Amano Shuninta’s cell-phone manga, Yukemuri Sanctuary reminded me strongly in several ways of the old Mist magazine stories. All of them are near plotless, the story merely existing to frame the sexual encounters, with the  thin connective tissue of the OniYuri onsen to combine them into a whole, much as in Wako’s compilation from Mist, Kiseki Goten.

The OniYuri Onsen is an old, run-down little hot spring – not so famous, not glitzy, but a onsen reviewer falls for it – and for the woman who works there, in the first story. A stripper finds it’s charms irresistible and consequently, designs some irresistible charms to sell at the onsen. A famous idol finds love in the bad eyesight of one of her fans, and uses her fame to help the onsen gain visibility. The woman who works in the Ero-museum attached to the onsen finds true love with the woman she lusted after.

And in the inevitable final story, the cool, aloof, hotel conglomerate president is reunited with the onsen owner and forgets her threats to take the onsen over and replace it with a golf course.

There’s nothing particularly compelling about these stories, but nothing particularly reprehensible, either. As I said, it reminded me strongly of Kiseki Goten. Which brings me to the one, completely, utterly unreasonable complaint I have about this book. Because it did remind me so much of Mist, I kind of was annoyed at the low quality of the art as compared with the realistic(ish) and detailed art in Mist. I know, styles change over time, but if the art was even half as good as Wako’s I would have liked this book a *lot* more. As it is, it kind of just made me pine for the days when good art was a requirement even in porn.

Ah well.

Ratings:

Art – In comparison with Mist, 3, so I won’t go there. Let’s say 7
Story – 7
Characters – 5
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 7

Yukemuri Sanctuary is a fluffball read that probably would have been a lot of fun as a monthly cell-phone installment of Yuri.

In Tadaima! (ただいま!) middle schooler Chiaki falls in crush with her housekeeper Hana.

Aaaand, that’s about the entire volume, pretty much.

Chiaki’s mom is in Florida studying annual rainfall, and her dad is a dad, so the house is looking a bit like a middle schooler and her father are living alone. Dad decides that it makes sense to get a housekeeper. When Chiaki – and indeed everyone else – meets Hana, her first reaction is hearthrobbing attraction and her second reaction is, is this really a woman?

Hana is the strong, silent type. In fact, she is often drawn without a mouth, to emphasize that she just doesn’t talk much. There’s only one mention of Takarazuka throughout the volume, but one can’t help but make the connection almost immediately between Hana and an otokoyaku.

Chiaki’s relationship with Hana exists mostly in her head, of course. She imagines that she and Hana are out on dates, when they are are going shopping for food or the housekeeper is walking her to cram school. She plans elaborate scenes where they will spend private time together, but in reality, Hana is a great housekeeper and that’s pretty much that.

Chiaki’s friends get real tired of her talking about Hana all the time, and tease her about it. Her childhood friend Haruta never does get a clue that he’s not even in the running for her Valentine’s Day chocolates. But nothing is going to come of any of it, because Chiaki’s a middle schooler and Hana’s the housekeeper.

The only potential conflict that could possibly arise is when Chiaki’s mother comes back, but after a not-terribly-tense few pages, we all live happily every after: Chiaki, Dad, Mom, Hana and Hana’s brother (who I haven’t mentioned, but who is a semi-regular character.)

Ratings:

Art – 4 and frequently worse, but it’s not supposed to be a richly detailed artistic landscape.
Story – 5 It’s one joke, like most 4-koma
Characters – It’s not hard to remember those days when you were Chiaki, really.
Yuri – 4 It’s constant, but one-sided
Service – .5

Overall – 6

Like most 4-koma, this series would work best reading a few pages at a time over a long period of time, rather than all at once.

Overall, a slightly amusing manga that may make you remember the crushes of your youth, if you’re inclined to that kind of nostalgia.

In Volume 4 of Octave, (オクターヴ) Yukino very nearly damages her relationship with Setsuko again, but doesn’t. This reason this time? She slams up against the “coming out” wall and gives herself a concussion.

Yukino comes to the somewhat surprising conclusion that her life dreams now include being with Setsuko forever. At work, she has been given a new talent to manage on her own. There’s a lot keeping her busy, but we can see that she’s still not comfortable with her situation. Sure, she wants to be with Setsuko…but she can’t bring herself to talk about it honestly with anyone else quite yet.

First, there’s Kamo-chan, her childhood best friend, from whom she is withholding the whole truth. It’s obvious that Kamo-chan knows what the deal is, doesn’t really get it and isn’t ready to be kind about it – and Yukino isn’t ready to deal with that, so she prevaricates.

On top of that, her new talent, Shiori, confesses that she likes women, has just broken up with her girlfriend and is relieved that Yukino is ‘like her.’ Yukino lies and says she’s going out with a guy to protect herself from being obvious.

Upset with herself, and even more mortified that Setsuko – who is gaining some notoriety as a songwriter – has met the man Yukino previously slept with, Yukino goes out with Ohzawa and gets exceedingly drunk. Not knowing where she lives, he brings her back to Setsuko and Mari’s place where she sleeps it off. When Yukino sleepily awakens, not knowing how she got there and only half-remembering why, Setsuko slaps her across the face and tells her to shape the hell up already. Which, remarkably, she does. She tells Setsuko about her conversation with Shiori and why she feels so uncomfortable. Once again Setsuko is far more understanding, intelligent and non-judgmental than any real human is likely to be in that situation.

Yukino, having pretty thoroughly smashed herself against the “coming out” wall, brushes herself off, apologizes to Ohzawa for everything and, when he also confesses that he likes her, she tells him plainly and simply that she is seeing Setsuko and let’s him deal with his feelings himself. She then calls Shiori to talk. She explains that she spent the night at her girlfriend’s, to let Shiori know that a) she was right and b) is not alone in the world. (Which is truly the greatest power of coming out.)

In the end, she has a very average, uneventful and loving text chat with the woman she can now admit she loves.

It’s easy to be fed up as Yukino very nearly makes a hash of it…again…but it’s important to remember two things. One, they remind us several times that she is still fairly young, and two, as anyone who has had to come out will tell you, it’s just about the hardest thing in the world to do the first couple of times, until you are comfortable enough with yourself, your life and the people around you to blithely talk about the other person in your life who happens to be the same sex.

In this case, the process is shortened to one volume of manga, but in this one volume Yukino takes leaps forward. It’s a good thing.

In some sense, I’m really hoping we can get all the way through Yukino’s journey and then still have the series continue – a story which would then be about two adult women who are together. At that point, with so much less of her energy going into the soul-searching and self-defining, I think Yukino would probably make a really spiffy manager. Here’s hoping we get to see that Yukino.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 9
Service – 4

Overall – 9

I’m starting to feel incredibly hopeful about this series. It’s realistic, without wallowing in the more tedious details of life. Yukino’s growing up, and one day, I hope Kamo-chan can be happy for her.