Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, January 2014 (コミック百合姫)

January 9th, 2014

While the cover of the January 2014 issue of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫) was much discussed for about 15 seconds when the art was released, the K-ON! clone art is pretty much the least notable thing about this issue. ^_^

The lead story is…well, it’s different. Loner girl find her alone time on the roof interrupted by the Student Council President who is there to stuff her face with junk food.  They get locked up there and end up having to jump the fence and drop two stories into the school pool. Love? I have no idea. ^_^

Love between sempai and kouhai in school and in adult life fill the next few pages. Chisako, having finished up her Dark Cherry to Shoujo A series, starts with another story about a boyish girl and her femme lover. Mio is a top-notch pro soccer player and is admired by many. Sakura, her lover is.,.just not satisfied. She couldn’t even tell herself why, so she splits from Mio. Time passes and she sees Mio again, and learns that her ex now has a boyfriend. Now that she can’t have what she had and threw away, Sakura desires it. Can you tell I’d like Mio to tell Sakura to get lost? I would. ^_^

Minamoto Hisanari is back with a fun story about the night-time shenanigans of the school’s 7 mysteries, which brings the girl who comes out of the picture on the stair in one wing together with Toilet Hanako in the other. and gives rise to a new mystery in the courtyard. This one was too adorable.

Amano Shuninta’s “Watashi no Sekai o Kousei Suru Chiri no You na” comes to an end…and I panicked. I was all “what if they don’t bring Amano-sensei back? Argh! Augh! (They will, next issue. New series. Phew.) The end was as perfect as the rest. No one goes off happily every after, but there’s real possibilities, and a number of lost chances. I really want Asuna to have a spin-off where she finds someone nice. Maasa’s new career is the big reveal and I totally approve.

“Game” by Takemiya Jin continues with an excellent, painful, sexy, uncomfortable chapter. Moriko’s sister turns out to be a Yuri fan and discovers ‘Riko’s stash of Yuri doujinshi by Becky. Becky wants to meet this sister and, of course they, sharing an interest, fall right in. Moriko feels left out and abandoned. To make up with Becky, she offers to wear cosplay of Becky’s fave character. When Moriko speaks like the character, Becky jumps her. It’s a hot kiss and Moriko is powerless to stop, even as she knows that it’s not her Becky is kissing. “Awkward” doesn’t begin to cover it.

“Love Gene Double XX”  by Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki also comes to an end. It is a better end then than I expected, back when I reviewed the first volume, not as good as I would have insisted if I were the editor. ^_^ Aoi and Sakura are forced to fight one another and the loser will be “demoted” to the position of Eve. The obvious issue here is that why the flying fuck is being an Eve a demotion? Setting aside the fact that that is still sexism, in a one-sex world, the thing is, neither Aoi nor Sakura are particularly inclined to become an Eve. More importantly they want to show how much each other means to them by fighting as hard as they can against one another, a conclusion that seems silly, but makes perfect sense if you’ve ever competed in anything. The effort you put into winning is your show of respect.

In the climactic moment, Sakura decides that she’d rather just be with Aoi, and lays down her sword as Aoi attacks. (A pretty important act, as she admits that becoming an Eve is acceptable.)  Sakura’s sister, the head of the school, scoops up Aoi and Sakura and has them seen to. In her office, Sumire tells Aoi that she is not alone in thinking separating Adams and Eves is a really fucking stupid, insulting idea and forbidding love between Adams and Eves is adding insult to injury. (She actually mentions same-sex couples existed before the men all died.) Sumire tells Aoi that she has every intention of becoming Prime Minister and changing the laws, before we see her leap into Matsuri’s arms. Aoi and Sakura are reunited, secure that they can, at least while at Kingdom, be together. In a Dark Horse pairing, Erika actually comforts Momiji and for a moment, we like them both, although realistically, they’ll be a terrible couple. ^_^

I would have liked to see the series actually address the changing of the rules, but at least it acknowledged that the rules were fucking stupid.

