Yuri Manga: Itoshi Koishi, Volume 1 (いとしこいし)

April 8th, 2019

Let’s start the week off with an incredibly sweet Yuri manga that I adore, by a manga artist I admire. Today we’re talking Itoshi Koishi, Volume 1 (いとしこいし) by Takemiya Jin-sensei, from Yuri Hime Comics.

Hina is a high-school student who enjoys cooking and is very sweet and kind. Unbeknownst to any of her friends, she is going out with a neighbor – an older woman – named Yayoi. Yayoi works at home and it is Hina’s great joy to make Yayoi food and gently scold her about taking care of herself. Yayoi knows she wants to marry Hina one day, and make this arrangement formal. And when we get the flashback to how they met, we’re not at all surprised that Yayoi needs the help. ^_^

We begin with a summer festival which eases us into their relationship. Yayoi visits Hina at her school festival in order to tease her – gently. A  few chapters are arranged around a recipe that Hina is making for Yayoi.

The story is careful about the difference in their ages. Yayoi is well aware of the gap and takes care to keep them both at a level of emotional intimacy, rather than physical, with an emphasis on comfort and safety for Hina.  It is very clear that Yayoi has drawn some specific lines in her head and she will not cross them.

Hina’s more concerned with her place in Yayoi’s life. Yayoi’s got friends and adult responsibilities and she knows she’s still a kid. She’s worried that Yayoi will leave her behind. But as the story develops, we can also see that they are both very good to and very good for one another. (And, we’ll see Hina becoming more a part of Yayoi’s outside life in later chapters. I approve.)

Overall, I really like this manga. It’s shockingly wholesome and sweet and comes with a bunch of recipes. Food and Yuri – perfect together. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8 YMMV, but I think this is Takemiya-sensei’s best work so far
Story – Warm and cozy and cute, like Hina – 8
Characters – 9 Everyone is likable
Yuri  – 10
Service – 3 We are assured Hina’s chest is large several times.

Overall – 9

I can see myself coming back to this series over and over. It’s nice. I picked this copy up at one of the Yuribu, so I could get the insert paper, of Yayoi embracing Hina and both of them thinking super happy love-love thoughts. ^_^

Posted in Takemiya Jin, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Prisontown e Youkoso!, Volume 2 ( 監獄街へようこそ！ )

April 7th, 2019

In Volume 1, we met Akari, a human who fell asleep on a late night train and found herself in Prisontown, an otherworld purgatory for demihumans. She is given a “wife”, frankengirl Mary and each of them are assigned work duties every day by notes tacked to their door. Akari is well liked, but inefficient at best, and often incompetent. The other denizens of Prisontown become accustomed to helping Akari out of a jam, and Mary often does her own work, then helps Akari.

In Prisontown e Youkoso!, Volume 2 ( 監獄街へようこそ！ ) Akari and Mary quietly, sweetly fall in love with one another, but Mary’s body being made of random pieces makes her quite self-conscious. Even more than her body, the crime she is here to expiate weighs on her heavily. As the main holiday of the year – the Lantern Festival on Halloween night – approaches, Mary tells Akari the story of her crime. Betrayed by the creator she loved so dearly, Mary killed her…and the little sister she adored. Akari, of course, forgives Mary and the two of them spend a magnificent night together…only Akari knows it will be their last. She will be returning to the human world when the festival ends.

In the final chapter from the serialization, Akari sees Mary once more on Halloween back in the real world. The epilogue of the collected volume changes the tenor of this ending slightly, by letting us know that this meeting becomes an annual affair, and both Mary and Akari have grown, and their love has stayed the course.

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 3

Overall – 7

If you like Neji’s demihuman stories, this is certainly another  story for you. ^_^ It’s still a pretty flimsy ending, but the second epilogue definitely make it all go down a little easier.

