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Yuri Manga: Seasons (?????)
2012-02-13 16:30:00
At the end of last year, I voted a trio of Takemiya Jin-sensei's works in as the #1 manga of the year. Of those three, Seasons (?????) is quite possibly my favorite. Like so many of my favorite manga artists, Takemiya-sensei started her career as a doujinshi artist. There are several ways in which a doujinshi artist can transition into a professional career, but the one that seems to be the most effective is this - draw original work. Manga publishers are less likely to want to publish look-alikes than, say, US book publishers, who so often are running after the latest trend, rather than creating the next one. Artists I first encountered as doujinshi artists include Hayashiya Shizuru, Morishima Akiko, Morinaga Milk, Nanzaki Iku, Nishi UKO, Mitou Kana and Kitao Taiki and many, many others. There's only one, in fact that I haven't seen make the transition to pro that I expected to, and weirdly, he's gone the other way, from really well-conceived derivative serials to kind of crap...

Yuri Network News - February 11, 2012
2012-02-11 19:37:00
Yuri Manga YNN Correspondent Komatsu-san caught this: French Publisher Taifu Comics has licensed Morishima Akiko-sense's Yuri Manga Hanjuku Joshi. More great news for French-reading Yuri fans! JManga tells me that they are planning on launching Yamaji Ebine's Love My Life manga next week. That's absolutely stellar news for North American fans, and hopefully for English readers elsewhere, one day soon. Forgot to tell you this, but YNN Correspondent Rachel wants you to know that Wandering Son was added to the American Library Association's Rainbow List for 2012. The Rainbow List is a project that is run by a joint task force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table and the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Queer Round Table of the American Library Association. By the way, the ALA is and has been for *many* years, very LGBTQ-friendly, so don't hesitate to ask your local library for LGBTQ books and let the ALA know if you get flack. Sakamoto Ano's Pie wo Agemasho, Anata ni Pie o...

Koihime Musou ~ Otome Tairan Anime (English)
2012-02-11 01:55:00
It's always disconcerting when something like Koihime Musou actually stops staring at girls tits and tells some bits of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in an almost sensible way. It's also kind of wasted, as no one is watching Koihime Musou ~ Otome Tairan for a retelling of the Romance anyway. Luckily for Yuri fans, Volume 2 starts off with one of the least sucky episodes overall, in which Koukin and Sonsaku have a spat, and Kogai locks them in a warehouse to make up...and so they do, in time-honored fashion. This episode also contains the only genuinely amusing line of the series, in which Shuri mentions that she needs the Kotou pill (for an utterly idiotic subplot) and she knew it was a Son family treasure - to which the reply is something like, "Nah, it's not a treasure, so we have no idea where it is. It's in there somewhere." After a few more episodes related to cat ears and boobs, the story suddenly notices that it's fairly deep in towards the end of the story a...
More About: Anime , English

Yuri Manga: Yurikan Miel (??? Miel)
2012-02-10 00:22:00
Yurikan Miel (??? Miel) is the second in a trio of Yurikan ~something~ Yuri anthologies. The first was Yurikan Feuille,  with opening story by Morinaga Milk-sensei.  Yurikan Miel doesn't bring that much star power to the floor, but it's not entirely worthless, either. The cover is pretty effective Erica-repellent. Two baby-faced female-shaped creatures with disproportionately sized breasts did not give me a good feeling about the contents. But the first story, "Rabu?Buri" was a silly and over-long single paragraph about a Princess in love with her female knight, which made me feel more kindly, until the totally un-sexy sex scene. So, now I was in a 50/50 mood. A story or two passed without much notice, but...then! We reach "Hyoko Zumai" and all was right with the world once again. This tells the story of a couple who have moved to the big city together; one a first-year college student and the other a newbie in a company office. The story shows how they grow from ugly...

