Yuri Novel: Side-by-Side-Dreamers (English)

October 11th, 2019

As part of the the Yuri issue of SF Magazine last winter, I read a short Yuri story by author Miyazawa Iori.  It was very good. So, when a novel by Miyazawa was included in the initial rollout of J-Novel Club Yuri titles , I was super excited. It’s thrilling to me to read science fiction that is unique and thoughtful. That it has a frisson of Yuri is a nice to have…what I really want it to be a good story.

Side by Side Dreamers is a very good story.

It also was a case of atrocious timing. ^_^;

I’m a very bad sleeper myself and have been since I was young. I picked this book up as my normal insomnia was exacerbated by jet lag. So the opening in which we meet Saya, a young woman who has not slept in a very long time, and whose ability to function normally has been all but destroyed, I questioned whether this was the book I really needed in my life right that moment. ^_^;

Saya is trying once again to get some sleep when a schoolmate climbs into the bed she’s in…and instantly she falls asleep. Saya finds herself battling a creature in her dream with the other girl, who she immediately understands is her lover. Upon waking Saya is refreshed, but confused. As she encounters other dream warriors, Saya discovers a whole ecology of sleep monsters, the Suiju and the Sleepwalkers who combat them. Unfortunately for Saya, Hitsuji, her dream lover, and the other girls, the monsters are getting smarter…and are starting to enter the waking world! 

With an original, if poorly-timed-for-me premise, I was hooked pretty quickly into the story. The relationship between Hitsuji and Saya took second place to the main plot, which twisted in the most interesting ways. Their relationship was also pleasantly service-free. Even with girls sleeping as the plot driver, the lack of lingering creepy gaze was a relief.

The eventual climax was nothing I could have predicted, a quality I particularly like in my science fiction. It was a very good read.

Ratings:

Story – 8
Character – 8
Service – 2
Yuri – 4

Overall – 8

My expectations for the J-Novel Club Yuri line was not high – like most people who have read a lot of light novels, I tend to assume they are mostly franchise/genre extenders written for an audience with an 8th grade comprehension level. The current crop of “reincarnated as a log in a feudal monarchy” trend has not changed my opinion much.

I can say with all honestly, that after reading 4 out of 5 of the initial Yuri offerings from J-Novel Club, I am damn impressed. 3 out of 4 get top marks from me for good writing (and the one I didn’t love was blatantly not for me,) and 4 out of 4 for excellent translation.  And we’re not done yet, because we’ve go two more to go and at least one of them is superlative!  ^_^ Check back for a gushing review next week!

Thank so much to J-Novel Club for the review copy!

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Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO, Volume14 (ムルシエラゴ )

October 10th, 2019

In MURCIÉLAGO, Volume14 (ムルシエラゴ ), the gang learns of a new, exciting horror to infest their city; someone is chomping chunks out of the necks of women.

Narumi and Kuroko team up to discover just what the hell is going on, but Narumi finda herself purposefully disabled and stuck in a sewer with a bunch of other girls, all of whom have the same injury she’s been given. Narumi and the others…have been put in the larder. She quickly learns the horror this time is not new at all…in fact, it’s the return of one of the most complicated and interesting antagonists of the entire series. 

Rose Marie is back and creepier and more horrific than ever! Narumi holds out until Kuroko and Shizuka arrive and help her take out this new/old scourge.

The counterpoint to all of this is that Hinako and the remaining half of the team go to the pool where they swim, eat, and pound the living shit out of some assholes. All good fun.

Chiyo has one of those serious moments, when speaking about Kuroko to Hinako and explains that her “like” is definitely different than Hinako’s like – she’s not above a little fantasizing that they might be married one day… Hinako’s main objection is that the idea of Kuroko in a dress really annoys her. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 On repeat: In so far as it is conveying horrific violence, I think it’s getting better.
Story – 8 Creepier than usual, which is saying a lot
Characters – 8
Service – 5 less than usual, skimpy bathing costumes
Yuri – 4 Chiyo is the Yuri carrier drug here, and I’m okay with it

Overall – 8

I am in awe of Yoshimurakana’s ability to come up with new skin-crawling terrors. I am also a little in awe that this series, which is very heavy on the violence against girls doesn’t make me want to punch someone. The only thing I can think of is that the violence against women is the only part that’s taken seriously. When guys are killed, it’s like, “eh, whatevs.” ^_^

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Yuri Manga: Jyoryusakka to Yuki, Volume 2 (女流作家とユキ)

October 9th, 2019

In Volume 1, we met Yuki, a young woman who works at a coffee shop in a bustling Taisho period town, who is very interested in the works of a particular female novelist, Azuma Beniko. When Sensei comes in to her cafe, Yuki finds herself instantly captivated by the cosmopolitan author.

In Volume 2 of Nagori Yuu-sensei’s Pixiv manga Jyoryusakka to Yuki (女流作家とユキ), Yuki learns more about the novelist, and about herself. Yuki is starting to fantasize about Azuma-sensei and recognizes, as she has read many romance novels, that she’s falling in love. She also learns that those same novels were the cause of a lover’s suicide, when two girls killed themselves supposedly motivated by one of Sensei’s books.

We learn that Yuki’s obsession with Azuma-sensei’s work stems from being a lonely child on account of not being physically strong. Her mother had died when she was young and her father is away for work most of the time. And, when he returns, he tells Yuki that he’s setting up a marriage meeting for her. She protests, and he blames the novels she likes. In anger, she runs to Azuma-sensei who brings her back, but both she and Yuki stand firm in the face of her father’s anger. Ultimately, he relents. It moot, because Sensei has admitted to herself that she loves Yuki and invites Yuki to live with her.

In the end, Yuki wakes up, amazed and embarrassed to find herself in the bed of a woman she’s idolized for so many years. But this time, she’s assured, it is not a dream or a fantasy. And we can close this book assuming a happily-ever-after for this successful female author and the coffee-shop girl she loves.

Okay, yes, it’s a ridiculous story. I loved every page of it. I loved the clothing, the backgrounds and with the exception of a chapter in the middle where the style significantly altered (I’d assume because of a hardware/software or materials change) the art.This story was a joy to read and the ending left me with a huge grin.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story –  8 Still girl meets author and is swept off her feet. Still okay by me.
Character – 8
Service – 2 Nothing particularly salacious. Yuki’s fantasies and Yuki’s reality are as close as we get.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

This was a Yuri romance that I looked forward to every chapter of. I slowed myself down reading a few times, just to enjoy it longer. Then I re-read it. ^_^

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Yuri Manga: Teiji ni Ageretara, Volume 1 (定時にあがれたら)

October 8th, 2019

In Volume 1 of Teiji ni Ageretara (定時にあがれたら), one day at work, Yukawa learns she’s dropped her keys when fellow employee, fashionable and attractive Mizuki, returns them. The two of them become friends, sharing meals and hanging out together. One day, almost without realizing it, Yukawa tells Mizuki she likes her, then immediately asks Mizuki to forget it. But Mizuki finds that she just cannot. No matter how much she’d like to go back to being just friends, they aren’t going to be able to. So Mizuki asks Yukawa out.

Not sure of each other’s interest, there’s miscommunications, and misunderstandings, but slowly and surely Yukawa and Mizuki work their way towards a mutually romantic relationship. When Mizuki confesses that she loves Yukawa, it’s not so much a climax as a great relief to both women that they haven’t been wrong.

The final chapters are more of the same as Mizuki thinks out loud about becoming lovers and Yukawa has to figure out what she thinks about that.

The story here, in this Pixiv comic, is watching two adult woman figuring out what their relationship means to both of them. The creator is in no rush to reach any great dramatic climaxes. As a result, this manga is a slow, relaxed paced relationship, building upon shared time at the office and off-work. Neither Yukawa nor Mizuki are gregarious, but nether is super introverted. There’s little conflict except the moments when they don’t know what to do with their feelings. Inui Ayu’s art lends itself to the emotional struggles, with a focus on faces and inner states over action, as one might expect from a jousei manga. Lots of blushing and tears.

Teiji ni Ageretara is not the most compelling office romance I’ve read, in part because the characters act as if they are 14, not 24. And this is not even unrealistic for characters in their mid-20s who never expected this kind of relationship, I’m just a little less tolerant of existential crisis over calling someone by their first name in October 2019 than I was in previous years.  (That said, I will soon make a hypocrite of myself in an upcoming review, so wait for it… ^_^)

Ratings:

Art – 7 Characters have a tendency to look a little soppy
Story – 7 It’s nice, not amazing
Characters – 7 Same
Service – 0 in this volume
Yuri – 7 We end this volume at the beginning….

