Yuri Manga: Hatsukoi Shimai, Volume 1

December 6th, 2006

“Schoolgirl week” continues here on Okazu!

Imagine my surprise when I realized I had not reviewed the first volume of Hatsukoi Shimai, when I reviewed the first wave of manga from Yuri Hime. Particularly surprising, as I’ve been following the series since it was nothing more than a couple of pieces of cover art and a few paragraphs of story. :-)

Once again, to get you up to date with the story, Hatsukoi Shimai began its life as the cover images for the first three issues of Yuri Shimai magazine. Inside the covers were short text stories about the cover couples – just little vignettes, nothing more. The three couples pictured were Chika and Haruna, Akiho and Touko-sensei, and Miyu and Kirika.

The first two couples were brought to life in the two Koi Shimai Drama CDs, both of which I have reviewed previously. (Here are the reviews for Koi Shimai 1 and Koi Shimai 2) and eventually, after Yuri Shimai folded and was resurrected as Yuri Hime, the series was resurrected as Hatsukoi Shimai, now with longer short stories (does that even make sense?), a manga and the Hatsukoi Shimai Drama CD which, this time, included our third cover couple as well. The manga is so far based on the events of the first two Drama CDs, with some slight alterations.

The manga, while based on the character designs by Hibiki Reine (illustrator for Maria-sama ga Miteru) and the original Drama CDs, is clearly a work by committee. There are a whole host of names for the art, writing and production.

I will assume, as I always do for collected volumes, that you have not read my summaries of the individual chapters. So, we begin.

Hatsukoi Shimai is primarily the story of Matsusato Chika who, when she visits the very hoi-poloi girls’ school, known as “Tsunojo”, meets up with cool upperclassman Kanzaki Haruna. During their day together touring the school, Chika falls in love with Haruna and determines that she will study very very hard and get accepted. Also during the course of the day, she trips and falls. Haruna uses her handkerchief to clean the wound and Chika, moved by Haruna’s gentle care, promises to return the handkerchief in the spring when she enters school.

Time passes and despite the odds, Chika does get accepted into Tsunojo. She meets a classmate, Kanzaki Akiho, with whom she becomes quite friendly. Akiho learns about the handkerchief and encourages Chika to return it. But…when Chika finally finds Haruna, she is coldly rebuffed. Confiding in Akiho, Chika is shocked to learn that Haruna is Akiho’s older sister!

Despite Haruna’s disinterest, Chika persists, and eventually finds Haruna in her “secret place” – a sunny glade by a pond. Chika returns the handkerchief and is gratified to see Haruna acting more the way she remembers. Naturally cheerful, Chika drops by every day to see Haruna.

One day Haruna confronts her, hostile and confused, demanding to know why Chika is following her. Chika plainly and simply confesses to being in love with Haruna.

Depressed because Haruna has once again rebuffed her, Chika’s grades drop. When she does poorly on mid-terms, Akiho sets her up with Haruna as a tutor. Able to be with Haruna at last, Chika works very hard and aces the makeup exam.

But.

Their class president, Teshigawara Chiyo, is a very unpleasant sort and is always on Chika’s ass. When Chika’s makeup exam is scored, she and some of the other girls accuse Chika of cheating. After all, failures don’t turn into A students that easily. Akiho hears the accusation and runs off to find her sister – the only person who can confirm that Chika simply studied hard. (In the CD, Chika was forced to take a retest, as Teshigawara didn’t exist.) Haruna runs up and shields Chika from the others and, for the first time, calling Chika by her given name. After an honor student upperclassmen tells them they’re dirt, the girls all back off – except Teshigawara, who has other issues, primarily a raging case of jealousy.

The volume ends at a cafe, where Haruna gives Chika a barrette as a present for doing so well. Chika promises to treasure it always, and points out, a bit coyly, that Haruna called her “Chika-san” when she defended her. Haruna is mortified, because she is just a formal and stuffy kind of person. She and Chika share their souffles and, in a complete reversal of personality, Haruna licks a crumb from Chika’s cheek, which makes Chika explode in a really cute SD panel. ^_^

End of volume.

The book, like all the other Yuri Hime Comics, has been given a high-quality treatment. Color pages are reproduced and the cover and inside cover art is cute. The book cover includes several 4-panel comics, two of which actually made me laugh out loud. And the book comes with a small insert pamphlet with rough sketches by the manga artist, with commentary (in Japanese, of course.)

Where Strawberry Panic is filled with tons of fanservice, this series almost runs to the other extreme, with not only no service, but hardly anything happening at all. No horse-racing, falling off towers or library seductions here. Instead, the narrative is primarily character driven, with lots of doki-doki moments and small moments of almost tortured intimacy. If translated into English, Hatsukoi Shimai would not be nearly as popular as Strawberry Panic, by virtue of having no related anime and not being created expressly for appreciation by the Lowest Common Denominator.

Ratings:

Art – 6 (still a little on the young side for my taste)
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – 1

Overall – 6

Even for me, Hatsukoi Shimai a tad tame (but we must remember it began in the pages of Yuri Shimai which constantly erred on the side of chaste romance.) That having been said, slight insipidity is superior to a charge of tedious trashiness. IMHO. (Note the entirely unintentional, yet remarkably clever, repetition of consonant sounds that makes the former sound classy and the latter junky and crass. Aren’t I a clever girl.)

Update: I joked about “no library seductions” but I belatedly realize, I lied. The text story that introduced Akiho on the inside cover, actually takes place between Akiho and her eventual lover….in the library.

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Hatsukoi Shimai, Koi Shimai, Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Strawberry Panic, Volume 2

December 5th, 2006

Welcome to “schoolgirls” week on Okazu.

Feel my excitement as I contemplate yet another half dozen manga with pretty much the exact same subject. I hope you’ll forgive my lack of enthusiasm – I have a cold and a cranky attitude.

Let’s start with the “omg, most AWESOME 4tw, this series roxors!!!!11111” series since Kannazuki no Miko, shall we? I am of course, speaking of Strawberry Panic which, by the sheer number of emails and comments that look like the above phrase, has an even less discriminating sophisticated fanbase than KnM.

And yet.

I read it. I enjoy it. I find it amusing. (For those of you tempted to write in that I am a moron because I cannot see how wonderfulness Strawberry Panic is, please read the first three sentences of this paragraph again. Then again, until you can understand that I *do* like it. I just don’t think it’s as amazing as some do.)

Let’s start with the cover. You can see that the main character and her stalker roommate are depicted realistically. For eight year olds. However, they are actually 15.

And let’s enjoy the causal wear they are modeling. Exactly *which* part of the school uniform is that? Because clearly it’s only part of it.

But, hey, I’m told by dozens of people that this series is GREAT! Well, usually they say something like “its grate” – and no, I am not kidding or being mean. This is completely representative of the comments I’ve seen on Strawberry Panic.

DESPITE the fact that the fanbase is appalling, the second volume of Strawberry Panic has deviated quite remarkably from the anime and even from the first volume of the manga, which was primarily dedicated to light sexual harrassment which, if it had been guys doing it, would have made most fans of the series upset. But it was two girls, so many enjoyed it anyway. Just, not me.

In Volume 2, the Etoilesen, the competition for the school’s star couple, is about to begin. Unlike the anime, in which each school put up one couple, in the manga version many, many couples from all the schools appear to be eligible to compete. Of course the only two we care about are the Shizuma/Nagisa and Amane/Hikari pairs.

The competition opens with the swearing of vows of love and loyalty, all very wedding like. A couple clearly gets points on style, hence Amane’s swinging Hikari into her arms romantically (something also used in the anime, rather inexplicably if you hadn’t already read the manga. Luckily, I am getting the monthly issues of Dengeki G’s that the manga runs in, to cover just such situations. lol)

In the manga, it is Shizuma and Nagisa who are standing for the Etoile, not Tamao and Nagisa. Shion, president of Spica, is not above using dirty tricks to get Amane and Hikari into the Etoile position, so she secretly sends Nagisa info on Shizuma’s former partner. During the vow portion of the event, Shion asks Shizuma to swear that her love wholly and completely be given to Nagisa. After a moment of hesitation, Shizuma falls to her knees and makes the vow.

Nagisa is totally confused about everything which, for once, I can’t really blame her too much.

