Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Carbonard Crown

July 11th, 2010

Readers of First Love Sisters will recognize the name of Shinonome Mizuo. Under Shinonome-sensei’s care, the story of Chika and Haruna, which had begun life as short text vignettes and had migrated to Drama CDs, became a three-volume manga series.

In Carbonard Crown, (カルボナードクラウン) Shinonome tells the story of Aiko, a girl who attends an exclusive island-bound school.

Aiko is heading to school from the dorm when she comes across a beautiful girl standing in the forest. She quickly finds herself helping out and becoming involved with a family of foreigners – the Royal Family from Spinel. The beautiful, but sharp-tongued Ruby and her younger sisters Pearl, Beryl and Garnet, her older brothers Sapphire and Lazurite and older sister Emerald.

Aiko finds herself sucked into the Spinel Royal Family’s life, from finding Garnet when she goes missing, to telling off Lazurite when he’s a jerk to his younger siblings. And, the girls at their school – who have never been her friends – start treating her even worse than before.

But what concerns Aiko most is Ruby. Ruby is beautiful, scornful and hurtful. She’s derisive and rude and looks, Aiko thinks, heartbreakingly alone. Aiko’s fallen for Ruby, but she can’t even get so much as good morning from the other girl.

And then there’s the *family secret* which is (at least to me,) not all that traumatic, but to them it’s pretty bad. Aiko learns the secret, but isn’t really sure what to do with it – or how to reach Ruby’s heart beyond it.

As the semester comes to an end, the other girls in Aiko’s class sort of inexplicably warm up to her and her own family situation is never resolved and she says she wants to be friends with Ruby and there’s a party and fireworks and Ruby kisses her while she’s asleep and then the book ends with some of the Spinel royal family leaving never to return.

The biggest handwave – the one that made it impossible for me to really get behind this story composed of handwaves – is that Aiko fell for Ruby. Okay, she’s pretty in that Nadesico Yamato kind of way, but she’s a spiteful little wretch that needs to be slapped. Because of emotional trauma and loneliness and all the usual, but still, even Touko has friends. Ruby’s mean to her sisters, even Pearl who is bubbly and cute and cheerful.

Which is not to say that this manga is intolerably bad. There is a moment about halfway where Ruby does something nice for Aiko. Up to that point, she has flatly refused to speak Japanese with her family (signified by vertical writing, where “Spinelese” is written horizontally,) and at that point, she speaks to Pearl in Japanese. Aiko realizes that she had no reason to do that, except to keep Aiko in the loop.

And, at the very end, after Lazurite has issued an ultimatum, Ruby asks Aiko what *she* wants to do. Aiko eventually answers this with a plea to become friends.

It is at the after-semester party that Ruby’s true feelings are revealed. Aiko, exhausted from her exertions (not least on behalf of the Spinel royal family,) falls asleep. Ruby quietly kisses her as she sleeps.

Sadly for those of us who like a story past this point, there is none. We see Emerald and Beryl sailing off as fireworks sparkle above the island and we’re told through narration that the family leaves to go over the waves…and no one really ever knows what happened to them.

…it was all kind of unsatisfying.

This tends to be a quality of Shinonome’s work. There’s a lot of gently unfinished endings, gently bittersweet moments; things that are over before they’ve begun. Plenty of people like that. Just not me.

Update: Thanks to a tip from Anonymous, I’ve learned that this is a on-going cell-phone manga (and a quick glance at the Futabasha mobile manga site tells me that Ruby and Aiko eventually reciprocate feelings) so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Thanks, Anon. Much obliged.

Ratings:

Art – 8, for what it is. It’s detailed, rich and totally moe. Plenty of shoujo-stylings on the clothes, the boys, the backgrounds, but the girls have round, nearly featureless faces.
Characters – 4 We never really get to know anything about them, especially not Aiko
Story – 5
Yuri – 3
Service – 1

Overall – 5

My sincere and undying thanks to Okazu Superhero George R. for his purchase of this book off my Japanese Yuri Wish List! I just wish it had been a better choice on my side!





