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Mawaru Penguindrum (????????) Anime
2011-10-30 20:10:00
Three young people - a sickly sister, Himari, and her two older bothers, Kanba and Shouma, who love and adore her, find themselves cast into a spiral of ever-weirdening events when Himawari dies in the hospital. A bizarre hat confers life and power to Himari, elaborately transforming her into...well, we're still not sure who she is now.... Shouma and Kanba are required by this entity to find the "Penguindrum." The story of what the Penguindrum is, and why it is important, is the entirety of the plot and I refuse to attempt to simplify it for this review. ^_^  The quest for the Penguindrum involves Shouma's classmate Ringo, Ringo's late older sister Momoka, a teacher in Shouma and Kanba's school, and his wife, Takarisienne (or something awfully similar) Yuri. If you are among those who find Mawaru Penguindrum (????????) confusing, please take a moment to read this post first. The Tl;dr version is - read more. You will learn allegory, symbolism and how to follow an non-line...
More About: Anime

Yuri Network News - October 29, 2011
2011-10-29 18:44:00
Yuri Manga Morinaga Milk's Kuchibiru no Tameiki Sakura Iro is being serialized in Comic High! magazine and, in celebration, you can read the *whole thing* (in Japanese) for free. Click the big red dot with the arrow on it, to read the entire Ichijinsha edition.  (???? ???? ?????]????? ???? | ??????? | WEB???????) Rakuen Le Paradis (?? Le Paradis), Volume 7 is heading for the stores. I can't wait! And, from that magazine comes a new collection by Takemiya Jin - Seasons. If you are not collecting her work, you really should be. Her protagonists are huggably grumpy and wonderful and they are welcome over for lunch anytime. Tsubomi, Volume 14 is also on the way. There's still a few series I like running, although I'll miss "Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep." Um...there's a "Yuri Boom"? Sure wish I saw some sign of it. Anyway, the folks at Megami magazine say so and so they are, in their infinite wisdom, marketing a new magazine called Megami Magazine Lily (??????????). According...
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Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime (???????) September 2011
2011-10-27 01:01:00
The September 2011 issue of Comic Yuri Hime (???????) is filled with many interesting things. And I've read about 5/6ths of them, so I'm going to punt on some of the stories, particularly the novels...it's just been crazy and I really haven't had time to read them. In terms of the manga, I'm actally going to begin at the back of the book with a chapter of Uso Kurata's Yuri Danshi. Hanadera-kun is in ecstasy - he's going to a Yuri-only doujinshi event! Surely there he will see the Yuri behavior he so desires to see, the beautiful and pure love between girls that is Yuri! (Quick digression: I have NO IDEA AT ALL what you guys mean when you write me and tell me you love the "pure love" between girls. I never have and frankly, I don't delve into it too deeply. Love between girls is pretty much just as messy and complicated as love between a girl and a boy or two boys. No clue what you're thinking it's like...) So, imagine his shock when Hanadera-kun realizes that the girls ...
More About: Manga

Yuri Manga: GUNJO (??), continued
2011-10-25 02:23:00
It's been a while since I talked about GUNJO (??), hasn't it? The first volume was brutal and awful and wonderful and the second volume was, as I keep saying, like eating the most delicious razor blades ever. And now, as the story approaches an end, I want to talk about it once more. Now, while it's still in that Schoedinger's Cat phase of not being over, but already ended. (It has to be ended, or nearly so, just because of the publishing schedule of magazines.) As I read each new chapter, I find myself scanning the faces of the woman who was abused and despised by everyone ever who was supposed to have loved and cared for her and the only person who ever actually did,  wondering how this series could end without them both dead, wondering if they will ever be free, wondering if they will ever smile again, wondering if I'm as or more pathetic than they to even think that they might. Look at the scan above. (I left in all the ghost images from the pages in front...
More About: Manga

Yuri Network News - October 22, 2011
2011-10-23 21:26:00
Yuri Events On October 29-30 Yaoi Yuri Con will be held in Lyon, France - their first ever, how cool for them! If someone attends, please feel free to write up a report! And Yaoi and Yuri Con in The Netherlands returns for March 2012. This con has been around a few years and every time I'm in communication with these folks, it just gives me a sense of energy and joy. There's some great grounded, creative energy behind this con. Someone recorded the NYCC 2011 Panel: XX Women in Queer Comics,so you can listen to it and be wowed by the stories by Jennifer Camper, Joan Hilty, Abby Denson and Kris Dresden. Thanks to the folks at Gay Nerds.com for putting this up! Pop Culture News has filed a report on the It Gets Better (With Comics!) panel from New York Comic Con. And thank *you* all for your contributions to the CBLDF at NYCC: They raised over $12,000 towards the legal fees of Brandon X with your help. *** Yuri Manga Morinaga Milk is participating in a Yuri anthology: ??...
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Yuri Manga: Girls Love - strawberry milkshake
2011-10-22 04:52:00
In the beginning there was Yuri Hime and from Yuri Hime came Yuri Hime Wildrose, a series of "ecchi" (by which we mean "porn") Yuri manga by artists that contributed to Yuri Hime or their cell-phone manga. Yuri Hime Wildrose was rendered into two "best of" collection called Remix disk A and disk B. (My review of the remix issues has links to all the original Wildrose volumes,as well.) Now the series has been rebranded, again, as Girls Love . (Volume 1 review from March) For readers, there isn't a really significant difference between the Wildrose volumes and Girls Love - creators and content remain roughly the same. In this volume, Girls Love -strawberry milkshake- , we're getting some of the best of the creators, including Nanzaki Iku's ShizNat clones, (here called Youko and Hitomi), Amano Syuninta, Mikuni Hachime and others, each with a relatively "Plot, What Plot" one-shot that starts with attraction, moves to sex and ends with love. It is this last that sets these...
More About: Strawberry , Manga

Yuri Manga: Mizu-Iro Ether (??????)
2011-10-21 19:14:00
Mizu-Iro Ether (??????), by Kurokiri Misao, is a rather typical set of Story A-type Yuri stories that trace schoolgirls' loves. There are two stories that have some unique qualities, although one, in which a girl falls in love with a mermaid, was a tad too Disney princess for my taste. The second story in the collection, "Kono Mune no Hana" starts with the story of Yuka and her friend Sayo who are (obviously, to our eyes) in a relationship. We're not the only ones to whom it is obvious; Yuka's grandmother also can see what's going on and, in a very unsubtle way, is trying to explain to the girls that this is not forever. We learn that Grandma once has a school love of her own, Yukue and, although they genuinely loved one another, when they graduated, they went their separate ways, married, had children and even now have not spoken to one another again since. Reading this story, I was strongly tempted to scream at Grandma, and tell her things were different now, but alas I rema...
More About: Manga

Kill Me Baby/ Baby, please kill me (????????) Manga, Volume 1
2011-10-20 00:35:00
Volume 1 of Kill Me Baby / Baby, please kill me (????????) is a 4-koma comic with an exceeding simple premise: School student Sonia is a professional assassin, and her classmate Yasuna wants to be her friend. This leads to 14 million ways in which Yasuna almost gets killed by Sonia. For instance, Yasuna touches Sonia on the shoulder, and has her arm broken by Sonia. Or Yasuna throws an eraser at Sonia, and has knives thrown back at her. They are joined periodically, and for no particular reason, by Agiri, who is a ninja. She is frequently drawn appearing handing from the ceiling, also for no reason. Anyone who is a fan of Noir will probably instantly liken Yasuna's basic character design to Kirika and therefore Sonia's to Mirielle, but personality-wise, they couldn't be more different. Sonia is taciturn and humorless, Yasuna is goofy and endlessly incompetent. Kill Me Baby is about to become an anime. I hope they consider doing the super-short Morita-san ha Mukuchi tr...
More About: Manga

NYCC Panels: From the Other Side of the Table, Part 2: CBLDF - Defending Ma
2011-10-19 01:24:00
Anime News Network has covered this panel in some detail,  so I'm not going to repeat what they said. For background of what the CBLDF does, how they came to be in existence, and how they are involved in the current Canadian Border case, please read the ANN article. Crystalynn did a great job in covering it. I am a comics collector since, quite probably, before most of my readers were born. As a kid, there was that ever-present Comics Code Authority stamp on every comic I bought, signifying that a panel of censors had passed this comic as acceptable for me to read it. As an opener for the panel, Charles discussed how the CCA was a response by the industry to allegations of comics "harming youth" (does that sound familiar? Bill 156 was passed for the same reason.) As a child I was also subjected to stories of some kid, somewhere, throwing themselves off a roof, thinking they were Superman, and how, obviously, comics were bad for kids. My Dad was a comics reader, so there was n...
More About: Events , Part , Table , Side

NYCC Panels: From the Other Side of the Table, Part 1 XX: The Women of Quee
2011-10-19 01:16:00
This weekend, over 100,000 people attended New York Comic Con, mostly to get free stuff. But some of those people attended panels where free stuff wasn't the draw and of those panels, I was privileged and honored to participate on two. XX: Women of Queer Comics took place on Friday night. Sponsored by Prism Comics, the moderator was author, artist and singer (and Yuri Monogatari contributor) JD Glass. The panel consisted of: Joan Hilty - Former DC editor and creator of Bitter Girl  Kris Dresden - Creator of these things matter, hush and other comics Jennifer Camper - Creator of Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and editor of the Juicy Mother anthologies. Paige Braddock - Creator of Jane's World Abby Denson - Creator of Dolltopia and Tough Love: High School Confidential Rica Takashima - Creator of Rica 'tte Kanji!? and Aozora Art and, erm, me. (I love the picture above, because I was leaning back as I listened, so I'm not visible. ^_^;; I'm behind Abby.) To say...
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Yuri Game: don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story (Guest
2011-10-17 03:12:00
This is not so much a "Yuri Game " as a "Game with Yuri Elements" but that makes a clunky review header. Anyway, it is my very sincere pleasure to welcome back Guest Reviewer Mara, with another great game review!~  don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story is the newest game from creator Christine Love, who has also written Digital: A Love Story . The narrator is John, an arguably pathetic guy who is at least smart enough to be aware of it. John has just started teaching literature at a high school that has its own internal social network called Amie. As a teacher, John is allowed access to his students? profiles and messages, both public and private and is flat out told to monitor them at his discretion.  This is not just a plot element but worked into how we, as readers, experience the story. As the central narrative moves forward, all of the characters are messaging and posting in time with the main story, whether they are present in the scene or n...

Yuri Manga: Oshioki! (?????!)
2011-10-13 19:48:00
Oshioki! (?????!) is a 4-koma manga that starts somewhere and ends up somewhere and in between goes totally off track three or four times. Minato is an utterly average person. She gets average grades, comes up right in the middle of the pack in footraces and has not a single distinguishing characteristic. So when she sees smart, athletically inclined Student Council President Shion, she's impressed, kinda crushy and a little jealous. Circumstances bring her into Shion's acquaintance where she learns that Shion, when she wears her glasses, is a studious and polite young lady, but when she takes them off, becomes a schoolmarm sadist. To "punish" Minato for some small, meaningless infraction, Shion commands that Minato will be her dog. At which point Minato learns a life-changing lesson about herself...she is a masochist. Oh, they never use that word, but we get it. ^_^ So Minato hangs around the Student Council, trying to stay close to Shion and trying, from time to time, to be p...
More About: Manga

