Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen, Volume 2

November 21st, 2010

Ah, young love. It’s all drama all the time. Especially when you’re a human who has accidentally found their way to the youkai world and fallen in love with a two-tailed cat-girl spirit.

Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen, Volume 2 picks up just at the end of Volume 1. Arare and Kiri are in love, that much is obvious, but they’ve got something important standing between them and consummation of that love – the fact that if they have sex Arare will cease to be human and will become a youkai herself! Her situation isn’t made easier when she meets Akina, a youkai who tells her that she herself made that choice.

As much as they desire one another, this simple fact keeps them apart. And, it is this simple fact that causes them to fight and causes Arare to run off, unaware that Pero has followed her. When Arare ends up back in the human world Pero is somehow dragged along. Awkward, but not unbearable…until the human world starts to make Pero sick. Now Arare has a more pressing problem – if she doesn’t get back to the world of the youkai, Pero may die!

I have had a strong belief that I knew what the end of this series was going to be from waayyyyy back in the story. As soon as we heard, in fact, that Arare would become a youkai if she made love to a youkai, I pretty much assumed I knew what the ending was going to be. It seemed so *obvious!* I’m not going to spoil the ending, but I will say this – I could not have been wronger. ^_^;

The ending was cute, the ending was happy…it just didn’t do anything like I expected it to. So kudos to creator Nangoku Banana for finding a unique, creative way out of that well. (That phrase has a story behind it. My Dad was telling me a story of a serial he read when he was a kid – one of those adventure things, you know. The hero was bound, at the bottom of a well, no one around for miles, no tools to rescue himself with, etc, etc. End of chapter. Next chapter began, “Once out of the well…” We use that phrase around my house to signify cheating your way out of corners you’ve written yourself into.)

No doubt Kiri and Arare will live happily ever after.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 8

This series is still not for the prudish. It’s more serious than Volume 1, and slightly less outrageous, but still pretty over-the-top.

On another note, if you are interested in the youkai portrayed in this story and don’t want to wade through a lot of tedious academic research or historical stuff, I recommend Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt’s Yokai Attack!, a fun “field guide” to youkai you might encounter and how to deal with them if you do.





Yuri Manga: Sore ga Kimi ni Naru (それが君になる)

November 18th, 2010

Sore ga Kimi ni Naru (それが君になる), by Hakamada Mera, works.

The story opens with two school girls. Amane, reading under a tree and the other, Yuki, taking her glasses off and kissing her. We learn in a short flashback and that Amane and Yuki were lovers during school, until….

Years have passed and we see Amane standing on a train platform, now an adult. When the train empties, a bunch of schoolgirls get off. The wind pulls Amane’s ticket from her hand and it settles to the ground in front of a girl that looks *exactly* like Yuki. Amane, struck dumb, begins to cry. The girl reaches out to touch Amane’s face asking her, “All you all right?”

Thus begins the story of Amane and Yoh (spelling taken from the cover of the book,) and the ghost of a past lost love in an awkward, sweet threesome. Yoh is a pretty sharp girl and not at all weird about her attraction to Amane – or this total stranger’s reaction to her. She’s confiding in her friends at school, even to the point of them discussing why Amane is pushing her away.

And Amane is pushing Yoh away. Overcome by their reaction to one another and so maybe not sensibly, Amane and Yoh are hanging out, until a sudden rainstorm means that Yoh is staying over Amane’s place for the night. Amane tells Yoh about Yuki, and about how Yuki ran off with a tutor by whom she had become pregnant, breaking Amane’s heart, Yoh offers herself in place of the lost Yuki. Before she can stop herself, Amane finds herself kissing the girl, but then realizes what she’s doing and tells Yoh to stay the night, then never come near her again.

The next few chapters are the stereotypical “each moping about the other” and they miss each other by seconds. When they are finally tearfully reunited, they both admit at last what was obvious to us from the beginning.

In a slightly annoying epilogue, Amane and Yoh run into Yuki and set that ghost to rest. A second omake tells a completely separate story about Satomi-sempai being seduced by another girl’s big, (beautiful,) dark eyes.

