Here we are once more, looking back at a year that is never going to end fast enough. lol

This year has been pretty special in a lot of ways both good and bad but, in terms of Yuri – it’s been pretty darn good. The odd-year Yuri phenomenon hit once more and this time we were practically *inundated* with good, bad and indifferent Yuri series. Yay us!

One of the striking differences for me, as I started to work on my Top Ten Lists, was that for the very first time since I began this (somewhat tedious) round-up of the year, the Top Ten Anime list was easier to build than the Top Ten Manga. Not because there wasn’t good manga, mind you – there was actually too much manga – but for once we had more than enough anime to choose from.

I can see another striking difference, but I’m going to wait until the very end to explain. See if you can see it too, as you read the list.

Because the English-language picks in manga this year were, with only a few exceptions, utterly lame, I’ve combined my Japanese and English picks into one consolidated list.

Let’s all take a deep breath – here we go!

10. Gunsmith Cats Burst Volumes 4 & 5 (Japanese & English)

We knew it, didn’t we? Despite the disclaimer in Misty’s bio, we always knew she had the hots for Rally. And sheesh, how obvious was Goldie’s obsession? But mostly, we knew all along that Rally’s gay and just more in love with her car and her guns than with any other human. Sonoda finally, finally got around to showing the world what we always knew – Rally Vincent is a lesbian magnet – and what we guessed – she’s a damn good kisser, too. lol

9. Hayate x Blade (Japanese & English)

I’m besotted with this series for any number of reasons. I’m well aware that it’s actually pretty low on the Yuri scale, with only Jun playing overtly for our team, and everyone else stuck in akogare or shinyuu space. But hell, it’s about sisters-in-arms fighting for their pride, their lives and their loved ones. It’s about guts and glory and reaching for the stars. It’s basically the one manga that makes me laugh, cry, laugh and snort in like, 4 panels. And it makes me want to hit the lottery so I can start a high school just like Tenchi Academy and become Hitsugi. lol

It’s really my favorite series in English or Japanese. It’s number 9 on this year’s list.

8. Linkage/Butterfly 69 (Japanese)

One of the things I look for in collected volumes is variety. I want shiny stories, and silly stories, and moving stories, and passionate stories. I want a creator to show off their art skills and their writing skills. Both of these collections have exactly those qualities I look for. There’s depth even though the stories are short, there’s variety of personality and voice. These collections have young women dealing with their first love and older women dealing with their true love.There’s passion in the story telling, and sometimes in the story itself. They are a delightful mix of everything – just the way I like it.

7. Tsubomi/Comic Lily/Shoujo Yuri/Yuri Hime/Yuri Hime S/Yuri Monogatari (Japanese & English)

Good heavens – 6 Yuri anthologies in one year. I’m…flabbergasted. It’s a landslide of Yuri, from brand new artists, from established artists, from well-known doujinshi artists that have never been seen by the “mainstream” audience before. I don’t know what the next 5 years will bring, but 2009 brought as close to an explosion of Yuri as we’re likely to see for a while. Wow. Let’s wallow in all the companies that see Yuri as an area for expansion – and let’s let them know that there’s an overseas market by buying their books!

6. Papaya Gundan (Japanese)

This manga was a sleeper hit for me. It came out of nowhere, told a story I hadn’t read seventy-five thousand times already, the girl got the girl – even asked her to marry her – and the alternative family built from the affection the hostess bar workers have for each other wins. There’s no way you’re likely to see this any time soon in English, but if you can read Japanese, it’s a surprising, fun read.

5. Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan (Japanese)

Squee. Seriously. Only Fujieda has the magic to make me squee over something so moe. Another story about an adult and the young woman who loves her, with a slow, slow, slow relaxed pace that make me feel at ease – just like a good cup of tea. I’m in no rush at all for Sarasa and Seriho to get together because I’m enjoying them being clueless. lol All I ask is that when they do get together, I want a massive cross-over with all of Fujieda’s characters, darnit. (Like there’s a chance that that won’t happen…! lol)

4. Sasamekikoto (Japanese)

Where Maria+ Holic took the typical tropes of Yuri and stomped all over them with jackboots, Sasamekikoto presents them with humor – not afraid to poke and tease, but subtle enough to know when to stop. It’s a comedy, it’s a drama, and it’s nowhere near resolved. I’m interested to see where this series takes Ushio and Sumi. It transfered much better than I expected to anime, as a bonus. :-)

3. Hanjuku Joshi/Girl Friends (Japanese)

For most fans of “Yuri” right now, there are two indomitable names – creators who have forged their own path in the genre when there was barely a genre to create in. Morinaga Milk and Morishima Akiko both have transformed the Yuri landscape over the years. These two series are gently, but irrevocably, shifting the boundaries of Yuri into realistic story-telling about women in love with women. Like a Yuri glacier, they’ve told our stories – our real stories – about fear, and loss, and hope and love.

It’s my sincere pleasure to put these two series at Number Three and I hope that one or both will one day make it over the ocean to these shores soon.

2. Aoi Hana (Japanese)

Like the above names, Shimura Takako’s name would have to be added to the Yuri Hall of Fame. The anime sort of overtook the manga in the news and in the discussions, but this manga series is still magnificent. There’s a real story in here, told beautifully, sensitively, about a girl you can imagine you know and about her dealing with her feelings for other girls. It’s about the friends and people around her that care about her and support her, and the people whose lives she affects. It’s a gentle story that doesn’t shy away from harsh reality and bad decisions, but always comes back to a place of simple pleasure in friendship. Like the old school buildings Fumi falls in love with, I’ve fallen a bit for Fumi and her friends and I’m glad to return over and over to what I consider to be the second best series of the year.

IMHO, the Number One best Yuri Manga of the year was…

1. Octave (Japanese)

I don’t know where to begin with this series. It’s…spectacular. I get angry, I laugh, I cry, I wait patiently for Yukino to become her own person.

It’s about sex and love and attraction and affection. Both of the leads are adult women, arguably both of them are bisexual, which is remarkable in a serious manga. The relationship between them is real and lovely. This would make a stellar live-action drama.

I can’t think of a better series to offer up as consideration to any company that might want to bring a really excellent Yuri series over here. Targeted towards adults, who are the ones who actually *buy* manga these days, Octave would rock the josei manga world if someone let it.

For all these things Octave is my Top Yuri manga series of 2009.

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So, did you see the striking difference? In seven spots out of ten at least part of the story included an adult woman in love with another woman. Think about it….think about how amazing that is compared to past years which were all schoolgirls, all the time. Sure, there’s still plenty of school girls and you know, that’s okay. It’s just cool to note that slowly, Yuri is starting to look a little like stories about and by lesbian and bi women.

Feel free to join the Top Ten fun and add your nominations for #1 manga series of the year in the comments – I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Here it is, my friends, the 2009 Okazu Edition of the Great Manga Gift Guide. These are my suggestions for manga that would make great gifts for the fan(s) in your life.

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Dogs, Bullets Carnage – This title is unbridled action. It’s a bunch of broken, violent people in a violent world. The art is *very* stark, which works totally for what little of the story exists. Mostly, the story is the frame for the fighting. There is a chick with a weapon, but don’t look for more than that.

Who Would Like It: Not for beginner manga fans, but if your gift recipient thinks they’ve seen it all – here’s something with all of it at once. :-)

Kimi ni Todoke – This is one of my wife’s favorite series right now. It’s got that thing that we westerners so often miss in manga – someone who just spits it out already. The protagonist is…nice. And the fun of the series is watching everyone else realize that, too. This female lead is no typical “he’s mean to me because he loves me” heroine.

Who Would Like It: Got a shoujo fan (or closet shoujo fan) in your family or friends? Give them this for something that is totally feel-good, without making you put your brain on hold.