Mouretsu Space Pirates Anime (English)
2012-02-09 03:02:00
Mouretsu, in Japanese means violent or vengeful, so of course when it was being translated, the word "Bodacious" immediately comes to mind. ... I know I'm not the only one who hates the translation, official or not. Despite the egregious service of the title, Bodacious Space Pirates is a great story. As a combination moe bildungsroman and a classic space opera, it really works. Marika, our protagonist is, for once, not an average girl by any means. Cheerful and competent, she has friends and a job and is instantly likable. We're not too surprised when we learn that she's the daughter of a famous pirate and a potential heir to her father's captaincy. When a Nadesico beauty with a dour personality transfers into her school, we know instantly that the two of them belong together. When Chiaki makes her big reveal in Episode 5, we get to add in "beloved rival" to the set-up for chemistry between them. What really sold me on the series was the whole of Episode 5. High school gi...
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POOR POOR LIPS, Volume 1 debuts on JManga!
2012-02-08 00:57:00
Okashi Nako is a young woman living in poverty. When she applies to work at a Gem store, she learns that store owner, Otsuka Ren, is a lesbian. Ren promises that Nako's not her type, but she may be lying.... Nako takes the job and so begins a comedic tale of rich and poor, sickness and health, for better and for worse! http://www.jmanga.com/poor-poor-lips/1 Yuri comedy 4-koma manga, POOR POOR LIPS, by Goto Hayako, now on JManga, in partnership with ALC Publishing. *** That's the PR. Here's the real message. I need your help. Folks who are not in North America are blocked from this and I think it's a BAD idea. I am trying to convince the folks at JManga that a globally accessible Yuri portal would be a GOOD idea. You can help simply by contacting JManga and letting them know what country you are from and that you would *love* to be able to access their Yuri manga. You can contact JManga: On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jmanga.official On their website: http://w...
More About: Lips

Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, January 2012
2012-02-07 00:59:00
Having concluded Fukami Makoto's story about girls and guns in the November issue, the January issue begins inauspiciously with looking in a window at girls getting dressed. This will be the new novel carried in Comic Yuri Hime  (???????) and in a mere blink of an eye, I was already uninterested in it. The author will be Namori, creator of Yuri Yuri, so that seals that deal. It's pretty much not for me. The magazine begins with loads of colors pages, this time, asking us to determine which of the 4 Yuri Danshi type we are and suggesting manga based on that. As I am a Yuri Joshi, this pretty much missed the mark entirely for me, but between that, the cover novel and the many pages about Yuru Yuri, it clearly communicated that I am, once again, not their audience. It was with some genuine relief, then, that I found a number of excellent stories within. Kazuma Kowo's "Recalculation" is that moment when you realize that what you thought that the other person thought is not true...
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Yuri Network News - February 4, 2012
2012-02-05 04:54:00
Yuri Anime Media Blasters has put the release of Ikkitousen: Great Guardians on indefinite hold. Not surprising, but not cheery news. Nico Nico Douga will be streaming the first episode of the Shoujo Magi Madoka Magica anime with English dub, on February 10 at 11:30 p.m. EST. Other countries getting streams are Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. I hope they'll be streaming a sub too. Dub only means I'm watching it raw, if I can. RightStuf has let me know that they have a countdown on the first two seasons of Maria Watches Over Us. This means that they are down to their last few hundred art-box copies of the anime. If you've been holding off, now is a great time to get this anime and spend some quality time with the ladies of Lillian Girl's School. A quick looks tells me that Season 2 is down to just over 50 copies left, so don't wait too long! Not Yuri, but come on, if you didn't love Hamutz Meseta in Book of Bantorra, you obviously weren't pay...
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Koihime Musou ~ Otome Tairan Anime, Disk 1 (English)
2012-02-04 00:14:00
For the first few minutes, all the way through the opening of Koihime Musou ~ Otome Tairan, you almost think it's going to be a pretty good story, with the characters actually getting a chance to be strong without being rendered into a pile of service but, almost immediately that stops. From that point on, any actual cool is tempered by tons of skanky (and frequently incredibly stupid) service. NOT like I was expecting anything else. I find it hard to believe that there are actual people out there who thought the first episode where Ryuubi eats spoiled bamboo shoots and everyone in her group (including the woman who has actually given birth) thinks she's pregnant is...funny? Really? Really?!? I weep at the thought. Sometimes, stuck in the middle of this lame-ass series, there's something worth watching. And for once, some Yuri that doesn't make one roll one's eyes. On Disk One, we get the (relatively speaking) entertaining story of what happens when Ryoumo gets glasses and g...
More About: Anime , English

