Yuri Manga: Blue Friend, Volume1

December 20th, 2010

Man, was Blue Friend (ブルーフレンド) depressing.

Where Nakayoshi‘s Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi is melodramatic in a Strawberry Panic! kind of way, and Ciao‘s Waza-ari Kiwami-chan is energetic and positive, Ribon Magazine’s contribution to the growth spurt of Yuri in shoujo manga trots out every nasty, tawdry, icky-feeling, angst-making trope it can find. And does it quite well. ^_^;

Ayumu is athletic, popular, smart. Misuzu is ostracized, unlovable, broken. Through circumstance, Ayumu find herself defending Misuzu against just about every jerky way school kids have to be mean to each other. And for her troubles, she is rewarded by a kiss from Misuzu. Misuzu, who hates boys, eventually admits that Ayumu – and only Ayumu – can be close to her. But this immediately turns possessive, when Misuzu runs off a boy who wants to become close to Ayumu. Even though it ultimately turns out that Misuzu was right and the boy was a jerk, the two cannot get their act together as friends or…whatever…because immediately a new threat appears. Someone who knows Misuzu’s dark past is determined to torture her with it. Notes threatening Misuzu appear in her locker. Ayumu can see something is bothering Misuzu, but does not know what.

The newcomer, Satsuki, who has returned from suspension for undisclosed reasons, clearly has an axe to grind and grind it she does, against Ayumu’s unknowing friendship and Misuzu’s already ground-down soul.

Thing come to a climax when papers identifying Misuzu as having had an affair with an older man, a doctor, and ruining him, are plastered all over the school. In Misuzu’s memory, we can see that this is probably not the whole story, but it’s too late for Misuzu, who collapses.

There will be a second volume, and there is an (apparently happy) after-story that has just been published, but Volume 1 is pretty much unremitting angst, no less angsty because you can see everything coming from a mile away. Ayumu is a bit too completely perfect, Misuzu is a bit too completely broken for my taste. But both are sympathetic in their own ways. I do hope for that happy ending, even if I know it’s not going to be them together.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service –  3

Overall – 6

If you loved Pieta, or any of the old, angsty classics of Yuri manga, you  should probably take a chance on Blue Friend.

I did want to mention that the obi that comes with this volume reads “This Yuri Manga is great” in Japanese. Now that’s kinda interesting, isn’t it?

Posted in Yuri Manga | 4 Comments »


Top Ten Yuri Manga of 2010

December 19th, 2010

As always, writing this list is a struggle. Am I telling you the 10 I liked the most? Including lesser titles because I know you can get a copy? Am I merging English and Japanese titles to fill spaces, or separating them so I can include more?

There was a nice pile of manga on my possibles list when all was said and done, so I am going to separate out the English titles, otherwise they’d never appear on the list at all. Which means you’re getting a Top 5 in each language.

Let me remind you, as I always do, that these lists are *in my opinion* and therefore may not be your opinion. You are most welcome to add items you feel were noteworthy in the comments. Without further ado, here are my Top Yuri Manga Lists for 2010

Top Five Yuri Manga in English

10) Jormungand – Right, the Yuri is barely there, but what there is is openly portrayed for the one-sided (but not rejected or mocked) crush it is. Otherwise, it’s a ridiculous story full of guns and chases and people dying – i.e, a good action story.

9) K-ON! – One of the abiding qualities of anime and manga fandom is the insistence on seeing relationships where there are none. Mugi does that for you, so you don’t have to. Oh and by the way, the series is a delightful slice-of-life comic strip with charming characters.

8) Azumanga Daioh Omnibus – Azumanga Daioh was the first 4-koma style story to make it big over here, very likely because the anime hit first. It set the bar for those following it and when Yen put out a new edition, they brought us back to that magical moment when we discovered the Japanese comic strip. For letting us relive that, and reminding us what we’re looking for, the new edition gets #3 on this list.

7) Hayate x Blade – I’m not done talking about this series, even though this may or may not be it for us in English. (I don’t know Seven Seas’ plans any more than you do, so don’t ask.) For getting as far as Hitsugi and Shizuku being awesome in battle (background music and all) and giving us the slightest taste of Sid and Nancy, as well as all the wonderful shinyuu pairs and their Yuri-ish sensibility, Hayate x Blade is forever in my Top Two.

6) Gunsmith Cats Burst – The final moment of this series came with exactly the right note of melancholy, hope, sex and danger. Surrounded by car chases, gun fights, explosions and drugs, Rally Vincent conceded the one thing she could never truly keep to Goldie. And the story bowed out with a recognition of all that we had ever thought was true. In English, in the year 2010, this is my Top Yuri Manga.

