Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 1

October 28th, 2005

Only three months late and just in time for the arrival of Yuri Hime, Volume 2 comes the “more detailed” review of Yuri Hime, Volume 1 I promised back in July.

For new readers, let me give a quick historical overview: Comic Yuri Hime, as it is more properly titled, is the newest incarnation of the quarterly yuri manga anthology magazine that was begun in 2003 as Yuri Shimai. The series that became popular from the original magazine were all transferred to the new version, pretty much intact. Only a few name changes show that there was any switcharoo at all. ^_^

Let’s start with the cover, which is more important than you’d think. The cover characters are pig-tailed Chika and wavy haired Miyu not, as you might suspect, Yumi and Shimako. You may remember that the cover artist is Hibiki Reine who *happens* to also illustrate the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels.

Chika and her eventual girlfriend Haruna are the cover characters for the first Yuri Shimai, and the focus of a short story in that issue, which was turned into a Drama CD, and eventually into a manga. Miyu and *her* eventual girlfriend Kirika (I think) were on the cover of the third Yuri Shimai. Remember this…or bookmark it or something, because it *will* all be very important later. Promise.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the content. The book starts off with a color poster of Kouya and Yamato, the lesbian couple from Loveless, drawn as children by Yun Kouga. The back of the poster is the Big, Bad Wolf and Riding Hood envisioned by Shio Sakura, who illustrates the yurified fairytales in each volume.

We start off with the next chapter of “Strawberry Shake Sweet.” This chapter is the usual hijinks between Ran and Julia. Complications this time once again come in the form of band members from all-lesbian band Zlay and Ran herself who seems to be flagging. It turns out that Ran feels as if she is being stalked. Julia nearly loses her mind when she’s volunteered to stay at Ran’s apartment for the night. She most definitely loses serious blood out her nose when Ran offers to give her a massage in thanks. ^_^

Next we’re treated to the sweet “Kuchibiru ni Cherry” by Morinaga Milk. In this continuing saga of the all-lesbian high school, we meet Chiharu who is deeply in love with her best friend, Eri. Eri was a star flute player until she suffered an arm injury. Since then, she’s turned her attention to making sweets, which Chiharu loves as much as she does the cook. One day, while over Eri’s to try a new recipe, Eri offers to serenade Chiharu with her fluter, which becomes a confession of love. All very blushy and sweet as befits Morinaga’s yuri saga.

Following this is a Yuri life essay by Miura Shiwon, all of which are interesting to anyone who can read Japanese.

“Shortcut” by Mako Takahashi is a story about a girl who cuts her hair, and how the girl who loves her simply isn’t fazed at all by it. Personally, I always try to like Mako’s work, but it doesn’t do it for me – the characters always look too young and are too…broken, for me to like them. Of the stories so far, this is definitely the best.

It would be work to translate the next title and my dictionary is all the way over there. So I won’t. But the story is drawn by Himawari Souya and is a fairly tale of a emotional princess and the paladin she loves. It’s cute. Really. The princess gets all jealous of her knight, when she thinks that she’s playing around with commoners…but of course Louise has eyes for no one but her Hime-sama. They make up with a kiss.

“Alice Turn Back the Clock” is drawn by Shinkai Inoue, who drew “Pops” and “Pops 2nd” for Yuri Shimai. The basic premise of “Alice” is the same as those for the earlier series – a relatively “normal” student is drawn into weirdness by a hyper goofball student. Unlike the original series, *this* particular weirdness involves Escher-esque buildingscapes, a sexy Queen of Hearts, a disturbing alien Cheshire cat and a desk island that floats in the middle of an endless sea, along with other Alice-in-wonderland-esque stuff. (Did you know that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the third most quoted book in the *world*?)

Well-known for their yaoi, Eiki Eiki and Zaou Taishi started to do yuri for Yuri Shimai, but just as they were hitting their stride, the magazine was discontinued. Their story of a girl who sexually harasses (in a funny way, you know) “Female Wolf” was followed up by a story that took place in the same school, but involved two of the adults, instead. Reprinted in Yuri Hime, “First Kiss” promises to be the first in a series of stories about the school doctor and her first love, now a teacher at the same school. It’s pretty darn obvious that the doctor has it very, very bad for her friend…but by the end, we still aren’t *quite* sure that the feeling is returned, although we have an inkling that, since this is a yuri mag…it might just. We do learn that they shared their first kiss when they were students at this school. We are also treated to color pages of them in bed together as young women.

The next entry goes back to the cover characters. As you may remember, the story of Chika and Haruna’s meeting was retold not in the original cover story, but on the original Drama CD from the earlier magazine, entitled “Koi Shimai.” It was turned into a manga in the fourth volume of Yuri Shimai. When the new publishing company bought the magazine, they bought the characters and the story and it continues in Yuri Hime as “Hatsukoi Shimai.” The first HS entry is a short story about Haruna and her beloved little sister, Akiho (who is, because of the second Drama CD, one of my two favorite characters.) Again – it’s a text thing, so if you don’t read the language it won’t mean much to you.

Then comes the next chapter of the manga. Chika, having been frozen completely out by Haruna finds herself in a huge academic slump. The school they are in is pretty tough, so this ain’t so good. Akiho fights against her natural tendency to be overprotective of her sister and arranges for the two of them to get together. Yay.

Then comes the fairy tale of Snow White told as a yuri tale with an all-female cast. I am not enamored of these little stories or that art that accompanies them, myself.

“Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodame no Majou” is the renamed (and thank god for that!!) story by Fujieda Miyabi about Letty the English witch and Tsumugi, the miko she rescued. I honestly adore this series. There’s something so uncomplicated about Tsumugi’s admiration and desire for Letty that it’s plain refreshing. Today’s thrilling adventure – clothes shopping, then bed! Whee! Letty’s a sweetheart, but is in full self-flagellating mode about her desire for Tsumugi (who is totally game and says as much…repeatedly) so she protests much too much. But sleep together they do after a kiss which Letty insists is just a goodnight greeting in her country. Uh-huh. I’ve been to England, dear….I’m not fooled. ^_^

Natsuko Mori is Japan’s most noted lesbian novelist – and a very lovely and gracious lady, I might add, having had the pleasure of her acquaintance. She has been writing essays on yuri since the first YS issue, about love and life and yuri.

Sunao Minakata’s story, “Nanami to Misuzu” (which I am convinced is a title full of puns that I am only partially getting) is about a chibi-ko with cat-ear things and a habit of whining, crying, face-fauting and other oh-so-endearing qualities, and the normal looking girl who does not kill her. You can tell I liked it…not.

At last we reach the always-color Chi-Ran story. This short “plot what plot” entry, which reads like exactly every other Chi-Ran story involves two girls undressing and four pages that would naturally follow “I want to see your body” when two of the four pages are the credits and the first is the set-up.

The rest of the color pages are full of internal ads, reviews of anime we talk to death on the Yuricon Mailing List, and other colorful things.

All of a sudden, we are back in the black and white pages and in the rest of the Chi-Ran story that started so bluntly above. As it turns out, superstar model Mahime has come to an all-girl high school and for reason unknown to her, focused all her attention on our overwhelmed protagonist, Mari, in the sexual tension filled “Shoujo Bigaku”. They end up together, don’t worry.

Akiko Morishima reprints one of her doujinshi stories, about a younger girl and the older one she admires, called “Momo no Aji”. Akiko’s art is very cheerful, everyone has pink cheeks and happy smiles. The story is most notable because they *don’t* end up together. Yet. Perhaps.

This is followed by a report of the Yuricon in Tokyo event, also by Akiko Morishima. She was very funny about this – she did an interview with me and asked me a question that I understood, but had a REALLY hard time answering. How nice that she managed to convey my frog-like expression for this volume. Her version of the event is slightly different than the English-language version she wrote for Yuri Monogatari 3, where she left out my line about if I like it, it’s “Yuri.” ^_^ The funnest part about her reports, to me, are that I can recognize many of the folks there – not just organizer and all around-goddess Rica Takashima, but also translators Ive and Trevor and a lot of the guests, and some of the folks who came dressed up. Between the two reports I feel like I can never forget the event. (That and the fact that the café owner’s wife is now in NYC and we’ve had dinner together.) These things reminds me that it wasn’t a dream…it really happened after all!

Last up is “Let’s go Tengoku” by Izumi Yuu. It’s a slightly disturbing, sort of sexual harassment story, with a happy(?) ending? I’m not in love with it. One girl attempts to convince another to go to paradise with her – by which she seems to mean she wants to have sex. They both look too young and the word “no” doesn’t seem to make an impression, but wait! They really are in love with each other, so it’s okay. Bleah. Thumbs down.

