semelparous, Volume 2, Guest Review by G-Man

May 24th, 2022

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday, Today we’re welcoming back G-Man, who has a lot to say about semelparous, Volume 2. ^_^  Take it away, G-Man!

Time for a much overdue look at the continuation of everyone’s “favorite” yuri action manga! More action, more gay, more twists and turns, and more controversial art! But is this new installment in the semelparous saga an improvement on the first? Let’s take a look…

Spoiler Warning! To discuss major plot points in this volume, I gotta talk about the big twist I mentioned in my Volume 1 review.

When we last left our protagonist Yorino, she’d discovered that the kaiju attacking the walls between their world and ours were in fact spiritually connected to a person in the human world. In other words, every time Yorino or another bouhekishi soldier kills a kaiju, someone dies. Despite knowing this, Yorino powers ahead in her goal of putting a stop to the attacks once and for all. She’s willing to “descend into hell together” with her partner, Captain Youko.

Right out of the gate, Volume 2’s plot is much better than the first. Whereas Volume 1 felt like a kaiju-sized pile of setup, with exposition being dumped left and right and characters not being given much of a chance to shine, the opposite (for the most part) is true here. A lot happens in this volume. Like, a LOT. New characters are introduced, relationships are deepened, new plot elements are revealed, etc. We also finally get a glimpse at some human villains working behind the scenes. One could potentially argue that too much happens in this volume, resulting in breakneck pacing that doesn’t give readers much time to digest everything. However, I’d argue that it makes sure the story is never boring. I finished the entire thing in one sitting, always eager to see what would happen on the next page.

Volume 2 also does a good job of raising the stakes. Ever since the Kaiju-Human connection was introduced, I knew it would result in more heartbreak for Yorino. Lo and behold, a routine kaiju takedown results in one of Yorino’s school friends dying. While it does relegate said friends to more plot devices than actual characters, they do their job rather well. Not only does their death, combined with Haruka’s death from Volume 1, reveal that Yorino is being directly targeted by the villains, but it also gives the sense that no one is safe in this world. Seeing Yorino grow closer with Youko has me now fearing for Youko’s safety as well. And it was at this point that I realized something… I was actually starting to care.

Yes, this manga is still a guilty pleasure as many elements of it are problematic and completely ludicrous. As such, I can’t say that everyone will grow invested as I have. But I can say that what started as a mindless yuri action romp with distracting male gaze has become something that feels like it has genuine effort and passion put into it.

Speaking of caring, the characters (at least the main duo) are given some decent development. Yorino continues to have more trauma piled onto her with the death of another person she was close to, instead of just more random citizens. The scene where she goes to school the day after the fight only to find her classmate in tears is a genuine gut-punch. As for Youko, the volume starts with an entire chapter dedicated to her backstory and how she killed her own sister through a kaiju. She’s definitely the more interesting of the two leads as it’s not always clear how she’s feeling. It almost seems as if she’s accepted her past demons and become completely numb to them, and now she simply goes with the flow and doesn’t allow herself to feel anything beyond surface-level joy, anger, or other such emotions. Okay, maybe I’m reading a bit too much into it, but it could explain why she’s so desperate to protect Yorino. A scene where she has to persuade Yorino to mourn her friend’s death, saying “Crying is what keeps you from losing your heart,” reads to me as her trying to prevent Yorino from becoming like her.

There are a few other characters of note this time around, but not nearly as much to say about them. Yorino and Youko get two new bouhekishi partners in the form of Rina Kitamura and Ryouka Manabe. Rina crushes hard on Yorino like a typical tsundere, which some may find endearing, but she can also be rather creepy and borderline stalker-ish, as she enjoys reviewing Yorino’s combat footage and getting off to it (did I mention this manga was made by a hentai artist?). Ryouka has very little going for her, aside from occasionally teasing Rina about her crush on Yorino.

The artstyle pretty much carries over from Volume 1 in every way. The girls all still suffer from absurd proportions, impractical combat outfits, and in-your-face camera angles. Of course, as mentioned above, we’re stepping into hard NSFW territory now with Rina pleasuring herself to Yorino. This is not helped at all by character bios inserted between chapters that remind you these girls are in their teens. Bleh. However, what continues to impress me about the art unironically are the action scenes. I think I can safely say that semelparous has hands-down the best action I’ve seen in any yuri manga (which isn’t saying much given the lack of action yuri, but still). Ogino Jun truly understands the power of “wind-up and follow-through”; every punch thrown and sword swung is preceded by a panel of the kaiju or bouheksihi rearing back for the strike, which makes the force of the resulting impact that much more felt. That, in tandem with the destruction that follows the combatants’ strikes, makes the fights truly feel like clashes between colossal monsters and superpowered humans.

