Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Comic Yuri Hime, January 2025 (コミック百合姫2025年1月号)

December 29th, 2024

Two schoolgirls meeting on the stairs as one with short dark hair, in a brown jersey jacket over her blue plaid uniform skirt walks up and the other, with long fair, braided hair, wears a blue sweater vest over a white blouse and blue skirt walks down, smiling.A new year has begun for Comic Yuri Hime and a new story begins on the cover of Comic Yuri Hime, January 2025 (コミック百合姫2025年1月号), this year by artist Hechama. The first image we have is of two schoolgirls meeting on the stairs as one walks up and the other down. This is tagged with a date stamp of  “(Thu, May 27th, 2021 10:56:21 GMT +0900/16 years old)”. I can see from the next issue that photos of these two will be the through-line of the covers. I’m of course hoping for a interesting story-by-image.^_^  There is text on the cover, printed in non-accessibility yellow. It begins “”Everytime I turned around you were there.” It is in English. But also in yellow. ^_^;

The first story is, I’m glad to say, a new story. Somehow that suits a January issue. Torii Shizuku’s “Yume to Koi de ha Tsuriawanai” is about a girl who believes her dream of going to a good school and having a good life is not compatible with her falling in love, which she then does.

As a kind of fitting post-Episode 11 & 12 chapter for “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau” Himari and Yori end up stalking Shiho and Aki while they are on a date.

In Usui Shio’s “Bokura no Ai ha Kimochi Warui, we learn the origins of Komugi’s obsession with Megumi…but we still kind of have to just acknowledge some mental unwellness to make it work, really. I read this story at a bit of a distance, because I don’t enjoy committing to monomaniac obsession as a plot driver.

SheepD’s “Kanaria ha Kiraboshi no Yume wo Miru” went where it basically had to, and now Ayano knows what we had guessed – that Tsubaki is a prostitute. But I don’t expect this story to end on a bad note. It has a very MIST magazine feel about it and not just for the “no, really, she’s really a prostitute” scene. ^_^

There are a lot of stories in this volume in which characters look very unhappy. I strongly dislike this as a general rule, but especially so in stories where the sex is the point. I’m especially unhappy to see so much of it in a Yuri magazine with a proven majority audience of adult women, some of whom it ought to be expected to enjoy sexual and romantic relationships with other women. I’ll never be  fan of toxic Yuri. Life is too toxic as it is. Give me…

….”Koharu to Minato” are back and they are buying a car and going to a movie together. Yay! ^_^

“Muryoku Seijo to Munou Oujo ~ Maryoku Zero de Shoukansareta Seijo no Isekai Kyuukoku-ki ~” Nana and the princess learn about the town struck with misama and together they help the villagers purify their crops and water. Not everyone is on their side, but they are doing what they can to help the village.

In “Gakeppuchi Reijou ha Kuro Kishi-sama o Horesasetai!” takes a turn towards a more than 2 volume level plot complication as Clarice and a barely-disguised  Frost-sama meet a powerful merchant and her butchy bodyguard. Sparks fly, plots thicken and a story appears!

Claire and Rei come face to face with the leader of the Revolutionary forces and take their investigation to Salas, as “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou,” heads toward the truth of just who the traitor is. This chapter was really outstanding, in both art and writing.

“Salvia no Bouquet” brings Ellen and Liza to finally talk about who and what they are to one another. I kind of hope this doesn’t just wrap up, but also, would love to see a sequel after Ellen graduates.

“Kiraware Majyo Reijō to Dansou Ouji no Kon’yaku” by Chinmi Chiruha, adds a new complication to Eve and Ciel’s story. Ciel’s brother may not be the enemy they thought he was, but is this little girl really the power behind the threat of dark magic?

As always, there were other stories I read and others I did not, and columns and interviews and ads for pop-up shops and color spreads and more in the more than 600 pages of the first issue of Comic Yuri Hime for 2025. Here’s to a great kickoff and a good Yuri year for us all. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Comic Yuri Hime for February 2025 is already available online and in print and is waiting for me at the bookstore. ^_^





The Moon On A Rainy Night, Volume 6

December 27th, 2024

Two young women in summer yukata stand on a balcony looking at one another, as fireworks explode colorfully above them Volume 5 left us on a bit of a cliffhanger, as Saki accidentally allows her truest thoughts to be seen by Kanon.

The Moon On A Rainy Night, Volume 6, by Kuzushiro, picks up with Saki mortified beyond her ability to express and Kanon struggling to find words to address it. Luckily for both of them, life as a Japanese teenager is filled with enough activity to allow them both some space to roll around on their beds, screaming into the pillow.

Nonetheless, things are changing, Kanon has become aware that since she lost her hearing, she has not been a good friend to the people she leaned on. She takes a small step to caring about someone and something other than herself. Suddenly aware of all the people around her who have given her opportunities, Kanon is changing. Saki reaches out to the one adult she is pretty sure gets what she is going through, and Tomita returns to class with surprising results. Although they have spent most of the summer together, Saki suggests one special event for them to share watching fireworks together from her apartment balcony, where they take one more towards opening up to one another and to themselves.

Rinne finds herself changing as well. As a little sister, she was unable to help Kanon much, could only watch over her in a general sense. But she sees that Saki has changed her sister for the better and it’s made Rinne more willing to take a risk, a little despite herself. She encounters Chiyama, a girl with a condition that is not harmful but which has, and will, make her life difficult and unpleasant. Rinne decides to get involved and be a friend.

I have repeatedly said here and elsewhere (and to anyone I could pin up against a wall and tell) that I love this series. From my perspective – which is not that of an HHD person, but of a person who is chronically ill and had many of the same kinds of issues as both Saki and Kanon as a teen – this story does everything right.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 2 Saki and Kanon in yukata is definitely meant to serve.
Yuri – 4 It’s only just begun.

Overall – 9

The Moon On A Rainy Night is a masterwork of manga and an outstanding example of how good storytelling can help us to be better.

I cannot *wait for you to read the next couple of volumes! Volume 6 is out now from Kodansha.





Hana ni Arashi, Volume 12 (はなにあらし)

December 26th, 2024

Book cover for Hana Ni Arashi, Volume12. Bathed in golden light, two high school girls wearing Japanese school uniforms of white blouses with blue sailor-style collars and blue skirts sit together on a commuter train, one smiles, one looks pensive.We met Chidori and Nanoha 5 years ago in real time, 3 years ago in their time. At the beginning, all we had of them being girlfriends was their inner thoughts, where they certainly believed they were, as amazing and embarrassing as it was for them to admit it to themselves.

In the last five years and 11 volumes, we have seen their love for one another grow. While they still have not been able to be fully honest with their school friends, they are planning on an immediate future together. Only..Nanoha’s college of choice is a trade school in Kyoto while Chidori plans on heading to Tokyo. Sure there is the train, but that’s not cheap and even at the fastest, the Shinkansen takes more than 2 hours. What they need is a miracle.

They’ll get a miracle, of course they will. These two are not tragic figures, they are the golden girls of a fantasy of a shiny, romantic, adorable lesbian youth. ^_^

In Hana ni Arashi, Volume 12 (はなにあらし), Nanoha and Chidori start working on a shared vision of their future –  sharing an apartment, coming home to one another after a long day, and living happily ever after. They haven’t quite had the opportunity to admit to this, so their friends  – who may not be as clueless as these two think – are surprised to hear that they plan on living together. Dousei? (同棲) one asks, and startled, they insist, no, no, it’s just a roomshare (ルームシェア). The difference is similar to “living together” as opposed to “roommate” in English. But that friend asked the right question, didn’t she?

We then are treated to a look back at how the two of them originally met to round out exactly how much they have – and haven’t – changed.

This series has one more volume to go! I’ve just picked up Rainbows After Storms, Volume 1 from Viz, so will revisit these two back at the beginning, before I move on to their future. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 0

Overall – 8

 





Qualia the Purple: The Complete Manga Collection

December 22nd, 2024

Manga cover for Qualia The Purple. The Complete Manga Collection. On a cover of purple stripes, a girl with long brown hair and big purple eyes looks up at us, her shadow spreading behind her.by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

Qualia the Purple: The Complete Manga Collection is a story about a high school girl named Yukari, who sees all people as robots.

Ok, that’s not entirely true. This is a story about Manabu (aka Gaku-chan), a normal high school girl who is in love with Yukari but doesn’t quite realize it.

…Alright, you got me. This is a story not really about either of those things. This is a story about quantum mechanics and theoretical physics that happens to center on Manabu’s metaphysical attempts to save Yukari from an early death at the hands of an evil science institute.

Based on the light novel of the same name, this single-volume collection is just as confused as the intro of this review. It begins with a strong concept: Yukari appears to be a chuunibyou, but in reality she has the ability to deconstruct and rebuild matter however she seems fit. Manabu is a normal girl with something of a princely streak. You think you’re in for some sci-fi-tinged high school Yuri yearning, but somehow it develops into a plot about a serial killer.

And then, roughly a third into its length, it decides to pivot into a multiverse story that damsels Yukari, the girl who is practically Dr. Manhattan, in order to put the story in Manabu’s hands (Manabu even addresses this bait-and-switch directly to the reader). By design, she is an empty vessel with a singular goal. 