Overall – 7

The series is ongoing on Pixiv, so if this kind of slow-burn office romance appeals to you, you can follow Yukawa and Mizuki on Manga Jam on Pixiv and see how they are getting along. ^_^ You can read chapter 1-2, and then ongoing chapters starting with 6. For chapters 3-5, you’ll need to pick up this volume of the manga!

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Yuri Light Novel: Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided!

October 7th, 2019

Ancient Vampire Princess is reborn
To enact the most elaborate PG revenge porn
More super-powered than a god
She forces the plot not to plod
It’s so silly one can’t even scorn

Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided! by Hiironoame surely must be given some credit for taking it’s overlong title and actually providing useful information with it. I knew going into this novel nothing beyond the fact that I am overtly not the audience for it. And, indeed, I aborted my first attempt at reading it. But a second attempt was more successful once I stopped caring at all. ^_^

Ristia is a cheerfully unreal overpowered scion of a vastly overpowered vampire race, the destruction of which happens offscreen while Ristia is trapped in a crystal for millennia in a fit of pique because her parents would not procreate and give her a younger sister to dote upon. This opening is so overtly ridiculous that you’d do better to skip to roughly midway through the book and start there, after Ristia has been awakened and is overpowering her way through a feudal society unable to cope with her overwhelming magic. Ristia ends up taking over an oprhanage and making improvements that would catapult the orphans several centuries forward in technology. Throughout, of course, Ristia spends the entire book insisting that she’s normal, despite magicking everything around her.

Bad guys are, one and all, horrible vulgar men who rape and pillage, and speak in crudely malformed suggestive lines, a veritable pack of frat boys being appalling to the young women around them, so of course we feel nothing when they are bloodlessly disappeared out of the story. Good guys are thankfully split between men and women, or I’d suspect some kind of agenda.

Because I don’t read too many Light Novels of this kind, I turned to translator David Evelyn and shared that I found it hard to know whether there is humor in the overpowered Ristia or I’m being made fun of. He suggested that the language was typical of isekai novels, but there was a kind of self-awareness that made it funny. Like a joke that is funny only after the characters become aware that they’ve repeated it too many times, as Sean Gaffney noted in his review. After all the carpenters agree to never mention how obviously not normal at all Ristia is, I finally relaxed into the story.

The title is not wrong – there was a great deal of service and very little of it served this fan. There are a number of lingering looks at lingerie and physical descriptions of too-young women, which just flat out bore me. The idea that a line like “With her clothing now reduced to only her matching light bra and panties, Ristia went fishing through the assortment of dresses” is considered “service” by any human on the planet, fills me with exhaustion. Up your game, my fellow humans. The Internet should quench your fetish for matching underwear sets. Go find yourself a catalog. Matching bra and panty sets are the Wal-Mart of fetishes. It’s all so 12-year olds gathered around the NatGeo mags.

Because I had an easier time relating to this novel as a comedy than as an action or drama story, the sort-of emotional relationships Ristia forms in her quest for a little sister, were somewhat less satisfying to me as a relationship than a punchline. And they were the only (inevitably service-y) feature where her nature as a vampire has any relevance…which made it funnier to me.

As Yurimother noted in her review of this novel, the one strong point was the lack of violence against women, beyond implication that it had occurred in the past. But the threat of violence against women and children as a plot driver is still not optimal. Thankfully most of the “good” characters are thoroughly likable, so its gilding the reaction lily to make us worry about the cute dog-eared girl.

My only genuine criticism of this book is that the art does nothing to illustrate anything that is described in the text. Ristia is presented as a young woman with an ever-present allure, (due to her being a vampire, you know) but the character we see is goofy, not alluring. We read that her hair is long, thick and lustrous, and we’re shown her with a bad collar-cut. It feels weirdly dysphoric to have the text and art so at odds with each other.

Ratings:

Story  – 7
Characters – 8
Art – 4 Not bad in and of itself, but wholly unrelated to the text
Service – 5 Blood sucking, dressing/undressing for no reason, underwear (yawn)
Yuri – 5 Same as above, no real emotional connections…wasted opportunities to be a good story there

Overall – 7

As an elaborate form of a comedic revenge narrative, Seriously Seeking Sister is an amuse-bouche of a novel…it won’t satisfy your hunger, but it will pass the time until you find something more filling.

Much obliges to J-Novel Club for the Review copy.

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