Rosa Chinensis

What's in a name?

2008-05-01T02:33:29Z

Some craziness from Gowan.

E: It is delicious cake and you must eat it.
R: Your God is a jealous God; don't look behind you.
I: You're fit as a fiddle and ready for love; you could jump over the moon up above.
N: It's an ill wind that blows nobody real good.
Mmm, cake.

Y: The pterodactyl was a flyin' fool, just a wing-flappin' daddy of the old school.
O: A Canada moose pounded your hole last night.
U: You are horned like the great god Pan.
K: Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
O: A Canada moose pounded your hole last night.
No comment. Except "Owwwwww."

C: 40 POUND BOX OF RAPE -- You know you want to open it.
H: You have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times.
I: You're fit as a fiddle and ready for love; you could jump over the moon up above.
N: It's an ill wind that blows nobody real good.
E: It is delicious cake and you must eat it.
N: It's an ill wind that blows nobody real good.
S: Class, Jesus approves of hot lesbian sex.
I: You're fit as a fiddle and ready for love; you could jump over the moon up above.
S: Class, Jesus approves of hot lesbian sex.
The S makes the others all worth it. Except maybe the C.
Insert "Jesus approves" graphic here.

A few links

2008-04-28T13:41:16Z

NHK ventures into the closet for first time with program on homosexuality.
For those of us who don't get NHK, Tokyo Wrestling has a lot of info up about the program (in Japanese only at the moment, but they do have an English-language section of their site, so perhaps they'll do a report on it in English too), and there may end up being some discussion about it at the Gay Japan News mixi community.

Have you guys all read Free Z already? Short, but it packs a punch. Warning: sad.

Preview of a manga about Yoshiya Nobuko. It's from the new women's manga magazine Malika (Mallika? It's from the Sanskrit word for "jasmine"). Apparently there's a TV drama running now based on one of Yoshiya's books, and this manga ties in with that. Note: the woman Yoshiya meets in this chapter is not her life partner (Darn! Hope she turns up later.).
According to Yuri na Hibi, the first issue of Malika also contains a prologue to Last Friends, though it's not listed on their webpage.

An interview with me.
Meant to link that sooner. Nothing terribly profound in there if you already know me. Oh, but it does remind me to link this as well: Alien Boot Camp has Talking About Amy (about yuri manga artist Takashima Rica) up to watch for free, among other things.

Another study on bisexuality

2008-04-14T12:44:14Z

10-year study debunks bisexual ‘phase’

From archlords

2008-04-13T14:40:39Z

Everyone loves quizzes, right?

Civics Quiz, linked from this article.

(My score: 75%. But I guessed on some of them.)

List of yuri manga with happy endings

2008-04-07T21:01:55Z

An expansion of one of my favorite categories from here.

Yuri Manga Available in English That Have Happy Endings
It's happened to all of us, I'd wager--you're reading a nice yuri manga, the characters have confessed their love for each other and everything seems to be going fine, and then, out of nowhere, BAM! "It turns out we're sisters, she died in a fire, and, oh, did I mention I'm getting married now?" That's an extreme example (though it is a real one--Maya's Funeral Procession), but there are countless yuri manga out there where the characters don't end up together for one reason or another. And while I enjoy the occasional unhappy or ambiguous ending as much as the next person--seriously, they can be a nice change of pace from happy endings--I think we could use a list of yuri manga with happy endings... much as I dread the inevitable arguments over why X or Y manga should or shouldn't be on the list.

What exactly constitutes a happy ending is a rather gray area (as is whether or not a manga "counts" as yuri; I'd rather not have to decide that at all, but some sort of classification is necessary for the purposes of this list), but to make it onto this list, a manga must contain characters involved in a yuri pairing who are both alive (though there are reasonable exceptions, such as vampires) and together (and not just as friends) at the end of the manga.

Aside from the stuff from yurizuki.net, everything on this list is either licensed or scanlated (though not necessarily complete). In some cases, I've linked to http downloads at yurizuki instead of a scanlator's website, for ease in downloading; you can look up scanlators' websites at Manga Jouhou and other such sites.

My favorite manga are in bold; I've put asterisks after the ones that are available entirely in English and pound signs after the ones that are heavy on the smut.

Manga that are one volume or more:
One-shots and one-shot collections:
- Baku Ai*
- Concerto*
- Even if We're Not Friends, If I Kiss Her Ring Finger, Chocolate Kiss Kiss, Wishing on the Moon* (Morinaga Milk's series about Nana and Hitomi)
- Fun After School*
- Girls' Aesthetics
- Girls Next Door 2nd*# (note: FYI, the sex in this one isn't fully consensual, and there's no warning about that in the download link)
- Happy-Go-Lucky Days
- Ichiban Sukina Hito*#
- Inner Revolution*
- A Kiss, Love, and a Prince*
- Lavender of Romance 6
- Let's Go to Heaven*
- Love My Poem*
- A Love Song in a Nameless Country*
- Mist Magazine (December 1996 issue)#
- Mist Magazine (March 1998 issue)#
- Mist Magazine (May 1998 issue)#
- Peach Taste*
- Real Love*
- Rosehip Diary (from Towakan)#
- Sketch*
- Snowflakes Fluttering Down Through the Clear Sky*
- Suika*
- Suki Dokidoki Kiss*#
- The Summer Closest to Heaven*
- Swear*
- Sweet Lips (the one-shot with that title, not the full one-shot collection)*#
- V Hunter*
- Works*
- Yuri Monogatari*
Honorable mentions (these manga have yuri elements, but whether they count as yuri manga is controversial--either the yuri is minimal considering the length of the manga or not everyone would consider it yuri. I don't want to argue over whether they're yuri or not; if you want to discuss that, the yuri forums and mailing lists are a better place for that.):
- Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa (My Two Wings)*
- Chirality*
- Haru yo, Koi (you need to be a member of daily_yuri to view the posts in this link)
- Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~*
- Loveless
- Ningyo Ouji (Part A, Part B)*
- Sailor Moon*
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou*

A fic rec

2008-04-05T03:35:07Z

Something in a recent post by archlords brought to mind a Star Trek: Voyager fic (No, don't stop reading! Hear me out!) that I love and haven't recced to anyone in a while:
In the Genes. I'm sure there are plenty of "what if there's a gene out there for homosexuality and humans decide to eliminate it" stories out there, but this one has really stuck with me for some reason.

An interesting study

2008-04-03T20:46:27Z

On Cognitive Daily--"'Outing' admired gays and lesbians may decrease prejudice."

Word of the day

2008-03-24T15:00:47Z

No, it's called "leecher." And no, that is not a value judgment, I just saw it in one of my RSS feeds and couldn't resist linking it to a more current term.
(Oh, dear. My first post in a while, and it's kind of crap. I promise to post something better soon. I have a nice yuri manga review in the works, for one.)

Why? WHY?

2008-02-07T03:49:05Z

Why, oh, why did I get the emo one? More importantly, why does this quiz even exist?

Oh, I see. STEALTH HOTTIE. Uh-huh.

Words on a yuri one-shot: "Nami no Ue no Tsuki"

2008-02-05T14:57:30Z

"Nami no Ue no Tsuki" ("The Moon Above the Waves"), from Hikari no Umi by Kodama Yuki (ISBN: 9784091308405):

Hikari no Umi is a collection of stories centering around merfolk and their interactions with humans. "Nami no Ue no Tsuki" is about a woman, Saki, who has unrequited feelings for her friend Kyouko. As the story begins, Saki is going to visit Kyouko, whom she hasn't seen in two years. Saki and Kyouko were roommates during their student days, but Kyouko returned to her hometown after graduation to pursue a career as a teacher. The island Kyouko lives on is famous for the groups of young mermen and mermaids that gather there, and Kyouko takes Saki to see them. In this world, young merfolk are split into single-gender groups, and the one currently at Kyouko's island is all mermen. These mermen will soon be going off to warmer waters (their bodies can't take the cold once they've matured past a certain point) to mate with mermaids, but for now, they're practicing mating with each other. When Saki sees a certain pair of mermen kissing, she realizes that one of the mermen is like her--he's in love with the merman he's kissing.
Later, some of the people living on the island tell Saki more about the merfolk and how sometimes one or two of the group stay behind when the others all leave for the open sea. Since their bodies can't survive the winter in that climate, this amounts to suicide; some of them even bite the bullet and commit suicide outright. The men suggest that it's because some of the merfolk just don't fit in with the rest of their group, but Saki knows better--it's because some of them develop feelings for other members of their group that are more than just "practice" for interactions with the opposite gender.
In the course of the conversation, Saki receives some other unpleasant information: Kyouko is in a relationship with one of the village men, and it's serious. After this bombshell, we get a flashback to Saki and Kyouko's student days: Kyouko tells Saki that she's planning to return to her hometown, Saki asks her not to go and tells her she loves her, then passes it off as a joke. Back in the present, Saki reflects that she chose to be Kyouko's friend back then because she was afraid of losing her forever. As she's lying in a field, crying, she wonders if this is how a merman who's committing suicide feels: bathed in moonlight, surrounded by the pleasant sound of the night breeze moving through the grass... "I don't need to see the open sea. Goodbye. I'm dying."
As she's walking back to Kyouko's place, she discovers the merman from the other day, lying in the grass. His body is cold, and she frantically calls Kyouko for help from her cell phone. Internally, she reflects that what scared her was that he looked like Saki herself. Kyouko and her boyfriend come save the merman; Saki sits there watching. Though Saki knows that she should be concerned about the merman, it is the sight of Kyouko's boyfriend's strong arms that bring tears to her eyes. She can't seem to stop looking at them; her arms are nothing like his.
When the merman comes to, Saki offers to take him back to the water herself. When they get there, her suspicions about him are confirmed, and she comes up with an idea: she has him cut off her hair and attach it to his own. The merman he likes has a thing for females with long hair, so he poses as a mermaid to get his attention. When the other merman falls into his trap, the first merman tells him that he "died" and won't be returning to the group, but to think of any long-haired mermaids he meets as the first merman so that the two of them can have a lot of children "together." He bids him farewell, and swims away. Later, the first merman tells Saki that he's going to have to swim far away now that he can't stay with his group anymore because of the weird things he said. Still, it's better than being dead. He's become a stronger person.
Later, Saki kisses Kyouko, and realizes that she's become a stronger person too. She kisses her again, and then it cuts to a scene of Saki leaving the island, having apparently been able to move on from her feelings for Kyouko.

When I got the book, I was expecting the yuri one-shot to be about mermaids, so this was a bit of a disappointment in that respect. However, it was an interesting, touching story, and I liked that the author worked both yuri and BL into it.
The single-gender groups of adolescent merfolk are reminiscent of all-girl and all-boy schools, aren't they? This makes the suicides--and the one merman's choice of self-exile over suicide--even more significant. The merfolk culture tolerates homosexuality in adolescents, but once merfolk reach a certain age, they are expected to mate and produce offspring; if they don't they have no place in the social group, and are dead to it either literally or figuratively.
We only get a brief glimpse of one generation of mermen in one location, but they seem to be a metaphor for Saki's own environment and situation. Both Saki and the one merman move on, but to what? We are told that Saki is in love with Kyouko, but not whether she likes women in general, or what becomes of her afterwards. I suppose that isn't the point. The merman triumphs by living where others have died; that victory surely represents something, as does Saki's personal growth. It's not a traditional happy ending, but it is a happy ending of sorts.

An interesting article

2008-02-02T04:06:34Z

Queer consumer survey surprises.

A List of Must-Read Yuri Manga

2008-01-27T17:44:47Z

I put this list together a little while back and was just going to scrap it (a list like this is so subjective that I was afraid it would just inspire a lot of arguments about why people's favorite manga didn't make the list), but some people in #lililicious convinced me to post it today so they could read it.

It's basically just intended as a starting point for people who are new to yuri. To make it onto the list, a manga has to either:
a) Be considered a staple/classic by the yuri fan community; or,
b) Be very popular in the yuri fan community; or,
c) Be so excellent or unique that I personally think everyone should give it a try.
There are no doubt going to be titles on here that you think are total crap and/or don't consider yuri. If you don't like the list as a whole, I suggest you make your own and point people to that instead--whatever saves people from having to list the same old recs over and over again. :)

This list only includes manga that are available in English. Titles with an asterisk (*) after them are commercially available in English (or soon will be).
In some cases, I've linked to http downloads at yurizuki instead of a scanlator's website, for ease in downloading; you can look up scanlators' websites at Manga Jouhou and other such sites.

Full List:
12 Days*
After School
Blue*
Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa
Chirality*
Concerto
Fun After School
Girl Friends
Happy-Go-Lucky Days
Haru yo, Koi (you need to be a member of daily_yuri to view the posts in this link)
Hayate Cross Blade*
Hen
Honey & Honey
Indigo Blue
Iono-sama Fanatics*
Kannazuki no Miko*
Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~*
Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry-Blossom Pink
Love My Life
Love Vibes
Maka-Maka
Maria-sama ga Miteru
The Miko's Words and the Witch's Incantations
Moonlight Flowers
Oniisama E
Pieta
Plica
Rica'tte Kanji!?*
Sailor Moon*
The Secret Garden
Shiroi Heya no Futari
Shoujo Sect
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Strawberry Panic*
Strawberry Shake Sweet
Sweet Blue Flowers
The Sword of Paros
Tiger Lily
Transistor Venus
Utopia of Homosexuality
Voiceful*
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S, and related publications
Yuri Monogatari 5*

Short List:
Shinigami suggested I also make a list of just 10 for those who only have time to sample a few. All but one of these can be read for free online, so you won't need to go out of your way to find them:
Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry-Blossom Pink (romance, a bit of angst, school stories)
Love My Life (realistic, slice-of-life)
Love Vibes (realistic, slice-of-life, romance)
Maka-Maka (full-color porn with a heavy emphasis on character interaction)
Pieta (realistic, romance, heavy angst, school story)
Rica'tte Kanji!?* (realistic, romance, information on lesbian culture in Tokyo)
Shiroi Heya no Futari (classic, romance, heavy angst, school story)
Strawberry Shake Sweet (comedy, romance, a bit of angst)
Sweet Blue Flowers (realistic, romance, angst, school story)
The Sword of Paros (fantasy, romance, angst)

An interesting article

2008-01-22T02:21:02Z

Someone posted this link in #lili today:
How Gamers Will Save the World

Translation of Strawberry Shake Sweet Q&A (from SSS 1.5)

2008-01-21T16:19:50Z

Figured there might be some out there who would appreciate reading this sooner rather than later. :)
As it says in the subject of the post, this is the Q&A section from Strawberry Shake Sweet 1.5.

Q. Why does Saeki-san continue to work as a manager when she's been through so many rough patches? Doesn't she get sick of her job?
A. Saeki-san comes from a long, proud line of managers. She's known since birth that she would be expected to continue the tradition, and her education growing up reflected that. So she's never doubted her career as a manager, nor does it seem to be a burden for her. Her only burdens are the people she has to deal with.
Also, the Saeki family sees it as a betrayal when a member of their ranks quits being a manager. They've been known to threaten the lives of any deserters.
Actually, to tell you the truth, Saeki started out as a talent, but when her career failed to take off, they made her a manager instead. That's show biz, as they say, and it seems she wants to continue to work in the entertainment world.

Q. What do I need to do to see one of ZLAY's secret gigs?
A. If you're a woman, you'll be able to catch the occasional show if you stalk them day and night.
If you're a man, you'll be able to catch the occasional show if you get a sex-change.

Q. Which two members of ZLAY was Kaoru-san eaten by?
A. You can each come up with your own answer to that question. Perhaps it was _more_ than two of them!
Perhaps _she_ ate _them_ after she was eaten!

Q. I want to know about Ran-chan's mysterious past!
A. It's not that big of a mystery--you'll find out all about it soon.
If anything, her hair is the bigger mystery--where is it all sticking out from?

Q. Is Julia-chan attending school?
A. She's attending in secret. She gets good grades, believe it or not.

Q. What's the origin of the title _Strawberry Shake Sweet_?
A. It comes from the title of a song on a CD I had lying around. I wanted something that sounded cute, so...
It also ended up being the origin of the band name "ZLAY."

Q. Why did you decide to make this manga about idols?
A. I started drawing this story because I figured that I'd be able to draw a lot of cute girls... but how did it end up like this? (There's an example of how not to answer a question--with another question!)

Q. Please tell us more about yourself, Hayashiya-sensei[note: In this case, a respectful title used for successful artists.]!
A. ...But we hardly know each other... I'm an old woman, you know that? You're sure you still want to know more?
Actually, there's really nothing to tell... I'm proud to say I have a spotless record! [heart]

Hayashiya-sensei, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions!

A minor Strawberry Shake Sweet spoiler

2008-01-19T13:02:58Z

Highlight to read: According to Yuri na Hibi, Julia and Ran finally get together in the latest chapter (the one from Yuri Hime 11, which came out yesterday)--they confess their feelings to each other, and share a kiss.

P.S. Please don't make me regret having gone out of my way to share this with you by complaining about how you want "moar Strawberry Shake Sweet nao." Thanks. :)

Words on a yuri one-shot from Hari to Oreenji

2008-01-17T19:53:38Z

Hari to Oreenji by Kizuki Akira (ISBN: 4901978527):

There are two yuri stories in this collection: "Hari to Oreenji" and "Tanoshii Natsuyasumi." Since I already reviewed "Hari to Oreenji" here, I'll just be talking about "Tanoshii Natsuyasumi" ("Fun Summer Vacation"), which is quite short.

Two girls are at the beach for--what else?--summer vacation, hoping to find boyfriends. They read about a "What would you do if you could be a guy for a day?" survey in a magazine; the most popular response was "pick up [a woman] and have sex!" One of the characters, Taeko, points out that that pretty much amounts to two women together. The other one, Miki asks if the opposite would be the most popular response if men were asked a similar question, and Taeko says no (I'd have to concur there; I think "jumping up and down in front of the mirror" would be a good candidate for the top response). She goes on to say that if she were a guy, she'd totally have sex with Miki. Miki blushes, but replies that she'd probably go at it all day with Taeko if the tables were turned. Both girls pass it off as a joke, but after that summer, they both stop talking about how they want boyfriends. The story ends there.

It was a cute story, but I certainly wouldn't have protested if the artist had decided to have them get together instead of just ending the story where she did (I do appreciate the subtlety, but...).

Words on a Japanese lesbian movie: Natural Woman

2008-01-07T17:29:56Z

Natural Woman, based on the book by Matsuura Rieko (DVD: B00008OJS3, newest edition of the book: 4309408478):

This is one of those things that I'd put off buying for years because it was too expensive and I just didn't want it that badly. However, I happened to spot the VHS at Book-Off for only $3, so I snapped it up. The audio (and video, but that's not as essential for comprehension) quality wasn't that great, but hey, what do you expect for $3? I finally got around to watching it today, and figured I might as well write up a quick review on it.

The story centers around Youko, a manga artist that draws for minor magazines and works for a cleaning service as her day job. She's attracted to a co-worker, Yuriko, but demons from Youko's past are interfering with the relationship growing between them. This is because Youko's first lover, Hanayo, was an extreme woman (read: psycho bitch) who physically hurt Youko and eventually committed suicide. Youko blames herself for Hanayo's death.
Youko and Hanayo met through a doujinshi (amateur manga) club when they were in college; Hanayo ran the place, and she and Youko often clashed. They had a sort of love-hate relationship, with Youko first telling Hanayo that she hated her and then later confessing that she'd loved her from the beginning. Hanayo was more sexually experienced than Youko, and taught her about sex, plus a bit of S&M. But Youko eventually told Hanayo she wanted to break things off, and Hanayo killed herself.
Back in the present, the editor of a manga magazine--one who met Youko and Hanayo together when they met with his former boss--manages to track Youko down and asks if she'll draw for his magazine.
Youko finds out from another former club member that the building the doujinshi club used to meet in is scheduled for demolition, and goes there with Yuriko to try and get some closure.
(Spoiler: highlight text to read)When she gets there, an apparition of Hanayo tells her that Hanayo's suicide was not her fault. The apparition disappears, and Youko burns the handkerchief she'd been keeping as a memento of Hanayo. She also found some doujinshi there that she had done back when she was in college (according to goo's review, Hanayo burned the club's recently completed doujinshi compilation just before committing suicide; Youko didn't find out that Hanayo had spared her--Youko's--work until just then), and is planning to burn that as well, but Yuriko stops her, telling her that she should be tough and not try to get rid of the painful memories entirely.

All in all, it was an interesting movie, but it didn't strike me as being so terribly original or insightful that you should rush out to buy it (especially at $40/DVD); then again, I'm no movie critic, so it could be a masterpiece of cinematography for all I know. There is no English subtitled version out, though the book it was based on is available in French translation (ISBN: 2877302571).

Meme from a couple people

2007-12-28T15:31:36Z

Superhero Team Quiz

LiveJournal Username

Your Primary Super Power

Cape?

Identitiy

Origin

Location of Head Quarters

Primary Costume/Uniform Colors

Why are you a Superhero?

Your Superheroic Codename

The veteran grim member of the team

tabimendou

The sexist and crass but annoyingly effective one

lilith1013

The bright-eyed novice or sidekick

doinkies

The teammate that will eventually go evil or insan

oneplusme

The inept yet determined/reoccurring supervillain

sui_minowa

The sinister Arch-Villain and team's greatest foe

kat_chan

The perky civilian that keeps getting kidnapped

toddashi

How often does your team actually 'save the day'?

53%

This Fun Quiz created by Shannon at BlogQuiz.Net

Car Videos at Car-Videos.Biz

Words on a yuri anthology: Girl's Only

2007-12-15T13:55:24Z

Manga Carmilla: Girl's Only (ISBN: 4780801079):

I was warned that the manga in the lesbian magazine Carmilla were very odd, but decided to get this book anyway and see if there was anything in there to my taste. Luckily, there were a few stories I liked... they were just outnumbered by the ones that may have scarred me for life. Oh, well. At least I didn't have to spend outrageous amounts of money buying individual issues of the magazine just for the manga.

First up was a story about a girl with a crush on another girl in the tennis club. I think I spent more time thinking, "Eww, that's so unsanitary! Think about where that racket has been!" than paying attention to the plot, such as it was (Girl A likes Girl B; Girl B is sleeping with the coach, who is probably cheating on her with half the team; Girl B is upset that the coach is apparently just using her for sex; Girl B catches Girl A masturbating with her (Girl B's) racket and underwear in the locker room, and refuses to believe Girl A when she says that she is in love, not just in lust, with her; Girl B fucks Girl A, and we discover that they have a D/s relationship in the future and Girl A still likes doing it with the racket. The End.).

The next story starts with the protagonist--who we later find out is an anchorwoman--being held down and gagged while her boss shaves her pubic area. It goes downhill from there.

In the next story, a woman is frustrated that her boyfriend stood her up, so she drinks some wine, masturbates, and goes out for a walk without any underwear on, supposedly to buy more booze. Another woman sees her out there, and they end up having sex in an alley (though in the beginning of that scene, there are a couple panels where the protagonist is having sex with some sort of weird monster--her fantasy, perhaps?). The next morning, she wakes up back in her apartment, but the bag of drinks she bought attests to the fact that it wasn't just a dream. After that, she starts following long-haired women with her eyes.

"Maintenance," the next story, is about a woman who masturbates to the fantasy of being the car a hot female mechanic is working on--there's a garage right next door to the office she works in, and she can see the mechanic from the window of the ladies' room, so she frequently goes there to masturbate. At the end of the story, she propositions the mechanic, who seems interested. This was one of the few stories from the collection that I liked, though the car fantasy was a little too vivid for my taste in places.

Up next is a story about two girls having sex at a school concert. Not really much plot here--a guy in the choir is interested in one of them, and she's getting off on having sex with the other girl while he's up onstage singing.

After that is a bizarre story about a captive princess and a villainess with a giant tongue. And when I say giant, I mean giant. It was a sort of tentacle porn, I suppose.

Next is my favorite story from the collection. A woman is pissed that her lover, who is a writer, modeled yet another character after her. This somehow leads to them having sex in what is perhaps the nicest sex scene in this book, at least by my standards (No rape: check. No monsters: check. No random object insertion: check. Shall I continue, or can you fill in the rest on your own?). The woman asks her lover to stop modeling characters after her, since they work in the same office and she's afraid their coworkers will cotton on to their relationship if this continues. Naturally, at the end, the writer is asked to do a whole story revolving around the character based on her lover.

That was it for Itou Chika, whose stories made up about half of the book. Otosaki Tsubaki, my favorite artist from this anthology, was up next.

Despite the mild sci-fi element to Otosaki's first story, it didn't grab me. A reclusive writer has a clone of herself made to be a companion for her (both sexually and otherwise). It turns out that the writer killed her last lover in a fit of jealousy when that lover tried to leave her, which explains why she requested a clone that would be completely devoted to her. This has its downside, however, as we inevitably discover in the end--the writer cheats on her clone at a party, and the clone stabs her when she gets home. On the plus side, she's got a lover who completely understands how she felt when she killed the last one. On the minus side, she's got a gaping wound in her stomach now, and will probably be dying shortly. Ah, the price of understanding.

The next story seemed completely out of place in this anthology, so it may come as no surprise to you that it was another favorite of mine. The protagonist's parents are no longer together, so she's constantly worried that her relationship won't last forever either. Her lover, whose parents are also divorced, understands her feelings and tries to reassure her. Sweet and touching.

Then there's the infamous squid story, by Sister Midnight and Kawanishi Yukiko. It's a prison story involving a lot of rape and sex with aquatic animals (that's all the info I'm giving--if you want to know what it's about, go buy the book and read it yourself. Or ask Erica--I'm sure she'd be delighted to give you all the gory details! Just kidding. Please don't kill me.). I do not recommend reading this unless you have a penchant for the bizarre and a strong stomach. If you're kind, you'll never mention it in my presence. I may still have nightmares.

After that is a short bit of gratuitous smut by Meguro--nothing particularly unique about it, though I appreciated that the women weren't stick-thin. It's about two OLs, with the new employee abusing her superior.

The last few stories, by Moti, were bizarre and very loli. Again, not recommended if you are anything like me.

Words on a yuri one-shot: "Suki yo"

2007-12-15T00:39:40Z

"Suki yo" from Ai no Hito by Takano Miyako (ISBN: 4403615929):

This story was just plain weird. A woman routinely gets drunk and cheats on her girlfriend with men that her girlfriend (who is only into women) brings home. When she comes home, her girlfriend is angry with her but when the protagonist promises it'll never happen again, she forgives her. The only explanation I can think of is that the girlfriend is a manipulative bitch who pushes her into cheating so that she'll constantly feel like she isn't good enough for her, and the protagonist is too dumb to figure it out. Ugh. If the twist ending (that her girlfriend is setting her up--we only discover this at the end of the story) wasn't so terrible, I might have liked it better.
The one good thing about this story was the nice, subtle sex scene, and since it's only three pages long, I wouldn't recommend buying the book just for that. The other stories in the collection look more promising, but none of them are yuri.

Words on a yuri one-shot: "Kools"

2007-12-14T17:26:28Z

"Kools," from Kools by Takahashi Miyuki and Watanabe Makiko (ISBN: 9784063654660):

This story was everything I could have hoped for in a yuri manga, and more: coming out, a serious relationship, moving in together, community, softball (Wait, I didn't particularly want that one... oh, well)... From the description on the back, I was expecting the book to be very "after school special," but aside from a few moments, it's really not (though the other two stories in the volume certainly look it--one is about rape and the other is about domestic violence. Neither is yuri.).

Sae, an OL, has only ever liked girls, but she doesn't realize she's gay until she and her coworkers go to a bar in Shinjuku Nichoume (the gay district of Tokyo) and talk to some gay men. Sae returns to the bar on her own, where she meets Tomoko. She and Tomoko end up going out, but they only see each other at night, in Shinjuku Nichoume. Then the owner of a lesbian bar invites them to join her all-lesbian softball team, and they decide to do it. There are two other couples on the team, plus a few single women and one other new member: a transman. The big thing about the team is that everyone is free to be themselves--it's a safe space, much like the bars in Nichoume. The practices go well for a while, but then Sae gets hit in the head with a ball her first time batting, leaving her with a fear of the ball that she must overcome later in the story.

One scene that really struck me: Sae still lives with her parents, and when her mother brings up the subject of marriage, she thinks about telling her mother she's gay--her mother has always told her that as long as she isn't causing trouble for anyone, anything she does should be fine--but just as she's about to tell her, she reconsiders, her doubts getting the better of her. Later on in the story, a member of the softball team tells about her own coming out experience and how her parents blamed themselves and wondered if they'd done something wrong.

Instead of telling her mother that she's a lesbian, Sae tells her that she wants to move out. When she mentions the conversation to Tomoko, Tomoko suggests that Sae move in with her, and Sae agrees. That night, they sleep together for the first time. After they've moved in together, they end up buying a couch and a bed together, which Sae sees as a sort of relationship security--they might not be able to get married, but making such major purchases together means that both of them intend for the relationship to last a long time.

The main obstacle of the story is Sae's insecurity about herself and their relationship, and her dependence on Tomoko--she defines herself through her relationship with Tomoko, and is constantly afraid Tomoko will leave her. At the end of the story, she realizes that she wants to have more of an equal relationship with Tomoko and not be so dependent on her. And of course, the last scene involves her going up to bat in the big game and hitting the ball.

The "Kools" title comes from the kind of cigarettes Tomoko smokes--she explains that the name stands for "kiss only one lady" in English. They name the team "Kools," and the "I'll only ever love one woman" phrase comes up several times in the story, as you might expect. I half-expected the author to go completely "after school special" on us at the end and give one of them lung cancer, but no. The one big After School Special Moment(TM) is a conversation the team members all have together on tolerance (wherein the bias some gay people have against bisexuals is mentioned, among other things. THANK YOU, Takahashi.).

All in all, this story definitely belongs on my list of favorite yuri manga. I highly recommend it.

Preciousssssss

2007-12-13T20:06:25Z

Would I be that cruel?

Of course not:

Words on some yuri one-shots from Zoushoku Fetishism

2007-12-12T22:56:35Z

Zoushoku Fetishism by Kizuki Akira (ISBN: 4847035704):

The first one-shot of the collection, "Hari to Oreenji," is my favorite by far. It's about a girl, Eriko, who has both a boyfriend (Shuu) and a girlfriend (Xuan). The girlfriend is Chinese, and she and Eriko don't speak each other's language, but Eriko feels like they understand each other anyway. The boyfriend is skeptical (though he doesn't oppose Eriko's relationship with Xuan) about that, since Xuan doesn't know that Eriko is seeing him as well. Eriko also worries about how Xuan can afford the nice clothes she wears--Xuan always leaves in the evening, and Eriko suspects that she might be selling herself. When Xuan suddenly disappears, leaving only a note behind, Eriko realizes that she never really knew her at all. Shuu takes her to task for not trying to understand Xuan despite the language barrier, and gets someone to translate the letter for Eriko. It turns out that Xuan was in Japan because her father was there on business; in the letter, she included her address in China. When Eriko asks Shuu why he's been so supportive about Xuan, he says that he just wants Eriko to be happy, and that she should take her time choosing between them. In the end, Eriko learns a bit of Chinese and sets off to find Xuan. It's an open ending, but an optimistic one, and I thought it worked with this story. Another thing I like about this story is that Shuu is actually three-dimensional, instead of just a cardboard cutout used as a villain/rival.

I didn't think the next one-shot, "Discovery of Love," was quite as good. It was still an interesting story, though. It's told in three installments, each of them from the point of view of someone who's in love with the heroine. First we get the abusive jerk boyfriend's perspective, which I found rather unremarkable--it really just sets up the story, which is that the protagonist is being stalked and has a protective (female) best friend that stands up to her boyfriend for her. Second up is the stalker's point of view. He--quite rightly--thinks the boyfriend is bad for her, but sees that the best friend is good for her, even though he's jealous of their relationship. He's creepy, but not quite as creepy as the boyfriend, who turns into a stalker himself after she breaks up with him. Last up is the best friend's perspective. She's in love with her, of course (would I be writing about this if she weren't? lol), but decides to keep her feelings to herself for the protagonist's sake. She also sets the creepy boyfriend up to protect the protagonist from him (the protagonist doesn't have enough grounds for harassment to get the police to do anything yet)--she makes both the boyfriend and the stalker think that the protagonist is going to come meet the boyfriend before school one day, then cuts herself just before the boyfriend arrives so everyone will think he did it. The stalker goes along with this for the protagonist's sake. Later, the protagonist ends up moving away, because she's afraid the boyfriend will retaliate when he gets out of jail. Lovely, huh?

The third yuri one-shot, "Okuru Kotoba," was just meh. A girl tells an upperclassman who's going to graduate and move away that she hates her, when really it's clear that she's in love with her. She lists off all the things she "hates" about her. The older girl tells her that she won't forget her and that she loves her. It's quite short.

Words on a couple yuri one-shots from Lens no Mukou

2007-12-12T13:27:25Z

Lens no Mukou (official English title: Through Eyeglasses Darkly, which I'm guessing is a play on Through a Glass Darkly) by Hisaka Mika (ISBN: 4592142691):

This is a one-shot collection (the common theme being "eyeglasses"), but the 2 yuri one-shots in it are about the same couple. I quite liked them--I thought they managed to be subtly erotic while keeping the main focus on the couple's relationship and feelings.

The first one-shot, "Kamareta Onna," begins with a girl asking her tutor (a woman) whether she's ever had sex, and the woman replying that she has, and did just this morning. Then we flash forward to the future, where the two are a couple and are living together. Their past conversation continues to haunt the younger one, who worries that she doesn't measure up to the elder's ex-boyfriend. While they're making out one day, she bites the elder girl, then apologizes and runs off. She feels like she can't face her, but while she's out walking, she remembers that they were going to go back and buy a couple dresses when they went on sale this morning. She goes into the store and elbows her way through the massive crowd to find them; she finds the one the elder girl wanted, but not hers. As she's going up to pay for it, she runs into the elder girl, who of course has the dress the younger girl wanted. The two of them go home together, and realize that both of them were injured by the crowd. The younger apologizes to the elder and tells her to bite her back, and the elder says she's weird. Then they talk about how the elder's past isn't going to just disappear, and how the other girl wouldn't want it to anyway, since that was what made her realize she was in love with her.

The second one-shot, "Toketeiku Koori," is about how your hands get cold in the winter. No, really. lol
The younger woman's hands never seem to warm up in the winter. The elder suggests drinking alcohol, but that doesn't work; what does work is putting her fingers inside the other woman. In the end, the elder mentions 9 1/2 Weeks, and the other correctly guesses that it's an erotic movie. There's a 2-page extra tacked onto the end where the younger woman looks up the movie online and asks the other what she thought was erotic about it. The elder says she'll show her if she wants to know, since just telling her would be boring. She blindfolds the other and sets a glass of ice down nearby, indicating that they're going to re-enact the ice scene from the movie.

This is one of the books from the bk1 order, so it is still in print. ISBN is at the top of the post if you want to look it up at Amazon Japan or some other bookstore. :)

Words on a yuri manga: Secret Garden

2007-12-10T23:50:37Z

Secret Garden by Amagatsu Toriko and Egawa Hiromi (not to be confused with Fujii Mihona's similarly-titled manga)(ISBN: 4391905531):

The thing that surprised me most about this manga was the amount of sex in it--the description on the back cover says it's a work of nonfiction based on an actual couple, so I was expecting something more along the lines of Honey & Honey, even though Secret Garden is a josei manga.

I love that this is a story about an adult couple that's living together, as that's pretty rare in yuri manga. We only find out about how they met (and got together) in the last chapter of the book. It's not a particularly romantic meeting--both go out and get plastered after being dumped by their respective significant others, and end up hooking up. The next morning, Misono discovers that Masami is a woman, and runs out. A few days later, she comes back to Masami's apartment, wanting to be friends with her. After a year of being friends, they start going out, and move in together. Chapter 1 takes place three years after that first meeting.

Most of the story just revolves around sex, but it does have some substance, too, and even some domestic moments. In the final chapter, after the flashback to how they first met, the couple goes to Masami's ex-girlfriend's wedding, and Misono wonders what the future holds for her and Masami--they're still in their twenties now, but 5 or 10 years down the line, pressure will mount from both their parents and society at large. Ultimately, though, she decides that as long as she and Masami can smile together in the end, that will probably be enough. She's thinking this just after she catches the bridal bouquet. It's a nice ending.

On a semi-related note, my bk1 order just came today, so expect more reviews soon (and of books that aren't out of print!). So many yuri manga, so little time... -_-