BTW – if you look at the cover picture, the characters on the cover are Chika on the left and Akiho on the right, both from Koi Shimai. Chika and Haruna were the characters on the first volume of Yuri Shimai. Issue two sported Akiho (left) and Touko-sensei (right), while the third volume featured the next couple whose story will become a Drama CD.

Errata – Yesterday, I mistakenly identified the artist for Koi Shimai and the cover art as Nagasawa Satoru, the artist for the Maria-sama ga Miteru manga. I was being brain dead. The character designs for Koi Shimai and all the Yuri Shimai covers are done by Hibiki Reine – the illustrator for the *novelisation* of Marimite, from Cobalt Shueisha. The manga adaptation of Koi Shimai is being done by committee, apparently. ^_^

Okay, onwards – more about Yuri Shimai 4. After the new Koi Shimai manga, and the most recent issue of Strawberry Shake, comes a short fiction and then a longer, heinously illustrated fiction about mermaids, which made my face go all scrunchy, called “Mermaid Princess.” Ugh. Followed by an essay and a lolicon art short that has something to do with one girl’s sandals. It was dire, so I kind of skipped it.

Then comes a (“lyrical, magical”) story with a few color pages about a witch and shrine priestess. More cute than anything else, but it’s kind of sweet (the witch frees the shrine maiden from her duty and rescuses her from being bound to the shrine forever. It definitely involves a few kisses – and the characters don’t look like little kids. It will take me sometime to translate the title on this one, so, my apologies – it’s “the story about the witch and the miko,” for now. Upon re-read, this story was really cute and likeable.

Next up – Morinaga Milk’s next entry. If you remember back, the first stories in this saga were the wonderful “Even If We’re Not Friends” and “A Kiss, Love and A Prince,” which set the scene for this high school where a significant portion of the population appears to be lesbian. The third entry was a little less strong, mostly because, to me, it had some serious cliche’ problems. This issue brings us “The Summer Closest to Heaven”, which I really, really enjoyed.

“Summer” is the story of a ghost of a girl who attended this high school a while back. She was in love with a classmate, but before she could graduate, she died. The classmate (who did manage to graduate) has become the school’s doctor, so the ghost hangs around to stay near her beloved. One day, one of the girls on the basketball team sprains her ankle and heads to the doctor’s office to get it taped. The ghost ends up inside her and now the girl wants to spend all her time with the doctor. Eventually, they end up on the roof, talking, and the doctor figures out that the girl is inhabited by the ghost of her dead friend. They talk, and kiss, and the ghost moves on. When the girl wakes up, all she knows is that she’s got a thing for the doctor now. ^_^ Trust me – it’s cute. And Nana and Hitomi from “Even If We’re Not Friends” makes a cameo, as they have in every story in the saga. Check for them in the beginning at the basketball game. ^_^

Then next story is…different. “Female Wolf” is a little disturbing, for the discussion of physical and emotional abuse, and for the creepy behavior of the eponymous lead. It has some nudity, which makes it stand out in this oh-so-cute magazine. But the characters look and act their age, and for that, I am pleased. (Now if only the stories featured 20- and 30-something women who looked their age…. )

Another short color story, with a creepy ghostly quality and a title I can’t translate without work, followed by a short color manga for Saphizm Cruise, a yuri hentai game that’s making the rounds. To me the characters read very loli, but it’s an h-game and they always seem to emphasize that. In this issue, we see the backstory of, presumably,the first officer, as she grows up to be worthy of the captain. (The captain appears to sleep with all the characters in the game, if I’m not entirely mistaken.) I’m betting we see more of this story in future issues.

A third short story called “Swear”, which made no impact on me, but was a kind of “I’ll protect you forver” pseudo-wedding kind of thing, and last, but definitely not least, “Wish on A Star” which was an utterly depressing story about two friends coping (or not) with the loss of a third friend, with whom one of them was in love. It was an interesting take on the classic love triangle. I actually thought that it had some serious merit, and I liked the art quite a bit.

And, of course, there were the usual film, novel, manga, anime and doujinshi reviews, which are very helpful when I’m planning future purchases. ^_^ I’ll also be sending them a copy of Yuri Monogatarai to review, hopefully.

So – overall, this was a really strong issue. The art looked tighter, there was a minimal amount of lolicon, the stories are getting better and I noticed a few Yuri-flavored ads creeping into the advertising, as opposed to all the BL-centric ones that were in previous issues. The survey in the editorials were still more “Huh, what is that?” than “Yay! Yuri!”, but from the quality of this issue, I’m hoping that we can look forward to even more and better Yuri from the next Yuri Shimai!

Yuri Shimai has just released the fourth issue and at first glance, it may be the best one so far. In fact, there are so many things worth noting, I’ll probably do this is two entries. Right off the top, there is much less lolicon than usual – in general there is a *slighty* older feel to the stories. It isn’t much, but I’ll take it!

(Let me just stop here and recommend that, if you are purchasing Yuri Shimai, take the time to fill out the opinion card that comes inside. It’s not a bad thing for them to know that they have a western audience, and our opinions are at least as interesting as anyone else’s.)

So, the new issue begins with a 32-page, with color, manga adaptation of Koi Shimai, a name which might ring a bell or two if you read this blog regularly. Koi Shimai is the name of the original CD Drama put out by the publisher of Yuri Shimai. If you remember from my past reviews, Koi Shimai is the story of Chika and Haruna – how they meet and fall in love, face trials and tribulations (which consist of lots of twisted ankles, scraped knees and one seductive teacher.) In this manga adaptation, the same story is retold, but there’s some significant rewriting from the Drama CD, which gives both the characters and story a little more depth. I’m looking forward to seeing how things turn out – in the manga version Haruna is not at *all* the same person she is in the drama CD. Instead of being insipid and passive, she has become aloof and cold, so Chika will have a much harder time getting through her barriers.

Another interesting thing to note about Koi Shimai is that the artist and writer are the same ones who are doing the manga adaptation of Maria-sama ga Miteru – so the style of the story and art are very familiar.

Following closely upon the heels of Koi Shimai is the most recent chapter of that wacky love comedy, Strawberry Shake. Teen idol Julia is no closer to admitting her feelings for Ran-chan, and now the story has expanded into a love polygon – only it’s not shy and sexy Ran-chan that everyone is fighting over, it’s the uptight manager, Sawaki. This issue was, as usual, quite silly, but as long as Julia has no competition for Ran everyone is, IMHO, welcome to fight over the manager. ^_^ And it’s kind of a funny complication, because it is the manger who is effectively keeping Julia and Ran apart.

One of the more amusing things about Strawberry Shake is the “all the girls are in love with each other” quality of the story. Julia loves Ran, who loves her back, and the hair stylist and assistant manager are both in love with the manager, while the other girl idol is in love with the hair stylist…and the random visual girl-band members are two couples. The story is very reminiscent of Kat William’s work, partially from the wackiness, and partially from the complex of intertwining relationships. The same could be said, of course, about Koi Shimai, where all the characters have some relationship with or impact upon the primary relations…and even more so about Morinaga Milk’s ongoing lesbian high school saga.

And, on that note, I’m going to cover the next entry into that saga next time. Tune back in to hear more on the new Yuri Shimai!