Manga Review: Manga no Tsukurikata

Title: Manga no Tsukurikata
Author: Auri Hirau
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Yuri, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is a yuri series based around two young women who are both mangaka. Well, one of them is a mangaka at the beginning of the story and the other is on a hiatus of sorts. The younger of the two is in love with the older one who happened to be her senior at their high school before she graduated. The older one doesn’t hold any mutual sentiments towards her admirer but decides to go out with her for a while so she can figure how to the draw yuri manga. This is one of those light and fluffy yuri series infused with a good dose of silliness to go with the many, many slice of life scenes thrown in there. Now that I think about it this might actually be better described as a slice of life with a dash of yuri given how much focus is put on their daily lives. The romance develops very subtly and very slowly but it’s done in such a way that you can easily tell how their relationship is progressing. In fact, you’d have to be completely blind if you didn’t realize that the pretend lovers play turned into the real thing before the older girl realized it. Seriously, you’d have to be absolutely blind to such matters if you needed to see verbal confirmation from her to know it happened. At any rate, this is a pretty good yuri series that doesn’t depend on teasing to keep the readers interested but still manages to do so with its quiet and slightly goofy storytelling.

Manga Review: Baba Yaga

Title: Baba Yaga
Author: Kizuki Akira, Satou Nanki
Release: Quarterly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Psychological, Mystery, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: Baba Yaga is the story of a few kids who all went to a camp together and experienced their own life-changing events while they were there. These events are all linked to the mysterious disappearance of a young woman who was there at the camp with them and each of these kids grew up to be the way they are as young adults because of what they experienced then. It features a whole slew of messed-up characters and a mystique that borders on the supernatural but so far stays grounded in reality with a much more convoluted and twisted truth behind both the events and the way the characters treat them and each other. It’s quite a fascinating read really as the layered story and depth of the characters just pulls you right into the twisted little world that the authors have portrayed here. Not one to be missed for fans of either of these mangaka as I find it to be their best collaboration yet. Only real downside to this manga is the slow release rate of new chapters but it's excusable as it seems they put that time to good use here in this series.

Manga Review: Tenbin wa Hana to Asobu

Title: Tenbin wa Hana to Asobu
Author: Unohana Tsukasa
Release: Monthly
Status: Complete
Genre: Yuri, Gender Bender
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This story takes place in an all girls academy that this bubbly and energetic airhead transfers into and centers on the budding relationship between her and another girl who is outwardly graceful and soft-spoken in the eyes of their peers. Their involvement with one another kicks off when the transfer student comes across the other girl in the middle of drinking blood straight from the neck of their school doctor. Not only does she immediately agree to go along with their request keep things under wraps, she even goes as far to offer her help with the other girl’s vampire syndrome whenever she needs it. As with most Yuri series, the two main characters share a lot of fluff scenes with one another but it should be noted that only one of them really seems to be concerned with the intimacy of their actions while the other plays up her airheadedness adding a bit more charm to their relationship. I would also like to add that the transferee does have some traits of Mary Sue considering how the plot is set up but I also find that it doesn’t really take away any enjoyment from a lighthearted series like this. It’s not what I’d call a high quality Yuri manga but it does make for a decent read so it’s worth checking out. As for why this series falls under the gender bender category, it’s because the vampire syndrome mentioned in this story works by having the affected person living as neither male nor female until they reach the age of 18 and turn into the gender they’ve drunk more blood from. I am fairly certain that’s a fictional condition by the way since I have enough confidence in my knowledge of biology to say that hormones don’t work that way.

Manga Review: Cabonard Crown

Title: Cabonard Crown
Author: Shinonome Mizuo
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Shoujo, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: C

Impression: This is about a young girl who gets selected to help guide a family of foreign royalty around this private island academy they’ve just transferred to due to family matters and now the school and these royals must adapt to this unusual development. The main character interacts with the various members of the Spinel royal family and develop friendships with the ones who are closest to her age group and… Well I can’t really describe this one properly. Personally I think the premise is something right out of a girl’s dreamy fantasy. I don’t like that. Not one bit. It reminds me too much of Twilight sans the ridiculous shiny vampires and barely hidden sexual urges found throughout that series. It’s got a Mary Sue character, her love interest is a very angsty and cold princess, the scenes feel OVERLY melodramatic and story progress is annoyingly slow. I wouldn’t be reading this sort of story if it wasn’t a yuri manga and even then there’s far too little actual yuri to balance out the downsides. This manga irritates me, that’s all there is to it.

Manga Review: Ebisu-san and Hotei-san

Title: Ebisu-san and Hotei-san
Author: Kizuki Akira, Satou Nanki
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Yuri, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of two women who after having made bad impressions on each other become coworkers some time after their first meeting. One puts on an outwardly cold, serious and reserved demeanor while the other does just the opposite with her cheery, flippant and outgoing personality. The eponymous characters gradually develop a rather unconventional relationship over time with the more extroverted one slowly coming to terms with the fact that her sentiments towards the other had unknowingly gone from outright resentment to begrudging affection and then finally, genuine love for her. Basically it’s a yuri story between a Kuudere and a traditional Tsundere. It’s a got a quite a bit more depth than the usual plotline that most yuri manga go by and that elevates it’s quality a level above the usual fare. It’s a yuri manga where the build-up strays away from the usual conventions most authors of this genre abide by but the pay-off is all the better for it.

Manga Review: Shinigami Alice

Title: Shinigami Alice
Author: Izumiya Otoha
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Yuri
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This story is about a girl who was unlucky enough to encounter a serial killer but was lucky enough to be saved just in the nick of time by another girl who was hunting down the guy as part of her duties as an assassin. Her job is to hunt down rogue members of the organization of assassins and this stoic young lady happens to be the best assassin in the organization despite being a mere teenage girl. Not knowing what the new emotion that came forth from this meeting, the assassin disobeyed protocol and spared the girl’s life and from that point onwards their affections for each other grew with further meetings. I like this series but it doesn’t really stand out in any particular way. The story’s pacing is a bit off here as the relationship between the two main characters is established quickly and developed through a montage and some monologue right before having the story head in the “I’m an assassin and now I must protect her from the others” route. It really could have done so much better if it had taken the time to properly develop their relationship and the assassin’s humanization progress.

Manga Review: Shitsurakuen

Title: Shitsurakuen
Author: Naomura Tooru
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a girl named Sora who transfers into this famed private academy only to find that the school, unknown the outside world, carries out this game that sets back the feminist movement a couple centuries back. It involves girls being treated as 2nd class citizens within the boundaries of the school and these girls are used to provide weapons to the chauvinist scumbags for augmented reality battle game. If you don’t know what that means, it’s an interactive form of virtual reality that blends in with the real world so that the students in this series can battle it out like they’re in an RPG. Things change however when our main character shows up in the school somehow possessing the equipment needed to play on the same field as the boys. She who has always dreamed of being a knight decides to take part in the game to win girls from the oppressive male students and free them from the tyranny that is the game. Aside from the gender equality themes, there’s also a good deal of mystery thrown in there courtesy of secret maneuvers that certain characters make behind the scenes of Sora’s battle and it turns this otherwise straightforward story into something much more intriguing. With all that’s been said allow me to me sum this up in a neat, little and compact formula:

Yuri + Great Art + Interesting Characters + Yuri + Depth + Mystery + YURI = Hell Yeah!!

P.S. The author really knows how to tease Yuri lovers.

Manga Review: Yamanko

Title: Yamanko
Author: Zappa Go, Itou Ryou
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Slice of Life, Comedy, Supernatural, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of three girls who meet each other due to one of them being afflicted with a curse that turns her into a cat girl. That girl now has to move in with her aunt in the other two’s town and live with her so she can manage her supernatural affliction. It’s not amazing in any way but it’s not bad either. I’d have to say it’s just a bit better than mediocre so it makes for a decent read. I like pretty much all of Zappa Go's work and this one is no exception but sadly I don't see enough Yuri going on here.

Manga Review: Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~

Title: Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~
Author: Akahori Satoru, Katsura Yukimaru
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Gender Bender, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This manga revolves around a guy who gets turned into a girl after dying in an accident caused by an alien from another planet. After turning into a girl the main character becomes more and more romantically involved with two girls, one a childhood friend and the other being the girl he admired as a guy. Basically it’s a love triangle powered by yuri with an alien part of the plot. It certainly had plenty of good things about it but there are some ideas here and there that I just found odd like the reason why the crush couldn’t bring herself to like the main character as a guy. Some of the jokes were actually pretty funny at times but that didn’t happen often enough for me to give it an “A” rating there. It’s filled with a lot yuri fluff so yuri fans will love this but there are times where the characters act annoyingly stupid but that’s to be expected with love triangles.

Manga Review: Saki

Title: Saki
Author: Kobayashi Ritz
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Comedy, Yuri
Art: B
Originality: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is a manga about a girl named Saki who has an unusually high amount of luck in Mahjong and her journey into the Mahjong world. After overcoming her mental block for winning at Mahjong and winning over a new friend in the mahjong club, Saki and her Mahjong club buddies enter an interschool Mahjong tournament. It's a rather silly manga with an even sillier and more over the top anime adaptation. Even the Yuri undertones are increased in the anime adaptation but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to read and watch any further than the first round of the tournament. I just really couldn't get into this series for some reason even though there is that winning combination of schoolgirls+yuri+comedy thrown in there. Guess they overdid the moe fanservic factor for me so I couldn't really stomach anything more than what they showed me. In any case, it is a good comedy but I just can't seem to get into this manga.

Manga Review: Yume-Mitaina Hoshi-Mitaina

Title: Yume-Mitaina Hoshi-Mitaina
Author: Araki Kanao
Release: Oneshot
Status: Finished
Genre: Yuri
Art: B
Originality: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Humor: B
Action: D

Impression: This is the story of a girl who transfers into an all girls catholic school where she meets a roommate who acts mean towards her because of the differences in their attitude. Eventually the two become closer over the short seven chapters but the way that it is done makes those seven chapters seem severely underused. The characters and premise have been used time and time again and this incarnation of these clichés is actually quite dull to read when you’ve been through it several times already. Maybe someone new to the world of yuri manga will find it enjoyable enough but it’s really not worth taking a look at if you’ve seen Marmite.

Manga Review: Stray Little Devil

Title: Stray Little Devil
Author: Kotaro Mori
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is about a girl named Pam who gets sucked into another world populated by spirits, demons and angels but absolutely no humans. She herself is no longer human as her body has become that of a devil’s. A mysterious man soon shows up to save her from the angel named Linfa who attacked her for trespassing and he tells her she can only go back to her world if she works hard to become a full-fledged devil. The author shows that he is incredibly creative with this manga as he shows us a brilliantly vibrant world through his amazing artwork. This alternate world of his reminds me a lot of the Legend of Mana series with the huge tree and the friendly looking spirits. The characters are also a lot of fun and I would have given an S score for that department if it weren’t for the way it ended. It wasn’t bad but I felt like it should have been elaborated more instead of rushing things. There was a lot of build up that didn’t pay off as well as they could have that I think that one or two more chapters would have solved. But the main reason why the ending left me unsatisfied was because of how they settled Linfa and Pam’s relationship! There was great development for Linfa’s tsundere progression but Pam didn’t even give a hint of having any romantic feelings towards her until the very end. Seriously! A proper epilogue would have been REALLY nice since the ending just leaves you wanting for MOAR! MOAR BUILD UP! MOAR PAY-OFFS! And most important of all… MOAR YURI!!!

Manga Review: Iono the Fanatics

Title: Iono the Fanatics
Author: Miyabi Fujieda
Release: Monthly
Status: Finished
Genre: Yuri, Comedy
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of a queen of a made up country whose hobby is to collect girls to be part of her harem of Sobame (something like a cross between servant and a wife). This queen is so fond of girls that she has thousands of Sobame under her rule but finds that she is lacking a number of black-haired girls in her harem so she flies over to Japan to find some. It’s a fun short story with quite a good bit of silly characters and humor. There’s actually quite a bit of yuri in here that’s being downplayed so the humor is the main focus of this series. It’s worth reading if you’ve been running out of good manga to read.

Manga Review: Blue Drop

Title: Blue Drop
Author: Akito Yoshitomi
Release: Oneshots
Status: Finished
Genre: Sci-fi, Yuri
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: B
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: The setting is the future where the world has been taken over by a race aliens that are all female lesbians and the aftereffects of the war that raged on the planet a thousand years into the future after that war. Alien experiments, rebels, secret government agents all accompany this story. The book is split up into five different one-shots that are all connected to each other in one way or another so there is a bit of a storyline here but it is still a bit confusing , especially if you’re reading the chapters out of sequence. The author has a great imagination but much of it is dedicated to ideas could come off as fascinating or freaky. I’ve also read the serialised version of the story and that wasn’t exactly the most compelling read as it too had a lot of turn offs. It’s worth a read if you can tolerate the more disturbing content but if you can’t then I suggest you stay away from this one.

Manga Review: Transistor Teaset

Title: Transistor Teaset
Author: Sato Yoshimi
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Slice of Life, Yuri
Art: B
Originality: A
Story: B
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This is about a pair of cousins who were taken care of by their grandfather when they were kids but one of them went off to live somewhere else while the other stayed with him in Akihabara. Years have passed and that girl is now running her dead grandfather's electronics store in the one part of the area that isn't filled with otaku aimed shops. She wakes up one day to find a new shop opening up and the owner turns out to be her cousin who moved away years ago. What surprises her even more is that she calls herself a maid and that her shop is going to be a maid cafe. Even though it's labeled yuri, I haven't really seen any concrete hints to that theme but there are some small hints here and there foreshadowing it. Despite the set up here it doesn't actually focus on the moe moe aspects of a maid cafe as it sounds like it would if it were typical. It actually focuses more on the aspects of Akihabara's change over the years and how they should adapt to the new trends for their businesses to survive. The characters make all that an enjoyable read and the way the story unfolds each chapter is quite well paced. My only complaint about this series though is where is the yuri I was promised? I expected yuri! What I got was still good though so it's worth checking out.

Manga Review: Girl Friends

Title: Girl Friends
Author: Morinaga Milk
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Yuri, Romance
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is about a girl who has trouble making friends who has this outgoing and cheerful girl talk to her out of the blue and gradually become good friends. The girl herself becomes more cheerful and develops feelings for her new friend who also begins to have the same feelings towards her and they try to deal with these feelings. I like Morinaga Milk’s works as she always manages to give this fairy tale-like feel to her stories but it gets a bit tiring when the main issue that the characters face is always their fear of rejection which I agree is something that logically accompanies the pursuit of a taboo relationship (All romances as a matter of fact). However, I really wish she’d explore something other than that as the main issue that the characters face. It’s a great yuri manga but I wish it added something new to the genre.

Manga Review: Sasameki Koto

Title: Sasame Kikoto
Author: Takashi Ikeda
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Yuri, Romance, Comedy, Slice of Life
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: A
Action: B

Impression: This is the story of best friends, one who is openly a lesbian, Kazama Ushio, and the other, Murasame Sumika, is in the closet for her. Ushio is into cute girls but Sumika does not see herself as such so she keeps quiet about her feelings, not that she doesn’t try to find opportunities to tell her. The author likes to tease the readers as to whether or not Ushio knows about Sumika’s feelings and it really draws the readers in to find out how exactly their relationship will grow. Seeing Sumika’s cute and amusing struggles at dealing with her feelings doesn’t help ease the impatience that the readers go through and at times the plot developments can almost be just as much torture as they are pleasing. Luckily for me, I can read Japanese so I know the details that fans are waiting for. The only thing left to do is the conclusion and I’m anticipating good things. English-only readers will have to wait till the scanlations are out and judging by their release frequency I do hope that the staff members are sadistic enough to do batch releases. Also, there will be an anime coming out next season which means that Yuri is getting more and more popular in Japan.