Magnum Lily, 1 & 2

March 18th, 2021

I have decades-long deep and abiding love for original doujinshi, however, I don’t often review doujinshi here as a standalone review on Okazu. It was generally frustrating to review something most people could never see except through illegal distribution and I respect the artists too much to encourage that.  Now that Lilyka and Irodori Sakura are bringing out Yuri doujinshi in English, other reviewers are covering those titles, and while I don’t mind adding my two cents, it’s still hard to have a substantive conversation about part of a story, or an ongoing series that will come out 32 pages at a time once a year at an event!

All that said, when Lilyka announced Rei Abe’s Magnum Lily, 1 & 2, I thought it would be worth mentioning. I’m pretty sure I picked at least one issue of this up somewhere on my last trip to Japan.

Magnum Lily is a boxing doujinshi. Higuchi Yuri is a 15-year old with no interests, no hobbies, nothing she cares about to make life interesting. By sheer coincidence she meets a professional boxer, Windy Armstrong, and is turned on to the thrill of boxing. Yuri heads to the gym and although she is unable to land a single punch in her first sparring match – she’s hooked on the sport.  The story continues for more chapters after the second issue, and is available by points in Japanese on Shonen Magazine‘s digital comic site. Update from CW, this manga is continued on the mangaka’s Pixiv where it currently goes through #10, and is supported by their Pixiv Fanbox. Thank you kindly for the additional info. ^_^

This story has almost everything I want in a sports manga – actual sports, which is a plus; blood, tears, guts, effort, goals and heartache.  Additionally, the main characters are likable, the potential rival is honorable and the bouts actually look like boxing. No weirdly contorting bodies for the sake of service here….just weirdly contorting expressions because a punch has landed.

There’s only one thing missing from this otherwise perfect sport Yuri doujinshi, in fact. Thus far – 2 issues of what looks to be 5 – beyond the lead character’s name, there’s no Yuri. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think there is any Yuri romance in this series. The Japanese description leads me to believe it’s about Yuri’s passion for boxing. BUT.  Don’t let that keep you from reading this story.

What Magnum Lily does have is a genuine, non-creepy or service-y appreciation for athletic women’s bodies, accomplishments and achievements, which something that is too often left out in the all-schmaltz editions of women’s sports manga. Tears, fine, but blood and sweat and hitting the gold sometimes, too, thank you.

I purchased both volumes directly on Lilyka, which I am mentioning because Lilyka offers a variety of formats to download in, from mobi to epub. No need to use an awkwardly designed reader, you can just directly download the doujinshi and read it on the reader of your choice.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Character – 8
Story – 8
Service – 7 athletic, muscled women’s bodies
Yuri – 0

Overall – 7

If you are looking for something that centers sport over pathos and abs over backstory, Magnum Lily is a refreshing change of pace.

Now, if I can just get this with a torrid lesbian love affair, it would be absolutely perfect. So far, “FRIDAY IS THE DAY” by Hayashiya Shizuru for Yuritora Jump, Volume 2 still comes closest.

Posted in Yuri Doujinshi | 6 Comments »


Alter Ego by Ana C. Sánchez

March 17th, 2021

Noel is in love with her best friend, Elena. Or is she? She’s jealous when Elena spends time withe her boyfriend and now she’s going to have a new rival for Elena’s attention, June. Frustrated and feeling alone, Noel blurts out her feelings to a complete stranger. When Elena finally introduces her to June…you guessed it, she was the complete stranger.

Noel tries to keep her feelings about Elena front and center, and put distance between herself and this older woman, but “circumstances” keep bringing them together. The more about June she learns, the harder it is to keep distance between them. Noel struggles with conflicting feelings, until she’s forced to admit the truth.

There are a lot of things to like about Alter Ego, Ana C. Sánchez‘s manga-inspired comic from Tokyopop’s LOVE x LOVE imprint. I especially liked Elena, as we quickly realize she is neither clueless…nor without agency. June is an interesting character, as well. We’re told she’s older and indeed, her perspective does seem more mature than Noel’s in some ways, but not in others.

The weakest element of the book is Noel herself. Her behavior is not just immature, it’s often selfish, manipulative and, IMHO, quite toxic. I frequently sent mental waves to both Elena and June to tell her to shape the fuck up or get out of their lives. I will give Sánchez credit – she makes passive-aggressive behavior exactly as unpleasant as it actually is and doesn’t pretend it’s “cute.” I was also a little surprised that there is no mention of queer identity in this comic, but it wasn’t a point against, as clearly this is meant to be read as a “Yuri manga.”

The art is solid – it suffered, I think, when the artist was attempting to draw “a manga” rather than just draw her story, but this improves as the story continues. Overall, this is a fine one-volume story, that has a lot of the strengths and weaknesses of one-volume stories. If you’re looking for a one-shot Yuri romance that won’t ask too much of you but also won’t break any new ground, Alter Ego by Ana C. Sánchez is available from Tokyopop in Print and Digital in English and Planeta Cómic in Spanish right now.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – Noel was a 5, everyone else a 7
Service – 2ish?
Yuri – 7

Overall – a solid 7

Thank you very kindly to Tokyopop for the  review copy!

 

Posted in Western Comic/Comix, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Yuricon Store Update and Yuriten Walkthrough on Discord

March 16th, 2021

We have two wholly unrelated pieces of news today that have only one thing in common.  ^_^

We are doing a spring cleaning at the Yuricon Store! This is a work in progress as we update categories, reset broken links, fix tags, and otherwise tidy up for what will be an eventual move to a new theme, but do drop by – the pages are linked to Yuri anime, manga, LNs, VNs, apparel and more!
 

On the other side of the world is the Yuriten Exhibition and we’re going to be doing a walk through”tour” on the Voice channel on the  Okazu Discord on March 20, 1PM EST US time. I’ll be paging through the exhibition and we can chat about the pretty art. This is a low-key get together, just for fun. Joins us if you can!

 

Posted in Events, Yuricon | No Comments »


Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou. Volume 4 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

March 15th, 2021

Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 4 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) is a wild ride of a novel that has more twists and turns than the newest roller coaster at your local amusement park. It was awesome.

At the end of Volume 3, we left Rae and Claire in the Nur Kindgom, having made a heck of an impression on the despotic rule of Nur, Queen Dorothea, in a battle against the Demon Rulers. They also made an impression on the Demons.  Both of these are understood to be ambiguous in nature and will surely come to a head. But first, we have some much more important stuff to deal with….

…including an Iron Chef-like cooking contest between the greatest chefs of Nur, and Rae and Claire’s 6-year old daughter Aleah. And a formal ball. Also a act of incredible magical skill handled by their other 6-year old daughter, Mei. Rae and Claire help foment rebellion, change the diet of the entire army, solve a murder mystery and three other mysteries, only one of which was in the least predictable. Then a kidnapping. And then, about 2/3 of the way through this book, the story slams down on us with a vengeance.

Inori carefully weaves their way through the various plotlines and pulls out exactly the right ending for the book. It could not have been handled better without making concessions to what we knew of everyone.

This felt like a long book, and we had a number of new characters, several of which are undoubtedly going to be key in Volume 5. It was no surprise that I like Hilde, the hyper-competent bureaucrat with a monocle, but almost despite myself, I also like Frida, the Princess’s “Merikan” friend.  This story still remains wholly queer and deeply rooted in social and political activism. This volume takes some time to get there, but when it does, it does.

Every single one of my questions from Volume 3 were answered, save one, and that clearly is going to be a plot in Volume 5. There are a lot of loose ends yet to be tied up. I’m constantly fighting with myself whether to read the chapters on inori’s Pixiv Fanbox or not but I have chosen to not do so, and hope you will respect that by not spoiling anything for me, as I have tried to not overly spoil this for others. Thank you. ^_^ I still have hope that two of the things left undone will be done by the end of the series and one other new thing also gets followed through with, but I admit that this last is simply because I really like Dorothea and want to see more of her.

The art was the best so far of the series. I’ll never adore moe-fication of characters like Dorothea, but I felt that everything in this book was way more finished and solid than in previous books and a few of these were extra lovely. (I did mention the formal ball, yes?) ^_^

Volume 3 is slated for a July release in English, which feels so far away, and Volume 5 is not yet listed in Japan, but I remind you that Volume 3 and Volume 4 are available in Japanese on US Kindle. They are so worth it.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – Yes. Still perfectly okay.
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10

Overall – 10

Oh, the boot I kept waiting to drop in V3? It dropped in V4. And it wasn’t a main plot point, just one more crazy arc that lead somewhere else entirely and was even worse and better than I imagined.

If you’d like spoilers or have read it and want to shout with me about it, please join me on the Okazu Discord. ^_^

Posted in I'm in Love With the Villainess, inori, LGBTQ, Light Novel, Light Novels | 1 Comment »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 13, 2021

March 13th, 2021

We have an absolute avalanche of news today, so let’s get right into it!

Yuri Webnovel

I am absolutely delighted to announce that Manga Planet has licensed Girls Love of the Dead, the zombie the micro-light novel by Hoshii Nanao with art by Morishima Akiko. I reviewed Volume 1 last Halloween. It’s a hoot.

