Archive for the Yuri Manga Category


Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana, Volume 6 (付き合ってあげてもいいかな)

May 19th, 2021

You know how you feel after you’ve had a fever, when the fever breaks and you’re soaked in sweat? You don’t feel “good,” per se, but you feel better, somehow. Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana, Volume 6  (付き合ってあげてもいいかな) by Tamifull, feels exactly like that, particularly after Volume 5.

Many things have happened to Miwa and Saeko since they met in Volume 1. Some good, some bad, some weird, but overall the story has not been about them as a couple but been about their growth as people by means of their relationship. This sounds complicated, but this story is complicated – and I like it best when it doesn’t shy from those complications.

Here in Volume 6, neither Miwa nor Saeko are the people they were. In my opinion as both a reader and a writer, this is the absolute best thing I’ve seen. It’s less like a manga, and way more like a story someone you know might tell you, in dribs and drabs over many conversations.

By now, Tamifull’s art is confident and the characters are finding themselves, as well. I don’t know – can’t, and wouldn’t want to guess – what is in store for these characters…which is exactly what will bring me back for future volumes. As a romance story, there’s only so much I can look forward to. As a “coming of age” story that isn’t about puberty, but about becoming fully formed adult individuals, people with experiences and desires and drives to do things that exceed school and romance, I’m all in.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 Thing are changing.
Characters – 8 Rooting for them more, now
Yuri – 7
Service – 5

Overall – 8

I love that the cover design shifted for Volume 5. It suggests a shift in the story, a shift I welcome.  Also check out the difference in the cover art between Volume 1 and now. What a fantastic leveling up.

Volume 3 of How Do We Relationship? will be hitting shelves in a few weeks and I for one cannot *wait* for you all to read it. I want to real talk about this series and don’t want to spoil anything. ^_^

 





Superwomen in Love, Honey Trap & Rapid Rabbit, Volume 1

May 17th, 2021

When the evil Antinoids attack and human life is at risk, the hero Rapid Rabbit will appear to save the day! Buy what happens to humanity when Rapid Rabbit is almost defeated? This question is answered in the opening pages of Superwomen in Love, Honey Trap & Rapid Rabbit, Volume 1 by sometime, out now from Seven Seas.

What happens is, of course, that the evil Honey Trap, manager of the Antinoid Army, falls head over heels in love with Honjou Hayate, a part-time costume hero show actress and full-time real-life superhero! This grown-up version of a sentai show is both fun and a little creepy at the same time. In my review of the Japanese edition, Hero-san to Moto Onna Kanbu-san, Volume 1 (ヒーローさんと元女幹部さん) I wrote, “Sometimes, like Honey, we all just need a attractive, athletic, female hero to sweep our evil plans away.” But I also know from Volume 2 and Volume 3, the story will get a little darker and also a little Yuri-er. ^_^;  I’m going to trust sometime to give our heroes the redemption arcs they deserve and the power-ups we crave.

The art in this manga are very action series-like, with loads of power ups, explanations of  armor and weapons and interpersonal bantering in the middle of battle. There’s also some cute art when it comes to Honey and Hayate’s personal relationship and while we get slightly suggestive comments and fantasies, there’s very little actual service beyond the costuming. As a result of the art being so action-y, I want to call attention to Mercedes McGarry’s lettering which in some places was superlative. I know exactly how complicated it is to replace art s/fx and I always appreciate when a letterer has the skill and is given the time to do so. While the dialogue is not literary, I also want to nod at Amanda Haley’s translation which has to make sense of nonsensical gadgets.  As always, my thanks to everyone on the Seven Seas team for an authentic reading experience.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 4 Bikinis
Yuri – 4

Overall – 7

A villain falls in love with a hero and they team up to fight the bad guys, but will love save the day? Find out in Volume 2, which is  heading our way in late summer!





Touma-kun (冬馬くん)

May 10th, 2021

Last week I talked about an objectively problematic book from Galette Works, by an artist I quite like, The Rain and the Other Side of You. This week, we’re going to look at  book that is objectively also problematic, but subjectively, I really like it anyway. Today we’re talking about Amano Shuninta’s Touma-kun (冬馬くん), also from Galette Works, a collection of her series from Galette magazine.

“Everybody’s boyfriend” Touma-kun is a girl in a girl’s school who thinks all the girls are very pretty and wants everyone to be even prettier. Touma’s not good at studies, but she is a genius with hair and makeup and loves nothing better than to make the girls around her even prettier. Each chapter of the story follows one of the girls or women of the school as this uncarved block, Touma-kun, reaches into their hearts and brings out their inner beauty, then loves that beauty with her heart soul both physically and psychically.

In one chapter, we see Touma do the hair and definitely seduce one of the teachers…when the teacher is called into the principal’s office, the principal nails it in one that she’s been to see Touma-kun….which, along with the fact that Touma-kun tells one of the students that the principal made the salon space for her makes the principal kind of suspect.

Why is this problematic? Well, one could say that Touma-kun seduces the girls as she does their hair and makeup. Touma’s not manipulative in the sense  of using the power she wields over the girls around her. She’s happy to make them prettier, however she can and she gives of herself freely, as well. She won’t be tied down, no matter how many girls want her for themselves…and a few of them do. Touma’s a student and the teacher’s first reaction, upon waking up naked next to her is to scream “What am I doing?” Again, we even suspect that the principal has also sat in that chair. So there’s all of that as well. But intent goes a long way here. Touma’s likeable and not at all creepy, maybe even a little overly simple.

After graduation, Touma’s schoolmates get together hoping that they get one more moment with everyone’s boyfriend, but Touma never shows. Obviously, Touma is not moving on to university, but we do see she’s gotten a job as a hair and makeup stylist, and continues to make the women she works with prettier by whatever means she can.

So…depending on your definitions, maybe problematic, maybe not. From my perspective, while I can see potential problem areas, I found Touma so sincere and honest a person, that it was impossible for me to resent her actions. Your mileage may well vary. ^_^

I adore Amano Shuninta’s art always, and the loose lines of faces and hair in this volume absolutely are in the gold for me.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 2 implied, mostly
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

Amano Shuninta’s Touma-kun (冬馬くん) is a beautifully designed and executed story, by a talented Yuri artist.

In my head, Touma-kun is voiced by Paku Romi, specifically using her voice from the Hatsu/Koi Shimai drama CDs where she played Hiiragi Touko. ^_^





Hitogoto Desukara, Volume 3 (ヒトゴトですから!)

May 6th, 2021

The life of an employee in Human Resources is a never-ending push for making things better, at least according to Yuni’s Hitogoto Desukara, Volume 3 (ヒトゴトですか)ら!

This whole series has presented a pretty idealized version of HR, to be fair, and the main handwave we must accept to make this series work is that HR is there for the betterment of the employees’ experience. Once you accept that, business becomes a fun, challenging set of individual and group situations that HR is called upon in order to improve. In this volume, HR addresses issues like a woman who is a working mother and the team called upon to do a major business description project that will vastly improve employee experience!

I’ve worked in the corporate world my entire adult life – I am looking around the room here with a dry expression. 

On a more personal level, both Komori and and Yamanobe are called upon to take a test for leadership roles and Yamanobe directly is asked by her manager if she is interested in a manager position. Certainly, from what we’ve seen she’s more than capable, but not only does she say no, she seems to be in some crisis about it. Rumors fly – is Yamanobe taking a new job? Is she transferring? No, it turns out that cool, competent Yamanobe has commonplace imposter syndrome, oh no!

Interestingly, in the final pages, Komori confesses to a colleague that’s she got a date with a sex friend. Yamanobe is pretty taken aback that she was so blunt. But having taken control of their lives and determined to make an impact, we finish the series as we began it, Komori and Yamanobe with attractive female partners on their arm, at the same love hotel at the same time. Bwah-wa-waaaa~~.

