Yuri Manga: Ikemen Sugidesu Shiki-senpai!, Volume 1 (イケメンすぎです紫葵先パイ! )

July 27th, 2019

Who doesn’t love a super-cool senpai? Hinami is trying to figure out why this incredibly cool and charming upperclassman pays any attention to her.

In Ikemen Sugidesu Shiki-senpai!, Volume 1 (イケメンすぎです紫葵先パイ! ) it appears that Shiki-senpai really does like Hina, and so, as she tries to be a good manager-in-training for the basketball team (of which Shiki-senpai is the star,) Hina is learning a lot about the girls on the team, about dedication and, ultimately, about what she wants.

Shiki-senpai is very cool and very charming, but she’s all so very real and sincere. When she falls ill, and Hina comes by to her one-person apartment to take care of her, she learns that her feelings are rather more intense than she realized. And, when she kisses Hina, the first-year also begins to understand what that might mean for them.

Shiki and Hina are not the only couple on the team, either –  and while Miyamoto and the manager are an awkward couple for an number of reasons, their behavior certainly gives Shiki and Hina a few hints.

Yuama’s art is competent, with occasional wonkiness, but when Shiki is required to be too cool for her hair, she is always very, very cool and stylish and just boyish enough to be heart throbby. ^_^

The actual plot here is well-worn, but the strength of this particular series is the sincerity. Both Shiki and Hina are so gosh darn sincere and adorable that you really want them to be happy together.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Service – 6 Shiki-senpai being cool is definitely a form of service. ^_^
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

It’s really kind of difficult to even imagine disliking this series. It is just so sincere. ^_^

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Urusekai Picnic Manga, Volume 1 (裏世界ピクニック )

July 25th, 2019

In advance of J-Novel Club’s release of Otherside Picnic, the sci-fi light novel by Miyazawa Iori, I picked up the manga for the story. In Urusekai Picnic, Volume 1 (裏世界ピクニック ) the manga adaptation of the story introduces us to Sora and Toriko, two women who have access to the “Otherside,” a world populated by weirdly wiggly aliens and strange phenomenon.

The manga begins as Sorao is dying. She has no idea why she is or how she got here, but here she is, submerged in some kind of liquid. She remembers finding a door to the “otherside” and seeing one of the wiggly aliens. She is rescued by another human, a woman of apparently about her age, Toriko.  Toriko tells Sorao that she’s hunting…and after she shoots an alien, it turns out that what she is hunting is the chrome cubes they leave behind along with their physical form.

Sorao almost loses her life once again, as the aliens grow inside her like a plant. Although Toriko saves her, Sorao finds that 1) she can kind of hear them now and 2) her one eye has turned blue,

We learn that Toriko is also hunting…a friend, Satsuki. It is pretty clear to Sorao and us that Satsuki was more than a friend to Toriko. What strikes Sorao as odd is her own reaction to that. She hasn’t put a name to it by the end of Volume 1…but I can.

The two women meet a man who has lost his wife and clearly some measure of his sanity on this Otherside. The guy is not with us long, but his disappearance is the catalyst for learning that Sorao’s alien eye can also see alien tech for what it is, which allows her, for onc,e to save Toriko.

I found it a little hard to engage with the book at first. Not because it lacks context (which it does) but because it lacked any kind of character development. Sorao is a blank. We know almost nothing about her when we meet her and by the time the first volume is over, we know about the same amount of nothing. The same is true for Toriko, although we can see that she is driven to find her – probably – lover. The two women are more interesting together because neither appears fearfulnor hesitant. When Toriko shows up at her school and asks Sorao to hunt with her, Sorao is right on it. If there’s a single specific quality of the characters that appeals to me, it’s that.

The art by shirakaba is conventional, but solid. All in all this looks and feels exactly like  what it is said to be – a science fiction manga with, one presumes, a Yuri plot somewhere in there.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 7
Story – 8
Service – 1, maybe
Yuri  – 2 by implication so far

Overall – 7

I have absolutely no idea where the story will go, but I guess I’ve signed up to go hunting with Toriko and Sorao. ^_^

 

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Yuri Manga: Chocolat 2 Shakaijin Yuri Anthology ( ショコラ2 社会人百合アンソロジー)

July 24th, 2019

It still strikes me as rather fun that Yuri fans are practically buried these days under an avalanche of Yuri anthologies – and that so many of them are set in adult society among working women. ^_^ I can practically see myself in 2004 or 2009 or 2015, reading yet another collection that was so similar to everything else, that I just kind of snapped. But I kept coming back for more and so, I find myself today taking a look at another Yuri anthology set in working adult society. I am not complaining! (Not yet, at any rate. ^_^)

In 2018, I reviewed the first entry into this anthology series and found it entertaining. Today I am taking a look at Chocolat 2 Shakaijin Yuri Anthology ( ショコラ2 社会人百合アンソロジー).  The contributors are mostly names we’re very familiar with here on Okazu. Morishima Akiko starts off the anthology with a somewhat complicated relationship between two women who are balancing work-life-society issues.

