Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: GUNJO, Volume 1

April 9th, 2010

(Note to people looking for scanlations of this book. The author does not work herself to the bone and pay money out of her pocket so you can steal her work. Scans are not cool – they are theft. You want the book, click the picture and go buy it. Otherwise, you’re devaluing her time and effort and there is no justification for it, other than you are selfish.) 

“Is it settled?”

“It’s settled.”

With these few words begins one of the most profound, most emotionally engaging manga I’ve ever read.

Gunjo, Volume 1 (羣青 上)by Nakamura Ching is a journey from madness to madness, from profound misery to profound misery and from derision and fear into depths of despair where there is respect and even love.

It begins in the moments after a horrible crime has been committed. A woman has asked someone to kill her husband for her. She has asked someone she knows she can use – another woman, a lesbian, who has been in love with her since high school. The woman who requested the death is abusive, derisive. The woman who committed the crime is passive, almost apathetic. She flinches in the face of the other’s harsh words, but doesn’t fight back.

In between incredible, sudden violence, at moments when their existence is most tenuous, there is tenderness. No, it’s more like that there is only tenderness in the moments when they are most fragile.

We only learn later that the one woman has been serially abused by her husband, after a life with an abusive father. And we only learn later that the other woman walked away from a relationship and a life to commit this act of violence for her.

There is no real moral ambiguity here – these two women are violent and broken. They are insanely bad for one another and have together done something unspeakable. And yet, in the darkest moments, they realize they want to live and try to create something like a life out of the chaos they’ve created.

Nakamura-sensei’s art is detailed and realistic – and in those moments of terrifying violence it reaches the level of sublime. Her writing is subtle – and painful and hurtful – and breathtakingly beautiful especially when the situation is uncertain. There is a mastery of tension of just about every kind in every word and line of this story.

Moving, brutal, sublimely gorgeous and profoundly disturbing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say this – Gunjo is the best manga I have read to date.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 10

I would love to hear from those of you who bought Volume 1 of Gunjo – what did you think of it, now that you’ve had a chance to see it for yourself?





Yuri Manga: Love Flag★Girls!! (ラブフラッグ★Girls!! )

April 5th, 2010

Every once in a while, it’s nice to take your brain out of your head and give it a rest. If you don’t have the leisure of doing that, a really goofy, predictable manga will have about the same effect. And who among us hasn’t watched pirate movies and thought, “This would be so much better if the Pirate King was a Pirate Queen and she and the damsel in distress were getting it on”?

Clearly Takahashi Itsumi thought that and created Love Flag ★ Girls!! (ラブフラッグ★Girls!!) in which the Pirate Queen’s Daughter and the Princess find a kind of happily ever after sailing the oceans. But not right away. First there’s *drama!*

Queen Beatrice never stops crying about the loss of a cross she once owned. She blames the Pirate Queen Maria for its loss. Princess Lucia heads out to infiltrate Maria’s crew and retrieve the cross, but finds herself adopted as the playmate and pet of the Pirate Queen’s daughter, Eleana.

Lucia has a hard time adapting to pirate life, but the fact that Eleana’s a goofball and the crew seems to be easygoing helps. Isabella, Maria’s former second in command is less thrilled, but she’s busy pining away for Maria and doesn’t have the oomph to make Lucia’s life miserable.

Lucia finds herself fighting against the navy with her crewmates and decides that this whole going after pirates thing is dumb in the first place – and is pretty sure that what her mother is suffering is heartbreak. She goes home, where she is rejected and told that ONLY the return of the cross can abate the Queen’s never ending tears. By this time, Lucia’s pretty much had it with Mom (I had had it with Beatrice about two pages in) and tells Beatrice that she’s just heartbroken and horny….and ends up in jail for her pains.

Eleana and the crew break Lucia out and they return to the high seas only to be pursued by the navy – lead by an extra bitchy Queen Beatrice.

Lucia and Eleana are saved by the most obvious plot complication ever, but it’s okay – everyone lives happily ever after.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 8, except for Beatrice who is a jerk
Yuri – 9
Goofy – 9
Service – 5

Overall – 8

My brain feels better already.





Yuri Manga: Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 2

April 4th, 2010

Volume 1 of Rakuen Le Paradis was hardly perfect. But I liked how it bucked convention and did whatever it pleased. Volume 2 is no less unconventional and sometimes, as a result, it’s downright disturbing. But even with a few stories I didn’t care for, I found this volume intriguing.

Because this is a Yuri blog, I’m going to focus on the Yuri stories, but the magazine has much the same lineup as last time, so if you like any of those artists, it’s worth a look. And at least two of the straight stories were very good, IMHO.

The most important story is the second chapter of “Collectors” by Nishi UKO. If you’ve been following Okazu for any length of time, you’ll know that she is one of my favorite artists – I love her clean lines and the unabashedly adult sensibility with which she imbues her stories. Nishi Uko-sensei often writes stories in what I am calling (as of this week) the Yuri Gap.

The Yuri Gap is that space after “zOMG! We’re in love!” and even after the obligatory first sexual encounter, but before “we’re an established couple.”

As I posted recently on the Yuricon Mailing List:

1) There’s Yuri in which a character is perceived to have a one-sided crush. (There’s TONS of “Yuri” in which there is no one-sided crush, but fans decide there is and interpret everything to fit their idée fixe.)

2) There’s first love Yuri in which two girls/women realize – to their shock – that they love one another.

3) There’s PWP Yuri in which two girls/women, for virtually no reason whatsoever, suddenly have a physical relationship.

4) And there’s relationship Yuri in which two women are a priori living together as a couple.

There are *of course* exceptions to these. But in my opinion, there’s a distinct gap here. The gap is that bit that interests me most, to be honest.

It’s obviously easy to sell 1) one-sided and crushy Yuri – no commitment is needed from the reader to make the relationship work. And it’s pretty easy to sell 4) a pre-existing relationship to a reader because, duh, it’s pre-existing so you either accept it or you don’t read the manga.

Most of “Yuri” fits neatly in 2) and 3). First love stories are titillating in an emotional way, and sex in a physical way and sometimes either kind of story can be titillating in either, or both ways.

And yet…I can’t help but notice a gap.

The gap is that bit after “we’re together as a couple” and before “we living together.”

This is the kind of story I covered in “Playing House” in Yuri Monogatari 4 and what “Fufu” is doing in Yuri Hime S. This space when two women are past building a physical relationship out of an emotional one and trying to translate that into real life. Moving in, getting furniture – dealing with bills and budgets and family and food and…stuff.

In “Collectors,” the couple isn’t living together, but they are together. But the stories are about the little things. The very little things. Sharing space and sharing clothes and little pieces that finish off the big life puzzle. And for that reason I like that story more than I can convey simply. And this chapter was funny, too.

Takemiya Jin covers the newest most popular Yuri couple with the high school girl and the college student tutor that fall for each other in “Omoi no kakera (2 piece).” It’s kind of safe territory, but the author gets to play around with the kind of character she does best – apparently amoral, but actually very nice character.

And in “Parfum” Nishi Uko once again deals with one of the important little pieces – when a couple fights for no goddamn good reason at all.

In “Sukina Hito” a sister’s nighttime affection for her older sister is starting to put some cracks in her relationship with her boyfriend.

There’s also at least two stories that cover “Girl’s Talk” episodes, and which are true enough to life that most folks will automatically write the relationships in as having some physical component when it really doesn’t, because clearly when women are complaining about their boyfriends, the only logical conclusion is for them to have sex together. It’s not really there, but I know my audience. :-)

My only disappointment with volume two is that this time there wasn’t any BL included. I very much liked that the last volume had some (even if I didn’t actually like the story itself.) Based on the kinds of stories being included in this volume, the readership is skewing strongly female, so I’m really hoping to see some more variety in the next volume.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Like all anthology magazines, I don’t expect to like all – r even most – of the stories in this magazine, but I seems to be enjoying about half the work in this magazine. That’s a pretty high “like” ratio. :-)





Yuri Manga: Yukemuri Sanctuary

April 2nd, 2010

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.





Yuri Manga: Tadaima!

March 31st, 2010

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.