As always, there were other stories, but these were this issue’s heavy hitters for me. Morishima Akiko-sensei’s “Yuripchu” and Tanaka Minoru-sensei’s “Rock It Girl” return next volume and, phew!, a new series by Amano-sensei, new work by Minamoto-sensei and other continuing series, so I don’t have to panic. ~Breathe~

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I was on pins and needles reading the end of “Love Gene Double XX.” There were just so many things wrong with the set up, it could have gone very badly.

 

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »


Non Non Byori Anime (Guest Review by Bradley M.)

January 8th, 2014

nnbacrWhoo-hoo! Our first Guest Review of 2014. Even more exciting, it’s a brand-new Guest Reviewer. How cool is that? Today we welcome Bradley M. of Those Damn Cartoons! with a review of sleeper series Non Non Byori, the anime based on a manga I have never reviewed here. Please welcome Bradley to Okazu and shower him with praise and thanks!

Natsumi, Komari and Renge live so far out in the Japanese countryside that they’re not even sure they live in the countryside, since they’ve never had anything else to compare it to. But it’s a comfortable life. Their small town, which probably isn’t even a town but a small collection of farms that just happen to be within a few kilometers of each other, has a bus stop, a candy store, an unoccupied vegetable stand and a rundown school, where they make up three-fourths of the entire student body. But now they’re getting a fifth student and a new friend, Hotaru, who transferred in from the far-off land of Tokyo. She assures them that yes, they do live in the countryside, and also, Renge, it is weird for a family to own an entire mountain.

Non Non Biyori is an iyashikei anime like Aria and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, set in the modern Japanese countryside. It’s an idealistic cartoon that’s a bit like a picture of puppies- completely relaxed, intensely cute and utterly charming. This thirteen episode series is the ideal anime for a Sunday afternoon, watched while wrapped in a blanket and sipping coffee. These kind of anime tend to get labeled as “slice of life” and dismissed as moe fodder, but there’s a distinct tone that separates series like this one from, say, K-ON!, that’s important to note. That tone is gentleness, and a sense that anything wrong or threatening is miles away. It’s the idealism of Tolkien’s Rivendell transplanted to Japan, and while there may be cutesy comedy or some stressful problems, comfort is the overriding feeling through it all. That’s different from other series like Azumanga Daioh or K-ON! which, not to take away anything from them, are basically sitcoms.

Non Non Biyori opens with the strained, heartfelt sounds of a recorder playing a simple tune over lingering shots of its idealized countryside, firmly placing it in the iyashikei category. Its children are practically ideal as well, especially the very smart, if a bit loopy, second grader Renge, whose intensely cute voice (voiced by Kotori Kowai) is a little rough and always excited. If you aren’t grinning after hearing her greet Natsumi with a cheerful “Meowning!,” you could very well be dead inside.

Relationships and observational jokes about life in the countryside, children, and first (Yuri!) crushes are the dominant source of humor and heartbreak in Non Non Biyori, not only between the children but also their parents, teachers, and the other adults in their life. There’s a great sense of community here, where everyone knows everyone else and that provides a sense of security to the children and the viewer, even when the children struggle with losing friends to the end of summer break or have a hard time with their parents. It’s a community that would be the envy of Mennonites. This is a sensitive anime that’s completely in tune with its characters and setting.

Since this is Okazu, I should mention the Yuri, which comes from a subplot where Hotaru crushes on her sempai Komari, who is largely oblivious to her feelings. While it’s played largely as a childhood crush, the humor from this borders on creepy obsessiveness, since Hotaru does things like make little handmade Komari dolls, but it’s generally played tastefully and in good fun. It’s also just a cute pairing. Komari may be older but she’s much shorter and physically and mentally less mature than Hotaru, making for a nice contrast that lets the two of them play off of each other very well. Since this anime is almost entirely devoid of men, you can also detect hints of more Yuri goodness from other characters, though nothing else is as explicit.