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – April 6, 2019

April 6th, 2019

Yuri Manga

Taifu Comics has announced that the Kase-san series will getting a French release in May with Kase-san & les belles-du-jour! Check that link for a few sample pages in French. ^_^

From Yuri Navi, we have news of Shimura Takako-sensei’s newest series, a Yuri series running in Kiss magazine called “Otona ni Nattemo” (おとなになっても). I’m more surprised that is running Kiss than anything else.

Uzu’s Leonhart is a Yuri webcomic that tells the story of a young woman who wants to meet the player behind the dashing paladin who always saves her in an online game, and finds that her prince is a woman! Sample pages can be found on Yuri Navi, or you can read the current chapter on Takeshobo’s MangaLife Storia site. (In Japanese.)

After it celebrated a successful Kickstarter, Seven Seas has licensed Mira Ong Chua’s Yuri Graphic Novel,  ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip to Love! That’s pretty fabulous.

New on the Yuricon Store:

Doku Yuri Otome Douwa (毒百合乙女童話) is a “little pervy poison Yuri maiden story.”

The popularity of My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness did not teach the publishers the lesson we has hoped and instead of more authentic stories about lesbians dealing with life, we’re seeing more stories about lesbian sex workers. BariKyari to Shinsou (バリキャリと新卒) is about a lesbian sex worker who finds a client of hers is her boss, when she takes up an office job.

In Teiji ni Ageretara (定時にあがれたら), Mizuki becomes acquainted with Yukawa while eating lunch. One day she finds a sticky note in her coat pocket.

Fuzoroi Renri (不揃いの連理) is about a  broken-hearted office lady and a younger woman who find each other, despite the many things that ought to keep them apart.

And Satsumaage’s Douseiseikatsu Watashi o Sukittekoto Desho (同棲生活 わたしを好きってことでしょ) has a sequel, Douseiseikatsu 2 Watashi dake ga Tokubetsunara ii no ni (同棲生活2 わたしだけが特別ならいいのに).

Shigoto no ato ha Koishiyou (仕事の後は恋しよう) is another office romance, this one from East Press, so I hope for some actual lesbian identity. Fingers crossed.

The Lilies Anthology is once again open for submissions. You have until June 15th to get those stories in.

Looking for a comic with queer witches and contemporary social commentary? Listen to Kirsten Thompson talk about Hexed!

 

Yuri Events

Barcuch College in NYC is running a special event on Prewar manga and LGBTQ manga on April 18th with speakers Andrea Horbinski and Anne Ishii.

Kase-san series creator Takashima Hiromi-sensei  will be a featured guest at Toronto Comic Arts Festival on May 11-12 at the Toronto Public Reference Library. I’ll be interviewing her (!) and doing a presentation on 100 Years of Yuri. I will also be curating an exhibit of items from my personal collection. It’s going to be a fantastic event and just a little even queerer than usual. ^_^(And it’s always a little queer. ^_^)

I also hope you’ll consider spending a week with me in Tokyo on the 100 Years of Yuri Tour! Okazu Patrons get $100 off the deposit, everyone who signs up will get a specially-designed Tour t-shirt (I just saw the final image this week. it looks brilliant!) We’ll be visiting locations of Yuri importance, great Yuri shopping and loads of fun stuff!

 

Other News

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood has been envisioned as a graphic novel, by Renee Nault from Bedside Press. You can read some sample pages on The Mary Sue.

On the good news side, YNN correspondent Roberto R. points us to Republica, where there is an article about a female couple, one Italian Navy Lt. Commander, and the other a marshal who have been bonded in a civil union in Italy. Do check out those smiling faces. ^_^

Check our the Twitter hashtag “Koito Yuu Matsuri” (#小糸侑生誕祭2019) for fun pictures of of Touko and Yuu from Bloom Into You.

We’ll wrap up today’s report with this Atlas Obscura article on Yoshiya Nobuko which manages to discuss her work and life without mentioning Yuri once. ^_^

 

Do you have questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast, Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to!

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 4 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 6 (English)

April 5th, 2019

The moment has arrived….the school festival is here and now, at last, the Student Council will perform a play. Touko will achieve the thing her late sister was never able to do. She will be able to put her sister’s phantom behind her. And then what?

In Bloom Into You, Volume 6 Touko will have to ask the question that has been plaguing her for years – and she’ll do it literally in front of the entire school all her friends and her family.

Unusually for a manga, we are allowed to see the whole play. Konomi nails the character each council member plays and it is especially lovely to be able to see how close to the mark she got in the dialogue, not just hear about it. (Even though, of course Konomi is not writing, but being written that way, it  still works in context.)  We are also given the opportunity to see audience reactions, like Touko’s parents looking pained when the dialogue lands on their lap, or the intrigued whispers at Sayaka playing Touko’s lover. All of it skirting >this< close to plausibility that the audience – and readers – might be tempted to think it was the truth.

This volume was both a triumphant climax for the series and one of the best school festivals play episodes I’ve ever read. It’s a pretty common trope for the play to reflect the story in an unsubtle way, as we’ve seen with Torikaebaya in Maria Watches Over Us, or Shuu-chan’s original script in Wandering Son. This one wins. Now Sayaka will have to deal with everyone wondering if she and Touko are, were, or could be lovers. Which, if she weren’t actually in love with Touko, might be funny.

And Yuu, at last, has to confess out loud what we’ve already known for a while now – she has failed to keep her end of the promise she and Touko made. Her heart-wrenching confession puts Touko into a tailspin.

We, the audience of this play-within-a-play are in the somewhat unusual position of having to wait to find out what happens because Volume 7 does not come out in Japan until the end of April and in English in December! I have read one or two of the chapters in Dengeki Daioh magazine where it is serialized, but am otherwise in the dark about where this story now goes. Which I quite like, so please do not helpfully spoil me, thanks. ^_^

Seven Seas’ edition continues to be excellent. This volume was, I think, particularly critical for this series, with a lot of future ramifications being laid out, and I was confident that translation by Jenny McKeon and adaptation by Jenn Grunigen were solid. The technicals were also especially good. Once again I feel that this volume offers the authentic manga reading experience fans are looking for.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 8

In my review of this volume in Japanese, I called the play “terrifyingly accurate.” While we know damn well that that’s contrived, it still worked.

 

Posted in Bloom Into You / Yagate Kimi ni Naru, English Manga, Nakatani Nio | 2 Comments »


100 Years of Yuri at Toronto Comic Arts Festival!

April 4th, 2019

This week, you can listen to the me talk 100 Years of Yuri with the fine folks at Anime World Order. Check out Anime World Order Show # 173 – 100 Years of Yuri with Most Dangerous Erica Friedman, Yuri Bodhisattva. We’ll be talking about the Asagao to Kase-san movie.

We timed that beautifully, because Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 11-12, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, announced that Kase-san creator Takashima Hiromi will be a guest at TCAF and I’ll be talking with her about Kase-san and Yuri!  I am so impossibly excited, I can barely stand it. ^_^

I’ll be presenting a talk at the Japan Foundation during TCAF on 100 Years of Yuri, as well. TBA on that.

AND, I’m curating a 100 Years of Yuri exhibition in the Gallery Display at Page & Panel in the Toronto Reference Library! These are objects out of my personal library – some of these  items have not been out of the house since the Yurisai event Yuricon ran in in 2007.

TCAF is open to the public, there is no admission fee. There will be a ton of awesome panels and workshops and so, so many terrific comic artists and books to read and buy.

Thanks ever so much to Jocelyne Allen and all the fantastic people at Seven Seas and TCAF for helping make this a reality. I cannot think of a better place and a better group to  kick this celebration into high gear.

I hope you’ll join me at this terrific comic event and help me celebrate 100 Years of Yuri!

 

Posted in Events, Kase-san Series | 6 Comments »