Maou to Yuri, Volume 2 ( 魔王と百合)

October 3rd, 2024

A girl with long black pigtails, wearing a black suit and cloak stands back to back with a blue-haired maid. How DARE this series make me feel things?

Back in 2022 I read and reviewed what I considered to be a slightly amusing, slightly forgettable manga called Maou to Yuri, Volume 1. I bought the next volume not because I cared what would happen, but because I like to have some manga on tap for those days I have nothing else of consequence to read. This has been hanging out in my Bookwalker Library waiting for that day. And then I read everything on my Kindle in the first to days of vacation and needed something to else read. Voila! And there I was 3/4 way through and yelling at my phone as my eyes teared up! How very dare, I tell you.

Maou to Yuri, Volume 2 ( 魔王と百合) goes from great to great in ways that are simply shocking, given both the premise and the characters.

To recap, a female Demon Ruler is trying to figure out a way to repare relations with the humans, after  the war and settles on marrying one. The choices are as follows: A Princess Knight, a righteous and energetic Hero, a Wizard, a Witch, and a Maid. For character details, visit my review of Volume 1. They each can be summed up in a sentence or less. No one has a name here, only a title.

As Volume 2 begin, Yuri Bachelor begins as the five women “compete” in a variety of stupid competitions to allow the artist to play dress-up with them. The “winner” they are told will get to be Demon Ruler for the day. When Maid-san wins, she dons the Demon Ruler’s cloak and begins a deep clean of the castle’s dungeons. Along with the wolf-headed guard I enjoyed so much in the first volume, the Maid gets down to the DO NOT ENTER portion of the dungeon, releases the violent spirit of Maou’s ancestor and defeats him, thus cleaning out any malevolence and dust in basement. It was an amazing chapter that completely had me floored.

Maou, as clueless as she is, is suddenly aware that she really like Maid-san, and notes, in a moment of weakness, that she never smiles. But even worse is on the horizon when wolf-guard guy bursts in and says that the kindgdom in the West is getting ready to attack! Weird, because the Princess Knight is one of the candidates to marry Maou…what if they just do that?!? But no…it’s too late, her sister is on a rampage and she needs to go home and become Maou’s enemy.

Maid-san makes a cheesecake hoping to share it with everyone, but realizes their happy group is no more. Maoh comes across her standing despondently in the garden where they took tea. Maid-san turns to her crying and Maou runs over to embrace her. I stopped reading for a moment, raging that this stupid book made me emotional! The story wraps in a much better way than I might have imagined with the premise and I find myself smiling far more than I might have expected. How. Dare.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7 At least two of them develop a sentence’s worth of personality
Service – 4
Yuri – 5

Overall – 7

I still loved wolf guard guy, “Maou! The humans from the kingdom to the West are massing to attack!” What a job.

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Is You and Don’t Mess with Senior

October 2nd, 2024

Promotional poster for the Cambodian yuri series Is You. At the top of the poster are Kun (left) and Sour (right), nuzzling nose to nose. At the bottom of the poster are Sour (left) and Neang (right); both have pulled-back hair and bright red lipstick, and are staring at the camera, not smiling.Continuing our tour of Southeast Asian live-action yuri, we come to Cambodia, a country that has a much smaller population than either Thailand or Vietnam, and a per capita GDP as small relative to Vietnam’s as Vietnam’s is to Thailand’s. It’s therefore a surprise to find that Cambodia has produced a number of live-action yuri series, due primarily to the work of media entrepreneur Bun Channimol and her production company Sastra Film. Thus far Sastra Film has produced almost a dozen yuri series (some short-form, others longer), distributed through its own streaming app and on YouTube. Here I look at two series chosen at random from its output.

Is You is an adult yuri series, with six episodes plus a final “special episode” available on YouTube with English subtitles. It tells the tangled tale of TV host Neang (Ya Sophanmai), her husband, actor Kun (Sok Sunny), and fitness trainer Sour (Rachana Ravady). Neang is secretly married to Kun, who chafes at her reluctance to make their relationship public. Sour, a guest on Neang’s show, is also (unknown to Neang) Kun’s girlfriend from many years ago. Kun seizes the opportunity of Sour’s reappearance (and his apparent single status) to renew their relationship. After learning of Kun’s infidelity, Neang strikes back by beginning her own affair with Sour (as one does).