Overall, Non Non Biyori is a very good cartoon with a narrow audience that does what it does competently. It does cute, funny and heartbreaking equally well on what is obviously a very small budget, with very little in the way of animation. Heck, they shamelessly try to save money by holding onto a still of a character’s face for nearly a minute, absent even some mouth flapping, and it says a lot about the writing that the scene still works, and made for one of the saddest moments in the series. We seemed to get at least one relaxed Yuri-esque comedy like this every season, and for my money, this one was my favorite.

Non Non Biyori is currently streaming (free, legally, with regional restrictions) on Crunchyroll.

Art – 5 (Unremarkable animation)
Character – 8 (Well realized characterization, both children and adults, is core to the series’ appeal)
Story – 8 (Equally adept at low key comedy and more intimate drama)
Yuri – 4 (Not primarily a yuri series, but it’s a welcome element)
Service – 2 (Beyond a beach episode, this series doesn’t have much fanservice, and I prefer it that way. It fits the tone.)
Overall – 7
Erica here: Many, many thanks to you, Bradley for this relaxing, pleasant review of what definitely appears to be a relaxing, pleasant anime!
Posted in English Anime, Guest Review | 3 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story, Volume 1 (百合☆恋)

January 6th, 2014

I finished off the last year with the best, so it stands to reason that I’m starting off the new year with, if not the worst, then the “just not terribly good.” ^_^

OKS Comix is a anthology publisher that got traction back in the day doing series anthologies, and generally “adult” anthologies. They’ve got a series of Yuri☆Koi Girls Love Story (百合☆恋) anthologies of which this one is the first.

The first story, by Yamaguchi Serika, is fantastic – by my standards. After breaking up with her boyfriend, Kanae gets a call from her older sister that she’s coming to visit. When Mizuho arrives, she’s accompanied by another woman, Ena, whom Mizuho introduces as her girlfriend. As they prepare dinner and spend the evening talking, Kanae learns that Mizuho and Ena have been seeing each other for two years and have been living together for a year. Kanae is forced to realize that she knows nothing about her sister’s life. Ena and Mizuho are adorable together and it’s pretty obvious that they are also blissfully happy. Kanae starts to think about her boyfriend and how they were happy together, As the chapter ends, she is reaching for her phone. To Be Continued… and I’m tempted to get Volume 2 just to find out what happens, despite the fact that the quality of the book plummets after this story.

The rest of the book goes steadily downhill from uninteresting moe girls sort of liking one another to uninteresting moe girls having messy sex in bathroom. So something for everyone, I guess. (-_-)

Ratings:

Art – Averaging around 6
Stories – The first one is an 8, dropping down to 3 at worst
Characters – Variable
Yuri – Averaging around 8
Service – Starting at 3, topping off at 10

Overall – Without the first story, 5, with the first story, 7

It is my very genuine pleasure to start the year with a shoutout of thanks to Okazu Superhero Dan P. for his sponsorship of today’s review! And should you want to join our list of Okazu Heroes on the sidebar, remember, it’s as easy as sponsoring a review from my Yuri Wishlist on Amazon or Amazon JP! Help keep Okazu functioning and get snide reviews in return – it’s a win-win! (Disclaimer: Snide reviews not guaranteed. Sometime I like sponsored items.)

Posted in Yuri Anthology, Yuri Manga | 4 Comments »


2014 Okazu Guide to Buying Anime and Manga from Japan

January 5th, 2014

glsign-aniA number of folks are asking about buying from Japan, or buying Yuri in Japan. I’ve written about this a number of times but sites close down and stores go out of business, so I’m going to do an updated guide. This is not meant to be comprehensive – any attempt at comprehensive in a rapidly changing world is doomed to fail. ^_^

I want to clearly note that this is not a definitive Guide to Shopping for Yuri. It is a guide to shopping for Japanese items; manga, anime, etc. There re no all-Yuri on one place stores in Japan, The lack of all-something-everywhere is true for any genre. There is no store in Japan that sells every BL comic, or Seinen comic ever published, either. Manga stores in Japan give store space to the new and the best sellers, just like American bookstores. (The new Yuricon store is getting closer to being just that all-Yuri-in-one-place store online! We have all the English-language Yuri anime and Yuri manga and a lot of the Japanese Yuri manga , digital manga, literature, Drama CDs, and even light novels…and we’re adding new items every day. Check out the Yuricon Store and see for yourself!)

