Yuri Manga: Chou Chou Nan Nan (喋喋喃喃)

May 27th, 2015

downloadThe girl/guy next door, the childhood friend who has always been there for you, who can always read your mood, and knows just what to say; it’s a well-worn trope in every subset of romance. It’s equally as common to show the protagonist unable to return the favor, unseeing when their friend has deeper feelings than friendship for them, as they moon over someone else – usually someone unobtainable. It’s so entirely universal in fact, that it almost boggles the mind.

In Chou Chou Nan Nan (喋喋喃喃), Takemiya Jin takes a(nother) swing at this trope.

Aoi is in love with Chihiro and her best friend Nao can see it from a mile away. Unfortunately, Nao is in love with Aoi and Aoi can’t see it at all. Chihiro can see what’s going on and, because she’s a cheerfuly manipulative jerk, she teases Nao by manipulating Aoi’s feelings. Shino, the fourth of the group is uncomplicated and doesn’t care who is love with whom, just as long as they are all having fun.

There is never any reason to think that Aoi and Nao won’t get together, so it’s more or less just a matter of watching them get there, enjoying the stolen kisses, “shock!” eyes and narrowed eyes/manipulative faces that Takemiya-sensei does so well.

It is also stereotypical that the story comes to a head during the school festival, as Nao plays the prince and Aoi plays Sleeping Beauty. Reading as much manga as I do set in school, I thank my lucky stars that I never once had to do a play in a school festival. (The only thing I can recall doing for a school festival was making a highly popular, heavily alcoholic Black Forest Cherry cake one year for German Club.)

They end up together (of course) and we never learn, really, whether Chihiro feels bad about her role in keeping them apart or finds it all a hilarious joke. I was very much hoping that the doujinshi follow-up “Chou Chou Nan Nan 2” would look at Chihiro’s real feelings (my bet is that Chihiro found it hilarious. People like her are never sorry. ^_^;), but instead it gives Aoi a chance at taking the lead in a kiss for once. Also okay. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 7

A pleasant trip along a favorite path, decorated with beloved flowers. We all know it well, but it’s perfectly fine to enjoy it once again. ^_^

Many thanks to Jye N. for being kind enough to get “Chou Chou Nan Nan 2” and several other doujinshi for me! I’m savoring every page. Thank you for your kindness!

Posted in Takemiya Jin, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Yuri Light Novel: Gakuen Yuri Stories (学園百合ストーリーズ)

May 25th, 2015

GYSsYesterday, I talked a little about the series Seonam Girls High School Investigators, and why it’s far more important in terms of same-sex representation that a mere lesbian kiss.

Today I want to look at a series that purports to do the same thing and fails in every possible way to be anything expect excruciatingly bad porn.

Gakuen Yuri Stories (学園百合ストーリーズ) is a light novel that is set up as three stories about female couples in a high school. Right from the first moment, the book indicates that it has no intention of taking anything seriously and is just a 14 billionth reiteration of “first time” porn starring unrealistic girls in trope-y and uninteresting situations, while the language dwells lovingly on the creepiest of details and not at all about anything that girls actually might think.

I got to the first kiss between the first couple (hyper doofus and monotonal glasses girl), realized that they were segueing immediately from a first kiss straight to sex and closed the book, thus missing my chance to enjoy the adventures of Sachiko/Yumi clones and teacher and student.

Ratings:

Art – Yuck
Story – Ick
Characters – Types
Yuri – Yes
Service – 100%

Overall – 1

No thank you.

Posted in Light Novel | 6 Comments »


Yuri Live Action: Seonam Girls’ High School Investigators, Episodes 11 & 12

May 24th, 2015

seonamEarlier this year, South Korean TV made a breakthrough in portrayals of same-sex relationships with a lesbian kiss. The show takes place in high school;  like North America’s Degrassi High, the series dealt with things that teens might actually have to deal with; bullying, pregnancy, relationships, people, etc.  Wrapped in a setup that all would-be Harriet the Spys or Velmas might feel comfortable with, we join several outsider girls in a relatively normal high school, where they uncover the dark secrets of their fellow students…then try to make things right.

Seonam Girls’ High School Investigators is available to watch in it’s entirety on Viki.com, free and legally. Today we’re going to discuss Episodes 11 and 12. They center on two female students, Eun Bin and Soo Yeon, who are photographed kissing. Soo Yeon is identified, but refuses to name the other girl. Predictably, she is teased and ostracized, but her will is too strong and eventually, the other students back off. In episode 11, she asks the Investigators to please find out who is photographing students in compromising positions and posting them to the school online board, not for herself, since it is already too late, but to save Eun Bin from being discovered.

You can watch the episodes for yourself, so I won’t bother with a summary, but I have to say, I was completely captivated by the Investigators, who are so utterly dorkariffic that I adored them. Way more important than the kiss itself  was the discussion the Investigators have between themselves about homosexuality in general, how it made them feel – and why – and what they believed they ought to do  – and why. When they conclude that they would never like a person less for being gay, I wanted to hug them all. The kiss was fine, but the conversation was magnificent! It’s stuff like that, that’s gonna change the world.

