Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Jormungand, Volume 3 (English)

June 8th, 2010

I think it’s reasonable to say that Volume 3 of Jormungand is as Yuri as this series is likely to get. Which is to say, not really all that much, but enough. ^_^

Volume 3 is more fragmented than the previous volumes, which is either the author’s way of letting us know he thinks we can handle it, or his way of saying “fuck it, I’m going to do whatever I want and if you can’t handle it, then don’t read it, see if I care.” ^_^

To begin we learn a little of Jonah’s background and why he hates arms and arms dealers, and we also see that he has a soft spot for other children, something that seems likely to bite him in the ass. This being Jormungand and not something else, when it *does* bite him in the ass, it’s actually kind of funny.

We then turn our attention, in a somewhat ADHD manner, to several sub-plots that will all undoubtedly come to a head in somewhere, Africa. If you like your tales neat and beginning-middle-end then this volume may pose a challenge, as characters, plot complications and, well, just about everything are thrown at us in a jumble. Works fine for me, but your mileage may vary.

In between the big plot points and obvious set-ups, we do meet a few new characters…and get to spend a little more time with our resident lesbian, Valmet. She has a real name, did you know? Sophie. I’ve always liked that name. I also quite like crazy, violent women who wear eyepatches, so if Valmet ever tires of Koko (and presuming I was a character in this manga,) I’d be glad to pick up the slack. ^_^

Along the way, we meet an unnamed female bodyguard, who will obviously be our next enemy….oh look, she is. We also meet “Dr. Miami” a researcher specializing in butterflies who appears to also have an unrequited thing for Koko. Understandably so.

Fights break out. Guns are shot. People we don’t care about die.

The thing about Jormungand that really makes it stand out from all the other crazy lunatic violent series I read is that it’s…erm…funny. Very little angst here in this world of people who sell guns that kill people for a living. Which is good, because if they were all moping around like they do in Dogs it would be a dire, non-linear pile of crap. But since they are having such a good time, it’s the least I can do to enjoy it. So I do.

And there’s some Yuri. Yay!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 3
Service – 3

Overall – 8

If Valmet ever crossed series to work for Balalaika, I might die of fangirly joy.





Yuri Manga: Kimi Koi Limit

June 7th, 2010

Kimi Koi Limit is one of the Yuri Hime cell-phone manga releases by Ichijinsha. Drawn and written by Momono Moto, it tells the story of Sono, one of the most selfish cretins to ever inhabit a manga.

We start the manga with a scene late in Sono’s high school life when she confesses her feelings to, and is rejected by Satomi, who is leaving after graduation to go to school in Tokyo.

Time flies and we see Sono, now also in Tokyo, with a lover Hiroko. Sono contributes nothing at all to the household – she’s a slob, a slacker and a jerk. Hiroko can tolerate all that but when, not for the first time, Sono says someone else’s name as they make love, Hiroko has had it – she throws Sono out.

Sono quickly becomes homeless, because she’s a slacker. And in a crazy, unbelievable, but nevertheless predictable, handwave she is found and rescued by none other than Satomi.

To her credit, Sono moves into Satomi’s life as if she has been given a chance to find happiness by the gods. She starts to clean, cook, she even gets a job at which she perseveres. She knows she can’t stay with Satomi forever, but she can at least get herself straightened out to be worthy of her. She still lusts after Satomi and this proximity isn’t lessening that one bit.

In yet another unbelievable yet predictable handwave, not only do Hiroko and Satomi attend the same university, they work together at the same library on the same shift. In a casual conversation about Hiroko looking unhappy, Hiroko spills that she just threw her lover out and is worried that she is homeless. Satomi mentions why, how odd, she just found a friend who had been homeless, thrown out by her lover! But it’s not until Satomi *sees* a picture of Hiroko and Sono toghether that they put it all together. Hiroko’s feckless lover and Satomi’s roommate are both Sono! zOMG!

Before I go on, I have to say that, at this point, I absolutely loathed all three of them. There was no ending that was going to make me happy, unless it ended with Sono going the hell away. And what were the chances of that?

Through a series of even more handwaves, uncomfortable situations and cliches, Sono leaves Hiroko for Satomi who decides inexplicably that she’s suddenly in love with her. Honestly, getting Sono out of her life was probably the best thing for Hiroko.

In the end, we’re to believe that because she attained her dream, suddenly Sono found ambition, skills, a career, etc. We see her in typical careerwoman get-up, while Satomi plays the role of wife. And they live happily ever after.

Bleah….

While this manga is nicely drawn, extremely well-toned and really, really well-executed as compared with, say, Gokujou Drops, Kimi Koi Limit had so many things I had to just accept, so little plausibility, that *my* Koi Limit was stretched. And on top of that, Sono was just an unlikable little prat. If Sono had been a good lover to Hiroko, a kind friend to Satomi, I might have been able to hack it. But she wasn’t. She was a selfish, narcissistic jerk right to the very end.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 4
Yuri/Lesbian – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 5

This is probably the best-looking of the YH cell-phone manga. I just wish I liked the story a bit more than I do.

And, in the way of such things – I have an extra copy to give away!　Yes, you too can be annoyed by Sono and her inability to appreciate what she has.

To enter you must be 18 and this time, I’m keeping it domestic – contiguous 48 states only. Not because I don’t love you overseas folks, I just want to cut back on shipping.

So – if you are from the US (not Alaska or Hawaii) and would like a copy of this beautiful, but emotionally unsatisfying manga, please tell me in the comments where *you* draw the line. Keep the comments non-pornographic please. I’m not asking for your least fave sex position, I just want to know what behavior stretches your love to breaking point.





Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 6

June 4th, 2010

I know, I know. When I reviewed Tsubomi (つぼみ), Volume 5, I said that that was it for me and this anthology. But I was weak, and thought that, for the sake of the collection, I’d keep trying to like it. Well…after Volume 6, I’m done with it. For real this time.

Here’s the problem. The word tsubomi means “blossom” or “bud”  – baby flowers that moeru – ie., to blossom or to bud. And I feel as if the editorial staff is taking their name very seriously. Really, really seriously. There are few adult romances, and a lot more May-December, where May is younger than I care to read. There’s also very little “love” in this anthology – Because the characters have feelings that are just blossoming. *Just* being the key word. This is an anthology of stories that are prologues to Story A.

It’s apparent that I am not the audience for Tsubomi. It’s a shame because I’d like to support new Yuri anthologies, but not at the cost of my self-esteem. This anthology makes me feel icky and it makes me feel even ickier that there are enough Yuri fans out there that like it, that it’s doing well. I’m glad for the artists. but, meh. I can easily see a forthcoming contest in which my entire collection of Tsubomi is sacrificed.

Ratings:

Overall – 3

So, for real this time, this will be my last volume. I’ll leave it to those people who prefer their flowers unbudded and I’ll stick with the beautifully opened lilies that I love.




Yuri Manga: Saki, Volume 3

May 31st, 2010

In Saki, Volume 3, the curtain has already opened on the High School, Regional Mah Jong championships. The Kiyosumi team is meeting, some for the first time, their rivals from the other schools in the area.

Don’t click around looking for reviews of Volume 1 or Volume 2, btw. I haven’t read or reviewed them. On purpose. For me, Saki truly begins to be interesting at the regionals. And from here on in, it gets more interesting.

If you’ve seen the anime, the manga will be entirely familiar, as the women of Kiyosumi meet their rivals from Ryuumonbuchi, Kazekoshi and Tsuruga High schools. And, as we meet the various competitors, we learn their back stories which are almost universally Yuri-ish enough in nature to satisfy almost every craving.

In Volume 3, Yuuki suffers her devastating loss due to lack of Tacos, followed by a frustrating loss by Mako. When the third match begins, it’s up to team Captain Takei Hisa to make a splash – and so she does. Kazekoshi’s captain remembers her, and is distressed that she can’t warn her teammate about Hisa’s crazy play style.

Meanwhile, while Nodoka and Saki snuggle in the resting room, two creeps steal Nodoka’s stuffed penguin. It’s recaptured by none other than the infamous Ryuumonbuchi player, childish Koromo, who delights in being able to return it to Nodoka and make a new friend.

For me, this is where the series actually began. Everything up to this point was no more than a prologue, and an introduction to the main players. They are all here now, and the game is heating up.

What amazed me about the series at this point is that all the characters were likable. There were no evil rivals, only worthy adversaries, with their own passionate reasons to win – and that reason was often another member of their team. Interpersonal loyalties ride right on the edge of love and desire and in some cases, step well past that line.