I’ll be using Manga as the default example, so unless otherwise noted, the item in question is a book. And in Japanese. ^_^ It might be a Drama CD or an artbook or a Japanese DVD set, but it’s all the same for our purposes.

Also, this is not a guide to buying Yuri anime or manga you can get from western companies. RightStuf, Funimation, Sentai Filmworks and Seven Seas, are all available on the Yuricon Store. I trust you to be able to look those up for yourselves on the site search, or use links provided here on Okazu. You should also be able to place manga orders with your local comic book stores or chain stores, and there are any number of  respectable online websites like Anime Castle and Robert’s Anime Corner that stock all sorts of toys, anime and manga.

Before I get to the meat of this post, let me remind you of two things:

1) This is an Okazu Guide. It comes imbued with common sense and a dose of harsh reality. ^_^ Manga, Anime, Figurines and Games are Luxury Items. You do not need them. You want them. The presumption of all market forces is if you want a thing, you have to be able to afford it.

2) You can get things you want but one way or another you will pay for them. When I buy Japanese manga, one of us, the manga or I, has to travel 6500 miles to get it. Either way, it costs money. ^_^

That having been said, here we go!

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Part 0. Know What You Are Buying

Before you start shopping, I strongly recommend you learn at least a few things:

1. The actual Title of the Manga in Japanese.

It’s all well and fine to say you like “Chatting at the Amber Teahouse” but there is no manga with that name. There is only an illicit scan. No bookstore, no website can help you find that. The title of Fujieda-sensei’s manga about two women and a tea shop is 飴色紅茶館歓談. That is what you will need to have with you when you search.

2. The Author’s name in Japanese. Wikipedia, AnimeNewsNetwork and other encyclopedias are a huge help to identify this sort of thing. Put an author’s name in a search engine and you will find that Fujieda Miyabi is written 藤枝雅. For Part 2, Shopping in Japan below, you might want to print out the title, publisher and author’s names for yourself. For Part 1, Shopping Online, cut and paste will do.

3. When you plan on shopping in person, it also very much helps to know what demographic audience the book is for. This is indicated by the Publisher and Imprint. We’ll get more deeply into that in Part 2.

 

Part 1. Shopping Online

2015 Update:  We’ve made amazing progress on the new Yuricon Store. Check out the listings there first.

Untitled-1

We have links to major retailers (Amazon, Amazon JP and RightStuf), descriptions, links to reviews, and you can search in English or Japanese, for author, title, or publishing company. And series have been tagged by subject, so you can look at title that are about adult life or magical girl with ease.

For instance, you can search for Aoi Hana or 青い花, both of which will bring up all the English and Japanese listings – anime, digital manga, and Japanese manga. If you search Sweet Blue Flowers, you’ll only pull up the English-language anime and the English-language digital manga.

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Amazon Japan is my default for purchasing Japanese items. I choose them because 1) their selection is very good (often better than shopping in stores in Japan); 2) I am an affiliate, so every time you buy through a Yuricon Shop or Okazu link, I get a few yen to support my own habit and;  3) It is very easy to use.

Let’s say you click through an Okazu link for Aoi Hana, Volume 8. Here’s what you see:

AJP1

 

Everything is in Japanese, except one thing. Notice the red arrow on the right? It points to a sentence that reads “Would you like to see this page in English? Click here.”  If you click the link, the page looks like this:

AJP2

Things like this book is “In Stock” and the “Add to Shopping Cart” button turn into English. The title, the author, the publishing company do not. They don’t, because the title of the book is still 「青い花」 and the author’s name is still 志村貴子.

What that English link does do is make checking out much faster. ^_^ If you’ve ever used Amazon, you probably don’t even need to bother turning the page to English, the checkout is the same, all the buttons shapes and sizes are the same. But if you want to lessen the friction, just click that English button and it’s all words you know.

Shipping: Amazon only ships by air. You can choose that you want the items grouped or separate, but no other shipping options exist. My advice is to order about 20 items at a time, grouped into one order. That brings the shipping cost-per-item down to $4, which is totally palatable. Exchange rates will make a difference too. Shipping that might cost $100 when the exchange rate is good could be a lot more when it’s poor. If you choose “group them together” and something hasn’t been released yet, sometimes Amazon JP send it separately when it gets in stock and sometimes they hold the whole order and I have not been able to figure out what the triggers are. It’s often haphazard.

There is no Yuri category on Amazon JP. Yuri books are listed under the BL category. Book>. Comic/Light Novels/BL> Comic:  本 > コミック・ラノベ・BL > コミック You need to know your title, or your author’s name in Japanese.

Amazon JP often will not ship figurines, but to be honest, I do better in cost these days buying figurines on Amazon.com. Last year, I would have paid $45 or so for a Saber figurine in Japan, then would have had to get it home on my own. I found the same figurine for $36 with free Prime shipping on Amazon.com.

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YesAsia is a popular choice for buying Asian goods. I have not used them in probably a decade, so I have no idea how good their service is. They do offer shipping discounts for orders over a certain amount.  If you want Japanese manga, but do not know any Japanese at all, they seem like a decent choice.

yesa

 

The site is in English, the dollar amounts are in USD and it looks like they still offer various shipping options, like standard mail and express. Their stock is not bad, you can search for authors and titles in romaji (English characters used for Japanese words, like “ameiro kouchkan kandan”).  The cost of the books is higher than on Amazon JP because YesAsia includes the cost of shipping to them in the cost of the item. Some books, especially newer books, might more expensive as a result. Thanks to Greg for the testimonial on them and  Laura for letting us know that YesAsia ships worldwide.

There is no Yuri category on YesAsia. You need to know your title and/or author’s name transliterated name in English.

Rinkya is a buying and bidding service. They’ve been around more than a decade. I have never used them (for entirely personal reasons that are irrelevant here.) If you are bidding on an item on Yahoo JP auctions and want a buyer to bid for you, arrange the shipping and payment (since most Japanese auctions won’t ship internationally) they can do that. Sometimes they sell stock that people never claimed from their warehouse. They do offer slow boat options for shipping. Yahoo JP auctions are like the Mandarake of online shopping. People get rid of collections, old toys, rare items. It might not be cheap, but back in the day when I shopped the auctions, I got some amazing stuff.

BK1 used to be a popular book selling alternative, but they have become honto. AudioErotica has graciously jumped in to tell us that they still do ship internationally and yes, they have slower/cheaper shipping methods available.

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Part 2. Shopping in Japan

In November 2012, I wrote a guide to Shopping for Yuri in Japan. By October 2013, some of the store-specific information was already obsolete.

But this is where the info I mentioned in Part 0 really comes in handy. I have said this with every single buying guide I’ve written:

To effectively shop for manga in Japan, you need to know three things. Books are not generally shelved by genre, but by imprint. So first you need to know what age/gender demographic you’re looking at, then publisher/imprint, then author. And once you have found one publisher’s Yuri manga, don’t think you’ve found it all. The sign above might say “Yuri”, but there could be more under a different publisher’s imprint elsewhere.

Know if the book you’re looking for is for girls (少女), boys (少年),for women (女性), for men (男子) – these  are not necessarily listed as sections in the bookstore, you just need to know who the title you’re looking for is targeted to. Then look for the publisher, (Hobunsha 芳文社, Ichijinsha 一迅社, Futabasha 双葉社) then look for the imprint (YH Comics, Tsubomi Comics, Mangatime KR Comics) then look for the author. If you are new to this, and don’t read Japanese, take a printout of the cover you’re looking for. And take a look at the spine of the books you do have and memorize the characters. The publisher is listed at the bottom of the spine, the imprint along the top. Get to know your books!