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Massive Manga Giveaway!
2011-10-12 23:09:00
Manga is not a crime! Right now an American citizen is facing a minimum sentence of one year in a Canadian prison because customs authorities wrongly allege that horror and fantasy manga on his computer are child pornography. The CBLDF is helping him by assisting in legal strategy and by raising money to offset his legal fees, which are expected to reach $150,000. Join the effort to defend this case by visiting the CBLDF?s table in Manga Artists Alley and signing up for membership! When you do, we?ll enter you into our Massive Manga Giveaway!  Raffle tickets will also be available for purchase at the CBLDF table in the Exhibitor's Hall. The top publishers in the manga industry, including Viz, Seven Seas, Vertical, Yen, Dark Horse, DMP, Kodansha, and ALC Publishing have contributed prize packages for teen and adult readers for each day of the show. Come learn about the CBLDF?s efforts to protect your freedom to read manga, and take home amazing books! Titles include: Tenjo ...
More About: Comic , Events , Manga , Book , Legal

Yuri Manga: KuroYome (????)
2011-10-10 22:56:00
It is said that behind every successful man is a woman. The saying represents the sacrifices women have made to support their husbands in their work - sometimes curtailing their own careers, or putting in long hours of caretaking, for no money and no credit. Kuroyome (????) by Kazuto Izumi proposes the idea that for women to truly be successful, they too need a helpmeet and caretaker...in other words, a wife. On the one hand this idea makes my teeth grind, and on the other it makes my teeth grind. The stories in this volume are mean to be cute and sweet, about a high-powered business woman who finds comfort and care in the capable hands of an adorable and adoring wife for rent...and then treats them like crap and drives them out until they realize that they are helpless when it comes to doing the least little thing to take care of themselves and run back to their "wife," beg forgiveness and ask to be taken back.  *If* these high-powered women were high-powered men, there's ...
More About: Manga

Yuri Network News - October 8, 2011
2011-10-09 15:04:00
Yuri Manga The next issue of Hakusensha's Rakuen le Paradis (?? Le Paradis), which hits shelves on October 31, has another guest story by Hayashiya Shizuru-sensei - and looking at this splash page for the magazine, it looks cheerfully Yuri. YMM Correspondent Komatsu-san wants us to know that French Publisher Taifu is doing a GIRL FRIENDS trivia contest to celebrate their Yuri release. (The page in French, but not that hard to figure out.) *** Digital Platforms News JManga has Hitohira from Aurora publishing as part of their offerings. JManga also focused on GIRL FRIENDS this week, which is available in English on their site - there is a preview of the first few pages available for free with an account. Right now you have to have a subscription to the site to buy from them, but they've dropped some manga prices down to about half - so you can get all of Volume 1 of Morinaga Milk's adorable Yuri manga for $4.99 for a limited time. I hope you will all s...
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Drama CD: Love Gene Double X (?????XX )
2011-10-07 22:43:00
The  Love Gene Double X (?????XX ) Drama CD was included as an extra in the special edition of the first volume of the Love Gene Double X manga (which I reviewed in August 2011) Like the Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu Drama CD, this CD was essentially the manga volume performed by voice actresses. For people who like to hear characters given life, this Drama CD will suit nicely. All the men of the world have died and women have rebuilt society along a new version of gendered lines. There are ADAMs, and there are EVEs. ADAMs are given the privilege associated with male roles and EVEs are the women of the world.  The story follows the arrival of Koshiro Aoi at the extremely elite school of Kingdom, her subsequent run ins with the elite of the school and how she infiltrates the school leadership in order to take it down from within. As I've repeatedly said, I have a LOT of problems with the premise, but also have great hope for the  resolution, as long as the...
More About: Yuri Hime

Ichiroh! Manga, Volume 5 (English) Guest Review by Ayra
2011-10-05 23:51:00
Welcome back to Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today I am delighted to welcome back Ayra for a review of the last volume of this series. Thank you Ayra, thank, thank you! As always, it's a genuine pleasure to have you here. The decisive moment is here! In this final chapter of Ichiroh!, Nanako, Akane and company finally take the series of exams that will determine their fate. Will they pass and become proud university students, or will they fail again and become niroh? Upon reading long-running stories, it's not uncommon to feel as if the author ran out of ideas regarding the setup of the story and its characters. This is, unfortunately, the case for Ichiroh!, Volume 5. Even the author mentions that Nanako's year as an ichiroh (nickname for someone who failed the university exams in their first year of studying to retake them) could not be dragged out further. This lack of ideas unfortunately shows quite clearly within the first few pages. All volumes of Ichiroh! h...
More About: Manga , English