I think the thing that really worked for me about this story was Yoh’s lack of coyness. I found it refreshing and a relief to know that she was talking about her relationship with Amane with her school friends and they were giving it serious consideration, not just teasing her. When her friends mention to her that when Amane looks at her, it must hurt, the revelation makes Yoh think about the relationship more seriously. If she’s going to pursue this woman, then she’d better mean it, because otherwise, she’s screwing around with Amane and hurting her for no good reason.

It’s hard not to sympathize with Amane. She’s got this great big needy old hole in her heart and when Yoh sort of plops herself in it, it’s difficult to condemn her.

I wasn’t thrilled that Yuki kind of appears at the end, because I always feel that that sort of convenient story-telling weakens the characters dealing with the issues on their own, but that’s more an editorial quibble than anything else.

Ultimately, the title of the book becomes the effective punchline to the story.  On the whole, I liked this book. I liked Yoh, I liked Amane, and I like them together.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

And there you have it. Mera wins by TKO. Enough rounds fighting it just wore me out. This “simple love story of Yoh & Amane” took all the fight out of me. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Sukoyaka Paradigm Shift

November 14th, 2010

You know what the Doppler Effect is, right?

Sukoyaka Paradigm Shift (すこやかパラダイムシフト) is, to me, the low, lingering fanboy hum of Yuri moving away from an old perspective to a new one.

No matter how many decent love stories we get, no matter how we turn our eyes towards stories of women who are genuinely in love with other women, crappily drawn and written stories full of meaningless interaction that has to be supposed to be Yuri, full of fake bodily fluids and fake bukkake and fake plot and fake characterization will always be there. Like cosmic background microwave radiation, it will never quite go away.

Dear gentlemen, one girl looking at (unbelievably because of a contrived hose accident) wet underwear with shock! eyes is NOT an indication of love for another girl. Hope that helps.

Ratings:

Art – 5 at best
Characters – 0
Story – 4 at best
Yuri – 7
Service – 8

Overall – Bleah

I made a choice in Toranoana, to either buy this or Zettai Shoujo Astoria (which I knew I would not care much about.) I believe I made the wrong decision. However, it did provide me with a chance to use not one, but two Physics references in this review, so it all balances out.





Yuri Manga: Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi, Volume 1（野ばらの森の乙女たち）

November 11th, 2010

Hatsumi and Sakura are best of friends. They have done everything together for years, including studying for and being accepted to the prestigious Otoha Academy where, because of the wild roses that grow around the school, the students who study there are known as the Maidens in the Forest of Wild Roses.

Otoha Academy buildings are luxurious, the dorm rooms are spacious and the furnishings are gracious.The students are polite, graceful and well-mannered. The elite of the school are a beautifully groomed couple – Top Star Otokoyaku Izumi-sama and her Musumeyaku companion, Mayuko-sama.

Hatsumi and Sakura are walking around the grounds, enjoying the rarified atmosphere into which they have been admitted when they come across Izumi and Mayuko in the garden. Unseen by the older girls, they can tell that Mayuko is crying and unseen, they watch as Izumi and Mayuko kiss.

Overheated, Sakura and Hatsumi go back to their room where after a tense moment of recollection, Hatsumi finds herself shockingly close to kissing Sakura. She pushes her friend away and they laugh it off as a moment of overstimulation.

But now Hatsumi can’t take her eyes off Izumi-sama, and it appears that she is of some interest to Izumi. Hatsumi and Sakura are asked to be year representatives in the dorm association and find themselves involved in the school festival (the Maria-sai) planning. More importantly, Hatsumi finds herself in the company of Izumi more and more… and even though she’s said she can’t like Izumi that way, because they are both girls, it’s becoming apparent that she does indeed like Izumi, that way.

Sakura, for her part, has become morose and possessive. She challenges Hatsumi about her feelings for Izumi-sama, and is belligerent when she discovers Hatsumi alone with her.

Hatsumi and Sakura draw lots and end up being the ones to shop for materials for the school bazaar. But Sakura goes down with bad menstrual cramps and Izumi accompanies Hatsumi…their first date, she calls it. They get caught in the rain, and end up back in Izumi’s room, drying off. The lights go out. Hatsumi finds herself in Izumi’s arms, and she’s moved to confess her feelings for Izumi…. When the lights go back on, Mayuko-sama is standing there. Hatsumi runs back to her own room, but won’t tell Sakura what happened – except to say that yes, she does like Izumi-sama! Sakura looks sad, but says nothing.

The school festival comes. Hatsumi learns that Mayuko is being accompanied by her fiancée and suddenly, Hatsumi is obsessed by the need to protect Izumi from the news. She runs Izumi around the school trying to avoid the issue, until they run into Mayuko and her fiancée in the hall. Izumi greets the young man with the air of someone who knew all along and Hatsumi is mortified, realizing that she knows nothing about either of them.

That night at the dance, Mayuko and Izumi make the perfect couple…until Izumi congratulates Mayuko on her engagement and is slapped for it. Hatsumi runs after Izumi…even after Sakura asks her not to go. Hatsumi finds Izumi and tries to comfort her. Before she knows it, Izumi kisses her. In the shadows, Mayuko watches them.

Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi （野ばらの森の乙女たち）is definitely the lesbian love child of Maria-sama ga Miteru and Strawberry Panic!, with shades of aunt Himitsu no Hanazono at the table. Izumi is Amane and Shizuma and/or Sei all rolled up together, while Hatsumi is Hikari and Yumi smooshed into one character. The parallels are not exact, but are striking enough, all with a Yuri coating so thick (and not getting any thinner as the story progresses!) that even if we resolve one of these relationships straightly, there’s just about no way that all of these couples go away. Our only question, really, is whether we root for Hatsumi and Sakura or Hatsumi and Izumi.

The plot thickens in the next chapters, so I’m just *dying* to see the current volume!

Of everything I bought while in Japan, this was tops on my wish list. And it was this volume I opened up on the plane to read, which prompted the nice Japanese woman next to me to ask if I understood Japanese (“Enough to read children’s manga,” I said.)

This manga is great so far. Even if they do something stupid, like Izumi’s really a guy, that doesn’t lessen by one iota how gay this story is. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 It’s the art that really reminds me of Himitsu no Hanazono, has that 90s shoujo manga look
Characters – 8
Story – 9 You know this one
Yuri – 8
Service – Unintentionally, probably a 5 or so

Overall – 9

Another candidate for this year’s Top Ten. It has all the bells and whistles and is targeted at a young female audience for added oomph.





Yuri Manga: Kaichou to Fukukaichou

November 2nd, 2010

Kaichou to Fukukaichou (会長と副会長: In Student’s Meeting) by Hakamada Mera, tells Story A all over again…but does it pretty darn well. President of the Student Council Fuji-kaichou and Vice President Nashizuka-fukukaichou are, without the other realizing it, attracted to each other.

There’s nothing specific keeping them apart, except the fact that same-sex desire is not the norm and therefore is accompanied by a lot of soul-searching angst.

The first chapter introduces us to the couple in question – and the situation between them – from the perspective of Fuji-kaichou. But the bulk of the book takes place from the point of view of Nashizuka-fukukaichou, who is a smart, competent, driven and very serious young woman. She struggles daily with her attraction to the President, tortured by her lack of context or role model, and by the fact that the President is very popular among the other students in the school. “She doesn’t love me,” Nashizuka thinks to herself at some point in the story, “Why would she?” I thought that line neatly captured the second hurdle anyone who has ever found themselves attracted to someone has to get past. We’ve acknowledged our feelings…but what reason, really, do we have to think that those feelings are returned?

For her part, Fuji-kaichou is torn between a complicated family life and a pleasant school life that she uses to bolster her peace of mind. When her family life begins to leak out of the box she’s put it in, it causes some crises in her school life. But through all of it, she’s convinced that Nashizuka is the one person she can turn to.

Ultimately, it’s the forthright President that pushes the issue, by publicly proclaiming that Nashizuka is *hers,* dammit…in front of the entire student body, teachers, administration and guests, at the school festival. And then there’s just enough time for a sweet wrap up and the volume comes to a close.

For a story that had such small crises, there were a lot of tears. I remember friends in high school who seemed to cry rather often about relationships, so, that’s pretty realistic. The characters were also fairly real – no wildly out of proportion skills or powers or situations.

Kaichou to Fukukaichou is about a girl who likes another girl who likes her back.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 1

Overall – 8

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention Hakamada’s trademark giant carnival heads. Either the heads were smaller or I’m getting used to them, or the story was good enough that I didn’t notice or something else.