Yuri Manga: Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 10 (English)

November 1st, 2019

And so, Shiramine Ayaka’s long quest is over. In Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 10, in and around the graduation festivities, surrounded by students leaving the school, Ayaka struggles to figure out her feelings, for her rival, her friend, her confidant, her support, Kurosawa Yurine.

To get herself to that conclusion, Ayaka revisits all the people, all the couples and all the relationships…all the Yuri tropes… we’ve seen in this series, giving us one last time to enjoy them before they and we move on.

As the curtain is drawn on this series for the last time here on Okazu, Ayaka finally figures out what we have seen for basically 10 volumes – that she is in love with Yurine. Yurine responds to this with white lilies and a kiss.

Now we say good bye to this series. It was always entertaining if rarely groundbreaking. Canno-sensei had a chance to spend the last six years on this series, working on her art, her characters, her comedic timing and it shows. Her lines, both drawn and spoken are more confident. After this breakout series, I’m looking forward to seeing where she heads with her work. I hope,of course that she’ll be working on something original, but we can see her current Starlight Revue project, Starlight no Ou on Pixiv.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 8 Ayaka was, in my opinion, the best character of the series
Story – 7
Service – 0
Goofball grin-making Yuri – 10

It feels like the closing of a beloved picture book, to be set back on the shelf as we turn towards something more adult. It’s not that we love it less, it’s just that it has become less relevant to our lives as we matured.

It’s time to get dressed and ready for adult romance. ^_^

Many thanks to Yen Press for the review copy!

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 16 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime November 2019 (コミック百合姫2019年11月号)

October 31st, 2019

Comic Yuri Hime November 2019 (コミック百合姫2019年11月号) surprised the heck out of me – in a good way.

As you may notice, every issue I note the progress of some of the stories I follow, and and I usually note that there are many stories I don’t read. Over all the years here on Okazu I have had a belief that as long as a magazine had two stories I loved and at least a story or two I like then it’s worth the price.

The surprise comes from the fact that I am now reading more than half the stories in each volume of Comic Yuri Hime, and the number of stories I’m genuinely enjoying is about a half dozen and I’m only avoiding about a half dozen. Which makes this an unreasonably good value for my money. ^_^

Iwami Kyoko’s “Luminous=Blue” wraps up this issue, and IMHO, wraps up well with an ending that feels less like a cop out and more like a reasonable choice than I expected.

I always enjoy “Itoshi Koishi” by Takemiya Jin, but found this particular issue especially charming as I’m trying to cook this week for a woman who cooks brilliantly. I sympathize with Yayoi here.

“Umineko Bessou days” takes a slightly darker turn…one that presages an even darker one in days to come. It’s obvious that Kodama Naoko-sensei likes her tales with an edge. I’m not sure I do, so I’m always nervous reading her work. ^_^;

“Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Uta” remains delightful as Yori-sempai takes a leap into a whole new life by joining a band, just to make her cute girlfriend happy. ^_^

I really like the path “Tsurezure Biyori” is taking with some quality time on Iori and Nanami. Equally, I’m happy that “Ikemen-sugi Sugi-sempai” is addressing something slightly more realistically…although that series definitely sounds like it’s winding up. Yes they are dealing with a thing, but probably not any other things. I want to be wrong.  And “Scarlet” heads into its final, inevitable confrontation.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Overall, an excellent volume setting up an even better one for December’s issue. This was a very good year for fans of Comic Yuri Hime. The December issue is available and it’s looking like one of the strongest year-end issues ever!

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Magazines, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


New Yuricon Community on MeWe!

October 30th, 2019

In advance of what will clearly be a future mass migration off of Facebook, as they have now ceded control to white supremacist news sources, I’ve opened a MeWe Yuricon group. This will be a duplicate group and you do not have to feel obliged to follow it, but I wanted to be ready when we have all finally had it with Zuck’s bullshit.

Current Yuricon Communities can be found listed on the Yuricon Links Page!

Posted in Yuricon | 4 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Mayu, Matou Volume 2 ( 繭、纏う)

October 29th, 2019

In my review of Volume 1, I expressed a certain level of awe (and revulsion) about the predominance of hair in the narrative. To be honest, I did not think that hair could play more of a role than it did.

I was wrong.

In Mayu, Matou, Volume 2 ( 繭、纏う) hair does indeed play a bigger role than it did in the first volume. It even gets a speaking part. I am not kidding.

The characters also get significant development, and we get a few more characters. At the end of Volume 2 we have a far, far more complicated scenario that we did in Volume 1, which was more of a pastiche of a elite girl’s school with Yuri and a hair fetish. Volume 2 is setting up to become a game of chess in which only one side has a queen, the king has no interest in the game and a pawn is well on her way to queened, with a bishop who isn’t sure who she serves – the soon-to-be-queen or the king. And we have another pawn who serves the queen without conflict. The chessboard is filling up; the game is likely to begin next volume.

The entirety of this series is inexpressibly weird, and creepy and interesting and beautiful and off-putting. I find myself rooting for Yokozawa because despite the mystery cult-like indoctrination (in this case, in honor of the Norns) and behavior and at this school, she seems pretty grounded.

While we get to see the school from more students’ perspectives in this volume than in Volume 1, we’re still mostly looking at it through the curtain of hair. Hair has taken over the pages once again, but there may be a plot outside the hair, and not just about freedom and fate, but also about power. I find that despite my occasional desire to gag at all the hair…I am here for whatever confrontation we are moving towards.

Ratings:

Art – Hair
Characters – Both queens and the bishop are an 8
Story – Hair
Service – Absolutely still hair
Yuri – 7, a love triangle, a chess game and hair

Overall – 8 I wonder if the creator is as surprised as I am to find that there’s an actual story here. (This was rhetorical, no explanations required.)

This series is available in English as Cocoon, Entwined, Volume 1 from Yen Press. Volume 2 will be released in Spring 2020.

Cleaning duty still must be a nightmare.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Yuri Bear Storm, Volume 1 (English)

October 28th, 2019

As Yuri Bear Storm, Volume 1 begins, Kureha is invisible in class, and is desperately afraid people around her whom she believes to be bears.  Until Ginko , a classmate who is definitely a bear and Kureha become friends. Kureha starts breaking out of her shell of invisibility, and find herself part of a much larger and much more complicated story. But, it doesn’t matter to her at all, as long as she can protect Ginko (and Lulu who inserts herself into their story, with an arc of her own that Ginko cannot remember.)

Kureha is not wrong, most of the people around her at school are in reality bears, and so is Ginko. But that no longer matters, as Kureha is falling in love with her worst enemy and best friend the bear princess, Ginko.

No, really, no matter how many times I read or watch this series it really doesn’t make any sense, but that’s okay. I’m just thrilled to pieces to see Morishima Akiko’s art in an English-language manga, with gleefully meaningless storytelling by Ikuhara Kunihiko, presented as a timeless and profound fairy tale which it completely is not. ^_^

Yuri in this volume is surprisingly staid, especially as compared with the anime. Kureha’s discovery of her feelings, Lulu’s public pronouncement of love for Ginko and a few kisses make a gentle counterpoint to the utterly impersonal sexual banter of the Student Council and the casual way Ginko offers her body for Kureha’s safety.

The best way to read Yuri Bear Storm is the same way you first watched Utena….cluelessly, guilelessly. Be an uncarved block and enjoy the story and don’t try to figure out what it means until you’ve finished it…and then you can back into whatever symbolism you believe you’ve parsed. It’s way more fun that way. In the mean time, marvel at the image of one of Morishima-sensei’s adorable pink-cheeked cherubs, aiming down the barrel of a long range rifle threatening to kill all bears. Because that’s a thing you’ll get here.

Tokyopop has done a fine job with the technicals, and I did not envy translator Katie McLendon her job. Making this make sense is a fool’s errand.

The next volume will give us another, even more complicated, love triangle and more bears. I am looking forward to it!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8 More Yurika, please!
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 8

My review of the anime and this first volume in Japanese had me thinking of Picasso. Reading it this time reminded me of Andy Warhol’s famously repetitive imagery. If we just keep saying “Bear” over and over, surely it will come to have meaning.

In the meantime, if you, like me, are a fan of Morishima-sensei’s work, keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming Conditions of Paradise, a manga that does make sense and is kind of sexy, too. ^_^

Posted in English Manga | 6 Comments »