Yuri Manga: Green
2012-02-01 03:07:00
In my review of Otomo Megane's Himitsu, I commented that the artist has about three characters types. In Otomo Megane's Green , the three character types are solidified into three characters, who sort of retell a lot of the Himitsu vignettes, only they are all connected in a more intrinsic way. Tsugumi is a rather serious young lady, who falls in love with straightfoward Megumi. Megumi falls in love back back but, at first only because Tsugumi looks like her older sister, Megu's teacher from Middle school. The story here is a love triangle, because Tsumugi's sister did indeed have an affair with Megumi, and Megu's not really over it, yet. There's a bit where Megu and Tsugumi are having some communications issues, but they work it out. The epilogue shows the two of them older, more comfortable with themselves, living together in Tokyo as a couple. Nothing here is new or unique. The vignettes from Green feel very much like corresponding vignettes from Himitsu, which gave me a...
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Yuri Manga: Houkago Kanon (??????) and a Contest!
2012-01-31 02:47:00
Houkago Kanon (??????) is a collection of stories by Mikuni Hachime, drawn in her signature Ribon magazine-gone-bad style. Several of the stories have been captured from the Yuri Hime Wildrose and Girls Love collections in which they ran and I believe at least one from Yuri Hime S, but I could be totally wrong about all but the first. The stories follow a relatively predictable pattern set up by the opening salvo in "Onshitsu no Majou" in which there is a girl, and another girl, they have sex and then realize they like each other. Because I like the order to be slightly different, I'm not a huge fan of this format, but it's Mikuni's niche and she totally dominates it. Ratings: Art - 7 Story - 6 Characters - 5 Yuri - 9 Loser FanPersons - 7 Overall - 5 For service fans, there is groping and underwear and other spicy magazine-type things which also do not interest me, but may perhaps interest you!  Yes, it's time for another "Get this book out of my house" Contest ! I ha...
More About: Manga

Fate Zero Anime, First Season
2012-01-29 22:52:00
There's Fate Zero, then there's the Fate Zero in my mind. Fate Zero is a prequel to the Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel about which I know and care nothing. I only care insofar as the Fate Zero anime was mostly introduction and exposition at this point, and I'm hoping it holds together as a series on its own. The story is relatively speaking, simple - 7 great heros/evildoers of the past are reincarnated with even greater powers than they actually had when they were merely men who achieved notable things, and they each have a master who wishes to find the Holy Grail to achieve some goal, selfish or otherwise. Who the heroes are, is the most interesting part of the series to me, and how their myths are rewritten to determine their powers. I was asked some weeks ago about my interest in the reincarnated heroes, as I've mentioned here in the past that myths are typically a good hook for me. Since these heroes aren't really connected to their past incarnations in any meaningful way,...
More About: Anime , Season

