LGBTQ Manga: Stop!! Hibarikun! Complete Edition, Volume 1 (γ‚Ήγƒˆγƒƒγƒ—!!γ²γ°γ‚Šγγ‚“! コンプγƒͺγƒΌγƒˆγƒ»γ‚¨γƒ‡γ‚£γ‚·γƒ§γƒ³)

January 17th, 2020

Some series are famous because they create a whole new chapter of fandom. Others spearhead a new style of art or story telling. But there are some series that are just ahead of their time and should not be forgotten. Eguchi Hisashi’s Stop!! Hibarikun! is among the latter. Serialized in the early 1980s Shonen Jump magazine, this manga is a classic.

In Stop!! Hibarikun! Complete Edition, Volume 1, before Sakamoto Kousaku’s mother dies, she asks her son to go live with an old friend of hers. He’s got children roughly the same age and will welcome Kousaku. When Kousaku arrives at the Oozora home, he finds mom’s old friend to be a yakuza boss with 4 children – among them, Hibari-kun. Assigned male at birth, Hibari knows that she is a girl.

The manga progresses as a comedy, much in the artistic style we’re used to in, for example, Ranma 1/2. Lots of face faults, grimaces, falling over, nosebleeds, etc. Dad is not at all happy that Hibari insists she is a girl, but other than his pointless raging about it, her sisters seem to have little to no concern. She passes at school, until a mean girl confronts her in the locker room, demanding to see her without her shirt. One of her sisters masquerades as Hibari, so she passes the inspection, and the rest of the girls in school go back to treating her as one of them, despite random plots by the resident mean girl. Thugs sent after Hibari go down, because she’s the child of a yakuza leader….she knows how to fight. When Kousaku joins the boxing club, so does Hibari.

Kousaku’s overreactions to Hibari are the main “comedy” and they can become tiresome. I mean that generally – that kind of goofy overreaction is just…tiresome. I was watching something and every reaction was just “EEEEHHHH~~~~?????” over and over at louder decibels until I had to stop. I ended up watching some morning live-action Japanese drama afterwards, just to relax. Hardly any shouting. Phew. When you remember that this would have run at the same time as hyper-masculine Fist of the North Star, and City Hunter, you can kind of understand that this would have been a breath of fresh air…even if it was intended as a parody of shounen romance manga.  There are moments you forget that this is meant to be a gag comic, though and those are worth it.

The best part of Stop!! Hibarikun! is Hibari herself. She is occasionally sad that her body is not in sync with her identity, but she knows who she is and doesn’t really care that other people struggle with it. She’s comfortable showing interest in Kousaku, and teasing him about it. She’s physically and emotionally strong enough to hold her own when she’s being bullied by one of the girls, or one of the guys. She’s an awesome female lead in a series full of mostly unworthy supporting characters.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Cute, and stylish when it comes to Hibari and the other girls, gooftastic for the guys
Story – 7 I mean, it’s a sitcom. So…gags
Characters – Hibari is a 9, her sisters are 8 and everyone else just sort of trickles down from there
Service – Yep. Nakedness is hi-larious
LGBTQ – 10 for Hibari, who knows who she is. It all trickles down from there

Overall – 8 When its good it’s very good, when it’s not it’s more meh than awful

I’m very pleased this classic manga has been collected into a complete edition and grabbed this copy when I saw it on the shelves in one of the bookstores in Japan (I think it was in an actual bookstore, rather than a manga store, in fact.) I’ll be very interested to get the rest and see what I think of the story. 

Here’s the OP of the anime for your viewing entertainment. That may lead you to look for some of the anime on Youtube. You may find it there if you look. (Please do not link to any of it here. Read the atmosphere. Thank you.)

 

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Yuri Manga: Vampeerz, Volume 1 (ヴゑンピをーズ)

January 16th, 2020

Ichika attends an old school
Where she’s befriended by a very cute ghoul
Her feeling and fears
Are tempered by tears
Is love with a vampire scary or cool?

What is there to say about Vampeerz, Volume One (ヴゑンピをーズ)
That hasn’t already been said, already been done?
The atmosphere is dark and creepy
The love story isn’t deep-y
Blood-sucking as an aphrodisiac doesn’t stun.

Akili’s art is quite staid
until moments of service are laid
out for those who enjoy
which is never me, oh boy,
and my attention wanders, unpaid.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Overly not-evocative, in a highly evocative setting
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Entry 2,847,436,372 in “How Erica knows she is not goth.”

 

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Yuri Manga: Hana ni Arashi, Volume 3 (はγͺにあらし)

January 15th, 2020

Chidori and Nanoha have a secret, we are told in Volume 1 and Volume 2. They are lovers, we are told. And we will have to believe what we are told, because what we are shown is two young woman in a romantic relationship that, for completely sensible reasons, they prefer to keep secret from their friends. They aren’t doing a particularly great job of hiding it, but the relative self-absorption of people means they are hiding in plain sight. The only one who has cottoned on to their relationship is Nanoha’s younger sister. She, admittedly, has had the benefit of seeing them during their off-school hours when they, for one moment, let their guard slip and were holding hands, while on a date.

In love, probably. Lovers? No. Not yet. They are still in very early stages of their romance. Holding hands is where we are at.

In Volume 3 of Hana ni Arashi (はγͺにあらし), we accompany them as they celebrate Chidori’s birthday, and the gang goes over Nanoha’s house for a summer sleepover.

Unusually, this volume does not just end on a generic feel good moment, but with Chidori spotting someone we don’t know, but she clearly does, talking about her “kouhai” on the phone. What this will mean to us will wait until the next volume to find out.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 3
Service – 2 There was some gratuitous Chidori decolletage for us, the readers, not for Nanoha, which was depressing.

Overall – 6

I guess I am reading this series now. ^_^

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Haru to Midori Manga, Volume 2 (ζ˜₯γ¨γΏγ©γ‚Š)

January 13th, 2020

In Haru to Midori, Volume 2 (ζ˜₯γ¨γΏγ©γ‚Š) having committed to being a foster parent for her late childhood friend’s daughter, Midori struggles daily to separate her feelings for Tsugumi from the child who looks so much like her. Haru is trying to create a life with this woman who clearly loved her mother, but who seems to have little life of her own.

Tsugumi’s belongings arrive at Midori’s place, and her child’s first thought is to throw it all away, starting fresh. Midori, though, goes through it, knowing the value of items that have no value but are irreplaceable. Haru watches Midori interact with her own mother, able to see the bonds between them, and reflecting on her own bonds, now permanently severed.

In turn Haru and Midori become ill. Haru finds herself comforted by this woman who is not her mother, but finds it in herself to care for her. When it is Haru’s turn, shes not surprised, but still befuddled to be mistaken for her mother, by a feverish Midori.

The gyre turns and turns, spinning Haru and Midori in a circle around their memories of Tsugumi, but every spin, brings some small change in them. Haru’s new life begins to take form and almost amazingly, so does Midori’s. Midori who now wears new clothes to work, and is teased by Haru and her mother and has, at last, started to realize how little she has moved forward since Tsugumi left.

This series is neither melancholic nor nostalgic, although we spend a lot of time looking backward. If it were literary, I’d read it as if it was a memoir told by an adult Haru about this moment in her life. “That time my mother’s friend (who was in love with her) took me in after her death.” It’s a sad series, because death is sad, but there’s bits of humor and comfort that keep it from becoming maudlin.

This is only Yuri in retrospective, as they individually unpack Midori’s feelings for Tsugumi. I hope that they can be allowed to come to care for one another without it becoming romantic, as that would reek of lazy writing.

I have no idea what will become of Haru and Midori, but wherever they end up, I think this has been good for both of them. I can easily imagine that they will come to rely on their relationship through Tsugumi less and on each other more.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9 A lot of time is spent in interior monologue
Yuri – 3 Only in retrospective, as they individually unpack Midori’s feelings for Tsugumi and
Service – 0

Overall – 8

Still awkward, yet sincerely and appealingly so, much like Midori herself. Still ongoing online at Comic Meteor, I’m looking forward to a third volume.

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Novel: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

January 12th, 2020

Baru Cormorant is a savant. Even as a child, she had a brilliant understanding of systems and numbers. The Imperial forces of the Masquerade comes to her island with their Incrastic laws, their insistence that Islander way of life and relationships are unhygienic, demanding adherence to their laws in return for dentists and inoculations from the diseases they brought, Baru is taken to the Imperial school, trained to better her mind, and ignore her unhygienic physical desires.

In The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Baru Cormorant is shaped into a tool of the Emperor by a man, known as Itinerant, who knows exactly what he has in this young woman. What he does not know is that Baru is playing the double-agent. Even as she is sent to far-off Arduwynn as the Imperial accountant, Baru’s long game remains the same – the complete destruction of the Empire.

Baru is herself absolutely, fascinatingly loathesome. At her truest and most heartfelt, she is a young woman falling in love against the general laws of her government and the specific situation in which she finds herself. Alone, because she insists on being alone, honest, because she refuses to fear the truth, Baru is a genius who betrays everything and everyone she knows. There’s a lot to love about the character and a very little to like. And yet, she is sympathetic.

This is a book explicitly about the short- and long-term effects of colonization, of imperialist classicism and, most importantly of how economies look to economists. Baru is an accountant and thinks in the movement of money and we are forced to think that way as well. This is a story of strategy and tactics, one of the very, very few stories in this post Game of Thrones age that actually understands history as a “game” of influence and power. Seth Dickinson does a remarkable job of staying out of the way of his characters, something that is hard to do these days, when readers are groomed to expect every series even remotely like this to end up as a HBO series.

Most importantly, 3/4s of the way through the next book, I have no idea what might happen. That is a high compliment from me.

Ratings:

Characters – 9
Service – 2 Sex and sexuality are bluntly described. But attraction is attraction, love is love, nonetheless.
Violence – 10 There is a lot of violence. Of a lot of kinds, from war to torture to general bloodyminded bullshit
Lesbian – 9 Yes. And No. Then Yes.

Overall – 9

It’s not a 10 because the series has to end perfectly for it to be a 10 and it might not do so. But this could be revised. As an individual book it was damned close.

Thanks to those friends who recommended it to me. You understand me well.

It’s been an unbelievably good era for queer science fiction and fantasy and Tor Books has been absolutely killing it with their offerings.

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