In Volume 1 of Hisona’s peripatetic manga, we met “Asami” who has left her past behind and “Mizuki” who has left home, after having been thrown away. The two women walk and ride their way through an often-deserted landscape, visiting abandoned buildings and unused railways.

In Goodbye Dystopia, Volume 2 (グッバイ・ディストピア), Mizuki finds herself accompanying Asami to what appears to be a place from Asami’s past. There, she meets Uzuki, a woman who clearly has a history with Asami and there’s something between them. What that is we don’t know by the end of the volume, nor may we ever know. I’m okay with not knowing, frankly. 

What we do learn is that Uzuki is not much interested in the world outside her town (which we, the reader, can guess is at least part of the history between Uzuki and Asami) and also that Uzuki is not particularly troubled to smooth over awkward situations.

We and Mizuki also learn that Asami’s home once stood on the hill where Asami has headed, but it burned down years ago. Amid the plants growing on the plateau, Asami finds another relic of her past as the volume comes to a close. 

I know I’ve said this before, but I genuinely love this story, and all of its unknowns.  There’s no compelling need to know the whole story and I kind of hope we never really do know everything that Asami and Mizuki have walked away from. Instead, I hope that space is given to the future they are headed towards. I love the loose, josei-art style, the fact that panels and sometimes whole pages go by with no dialogue.  

Ratings:

Art – 9 YMMV, but this is right in my wheelhouse 
Story – 10 There is none. I love it.
Characters – 8 
Service – 0 
Yuri – 2 At the moment, it’s in flashback and memory only

Overall – 9

This is one of my favorite series in Comic Yuri Hime and I hope it goes on for a long time.

Nanoha and Chidori are going out, and they are keeping their relationship secret from their friends. But, in Hana ni Arashi, Volume 1 (はなにあらし), their feelings are starting to leak into the open, just a teeny bit.

Nothing much happens here in Volume 1. Nanoha is cheerful and Chidori is taciturn, but they work out their differences in real time and their friends are friends. Nanoha and Chidori go out for food, they take care of each other when they are sick, they like being with each other more than with anyone else. They call themselves lovers, but with little time to be alone, a kiss or a touch is all their can manage. 

The final “conflict” of the volume is Chidori feeling put out because she isn’t able to go to the new pancake place alone together, but ends up going with the gang. Nanoha and she promise to return together and the issue goes away. There’s only small crises here, with small resolutions. 

More interesting than the plot to me is the fact that this series by Kobachi Ruka is a Shonen Sunday comic, from Shogakukan. What does that even mean, really? Well, it means that along with the Big Comic Special manga, like My Solo Exchange Diary, the stodgiest of the big four manga companies in Japan has bought into Yuri as a genre. This is not a minor thing. We’ve seen Yuri on and off from Kodansha (we’re speaking here of the Japanese company, not the American subsidiary that is publishing Comic Yuri Hime books) and Shueisha, but Shogakukan has been slower to join the race. Having decided to engage in Yuri, I’m now seeing a pretty solid investment from them. Expect to see more Yuri from them. in coming days.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Adequate to the need
Story – 6 Quiet and sweet
Characters – we barely know them by the end of the volume, but they seem nice enough
Yuri – 3
Service – 1, mostly on principle

Overall – A nice 6

Not outstanding, but definitely erring on the side of sweet and nice. There’s 4 volumes in print in Japan (Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4) so we’ll see where the story takes us.