Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuricon News, Yuri Manga News

March 6th, 2007

I was so ready to be clever and funny today, but it’s just not happening. Instead, here’s two pieces of important news:

The Yuricon/ALC Publishing website is currently down. This is not a crisis (yet.) Due to Philip Mak’s sudden death, we’re moving servers. There’s a lot I have to do and I’m not entirely sure how to do it all, since Philip setup the whole thing for me originally. I hope to be up and running *soon*.

This does not affect Okazu, of course, except as it sucks away my will to live and leaves me with no energy to write… ;-)

It also does not effect Registration for Yuricon 2007, which is open. Register today for the only 100% yuri of 2007!

***

Also in today’s news, Infinity Studios now has a page up for their translation of Iono-sama Fanatics. It looks like they are reproducing the dust jacket, the 4-panel comics on the inner jacket and full-color pages. Happy day!

We heard about this months ago, but how nice to see that they’ll be reproducing the actual thing, instead of a close imitation.

***

That’s it for today folks. Tomorrow, if all goes just lovely, I will write a lovely review of the lovely Simoun Drama CD “Ah, Lovely Office Lady Temps”. (No, seriously…that’s the title.)





Yuri Manga: Read or Dream, Volume 2 (English)

February 27th, 2007

I originally reviewed the Japanese edition of Read or Dream, Volume 2 in 2004 and found it, like all of the Read or Dream series, amusing, but not deep. This is rather meaningful, because the TV series had been so very deep, and the manga will, in future volumes, head in that direction as well.

But in the meantime, this volume remains fun, slightly silly, comedy action fare with a little dash of romance.

The stories are, of course, the same as they were in the Japanese volume, so none of my comments on those are any different. Please read the 2004 review (linked above) if you want a synopsis of the stories.

The reproduction quality is quite high, sans the color mini-poster included with the Japanese volume. The honorifics have not been added in, as I had hoped they might be, since the current trend in translated manga seems to be more on the side of keeping them.

Like the ROD The TV Anime, the heroine is Anita, a character who annoys me a lot less now than she did at the very beginning of both anime and manga. Since the character has not changed, it must be me. ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 8
Characters – 8
Art – 8
Yuri – 4

Overall – 8

For overall goofy fun, this is not the best of the Read or Dream/ROD series, but it’s still an afternoon’s solid entertainment.





Yuri Manga: Steady Beat 2

February 12th, 2007

Steady Beat, Volume 2, is a continuation of the story from Steady Beat, Volume 1 (well, duh…). At the end of my review of the first volume, I wrote, “…I think it might be worth emailing the author Rivkah and asking her to make sure the girl gets the girl, as a preventative measure.”^_^

Well, after reading Volume 2, I went ahead and emailed the author. And here is why.

Volume 2 continues to be “wackiness ensues” as Leah tries to learn the gasp-making truth about her “perfect” sister, Sarai. (I will return to this in a second.)

During the course of this wackiness, we follow Leah as she becomes closer to a possible new love interest, Eli. Who would be extremely fine as a love interest if he weren’t seventy different minorities all rolled into one. That is to say, he *is* a fine love interest and kind of cute, if he shut up once in a while. But, I found it a tad exhausting that he’s a half-Jewish, half-black son of a gay Dad. The only thing he’s missing is being wheelchair bound. And part Native American. It was a just a bit of too much.

Which is pretty much the major weakness of the entire series so far – Rivkah is working so hard at making it celebration of diversity and love, that it comes off as trying a *wee* too hard throughout.

But let us return to the plot – the great mystery of whether Sarai is gay or not.

(Wait a second, something just occurred to me. Isn’t Sarai the Student Council president? Somehow I remember that she is. Score another for the stereotype! Boo-yah! )

…Anyway, when Leah finally catches up to Sarai, the truth appears to be exactly what she thought/feared – her perfect, flawless, overacheiving older sister is in fact…gay! Shock! This wouldn’t be much of a plot if Leah and Sarai didn’t belong to a strict Christian family in the middle of Texas. Except that, as we’re given a travelogue of Austin, we learn that it’s really pretty collegiate and liberal for a Texas city. So we’re back to it not being much of a plot complication…unless it *isn’t* the plot complication. So by the time I finshed the book, because I have a chronic case of “advanced student syndrome” and can’t take things at face value, I broke down and wrote the author.

I can’t tell you what she told me without spoilers. ^_^ Which is it? Do you want to know what she said? Or not? Write in – the majority vote wins.

The series is not bad, really. The art, while manga-informed, has as much in common with Archie as it does with manga. The characters are likeable, if a teeny bit preachy. The tone lacks condescension, but has a bit of that “Look, this is a teen book, for teens, starring a teen!” feel that occasionally inhabits teen lit. But I also think that the tone is a fairly natural one for the author, who seems like a genuinely happy sort of person.  Maybe it’s just that I’m naturally more, erm, pragmatic…or east coastern, or just plain jaded. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 1

Overall – 6

If I did have a teen who was in a situation regarding the question of alternative sexuality, I would have no trouble suggesting this book. That having been said, if I was a teen in that situation, I might find the book a bit silly. As I neither have a teen, nor am a teen, it’s a cute enough read for a cold winter’s curl up.





