Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Butterfly Kiss Blade, Volume 1

July 16th, 2009

In the beginning, there were the Inklings. From the Inklings were born Lord of the Rings and the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. These misbegot such things as the Sword of Shannara and the Belgeriad and from these were, ultimately, begot Harry Potter. From Harry Potter came Negima! and now, here we are at the seventh bastard of the seventh bastard, Butterfly Kiss Blade, Volume 1 (バタフライ キス).

Homura and Sakurako (who are NOTHING like Setsuna and Konoka, let me assure you,) attend Prinpikia Academy, which is one syllable shift away from being a pretty great name. It is a school of magic, of course. And there are fights, of course. With giant weapons. There is also a nadesico-type classic beauty, complete with henchchicks and political and magical power who is in love with Homura’s partner, the sweet, kind, passive, frontally lobotomized Sakurako. There are also panty shots, but I’ll come back to them later.

The bulk of the first volume is Shizuka’s ever more pathetic attempts at defeating Homura in order to make Sakurako her own partner in the “shiki.” (Shiki means “ceremony” among other things in Japanese, and it is always surrounded by quotes in this manga. 「式」)

And, um, that’s about it. Every chapter, a fight. Every chapter Homura wins with her ginormous Butterfly Knife. And Sakurako kisses things alot, because that’s how she uses her magic. She doesn’t just kiss other people, she kisses random passing objects, dolls, magic sigils floating in the air.

The art goes from inconsistent to downright horrible. At some point I actually entertained the thought that maybe this was an anthology, because the art changed so much from chapter to chapter, but nope, it was just bad art.

And then there are the panty shots. These are so forced and so intrusive that whole scenes have to be constructed around them and they are given their own panels so we can’t possible accidently miss them. They are pointedly pointless. I genuinely can’t believe that panty shots would significantly up the appeal of this manga. It’s so second-rate in every way, there’s no way you’d buy it just for the service like you might Needless or a similar fightin’ magic schoolgirls loli underwear action thing. (The Wife retorts, “You don’t know me at all.”)

Yuri is fanservice, of course, but there is no doubt that Homura and Sakurako genuinely love, adore and desire one another. Their liasons don’t ever get past foreplay, but it’s no less bodily fluid and voyeurism filled.

If you really like fightin’ magic schoolgirls, Needless and Negima! are way better than this. But if you really, really REALLY like fightin’ magic schoolgirls, then Butterfly Kiss Blade will appeal. Also, if you loved KimiKiss, as this is the same artist.

Ratings:

Art – 6 at best, often not even that
Story – 6
Characters – 6 It’s not their fault they are caught in a derivative of a derivative
Yuri – 8
Service – 7

Overall – 6 And, yes, I *am* being generous.





Yuri Manga: Miyuki-chan in Wonderland (English)

July 10th, 2009

Wow, it’s only a few years ago, but reading Miyuki-chan in Wonderland feels like stepping back a million years into the past. To a time when Tokyopop was *the* name in manga, when they were cutting edge and hot. And CLAMP was the name on everyone’s lips all the time. From X to Chobits to…well just about a zillion series, whatever CLAMP touched turned into money.

Miyuki-chan is a collection of 6 short, service-filled stories of hapless high school girl Miyuki, as she wanders through dreamscapes loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s iconic works, games and CLAMP’s own work. All of these are filled with primarily female characters, mostly adult, and almost all focused on feeling Miyuki up or stripping her down. A psychological reading of the book could easily attribute all sorts of pent-up lesbian feelings to Miyuki but, as she’s completely fictitious, we have to just assume that CLAMP really likes drawing women in underwear. ^_^

The Yuri in this manga is really Yuri – there are no lesbians here. Just fictitious female beings groping a fictitious female character. There’s no emotion at all involved, unless you count titillation as an emotion.

Personally, the best line was when Miyuki cries out, “Oh no! I’m in some weird movie version of the X manga!” which made me laugh because, like there was a non-weird movie version of the X manga? ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 5
Characters – 5
Yuri – 4
Service – 7

Overall – 5

The upside of the manga is you don’t have to listen to that *horrible* music, but the downside is you don’t get the great seiyuu voices, either.

This manga volume shipped to me with no Hero’s name attached. (Boo Powell’s.com, not letting me know who my Hero is!) If you were the sponsor for today’s review, will you please step up and claim credit? Thanks so much from all of us!





Yuri Manga: Itoshi wo Tome (Volume 1)

July 8th, 2009

Set in the Heian period, Itoshi wo Tome ~ Kimi ga Kokoro ha ~ (愛しをとめ~君がこころは~) is a story about noblewomen Tachibana and Sakura, whose older sister had been a lady of the Emperor’s palace, but had died. Sakura is living with Tachibana’s family as a courtesy.

Tachibana falls in love with Sakura’s tearful face early on but as much as they wish it, their story is not as simple as “Happily ever after.” First, Tachibana is betrothed to the stupidest, most cheerful doofus ever. His words are decorated with ASCII art just to give you an idea of his depth and intelligence. When he discovers Tachibana and Sakura locked together in an embrace, Sakura is able to convince him to be their friend and ally.

But a far, far worse threat is around the corner. Tachibana remains engaged to her doofus, knowing he won’t press the issue – but when Sakura is called up by the Emperor to be one of his women, there is no escape. Tachibana wails that as a woman she is powerless, but then comes to the surprising conclusion that even as a man, she would have had no power over the whims of the Emperor.

To protect her beloved Sakura, Tachibana takes her place in the Emperor’s bed. It is not a happy moment for either woman and eventually Sakura interrupts to stop what she cannot bear to see or hear.