This is not really a “Yuri” manga, of course. It’s a sports/game manga in which nearly everyone is a member of the Order of the Lily. Which just makes it double the fun for us. Especially as mahjong bores me to tears and I need something to pay attention to because I couldn’t care less what the game play is. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5 They have no noses! How are they supposed to breathe? Moe art really distresses me….
Story – 8 Other than the fact that it’s about mah jong, it’s *great*
Characters – 8
Yuri – Tons. Everywhere you look. In fact, it almost seems hard to find a character not locked in a passionately emotional relationship in this manga
Service – 7 One more view of a thigh at the edge of a girl’s skirt and I was going to scream.

Overall – 7

I will happily pick up the remaining volumes to watch the manga move past the regionals and head to that mythical place Saki and Nodoka  yearn for – the National Championships. /fanfare/





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 20, Part 2

May 27th, 2010

The second half of our overview begins with Takemiya Jin’s “Kirakira,” in which Saya befriends Mari, the plain sister of magazine model Ria in order to get closer to the famous sister, only to find that her interest no longer lies with Ria at all.

With the kind of synchronicity I’ve come to expect from her, Miura Shion’s Yuri essay discusses Ohana Holoholo.

The “Para Yuri Hime Ten” strip is about a girl who discovers Girls Love manga and life in elementary school.

Meiko is 28, and she’s having an affair with Yukari, a girl years younger than she in “Lunch Box.” She feels a little guilty, then a little jealous and then mightily annoyed, when Yukari tells a friend that she’s not seeing anyone. It was just a case of miscommunication, though.

“Mizu-iro Cinema” comes to a close with Tae leaving Yui to allow her to get back together with Akane, without asking Yui if that’s what she wants. She doesn’t and they end up together. Phew.

In “Moso Honey,” Nonoka’s Student Council tenure seems to involve her being depantsed/deskirted rather more often than you’d expect. Nozomi-sempai is cool, because we’re told she is.

Fans of service will enjoy the color pages, wherein the Sono Hanabira, Ikkitousen XX, Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan and other anime and movies are discussed.

Mist-a-like, “My Unique Day” brings star actress/dancer Miki into the orbit of her admirer Sorako, and their brief mis-start before they both find the right method to fit their relationship.

Hayase-sempai rises to the occasion with an impassioned, if fictitious, defense of Mashiro when they are both dressed down by a teacher for having a relationship out in public where peeping toms and jealous classmates can tattle about it. Hayase says that she coerced the younger woman. When Hayase returns to argue their case, since it was in fact the jealous classmate who tattled, the teacher shuts her down. Crisis looks like it might actually loom in “Sayonara Folklore.”

And at last, a story I skipped. I’m finding the bittersweet not-quites of the Black Cat Mansion series to be pretty dull.

“DNA Double XX” returns with a chapter that has a lot of potential and fails almost utterly to maximize any of it, cashing it all in for a pile of cliches. Aoi cleans up nice for the dance with the Eves, to learn that the Adam’s plumage is not the only thing they do to attract mates in this society of peacocks. There will be duels, we are told, so it’s no surprise when, after Aoi disses Erika for her unkindness to a clumsy, sincere, bespectacled girl who wears underwear which we are forced to look at repeatedly, Sakura appears to defend the Eve-in-chief. Duel? Do ya think?

Skip the next, as “Hime Koi” has roundly failed to capture my interest.

And lastly Hakamada Mera’s “Kimi ni Naru” goes where we hoped it would go, as Amane spills to You just what her history with Yuki was. It turns out to be slightly more seedy than expected, as Yuki became pregnant by her tutor. You offers herself to Amane as a stand-in for her lost love but, after a rather hot kiss, Amane reels herself in. She pours cold water on both of them by telling You that she can stay the night but after this, she doesn’t want to see her ever again. Understandably, I think, since it would take a seriously strong person to avoid that particularly slippery slope. I want to categorically say that between this story and “Kaichou to Fukukaichou” in Yuri Hime S, I’ve come around to Hakamada. Her characters still have giant heads, though.

The ad for the next issue offers a 5th anniversary special “surprise.” Along with all the usual fun, there’ll be a pin-up by and interview with Aoi Hana‘s Shimura Takako. And, most importantly, from this issue forward, Yuri Hime is moving from a quarterly to a once-every-other-month format, so 6 times a year from the current 4. I hope you’re as excited about that as I am.

Overall – 9.5

So, 5 years into this experiment, we have a solid handful of some really decent art, storytelling and by god, adult women in relationships. Now we just need to get it over here legitimately and we’ll have arrived.