Finally, we have the yuri content, and I’m pleased to report that it’s yet another step forward. The leads’ relationship in Volume 1 was cute, but it was mostly just Youko teasing and Yorino getting either annoyed or flustered. Here, the two support each other not only in combat but emotionally. Youko wants Yorino to live a normal life and not be consumed by her mission to defeat the kaiju, and thus encourages her to spend time with friends. She’s also the first person Yorino shows a vulnerable side to, such as in the aforementioned scene where she tells her it’s okay to cry. It all culminates in their first kiss and declaration of love, and it’s honestly very heartfelt and adorable. After that, they share plenty more cute and flirty moments, including another shower scene (still a hentai artist). Yorino questioning whether Youko truly loves her, only for the Bouhekishi Captain to proudly declare she’s totally her type and would love to have sex with her admittedly put a stupid grin on my face.

 

Ratings

Art – 7 (again, when discounting the ridiculous proportions. 5 when counting them)
Story – 6 (a lot more going on and thus never boring, but still very nonsensical and can feel rushed in places)
Characters – 6 (the leads get more development, but the new additions are fairly flat so far)
Service – 10 (still for all the wrong reasons, only now we’re entering NSFW territory)
Yuri – 9 (seriously, what the heck is this sweet and healthy dynamic doing in my dumb ecchi action series???)

Overall – 6 (If this were my personal opinion I’d give it a 7, but I have to be fair. While several aspects are improved from Volume 1, there are still things that readers may find uncomfortable and impossible to look past)


One last note– as of writing this, semelparous is still on hiatus due to Ogino Jun undergoing medical treatment. Opinions on the manga aside, please wish Jun-sensei good health and a swift recovery.

Erica here: Thank you so much for this review. semelparous Volume 2 by Ogino Jun is out now from out from Seven Seas, available on Amazon, Bookwalker, RightStuf or wherever you get your manga. Volume 3 will be on sale this summer (Amazon, RightStuf).

Posted in English Manga, Guest Review, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 4: Crimson Nightmare

May 23rd, 2022

Menou, trained as a priestess and an executioner, is vehemently not interested in having her worldview altered, but in The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 4: Crimson Nightmare there is no way around it. Her assistant Momo has kidnapped her target Akari and she is angry at both of them for a lot of reasons. She’s conflicted about killing Akari, a task she knows she must do, but wishes she did not have to.

And then a previous antagonist, Manon Libelle, and a part of a Human Error with the Pure Concept Evil, reveal to Menou some of the truth of the world. It’s enough to ruin anyone’s day, really.

This volume is emotionally rough on Menou, even as relatively little happens. Slowly, carefully she – and we – are starting to see how sincerely fucked up her world is and how the truths by which she lives are, and have always been perversions of the truth – at best.

The climax of this series is dead ahead and everyone here  is running towards it full steam. Otherworlder Akari knows what  awaits them, but she’s still trying to change the outcome, Momo is resisting being a decent person, and Menou is heading right into the same outcome she’s run into over and over. It’s inevitable….only, it’s not because I presume this series will have to end eventually. ^_^

Murder, mayhem and unhappy endings all around or do they snap the axle at the center of this grindstone and break the world? This volume has many arguments for either, or both. It ends up being a pretty solid set-up for whatever is coming next. Except for the new character which actually feels like “I inserted a man, because men were not in this story and without men, men readers cannot man.” I’m not being facetious. Suddenly, this guy is here and he’s SUPER important and mildly creepy in a sad, lonely way, but also says and does nothing of importance. He mans.

What I really admire is the way this novel leans in to describing 1) things its already described, like the social classes in this world and the magic in this series – of which, let me remind you, we are in Volume 4. We know. And; 2) utterly banal Japanese things that any Japanese reader would know, but here is treated as alien. Manon is in a Otherworldly room….so they actually describe a Japanese room. I mean… what? Did anyone need this? Was it a word count thing?  But the author is committed and therefore, so are we.

Jenny McKeon’s translation here is really doing double time making this book readable. And making Momo both intolerable and tolerable at the same time. If Yen credited the editor, I’d give them  a shoutout, as well, because the readability of this volume is upped from previous volumes. Maybe they are all getting used to the patter? Another solid effort from the team at Yen.

And even with the man manning and a multiple discussions of how much Japanese people like hot springs, it’s not a bad book for setting up for what surely will be the climax in the next novel or two. Mato Sato is having fun making stone soup out of disparate plot elements and isn’t going to rush for you. ^_^

Ratings:

Art -Always the weakest part of this series. It illustrates nothing, not particularly well.
Story – The tension built slowly over the volume. It really feels like something major is going to happen.
Characters – Finally, /spoiler/ shows up.
Service – It tries so hard, but it doesn’t really succeed. You can’t just “say” something is sexy and make us guess at it
Yuri – As much here as has been, with a little extra Yuri on the side, care of Manon.