Yuri Network News - January 28, 2012
2012-01-28 17:06:00
Nothing makes me so aware of time flying as these weekly reports. End of January already? Wow. Yuri Manga Sasamekikoto, Volume 9 (??????)?is finally here! I haven't paid the least attention to anyone discussing it, and the cover is lovely, so I'll look forward to it. (Anyone who thinks to try and spoil it for me or anyone else in the comments, a pox upon you. It's not clever or funny and I read fast, so it won't work, either. I will see your linguistic clues and delete it before you can be an ass in public. You're welcome.) Another from Mangatime Kirara, Onegai Kami-sama (????????) has, to Japanese fans' relief, Yuri. Or at least one characters says she likes Yuri. Or something. Anyway, I'm not reading this myself, and if any of you lovely folks out there has purchased Volume 1 or Volume 2 and would like to do a guest review, this is a great opportunity! Speaking of Magatime Kirara and all it's little wizards, a couple of folks pointed out that Aoki Ume's new series wil...
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Yuri Manga: Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan, Volume 2 (????????)
2012-01-28 03:17:00
In Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan, Volume 2 (????????) Sarasa and Seriho have been working together for a while now, and have settled into a routine. They kind of know that they really like one another and they are kinda sure the other feels the same way, but neither has actually broached the topic with the other. When Seriho's old friend Sumire arrives, this changes. Sumire likes to tease Seriho, and does not like women who are meant to be together to be kept apart by their own obtuseness, so she sets them up on a date. They have a wonderful date. Sarasa has shown up a little early (2 hours or so) and has scoped out the best places to eat and shop. But it's Seriho that finally does what has never been done - she buys herself a ring and a matching ring for Sarasa and says, "I mean it 'that way.'" (Sumire-san - good job!) Having been asked - well as much as one can expect from this delicately-spoken serie - Sarasa now has to decide if she will accept that ring. She asks Seriho to sit...
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A Completely Different Kind of Graphic Novel
2012-01-27 04:06:00
Many years ago, in the Song Dynasty in China there was a painter we know as Zhang Zeduan. He painted a massive scroll that depicted the life of a town, the Qingming Shanghe Tu, (?????) "Along the River During the Qing Ming Festival." For all intents and purposes, this scroll, painted during the 12th century, is a graphic novel, done in pantomime. There are no word balloons, no action lines, but it clearly shows the life of a town during a busy day. The original is the Palace Museum in Beijing. This year during the Singapore Expo, a massive transmedia program was designed to bring this painting to life. It's...extraordinary. The water flows around rocks in the ground, people wander through town, meet, speak and part...a child runs after a pig, a woman rocks her infant. The very famous camel caravan wanders through town, passing under a gate. As a work of art, this has always been a striking piece - animated, I fell for it all over again. For your entertainment - and...
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Yuri Manga: Yurikan Feuille (??? Feuille)
2012-01-26 13:56:00
