Finding Queerness in All The Right Places

December 5th, 2023

We spent the last couple of days running from one section of town to another. This was a manhole cover not too far from the Animate main store. I guess Ikebukuro has it’s own mascots now.

I forgot to mention that I met the person behind the Yuri Times at Comitia! Ayumi is super lovely, and I applaud all her amazing work.  They just did an interview with I Don’t Know Which Is Love creator Tamamushi Oku in English, check it out.

We met up with BL idol researcher Thomas Baudinette for a lovely lunch, during which we talked about doing fieldwork when buying crap we want anyway, fandom’s problems with possessiveness and morality policing, about how the same “concerns” roll around with new names every generation, and real-person shipping.


While in Harajuku the other night, I saw something delightful! Back when I started looking for JP queer resources, there was (still is) a blog called Love Piece Club. They were a lesbian-run, sex-positive group that did workshops on female sexuality and gender. Their website sold sex toys when that kind of thing was just not done. In the same building that houses the Sailor Moon Store….look what I found!

A real-world Love Piece Club store.  It is amazing to me how things have changed.

We hit up Akihabara last night. Shosen Book Tower’s Yuri section is still on point. Comic Zin had a lot of Yuri doujinshi and we headed over to Gee! store, in hopes that they had a leftover Ralaire tee from the I’m In Love With The Villainess pop-up. They were out, but I found a fun G-Witch t-shirt instead.

It was a long day, but today is lecture day, so I will be braining all day and will therefore be quite stupid. ^_^ See you soon.

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Hana ni Arashi, Volume 11 (はなにあらし)

December 4th, 2023

Nanoha and Chidori are two young woman in love. They know that when they graduate thing will change and their lives will grow more compliacated, but for this one summer…. life is relatively simple.

Nanoha plans a wonderful, romantic date for Chidori’s birthday. While laying there, contemplating life after a magnificent picnic lunch, a sudden downpour drenches them both, in a moment that they both know is very representative of life. But still, it doesn’t change that they are happy and in love.

Kobachi Ruka’s Hana ni Arashi, Volume 11 (はなにあらし) is one more quietly sweet, timeless volume in this series that I cannot imagine has been given 11 volumes to so slowly movie through the lives of Nanoha and Chidori it almost feels as if we’re reading in real time.(Not really, but you know what I mean.) If anything, I force myself to read this manga slowly, so I don’t speed through it at the same pace they are speeding through their youth. ^_^

The art and narrative here are pretty, much like this cover. It’s all about precious moments that we remember. Many years from now they’ll be talk about that day and they’ll laugh, but one will remember the smell of the wet bus stop, and the other, the sun on their skin and it will fill them both with a lot of unspoken memories., which is exactly why we’re reading this series – to relive those moments from own own lives.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 1 Nanoha and Chidori dressing up for one another is a kind of service

Overall – 7

Only recently, my wife and were reminiscing about our dates to an infamous rodent-mascot pizza and arcade chain, before it got really the fuck weird, when it was only marginally weird. The pizza was never good, but the arcade was fantastic. We spent a lot of time and quarters  there. Oddly, I can only remember what it sounded like….you’d think I would be able to remember the smell of pizza.

I was wrong, there is a Volume 12…and 13, which appears to be the final volume. I can’t say I’m on tenterhooks, but I’ll be interested to see where this ends.

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Comitia 146

December 3rd, 2023

It has been nearly 5 years since we’ve been at Tokyo Big Sight. It was a bit moving to be back.

Comitia was not as large as it was in 2019, nor quite as high-level on design (for, I imagine, reasons of economics, time, health and sundry) but it was lovely to walk through a chunk of the hall to search Yuri circles.

We met up with Prof. James Welker and some of his students as they did fieldwork for class. They were lovely. Thanks for hanging with us! We also met briefly with Deb Aoki of Mangasplaining and the French translators she was accompanying. What lovely people.

We met Mutsumi Natsuo-sensei, the lead behind the Boyish² Butch x Butch Yuri anthologies and I briefly chatted with folks from Yuri Cafe Anchor, which we intend to visit later this week. I picked up some books by Taniguchi Shouichi who did Futari Escape and Tsukiko of Futaribeya as well as a couple of favorite circles. Here’s my gets:

 

We had a lovely dinner with James, then crashed and watched Mt. Fuji be amazing.