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Top Five Yuri Manga in Japanese

5) Ohana Holo Holo – This story was an unexpected find. It’s not a “Yuri story,” but this tale of an alternative family far surpasses the confines of any category. A past love shapes a current relationship and there’s some sense that that love may not yet be dead. However, that’s not the point of the story. The point is that the family we make is as strong as any family we are born into. This is an excellent manga and I look forward to more.

4) Octave/GIRL FRIENDS/Aoi Hana/Renai Joshika/Sasamekikoto – These series are all, in their own way, creating a revolution. Dramatic, funny, sexy, cute, every one of these books did something special – they looked at love between women not as a fetish, but as a relationship. These books took us step by step through the process of feeling scared, ecstatic, alone, fulfilled, all the many and various ways that we can feel when we find ourselves attracted to another woman. These stories capture everything from first love to old loves rekindled in an refreshingly honest, no-punches-pulled way. This is the revolution we’ve been waiting for. Here it is. Girls loving girls, women loving women, portrayed with honesty and depth by artists who care to tell a story, not just frame a sex scene.

(Yes, yes, this is a cheat, by making this a 5-way tie, but it’s because the stories themselves take back seat to the intent here. I can sleep at night with this, so don’t complain. ^_^)

3) Rakuen Le Paradis – By far and away, my favorite of the quarterly anthologies I’m reading right now. Artists I like, telling stories I like, with a decidedly “talking to the adults in the room” flavor. This is not for the kiddies, and moe fans will be turned right off by most of what’s here. This is the magazine I’ve been waiting for for years. If I could give Yuri Hime one piece of advice, I suggest it use Rakuen as a role-model, so it grows up into a beautiful, poised woman.

I almost fudged this again and went for a tie. But no, I’m going to force myself to make a decision. It could have easily gone the other way. But here we go. My top two series of the year are:

2) Gunjo – There’s just about nothing left I can say about this series that I haven’t already said. Nakamura Ching-sensei is one of my heroes. She tells this remarkable story with her whole heart and soul and every single chapter I am flattened by it. Volume 1 is one of my prize possessions. Brutal, dark, touching, sublime…this series is still the most amazing thing I have ever read and I still have no idea where she’s going with it. Like I said, this easily could have been Number 1 this year. Gunjo is a masterwork.

1) Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi – The sole reason this series made number 1 is because it led the pack in bringing Yuri back to shoujo manga. Yuri in seinen has never been a surprise, and in shounen has been used as a plot complication for many years, and it’s resurgence in josei has been on the rise for the past few years…the one place it was missing was shoujo. Shoujo Yuri is what got me into the genre and this series, this child of Maria-sama ga Miteru and Strawberry Panic!, has led the genre back full-circle. The series is utterly melodramatic, romantic, creepy, sexy – a perfect Yuri soap opera. Because I’m apparently a sap for Yuri in shoujo manga, Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi makes my #1 spot for the year.

What was your top ten for 2010? I look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments!

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion, Top Yuri Lists | 6 Comments »


Yuri Network News – December 18, 2010

December 18th, 2010

Short report today, folks. It’s been a long week.

Yuri Manga 

YNN Correspondent Katherine H. starts us off right with the news that the first volume of Waza ari- Kiwami-chan ( わざアリっ きわみちゃん ) is due on the shelves on December 24. You may recall from my review, this series has a little bit of Yuri in the form of a friend crushing on Kiwami, but the real strength of the story is in Kiwami’s “this girl don’t take no BS from the boys” attitude.

The New Year is also going to start off with  bang – the second volume of GUNJO (羣青) will be on sale at the end of January. This year the story has been full of wild ups and downs. I haven’t been reviewing the chapters because every time I get a copy of IKKI, I think I’ll catch you all up…then the story overwhelms me and I can’t write about it. I’ve begun describing reading this series as “eating the most delicious razorblades ever.”

Also on sale at the end of January, Mikuni Hachime’s Mousou HONEY (妄想HONEY), a collection of the Yuri Hime installments.

From MangaTime KR comes Kyoumei Suru Echo (共鳴するエコー), a collection of stories that range from school love to love between adults and all around the barn. Regard for this collection has been rather high on the Japanese Yuri lists, but I’m always loathe to take that as gospel. In any case, this seems like an interesting bet.

Ibara no Namida, ( いばらの泪 ) is another Yuri Hime collection slated for the beginning of next year.

And just a reminder that Tsubomi, Vol. 9 (つぼみ)  is now available. Can you believe that? They must have had some good investment money in this….

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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 Network News | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Mikazuki no Mitsu/Crescent Sweet Honey

December 16th, 2010

Sengoku Hiroko’s Mikkazuki no Mitsu, (translated on the cover as Crescent Sweet Honey (三日月の蜜),) is a collection of short stories that range from the realistic to the fantastic.