Yuri Manga: Daisuki: Hikaru & Sakura (?????- ????????
2011-10-05 16:24:00
We've gotten very efficient about shopping in Tokyo these days. We arrive with a "to-buy list" and hit the stores closest to our hotel and most likely to have the things we're looking for. Once we've acquired all the items on our list, we're free to start browsing. One of the best browsing places in Tokyo is in Shibuya. In the basement of the Shibuya BEAM store, Mandarake is like digging through someone's attic, or a never-ending flea market of...stuff. (There are a number of Mandarake stores in Japan, and several in Tokyo. The Mandarake stores in the Nakano Sun Mall are probably the best known by most otaku. I suggest you hit up at least the stores in Shibuya and Nakano. Give yourself plenty of time to just wander and stare. It's quite overwhelming at first.) The negatives of browsing shelves this way is that you will think "Oooh!" and start to reach for something about 1752 times. They have used manga, soundtrack CDs, Drama CDs, figurines, doujinshi, books and random goods y...
More About: Manga

Yuri Drama CD: GIRL FRIENDS
2011-10-04 21:56:00
Because manga is primarily a visual media, I'm always fascinated by the transition of a manga story to Drama CD. Where something like Maria-sama ga Miteru is primarily communicated in words, a story like GIRL FRIENDS is first and foremost visual. And this manga, as good as it is, would  probably make a relatively dull anime, as most of the "action" exists only in interior monologue. The GIRL FRIENDS Drama CD does a decent job of balancing story framework and character development and, as a result, becomes something slightly different than the manga itself. The manga starts off, (if you recall from my review of Volume 1,) as a catalog of fashionable girl interests. Hair, nails, clothes, etc., are the primary focus, and Mariko's interest in Akiko grows from that. Because we're listening to the conversations on the Drama CD, rather than watching the girls shop, the chapters feel very much like a tutorial. Bearing in mind that the manga ran in Comic High, which is ge...
More About: Friends , Girl

Vampire Princess ???(????????????) Manga
2011-10-03 23:46:00
Many of you know Kakinouchi Narumi's work, even if you don't know you know it. Vampire Princess Miyu (both TV and OAV,) on DVD and Juline and Shaolin Sisters in manga, have made it to English. In Japanese she's done a great number of series, including the obscure Utahime Fight!, which I reviewed back in 2005 and the art for the Case Files of Yakushiji Ryouko (???????????), which I am currently reading, having gotten more volumes at Book-Off in Tokyo (and my gosh, if there was the least little bit of Yuri in it, I would be reviewing it here so fast it would make your head spin!) But what Kakinouchi-sensei is best known for is Vampire stories. Along with Miyu, you'll find Vampire Princess Yui, and Dahlia the Vampire in her bibliography. And as much as vampires rarely do it for me, I love the hell out of Kakinouchi-sensei's vampires. Which brings me to the subject of today's review, Kakinouchi-sensei's newest series, done in conjunction with her husband...
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The Yuricon 2011 Yuri AMV Contest is ON!
2011-10-02 20:58:00
The last few years have been good for Yuri anime. There are a lot of series that came out (sadly, some went away just as quickly.) And to celebrate this great bounty of Yuri, we here at Yuricon and our video channel Yuristudios are having an AMV Contest ! The rules are different this year, and there's some special Judges Challenges, so please read the rules carefully and follow them exactly. 2011 Yuri AMV Contest Guidelines. We're looking forward to seeing some great Yuri AMVs!