Every few years or so, someone comes up with the idea of creating a Yuri stand-alone anthology. [ES]~ Eternal Sisters, Shoujo Yuri, Yuri Monogatari, Yuri Tengoku and many others have graced my shelves. Some of them have borne great fruit. The characters of Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan, for instance, were first seen in [ES]. Some artists are more comfortable in these doujinshi anthologies than they are in the pages of a magazine. Morinaga Milk-sensei, for instance, spent many years drawing for exactly these kinds of anthologies, before she found a home at Comic High. And now, a new Yuri Anthology series has arrived. The first of these, Yurikan Feuille (??? Feuille) reads pretty much like any of these, with few stories that stand out and a lot of the same kind of Story A. Tears, a few kisses, a few gropes, more tears, protestations of like, sometimes love, the story ends with a sense of relief that both girls are on the same page, romantically speaking. The first of this series fe...
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Hayate x Blade Manga, Volume 15 (????????)
2012-01-23 23:51:00
So, Volume 14 came and with it, the greatest fight ever seen at Tenchi Academy. Sae and Shizuku, out of the fight and only Hitsugi and Akira left to battle it out. Students and guests were on the edge of their seats and so were readers, I can assure you.Well, at least this reader was. The battle ended as it had to. Bloodied, on one knee, but unbowed and unwilling to give up, Hitsugi defeated Akira. Phew, because if Akira won, Tenchi would have been disbanded. And here, in Hayate x Blade , Volume 15, (????????) we finally learn why. We know that Akira's father is a bastard - we've known that for a long time. We know he favors that prig Ryouichi and treats Akira like dirt, merely because she is a girl. And we learn why, exactly he let her come to Tenchi Gakuen - to destroy the Amachi family and the school. Having won the battle, Hitsugi cheerfully pronounces Akira's punishment - to take over the school as chair. Akira now holds in her hands exactly what she was sent to get, and sh...
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Yuri Network News - January 21, 2012
2012-01-21 22:21:00
Yuri Anime From multiple sources in the Phillipines comes the news that Sailor Moon is returning to TV there. Johann C from the Yuricon Mailing List says that it's getting "a New Tagalog dub with Jenny Bituin (Misaki Suzuhara in Angelic Layer, Sakura Kinomoto in Card Captor Sakura) as Usagi." The first episode of Gokujyouu anime will be streamed for free online on January 30th and if that doesn't turn you off then we have nothing left to discuss, you and I. *** Yuri Manga So, yesterday we announced the partnership of JManga and ALC Publishing to bring Goto Hayako's POOR POOR LIPS to digital format. Let me address some of the obvious issues that came up, to the best of my ability. Distribution - I am pushing to try and get JManga to establish access for Yuri publications outside North America, but this is primarily an issue between JManga and the Japanese rights holder. You all know how I feel about this nonsense. If it were up to me, everyone, everywhere would have access ...
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ALC Publishing and JManga Announce POOR POOR LIPS Partnership!
2012-01-20 16:26:00
Okashi Nako is a young woman living in poverty. When she applies to work at a Gem store, she learns that store owner, Otsuka Ren, is a lesbian. Ren promises that Nako?s not her type, but she may be lying?. Nako takes the job and so begins a comedic tale of rich and poor, sickness and health, for better and for worse! ALC Publishing and JManga are proud to announce a partnership to bring you Goto Hayako?s Yuri love comedy, POOR POOR LIPS! From JManga, the world?s first official Japanese manga portal website, directly from the 39 prominent publishers that make up the Digital Comic Association, and from ALC Publishing, a pioneer in Yuri Manga comes a partnership that brings you some of the best in Yuri digital manga straight from Japan! With the honest representation of lesbian life you?ve come to expect from ALC and the convenience of digital manga, Poor Poor Lips  is sure to please Yuri fans. (Cover Image: Poor Poor Lips Volume 1 (c)HAYAKO GOTO/Ta...