 

Yuri Anime

HUGE news from Diskotek this week on a couple of key licenses.

Dear Brother, the deeply melodramatic masterwork of shoujo anime based on the manga by Riyoko Ikeda, directed by Dezaki Osamu, on Blu-Ray is a major announcement. This will be a limited offer – don’t wait on this if you missed it the last time it became available. The link to Diskotek’s twitter announcement include the trailer, so you can give it a watch!

Diskotek also announced the resurrection of the Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl anime. This is an enjoyable and problematic anime and our conversations about it 20 years on are worth revisiting. ^_^

Diskotek’s third announcement was so big, I could hear the roar across the planet. ^_^ They had been slated to do an upscale remastering for a classic old anime, but the project was canceled, because they found the original masters! So we’ll be getting a new Project A-ko from the originals. That’s awesome. Yes, it absolutely can be considered Yuri if only for Shinohara Emi’s B-ko, and it is also super annoying. ^_^ Check out the remastered clip on Youtube and remember – every shadow, every highlight, every everything was drawn by hand. Like Dear Brother, it is a benchmark of animation.

Funimation has picked up seasons 1 and 2 of Yuru Yuri for streaming, according to ANN’s Alex Mateo.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica has announced a 10th anniversary event! Alex Mateo again has the news on ANN.

 

Become an Okazu Patron today and help us support Yuri creators, write Yuri news, reviews, interviews, make Yuri videos and more!

 

Yuri Manga

Via YNN  Correspondent Evie, and making a big splash this weekend was this animated promotion video for the first manga volume of Kaijuu-iro-no Shima, (かいじゅう色の島). Rafael Antonio Pineda  has the details on ANN.

Yuri-dol Dakedo Yuri Janai (百合どるだけど百合じゃない) is a comedy about a woman who part of a “Yuri Concept” Idol group, but who is not…you get the point. ^_^; You can read it (in Japanese) on Comic Meteor. You know…”hah.”

 

Yuri Events

The Yuriten is still on and last week I indulged in buying myself some stuff and a few things to go into Lucky Boxes! I took some time to wander the exhibits by series and enjoy the panels and the original art that had been contributed.

We’re doing a “tour group” through the Yuriten on the Okazu Discord. How about next Saturday afternoon my time (US EST)? Join us as we walk through the exhibit together! Details as we figure them out.

 

Queer Comics

DC has announced a DC Pride Anthology, featuring their queer characters. Even a year ago I might have rolled my eyes at this, but looking at the artists and writers, I’m going to absolutely get this. Mariko Tamaki and Amy Reeder working on a story together is  1-2 punch for me and Vita Ayala and anyone. So, yeah, I’m in.

Mere days later Marvel also announced Marvel’s Voices: Pride #1.  It’s going to be an interesting Pride month this year. I’m less familiar with some of these writers and artists, but of course I’ll get this.

It’s a pretty decent feeling to have top queer talent on these things. ^_^

Mira Ong Chua’s newest series is a Kickstarter success. GOODBYE, BATTLE PRINCESS PEONY will be a book. ^_^ I wonder if Seven Seas will license this one, too?

 

Yuri Doujinshi

Lilyka has announced the release of  translated Magnum Lily, a two-part Yuri boxing doujinshi (of which I swear I have at least one part floating around this house from some doujinshi event or other). In any case, I picked it up for myself last night, because of course I did. ^_^

 

Yuri Visual Novels and Games

Mangagamer is doing a White Day Sale through March 19th on selected Yuri titles and others.

 

Other News

Raya and the Last Dragon’s Kelly Marie Tran Thinks Her Disney Princess Is Gay is an interesting look at how Disney is lagging behind in queer representation in animation, by Joanna Robinson for Vanity Fair.

Takumi Furusato did an amazing write-up for ANN on the history and current state of derivative works (i.e, doujinshi, fanfic, cosplay, etc) in Japan. It’s absolutely worth reading, because this is a quickly evolving area of law and finance. Derivative Content and Property Rights: How Does Fanfiction Work in the Anime and Manga Industry?

Totally relevant to this same topic, Revolutionary Girl Utena fangroup Empty Movement is reaching out to folks to help an acquaintance do some research into fandom perceptions of fan translations.

Ogata Megumi-san has posted her first music video in 25 years, says Komatsu-san over at Crunchyroll News. She calls the video chuuni-ish and I’m not gonna disagree. ^_^  Very art school.

 

Become a YNN Correspondent:  Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share and be part of the Yuri Network. ^_^

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 7 Comments »