Overall – 7? 8? It’s going to depend on if this was worth it.

I hope this series has a strong end. Not for any particular reason, I just do.

Many, many thanks to Yen Press for the review copy! I wish you’d list the folks that worked on it. ^_^

 

Posted in Light Novel | 1 Comment »


Secret Identity, by Alex Segura

May 22nd, 2022

Carmen Valdez eats and breathes comic books; ink flows through her veins. She’s moved away from her beloved Miami and her family to the rough streets of 1975 New York City in an attempt to create a space for herself in comics. And, she has, but not the space she wanted.

As the secretary to a cheap, not-quite-incompetent boss at a small third-rate comic book company, Carmen knows she can do so much more, if only she got the opportunity. Then something like the opportunity arrives – even knowing it’s the longest of long shots, she takes it.

When Carmen finds her writing partner’s body with a bullet hole in his head and only his name on their comic, everything comes crashing down around her. But, the Lethal Lynx is her character, too, and she’s not going to back down from trying to save the comic book, and herself.

Secret Identity by Alex Segura is a great read. With an all-around solid story that comics fans and insiders will love, it reads very much like a comics-industry version of Umberto Eco’s Focault’s Pendulum. There’s an incredible depth of knowledge and experience that Alex brings to the book.  Those of who remember NYC of the 70s will nod to the tense beat of life there, the smells and sounds of the streets, and the faces of the real names with which Segura sugars the story. Carmen feels like a character right out of an episode of Wonder Woman on TV, or any drama about women “making it in the big city,” with NYC as a backdrop.

What came as a pleasant surprise to me was the narrative about Carmen’s past and present. Her relationships (romantic and non) with other women are as critical to the narrative as the interactions she has with the men in the book, but they do not overwrite of obfuscate one another. Carmen is a lesbian and she’s got the effed up ex to prove it, but that is not at all the sum of who Carmen is as a human. In fact, Carmen’s friendship with her roommate was among my favorite developments. The ending of this book is spot on. I could not have asked for better.

One of the loveliest aspects of the book are the comic pages of the Lethal Lynx. They tell a subtle story of their own. The art is excellent – especially when it is bad. The badness was incredible, just such a skilled example of bad comics art in the 1975 (although I think it could have used more sleaze) that I have to give it props. The excellent pages create quite the punch. BUT, this leads me to the one criticism I have of this otherwise perfect book. Personally, I would have loved if Segura had chosen women as his artist and letterer as a hearty “Fuck you comics in 1975.” Alas, he did not. While he credits many woman with the making of his book, both artist and letterer were men. A petty complaint, but it rankled. Not enough to lessen how much I enjoyed this book. ^_^

It’s summer. It’s a perfect time to go read a great rollicking superhero comics-flavored mystery (and caperish and queer) novel written by someone who does right by all of those things. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9 Nailed it. Every time.
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 2 Rather, some good sexual tension where it needed.
Lesbian – 9

Overall – 9

Great book, fast-paced and fun, with an ending that nails the landing.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Novel | 3 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 21, 2022

May 21st, 2022

Yuri Event

Anime Boston is next week, don’t forget to drop my panels and say hello! My full schedule is posted on Yuricon: Yuri Panels at Anime Boston.

There will be no YNN Report next week as a result. ^_^  See you in Boston!

Yuri Manga

Sal Jiang’s collected shorts from Web Action Comice, SAL: Stories About Love is up on the Yuricon Store.  This collection also includes the extra chapter of the popular web action series Ayaka-chan ha Hiroko-sempai ni Koi Shiteru.

Via Senior YNN Correspondent Sean G, Yuri creator merryhachi is launching a new title Zenbu Kimi no Sei da in Ultra Jump magazine.Crystalyn Hodgkins has the details on ANN.

Support Yuri Journalism & Yuri Creators
Become an Okazu Patron Today!

Seven Seas has licensed some new Yuri manga and and has announced a new Yuri imprint!  Seven Seas GL is launching with two new titles. Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels!, which is an 18+ sex work fantasy and the light novel There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless… This second title has an interesting set of credits, with three Yuri creators listed, Terem Mikami, Takeshima Eku and Musshu. It’s fascinating to me that almost no other manga publisher uses imprints, but Seven Seas creates new ones regularly. ^_^

However, there is a reason why we, creators and fans of Yuri do not call it GL. I’ve written about that quite a few times. Here is Why We Call It “Yuri” for Anime Feminist, one of many essays that are included in my book about Yuri history By Your Side. (They also apparently went withe a chrysanthemum for their BL line, another oddly ahistorical choice.)