The story already made a leap into the unpleasant with the serial killer subplot, but the back two-thirds ends up making Manabu out to be a monster as she tries everything, no matter how unpleasant, to achieve her goal. Most unfortunate of these decisions involves Alice, a child prodigy who arrives at the high school to recruit Yukari to the aforementioned evil science institute. A major pivot point involves an alternate universe Manabu falling in love with her, despite her being younger by a fair number of years. Our point-of-view Manabu ends up developing a relationship with Alice as a means to further her goal of saving Yukari. The whole thing feels like an unforced error, since there is nothing about Alice’s character that is gained by making her a few years younger than the rest of the main cast.

One could say that it’s subversive how Manabu and Yukari’s relationship sits neatly in the old paradigm of undefined schoolgirl Yuri crush, while Manabu’s (hella problematic) relationship with Alice is unambiguously explicit in its romantic and sexual nature. That must have felt novel in 2009 when this story was first released, but today it has notably less impact. Also, I’m sure I could write an entire paper on how an “impure” (putting aside the age gap) queer relationship is instrumentalized in the service of a “pure” Yuri love, but frankly I’m too exhausted by the belabored explanations of the Copenhagen Interpretation and wave function collapses to bother.

The biggest flaw of this manga is that the book itself is a poor choice for visual adaptation. The vast majority of the story is told in narration by Manabu, and there are few if any moments that let the visuals speak for themselves. That said, there is one extremely funny moment that takes advantage of the medium.

Given its age, I can forgive a few of its sins. (The fact that a flip phone played a major role in the plot did get a chuckle out of me.) That said, it pales in comparison to a short story collection made from a very similar mold: Last and First Idol. Where the edgy elements in Qualia just made me wince, the visceral gore and violence of LAFI played punctuated Gengen Kunano’s biting satire, be it for idols, gacha, or whatever. Qualia plays it very straight which lessens its appeal to me.

I’d say that if you are in the pocket for some sci-fi Yuri and don’t mind a misstep or two, Qualia the Purple could be worth your time. But I would suggest the light novel over this manga collection.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Not a whole lot to write home about visually; doesn’t take advantage of the medium enough
Story – 6 More disjointed than compelling
Characters – 5 What’s on the page is pretty stock
Service – 1 Higher if you like detailed explanations of Schrodinger’s Cat
Yuri – 5 / LGBTQ – 5 Some old-school yearning, but also has a queer relationship as a plot element

Overall – 6 Would have more impact if this release time-traveled back to 2009

Thank you to Seven Seas, who provided me with a review copy.

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.





Maitsuki Niwatsuki Ooyatsuki – Monthly With Ooya, Volume 5 (毎月庭つき大家つき)

December 12th, 2024

Two woman laugh as they dance. A woman in jeans and button down shirt dips a woman in a casual outfit wrapped in a cloth in front of a basket of laundry.In Volume 4, Asako and Miyako move ever closer. Asako takes Miyako to visit her parents and it’s charming and heart-warming. The pair address Asako’s issues around her birthday and other “learning to be a partner to you” kind of things.

So, when we reach Maitsuki Niwatsuki Ooyatsuki – Monthly With Ooya, Volume 5 (毎月庭つき大家つき) the final volume of Yodokawa’s slice-of-adult-life story, what is there left to cover? Well, the initial premise provides us a chunky plot complication.

You will recall that landlord Miyako was, not too long ago, a lead singer with a popular idol group, Elm. Over the New Year holiday, Miyako and the members of Elm spend some time together…and are seen by paparazzi. Immediately, a rumor pops up that Miyako will return to Elm and take over once again. Miyako, having walked away from that life forever, is in distress and Asako isn’t really able to help.

Once again, this manga pulls out a resolution so elegant, so adult and so thoughtful that it is a tremendous pleasure to read what happens, and the consequences of the decisions made. Honestly fantastic. Fandom is shown as not being as fickle as tabloid press, which rushes to judgement, but there is a undercurrent of “this could go very dark.” Luckily, Yodokawa is not drawing that kind of series. Instead we get more instances of women supporting one another and a new relationship in which the partners are there for one another. Just what I needed to read this week.

My favorite panel is one that made me laugh out loud, very loudly, as Asako and her manga artist friend (and ride-or-die Elm fangirl,) Hatomori both react to the “breaking news” that Elm’s leader Miyako is now – gasp! –  a landlord! Fabulous art, and you can just *hear* them both saying “Oh, wow, who knew” in as flat and sarcastic a tone as one can get.

I have enjoyed every volume of this series, and while some part of me wises it did not have to end, I’m thrilled that it ended so well. I am also thrilled that you are able to read Monthly In The Garden With My Landlord, Volumes 1-3 in English from Yen Press now and Volume 4 will be on the way next spring.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Character – 10
Service – 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – 10

This story was never about the destination, but about the journey. And the journey has always been filled with friendship and emotional support.