Wandering Son Manga, Volume 2 (English) Guest Review by Kayden L
2012-01-19 15:22:00
Welcome back, I hope you enjoyed yesterday's blackout. As you may have guessed from my many years of writing about it here, freedom of expression is pretty much the one issue I consider to be the single *most* important issue there is. Obviously, as I discuss copyrighted materials here, and post covers and the like, it's critical to me that no one decides that my blog or any of its content must be blocked. Framing SOPA and PIPA as saving American jobs is especially nasty, as it is those very same corporations that supported these bills who have systematically undervalued, underpaid and outsourced the creative efforts of the people who make the material they lay claim to. Of course I support creators' rights and their copyright, but SOPA and PIPA have no stronger provisions for creators. As with LGBTQ content and purges to supposedly "save the children," I feel as if we must be extra vigilant with any designs to block Internet access. Thus, the blackout. Thank you for bearing wi...
More About: Manga , Review , English , Wandering

Yuri Manga Tsubomi, Volume 15 (???)
2012-01-17 02:33:00
Volume 15 of Tsubomi (???) begins with illustrations by Hayashiya Shizuru that, when I saw them the first time, motivated me to tell her on Twitter that they were "stimulating." A female bodyguard and her charge are seen surrounded by a crowd (opening, awards event, something like it, there are floodlights and photographers and a crowd) on one color page and on the other, black-and-white page, sharing an intimate moment in bed. Really, truly great. Hayashiya-sensei said that she'd love to draw their story one day and I said that I'd love to read it. ^_^ "Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-choume" continues with Minato coming down with a cold...again. Now that I've read the whole second volume, I'm kind of cooling on this series, unless it actually goes somewhere that doesn't make me dislike everyone more. "Walk Wit Me" [sic] comes to a crisis, and probably a close, as Mallory and Wendy leave their moribund town and the dead souls that live there. In this chapter, it becomes more plain that ...
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Utena Black Rose Box Set Winner!
2012-01-15 22:52:00
Thanks to everyone who entered the Revolutionary Girl Utena Black Rose Box Set contest. The winner this time around is Jeri Mitchell. Congrats!
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Yuri Webcomic: Girly, Volume 4 (English)
2012-01-15 22:10:00
The last volume of Josh Lesnick's Girly series, Girly Forever, is a testimony to passion. Passion for cartooning, first and foremost, but also the obvious, laudable, passion Otra and Winter have for one another. Having established Winter and Otra as a couple in previous volumes, Josh felt comfortable splitting them up for a good chunk of this story. But, before we get there, in Volume 3, there's a number of flashbacks and story building leads that we need to get through, then a few digressions and premature story starts and stops and then, suddenly, in Volume 4, the plot is a gigantic ball of story elements moving downhill and gathering complications like a webcomic version of Katamari Damacy. When I was reading the chapters that would become the last volume as a webcomic, it was maddening. I would save up a few months of strips at a time, in order to feel like something was happening. Reading it as a volume, I found it worked much better than the previous volumes in terms of na...
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Yuri Network News - January 14, 2012
2012-01-14 16:52:00
Happy first YNN report of the New Year! It looks like there'll be a lot of shiny fun for Yuri fans of all persuasions this year. Today we'll catch up on some anime trailers and the like. Yuri Anime Looking forward to Black Rock Shooter anime? Check out the trailers on the official website. (I'm really hoping that this series looks half as good as all the figurines for this series, which tempted me mightily over the New Year holiday in every single store.) The Smile! PreCure commercial has aired, take a look here.(NicoNico Douga is iffy, so if you have an account there, try logging in to see it.) The "difference" this time is that they are going with a team right out of the box, rather than two to start, then adding in a new character at intervals. They are also going with extra super teeth-grittingly cute names. I think they are punishing the adults who watch the series. Cure Happy, Cure Smile. Ugh. ^_^ Of great interest to me, the first Jormungand anime trailer is up on...
More About: News , Network , January

Revolutionary Girl Utena Anime Box Set - Volume 2, Disk 2 (English)
2012-01-12 22:20:00
Revolutionary Girl Utena, Volume 2, Disk 3 provides a whole lot of food for thought, doesn't it? So, first of all, let look at the final of the puppet duelists for the Black Rose, Nanami's henchchick,Keiko. Like Wakaba, Keiko's story hurts. It hurts, because she's not one of the beautiful people and not one of the chosen. She's a real person, with big gaping flaws, but we can't quite hate her, or dismiss her, as we might Tsuwabuki, precisely because, like Wakaba, her dreams are so mundane. Anyone might wish for a moment alone with their idol. It's a dream that is dull as dirt. As a result, when Nanami is horrible to Keiko, we feel it. When Yuuko and Aiko are horrible to her, it's especially unforgivable. And, at last, we reach the core of the Black Rose story, and the illusions with which Mikage has wrapped himself. The story, however one looks at it, is at best, creepy and self-serving. At worst, it's possible the single most depressing illusion in the entirety of the se...
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Princess Knight Manga, Volume 1 (English)
2012-01-12 03:42:00
In 1954, Tezuka Osamu began the first serialization of a series called Ribon no Kishi, Knight of the Ribbon. In the subsequent four serializations, the story was altered slightly and even had a sequel. But, throughout these iterations, the main story held true - in a country in which the position of ruler was entailed, so that only a boy could become King, a daughter is born. To hide her true nature, she is brought up as a boy, Prince Sapphire. In the 1977 reworking, Sapphire is endowed with two hearts, that of a boy and that of a girl. The boy's heart makes her athletic, honorable and strong. The girl's heart makes her emotional and weak. Yes, yes, I know, it's exhausting. Think of Tezuka like your grand (or great-grandfather if you're young) who never did figure out what the 60s and 70s were about and didn't understand why feminists didn't like having the door opened for them. Sapphire is, in any case, stuck in a bad situation. Although she'd like to be a "normal" girl, i...
More About: Princess , Manga , English

Himawari-san Manga, Volume 2 (??????)
2012-01-11 14:09:00
In Himawari-san, Volume 1, Matsuri discovers that a nearby bookstore is run by a quiet, pleasant woman. Matsuri falls for the woman, and starts hanging around the book store. Matsuri begins to help out around the store, even though she doesn't really seem to enjoy reading, at all. Himawari-san, Volume 2 (??????) begins with a reaffirmation by Matsuri that her affection is rather for the bookstore's owner than the store itself.  Among other things, we learn that Matsuri is not the only person who has had her life altered by Himawari-san. Her somewhat stand-offish classmate, has as well. We also learn that Himawari-san is so well regarded by the town that she can't really just go out for a chore or two without being loaded up with a few kind extras. But the real star of this volume of Himawari-san is Himawari-san's origin story. Who knew that a quiet, bookish store owner would need an origin story?!? But indeed, Himawari-san does. It turns out that she was a taciturn young ...
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Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 14 (???)
2012-01-10 02:36:00
Tsubomi, Volume 14 (???) starts off with a very interesting story. "Walk Wit Me" [Sic] takes place in the Dust Bowl of America during the post-WWI area. This is not entirely apparent in this first chapter, but the abandoned oil rigs and clothing are a big hint in that direction. I'm not sure what Wendy's mother's issue is, but nonetheless Mallory and Wendy face issues of class, and of course acceptance. In "Hana to Hoshi" Hanaii is made aware of Hoshino's relationship with her sempai and this shock is compounded when a male classmate confesses he likes her. Kiku-chan is drawn into the Manga Research Club in Hakamada Mera's "Higashitotsuka of Eden." This seems like it's a good thing, but Kiku-chan certainly doesn't appear all that happy with it. That may be more because she just doesn't know what to do with her rich, attractive, neighborly next-door neightbor, Hiyoshi-san's outgoing personality. Another one of those series that I took a long time to getting around to...

Yuri Manga: Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep (???????????????)
2012-01-09 00:49:00
Have I added Mizutani Fuuka to my "squee" list yet? No? Oh well, consider her officially added. Squee! It's true that my favorite work by her is the entirely straight 14-sai no Koi, but Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep comes really close. Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep (???????????????) is predicated upon a coincidence. Kakimoto Imari, is sitting in a physical rehab office waiting room, waiting to have treatment on her left hand. That is, two people, improbably named Kakimoto Imari are waiting. When their names are called, it further turns out that they both have left hand injuries and that they are born only one day apart. Thus begins an awkward and sweet friendship that becomes something more. "Big" Imari is indeed a tall, boyish woman, who works for a landscaping company and is not used to the company of women. "Little" Imari is short, cute and, suffering from depression. As we learn, she is an artist, but suffering from a complete block and has been doing herself harm as a result. B...
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Prunus Girl Manga (????????) Guest Review by Tomo K.
2012-01-07 01:19:00
Today is an extra specially lucky day for all of us - we have a new Guest Review er! Tomo K. has graciously offered to write up a review of Matsumoto Tomoki's Prunus Girl . You may remember that Tomo told us about this manga, which runs in Square Enix's Monthly GanGan Joker last month. I hope you'll all extend a warm Okazu welcome to Tomo! Kind words in the comments fields will be appreciated. Prunus Girl (????????) begins on the day when the result of Maki's senior high entrance exam is posted. He meets a cute girl and it looks like a fated encounter, but the girl, Aikawa, later turns out to be his classmate and an ??? (otoko-no-ko: a male who looks/dresses/acts completely female). I found it amusing how quick the other students adapt to Aikawa, with the girls treating him like a female friend, and the guys accepting him because he's cute. Even the teachers let him wear a girl's uniform at school, because what he is wearing is a school uniform after all. Aikawa seems to li...
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