Archive for the Yuri Anthology Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story, Volume 1 (百合☆恋)

January 6th, 2014

I finished off the last year with the best, so it stands to reason that I’m starting off the new year with, if not the worst, then the “just not terribly good.” ^_^

OKS Comix is a anthology publisher that got traction back in the day doing series anthologies, and generally “adult” anthologies. They’ve got a series of Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story (百合☆恋) anthologies of which this one is the first.

The first story, by Yamaguchi Serika, is fantastic – by my standards. After breaking up with her boyfriend, Kanae gets a call from her older sister that she’s coming to visit. When Mizuho arrives, she’s accompanied by another woman, Ena, whom Mizuho introduces as her girlfriend. As they prepare dinner and spend the evening talking, Kanae learns that Mizuho and Ena have been seeing each other for two years and have been living together for a year. Kanae is forced to realize that she knows nothing about her sister’s life. Ena and Mizuho are adorable together and it’s pretty obvious that they are also blissfully happy. Kanae starts to think about her boyfriend and how they were happy together, As the chapter ends, she is reaching for her phone. To Be Continued… and I’m tempted to get Volume 2 just to find out what happens, despite the fact that the quality of the book plummets after this story.

The rest of the book goes steadily downhill from uninteresting moe girls sort of liking one another to uninteresting moe girls having messy sex in bathroom. So something for everyone, I guess. (-_-)

Ratings:

Art – Averaging around 6
Stories – The first one is an 8, dropping down to 3 at worst
Characters – Variable
Yuri – Averaging around 8
Service – Starting at 3, topping off at 10

Overall – Without the first story, 5, with the first story, 7

It is my very genuine pleasure to start the year with a shoutout of thanks to Okazu Superhero Dan P. for his sponsorship of today’s review! And should you want to join our list of Okazu Heroes on the sidebar, remember, it’s as easy as sponsoring a review from my Yuri Wishlist on Amazon or Amazon JP! Help keep Okazu functioning and get snide reviews in return – it’s a win-win! (Disclaimer: Snide reviews not guaranteed. Sometime I like sponsored items.)





Yuri Manga: Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 11 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり)

October 27th, 2013

With the demise of Tsubomi magazine, Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) has really stepped up its game. Volume 11 feels awfully like an actual Yuri manga magazine in a way that earlier volumes just had not done. And I cannot help but notice the author line-up is looking mighty strong these days.

Starting off with one of my favorite series in the anthology, “Sunahama to Kase-san” by Takashima Hiromi follows Yamada and Kase-san on their school trip. A minor misunderstanding turns into a chance to become closer and desire becomes more of a factor than has been previously. Yamada still has some major self-worth issues, and Japanese mangaka still think sports bras are a kind of hammerspace. ^_^

In Morishima Akiko’s “Seijun Shoujo Paradigm” Aoi is finding her feelings towards Riri shifting, and is only marginally distracted by the relationship between Reika and Yuki.

“Ohime-sama no Uso” by Morinaga Milk continues with Fujiwara-sempai joining Miu on a “date” but as the day goes on, Miu is more and more aware that they are not a couple, but just pretending to be one. To make matters worse, Kaori specifically tells Miu that her feelings for Fujiwara are real, unlike Miu’s. If Fujiwara is a prince, Miu is now well aware that she is no princess. I am enjoying the slightly atypical art in the story. Morinaga-sensei doesn’t often draw the otokoyaku type of girl.

Kumijou’s “Out of the Blue” is a sweet love story between a transfer student and a troublemaker. This story left me with a big ole grin on my face as I finished it.

Amakure Gido’s “Shuuden ni ha Kaeshimasu” draws to a close as the punk girls gets the girl.

“Soshite Watashitachi ha” is a nice little bit of paranormal in an otherwise typical first love story.

Kita Konno’s “Kirari” is a slice of life as two girls spend a quiet interlude at the sea.

Hakamada Mera’s “Hikari no Niwa” is a pleasant resolution to an “opposites attract” story.

“Under One Roof” by Fujio continues at the snail’s pace it has established, as roommates become more aware of one another with each chapter.

Maybe it’s that I’m in a good mood, maybe it’s something else, but I even liked Auri Hirao’s “anokono -shitekurenakkata – koto” about two roommates dealing with being left behind by a third.

Amame Osawa’s “Houkago no Mahoutsukai” was an absolutely adorable little paranormal bit about wanting to feel needed.

And “Koi suru Poccyari” by Kiyota Tomo is a story about being needed.

There were other stories, most of which I found less compelling, but this volume was  – by far and away – one of the best of Hirari to date.

Ratings:

Overall – 8





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.