The first test is obviously designed to place Amane/Hikari above the pack with an awesomely stupid contest in which all the “cadets,” the younger partners, are shoved onto a platform on a tower, while the “ane,” the older partners, ride a steeplechase, save their princess from the tower and ride back. Of course tragedy strikes as both Hikari and Nagisa manage to fall. Of course they are saved. I mean, puh-leeze. We could hardly hope that they would be allowed to die so soon, more’s the pity. LOL Instead we are treated to Prince Amane and Etoile Shizuma at their knight-on-charger coolest. (And, btw, they are *still* an allegory for Heaven vs Hell. Just want to make the point. Amane all in white on her gray [white horses, for those of you non-horse people, are all “gray”] and Shizuma, all in black on her big black horse. [There’s no real black horses either. FYI.])

After the first round is over, there’s a little party at which Nagisa expresses her self-doubt. Shizuma restates her vow and the two seal their promise with a kiss.

End of volume.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a plot starting to develop in this volume – Kaname’s desire to win the Etoilesen has now been augmented with her open desire to win it *with* Amane (which leads to a great scene where Amane complains that if the two of them run together they’ll look like a Boy’s Love couple, which is countered by Shion saying that as a couple of Takarazuka Top Stars, they’d be a winning pair.) Kaname remains an EPL (Evil Psycho Lesbian), but Momomi is, at the moment, at least, not part of the equation. One hopes that she and Kaname will end up together.

Shizuma and Nagisa’s relationship is not being dragged unnecessarily through the angst fields as with the anime, and the kiss was neither sleazy nor servicey. In fact, for this series it was quite sweet. …I’m all for false hopes.

Ratings:
Art – 6 (too loli for me)
Story – 6
Characters – 5-6 depending on my mood
Yuri – 8
Service – 7

Overall – 6

It’s written by guys, for a fanboy audience. But I’ve seen (and enjoyed) worse. Not bad enough to be funny, not good enough to be “good,” it will no doubt be immensely popular when Seven Seas translates it.

Posted in Strawberry Panic, Yuri Manga | 20 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Tori Koro, Volume 2

December 1st, 2006

I am about to say something I have never said before about a fellow translated manga distribution company – DrMaster is really *very* bad at their job.

I’ve read over and over that they’ve “gotten better” but given that they are coming from a place where translations are awful to abysmal, honorifics wander in and out of a book like a bored 13-year old and the reproduction of the pages is so poor that I honestly have no idea what’s going on, I can only imagine that they *have* to get better…because there’s not that much further down to go. Frankly, I’d be ashamed to put something out of this poor technical quality. The color page was so blurry and vague that it would be virtually useless to use it as a character guide, unless you had an idea who the characters were already.

Storywise, Tori Koro, Volume 2 is similar to Volume 1. The story is told in 4-panel comics, full of mind-bogglingly bad puns, Tatami’s weird-ass brain function and a lot of stupid sillyness. It’s not “wackiness,” not hysterical, just silly.

Niwa-chan’s feelings for Yae continue in this book much as they did in the first, with an added degree of desire. She’s wangled a place in the household where she spends a lot of time holding Yae in her arms as they sit around, and few times she slips and says something a tad more explicit than usual. As Yae appears to be blissfully unaware (or she’s perfectly happy with it – whichever reading you prefer,) that leaves Makishi and Tatami to react comically. Nothing in this book is anything other than comic setup, so expect no romance. Niwa’s still gets to hold Yae in her arms, so I’ll call that a win for her. ^_&

I had a good laugh at the rating on Tori Koro, too. They’ve rated it at 13+, which is fine, since there’s very little that can be called objectionable (some teeny-weeny bits of Makishi fanservice, almost as an aside and, of course, Niwa’s professed desire for Yae) but I defy anyone to find a 14-year old who would read three chapters in this manga with any enjoyment. The punch lines are so often based on regional cultural knowledge and bad puns that frankly I cannot imagine the American teenager who could read it with pleasure. ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – 4 (Weird at best, but because of the bad reproduction often completely incomprehensible here)
Story – 5 (If you like puns)
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 4 (Also mostly lost because of the bad reproduction)

Overall – 6

So, technically this book is the single worst I’ve ever seen, and the story, such as it is, is impenetrable. But I’m still glad it’s available in translation, because impenetrable puns may be bad in English, but every month when I read my Dengeki Daioh I just KNOW I’m missing 70% of what’s going on. ^_^;

(Oh and how ’bout that…*three* translated manga in one week!)

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Read or Dream, Volume 1

November 30th, 2006

Wow, two English translations in one week!

I originally reviewed the first volume of Read or Dream on February 4, 2004. That review gives a quickie overview of the whole R.O.D. continuity to that point and ends with a short review of the manga.

Now that an English translation of this enjoyable series is out, I wanted to take a look at it, of course.

In general Viz did a decent job of the translation. Of course they lost the honorifics, replacing “Ma-nee” “Mi-nee” with Mags and Mich…which totally has the opposite effect of the names with the honorifics (Anita is being both casual and respectful with her nicknames, highlighting their sibling relationships – something that is crucial to the story in later volumes – while in the English version the nicknames are merely causal,) but in most other respects they left the names and story intact. The final chapter, with the “kiss scene” conversation and the sexual tension between Maggie and Faye wasn’t changed at all, so thumbs up from this Yuri fan for that. ^_^

Visually, I thought the English version lacked some of the style of the original. The color pages of the original were not reproduced, nor was the dust jacket which covered an cute alternate universe story that was originally printed directly on the book cover. Instead, the story is reproduced in the back of the book on standard black and white pages. There’s nothing wrong with the way it was done – it just doesn’t have any pizazz.

Also. I wonder again about the ratings given to manga. I know why *I* give certain ratings to ALC manga. I wonder why this book, with inappropriate behaviors all over it, a strong current of yuri and shota – and an interview with manga writers and artists in the back that was conducted in an openly declared state of inebriation – is considered appropriate for young teens. I have no problem with it, and any kid I’d give it to would certainly be able to handle the content, but as a parent, I think I’d probabaly question the choice. Maybe Brigid at Mangablog might have an opinion about this? We talked a bit about this kind of thing at Manganext and neither of us were really able to come to a conclusion about they whys and wherefores of ratings by most of the companies. (My mistake: I checked the rating a little later to find that it’s “Older Teen” which I think is pretty appropriate. So forget all that for this book specifically, but the comment still applies generally. )

Is Read or Dream, Volume 1 worth getting?

Yes. In any language. (At the Yuricon Shop, you can find it in English or Japanese as you prefer.)

This first volume is a bit “wackiness ensues” but it sets many of the characters for later chapters and is easy and fun to read. There’s definitely added enjoyment if you know the Paper Sisters from the appearance in the ROD The TV anime, but it’s certainly easy enough to follow if you haven’t.

Ratings:

Yuri – 5
Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 9

Overall – 8

This definitely would make a nice offbeat gift for the tomboy/babydyke/Yuri fan in the family. ^_^

Posted in R.O.D., Read or Dream, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga Anthology "Yuri Monogatari 4" to Premiere at Comiket

November 30th, 2006

ALC Publishing, the world’s only publisher of 100% yuri will be premiering yuri manga anthology, Yuri Monogatari 4, at the world’s largest comic market, Comiket, in Tokyo on December 31, in West Hall, Row “Yo” Table 37a. This is ALC Publishing’s fifth appearance at Comiket – the only American manga publishing company to have a table at this event.

Yuri Monogatari 4, which is available online at the Yuricon shop and for pre-order on Amazon.com, features stories by Akiko Morishima, Althea Keaton, Kristina Kolhi, and Tomomi Nakasora. And we’re proud to announce the English-language debut of the sequel to Rica Takashima’s best-selling title, “Rica ‘tte Kanji!?,” “More Rica ‘tte Kanji!?” Rica Takashima will be at the “Yuricon” table for autographs.

ALC Publishing was founded in 2003 to create and disseminate high-quality yuri manga to the worldwide English speaking audience. ALC is a division of Yuricon, a celebration of yuri and shoujoai in anime and manga.

For more information on ALC Publishing’s 100% yuri publications or on Yuricon, please visit our website at http://www.anilesbocon.com or email us at [email protected]

Posted in ALC Publishing, Yuri Manga, Yuri Monogatari | No Comments »