Yuri Manga: Mizu-iro Cinema

July 1st, 2010

It’s a two-fer week this week on Okazu. Today’s review is another Hiyori Otsu collection! Where Orange Yellow was a collection of short stories, today’s book, Mizu-iro Cinema (水色シネマ) is a one-volume story in full.

In a seashore town, Tae runs into famous actress Yui…and accidentally loses Yui’s favorite necklace for her. To make up the cost of the necklace, Yui offers Tae a chance to work it off as her assistant. Tae, attracted by Yui – and by Yuri’s glamorous life – agrees.

Yui struggles to find her place in Yui’s life, both at home and at work. She tries too hard, but never feels like she’s tying hard enough. At home, she really doesn’t understand what Yui wants from her. She feels as if her feelings for Yui are not returned and she doesn’t want to be a burden. Laying bed next to Tae, Yui also feels alone – she wonders if she’s the only one feeling her heart pounding at the idea of them sharing a bed. At work, Yui doesn’t need Tae to *do* anything, really, she just wants her to be there for her.

When Yui’s former lover, Mizuki, arrives under the pretext of returning something to Yui, it seems obvious to Tae that the two of them will get back together. So, when Mizuki suggests that Tae really has no reason to stay here, she leaves.

Yui tracks Tae down at her seaside home and explains that 1) she lied about the cost of the necklace (duh!) and 2) she told Mizuki to go packing because she likes Tae (double duh!) And so, they agree to like each other simultaneously. The End.

This is not the strongest story Otsu has every written, neither is it the weakest. It has all the bells and whistles of a nice “Story A” with a warm side of “You can’t go home again.”

Ratings:

Art – 8 I found the art to be more expressive than Otsu’s usual mix of “unflappable” and “unreadable”
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 0

Overall – 8

From goofy to serious, Mizu-iro Cinema is a nice story, told nicely. I’d love to see a coda, where we seem them actually “together.”





Yuri Manga: Orange Yellow

July 1st, 2010

We had been friends since childhood. After today we’re going to the same high school.

Embossed on the cover of Hiyori Otsu’s Orange Yellow (オレンジイエロー)
these simple words provide the driver of this collection of short love stories.

Myu and Jun have lived next door to one another since childhood. Myu has always been a bit of a doofus, but she’s a good girl and is totally loyal to Jun. And, she’s been telling Jun she loves her since they were little. Jun has always taken care of Myu. She once told her to go out with a boy if she wasn’t sure she liked him, so she could see if they clicked. But Myu never really clicks with any of the boys who ask her out – and she’s gone out with a lot of them. Jun surprises herself at how unhappy she is when she and Myu have a fight and is even more surprised when Myu kisses her that night after they make up. Jun tells Myu that their relationship has to stay secret, but Myu’s not so good at that and their “secret romance” is outed almost immediately. Jun gives in to Myu’s good-natured doofusy-ness good-naturedly.

Yamamoto-sensei once walked in on Mitsuki kissing another girl, but is shocked when Mitsuki graduates and becomes a teacher at the same school just to get an answer to her proposition from back then. Kei isn’t convinced that the “magic chocolate” her friend gives her can make her love her any more than she already does.

Ooishi falls in love with Mizuno, even when she realizes that Mizuno’s in love with their teacher.

In this collection of shorts by Hiyori Otsu, the same few scenarios are played from different angles by different  characters. It’s always pretty drama free in an Otsu collection and I, at least, find that and the almost complete lack of service refreshing.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

We walk hand in hand in the yellow morning sunlight,
and in the orange sunset…
What wonderful school days we spend together.

…reads the obi of the book. It’s as good a summation as anything I can come up with.





Yuri Manga: Shoujo Holic

June 29th, 2010

In Shoujo Holic (少女ホリック) Yui is an average middle-school student who suddenly finds herself in an awkward predicament when her parents inform her that they are moving to England. Yui decides that she will NOT be moving, come hell or high water, so she finds herself living with her very nice aunt out in the boondocks and attending her mother’s alma mater, a girls’ Catholic school.

