The second half of Comic Yuri Hime, Volume 19 starts off with Hakamada Mera’s “Sore ga kimi ni naru” in which You is fascinated by this older woman who looks at her with the memory of a love she had in the past. This time You accompanies Amane to the library where she works, to see what this mysterious woman’s life is like. When You gets caught in a late rainstorm, Amane is confronted with having the girl stay over her place.

“Himekoi” is full of screaming…again. And I’m skipping “Soulfege” because, bleah.

In “DNA Double XX” Aoi proves that she haz mad fightin’ skills, but the Eves have better Yuri-service.

Amano Shuninta’s “Cell Frame no Mukou Kawa” proves that once again, there is a group mind behind anthologies, as yet another cosmetics salesperson find herself part of a plot. This time she has fallen for the local pharmacist, who is unreasonably cute with makeup. For the record – I prefer girls in glasses. Justsaying.

“Mizu-iro Cinema” has an awkward reunion between Yui and her former lover Mizuki, while Tae is a little slow on the uptake. After Yui throws Mizuki out, she worries that Tae will find the fact that she is a lover of women repulsive (as opposed to, “I don’t love women – just you”, the old-school method of avoiding having any lesbianism in Yuri.) Tae is way too sweet (read; doofusy) to let that happen.

In “Cleo the Crimson Crises” the story doesn’t end. WHY? Why gods, do you hate us? Oh, ahem. So, Cleo and Suoh go to wherever Cleo is from and people are assholes to Suoh, so she can be a snot-faced wet rag some more. Gawd.

“Sayonara Folklore” continues – sort of surprisingly, because there’s not a lot of plot there, but… Sumika is still in love with Takase-sempai, who likes her back and everything is okay until another student starts to scream at them, and tells the teacher about them. And Takase finds that she too is not the first one her lover has loved. What does not need forgiveness is forgiven and at the end they still like one another.

And, finally, in “Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen” Arare and Pero, now in the world of humans, go to Arare’s house, Pero meets her mom, is terrified of her, and licks the bowl clean – literally. Meanwhile, Kiri mopes, remembering how Arare disappeared through a vortex…and suddently realizes Pero’s with her! The end of this story becomes ever more obvious, but you, know, I’m still okay with it. ;-)

And there you have it. Better than average, with more very good and good than not.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

A fine specimen of a Yuri Hime, and another issue that gives me hope that one day I’ll see what I really want in a Yuri magazine – something somewhere between “Story A” and porn about women who love women.

“Got your heart!” says the cover of Comic Yuri Hime, Volume 19. And so far, at least, it’s right. :-)

After some color illustrations that are less skanky than I’m used to, we jump right into a new series “Moso Honey” by the insanely prolific Mikuni Hadzime (of Gokujou Drops). Nonoka enters a new high school and is drafted into the high-end and rather bizarre Student Council by a “cool beauty,” Nozomi. What will this mean for the decidely average Nonoka? Hijinx and Wackiness, of course!

“Kuma-san ni Tsuite” is a slightly uncomfortable love story between a woman who obsesses about teddy bears and her long-suffering friend.

“Spike Girls” is really interesting to me, not because it’s a perfectly respectable sport romance, but also because Takemiya Jin is also doing a sports romance as Junk-Lab, so clearly he’s really into the whole idea right now. :-) Jun is recruited by by Ichi-sempai to play on the volleyball team, but unexpectedly finds herself falling for Ichi-sempai, who was in love with her own sempai. Jun confesses, thinking that Ichi-sempai will be disgusted, but oh, look! not so much.

Mitsue Aoki’s “Sweet Room” is the kind of story that works only if you’re reading an anthology of a lot of one type of short story and you are therefore inclined to be a bit generous about handwaves that are awkward, because how many different ways are there, really, to tell the same story. Nozomi find a stranded high school girl and takes her into her home, because 1) she thinks high school girls are cute and 2) the girl was stranded, duh. But after the girl makes herself comfortable, pretty much moving in, Nozomi begins to doubt her own motives. When Nana seduces Nozomi, she’s wracked with guilt, unti Nana admits to being 21 and having made up the whole high school thing to appeal to Nozomi, who she overheard talking about how cute high school girls are at the convenience store where she works. Heh.

Miura Shion’s Yuri essay touches on Sasamekikoto and “Para Yuri Hime” is Fujio’s love letter to a school crush named Waka.

At the the Black Cat Mansion, tutor Jun rues the fact that she rejected her student Chiasa, on their last day together.

“Mahou no Te” is another over-complicated love story about a girl who learns that someone who touches you on the back of the arm is sure to be your true love, or something like that. Nasu is passively-aggressively in love with Seri. They embrace.

“Renai Joshika” follows Fumi, who falls in love with the woman behind the makeup counter. It turns out that “love” is the best makeup of all.

And this section, we’ll end end with “A Knife Edge Girl” which was probably the most realistic “friend in love with friend” story we’ve seen in a while. There’s a lot of interior emotion and some very little interaction, but it rings true in that a real love story is not one story – but two. Each of the people involved has their own story going on in their head, apart from the other. While this story only so far follows one character, we can see that the other has a whole separate set of stuff going on.

Up to this point, the magazine’s been better than average and has a fairly high percentage of grown up characters, which I will never complain about. The level of high melodrama is lower, and so is the “afterschool special” feel as compared to some of the stories we’ve had in the past.

Also, I’d like to note that the tone of obsessive destruction that used to walk hand in hand with Yuri is pretty much out of the picture now. No knives, paper cutters or rooftops threaten our Yuri with the grim specter of suicide. These characters might be depressed a bit when they think their love isn’t returned, but Yuri and madness no longer are equivalent.

In fact, what I’m seeing is more of that tectonic shift to strong characters, characters with jobs, lives, friends, characters with hobbies and interests and – can you believe it took this long – female characters in sports! ‘Bout time too. Honestly, you’d think *someone* would have written an Olympic-like competition Yuri story for this issue. Duuuuuuhhhhh……. However, I am sufficiently glad for the absence of Valentine’s Day stories. Phew.

Tectonic shift it may be, but I’m liking it.

Part 2 next.