The Emperor claims that he has no intention of separating them, instead asking them to have sex in front of him, to “prove” their love. They do, because it’s that or have sex with him (the saving grace of this scene is that he is young, attractive and not doing anything that would make a Yuri fan cry while he watches.) Unrealistically, he allows them to leave, unharmed. And despite my and Tachibana’s suspicion, he appears to be as good as his word. The book ends with them in each others arms thanking the gods that each other exists.

I can’t say I liked this book, really. It wasn’t vile or anything, but it just didn’t grab me. The art wasn’t up to either the Heian clothing or the “beautiful people” that populated the Imperial Palace. The few glimpses of actual Heian-style art served to really pull us down to reality on what was considered beautiful during that time – something I did quite like. I would have liked a more elegant style, something more Mist-like.

Mostly, I just didn’t like the story. It was very “Plot? What Plot?” Tachibana and Sakura barely talk before they are having sex and the sex isn’t really portrayed well. (If you do that to breasts, guys, it hurts. I recommend not doing that if you don’t want to be slapped.) The scene where the Mikado has them have sex in front of him is, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not so much, the sexiest scene of the book.

The *best* scene of the book, IMHO, was a moment when Tachibana carves Sakura’s name (桜) into her arm with a knife. Sakura grabs the knife and threatens to carve Tachibana’s name (橘) into her own arm. That’d be a heck of a carving.

This manga is a collection of another of the cell phone manga distributed by Ichijinsha. I’m not sure I’d subscribe to it – there is better out there.

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 6

Overall – 6

OTOH, it didn’t suck massively, either. I’ve read better, I’ve read worse.





Yuri Manga: Red Garden, Volume 4

July 6th, 2009

Red Garden, Volume 4 is 272 pages of blood, weirdness, violence and undead girls who look very fetching in that frock.

As you can see clearly from the cover, Kate steps forward to openly take her place as the lead character in this volume. It’s been apparent that, although the story is *said* to revolve around Lise, it really revolves around Kate.

Kate and Herve’ come together, and are ripped apart, Kate fends off Evil, Psycho Lesbian TM Paula who, completely unlike the wonderful, kind, sincere Paula of the anime, is a loathsome, unstable creature in the fine tradition of carnivorous lesbians in most media. But don’t worry – she dies. Then she comes back and turns out to be real nice after all. But she dies again anyway.

Kate is set apart from Rose, Rachel and Claire at the end when, in order to save everyone, she is forced to sacrifice herself. Although they mourn their loss, they are able to move on and live the lives that had been taken from them. Kate, however, does not die, but lives in this series’ version of Tir-na-Og, the Red Garden of Roosevelt Island, with her beloved friend Lise. Which is why I am calling this a Yuri Manga. Surely even the undead can live in a Boston Marriage? ^_^

As with all the other volumes, there is violence, there is fashion, there is raw emotion and shoujo-style SHOCK! eyes. There is also an amazingly nice set of panels with all four of our heroines in the uniform of Grace, which is way more effective than I would have expected.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 3

Overall – 8

It’s really hard to ignore the importance of clothes in this manga. What they are wearing is at least as important as what they are doing. ;-)





Yuri Manga: Ghost Talker’s Daydream, Volume 3 (English)

July 1st, 2009

You know what I just love? I love when people who aren’t lesbian or gay tell us what we feel and think. So, how convenient that “what lesbians feel” is described for me in Ghost Talker’s Daydream, Volume 3.

Saiki Misaki is an exorcist, She can see and talk to ghosts; spirits of the dead that are still attached for some reason to this plane. By seeing and speaking with them, Misaki facilitates their passing on.

In Volume 3, Misaki is asked by a lesbian friend, Shizue, to exorcise the spirit of a runaway who she didn’t sleep with, but didn’t help, either. The runaway, Arisa, and the woman who brought her to the lesbian bar, Naori (who, we are helpfully told is “gender dysphoric,”) die together, but Arisa continues to haunt Shizue. In discussing Naori, Shizue kindly explains to Misaki that all lesbians have fallen for a straight woman at least once and cursed the fact that they were a woman. We have, have we? All of us? Oh well, yet again, I am a bad lesbian. Thanks for confirming that.

Naori saves Shizue from Arisa’s anger, Misaki sends them all on to their next life and Shizue gets to live with guilt to go along with her shame.

It’s sort of touching, sort of annoying, sort of creepy because, even in death, Arisa, Naori and Shizue don’t manage to cut any ties. Now *that’s* typical lesbian behavior. ^_^

The next story follows Misaki’s civil servant friend/sidekick in a weird little sleep-deprivation-driven dream, followed by a story about ghosts needing Misaki to guide their granddaughter, and a violent little epic of rape, murder, ghosts and taxicabs.

I’m not really sure what to make of this manga. It’s clearly for Dark Horse’s target adult male audience. Misaki dresses like a whore, but obsesses constantly about her virginity. There’s almost sex, and implications of sex and mentions of sex, without there being any real sex, something I will never understand. Dark Horse does a nice reproduction job, though, so it’s easy to read and reasonably entertaining.

On a day when I was in a good mood, I’d be inclined to be charitable and say I liked it. Today I’m in a foul mood, but can’t bring myself to excoriate it. I’ll stick with “it’s sort of touching, sort of annoying, sort of creepy.” It’s also not really “Yuri.” The characters are actually Lesbians. That’s kind of a nice change. Too bad they need to “explain” stuff wrong.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Variable, let’s say 7
Characters – 6 (No one I’d have over for lunch)
Yuri – 0, Lesbian – 6
Service – 8

Overall – 7

My sincere thanks to sponsor for today’s review, Okazu Superhero Daniel P, for introducing me to this series. I’ll stick it on my “to read some more one day when I get the chance” list! ^_^