 

 

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Games and Visual Novels

Studio Elan held an Elan festival with a host of new announcements. Three new games from their Bellhouse imprint:

Who is The Red Queen? is  “a dark and graphic girls love visual novel taking place in a twisted version of Wonderland. Help Alice solve the mystery of the Red Queen and avoid death.”

Love In a Bottle follows Ankora the Love Demon as she strikes out on her own for the first time, on a mission to prove she’s able to make it on her own, but more importantly, let all of the HOT SINGLE WOMEN know she’s available.

They also have announced Heart of the Woods soundtrack on vinyl. A two-LP gatefold release, featuring both the Snowfall and Moonlight halves of the soundtrack, as well as 2 extra tracks for Snowfall. There are also two new cover illustrations drawn by adirosa and each order comes with a Tara sticker. They also have a limited amount of HotW Kickstarter merchandise for sale.

Locke and Key: A Magical Girl Mystery is up on Steam and is going to be on itch.io soon.

They formally announced the game Our Home, My Keeper in association with Ebi-Hime. Singto Connely has a sample track of the OST on Twitter!

 

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Other News

Namori’s two series are having an art collaboration, according to Comic Natalie. Yuru Yuriand Omuro Family art collab will be at Atre Akihabara  from July 31.

Also from Comic Natalie, we have news of a new web comic magazine, Comic OGYAAA!! which, the description says will run original manga of various genres such as “gag, essay, fantasy, action, lily, and animal.” First chapters are free on the Comic OGYAAA!! website, so take a look!

 

Thanks to our Okazu Patrons and Fans who make the YNN weekly report possible! Support us on Patreon to help us give Guest Reviewers a raise and to help us support Yuri creators!

Become a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share and be part of the Yuri Network. ^_^

Posted in Yuri Network News | 2 Comments »


Sempai, Oishii desuka? Volume 1 (先輩、美味しいですか?)

May 19th, 2022

Miho loves food. She happily eats large bowls of rice with a big smile. But, back in high school, a schoolmate told her it wasn’t really feminine to eat so much or with so much gusto. That hasn’t stopped Miho, but she does prefer to eat alone these days.

A college friend wants to meet Miho’s boyfriend before a group date and Miho is in a bind. She usually brings her brother to these things to stave off both answering questions about not having a boyfriend from the girls and advances from the guys. But her brother can’t make it, so he’s sending a substitute…who turns out to be beautiful woman, Mori-sempai. Moris one of those people who is completely comfortable with herself and jumps right in as Miho’s “lover.” But Miho is much less comfortable with the kind of skinship Mori-sempai seems to favor. When Mori-sempai shares that she’s seen Miho eating and everything seems so delicious, Miho invites Mori to make some food together.

When I heard about Sempai, Oishii desuka? Volume 1 (先輩、美味しいですか?) which combines three things I really like –  Yuri, food and Mikanuji’s art and characters –  I was really excited to read this volume. Now that I have read it, I can definitely recommend it with some significant reservations.

Miho is a well-conceived character. She’s awkward in a very relatable way; hyper-focused on things she finds relaxing and fun, and unsure and often uncomfortable outside those situations. I think I and nearly everyone I know fits that pattern. She really can’t read Mori and Mori isn’t really being entirely upfront…a fact that she admits to Miho. Miho’s really cute. Her reason for not going out with a girl who confessed her feelings was totally in character…and Mori agrees. ^_^

Mori’s the deep waters here. On the surface she’s perfect. However, she regularly violates Miho’s boundaries, not with malice, but she still does it. This is the reservation in my recommendation. If you are made uncomfortable by a story in which boundaries are ignored, this may very well distress you, because it did begin to distress me. I found it a little much. Perhaps read as a monthly serial it would be more tolerable than in one sitting.  As the volume progresses, we see – and Mori mentions –  that she has some secrets.

One wonders if this story about food and Yuri doesn’t have a third layer about…something…beneath the surface. I could conjecture, but I don’t want to make the book about something it’s not about. I just have a gut feeling.

Lastly – the food parts aren’t quite recipes, but they’ll certainly stimulate the appetite and imagination, especially if you enjoy Japanese food. And of course Mikanuji-sensei’s art is quite cute.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Characters – 8 
Story – 7
Service – Mori getting too close too often is problematic rather than salacious
Yuri – Beyond the premise, let’s give it a 4

Overall – 7  

I can see this story doing some good things and equally, I can see it cutting corners. I hope as it develops it goes the former route. I’m really hoping Miho and Mori grow a bit more in synch and work through their baggage together.

Posted in Mikanuji, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »