Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru, Volume 1 (踊り場にスカートが鳴る)

February 17th, 2022

Haruma Kiki is part of ballroom dance club, with dreams of being a champion and leading her school’s famous Quadrille. Tall and stately, she’s always assigned the part of lead…but Kiki dreams of being the following partner.

As Utatane Yuu’s Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru, Volume 1 (踊り場にスカートが鳴る) begins, Kiki’s partner has split with her. Kiki is devastated,, but knows she’ll never find a partner to be her lead. Along on the landing of a stairway, she imagines herself with a partner to lead her in the dance. There, as she dances alone, she is seen by Toribami Michiru, who has decided to become her lead. Only, Toribami is shorter than average and with Kiki’s height, will anyone take them seriously?

This story sounds really light-hearted, but it’s actually ever so slightly melancholy. Kiki’s got a lot of dislike for her body and its betrayal of her dreams, so Toribami has to work extremely hard to get past that to convince Kiki that she’s sincere. But, for those moments when the two of them are dancing together, it’s a worthy journey.

The manga is ongoing in Comic Yuri Hime magazine, and Volume 2 will get them past a lot of the baggage Kiki is carrying, in both a physical and emotional sense. There is no Yuri in a romantic sense, as of yet except by osmosis. We will get Michiru in suit and tie, Kiki in dress. Here in Volume 1, emotions are intense, but romance is not among them at the moment.

I love the art in this story – it’s just wonderful. And despite the slight darkness in the corners, the spotlight is always carried by Michiru, so there ends up a constant strain of hopefulness, that grows a little bit with every chapter.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1 on principle
Service – Nah

Overall – 9

Who knew that a “Girl Meets Girl Story of Ballroom Dance” would be one of my favorite manga, but it absolutely is. I can’t wait to see Kiki and Michiru lead the Quadrille. ^_^

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Galette, No. 20 (ガレット)

February 16th, 2022

Galette, No. 20 (ガレット) wraps up the 5th year of this crowdfunded, creator-owned magazine. In these past tumultuous years, they’ve put out 20 issues of the magazine, 18 issues of Galette MEETS and almost a dozen collected volumes. A pretty amazing feat especially as their main method of sales, comic markets, have been severely hamstrung for 3 years now and the pandemic (and shifting crowdfunding sites) caused havoc in their fundraising.

I follow a lot of creators on their Pixiv Fanboxes and the pandemic has wreaked havoc in another way, too. Creators are suffering, folks. Their opportunities have been cut off, a lot of them are depressed, and the lack of funds is hurting them, too. It’s pretty rough to read posts sometimes. If you can support your favorite creators by throwing them a buck or two on their crowdfunding sites, please do.

So here we are at an amazing moment in time, Galette has been in print longer than any Yuri manga magazine except Comic Yuri Hime! Even if it were to fold this year, it has done a lot and every one involved should be really proud.

Galette No. 20 (ガレット) features a full half dedicated to Hakamada Mera’s series Aikata System (相方システム), the first two volumes of which I have reviewed here on Okazu.

As always I really enjoyed Kitta Izumi and Momono Moto‘s Liberty, and Morinaga Milk’s Watashi no Kawaii Neko-chan, which has been licensed by Seven Seas as My Cute Little Kitten.

But tops for me this issue was the final chapter of a series that I have been following since the beginning,  Sora-iro Melancholic, which ended with an epilogue that dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. It was a perfect ending to that series, the first volume of which I have also reviewed! ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Another fine volume of Galette! This one is not up on Bookwalker, I don’t know if it will be, but you can get it on US Kindle in Japanese, as well as Amazon JP in print and digital.

The 5th anniversary volume is now up on Amazon JP, and I can’t wait to see what it offers.

 
 
Posted in Galette, Magazines, Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »


Bloom Into You Anthology, Volume 2

February 15th, 2022

It has a been a few months since we took a look at the first Bloom Into You Anthology. Now, here we are with the the second and final volume the franchise, Bloom Into You Anthology, Volume 2.

Overall, I found this volume to be more entertaining than the first, with stories that interested me slightly more. As I never was a huge fan of Touko and Yuu as a couple, I was glad to see that this story focused a little on Sayaka and Yuu as mutuals of Touko, but not actually friends on their own. I also like that a few stories remember to include the rest of the club and Koyomi, a character I found way more interesting than our principals.

Completely unsurprisingly, the story I liked best remains the story with Sayaka and Miyako that begins with Sayaka doing a little everyday venting about Haru, in Six Years Later, Still By Your Side, by Yodokawa. What made this story appealing to me, is Miyako’s joy in watching her young friend being able to complain about her lover with a confidante. “Besides it’s nice. Getting to hear you complain about a partner of your own.” BAM. There is such power in having people to confide in. Whether it is for serious stuff or life’s little sillinesses, the entire reason I have an fondness at all for this series (other than Koyomi) is the fact that young, unsure, baby lesbian Sayaka just happened to have someone to talk to. That Miyako was willing to step into that role, really elevated what otherwise might have been a sad-lesbian-best-friend scenario.

Kiss & White Lily creator Canno also weighed in with a solid friendship story, which I quite enjoyed. I’m really all in for friendship between girls and women stories right now.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If you enjoyed Bloom Into You, then there any number of stories which feel like spending more time with good friends. On the whole, I found this anthology a better bet than the first in both art and story. As I said in my review of this volume in Japanese, I only wish Maria-sama ga Miteru had come out now, in this golden age of Yuri, and we would have had all the anthologies in English and I would have been so, so happy. ^_^; But here e are, ready to say goodbye to the modern gateway Yuri series with a very pleasant little volume, spending tome with characters we like.

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Anthology, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – February 12, 2022

February 12th, 2022

Yuri Web & Digital Comics

Via her Facebook page, Kuru, aka Color_LES, has announced that Mage & Demon Queen will conclude this year. Of course I will miss this wonderful Yuri comic. I’m thrilled for Kuru that she’ll be see it through a final arc – and I’m looking forward to what she does next!

Elise Schuenke wants you to know about her comic Love Rumble, a rival to lovers comic that has been submitted to the Bitter x Sweet artzine.

Via Natsuo Mutsumi, the host of the Boyish² butch x butch anthology, we have news of Electro Magnetic Bottle Rocket, which they praised as “Aliens, Mysterious Technology, and Childhood Memories: …… I’m so excited! Here was the romance I was looking for!” This is available on Gumroad.

Which brings me to two things I need to say, given some stuff that has happened in the past weeks in the comics industry:

In order to support comics creators that still use Kickstarter, I will continue to linking to projects, but I will no longer be supporting Kickstarters myself. I genuinely believe blockchain is wasteful and stupid, NFTs are exploitative, harmful to the environment and only appeal to suckers or the con men who rip them off.

Likewise, I will not be purchasing work on Gumroad, after the handler for their Twitter account attacked NFT critics with some deeply unpleasant comments and what came very close to doxxing.

Comics are hard enough and right now we need people who are not exploitative or harassing at the top of the systems we use. I will not condemn anyone for using what they use (I know I’m worried about Patreon going crypto, as they have been threatening to do for a while now,) but I can choose to not support it. Spike Trottman, founder of Iron Circus Comics  pulled all her content from Gumroad, and resolved to not use Kickstarter (a system she largely validated with her hugely successful campaigns.) Going forward, she’s created her own crowdfunding platform.

 

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Yuri Manga

Seven Seas is doing their annual #yuriVday giveaway on Twitter. Drop them a tweet about your fave Yuri, use the hashtag #yuriVday and be entered to win some of their new titles! They are also running a giveaway on TikTok, if that’s more your style. ^_^ They’ve got a lot to celebrate, too, as there are 9 new Yuri titles out just this month from Seven Seas, 5 ongoing series *and* RightStuf is running a sale on all their titles.

 

Yuri Light Novel

Seven Seas continues their domination of Yuri licensing with both the manga and the light novels of a decade old series, Qualia the Purple  – about a girl who has the ability to “evaluate” the bodies of the people around her. I never read any of this originally, although I remember being told about it. To be perfectly honest, those people who were most into it had tastes that did not align with mine, so I gave it a pass.

 

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Yuri Anime

Via Senior YNN Correspondent Mariko Shinobu, we have a fun tidbit – Paste Magazine published a list of their “30 Greatest Anime.” Mariko wants you to note that Utena is #4 and Sailor Moon is #11. I also notice that a few other Okazu classics are in the list, notably Serial Experiments Lain, Wandering Son, and .hack/Sign.

Egan Loo at ANN has the news that Black Rock Shooter is returning with a new anime, Black Rock Shooter Dawn Fall. I doubt it will go back to it’s Yuri(ish) roots, but I can hope. ^_^ Looks like we’ll get Mato, Yomi and Yu, but a whole different set-up. Check out the trailer on Youtube!  Komatsu-san has a related report about Kanako Takatsuki (a member of Love Live!‘ s Aquors) who is singing the ED for the new BRS anime.

Egan also has the news of a new anime by Tsuzuki Masaki, creator of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Extreme Hearts, which looks like a serious sports anime. I’m…hopeful, primarily because of this quote, “This is the story about how we met our greatest friends.”  Sports and yuujo and girls. I’m in. ^_^

Kara Dennison over at Crunchyroll News has the very scoop that GKIDS is teaming up with Tubi to release great anime. Among the first batch is Liz and the Blue Bird, so if you haven’t yet seen it, do! You may recall that I thought it outstanding.

 

Yuri Live-Action

Via Thomas Baudinette, the first of 4 BL/Yuri Thai stories Secret Crush on You is available on Youtube! If you recall, this series is the one in which we’ll be getting the adaptation of Thai Yuri novel Pink Theory GAP. I haven’t watched yet, but it’s in my afternoon plans. ^_^

 

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Other News

Crunchyroll is doing a series for Black History Month, in which they are highlighting black talent in the anime industry. I hope you take a look! Week 1 | Week 2. Week 2 includes a profile of our own Okazu family member, Meru Clewis, who has recently become part of the LN staff at Seven Seas. We’re so proud of her!

 

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »


I’m in Love with the Villainess, Volume 2

February 11th, 2022

I’m in Love with the Villainess, Volume 2 is a super fun volume of this story. In many ways, it’s the first turn away from goofy comedy to serious story. This volume contains the first of many conversations about sexuality and gender that this series will provide. I know I reviewed this back in February, in digital, but I wanted to take a look at the print volume as well. ^_^

For the first time, we really meet the three princes, the love interests of the game “Revolution, “and get to know their personalities. This is followed by the student ranking, where we finally understand that Rae, as protagonist of that game, is overpowered and formidable. And how obsessed she really wad with the game…and Claire.

This is followed by a magical battle against a giant water slime, that forces Claire to save Rae, but also keeps Rae on the lonely path she had set for herself. We know this because this is the volume where Misha asks Rae if she is homosexual. I want to stop and say that the art in that section is devastating, as we see Rae with her usual smile, talking about the old her, about how she’s used to her love not being returned – and –  how she’s convinced herself that Claire’s happiness is enough. Devastating…and irrelevant as we know. Phew.

And then(!) the volume wraps up with the lead-in to the Academy Knights arc…and more magic battles, lest we forget that this is a magic isekai. ^_^

Following the manga is a bonus story about Claire and Relaire bonding, which of course is ridiculously cute, and character descriptions.

Many thanks to Joshua Hardy on translation, Courtney Williams handling the lettering, Nicky Lim for the cover design and the rest of the team at Seven Seas for an enjoyable reading experience.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 9
Service – 1 Very little for this series
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Posted in English Manga, I'm in Love With the Villainess, inori, LGBTQ, Manga, Yuri Manga | No Comments »