The main areas of Tokyo for manga shopping are:

Akihabara for guy-focused stuff (which includes Yuri)

Ikebukuro for girl-focused stuff (which includes BL, but you can find some Yuri)

Nakano Sun Mall for older stuff, like classic Yuri.

Shibuya for another Animate and Mandarake.

Stores change their location, stock, layout and focus all the time, so check out other resources for what is open and what isn’t. Every large city in Japan has its own geeky area. Check current travel guides or look for Animate store locations as a orienteering hint.

There are, as of October 2013 no Yuri-only stores anywhere in the world. You’re going to have to shop the old fashioned way.

**New as of October 2014** – Toranoana in Akihabara has a multipublisher Yuri section. So does Comic Zin in Akihabara, although it’s fairly small. This is a major, massive change. Never before has there been a section that was really “Yuri”. It was amazing to see different publishers side by side.

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Part 3. Shopping at Conventions and Bookstores

If you live near or within travel distance of a large city, you probably have two possible old-fashioned fan choices to shop in, that you’re not using.

Anime Conventions used to be the ONLY place a fan could go to get toys, anime and manga. Because it is so much easier to shop online, a lot of fans forget that cons are still a good place to go to find stuff. But they are. ^_^ What cons aren’t any more is…rare. So the old wheeze that if you shop on Sunday as people are packing up, they’ll give you a good deal doesn’t apply much. What the dealer doesn’t sell this weekend goes with them to the next con and the next, and the next. If you have a local con and you haven’t been in a while, drop by…you never know what you’ll find. But…fashion and media still go hand in hand. If you’re looking for old school items, don’t be surprised when all the vendors are carrying the new, the hot, the hip. They want to sell stuff. Carrying that girl-type Ranma 1/2 figure around for a decade until you decide you’re ready to buy it isn’t really cost efficient, when they can sell 1500 Attack on Titan things instead. ^_^

Japanese bookstores. Kinokuniya and Sanseido are two large Japanese bookstore chains that have US locations. They will order books and magazines for you, but you still need to know the publisher and title. (Bring along a print copy of, say,  コミック百合姫、一迅社, to let them know you want Comic Yuri Hime put out by Ichijinsha.) If you’re in a location near or within travel distance of either store, it’s worth a visit, so you can see how the manga are arranged by demographic/publisher/imprint/title. (English manga is arranged alphabetically by title, and who can blame them?)

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Conclusion

Shopping for Yuri is still challenging, but do not despair! The hunt is part of the fun.  Take this opportunity to learn a bit of Japanese, and you’ll find that you’ll be able to understand more of what you’re buying, as well.  ^_^

Posted in Gift Guides, Miscellaneous, Now This Is Only My Opinion, Tokyo Journal, Yuri Network News | 24 Comments »


Yuri Network News (百合ネットワークニュース) – January 4, 2014

January 4th, 2014

YNN_LissaHappy First news report of 2014! Since the new anime season is imminent, I thought I’d start the year with a few trailers and some news.

Yuri Anime

Sakura Trick will get its first airing on the 9th. No idea yet if anyone will be streaming it legally. I know a bunch of folks are looking forward to it. Here’s the minute long trailer and you can decide for yourself. ^_^ Thanks to YNN Correspondent Grisznak for the link. ^_^

Speaking of trailers, the first Akuma no Riddle trailer is up with some character intros and vague mood-setting visuals. ^_^

Saki Zenkoku-hen trailer is online and all of a sudden, I really wanted to see this. ^_^

Let us not forget the Bodacious Space Pirates movie coming in February. Second trailer is up.

Wow, really? A new Houkago no Pleiades movie? Cool. (Corporate-sponsored/themed anime is all the rage. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of this in days to come.)

Noir is gonna look pretty great in the newly remastered BD Box set.

And, of course we’re all still waiting breathlessly for…something, anything…on the upcoming Sailor Moon anime.

No trailer but, while you’re upgrading your Bubblegum Crisis collection, consider adding the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 box to it. (Best anime music ever.)

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That’s a wrap for this week! 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 Anime, Yuri Network News | 8 Comments »