Kashikase’s story takes a tried and true scenario – the unpaid therapy done by all women in the customer service industry – and turns it into a love story.

I’m reading a collection by Kiriyama Haruka and just finished a story last night that I really enjoyed – but was sure I had read before! Well I had…in this collection. A woman working for an insurance company comes face to face with the web idol she admires, in what I think is a very sweet little story.

A love that never quite manages to get past the gate is the subject of a sweet and a little sad story by Takemiya Jin.

For me, the stand-out story was the last one, by Shigisawa Kaya, called “Love Letter.” A deceased writer has left her unfinished manuscript to her former lover, also a writer, to finish. We travel the length of their relationship from when they met through their parting in this taught story about endings. This was, honestly, excellent. Shigisawa’s writing and art – which tends to center tension and discomfort –  hits exactly the perfect note of melancholy, unexpressed anger and love. Outstanding work by an artist I always want to like but often cannot.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

What this collection does is hold itself together by the thinnest of connecting strings. Other than the fact that these stories are all collected for this volume, there is nothing similar about them. Different art, different tone, and vastly different takes on the topic makes Chocolat 2 a superior Yuri anthology.

 

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Yuri Magazine: Galette, No. 10 (ガレット)

July 23rd, 2019

I know I’m running late with this, but I am finally getting around to reviewing Galette, No. 10 (ガレット)! Yay!

Reading Galette is always such an interesting experience. There is much variety and I’m often surprised when something I didn’t think I’d care for turns out to be something I like, or vice versa. I was a little bit worried that this was the end of my favorite story, “Liberty,” as Liz and Maki had finally come to a point where they were on the same page. I didn’t want it to end because that would have been very “Story A.” It hasn’t ended, but is has immediately turned in a direction I laughingly called “Story B” inside my head as Liz’s thoughtless former lover is probably returning to cause drama.

Hakamada Mera has an unusual offering this issue, about an adult couple that was very pleasant. Morninaga Milk’s drama about two women and their cat came to a head over… the cat. ^_^ “Kuri-san Kamo” told a story from a backwards angle that I quite liked.

This volume had additions from Galette Plus and Petite Galette. Color photo pages and color ink pages gives it the feel, a little bit ,of the magazines one picks up in the convenience stores. I’m not sure if I think it works, yet. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Another varied and fun issue of my favorite Yuri magazine! Here’s hoping that the crowdfunding picks back up and they can expand the issues a little. (I’ve bumped up my subscription, so I’m no longer next to the one name in the funders listing I actually know well. Awww. ^_^

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Yuri Manga: Yuri is My Job, Volume 4 (English)

July 22nd, 2019

Yuri is My Job is unquestionably rooted in Yuri tropes. It is indubitably based around intense emotional relationships between women. There is one one-sided romantic relationship, the acted frisson of relationship between two characters and, in Volume 4, we learn of a past romantic relationship among the Liebe cafe staff. But there is not a romance among the main characters…as of yet. For all I know, there may never be.

So, I ask you, my dear readers: is Yuri is My Job a “Yuri” manga?” ^_^ Think about it, then tell me what you think in the comments. I’m not planning on editorializing about this, I just want to know what you think.

In Yuri is My Job, Volume 4, we delve ever more deeply into Kanako’s inner life, as she is poked and prodded by Sumika, who presents herself as coming from a high moral ground, but may in fact be more self-serving than she appears. We get to see that Nene is the staff member whose relationship Sumika has told Kanako about and it turns out that she may well have gotten that wrong, too. As Nene states so plainly. “I think I at least know how to fall in love with people on my own.”

Finally, the Blüme contest is on. Even after securing her vote, for some reason, Sumika will not leave Kanako alone. Kanako thinks of it as bullying, Sumika thinks of it as concern. And, after order has prevailed, Sumika as “third-year” has won; after all of the drama, the politics, all of Kanako’s desire to see Hime pull off a coup has been left behind, they come to a place where they are able to confide in one another. Kanako – finally – puts a name to her feelings for Hime.

And then the cafe moves on to the next marketing event! For the first time the “students” will be wearing summer uniforms. This brings a whole new crisis…and a whole new solution.

We get a couple of extras, including a fun little Yuriten-themed short Miman-sensei had drawn a “Yuriten Cafe” comic for the event the year I attended and I was all whiny at the staff about it not being real. Uchida-san told me they just couldn’t manage it that year. I hope they consider doing one eventually! I want to go to a Yuri-trope cafe and be made to feel uncomfortable about my interests. ^_^

The second extra follows Nene handling the various teas, and what motivated her to talk to Sumika about their failed sisterly bonds.

Once again, Miman-sensei gives us insight into their process, which I continue to find fascinating.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 4 since one piece of this volume pretty wholly focuses on breasts.

Overall – 8

Yuri is My Job hits all the right notes for all fans of classic “S” Yuri literature, animation and comics. One of my favorite volumes so far. There’s a lot of strong character-building for all of the staff.

So, what do you think of Yuri is my Job? Is it – by your standards – Yuri?

Posted in English Manga, Miman, Yuri Manga | 10 Comments »