The first several chapters are a short mini-series from which the book gets its title. Sakura-san (female) is in love with her coworker at the cafe, Sugi-san (male). Sugi-san has a thing for customer Momoko, but won’t fess up. When Momoko shows interest in attending a trade show, Sakura makes it a date, in hopes that it will motivate Sugi to say something. Only, by the time Sugi finally does, Sakura and Momoko are starting to like one another. Sakura admits to Sugi that she did it all for him, but he knows he’s lost the game. Now Sakura has to figure out what to do with the girl, now that she’s won her.

This was a cute multi-part story, it goes nowhere and runs over well-tread plotlines, but the characters are likable enough and the story is sweet, rather than tawdry.

This is followed by shorts about a poignant meeting between a girl and snow-boy, who will never see the spring together, a strange little tale about a boy and his bug, and a boy and his mermaid.

After this foray into the fantastic, the book returns to the tried and true world of schoolgirls, who see what love looks like from either side of a pair of glasses.

Then back into fantasy in a story where an angel follows a girl around, a cow and a bunny girl have a philosophical discussion, and a witch and a chef discuss…stuff.

A princess has feelings for her maid, which are returned with hesitation because of their situation, and finally the book draws to a close with two shorts stories about like between a boy and a girl in the more realistic venues of an amusement park and a kitchen.

Most of the stories in this books are short, some as short as 8 pages, which makes them feel very like fillers, but Sengoku does a good job of giving the characters life even in so short a space.

While it’s not going to change the world, Mikkazuki no Mitsu is a pleasant choice for before-bed reading.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Stories –  7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 7

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Queen’s Blade Anime, Volume 1 (English)

December 15th, 2010

51jbushttalOn the one hand, Queen’s Blade is a full-on fantasy quest series, populated with very strong women who fight for power, money, to protect what they love and the chance to rule the world. On the other hand, it is an unwatchably vile series with nothing but the absolutely most tedious use of secondary sexual characteristics I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Pretending for a second that the plot isn’t just a frame to see crotches, asses and tits to the point of monotony, the story in Volume 1 follows a slightly spoiled daughter of nobility, Leina Vance, in her quest to first, escape her family home, second, eventually decide to become strong enough to win the Queen’s Blade competition. This transformation from the first to the second is primarily brought about by Leina’s encounter with the thief Risty. (I always their heard names as Reina and Listy, but Media Blasters has them switched. If I misspell one going forward, I apologize in advance.) Risty educates Leina about the realities of life in the Vance domain. The poor suffer, fighters fight, no money=no food, no shelter, no nuthin’. Risty’s tough love will set Leina out on a quest that we’d have to be a total moron to not realize that she will fulfill. However.

As I say, this series is less about the story than it is about the objectification of woman-shaped animated characters. The repeated appearances of eerily identical breasts, buttocks and crotches never really shown, but always barely covered, approaches a level of absolute monotony. In one spectacularly awkward costume malfunction after another, nipples will be seen. We will look in between women’s legs. There is no option. When I stopped watching for a little while, and just listened to the soundtrack, the story was one of strength, power and competence. Once I looked up again, it was back to tits and asses.

I’ve read a little of the manga, and while it’s not timeless literature, it’s all right. The anime is also all right, if you basically ignore the visuals and Nanael.

Yuri is primarily to be found in the character of Elina, Leina’s anagramically named little sister who lusts after Leina, and the instantly fraught with tension relationship between Risty and Leina. Also, for some service, there’s Echidna who, as the only totally honest character in the series, is my favorite, her sartorial choice not withstanding. I can’t begin to think of the many ways in which wearing a live snake as a thong is a bad idea. Oh, and the voice cast is massively 6 degrees of Yuri. It’s like the whole set of the Yuriest freaking VAs possible.

This is apropos to nothing, but the subtitle of this volume is “The Exiled Virgin” which basically makes no sense – Leina wasn’t exiled at all, she ran away. Her virginity is never mentioned, but since that kind of thing seems to matter to otaku, fine, she’s a virgin. Sheesh.

For no particular reason I listened to the English language track for an episode or two. It was fine. The dialogue was slightly different, but in every way captured the feel of the original Japanese. It’s not like the dialogue is profound or anything, anyway.

Ratings:

Art- 6
Story – The actual quest story is a 7, the execution is a 1
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – Gazillion

Overall – If you seriously think this is arousing I just don’t even know what to say.

My thanks to Media Blasters for providing this review copy. If you’d prefer to get the whole series at once, a season set will be available in February 2011.

Now I need to go watch something good. ^_^

Posted in English Anime | 11 Comments »