A night time walk around town and we found a second I’m In Love With The Villainess anime advert, this time in Ikebukuro Station.

While out and about, we encountered the Sailor Moon x Sanrio collab and dropped some money on stuff. Definitely some of these are for Lucky Boxes!

Today’s plans are a romantic lunch at a French restaurant, then Harajuku for more stuff!

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Around Town

December 2nd, 2023

We’ve made it safely back to Tokyo for the first time in 4 years. I’d say about 35-40% of folks are masked and of course we are, but I would feel better if it was more. Folks, please be considerate of yourself, your family and disabled and ill folks – wear a mask around other people. It will save lives.

Our first two days were mostly getting our city legs back. Riding the train, finding places to eat, braving Shibuya at rush hour on a Saturday…stuff like that.

On the way over I watched Barbie, Blue Beetle, A Haunting in Venice, and Encanto. Thoughts about all of them later. I have a lot of thoughts about them.

There is now a Melonbooks in my part of town, so I nabbed inori-sensei’s Yuusha ni Naritai Shoujo To, Yuusha Narubeki Kanojo (勇者になりたい少女と、勇者になるべき彼) light novel, with acrylic standee and bonus book cover and a couple of Yuri doujinshi that looked nice. That and a Akane-banashi gatcha have been my only gets so far.  Comitia today, so that’s likely to change!

Also fun, we walked right by the I’m In Love With The Villainess advert at Shinjuku station! The wife was like, “LOOK!” and I  said, “I guess I ought to take a picture.” LOL Later, I was yelling at myself for not being more excited.

 

 

See you on the other side of buying some doujinshi!

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Joshi-kou no Ouji-sama ha Watashi Shika Ganchuninairashi Yuri Anthology Comic (女子校の王子様は私しか眼中にないらしい 百合アンソロジーコミック)

December 1st, 2023

In a fervent wish that this next week be a week of discovery of amazing things, today I’m beginning with a new anthology and new imprint! Joshi-kou no Ouji-sama ha Watashi Shika Ganchuninairashi Yuri Anthology Comic (女子校の王子様は私しか眼中にないらしい 百合アンソロジーコミック) from LatteComi, is one of two Yuri anthologies they’ve just put out. As the title indicates, this volume is centered around the theme of the school prince.

This was a nice little collection, honestly. You’d think the theme of “school prince” was played out, but no, these are all solid takes on the trope. Which is not to say that they are all wholly original. The very first story, by Pya, is about Ruka and Rena, a Prince/Princess pair who looks shockingly like two familiar Sailor Senshi and a second school Prince who looks awfully like a French noble we know well. The story is, nonetheless quite cute, as Ruka and Rena complain about each other’s foibles to the hapless protagonist in “True Blue Baby.”

“M-na Ouji ni Aishikatta” by Junrei tells the story of Horimiya, a student who learns the prince’ secret, so they become friends, then more.

My favorite story happened to be by Takemiya Jin and combines two things she loves a lot – gaming and Yuri. Two girls who share the love of a specific character in a specific game find each other years after they first meet…and once again, the game brings them close. This was a very gentle and charming story that had me smiling the entire time. ^_^

A prince helps another student at a performing arts school get past her stage fright, and a girl is reunited with her prince at long last, but feels utterly inadequate, in other stories in this collection. All of these work perfectly fine as shorts, and the collection ends with character designs from each artist.  The whole collection was enjoyable without requiring deep emotional commitment.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Quite good
Stories – 8 Fun, with little depth
Characters – 8 YMMV, but there wasn’t anyone I disliked as a character
Service – There are different kinds of service, but no nudity or creeping.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

Most importantly, it was quite nice to see a new imprint. LatteComi is specializing in BL, Yuri and isekai. I hope it does not go the same way as the last two BL and Yuri imprints went, which is to say, they both do only BL now (there’s a trivia question – which two imprints am I referring to? They both came in to being and died in the last 5 years. If you get the answer, I’ll send you a prize!) 

If you’d like to give this anthology a try, there is a 15-page sample on Bookwalker JP for you to check out. Let me know what you think in the comments, if you do.

Posted in Yuri Anthology, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »