Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Eve and Eve (English)

May 31st, 2019

Eve and Eve by Nagashiro Rouge is a collection of stories that ran in several publications, including shorts from Comic Yuri Hime. By the time I had read the Japanese edition, the license announcement had already been made, so I decided to skip reviewing the JP volume altogether. So here we are today.

The stories that make up this volume are largely science fiction. These touch on end of humanity, robot x human relationships, artificial and human intelligence, among other themes.  Several of these also express a greater interest in pregnancy that I personally have. A number of the stories ran in a publication listed as Yuri Pregnancies, so there’s no doubt what the point of those are. They are also some of the first adult content we’ve seen in English-language Yuri manga since ALC Publishing published the Yuri Monogatari series.

Which brings me to the sex. Apparently, there are some people who believe that Seven Seas has censored or altered the sex scenes. This is patently untrue. Seven Seas has reproduced the Japanese collection exactly as it was printed. As I noted in a Twitter thread this morning, my guess is that some readers assume this to be true because of their misunderstanding of the 18+ label.

What gets an 18+ label in the United States and what gets an 18+ label in Japan are not the same. Regardless, most 18+ content in Japan is not explicit when it comes to genitalia or penetration. And, everything published without an 18+ label in Japan will definitely not be explicit. The Japanese volume of this manga is exactly as you see here. Vulvas are not drawn or even implied, there is simply blank space. 

In the west, manga with even a hint of sexual contact is labeled as 18+, especially if the participants are likely to be perceived as young. And, as Lara pointed out in the middle of the Twitter discussion, any LGBTQ content was, until recently, considered 18+ in manga. This is not because manga companies suck but because sucky people exist and no manga company wants their manga to be cause for litigation. All of ALC’s Yuri Monogatari had to be labeled 18+, which meant I could never get bookstore space. Because every volume had at least one story with a physical relationship, no one would carry the book without the 18+, either.

So, there is sex in this book. There is both nonconsensual and consensual sex (and your mileage may vary of which is what) and as explicit as it can be – and as it was for the Japanese edition of the collected volume. Any changes to the content was made for the Japanese volume. It is drawn in a way that requires you to imagine a woman’s body parts. For those who complain about the lack of explicit drawings, all I’m hearing is that they have a significant paucity of imagination. Sucks for them.

The two stories that piqued my interest when they ran in Comic Yuri Hime were a completely non-scifi exploration of the roles of uke and seme – here translated appropriately as top and bottom – set in a school, that I just liked as a cute little standalone comedy, and the final story about two women’s desire to express their love in a cosmic sense. This story becomes rather epic, but ends on a very human note.

Ratings:

Everything is variable, as this is a collection of short arcs or one-shots over time from multiple publications

Overall – 8

I didn’t love the collection because I do not have any interest in (and feel some antipathy towards) pregnancy, but I did appreciate the science fiction and the “Top or Bottom: Showdown.” 

Translation by Stephen Christiansen, adaptation by Asha Bardon and lettering by Raymond Rex are all excellent, especial in regards to the final, decidedly sci-fi story.

I’d also very, very much like to thanks Seven Seas for adding the original story publishing credits! I may well be the only person in the world that reads them, but I do and they are super helpful to me, so thank you for doing that! It’s such a help.





Yuri Manga: Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl, Volume 9 (English) Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

May 29th, 2019

Hello and welcome to Guest Review….Thursday. Yeah, I dropped the ball yesterday and simply forgot to post this. But I didn’t want you to miss this terrific review by Senior Kiss & White Lily Correspondent, Christian LeBlanc of 3DComics! So please welcome Chris back and give him your kind attention as he breaks it all down once again for us.

Let’s cut right to the chase: this penultimate Volume 9 of Canno’s high school “Yuritopia” Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl (translation by Leighann Harvey, lettering by Alexis Eckerman) is a better end to the series than Volume 10, and if you enjoy these books well enough but happen to only own a few volumes, you owe it to yourself to add this one to your collection, because s*** gets real.