Black Lagoon – Girls, Guns, Drugs, and loads of crazy. This is actually one of my favorite series overall right now. As there isn’t the vaguest hint of Yuri, I have no reason to review it here, but hot damn, this is awesome manga. It’s just chockful of loony women who are armed to the teeth and not afraid to pull the trigger. Yums.

Who Would Like It: Action fans, anyone who spends a lot of time watching Spike TV and anyone who likes women who kill first, then tell you to *^&# off! later will love this.

MW – There’s a reason why Tezuka is consistently held up as a master of the craft. In this volume, he deals with “Homosexuality” in nearly as insensitive a way as possible – and it totally works. In this fraught horror story in which a broken man seeks to punish everyone for his existence, the one stable, normal and happy person is a lesbian editor who appears on only a few pages. Hardcore angst and melodrama, a fistful of self-loathing and misanthropy.

Who Would Like It: This book is great for folks who like it dark, with an even darker background for contrast and horror fans.

Aria – Nothing happens in this series. But it happens beautifully, and with grace and humor and joie de vivre. And scenery porn.

Who Would Like It: Perfect for the jaded, the cynical and any fan that still wants to recapture a feeling of childlike joy at, well, everything.

Iono-sama Fanatics – this volume about a totally lesbian Queen of some small country who happens to love girls with black hair is a very pretty and very sweet fantasy. It’s not often we get to enjoy fantasy romance that’s almost entirely angst-free.

Who Would Like It: Readers who love their manga cute, sweet, harmless and did I mention cute, will love this. It’s charming, as in “Princess Charming.” :-) (I guess that would be Queen Charming, huh?)

WORKS – I haven’t given this book enough air time, really and I blame myself. Tadeno-san has been cranking out Yuri manga since long before you ever heard of it and, although these stories are early (and therefore a little dated,) they still stand the test of time as solid looks at lesbian life and love.

Who Would Like It: Self-serving, yes. Still, a great Yuri primer for an interested adult. A good choice for a lesbian who doesn’t know Yuri yet.

Kashimashi~ Girl Meets Girl Omnibus 1 and Omnibus 2 – This silly story of a boy who becomes a girl and suddenly find herself the center of a love triangle still stands as one of the best adaptations of a manga from Japanese to English I’ve ever seen.

Who Would Like It: Not for beginner Yuri fans, but for folks who can take a handwave or two in their lives.

Azumanga Daioh Omnibus 1 – This collection is a reworking of one of the funniest 4-panel comics to hit American bookshelves to date; there’s really no downside to this volume. It’s a nice chunky book, it’s got some gut-bustingly funny bits and a lot of “heh” parts and is overall a lot of fun. And hey, there’s Kaorin and her totally hopeless love for Sakaki.

Who Would Like It: If you missed this the first time around, now’s a *great* time to add it to your wish list, or get it for a friend, then “borrow” it. :-)

Hayate x Blade – Are you totally unsurprised that this is a Great Manga Gift in my opinion? First of all – funny. Crazy, stupid, funny. Snort-Laugh Out Loud funny. Then there is awesome action. And there are girls. Almost 100% girls, who are in romantic partnerships with darn little romance, honestly, but that doesn’t stop us from projecting.

Who Would Like It: I wouldn’t get this for a little kid, because there is a lot of violence, but for anyone who is getting jaded on service and lack of plot drivers in manga, anyone who longs for action and comedy and something intelligent, anyone who wants a story written by someone who can actually write – hand them this and step back if they are drinking something.

Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 Volume 4 Volume 5

Ed Sizemore also suggested we all add a “piece of coal” book, one that was really not good and you’d give to someone you wanted to punish. Clearly, I’d pick Mariaholic for the role. In fact, I’d give you my copy, but I put it through the shredder.

Thanks to David Welsh for coming up with this fabulous idea – and thanks to all the bloggers and readers who participate!

Now, here’s where you come in! What I want to know is – what are your Great Manga Gift Suggestions – and what book is your piece of coal? Let’s have ’em in the comments!