There are days, here on Okazu, when it’s a little harder to not be just a tad snarky or cynical about Yuri manga. In fact, I suppose it’s something that every generation does – going through all the various contortions of growing up, coming out and being a gender, romantic or sexual minority and then being all world-weary when the next generation does it all over again. In regards to Yuri manga, I’ve seen roughly three or four “generations” of artists “discover” that girls fall in love with each other sometimes. And yes, there are days that I shake my head with  an amused smile at all the sincere doujinshi and manga that have hatsukoi or hajime(ru/te/ta) in the title. But I never, ever want to be this guy, acting like his own personal journey marks the end of all similar journeys and be a jerk about a sincere story

With the build-up of yet another Story A in Aoki Toshinao’s ripple (リップル), (with Shimura Takako’s name boldly labeled on the obi for very important marketing reasons,) you might even have forgiven me for rolling my eyes just a bit. But, I didn’t, and I’m glad because yes, ripple is indeed another Story A and no, it breaks not one panel of new ground and yes, it is very banal…but I liked it anyway. Apparently, every once in a blue moon sincerity is a replacement for competence. 

Neither art nor story here is exciting. A girl named Minami falls for a girl in her school named Nami. Their courtship is typical, their relationship follows all the general patterns of all relationships. Nami has a secret which is painfully obvious to us from the first mention – she’s liked a girl previously, and that girl broke her heart, a story she admits to at the climax of the volume. Again, you might forgive me for eyerolling, and again I say…but I didn’t.

Minami helps Nami to shed the baggage of her former relationship in a full-color final chapter. They like each other, and they sleep together and they are happy together, the end. And it was not creepy, nor painful nor boring. Just all pleasant and human and real.

Ratings:

Art – 6 better than I could do, but not great
Story – 6 Girl meets and falls in love with another girl
Characters  – 7 Likable and sympathetic, acting their age, which is sort of nice
Service – 3 A very little partial nudity in the final pages, So sex, but not sexed up.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 7

I believe, from the bottom of my heart we will always need stories that tell the basic plot of “there is a girl who likes a girl. The other girl likes her back. They like each other, the end” because there will always be a new generation of readers who have never read that before. And there is always someone who has not seen their experience in a manga before. And so, no matter how far on we have come in our personal journey, it’s important to remind ourselves that yes, stories like ripple should always have a place in our genre.

Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka (クロユリ学園大奥学科) by Yoshizawa Miyabi runs in Young King Ours magazine. Maybe that means little to you, but it meant that I kind of knew what I was getting into when I started reading this. What it meant, specifically, was it was likely to be weird and sleazy. ^_^;

Kuroyuri Gakuen Ooku Gakka was, in fact, weird and sleazy. ^_^

Minazuki Miu, whose hairstyle indicates that she’s a “gal,” finds herself at Kuroyuri Gakuen, a school for (apparently) well-trained rich girls, blah blah. When the Student Council President demands Miu present herself for acceptance into the “Seijyo” (which could mean order of holy women, or female saints of Vestals or anything you feel like translating it as because the word is irrelevant to the circumstance,) Miu finds her life getting substantially unbalanced. First she’s ordered to strip. And bathe. In front of the President who approves of her “mark of the Seijyo.” We are eventually shown a number 6 on her shoulder blade.

Miu appears to be befriended by another first year, who then starts to harass and bully her because…she’s a split personality. Oh, okay then. Miu fixes that  by being extra decent. The mark of the Seijyo disappears from her new friend’s body.

From then on Miu alternately seduces (without particular enthusiasm) or befriends others, but mostly she ceases to care what bullshit the others pull. The book ends with an orgasm-off for reasons I barely cared about in the first place and don’t remember now. Miu won and evil #8 loses her mark.

The art is ornate without being good, the story is meaningless drivel and both nakedness and sex are insincere. And yet, it’s at least slightly original. If the characters were more interesting, I might even read the next volume. I still might if I can find it at a used book store. ^_^;

Ratings: 

Art – 6 Competent
Story – 5 Less so
Characters – 2 I have rarely cared so little for characters in a story. Miu’s lack of fucks is the best part.
Service – 10 Sex, nudity and lasciviousness of many kinds
Yuri – 6 See above, without a shred of affection.

Overall – 5

It’s half “what did I just read?” and half “why did I keep reading?” ^_^; There is a Volume 2 for those of you inspired to read it for yourself. 

We remember Hidamari Sketch (licensed in English as Sunshine Sketch), don’t we? Aoki Ume’s series about a bunch of women at a trade school apartment building was nice. It was cute and silly and extremely, bizarrely repetitive. In 8 volumes of manga covering the 2 years they’d be at the school, they must have celebrated Christmas 7 times, maybe more. It also had a serious problem. Hiro and Sae were obviously a couple only Sae refused to admit it. Hiro was painfully aware that Sae was pretending that they weren’t a couple and it became painful to me to watch the shenanigans of plausible deniability that no one wanted. I cannot have been alone in thinking that it would have been nice if Hiro and Sae just were a couple.

Apparently, no, I was not alone. The suspiciously-pseudonymous Umehara Ume (eyeroll) agrees, and so here we are talking about Roku + Ichi Gurashi (ロク+イチ暮らし) which is pretty much Hidamari Sketch with Yuri. ^_^

Suzume has arrived at a trade school to study early child development in order to work in daycare for little kids. In her apartment she meets several other students, among them Nanao, with whom she promptly falls in love.  Her taciturn neighbor, Kie is in love with Sae look-alike Ai, who is love with Kouko.  Sachi is not in love with anyone until she sees the landlady’s daughter, and Ai’s fellow business student, Shiori. 

Unlike, Hidamari Sketch, this is not a gag comic, so we get little vignettes that have dramatic, rather than comedic punchlines. Kie and Ai compete in a Mr/Miss contest in the school and, although Kie ends up finding strength to confess to Ai, she’s gently rejected, which gives Ai the impetus to confess to Kouko. They are a nice couple, so we’re happy for them, as we are for the others. The story ends with Suzume making us a promise that she’ll become a terrific daycare provider. 

It’s all quite sweet and cute. A little too tidy, but so was Cirque Arachne, which “fixed” a similar “problem” with Kaleido Star. When you’re fixing someone else’s mess, you can skip all the details and just get to the meat of the story and pair the girls up already. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8 Fixed that right up
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 4 That Mr/Miss contest was for no other reason but to dress Sae, erm, Ai and Kie up in wedding clothes.

Overall – 7

I’ll be very interested to see if “Umehara Ume” ever publishes anything else. ^_^