(As an aside, it’s likely that if you total up all the nuns that make appearances in Yuri manga, they probably outnumber the amount of actual nuns in the whole of Japan by several orders. Just thinking out loud…)

On her first day, Yui meets, is befuddled by and befriended by Kaede, who strikes Yui as being rather monkey-like. She’s short for her age, energetic, tactless, has no boundaries and quickly becomes a very good friend to Yui. They grow closer as the book goes on, until suddenly Yui finds herself kissing Kaede – which throws poor Kaede into a tizzy. Kaede struggles with her feelings until Yui forces them both to confront the fact that they like each other…that way.

The rest of the book follows the reasonably natural evolution of a relationship. There’s nothing out of the pale for two girls in love, until their relationship is threatened not by graduation, but by Yui’s parents returning to pack her up and take her to England with them. In the only semi-significant handwave of the story, Yui and Kaede both take the exams to get into school overseas and move in together as roommates. A totally forgivable and acceptable handwave, I think, as it allows them to live happily every after. :-)

Aoii Hana’s art is not exceptional, nor is it terrible and it certainly was expressive enough to capture the emotions on display during this story. On its own, I’d probably not sing paeans of praise to Shoujo Holic, but compared to a lot of the Yuri Hime cell phone manga this story was sweet, sincere and pretty much right on the mark for a Yuri schoolgirl romance.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 7

I’m really over using “holic” in the title of a manga series, now. It’s time to let that one go, folks.





Yuri Manga: Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 1 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり)

June 25th, 2010

2010 has been good for Yuri in one way – there are even more Yuri Anthologies than ever before. Alongside of Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S and Yuri Hime Wildrose we now have more recent additions Tsubomi, Yuri Shoujo,  eclectic Rakuen Le Paradis and now, Hirari.

It will not probably come as much of a shock to learn that the bulk of the stories are focused on schoolgirls, with a few stories that touch upon the adult world. And, also not so surprisingly, the art doesn’t really ever communicate any adult sensibilities. In fact, one story made no sense to me until I realized that it was not, in fact, about schoolgirls, but about teachers. The certainly didn’t look like grown-ups, which complicated things for me.

Hirari, Volume 1 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) can be summed up in the line, “You don’t understand my feelings.” In many of the stories, one character thinks that the other does not like or love her the same way as she feels about her. In all of the stories they are wrong. This doesn’t mean every story is nothing but mindless repetition and I feel that there’s an actual effort to provide some variety in set-up and style. Unfortunately for readers such as myself, the lack of resolution beyond forehead touching/hand holding/smiling at one another means that, even though the stories are not *actually* the same…they still feel it.

Through no fault of its own, Hirari also lacks any really strong artists (I’m long past hoping for strong writers.)  Where Rakuen, Yuri Shoujo and Tsubomi (not to mention the Ichijinsha publications) all  have some popular doujinshi artists-turned-professionals, Hirari looks decidedly second-rate in comparison. I don’t hold that against the publication, though. There’s only *so* many excellent artists out there and everyone deserves a chance to pay their dues and learn how it works.

I admit that I did have to read the anthology through three times before any of the stories stuck with me, but a few have. The two teachers, one of whom is still dealing with a kiss between them from years earlier, a girl who needs sleeping pills to go to sleep, concerned about her friend who is happily sexual and seems kind of flighty, a story about pop idols that are forced to switch staff and a story in which the most visually striking piece is the cover page, as a girl arranges her shadow to make it look like she and her sempai are kissing.

While I did not fall head over heels in love with this anthology, I’m always willing to give a new publication the benefit of the doubt. So, if a second volume is published, I’ll probably get it.

Not “recommended” per se, but I’m not warning you off, either.

Ratings:

Overall – 6

The rating is a little lukewarm, and so was the anthology. I’m still looking for those stories between “Story A” and porn. A little passion wouldn’t kill this book.