Unfortunately for yuri fans, this turn doesn’t occur until the end of episode 4. A good part of the first few episodes is taken up with Kun’s and Neang’s frustration with each other and Kun’s gloating to himself about having found a new love. After Kun is exposed and Neang and Sour begin their affair in earnest, the final episode destroys any goodwill one might have had toward the series: First Neang tests Sour’s love for her with a cruel prank that Sour should have slapped her for, and then Kun ends the episode monologuing like a B-movie villain about his desire for revenge. This implies that there may be a second season, but frankly I have zero interest in watching it.

Story — 5
Characters — 4
Production — 5 (mediocre subtitles, with some episodes on the Sastra Film app lacking them entirely)
Service — 3
Yuri — 5 (Neang and Sour get together because it’s ostensibly a yuri series and the plot demands it)
Overall — 3

Promotional poster for the Sastra Films yuri series Don’t Mess with Senior, showing the lead characters Dy and Lin.After watching Is You I badly needed a palate cleanser, and fortunately Don’t Mess with Senior fit the bill nicely. Season 1 is on YouTube and the Sastra Film app, with a second season starting October 19. (There’s also a short form series, Don’t Mess with Senior: Part-Time Love, that’s set after the events of season 1 and presumably before the events of season 2.) Its premise is a classic yuri trope: first-year university student Dy (short, brown-haired) enthusiastically pursues her senpai Lin (taller with black hair), who initially resists Dy’s advances but eventually finds herself responding to them.

As we saw in Blank: The Series, there are two keys to making this trope work: the actor playing the younger pursuer must walk a fine line between being cute and being annoying, while the actor playing the pursued character must effectively portray the transition from being annoyed to being intrigued to being in love. An Mengly (nickname “Lily”), who portrays Dy, does about as well at this as Yoko did in season 1 of Blank, playing things a bit too broadly at times, while Som Monipich (“Pich”), who portrays Lin, isn’t as convincing as Faye in her character’s evolution. Nonetheless Lily and Pich as Dy and Lin play well together and make a cute couple, even when Dy’s antics get to be a bit too much.

Don’t Mess with Senior is also noteworthy for its setting: most of season 1 takes place on a university trip to rural Cambodia to study the local ecology and plant mangrove trees (which entails everyone schlepping around almost hip-deep in the water). The trip offers plenty of occasions for Dy to try to get closer to Lin, to play pranks on her fellow students (including Lin) and their professor, and to get jealous at Lin’s being friendly with the professor’s daughter.

The season ends somewhat inconclusively, with the final episode being a combination of recap episode and a Q&A session with the two leads. The latter features questions a bit bolder than those posed to other yuri leads, including asking Lily whether she and Pich are in a relationship off-screen (“No!”) and what she thinks of homosexuality (“I can’t see anything wrong [with it]. I want our society to accept them as well.”). Lily adds that people tried to discourage her from appearing in the series (her first role) based on the subject matter, but “I don’t care at all.” For her part, Pich is happy to have been cast in Don’t Mess with Senior: “I’m into that kind of series. Now I’m able to act in my kind of series.” Lily and Pich conclude by thanking their supporters and asking them to watch the upcoming season 2; I think I’ll take them up on that suggestion.

Story — 5 (you’ve no doubt seen it before, and likely more than once)
Characters — 6 (somewhat one-note, but often amusing and endearing)
Production — 6 (location shooting greatly improves the look and feel of the series)
Yuri — 6 (a reciprocal confession from Lin must await season 2)
Service — 3 (a drunken kiss)
Overall — 6

Is You is eminently skippable, but those interested in live-action yuri beyond Thailand might want to check out Don’t Mess with Senior, especially if you want a break from the typical urban settings of Asian TV series.

Posted in Frank Hecker, Live Action, Staff Writer | 2 Comments »


Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta Drama CD, Special Edition (ドラマCD 気になってる人が男じゃなかった)

September 30th, 2024

Pictured: On a green background, a person in a hoodie, glasses and a mask, with a wrist tattoo of a musical frequency, crouches down to look at us, while a high school girl with long, wavy hair stands above them, looking down at them with a shocked expression.Last week, I was able to review the upcoming Yen Press release of Sumiko Arai’s popular manga The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All. It was a pleasure to share that review because Yen had done a very good job.I hope you’ll all read that review, and pre-order the book.

While I was on vacation, I took the Kininatteru Hito Ga Otoko Janakatta Drama CD (ドラマCD 気になってる人が男じゃなかった) with me to listen to on the plane.  And it, too, was fun. The cast did a terrific job, with the OTT reactions of the story. Ise Mariya as Mitsuki and especially Kito Akari as Aya really carried the narrative.

Going into this, I was very interested in how they would handle the issue of the music, since 90s 00s music are at the heart of this story. As popular as this series is, there was no way they were going to license every song mentioned in the manga. The approach they took was interesting. We mostly hear the music as if we are listening to someone else listening to them on earphones, so the notes are muted and the tune is implied by a short riff or a bass line. It worked well if you are familiar with the songs in question.

At the climax of the CD, they did license one song, Radiohead’s Creep – a great choice for the story and for Ise’s voice.

The Special Edition includes an booklet with a new, short manga showing us little Aya’s discovery of western rock, and a cute scene between her and Miysuki in story time.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Music – 9 The climax is on point
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 7

Overall – 9

Like most Drama CDs, nothing new is added to the story, but it gives us a new perspective on the characters as we hear them now as they torture themselves. ^_^ It was a fun time with characters we’ve already grown to like, which is what we want from a CD. And if Ise and Kito are the voices used for the anime…they’ll be great. 

Posted in Drama CDs & Audiobooks | No Comments »


Movies on a Plane Mini-reviews

September 29th, 2024

I am of an age to remember the classic Justice League cartoon, so was interested in this new version of the team. It was a bit of a readjustment with new characters and new people playing some of the superheroes, but I’m pretty flexible and picked up on who did what on the League side pretty quickly. I finished watching RWBY not too long ago, so was solid in my Remnant lore. Thus fortified, while on a plane I found myself watching a surprisingly fun cross-genre mashup. Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsman Part 1.

I loved the change in art for the JL to match the RWBY style and as, always, found the fight choreography well-executed. Yang’s reactions to Golden Age DC comic tropes was amusing. The main story interested me less than two side stories. I really liked Bruce Wayne and Weiss bonding. It was a good match of energies. And watching a young Bruce Wayne struggling with whether he even belonged in Gotham was pretty solid, as well. Even more powerful, I loved the bond that formed between Blake, Diana and Yang, as fellow warriors. Jaune and Jessica bonding also was pretty fantastic.

The relationship between Blake and Yang was only hinted at, which was predictable in a DC story, but still a bit meh. My one genuine complaint was Clark being a tad condescending to Ruby when he learned she was the team leader. He walks it back later, but I am never okay with any portrayal of Superman that allows him to be bitchy – he’ll always be the embodiment of tolerance and support I remember from my youth.

Overall, this was entertaining enough that when I came home, I watched Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsman Part 2. Again, I enjoyed the shift in art style, and had some fun with Yang’s reactions to Golden Age tropes. Blake was given a moment to indicate that she’s closer to Yang than just teammates, but no more than that. Once again, the main story was not as interesting as watching each of our characters coping with the change in circumstances. There were several important stories of loss, trauma and lonesomeness that were surfaced, that might have made for good character development scenarios, that I would have loved to see developed, but there was no time, so Flash’s trauma is set aside for “oh, it’s fine now.”

Once again, the fight scenes were great, something I’ve always come to expect from RWBY, and the main story played out as it had to. If one had little knowledge of the Justice League, but knew RWBY, I think the story would hold together, but without Ruby’s exposition at the beginning of Part Two, if one had no knowledge of Remnant, I think it might be harder to follow – unless one is good at learning from context. For instance, a line to Weiss about the loss of Atlas hits harder when you understand that Atlas was her home city, not a dog or a ship or house, or something.

For two completely different media franchises with no overlap at all, both halves of this was a solid outing.

On the way home, I watched Furiousa: A Mad Max Saga. I’ve watched all of the Mad Max movies, some of them multiple times for whatever reason. I mean, Thunderdome was really popular, okay? I had also watched Fury Road on a plane, as it happens.  It still has all the extended chase scenes through the Australian desert by fantasy vehicles as imagined by a bunch of 12 year olds and explosions and gross deaths we expect.

As Mad Max stories go, this one actually made sense, which puts it at the top of the heap. It even explained a handwave from Fury Road. Is it “good”? I dunno, but it was  a couple of hours of loud stuff and creatively awful armor. ^_^ Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth were interesting as absurdly pretty people playing ugly people. Alyla Browne is outstanding as young Furiousa.

I can’t help but notice that DC has done a good job getting their movies onto planes. I guess Disney is just hunkering down over their IP and demanding everyone come to them.

Well, that’s my movie consumption for 2024. ^_^

Posted in English Anime, Live Action | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – September 28, 2024

September 28th, 2024

A blue silhouette of a girl with a white flower in her hair, embracing the earth. Blue block letters read YNN Yuri Network News. Art by Lissa P. For Okazu.

First of all, my very sincere thanks to Luce, who covered YNN last week. It’s always a lot of work and she did a great job!

Yuri Manga

We’ll pick up right where Luce left off, with the fascinating saga of Love Bullet by creator inee (pronounced eye-ni).  I’ve gone ahead and added it to the Yuricon Store. You can also read sample chapters in Japanese directly on Comic Walker.  Via Unseen Japan (a terrific resource I highly recommend,) journalist Kyama Ryuji has interviewed inee-sensei about the work’s cancellation and the overseas fandom-driven campaign to save it.

Kinokuniya has announced an exclusive variant cover for the upcoming release of The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All. I have a lot of thoughts about this, as you may imagine. ^_^ On the one hand, I really like that the largest Japanese bookstore chain in America  is so highly engaged with this title.  This also is an interesting shift in the way manga is being marketed here. In Japan, different outlets often have different extras – booklets, original sketches, even acrylic standees. So a JP bookseller having a unique item rather than going through a generic online store seems like a reasonable marketing campaign for the US. On the other hand, it is easy to see variant covers as a cash grab, as they can be in Western comics sometimes…but, they also are great for anthologies and multi-creator titles, so you can support the artist you like best. It will be very interesting to see how this pans out.  For those going the digital route, Bookwalker Global is doing a point boost on pre-orders.

I was in France last week and saw a copy of the French edition – it was raining very hard and I did not have  coat or an umbrella so I didn’t buy it as I had a long, wet slog back to the hotel. ^_^; Interestingly, it was released with an English title that was only half of the whole title. That prompted some discussion on the Yuricon Discord as to why that choice was made.

Handsome Girl and Sheltered Girl: The Complete Manga Collection from Seven Seas is on EN shelves now. This story of “mistaken identity” takes the joke a little too far, but has a nice enough end, as I found when I read Volume 1 and Volume 2 in Japanese. You’ll get to read the whole story at once in this complete manga collection.

Kiyoko Iwami’s raunchy high school drama continues in My Girlfriend’s Not Here Today, Volume 2, out now from Seven Seas.

Via Ashley, Osananajimi BIG LOVE (幼馴染) is a rom-com about a girl who had a friend who was a perfect angel and when they meet up again in high school, she finds her angel has turned into a gal.

Via YNN Correspondent Sister Carmilla, the official X account for Watashi o Tabetai, Hitodenashi says that the series will be featured on the cover of the December issue of Dengeki Maou.

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Bloom Into You manga’s completion, Kadokawa has announced that they will be releasing new merchandise on their Kadokawa Store.

Takeshima Eku is getting a solo art show which includes work from Sasayakuyouni Koi Wo Utau /Whisper Me A Love Song!  From the announcement on X: Approximately 50 digital original drawings from Takeshima’s series will be on display at the Kibi Kawakami Fureai Manga Museum in Takeshima Sensei’s hometown in Okayama.

Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou, Volume 9, is headed towards JP bookshelves next week and Ichijinsha has announced extras for the bookstores and their own shop, while Melonbooks has announced an acrylic standee of Cardinal Lily and Rae. As son as we get an official cover, I’ll add this to the Store.

 

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Yuri Anime

Via YNN Correspondent Cryssoberyl and Comic Natalie, for the 25th anniversary of the Shoujo Kakumei Utena anime, The Adolescence of Utena movie will be get a theatrical showing in Tachikawa Cinema City in Tokyo from October 11th to 17th. A special talk show event is scheduled for October 12 with Director Ikuhara Kunihiko and manga creator Saitou Chiho. That event is supposed to include a special “superb sound screening.” I hope someone writes up a report of that! All I can think of is that Castle Car scene and how great it looked on a big screen.

 

Yuri Live Action

Via sad tuna on X, GL manhwa Request to Resign is getting a short drama series featuring TWICE Jihyo’s sister Lee Ha Eum. Something to keep an eye out for.

The Ayaka-chan ha Hiroko-sempai ni Koishiteru TV Drama will be getting a Blu-ray Box set this winter.

 

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Yuri VN

Ebi-hime is at it again, this time with the upcoming Yuri VN Cage of Roses, which they describe as “A haunting gothic romance set in the 19th century. Follow Meike, a young woman from an impoverished noble family, as she’s swept off her feet by the mysterious Magdalena: a vampire who possesses a dark secret. “

Looking for more Yuri games and VNs? Don’t forget that the Yuri Game Jam is on now – keep an eye out for the amazing new stuff that will come out of that.

I hadn’t seen this when it came out, but “Life After Magic is a queer, retro visual novel that follows jaded ex-magical girls as they reconnect, deal with young adulthood, and face off against one last threat before Y2K hits.” It honestly looks adorable.

 

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 1 Comment »