That having been said, I want to take a step back and talk about the kiss for a second. It’s supposed to be sweet, slightly awkward and it is. It was exactly what it should have been. And for all that, it’s a million times a better kiss than anything I have ever seen in any Japanese media of any kind. Major score for the Koreans, they know how to kiss. ^_^

If you have no patience, don’t like Viki or have some other reason to not watch, I will leave you with this supercut of some of the Soon Yeon / Eun Bin scenes:

But you should watch this and learn to love the Investigators…and the distinct possibility for a happy ending. The story appears to end with Soo Yeon transferring out of the school…but that doesn’t mean she and Eun Bin are separated.

Really, just watch these episodes and get back to me. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Way better than I expected, but  par for the course on Korean dramas, so I’m told.

Posted in Live Action | 10 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 23, 2015

May 23rd, 2015

YNN_MariK

Short report this week, while I go out and have some fun.

Yuri Game News 

YNN Senior Correspondent Grisznak reports that the English language edition of the Love Live! game is set to mostly remove all implications of Yuri relationships between the characters from the script. I did a little checking and the company, KLab America, is the American office of the original Japanese company for the game, so if this is important to you,  write them and politely let them know how you feel.

24 May update: KLab America has responded to your comments on their Facebook page (click the link for the full response. They apologize, but don’t appear to plan to change anything:

“We would also like to address one specific concern raised by some gamers, namely that we were engaging in self-censorship by removing or softening some playful same-sex banter from the English version. This absolutely was not our intention. We localized the game based on our interpretation of the original anime contents, but at the same time, we also respect our gamers’ interpretations as well. We take to heart the comments from some of our gamers who felt we were dismissing them in some way by some of our translations. We truly regret any hard feelings that we may have caused. We love our games and our gamers and don’t want any of them to change!”

The creator of Starlight Vega wants thank everyone for their tremendous support of this Yuri-themed visual novel. You can still download the trial on Greenlight. If you’ve played this and have any thoughts and would like to write up something about first impressions, drop me a line!

Yuri Manga

YNN Correspondent Jackie S has amazing news -“per Takashima Hiromi’s twitter, the Kase-san series is getting a third volume sometime in August.” and she also points out that there is new chapter online (“Lemongrass and Kase-san“) to read for free.  I’m going to seriously give Shinsokan Publishing some props here. When they said they were going to keep publishing Hirari manga, I did not believe them. I was completely wrong and I’m glad about that. ^_^

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Citrus, Volume 4  which will hit streets in July in Japan, will also be available in a special edition bundled with a Drama CD, reports Comic Natalie. (Just as an aside,  Comic Natalie also calls this a “sister-love” title, so folks who think that incest is not the main selling point, that’s just denial talking. ^_^ )

I’m adding this one in because I find the description amusing. Comic Natalie calls Kuzushiro’s Love Desu (which hit streets this past week) a tale of expressing love through gun and knife. ^_^

 

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

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

Posted in Yuri Network News | 5 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, May 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 05 月号)

May 22nd, 2015

CYH052015I’m nervous. I’m really enjoying Comic Yuri Hime these days, but nothing lasts forever, right? As I read Comic Yuri Hime, May 2015 (コミック百合姫 2015年 05 月号) I couldn’t shake the feeling that the boot will drop and soon.

It appears to me, that the magazine has finally struck a balance between the – to me – unfathomable needs of Japanese fanboys and my own unfathomable needs as an American lesbian fangirl. ^_^ Sure, you guys can have your weirdly shaped breasts and bizarre crotch obsession and teary blobby-headed little girls, I’ll take the adults, the depth of emotion, the violent fighting and Iono-sama. ^_^ Deal?

If you don’t like what I do, then there’s “Netsuzou Trap – NTR”, a creeptastic story about two girls with boyfriends who get naked and do stuff on each other while their boyfriends are conveniently not in the room with them, “Citrus,” (on which I have officially given up completely, when a bad old trope that we’d already wallowed in and discarded comes back for a second appearance) and “To Lie-Anguru,” which I will never mention again. ^_^ “Yuru Yuri,”of course, and the “Yuri Danshi” narrative continues on in a slightly altered form with input from male and female Yuri fans in “Ore to Yuri.”

Almost everything in this volume continued on from last time, but there were a few highlights that stood out for me. Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, G Pen, Mesamashi Tokei.” went exactly where I had hoped, and shifted from “competent woman hustles while slacker slacks”, to “two adult women figuring out their lives.”

Nakahara Tsubaki’s “12 Minute Etude” is still cute in a non-intrusive way, as is “Inugami-san to Neko-yama -san,” and the excruciatingly adorable and fun “Kanaete! Yuri Yosei-san” which I still believe may be Minamoto Hisanari’s masterwork effort, in that he can combine the silliest of Yuri tropes, an absurdly adorable moe fairy and still have a lot of fun telling a story. ^_^

To scratch my itch for a little light violence, there’s still “Love Desu” and “Shoujo Shikaku”  for horror and major violence fans.

Takemiya Jin provides “Sakasama Oni-gokko”, Kano makes a debut with two stories and…to my absolute joy, Fujieda Miyabi is back, with a spin off of “Iono-sama Fanatics” called “Kokono-sama Fascinates” which follows the entirely unobjectionable adventures in love and lady-in-waiting gathering of Kokono, the daughter of Iono-sama and Eto. Squee.

So, see? We can all be happy.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If they can just keep this up forever, I’ll be satisfied.  ^_^

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »