Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


I Can’t Believe I Slept With You, Volume 1

February 21st, 2022

Can a bunch of wrongs make a right? Miyako Miyahara is sure gonna try in her romantic comedy I Can’t Believe I Slept With You, Volume 1.

Chiyo Koduka is depressed. Out of work, down on her luck, she’s three months behind on the rent and sees no hope. When her landlady shows up with an offer she can’t refuse, she doesn’t refuse. But she’s not thrilled. The landlady is willing to forgive a day’s rent when Chiyo provides “favors,” which is where they begin.

As the days pass, the landlady’s favors become much less extreme, sliding from playing games together, to a comforting hug. Chiyo is pretty clueless as to why her landlady might be making such a one-sided offer, but we know the truth, and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect.

Koduka is clueless, clumsy but she was good at one thing and would really like a chance to do it again. For the sake of the plot, she also has absurdly bad luck, which wore on me. The landlady (we don’t learn her name until the end of the volume,) is kind, thoughtful, competent and very sad. It’s this that colors the whole book for me. As a romantic comedy, when the comedy is rooted in pain, it’s hard for me to laugh.

All of that said, by the very end of the volume, it is apparent to us that the landlady is not a pervert or an opportunist. She’s a very lonely woman in a one-sided relationship. Which leaves is with Koduka. She easy to sympathize with, I think we’ve all been where she is in one way or another. But the hapless doofus is a hard sell for me.  Your mileage might vary of course but, for me, Koduka will be the biggest hurdle in this story. I just cannot find “funny” bad luck amusing. It kills me in Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, (推しが武道館いってくれたら死ぬ ) every time. Like, we get it. She’s a hapless ne’er do well. Ha. Ha. Ugh.

Kiyahara’s art is solid, most of the scenes take place in a small Japanese apartment, so no grand artistic scale is needed, but the creator does a solid job of making the apartment feel…small. This is something I rarely see, as artists tend to give their characters plenty of room in those imaginary studio apartments.

The strongest moment is the reveal of the name the series was originally going with, “Even if it was just once, I regret it.” This moment in the narrative gave me what hope I have for the series.

Let me perfectly honest here – romantic comedy is not my genre. I find it almost impossible to accept the premise and just roll with it. Hopeless x hapless do not a comedy make, for me. But, if you like romantic comedy you might very well like this series. I think it has a good heart and isn’t planning on torturing either reader or characters, like Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7, but I hope it does something interesting with itself.
Characters – 7, same.
Service – Implicit, yes, but not overt.
Yuri – 9, but dropping down to a steady 7 as the true story unfolds

Overall  – A solid 7 with plenty of room to grow.

While I have got little hope that this series will be anything different than what it is, I still hope for the landlady to be less forlorn sad and Koduka to become less clueless. Anything less would make it, well, another Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu. One of those in my life is enough.

Thanks very much to Seven Seas for the review copy!





The Girl I Want is So Handsome! Complete Manga Collection

February 18th, 2022

In 2019 and 2021, Yuri Hime Comics released two volumes of Ikemen-sugi desu, Shiki-senpai!, both of which were reviewed here on Okazu (Volume 1 | Volume 2). Today we’re taking a look at Seven Seas’ English-language edition, The Girl I Want is So Handsome! Complete Collection

Hinami is a typical high school first-year, a little excitable, but sweet and kind. She also completely overwhelmed Shiki-sempai, the attractive star of the basketball team and, as a result, finds herself recruited to the basketball team. As team manager, she finds herself at Shiki-sempai’s side every day. But will she be able to become the manger Shiki’s friend Miyamoto wants her to become and what does Shiki-sempai really think of her?

As I said of my review of the Japanese manga, “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.” This is a straight-up Story A, where the main conflicts are minor misunderstandings and mixed messages about liking someone, with relatively simple resolutions, leading a sweetly insubstantial story. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either. Sometimes, you just want something that is harmless fun, like a cotton candy of Yuri manga, as it turns out, I also said of the original Japanese manga. ^_^

Yuama’s art is growing even as this story goes on, and with the whole thing in one volume, you can really see the art progress from the opening chapter to the happy, squishy end.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 9

If you need a light, super-sugary Yuri manga at the end of your week, this is a good bet.





Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru, Volume 1 (踊り場にスカートが鳴る)

February 17th, 2022

Haruma Kiki is part of ballroom dance club, with dreams of being a champion and leading her school’s famous Quadrille. Tall and stately, she’s always assigned the part of lead…but Kiki dreams of being the following partner.

As Utatane Yuu’s Odoriba ni Skirt ga Naru, Volume 1 (踊り場にスカートが鳴る) begins, Kiki’s partner has split with her. Kiki is devastated,, but knows she’ll never find a partner to be her lead. Along on the landing of a stairway, she imagines herself with a partner to lead her in the dance. There, as she dances alone, she is seen by Toribami Michiru, who has decided to become her lead. Only, Toribami is shorter than average and with Kiki’s height, will anyone take them seriously?

This story sounds really light-hearted, but it’s actually ever so slightly melancholy. Kiki’s got a lot of dislike for her body and its betrayal of her dreams, so Toribami has to work extremely hard to get past that to convince Kiki that she’s sincere. But, for those moments when the two of them are dancing together, it’s a worthy journey.

The manga is ongoing in Comic Yuri Hime magazine, and Volume 2 will get them past a lot of the baggage Kiki is carrying, in both a physical and emotional sense. There is no Yuri in a romantic sense, as of yet except by osmosis. We will get Michiru in suit and tie, Kiki in dress. Here in Volume 1, emotions are intense, but romance is not among them at the moment.

I love the art in this story – it’s just wonderful. And despite the slight darkness in the corners, the spotlight is always carried by Michiru, so there ends up a constant strain of hopefulness, that grows a little bit with every chapter.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1 on principle
Service – Nah

Overall – 9

Who knew that a “Girl Meets Girl Story of Ballroom Dance” would be one of my favorite manga, but it absolutely is. I can’t wait to see Kiki and Michiru lead the Quadrille. ^_^





Galette, No. 20 (ガレット)

February 16th, 2022

Galette, No. 20 (ガレット) wraps up the 5th year of this crowdfunded, creator-owned magazine. In these past tumultuous years, they’ve put out 20 issues of the magazine, 18 issues of Galette MEETS and almost a dozen collected volumes. A pretty amazing feat especially as their main method of sales, comic markets, have been severely hamstrung for 3 years now and the pandemic (and shifting crowdfunding sites) caused havoc in their fundraising.

I follow a lot of creators on their Pixiv Fanboxes and the pandemic has wreaked havoc in another way, too. Creators are suffering, folks. Their opportunities have been cut off, a lot of them are depressed, and the lack of funds is hurting them, too. It’s pretty rough to read posts sometimes. If you can support your favorite creators by throwing them a buck or two on their crowdfunding sites, please do.

So here we are at an amazing moment in time, Galette has been in print longer than any Yuri manga magazine except Comic Yuri Hime! Even if it were to fold this year, it has done a lot and every one involved should be really proud.

Galette No. 20 (ガレット) features a full half dedicated to Hakamada Mera’s series Aikata System (相方システム), the first two volumes of which I have reviewed here on Okazu.

As always I really enjoyed Kitta Izumi and Momono Moto‘s Liberty, and Morinaga Milk’s Watashi no Kawaii Neko-chan, which has been licensed by Seven Seas as My Cute Little Kitten.

But tops for me this issue was the final chapter of a series that I have been following since the beginning,  Sora-iro Melancholic, which ended with an epilogue that dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s. It was a perfect ending to that series, the first volume of which I have also reviewed! ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Another fine volume of Galette! This one is not up on Bookwalker, I don’t know if it will be, but you can get it on US Kindle in Japanese, as well as Amazon JP in print and digital.

The 5th anniversary volume is now up on Amazon JP, and I can’t wait to see what it offers.

 
 




Bloom Into You Anthology, Volume 2

February 15th, 2022

It has a been a few months since we took a look at the first Bloom Into You Anthology. Now, here we are with the the second and final volume the franchise, Bloom Into You Anthology, Volume 2.

Overall, I found this volume to be more entertaining than the first, with stories that interested me slightly more. As I never was a huge fan of Touko and Yuu as a couple, I was glad to see that this story focused a little on Sayaka and Yuu as mutuals of Touko, but not actually friends on their own. I also like that a few stories remember to include the rest of the club and Koyomi, a character I found way more interesting than our principals.

Completely unsurprisingly, the story I liked best remains the story with Sayaka and Miyako that begins with Sayaka doing a little everyday venting about Haru, in Six Years Later, Still By Your Side, by Yodokawa. What made this story appealing to me, is Miyako’s joy in watching her young friend being able to complain about her lover with a confidante. “Besides it’s nice. Getting to hear you complain about a partner of your own.” BAM. There is such power in having people to confide in. Whether it is for serious stuff or life’s little sillinesses, the entire reason I have an fondness at all for this series (other than Koyomi) is the fact that young, unsure, baby lesbian Sayaka just happened to have someone to talk to. That Miyako was willing to step into that role, really elevated what otherwise might have been a sad-lesbian-best-friend scenario.

Kiss & White Lily creator Canno also weighed in with a solid friendship story, which I quite enjoyed. I’m really all in for friendship between girls and women stories right now.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

If you enjoyed Bloom Into You, then there any number of stories which feel like spending more time with good friends. On the whole, I found this anthology a better bet than the first in both art and story. As I said in my review of this volume in Japanese, I only wish Maria-sama ga Miteru had come out now, in this golden age of Yuri, and we would have had all the anthologies in English and I would have been so, so happy. ^_^; But here e are, ready to say goodbye to the modern gateway Yuri series with a very pleasant little volume, spending tome with characters we like.