There’s also reviews of books and other items of yuri interest, presents I’ll never get, because I’m not in Japan and can’t get my mail back fast enough, letters, comments, more internal ads for the next issue and the like. All very shiny and wonderful and which I will one day read from beginning to end. But not yet. ^_^

Once again, if you have not gotten YH1, I heartily recommend it, if only to prepare you for the *next* issue which is just about the best Yuri anthology I’ve read, barring of course, Yuri Monogatari ^_^ So run on over to the Yuricon Shop and grab a coupla copies of each (one to read and cut up, one to keep, one to give away to the girl you’re trying to get into Yuri, obviously) and check back soon for the next detailed review for which you will NOT have to wait three months. I promise. YH2 was way too good to wait to talk about!

Ratings:

Overall – 8





Yuri Manga: Transistor ni Venus, Volume 6

October 21st, 2005

Feeling down? A little depressed? Transistor ni Venus is just the ticket. This yuri spy series is so exceptionally goofy that it’d take more than a blue mood to hold out against Enus and her adventures. As always, my deepest thanks to Touko_no_doriru-san for insipring me to read this series!

Volume 6 is a paean to love.

On a planet that looks like a Mediterranean resort, Enus and Eriari encounter a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation. Po, a young aristocrat, and Kurani, are in love. But Kurani’s family and Po’s are not about to let them be happy together, for reasons that are no doubt idiotic. Po’s brother is engaged to Kurani, but she and Po (who is male, btw…straight couples are rare enough in this series that it’s noteworthy) are really, really in love.

Of *course* they end up together, duh. No one suffers in Transistor ni Venus. And they look quite tropical and exotic in their wedding gear. Even young spy in training Eriari finds himself a cute girl. Enus is saddened that she doesn’t have a nice girl, or guy in a pinch, to marry. Shiku, shiku.

The second half of the volume is taken up with a search for cannisters containing something or other of crucial importance. For this job, Enus is teamed up with Professor “Call me Iselin” Suiminkova. Iselin spends every second she is not busy communicating telepathically with her trained dolphins to seduce Enus…or, really, to begin seducing her, the blaming Enus for making her do weird things. Thankfully, Enus and Iselin are captured by the Lizard guys and their pet human Samaja. Samaja and Iselin immediately forget Enus even exists, freeing her to free them all and recover the cannister and get herself the hell out of there.

Enus goes running off to find Mariaana, her usual fallback lover and takes her immediately to bed. She says to Mariaana that she’s glad that they are friends, and Miariaana goes all pouty. Just friends? Lovers, Enus assures her. Just lovers? Enus asks what she’s getting at and Mariaana wonders if Enus would marry her. Hooray! Enus is glad to agree and is ready to take off to do the deed this second, when Mariaana starts coming up with delays. Oh well – at least Enus got Mariaana in bed, and that’s good enough for now.

The outcome? Enus and Mariaana are more of a couple than before, and Enus really, really comes to dislike dolphins.

Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Now, if this series, and Hayate Cross Blade ever become anime, *then* I’ll be a happy Erica.





Yuri Manga: Aria, Volume 7

October 18th, 2005

Since the Aria anime has just started, there’s a fair amount of interest in this series now, so I thought a review of the manga was appropriate.

For refreshers, you can read my reviews of volumes 1,2 and 3, which are available in English and volumes 4,5 and 6 which you can get from Amazon Japan.

The first 6 volumes are sweet, pleasant and not particularly melodramatic slices-of-life about the adventures of Akari, a gondolier in training on Neo-Venezia. If there’s any weakness in this series it is that we don’t go very deep into any of the character’s, well…character.

Volume 7 remedies this.

Our journey this time begins with a story about vanity. Aika, Akari’s fellow trainee and rich girl heiress, has always prided herself on her beautiful long hair, so when it is accidentally burned and has to be cut, she has to face her own self-image – and her dreams about what she wants to be when she grows up. To bring her to the realization that she has to strive to be herself, her mentor Akira has to resort to some tough love.

The rest of the book follows this lead – spending more time on the trainees (Akari, Aika and Alice of the Aria, Hime and Orange companies, respectively) and their relationships with their sempai; Alicia, Akira and Athena. It’s a nice glimpse a little further beneath the surface of the trainees’ endless admiration for the older women. It’s especially nice to get some extended time seeing Alice grow into more of a person. (To her benefit, she is considerably younger than Akari and Aika and we are apt to forget that in the face of her extraordinary skill as an undine. This time we can see Alice the young woman, instead of Alice the trainee. Trust me – it works.)

Alice and Aika spend some quality time together, as well – yet another angle on the kids. We’re so used to Akari’s outlook, that it’s refreshing to see Akari from the outside, and learn a little bit more about all three in the process.

The final chapter does something new yet again – we get a chapter from inside Aika’s head. And her point of view is significantly different from Akari’s. In fact, for once we get to see Akari through her eyes, which is rather amusing. We end as we began – with Aika’s hair. Only this time, it’s all complicated by love. Because although the other women think her new hairdo is spiffy….there’s Al, who hasn’t seen it yet. Of course, he loves it. ^_^ (But then, he thinks the cat looks spiffy too in her clothes…)

We finsh up with a side story about Akatsuki which shows him at 6 – all very funny if I though kids, or cats, were cute. Which I don’t.

In any case, this volume is, by far and away, the *strongest* volume so far for this enjoyable series. It gives me hope that we’ll get the same treatment for the older undines – more exploration of their pasts, their hopes, dreams and the relationships they have with each other.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 3 (Aika still has that lingering akogare for Alicia, and the way Akira talks about her….I got give it a few points!)

Overall – 8

A really fine story in the tradition of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Great characters, fun times that make you smile. A win all the way around.





Yuri Manga: Bakuretsu Tenshi, Vol. 3

October 16th, 2005

Why couldn’t the Bakuretsu Tenshi anime have been this decent? That’s what I want to know.

In Volume 2, Jo suddenly has to face her past, of which she remembers nothing. People attack her for the very skills she treasures, and Sei and Emi seem to know more about her than she does. Only Meg loves Jo for who she is, but Jo rejects Meg in a fit of grand self-loathing. Her only objective is to learn what she is, and what she was.

If you’re at all familiar with anime and manga in general, you can, of course *guess* what Jo is…a bioengineered killing machine. One of many, and the one that got away. Duh. Does this make her not human? She fights against this concept like many a Boomer before her, but unlike most of the biomechanical killing machines that have gone before, this one has something special. Jo has Meg.

Meg runs off to find Jo and indeed, does find her, in the middle of a battle for her life. Meg (quite unlike the more tedious Meg of the anime) throws herself into the battle and changes the outcome – on several levels. She not only makes it possible for Jo to win, but after seeing the gentle look in Jo’s eyes as she reclaims her partner, her opponent realizes that Jo is, after all, not a killing machine but a human.

But…too bad the evil conglomerate doesn’t think so! They kidnap Meg and, in a sense rape Jo, (rough surgery to reclaim some part that had alot of kanji that I didn’t feel like translating.) Essentially they ripped her spine out.

But Sei comes on the scene and saves Jo, then accompanies her to Evil Conglomerate Inc. HQ where they save Meg, destroy *this* particular weirdo and live happily ever after.

The volume ends with a note that the story continues in the animation Burst Angel – both note and title are in English. I swear to god, I want to be an English consultant to Japanese anime companies, hired to suggest less dorky translations, and to work on the r/l confusion….

In any case, Meg’s love is what saves Jo from a short life of violence and catapults her into a much, much longer life filled with violence.

The biggest problem with the anime, especially after the manga, is how Jo and Meg really *don’t* connect. We see Jo save a suddenly incompetent Meg frequently, and we see Meg snuggle an unresponsive Jo a few times. What a damn shame we don’t get to see the Jo and Meg of the manga appear in the anime – how much better a series might it have been?

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

Better than mediocre, the Bakuretsu Tenshi manga series is far superior to the anime.





Yuri Manga: Yuri Monogatari 3 Available for Pre-order!

September 29th, 2005


It’s official! Yuri Monogatari 3 is now available for pre-order on the Yuricon Shop!

ALC Publishing’s newest all yuri anthology will be shipping out at the end of October. Pre-order directly through the Yuricon shop and you’ll save 30% off the retail price.

YM3 is also ALC’s first to be available not only through the hobby market (y’know, comic book stores…) but also the major book store chains in the US, UK, Canada and Australia!

Feel free to pester your local Borders, Barnes and Noble, Dillons, etc for the newest 100% yuri anthology on the market.

For a brief synopsis of the wonderful stories in the third “Lily Tales” anthology, check out my September 2 post. I’m really very excited about this publication and I think you will be too!