How real? Well, one girl forgets her toothbrush after sleeping over at her girlfriend’s house, someone else gets so angry at the world that they turn to cosplay to cope with it all, and in the climax of the series, another girl tells off their mom and then makes out with the girl she likes! (Suggested listening for this scene: your favourite pump-up music, be it something from Sailor Moon, Kill La Kill, or, if you want to get real campy, the opening 27 seconds of “Everything Louder Than Everything Else” by Meat Loaf.)<

With that out of the way, let’s back up a little and talk about our final new pair of characters. Asuka Sakurada finds herself repeating her final year of high school due to a basketball injury that made her miss too many days (it must have been a concussion or something, because she’s only shown with a broken leg in flashbacks, and I assume the poor girl would have had access to crutches). As a senpai forced to join her kōhai, she gets a *huge* chip on her shoulder about it, attending only the bare minimum of classes, refusing to integrate or socialize with anyone, etc. Her self-destructive attitude becomes extreme enough that she turns to that most delinquent form of rebellion, cosplay, which is how she meets Mikaze Hagimoto. Asuka cosplays a character who has a lot in common with Mikaze and vice-versa, the two hit it off, and we quickly see them making out on school benches, fashion wigs and all.

All of this is framed as a tragic romance, by the way – the first two words in the book are “It’s over.” If you’re like me and have a predilection for the melancholy, it means good times all around: put on your favourite gloomy Cure record and enjoy the tearful scenes that are to come. (I joke slightly, but it does get dark for poor Mikaze, who takes the break-up very hard indeed: the color has gone out of her world, she can’t concentrate in school, she starts skipping classes…we see later on in flashbacks that she spent at least one night alone with Asuka, which perhaps sheds light on why she’s having such a tough time, if things had gotten that intense between them.)

I think a much stronger ending would have seen these two making peace with each other as friends, but, you’ve already seen the cover, and you’ve probably read at least a few volumes of this series before, so you’ll just have to put on a different Cure record, I guess (one of their happy ones, that make you want to live). This is why Volume 2 will always be my favorite, by the way – Chiharu is rejected, but we get to see her *move on*, and she gets the entire volume in which to do so. Here, it feels like Canno wanted to explore a good break-up story, but had to wrap things up in order to get her characters posed happily for the cover shot; Asuka’s sudden change of heart even feels more like a plot requirement than anything sincere.

As for flagship characters Ayaka and Yurine, both characters get the plot resolution that the entire series has been building towards. Both of their chapters start with the same event (viewing exam results, the only thing that makes Ayaka feel alive…I worry about how she’s going to cope after high school, actually), and then follows either Ayaka or Yurine for the rest of their respective chapters as they resolve their plots in a neat bit of parallel story-telling. Yurine even gets a call-back to the very first chapter of the series, which makes it feel like a better ending than Vol.10, even without things “officially” wrapping up.

For analysis, let’s back things up again a bit. Ok, a lot: having lived and died centuries before Yuri began 100 years ago, René Descartes likely did not anticipate getting the opening quotation, “Conquer yourself rather than the world!” In this book, this means bringing about change through internal, rather than external, factors. Ayaka can’t change how her mom feels, but she can change how she accepts and internalizes the support she gets from others. Yurine doesn’t stop feeling alienated because of how she performed on any external exams, but by realizing she’s been gradually becoming a “normal girl” with her own community of friends all along. Mikaze tries to become someone “special” enough to win back her ex-girlfriend, but realizes it’s much healthier to try and accept the break-up, who she is, and that neither partner should have to change to suit the other. And Asuka stops cutting herself off from everything, after realizing she’s gone too far in cutting Mikaze out of her life. To drive the point home, Asuka’s pocket mirror keeps getting passed back and forth between her and Mikaze, further reflecting (sorry) this focus on the self and internal change.

In all, it’s a wonderful volume of Kiss & White Lily – we get closure for plots that have been in motion since the very first chapter (along with some related tender scenes), Ai Uehara and Kaoru Machida each get some good scenes to help lighten the mood (Ai could be one of Yuri’s best supporting characters ever, if we only got to see her more often), Asuka and Mikaze bring some enjoyably melancholy drama, characters in Kiss Theater flit in and out of cameos as always, and anyone who’s ever been on a cover of K&WL appears in at least one panel.

Canno’s Continuity Corner: there’s an incidental panel of Ayaka and Yurine starting Year 2 from Volume 3 (this time drawn as background characters); Lyrical Seira, which Asuka and Mikaze are cosplaying as, is the anime from their childhood that Sawa and Itsuki went on a movie date to see in Volume 5; there’s some bonus Valentine’s Day vignettes at the end featuring our cover-stars from Volumes 5, 6 and 7; we briefly see Yurine’s little sister again (poor Sumire – this marks her last appearance in the series, and she only gets the one panel, just like in Vol.7). In one of my favourite tiny details, the exam results show Nagisa and Hikari from last volume placing in the top 10, consistent with their characterization as high achievers – not only that, but Nagisa is even 4 places higher, which fits with how she had complained “Why does everyone always put Hikari and me on the same level? I have better grades!” while a visual of their test results shows her getting 98 vs Hikari’s 97.

Ratings:

Art – 9 The thicker blacks compared to the Japanese edition aren’t as destructive this time around; I looked, but couldn’t find any tell-tale moiré patterns. A point is still taken away for how much art gets trimmed off the edges, though. Canno’s art is gorgeous, expressions are delightful, and backgrounds really contribute to the atmosphere in a few key scenes.
Story – 9 Plot resolution, dramatic tension, sweetness, cosplay…this one has a lot going for it.
Characters – 10 Ayaka and Yurine have grown a lot as characters, and their relationship has evolved over time to reflect that. Asuka and Mikaze with their cosplay were a fun change of pace as well.
Yuri – 8
Service – 3 As Erica said in her review of the Japanese edition: “I’m not gonna lie, that kiss was pretty hot”

Overall – 10

I still remember back in April 2018, how excited I was when the 2-page colour illustration from the opening was teased on Twitter, showing Ayaka and Yurine holding hands while they emerge from a cold, snowy winter and walk off into the warm spring-like foreground together; I immediately retweeted it stating “THEY ARE HOLDINGS HANDS THIS IS HUGE THIS IS NOT A TEST” in all caps. It’s still one of my favorite illustrations from the series.

And, you don’t have to be a genius like Yurine to know how things will end up, but you’ll still want to see how it all happens in the final Volume 10, which is set to come out on October 29, 2019 from Yen Press.

Erica here: “anyone who’s ever been on a a cover of K&WL appears in at least one panel.” Foreshadowing the entirety of Volume 10, frankly.
Christian, you deserve an award for this review. It was absolutely brilliant and got both laughs and thumbs up from both members of the household here at Okazu Central. Well done.





Yuri Manga: Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu. Volume 5 (兄の嫁と暮らしています。)

May 22nd, 2019

In the previous volumes of Ani no Yome to Kurashiteimasu (兄の嫁と暮らしています。), we have met Shino, a 17-year old and her sister-in-law, Nozomi. After the death of her bother, Shino and Nozomi continue to live together as a family. However, as they  grow closer, they also have begun to have decidedly unsisterly feelings for one another.

In Volume 5, Shino’s a ball of misery because she feels she cannot say or act upon her feelings. Nozomi is torturing herself, trying to  act like their relationship is familial. She even goes so far as to try to just go out with a guy who has asked her out – as a friend. But in the end he confesses and Nozomi runs home, where she’s dragged into her mother’s drama.

This relationship, such as it is, is moving at a glacial pace, but in this case it suits the scenario. Anything faster would feel horribly artificial. And while we watch Shino and Nozomi dance around their feelings, they are in actual fact, opening up to one another.

Were this can or will go, I cannot guess. Well, I can, but I won’t. This story has carte blanche to pull me along for the ride.

 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service – 3

Overall – 8

I find myself treating this story rather more patiently than I might expect.  I don’t know why, when it kind of feel like the end of the story is inevitable. Nonetheless, I’m just able to relax and let this story take me where it needs me to go.

