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Manga

Hayate x Blade Manga, Volume 10
2009-09-20 21:00:00
If you have been following Hayate x Blade  (???×????) from the beginning, you are vaguely aware that there is an itch in this series that is not being scratched.  But first, as Volume 10 opens,  there's the persistent and dangerous Ensuu and Mei to deal with. With incredible effort, and the stupidest technique ever (one used in previous volumes but no less silly this time) Ayana and Hayate *finally* bring the bad girls of Tenchi to their knees. Yay Team Us! Woo hoo! From almost the very first volume, we know that Hayate is one of a pair of twins. In fact, her older sister Nagi was the one originally accepted into Tenchi Gakuen, but wasn't able to attend because she was in the hospital. Only a few volumes ago, we were given a glimpse of the elusive Nagi, but that wasn't enough! Nagi needs to be in the story, and soon, I felt. Well, so did Hayashiya, apparently, because Nagi finally arrives to take her place among the sword-bearing student body at Tenchi G...
Needless, Anime and Manga
2009-09-15 23:35:00
A little over a year ago, I began getting Ultra Jump magazine, when Hayate Cross Blade moved to there from its former home. One of the other series in the magazine was the manga Needless and, being the manga omnivore I am, I gave it a try. I picked it up in the middle of a fight between a bunch of girls, whose underwear the reader was shown repeatedly and a buxom woman with evil eyebrows, whose cleavage the reader spent a lot of time looking down. There were two older guys with silly facial hair, a bunch of people in the background and a lot of screaming. Now, about 14 months later, Needless is still in the middle of the very same battle, with the very same characters in the same locations and lots of screaming. So, when the anime was announced, you can bet I had no expectations. And so far, I've been right on with that. :-) In a post-apocalyptic setting, Needless is the name given to people with special powers who spend most of the series yelling and fighting. The story is su...
Ichiroh Manga, Volume 1 (English)
2009-09-14 21:00:00
When Yuri Network Correspondent Sean G. drew my attention to this manga, he did it in the least appealing way, much as he might have introduced me to a creepy relative. "This is Aunt Claudia. We have to invite her." lol So, while it wasn't high on my list of manga to read, it went onto the list and eventually, onto the pile of things to review. Ichiroh, Volume 1, follows the life of Nanako, a girl who fails to get into college, her friend Akane who shares her fate and friend Shiino who makes it in. These three are surrounded by other one or two joke characters that fill out the cast of this completely typical wackiness-filled 4-koma manga. As with most 4-panel strips, the comedy relies on goofy, abnormally extreme behaviors, puns, and exasperation on the part of the non-comic characters. If you've read any other 4-panel, you've read this one. In fact, other than the translation being in actual fluent English, it's not that different from Lucky Star. There was one thing that ...
Yuri Manga: Hakodate Youjin Buraijou Himegami, Volume 5
2009-09-12 18:22:00
Demons, women, women demons and women who fight demons. It's a much of a muchness in Hakodate Youjin Buraijou Himegami, Volume 5 (???????????). Having defeated the evil, demony, well-endowed, cross-dressing French proprietor of the Black Widow brothel, Himeka has been indulging in some well-deserved snuggling with Hyou, despite Hyou's reluctance. Once the marks of her curse recede, Hyou uses that as an excuse to escape from Himeka's clutches. (What a maroon, as Bugs would say. Himeka's also well-endowed with full lips and soft skin. DUH, Hyou.) Himeka is making no bones about her interest in Hyou. We'll just have to imagine that she wears the girl down eventually. In a long, drawn out bathing scene (where we see Hyou, Himeka and her Himegami sisters Ranka and Aika - but not Kirika - naked, without seeing anything at all, which is kind of an art in itself, I think) we learn that Hyou's "miburo," the marks on her back that indicate the presence of the Youjin, the power that fo...
Ranking manga
2009-09-12 12:22:00
Navegando por la red me encontré la página My anime list (inglés), donde la gente puede puntuar las series de manga y anime, y hacer listas de las series que sigue. Me llamó la atención el ranking:Top por puntuación:1. 20th Century Boys2. Berserk3. Monster4. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou5. Nausicaä del valle del viento6. Yotsuba...140. Ravages of time170. HomunculusTambién puede ordenarse por popularidad, es decir, por el número de gente que sigue o está leyendo cada serie en concreto, en lugar de las puntuaciones. En tal caso la lista cambia totalmente:Top por popularidad:1. Naruto2. Bleach3. Death Note4. Fullmetal Alchemist5. Vampire Knight6. Fruits Basket¡Ah, antes que se enfade alguien; One Piece está séptima en ambas listas... pero en algún punto tenía que cortar.Relacionado:Top ten de la ciencia ficciónTop ten (extendido) de ciencia ficción
Yuri Manga: Linkage
2009-09-09 18:00:00
"Do you remember, the moment your love first began?" Thus begins Linkage, the collection of Yuri Hime stories by Kurata Uso. These stories are linked only by their exploration of that one moment, when two people realize that they share the same feelings as one another. Two office workers who misunderstand their importance to one another, a young flutist and the woman who loves her, a rebellious schoolgirl who falls for a blind girl, two sisters who have always been close, and an AI researcher and her creation. None of these really has any 'link' to one another. The links are forged between the women in the relationships, and between them and us as we watch their love blossom into something real. There's little here that stands above and beyond the Typical "Story A," really, except that that characters are well drawn and well conceived. Despite the fact that only one of them even acknowledges the difficulty of the admission of loving another woman, these stories are pretty dar...
Mein Kampf Manga Blitzes Bookstores With Comic Nazi-ness
2009-09-09 01:41:00
Fancy a little Adolph with your anime? Japan has something for that: a manga comic version of Hitler's guide to world domination. Anybody seen Mein Manga?
Yuri Manga: Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, Volume 6 (English)
2009-09-06 22:39:00
In Volume 6 of Tetragrammaton Labyrinth, what was always implicit becomes finally explicit. As Angela, Meg and their allies face the evil, insane and powerful Gilles de Rais, and find that their own power comes up short against his, he raises the issue that has been the leitmotif of this entire series. Killing the living, raising the dead and stealing souls, he attests, is not for personal power. No, he commits heinous acts of brutality for *love.* It will come as no suprise that this fails to convince Angela to sympathize, but it brings up the obvious. De Rais asks Angela if she has anyone to love - truly love - give up her life for love. Well duh, dude. The final acts play out exactly as one expects. The good guys peel off one at a time to fight the bad guys, so we can be sad at our losses and the final confrontation has reversals and lots of screaming and blood and severed limbs. And, the ultimate sacrifice, as Angela gives up everything to keep Meg at her side. In the fina...
Aoi Shiro Manga, Volume 2
2009-09-04 02:01:00
In the Jive edition of Aoi Shiro, the focus is squarely on the game characters, as opposed to Ichinjisha's Yuri Hime edition of the story, in which the focus was on two almost irrelevant characters and was so tepidly Yuri that it failed to capture my interest. In Volume 2 of the Jive version of Aoi Shiro, Yuri takes a back seat to Action and Mystery and other capitalized selling points.Shouko, captain of the kendo club, is drawn into an ever-deepening mystery regarding Nami, the child she found on the beach. Her own childhood memories, Nami's unusual dress, and a giant Bull-Demon all collide in what probably makes a pretty good game and makes a reasonably good manga. This is all made even more interesting by a suit-wearing Onee-san type from Shouko's past and a guardian with one good eye-type from I have no idea whose past. And Nami transforms into someone older and less whiny.It's all full of shiny action and stuff. I'd go so far as to say it wouldn't make a bad anime, probab...
Hidamari Sketch Manga, Volume 4
2009-09-02 21:00:00
It's Guest Review Wednesday once again on Okazu and once again, it is my sincere pleasure to welcome George R. for this week's guest review!The fourth volume of Aoki Ume's Hidamari Sketch manga (????????) came out in Japan this past January. I was a bit slow in picking it up, but am glad that I did. It doesn't have a deep involved plot or more than hints of Yuri, but then again Hidamari Sketch never has. If you've likedthe previous manga, light novels, or anime, you'll probably enjoy this as well.Ume-sensei has a strong cast of characters already and we can again enjoy the amusement in their daily lives. But she doesn't make them carry the entire load in this character-driven manga. The first extra we meet is Yuzawa Arisa, a senior art major, who is the only one left in the art room to answer Yuno's phone which she forgot there. She can't resist Yuno's cuteness and has her pose for a sketch.The end of the school year brings exams and Yuno does poorly enough to need to take...
Yuri Manga: Tenbin ha Hana to Asobu, Volume 1
2009-09-01 22:03:00
In Volume 1 of Tenbin ha Hana to Asobu (???????), Yohko is a transfer student into the elite Lotus Girls High School. She's tremendously energetic and, it turns out, athletic, but she's not clueless or clumsy. She's just not elegant. Certainly, not as elegant as Shuu, the lavender-haired beauty who takes Yohko on a tour of the school. Upon meeting Shuu, Yohko's reaction is rather unusual - she claims to smell blood and asks Shuu if she's hurt. No, Shuu answers, but looks like there's something more to behind it. Shuu shows Yohko around, but after hours Yohko realizes she's forgotten something, and runs off to the the infirmary where she comes in on Shuu apparently drinking the blood from the school doctor's neck. The school doctor confirms what Yohko thinks she just saw - Shuu is a vampire. Not only is she a vampire, but at the moment she is genderless. Depending on whether she drinks more male or female blood, when she turns 18 she will become male or female.Yohko promises ...
Yuri Manga: Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan, Volume 1
2009-08-31 21:25:00
At last.In a small, friendly town, down at the end of the main street, in a spot just by the edge of the park, is a shop where you can sit and relax and have a cup of excellent tea. It's called the Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan, The Amber Teahouse. This volume tells the story of this store and the people who make it so wonderful.The store owner is Seriho, a sweet, somewhat helpless woman. Luckily for her, she is assisted in the day-to-day operations of the shop by one very intelligent young lady, Sarasa. Sarasa, it is soon apparent, has a second agenda. It is not just the tea shop she loves, but the tea shop's owner.This first collected volume follows Sarasa and Seriho as they wrangle with the complexities of running the tea shop and with their feelings for each other. The story of how they met, originally told in the second [es] Eternal Sisters anthology is gathered here, as is the fateful story in which Sarasa and her friends forever change the destiny of the Amber Teahouse with a Ta...
Avatar the Game
2009-08-29 10:36:00
I’ve been in anticipation of James Cameron’s new movie (shot using the Fusion Camera System technology) called Avatar which will be released on december 18th. James Cameron is a screenwriter, producer and director. He has written and directed films as: The Terminator, Rambo II, Aliens, The Abyss and monster hit Titanic. In 2011 Cameron will be ...
Lucky Star Manga, Volume 1 (English)
2009-08-28 18:58:00
Very Important Disclaimer: Because of the popularity of this anime series and the level of Fandelusion engaged in by Fans of the series, I want to make this very clear up front. I do not hate Lucky Star. I have watched a total of about 30 seconds of one episode. I have nothing to compare this manga to - I may in fact be the only person to review this manga who has never seen the anime. Today's review is *only* about the manga, with no bias at all in relation to the anime. Please do not accuse me of anything other than what I am doing - reading this manga and taking it at face value as itself. Thank you for your understanding. ;-)Lucky Star, Volume 1 is a 4-koma comic about a bunch of simplistically rendered high school girls. There is, approximately, one joke for every two characters, none of which get that much funnier as the book goes one.The main character, Konata, is a hardcore otaku. And...that's about it. She lives with her Dad, who is also otaku and the two of them live a b...
Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 17 (Part 2)
2009-08-24 21:00:00
The second half of Volume 17 of Yuri Hime (???????) starts off with another very doujinshi-style story. Which makes me wonder...why do I think of them this way? Probably because i first encountered them when I began collecting original Yuri doujinshi. These stories that I think of as doujinshi stories are almost always high school settings, almost always kind of imperfect, good-but-amateur-ish art and almost always about those first steps to admitting that the characters are in love. They end with the moment that both characters acknowledge that they feel the same way about one another. Rarely do they go much further than that, but I do tend to like it when the stories do. Kimochi no Katachi (originally published as the Tact series) by Sakuraike was one of those series, Volume 1 and Volume 2, but then spent more time looking back before Satsuki met Kino than forward.In any case, in "Watashi no Kawaii Hito" Ika met and Sempai a while ago and, after Sempai confessed to her, they've b...
Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 17 (Part 1)
2009-08-23 23:29:00
Welcome to Volume 17 of Yuri Hime (???????), which was both very good and very bad - sometimes at the same time.The cover story, and new series by Eiki Eiki and Zaou Taisho is...really frustrating. It's the 22nd century, all the men are dead and women have, for some reason, reinvented hesterosexist society for themselves. Women are either "Adam"s who play the male role in a relationship or "Eve"s who are the female role. In effect, the entirety of human society has become Takarazuka. The protagonist of this story, Aoi, is an "Adam," attending an "Adam's" private school. The number one rule of this school is that Adams MAY NOT have relationships with one another - only with Eves. Not only is this ridiculous, it does something I am simply unhappy with - it turns this story into a BL/Yaoi story since it is *painfully* obvious that Sakura and Aoi will be the main couple here. I find this vexing. Severely vexing. Frankly, it just pisses me right off. I have nothing against BL. I unders...
Manken Manga, Volume 2
2009-08-21 21:00:00
In Volume 1 of Manken (???) we learned that the B-team manga club doesn't so much draw manga, as hang out, make first-year member Saki play dress up and, well...fuck around.In Volume 2, there's even more of that. Also, more of the A-team manga club and their goth and loli club president, Kumiko. And...uh, that's pretty much it.Less Yuri. In fact, barely any Yuri. Shiina stops fantasizing about Saki, except as a live model for her fave fetish clothing.If anything, it's more Shiina and Reiko and kind of Shiina and Kumiko, in that Kumiko is very tsundere about her. But it's also kind of hard to tell, because she's tsundere about everything.Ratings:Art - 7Story - 7 Characters - 7Yuri - 1Loser Fan Boy - 3Overall - 7Different volume, same Comiket gags.Tags: Manken
La Manga Club: Golf and Travel in Sunny Spain
2009-08-18 20:35:00
"I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain." Excerpt from "Beauty", a poem by John Edward Masefield, English poet laureateFollowing in the same vein as my recent interest in playing golf at the Ailsa Course at Turnberry, I have also decided to select several other destinations that I am going to make a strong effort to visit over the next several years. Although I can only cross my fingers and hope that this happens, I consider this a "wish list" of sorts.Sometimes when you wish hard enough, your wish can come true!I love the sun, beach and golf, so I always make sure to include that "trifecta" when planning a holiday. The Murcia region of Spain happens to offer the most hours of daylight of any continent and so I am considering a visit to La Manga, Europe's most famous golf resort.The Mediterranean climate boasts sunshine more than 300 days per year! Couple that with 1,400 acres of top-notch facilities, and I cannot b...
Alice on Deadlines Manga, Volume 4 (English)
2009-08-11 19:32:00
After yesterday's amazing interview this will immediately pale into the obscurity it deserves, but it has to be done. :-)We have, through much hardship and effort, made our way through to the final, climactic volume of Alice on Deadlines and still, the title remains the best part of the story.The final showdown is less of a showdown than a melee and characters are being stabbed through the gut left and right (with scythes. Seriously? Who uses a scythe to *stab*?!? I mean, yes - you can do it, but what a miserable misuse of a lovely weapon. My long-handled, edged-weapons-loving self protests.)But in no way is this really anything to do with the story. The story, such as it is, is really about Alice and Lapan, each stuck in a body that is not theirs and only one of them happy about it. So the final showdown with Regina comes and, instead of it being Lapan vs Regina, it's everyone vs everyone, with really hard to follow art, but we're able to parse a few key concepts. The big takeaw...
Hitohira Manga, Volume 3 (English)
2009-08-08 00:44:00
In Volume 3 of Hitohira, the spotlight remains firmly on Mugi's transformation from a pathologically shy girl to one capable of dealing with being in the public eye. But even Mugi's new pair of wings doesn't mean she's always going to be able to fly.Although they had their triumph, Nono's renegade Theater Group does not get enough votes to survive and is formally, and tearfully, dissolved. But, what Nono could never get while it existed, she finally gains as it is disbanded, and the two theater groups celebrate Christmas as one. Nono and Mirei look forward to their own parting from their precious kouhai, knowing they did everything they could to have the best possible time during their high school years. Although they have not yet left the story, exeunt Nono and Mirei.The spotlight shifts slightly now, allowing another character to enter from the wings. Mugi's friend, benefactor and protector, Kayo, tells her something that will completely derail Mugi's new-found freedom. She...
Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime S, Volume 9
2009-08-04 22:24:00
Yuri Hime S, Volume 9 (???????S (??)) is...Yuri Hime S. I keep wanting to like it, I really do. And mostly I kind of sort of enjoy it. But it is not for me and I am reminded repeatedly of the fact as I face chapter after chapter of stories like "Yuru Yuri," "Love Cubic," "Minus Literacy," "Cassiopeia Dolce" and the new series "Konohana Teikitan." They are simply not for me. Like or not like is beside the point. I'm the older sister reading a younger brother's Yuri and just not feeling it.It's not even that the golden allure of schoolgirls' thighs are nothing to me, it's just that there's nothing *happening* in these stories, because the fetishism fills the pages so full with cat/wolf/elf ears and bathing suits and underwear that the characters don't have any time to develop. Take "Shingami Arisu," a story that had a pretty bloody opening in which our protagonists meet over a murder. Well, in this next chapter...our protagonists meet over a murder. It was pretty much the same ...
Manga Charater In Different Styles – Escrow only by myecomdk
2009-08-04 15:52:00
!!! Please see attached file !!! I need an existing manga character drawn in different poses / styles based on the information in the attached file that also offer a small character thumbnail. It... (Budget: $30-250, Jobs: Game Design, Graphic Design, Illustrator, Photoshop, Website Design)
Digging the (Anime/Manga) Twitter Scene
2009-08-02 21:44:00
If you look on the right-hand sidebar of this blog, you will see a number of links that lead you to social media spaces of varying kinds. Yuricon on Facebook, my profile on Mixi, the Yuricon Mailing List and a number of other spaces. Today I want to talk about Twitter.Yuricon on Twitter is a bit of a mixed fruit crepe. In the AM, I tend to focus on Business, and in the evening I switch over to my jaunty Yuri anime and manga cap. In between I sprinkle a helping of LGBT issues for flavor. So far, no one has complained about the multi-tweeting. In fact, it has worked nicely to get Yuri into the hands of Twittering Lesbians, and LGBT issues on the plates of Anime/Manga fans. And then there's the Social Media piece. It fills my every tweet, really. I explain the hows and whys of social media, the whos and where and like so many others, the don'ts. As you may remember, last December I opened Yurikon LLC, the promotion company behind Yuricon & ALC Publishing, for business as a social med...
Yuri Manga: Tsubomi, Volume 2
2009-07-31 00:16:00
I was about to sit down this morning, at an obscenely early hour, while the sun rose into my living room (bringing light and heat, but not joy) when something important happened. I picked up my copy of Tsumbomi, Volume 2, (???) all ready to damn it with faint praise - how the stories were like eating Spicy Thai potato chips - pretty good, sort of painful and, after a while, you can't really taste them, because you've gone numb. I opened the magazine to realize that if I did so, I'd be lying. Because the stories weren't like eating Spicy Thai potato chips (recommended by the way) they were like that hard candy your grandmother had in a dish on the living room table. They were candy, it's true, and they were different flavors, but somehow they just never satisfied your craving for sweets.I was going to rag that Volume 2 was just like Volume 1, sort of bland and the same. I was going to hold up one solitary story, "Hotei and Ebisu" as an example of the only different story in the ...
Yuri Manga: Gokujou Drops, Volume 2
2009-07-27 23:38:00
Everyday at the Ootori Dorm is a passive-aggressive kind of day in Volume 2 of Gokujou Drops, one of the Yuri manga distributed on cellphone by Ichijinsha.Komari is not *quite* as sappy as she appears, and certainly not nearly as sappy as she started out in Volume 1, but she's not conquering the universe yet, either. While Yukio and Komari are more of a couple than previously, Komari is well aware that Yukio in no way considers her anything like a partner or equal in their relationship.Sexual harassment around the dorms is toned down to an introduction to and sexual harassment chapter by yet another upperclassman, Sai, who is considered to be weird even by the other decidedly weird dorm residents. But after that, Komari is left to stress out about Yukio unreservedly.And stress she does. Yukio goes home with nary a word and no follow up communication at all. Komari puts up with the silence, but is concerned. More for Yukio's well-being than her own. She calls up all the courage she...
Zombie Loan Manga, Volume 3 (English)
2009-07-24 23:46:00
Having sold her soul to the Ferryman, Michiru's life went from miserable to chaotic. But, in Zombie Loan, Volume 3, it's finally settling down into a pattern of hunting zombies with Shito and Chika in order to pay off the loan that keeps her alive. Of course, as with all things regarding credit, the late fees, renewal rates and interest are, in this case quite literally, a killer.The first half of this volume ends the Butterfly arc, in which /massive spoiler/ serves to /spoiler/ /spoiler/. Sorry, I'm just being silly. Chika's best friend ever turns out to totally not be what Chika thinks and, as a result, Chika falls into a depression.The Ferryman, in a uncharacteristic moment of noticing that his employees have feelings, decides to take them on a short getaway to build team spirit. (Oh, yes, pun intended.) As usual with this kind of chaos-comedy, it only partially works. At the hot springs, Yomi comes on to Michiru pretty blatantly, but sadly Michiru doesn't bite. Yomi's reac...
Your And My Secret Manga, Volume 4
2009-07-24 01:18:00
Crazy, wacky gender-bendy hijinks turn into slightly serious gender-bendy hijinks in Volume 4 of Your and My Secret. Akira, still stuck in Nanako's body, is being wooed by his best Senbongi, while Nanako, happily passing her days in Akira's body, is still going out with her best friend Shiina.The bulk of the volume follows Akira's wavering feelings, as he is alternately attracted to Senbongi, repulsed by his own interest, and still - he insists - in love with Nanako. Senbongi says plain out that he doesn't care that its Akira in there - he likes the Nanako he is. Akira gives in and they begin to date - which doesn't actually make him any happier, except when it does. We get a little glimpse back to their earlier years and see that Senbongi hasn't changed much. He's more sensitive in some ways and less in others, but overall he's not a bad guy. And there's no reason to doubt his affection for Akira.Their date ends at a love hotel, but nothing happens on account of the unlike...
Yuri Manga: Butterfly 69
2009-07-21 01:13:00
Butterfly 69 is everything that is good and right about Yuri manga. It makes me happy to be a manga reader.Right from the first panel of the first story that ever appeared in Yuri Hime, I found Natsuneko's art appealing. It has vibrancy, an energy that lacks in most manga these days. It's not just that there's action and energy depicted. The characters feel lively and real - even when the situations are ridiculous and unreal. Which they mostly are. :-)In "Butterfly 69," the title story and one of my two favorites, we are introduced to Maria, the mixed-race singer of Butterfly 69 and Ageha, the prim and proper President of the Student Council at the elite music school Maria attends. Maria is an affront to everyone and everything at the school, with her crazy clothes and earrings and wild not-really Japanese self. Unbeknownst to the student body and staff, Maria and Ageha are engaged in a passionate love affair. Maria is given the opportunity to make it big overseas, but will have ...
Yuri Manga: Morita-san no Mukuchi
2009-07-17 21:19:00
There are *so* many ways Morita-san ha Mukuchi (???????) could have been annoying. But it isn't annoying. Not at all. It's very funny and very enjoyable.Morita Mayu is, compared with other people, more silent. It's not that she can't talk, or that she doesn't want to talk, it's just that she thinks before she speaks - she thinks a lot before she speaks and sometimes misses the chance altogether. Or the mood isn't right, or her timing is off. Honestly, she'd like to speak more, it just never seems to work out.At home, her mother tries to coach Mayu, but between Mom yelling at Dad or them being really lovey-dovey at each other, Mayu feels the mood is rarely conducive to her saying anything.Despite her silence, Mayu is not at all ostracized by the kids at school. Once the girls get used to it, they tell her all their secrets because they know she won't tell anyone. They trust Mayu and like her and she likes them back. There's one or two girls that find her a little odd at fir...
Yuri Manga: Butterfly Kiss Blade, Volume 1
2009-07-16 21:00:00
In the beginning, there were the Inklings. From the Inklings were born Lord of the Rings and the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. These misbegot such things as the Sword of Shannara and the Belgeriad and from these were, ultimately, begot Harry Potter. From Harry Potter came Negima! and now, here we are at the seventh bastard of the seventh bastard, Butterfly Kiss Blade, Volume 1.Homura and Sakurako (who are NOTHING like Setsuna and Konoka, let me assure you,) attend Prinpikia Academy, which is one syllable shift away from being a pretty great name. It is a school of magic, of course. And there are fights, of course. With giant weapons. There is also a nadesico-type classic beauty, complete with henchchicks and political and magical power who is in love with Homura's partner, the sweet, kind, passive, frontally lobotomized Sakurako. There are also panty shots, but I'll come back to them later.The bulk of the first volume is Shizuka's ever more pathetic attempts at defeating Homu...
Gin Tama Manga (English)
2009-07-15 21:00:00
Welcome to Wednesday on Okazu, the day I crash and burn and pass the baton to whomever is standing closest and doesn't think to run away. Today's victim Guest Reviewer is the much beloved, admired and bewildered Sean Gaffney, Okazu's resident LFB correspondent. Let's welcome Sean with this Laurel and Hearty handshake.Gin Tama is a very successful Shonen Jump series that has been running in Japan since 2004. It's being released by Viz 6 times a year in their 'Shonen Jump Advanced' line (where it is less than successful, but hey, they can't all be Naruto), and Vol. 13 just came out this month. The basic premise combines a gag comedy with a samurai action manga. The manga is not afraid to veer wildly back and forth between these - 2/3 of the time it's stupid self-referential gag manga (Gin frequently can be found reading Shonen Jump, and a recent chapter arc has the characters fighting each other after seeing their rankings in the new popularity poll), but when it gets serious...
Yuri Manga: Miyuki-chan in Wonderland (English)
2009-07-10 21:00:00
Wow, it's only a few years ago, but reading Miyuki-chan in Wonderland feels like stepping back a million years into the past. To a time when Tokyopop was *the* name in manga, when they were cutting edge and hot. And CLAMP was the name on everyone's lips all the time. From X to Chobits to...well just about a zillion series, whatever CLAMP touched turned into money.Miyuki-chan is a collection of 6 short, service-filled stories of hapless high school girl Miyuki, as she wanders through dreamscapes loosely based on Lewis Carroll's iconic works, games and CLAMP's own work. All of these are filled with primarily female characters, mostly adult, and almost all focused on feeling Miyuki up or stripping her down. A psychological reading of the book could easily attribute all sorts of pent-up lesbian feelings to Miyuki but, as she's completely fictitious, we have to just assume that CLAMP really likes drawing women in underwear. :-)The Yuri in this manga is really Yuri - there are no les...
Yuri Manga: Itoshi wo Tome (Volume 1)
2009-07-08 21:00:00
Set in the Heian period, Itoshi wo Tome ~ Kimi ga Kokoko ha ~ (?????~??????~) is a story about noblewomen Tachibana and Sakura, whose older sister had been a lady of the Emperor's palace, but had died. Sakura is living with Tachibana's family as a courtesy. Tachibana falls in love with Sakura's tearful face early on but as much as they wish it, their story is not as simple as "Happily ever after." First, Tachibana is betrothed to the stupidest, most cheerful doofus ever. His words are decorated with ASCII art just to give you an idea of his depth and intelligence. When he discovers Tachibana and Sakura locked together in an embrace, Sakura is able to convince him to be their friend and ally.But a far, far worse threat is around the corner. Tachibana remains engaged to her doofus, knowing he won't press the issue - but when Sakura is called up by the Emperor to be one of his women, there is no escape. Tachibana wails that as a woman she is powerless, but then comes to the surpris...
Yuri Manga: Red Garden, Volume 4
2009-07-06 22:23:00
Red Garden, Volume 4 is 272 pages of blood, weirdness, violence and undead girls who look very fetching in that frock. As you can see clearly from the cover, Kate steps forward to openly take her place as the lead character in this volume. It's been apparent that, although the story is *said* to revolve around Lise, it really revolves around Kate.Kate and Herve' come together, and are ripped apart, Kate fends off Evil, Psycho Lesbian TM Paula who, completely unlike the wonderful, kind, sincere Paula of the anime, is a loathsome, unstable creature in the fine tradition of carnivorous lesbians in most media. But dont worry - she dies. then she comes back and turns out to be real nice after all. But she dies again anyway.Kate is set apart from Rose, Rachel and Claire at the end when, in order to save everyone, she is forced to sacrifice herself. Although they mourn their loss, they are able to move on and live the life that had been taken from them. Kate, however, does not die, but l...
Manga Painted Keyboards Bring Anime Idols To Your Fingertips
2009-07-05 03:35:00
Artistic keyboards have come and gone, but few have looked as good as these exquisite manga painted anime art keyboards by star illustrators CARNELIAN and TONY.
Alice on Deadlines Manga: Volume 3 (English)
2009-07-03 21:00:00
If you have read Volume 1 and/or Volume 2 of Alice on Deadlines, then you already know what's going to happen in Volume 3. There will be service, there will be lots of screaming, there will be lots of running around, cross-dressing of all kinds, and a new, crazy, violent character will arrive, throwing Alice into danger and forcing Lapan to deal with his past. But in between these snippets of plot, there is more service. We begin with service, with a beach episode, in which we are treated any number of bathing suits that defy the laws of physics. Ume has a little crisis because he realizes that Lapan will never truly see him has a woman...I admit to being a little confused as to his transition as well. It's hardly important in a grander scale but there's some inconsistencies from volume to volume that confuse me as a reader.But then Alice is captured by crazed, broken Shinigami Regina Rosso, who was clearly involved in Lapan's tragic past. He traps Alice in a beautiful but mute ...
Yuri Manga: Ghost Talker's Daydream, Volume 3 (English)
2009-07-01 21:00:00
You know what I just love? I love when people who aren't lesbian or gay tell us what we feel and think. So, how convenient that "what lesbians feel" is described for me in Ghost Talker's Daydream, Volume 3. Saiki Misaki is an exorcist, She can see and talk to ghosts; spirits of the dead that are still attached for some reason to this plane. By seeing and speaking with them, Misaki facilitates their passing on. In Volume 3, Misaki is asked by a lesbian friend, Shizue, to exorcise the spirit of a runaway who she didn't sleep with, but didn't help, either. The runaway, Arisa, and the woman who brought her to the lesbian bar, Naori (who, we are helpfully told is "gender dysphoric," a term that makes wanting gender reassignment surgery sound like a disease, something I object to on principle,) die together, but Arisa continues to haunt Shizue. In discussing Naori, Shizue kindly explains to Misaki that all lesbians have fallen for a straight woman at least once and cursed the fact tha...
Yuri Manga: Assistant Denki Keika, Volume 1
2009-06-29 23:57:00
Imagine, if you will, a reader of Sasamekikoto who finishes up a volume of that particular high school Yuri drama and thinks, "That was great. But you know, it would be so much cooler if they were older, maybe, yeah, like assistants to manga artists, and there was an evil overlord trying to stop them and they had to defeat him then have really raunchy lesbo sex."That's pretty much what you get in Volume 1 of Assistant Denki Keika, (aka Keika, the Romance of The Assistant.) Keika is a Sumi/Fumi/Sachiko/Chikane/Simon-e classic Japanese nadesico beauty, armed with nibbed pens and the refuse from a million tones and a fistful of angry "get the fuck out of my way." So when soon-to-be-manga assistant Tamae is attacked by the evil overlord's henchmen, Keika's appearance is welcome. She saves the damsel, they spend the night together and use the tools of their trade as sex toys. There are bodily fluids. They are joined in their violence and sex by Tsumugi, an absurdly cute cross-dressing ...
Yuri Manga: Suzunari, Volume 2 (English)
2009-06-25 23:21:00
Let's be blunt. Suzunari was not written for me, W.C. Fields or anyone like us. It was written for a particular kind of reader - primarily male, adult, who likes cats and kids, not quite inappropriately. They find cat ears and maid costumes on girls irrestibly adorable, like Yuri-cest, and don't mind a story that is not complex, as long as it has most of the above in some measure. This is moe fandom and Suzunari is for them.In Volume 2, Suzu and Kaede slide through many of the typical school-life tropes; school trips and festivals and class activities, in a jerky, semi-non-linear fashion. I expect that the timing made more sense for the months in which the manga ran in its magazine. Like soap operas, manga may be anywhere in the story line, but will always be seasonally appropriate. :-)Suzu's need to be acknowledged and her love explicitly returned becomes more and more of a critical plot device, one that - to me at least - makes even less sense once we learn who Suzu is. As a c...
Yuri Manga: High School Girls, Volume 9 (English)
2009-06-24 22:43:00
Behind the premise of High School Girls, Volume 9 runs a strong feeling of nostalgia for the bygone days of youth. "Time Stopped at Age Seventeen" screams one header prominently, which immediately causes me to cringe with a feeling of horror crawling up my spine. It wasn't that my high school years were bad - far from it, I had a great time. However, there is NOTHING that would ever be incentive enough for me to want to have that time extended by a single second. lolNot so for Eriko or the other girls in the Idiot group, each one of which is determined to wring as much fun from the rag of life as they can. And I approve. What the hell good is being 17 if you're not going off and doing incredibly dumb things that must be fun because everyone tells you so? Heck, what's the good of life at all if you're not having fun doing dumb things? When was the last time you did something fun and dumb? Anyway, the trip to Okinawa draws to a close and everyone on the trip is as annoying as pos...
Yuri Manga: Burst Angel, Volume 3 (English)
2009-06-19 23:15:00
Answer: LoveQuestion: What is the one thing that defines something as being not a "monster?"In Volume 3 of Burst Angel, the revelation that Jo was actually created to be a monster comes too late for us to ever be able to believe it, because we've already seen the look in her eyes when she looks at Meg. And so has Meg.So, no matter what people say about Jo - no matter what Meg hears about her inhumanity, she knows damn well that Jo is really a human and really, truly, someone that she'd go to the wire for. It doesn't matter that Sei offers her scads of cash to stay away, that a crazy-ass killer named Rumpelstiltskin insists she was a cold-blooded killing machine or even an evil corporation that reveals Jo was created as a Genocide Angel, can keep her away from Jo's side.And that, my friends, is all we ever wanted to see out of this series. Jo and Meg together. And it is why the manga is orders better than the anime. Thankfully, the reproduction was up to snuff this time. At last,...
Hanayashiki no Junin-tachi Manga, Volume 2
2009-06-17 22:59:00
Ah, the dramatic love triangle. What would we do without you for tired, retread, yet eternally fascinating drama. I love you, but you love him and he loves me. It's been done so many times it's almost not funny. But, add in a drenching cold rain, a deathly fever and a psychotic cross-dressing brother and you have...well, pretty much the same thing as always.Hanayashiki no Junin-tachi, Volume 2 starts dead on in the middle of a melodramatic love triangle, composed of Renge, who likes Aki who likes Ayame who likes Renge. At the end of Volume 1 Aki confesses his feelings for Ayame, which seemed to set her off on a course of hysteria and increased mental instability. Worse, because Aki's figured out that Ayame likes Renge, she feels that he can wield that over her. Renge admits that she likes Aki, which only makes Ayame feel even more out in left field. But it all comes to a head when Renge overhears rumors to the effect that Ayame likes Aki - she runs off to confront Ayame, only to ...
Laughs Will and Testament: Japan's New Manga Will Kits
2009-06-16 20:46:00
Estate planning goes from exhausting to exciting as Kokuyo's manga style will kit explains tough legal issues in classic comic book style.
Alice on Deadlines Manga: Volume 2 (English)
2009-06-12 03:45:00
Lapan is the worst Shinigami ever. He's a slacker, a layabout and a perv. Alice was the most beautiful and popular girl in her elite girls' school, but since Lapan arrived, poor Alice is forced to watch as day after day Lapan abuses her own body after accidentally being incarnated in it, leaving her stuck as an animated skeleton. To make things worse, another Shinigami, Ume, is spending his days trying to seduce Lapan, while trying to get rid of Alice behind Lappan's back.And that is not all that Alice has to deal with in Volume 2 of Alice on Deadlines. She learns a bit about Lapan's and Ume's past, takes on an underwear-stealing Shibito and is captured by Mad-sama, the crazy lord of Shibito, who takes a liking to her new skeletal form. On top of all that, she may be falling for Lapan...which is to say that she's kind of falling for herself.Yuri in Volume 2 is Ume's attempts to gain access to Lapan's body, Lapan cultivating Alice's hordes of admirers for more "personal: re...
My-HiME Manga, Volume 5 (English)
2009-06-10 23:10:00
My absolute favorite panel of My-HiME Volume 5 is the first page. We see TWO gaudily dressed women, arrogantly posed, smiling condescendingly and clearly labeled "Three Cosmic Beauties."Eventually we learn why the third of the three Cosmic Beauties is not present in this panel, and I agree that a label stating "Two of the Three Cosmic Beauties" would not have been as dramatic, but...still. Totally typical of the whole My-HiME experience. :-)In case there hasn't been enough screaming in the previous four volumes, the decibels are upped a few extra notches for this one. Pretty much everything is said in REALLY BIG LETTERS!!! so we know they really mean it. Nagi returns from the dead only to be killed again, which is pretty darn satisfying and, since there's only one person in the whole world Mai loves more than anything, of course she has to fight that person. Tate gets both girls, sort of, and they beat the bad guy and save the world. Yay us.Haruka and Yukino have a shiny hero mome...
Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, Volume 16 (Part 2)
2009-06-05 19:18:00
The second half of The Comic Yuri Hime, Volum 16 starts off with what I consider to be an interesting turn of events. In "Honey Mustard" Morishima Akiko details a silly little story of two careerwomen, Kaori and Mitsuki. Some years ago they were lovers, but are now good friends - then rivals, as they fall for the ubercute server at the window of what we used to call in college a "grease truck." Mai finds both women attractive in their own way, but her coworker, Chiho is less enthusiastic because she is, quite clearly jealous. The story itself is cute. It's nice to see more adult characters, but that is not particularly what interested me. What interested me was something Chiho said. In response to Mai's comment about how attractive both Kaori and Mitsuki were, Chiho says "My gut tells me that those two aren't like us." In fact, she uses a phrase "Kocchi no Ke." I'm not sure I'm going to be able to explain this right, so my apologies if I cock this up but in this sense "ke" is a...
Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime, Volume 16 (Part 1)
2009-06-04 21:01:00
The 16th Volume of Comic Yuri Hime starts off with a big "Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan" presence. Sarasa, Seriho and two new characters, Mana-chan and Shiko, adorn the cover. Inside the cover is the "Pink Princess" Drama CD in which we are introduced to Manako and Shiko.This is followed by something I do not particularly care for. There is a thing that Japanese seiyuu do, to play with the images of their characters and as a form of service, where they pose or imply Yuri between them and the other actress(es) who voice characters in the same show/CD. It's pretty popular among fans, there's even blogs that track this fake lesbian coupling among seiyuu...but it really kinda squicks me. They aren't a couple, and they don't look like they even want to touch each other. It strikes me as icky, not cute. Nonetheless, those kinds of pictures accompany completely banal interviews with the voice actresses of "Pink Princess," and more ads for the delayed first volume of Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan...
Yuri Manga: Negima!
2009-06-03 17:40:00
It's Wednesday, which must mean it's time for a Guest Review! Today Sean Gaffney will catch us up to date on the Yuri in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Take it away, Sean!I haven't done a review going into the Yuri in Negima in a long time. Mostly as there's been almost nothing to say. The only Yuri couple with any subtext, Setsuna and Konoka, have remained pretty much at a stasis for about 20 volumes. However, this new arc in the Magic World seems to be finally showing some character development. Tsukuyomi, the Evil Psychotic Lesbian of Negima (whose psychotic crush on Setsuna is shown even more blatantly, to the point of verging on attempted rape), notes that Setsuna is weaker now that she's more 'human', and notes that she'll never be able to protect her ojou-sama that way. (This will be in Volume 25, which should be released here in early 2010.) We're now 3 volumes later (i.e. what you'll see at the END of 2010), and Setsuna is still worrying about this. This is unsurpris...
Yuri Manga: Hayate x Blade, Volume 3 (English)
2009-06-02 20:56:00
I told you, didn't I? I've been telling you for years now and you *finally* realize that I haven't been lying. Hayate x Blade, Volume 3 is...awesome.In this volume, two major things happen - we start to learn that the characters we all thought were idiots are in, fact, amazingly, stupendously cool. And we also learn that as amazingly, stupendously cool as they are...they are still all idiots. :-)You are not alone when you decide that Jun is the most amazingly, stupendously cool character, by the way. As you will see in the next volume. You may also be amused, but not at all surprised, to learn that Jun is voiced on the Drama CDs by Toyoguchi Megumi. Yes, she *is* the Sei of this series - it wasn't just your imagination.So, in Volume 3, we realize that Ayana is deeper than just being a grumpy old grump and Hayate has a lot to learn and Jun has a very important person in her life and that person is quite amusingly broken. We also learn that Hitsugi and Shizuku are awesome. We actu...
Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 3
2009-05-29 04:10:00
Let's get the most damning thing about Yuri Hime Wildrose, Volume 3 out of the way right up front. When I picked it up today to review it, I couldn't remember a single story in it, although I had only re(!)read it a week ago. After I picked it up and flipped through the volume I remembered a few of the stories, but having set it down again more than ten minutes ago, they are already slipping from my mind. This is not a good thing. But that aside, it's a fine addition the the Wildrose series.Mistukuni Hachime, of Gokujou Drops fame, brings it on with "Netemo Sametemo," which seems just about the most straight-on schoolgirl item in the book. "Closet Daisakusen' started off with action and I thought, "woo-hoo, we're gonna get us some girls with guns," but no, it was a peeping tom/sex in the closet story.Nanzaki Iku, aka Doropanda Tours, brings in entirely new, yet completely identical ShizNat stand-ins for more semi-public sex and a mild plot complication.Amano Shuninta's "Sweet ...
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