Yuri Anthology: Maria’s Wink, Volume 2

February 7th, 2007

One of the more unique things about Japanese copyright laws is the ability for “parody” works to be made with little to no legal consequence. (Of course, that may change in the future, and a recent article about an exceedingly popular Doreamon doujinshi has an interesting example of what can easily be cited as an abuse of the privilege.)

Maria’s Wink 2, is one of a seemingly endless supply of Yuri doujinshi anthologies in existence for Maria-sama ga Miteru. It is available through Amazon JP (click the cover picture or the title link) and/or various manga and used manga stores.

The advantage to a doujinshi anthology is obvious – it’s a collection of many different stories by many different circles. Like ALC’s Yuri Monogatari series, that means that you’ll get a wide variety of art, story and tone. The other advantage is that an anthology will cost a lot less in time and effort than trying to track down all of the original doujinshi individually.

There are some adult anthologies, but most of the ones I picked up in Tokyo this time were “gag” anthologies. Maria’s Wink has a definite Yuri strain running through the stories, but little more than a kiss here and there. Nonetheless, no Yuri goggles are needed to see that the couples are, indeed, couples.

This particular anthology has selections by some circles I quite like including K-Do, and about three whose names are too long and difficult for me to translate, but whose work I have in doujinshi form and really like. (Nice and specific, there, I know. Very helpful….)

What makes Maria’s Wink a good place to start in terms of Marimite anthologies is that there is really something for everyone. Pretty much every popular pairing has at least one story. The obvious soeur couples, and the most popular non-soeur, like Youko x Sei, Sei x Yumi, Yumi x Touko, all are represented. There’s even a Kanako x Touko story. Kei makes an appearance in a few stories (that’s for you, Sean), as does Yuuki, and even Kashiwagi gets a naked cameo. So, really, there’s something for everyone.

In particular Rei x Yoshino fans will like a few of the stories, which really focus on the explodingly cute aspect of their relationship. There’s also a fairly well-known Rei x Yoshino story called “Treasure” that portrays them both as pirates. It’s based on a single line from one of the novels where Rei thinks that Yoshino’s surgery scar makes her look like a pirate. :-) (I find this story appealing because I too wrote [an incredibly silly] story in which the Yamayurikai and friends are pirates.  ^_^) So, as anthologies go, there’s quite a bit to like about Maria’s Wink.

Ratings are variable, but I don’t think there was a story I disliked or art that skeeved me.

Overall – 8

If you’ve always wanted to dip a toe into the vast pool of Marimite doujinshi, an anthology is a nice way to start in general, and this volume of Maria’s Wink in particular. :-)





Yuri Manga: Simoun, Megami magazine version

February 5th, 2007

I must have been prophetic last week. I said, “no more reviews for a while,” went home and promptly became incredibly ill. I did make it to Jennifer’s great lecture, and I’ll talk about the book sometime in the future, but basically, I’ve been in bed since Saturday afternoon.

I’m doing a review today so you don’t all forget me, but because I’m exhausted, it’s going to be quick. So. I thought I’d review a manga that is *so* thin that I ought to be able to review it in a single sentence:

“What if the characters from Simoun were in a world that looked and functioned suspiciously like Garderobe from Mai Otome?”

And that’s the entire “story.” It’s much more like a parody doujinshi than any kind of “real” version of Simoun.

The Simoun Sybillae are in training at Arcus Prima Academy, in bouts that look suspiciously like those held at Garderobe Academy for potential Otome. They win fame, fortune, money and status, meow, meow, in these battles.

As you can see in the cover picture from chapter 2, the kisses remain, and so do the remersions, although these become attacks used in the 2-on-2 hand-to-hand battles. And Amuria is not dead, she’s just punch-drunk on remersions.

The big on-going gag (and I use that term liberally) is Aeru’s negative reaction to the whole “kissing another girl” thing, as you can see in the above picture. She is so put off by the kiss, that she kisses one of Lodreamon’s ugly dolls instead. The resulting remersion surprises the heck out of the rest of the Sybillae.

I find that I don’t have the first chapter of the five that comprised this story…I’m not sure I care.  ^_^

This is a goofy, service-laden, Lowest Common Denominator parody of Simoun. Like the Drama CD (review of which is forthcoming) if you actually *liked* the depth of the anime, you should ignore this version of the manga with all your might and stick to the Yuri Hime edition of the Simoun manga.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 2
Characters – 5 (What’s left when you take deep characters and render them into their one or two most superficial traits?)
Yuri – 5
Service – 7

Overall – 5.

It’s crap. But it still made me laugh once or twice. If it had been a doujinshi, instead of an official story, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. As it is, it reads like a ritual diminutizing of the Simoun Sybillae. “Well, we can’t have you gals thinking you’re all that. So, some mostly naked posters and a crappy story’ll put you in yer place. Ay-yup.”