 





Yuri Manga: Dekisokonai no Hime-tachi, Volume 1 (できそこないの姫君たち)

May 17th, 2019

One of the byproducts of so many Yuri anthologies and manga outlets recently is the pleasure of encountering new names among the familiar ones. Ajiichi has been around a little while, but hasn’t had a collected volume of their own in Yuri. So I was pretty stoked to see Dekisokonai no Hime-tachi, Volume 1 (できそこないの姫君たち) from Ajiichi, collected from Takeshobo’s web comic Storia Dash. 

This story is very much in the style of Morinaga Milk’s GIRL FRIENDS, in that it begins with two classmates. Like Mari and Akiko, Kurokawa Kaede, an unpopular girl and popular Fujishiro Nanaki are opposites – but they are not friends. Kurokawa doesn’t particularly like Fujishiro and their spheres are completely separate. In fact, it’s almost complete coincidence that brings them together and chance that they find they kind of like one another.

In the way of such things, Nanaki is finding she likes being with Kaede, and the two spend more and more time together, until Nanaki’s crowd reacts with resentment. But Nanaki’s not going to bend, much less break under that kind of pressure and she chooses Kaede.

Nanaki takes Kaede on a Shibuya makeover date and, as the volume comes to a close, realizes that her reaction to Kaede’s cuteness is more than just friendship. Volume 2,which will be released in June, will resolve this, but I kind of think there’s no doubt of the conclusion.

If you’re looking for something GIRL FRIENDS-like, this series is a good bet. Ajiichi’s art is reminiscent of Morinaga’s, the set up is similar and undoubtedly, the end will be too.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 2 A teen little bit
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

The Yuricon Store is back up and running! Yay!

It’s good to see Takeshobo’s Bamboo Comics back in the Yuri game.





Yuri Manga: Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 10 (あの娘にキスと白百合を)

May 15th, 2019

Whenever a popular and long-running manga series ends, I’m always tempted to start the review with the lyrics of My Way. I may even have given in to that temptation once or twice. In any case, here we are at the end of the 5 year run of Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo by Canno. For 5 years we’ve enjoyed tales of love and rivalry and admiration and desire at a girl’s school in which a larger than usual number of girls would like to be, or are, lovers. Among these stories is that of the two top students of the class, the genius slacker Kurosawa Yurine and Shiramine Ayaka.

In Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 10 (あの娘にキスと白百合を), Ayaka is having trouble facing, indeed, even understanding, her feelings for her rival. To provide herself some context, she walks around the school meeting and speaking with all of the characters we’ve met in previous volumes. And, because this is the final volume of the series, shes uses these conversations to sum up their stories and to explore all the ways her own has developed, by asking people to describe their relationships with their lovers/rivals/friend/etc to her. I found this to be a bit “Are you my mommy?”-ish, but it worked well enough, and gave us closure and assurance to some of the more-tenuous relationships.

In my opinion, Ayaka’s cousin and sempai, Mizuki, dropped the ball on this. Having been closest to Ayaka, I kind of feel her softballing her relationship to Moe was a failed opportunity to be a good role model. But YMMV. ^_^ Nonetheless, revisiting each of the storylines from the series gives Ayaka a chance to work through all her feelings for Yurine and admit what we’ve all known for a while – that she likes her.

The epilogue wraps their storyline up sweetly and, finally, ties up the story in a neat bow made of the series title.

As a tale that was always set in Yuri wonderland of a school, in the middle of which there there was a bit of realistic story-telling and some reasonable emotional growth, the outcome was never in doubt, really, but it’s still nice to see it unfold and end the way it did. The cover says it all – the same protagonists as the first volume, but their body language and expressions have changed significantly.

Ratings

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8 
Yuri – 8
Service – 2 Still nice kisses

Canno-sensei’s art has improved so much since her first volume, and she still can turn out an emotionally intense scene or three. After her breakout series was a pretty big hit, I hope she is able to do something she’s really happy with for her next series and not just have to pump out something to please her editors. Sophomore slump is a real thing, but I’m confident she’s got room to grow.