl who learns a secret about her recently deceased grandmother, and several with friends who actually feel the same way about each other. Nonetheless, nothing here really made me sit up and take notice. It wasn’t a terrible anthology, it’s just that if you asked me, I’d say we were full up with Story A now and really could use something new, thanks.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Fans of Yuru Yuri and the like should definitely keep their eyes open for this collection – it’s for you more than it is for me. The cover by Namori-sensei ought to be a dead giveaway. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 6 (百合姫 Wildrose)

October 17th, 2010

I know, I know. I said I was done with this series. I say that sometimes. But then I need another item or two to make an order on Amazon JP worth it, so…

Anyway, here we are in Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 6 (百合姫 Wildrose) and while I am not dancing a joyful “this is it!” dance, I’m not gritting my teeth or anything, either. And perhaps the folks at Yuri Hime are getting comments that echo my own, because in it’s own PWP way, this volume of Wildrose steps up its game by a notch.

This is most apparent in the first story of the volume, “Yume no Hanashi,” in which Naho is moved to tears when she realizes that she is not alone in her school as a girl who loves other girls. Given that recently the US is dealing with reports of young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth struggling against  prejudice and abuse from not just the people around them but from the leaders of their communities, who don’t seem to care that their casual homophobia is inciting acts of hate and intolerance…this message is an incredibly powerful one. And, given that Wildrose does tend to be rather more superficial than sensitive, and almost all Yuri avoids complications of awareness and identity, this simple acknowledgement of how alone a LGBTQ young person can feel and how important just knowing that you are not alone, is an amazingly powerful statement. It was a strong opening for the volume.

Again, in “Moment Like Fireworks,” the continuation of Nanzaki Iku’s ShizNat-esque couple, Sayo and Ritsuko’s story, Sayo first introduces Ri-chan as a friend to an old classmate , then corrects it to a “good friend,” and then backtracks, explaining that she and her girlfriend would like some alone time to engage in some love talk. Sayo later apologizes for not making the point right away, but Ritsuko expresses understanding and gratitude.

There were a few stories where younger women had to work a little harder at getting their point across to their older lover, and one story in which a Devil tries to ruin an Angel, only to be thwarted by her purity and love (a very cute story, I thought. It seems obvious to me that the real danger is that the Devil will start to feel “Love” and go good.)

There are a few stories which are not “good” in the big picture – one in which a not-very-veiled threat of suicide brings two lovers back together did not, to me, seem to be a good ending to a relationship that just needed to end. Relationships do that sometimes.  But then there’s something like “Houkago Berry Girl” which was just…silly. It made no statements, had nothing deep to impart, but was cute.

My major complaints about the Wildrose stories are that they have basically been retreads of “Story A” and left me feeling empty at best and quite often icky. This time I felt like they had actually stepped up their game, with more established couples and even some “lesbian identity” in a few of those stories.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

I’m back on the wagon for Wildrose 7.