Yuri Network News - October 1, 2011
2011-10-01 17:03:00
Yuri Manga From YNN Correspondent Tomo K. "This month's Good Afternoon (a bi-monthly Kodansha magazine) has a story with a Yuri twist. Asou Mikoto's 'Rouji Koibana'?????)  has a woman prosecutor eloping with a bride (her ex-colleague) on the bride's wedding day, sort of like the movie The Graduate. The manga features various Kyoko craftsperson at work and love, and this is the first time a woman who declares "I only like women" has appeared." I don't know about you, but this is right up my alley. Thanks Tomo! And it looks like this story is the cover story for Volume 3 of the collection. *** Not-Yuri Anime (but sort of related) Gokujyouu manga is getting an anime. All I have to say is Noooooooo!!!!! The Ikkitousen Shugaku Toshi Keppu Roku Promo on Crunchyroll  goes a whole 44 seconds before we see Ryoumou's underwear. That's got to be a record. 4-koma series about a high school girl who is an assassin and the classmate that tries to unders...
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Yuri Manga: Concerto (??????)
2011-10-01 16:50:00
I read Concerto under advisement from Yuricon Chief Lackey Bruce. I had no expectations and found myself pleasantly surprised. Each chapter is a "Plot, what plot?" type story; i.e.. a very thin frame of a story wrapped around a sex scene. And while each and every story had the opportunity to become gross, exploitative or annoying...none of them did. I found myself slow to relax at first, all ready to be grossed out by bodily fluids and no real emotional commitment, but eventually it dawned on me that that wasn't going to happen. By the final story, I was more or less in a "well, this was kinda nice" headspace. In each chapter two girls are brought together by pretty typical tropes - mutual love of music/art, a sempai/kouhai story, a student/teacher thing, and the final story, which was worth a synopsis. Two girls are staying together while the one's parents are away. The are in love and are lovers, and playing at living together. When the parents come home and find them kissin...
More About: Manga

Yuri Anime: Yuru Yuri Guest Review by C. Banana (English)
2011-09-30 20:10:00
One of the great joys for me as curator here at Okazu, is when our readers escalate into advocates and reviewers in their own right. It's been my pleasure on multiple occasions to present to you reviews by readers who have decided to commit themselves to a higher level of engagement. Today's Guest Review is especially wonderful, as it was written by long-time Okazu reader and commenter, C. Banana , someone whose views rarely match mine, but whose perspective I appreciate.  CB is writing about Yuru Yuri, a slice-of-life anime available legally and for free on Crunchyroll. As the first "Yuri" anime from Ichijinsha (publisher of Comic Yuri Hime magazine) this is a significant anime for Yuri fans. The story is a very understated "wacky adventures of four girls goofing off."  As this was a series I myself did not enjoy, CB offered to step up and write a review for us. Please welcome our newest Guest Reviewer with all the warmth I expect from the Okazu audience! Ah, the...
More About: Anime , English

Morita-san ha Mukuchi (???????) Manga, Volume 4
2011-09-29 03:36:00
Morita-san ha Mukuchi (???????) must be a work of genius. It must be, because after 4 volumes of the same sort of daily life-nothing much I'm still reading it, still enjoying it and still giggling at the silly gags. 4 volumes of nothing much and I still like this manga. It MUST be a work of genius, seriously. In Volume 4, absolutely nothing has changed. Mayu is still a untalkative high school girl, Hana's family issues are still bad, Miki's still interested in boys, and the girl who is stalking Mayu is still stalking her. The only difference is that she's now thinking about actually speaking to her, if only that would work out. That's one half the Yuri. The other half is in the form of Yamamoto Ritsuki, who is increasingly popular with the girls. So much so, that on Valentine's Day, she staggers into class with an enormous bag of candy on her back, like a chapman setting off to sell his goods. The look of exhaustion on her face speaks volumes, and so does the expression of p...
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K-On! Anime, Volume 3 (English)
2011-09-29 00:27:00
(I apparently never watched or reviewed Volume 2 of this series. Woops. I'll do that asap.) Summer has arrived for the girls in K-ON!, Volume 3 and, with the arrival of new recruit Azusa, they get to relive all the same moments of their first summer together over again! And then there's wacky old Yui, who still knows nothing at all about her guitar. Hee Hee. And let's never stop mentioning Mio's underwear, shall we? Don't get me wrong, I love watching the band goofing off, not practicing, playing ball on the beach, etc,etc, but storywise, you have to admit, it does look a lot like the same episodes over again at this point. The big difference is this time they get a band name at the end of it. Once again, I did not watching the dub, as I never do, nor did I listen to the interview with Ritsu's dub actress. I did watch the English dub version of "My Love is A Stapler," which my wife and I both thought sounded like a high school girl singing a song, so A for verisimilitude,...
More About: Anime

Yuri Network News - September 24, 2011
2011-09-24 17:00:00
Snatches of Yuri In the June issue of Nakayoshi, magazine "Your Melody (??????) starts off with two girls kissing and a chapter-load full of ambiguous feelings...and no real plot. I don't imagine this is meant to be a "Yuri" series, but you have to admit that Nakayoshi has been turning up the heat these days with lily-scented stories. Horror comic Naname no Ongaku II (??????) looks pretty darn Yuri. And Machikado Hana da Yori (??????) is scoring high on Japanese Yuri lists. *** Yuri Manga On her blog, Morinaga Milk-sensei debuts the cover of Comic High magazine with the first reprinted chapter of Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo. The 15th volume of Hayate x Blade special edition, will include a HxB doujinshi by Hayashiya-sensei! I've been a fan of her doujinshi work as Jesus Drug for ages, so I'm dying to see what she does with her own characters. Italian Yuri fans have something to celebrate - the Italian language edition of Rica Takashima's Rica 'tte Kanji!? is now availa...
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Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari (??????????? ???) Volume 5
2011-09-24 02:21:00
I have a problem with Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari (??????????? ???) Volume 5. It's pretty much the same problem I've had since the beginning. It's a pretty problematic problem for a series called "Pure Yuri Anthology." The problem is -  there's pretty much no Yuri in it. My standards for Yuri are relatively relaxed. But you know...I do actually expect some expression of emotional or physical connection between two female characters. Stories in Hirari do have "emotional" connection, but it almost always tends to be "OMG, she noticed me! We can be friends? Really? She won't hate me because I'm....?" Sometimes a story actually strays into "I'm jealous when she spends time with anyone else," (as in "Salomelic," Hakamada Mera's story) territory, but almost any story in the anthology is easier to read as "friendship" than love, romance or desire. This is probably the last volume of Hirari, I'll review, because clearly "pure Yuri" is what I see as friendship. Unless ...

Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 13 (???)
2011-09-22 13:26:00
Tsubomi (???), Volume 13 opens with a cover sure to please Morinaga Milk fans. From there, it's right into "Himitsu no Recipe" in which Wakatsuki is still having no luck getting a moment alone with the club president...until she does. Of the many stories in this volume, here are some notables: From there, we jump into my favorite story, "Lonely Sheep, Lonely Wolf" in which Imari-chan finds the strength given to her by big Imari to stand up to big Imari's ex and get her girl back, dammit! I award a standing ovation to Imari-chan. "Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-choume" starts to re-ravel after Minato and Otome's relationship had come completely unraveled. "Candy' continues, somewhat surprisingly, with the intrusion of one of Kana's admirers. A new story, "Sogo Tovoarisch" begins and I can make neither heads nor tail of it yet, but that's par for the course these days. Get back to me in three chapters. "Prism" ends in a unexpectedly sweet way, then launches into a side story of ...
More About: Manga

Yuri Manga: Flower Festa
2011-01-17 21:24:00
You remember Thieve's World, don't you? It was a multi-author fantasy fiction series. Each author would write stories in their own style, using their own character(s) and those of the other authors, all set in a single world. It felt like a good table-top RPG that people other than the players could follow. It was, depending on your opinion of author, character and story, variably successful. Flower Festa is a very similar concept. Set in a generic girl's school, each one of 20 creators was given the opportunity to create a character page, with character info and a single page comic showing us the character's personality and/or interaction with other characters. After all 20 characters have been introduced, each artist then draws a short story with their and/or any of the characters in the story. The characters are all named after a flower, which might get cloying fast except that most names used are not unknown as girl's names. Imagine a story where Lily is friends with Rose ...
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