I love Yuni’s art and characters. The business speak of the company and the handwave that HR is supposed to be a resource to support the employees, ended up giving the story more of a comedic feel than I am sure it was meant to. ^_^ You’ll forgive me if I can’t take a new business description as being a life-changing improvement for an on overworked mother. But I do actually like the enthusiasm the characters have for their jobs, and the random bits of business jargon that are so preciously explained. ^_^

Ultimately, its Komori and Yamanobe who keep bringing me back to this story.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 7
Service – 1 Not…really, a brief non-explicit bed scene for Komori
Yuri – 8 Two definitely queer women, one who is getting a little outer by the end.

Overall – 8

This series is officially licensed in English by Manga Planet and is available in print on Amazon JP, CD Japan and and digital on Bookwalker, where it appears to be on sale for half price right now. If you’ve worked in a big company, Hitogoto Desukara! will give you a new, Yurier, perspective on office life. ^_^





Rain and the Other Side of You

May 3rd, 2021

Back in 2019  the folks at Galette Works gave us the problematic Ame to Kimi no Mukou (雨と君の向こう) written by Sakuraka Yukino with art by Momono Moto. I kind of wished they hadn’t. ^_^;

How surprised then, was I to find that Lilyka had picked it up and translated this volume it as Rain and the Other Side of You. When Lilyka ran it’s recent Sakura season sale, I figured that was as good a time to pick it up as any and so here we are looking at a problematic manga for a second time. It hasn’t aged well at all.

Mudarame Aki is a dead-eyed middle-schooler whose aggressive sexual behavior toward her teacher ought to have been the occasion for a house call from Youth Services, Teacher Kanou Yuka is presented as a woman who has no plan for her life, has been unsuccessful with men. When Mudarame-san throws herself at Yuka, she finds herself incapable of resisting.

In my review of the volume in Japanese, I wrote:

Aki[‘s] dead eyes and romantic overtures to her teacher scream “sexually abused” to this reader.

Yuka and Aki’s relationship is not a healthy one, not from the very beginning. Aki is manipulative and uses things like Yuka’s virginity as a weapon against her, which is just gross. Yuka tries going out with a guy and just finds herself going back to seek Aki’s company. When she and we see that our guess that Aki has been abused is correct, it still doesn’t make anything that’s happened okay.

If anything, it was worse on re-read, because it was in English and I couldn’t pretend I misunderstood Yuka’s justifications for not running for a phone and calling Youth Services.

What is good is Momono’s art, which captures Aki’s existential misery so well that it makes it thoroughly impossible to feel anything but pity for her and contempt for the adult who is not strong enough to help her. This is belied by an epilogue in which we see them some years later, looking happily domestic, but the mental gynmastics of this are too much to contemplate.

Okay, let’s set the dumpster fire of the story aside. Momono’s art is one of two reasons I read this book in the first place. She absolutely favors mopey, sad, traumatized characters as we may recall from her books Liberty, Volume 1 (リバティ), and Kimi Koi Limit. But the other reason is also the reason that this book being picked up by Lilyka is a good thing – this was the first of the books from Galette WORKS, the folks behind quarterly crowd-funded Yurimagazine, Galette (ガレット). If Lilyka can get some of those, I will be very pleased for us.

If you do pick this book up, let me warn you that the lettering is a little unsophisticated and the editing a bit shoddy. I’ve written to them to ask that the typos be fixed so if you do pick it up and they haven’t, let them know you think this is important, as well.

Ratings (same as the JP volume):

Art – 8
Story – 3
Characters – 5 No one would get a lunch invitation. Well, maybe the guy who goes out with Yuka, he seemed okay.
Yuri – 8
Service – The whole concept of an adult being attracted to a sexually abused child is a level of creepy I am unwilling to accept as anything other than criminal.

Overall – 5

It was not to my taste at all, where Liberty totally is. I hope you’ll all get to see that one day!