Femslash February, Day 1
This year again, like two years ago, I don't have a theme for Femslash February, so I'm gonna try to post one post about something femslash a day.
This time, I had done a list about all the yuri manga I had read and liked, but not loved enough to do a specific rec post. You can encourage me to read more, or give me extra recs. Don't hesitate to disagree with me :D
Sex Education 120% by Takaki Kikiki (3 volumes, finished)
Summary: A new sex education teacher arrives at school. From the first day, she attracts attention by giving dental dams in addition to condoms. The manga is mostly didactic, but with interesting characters, Moriya, who has a girlfriend in another class, Matsuda, a yaoi fan, and Kashiwa, ace but very interested in animal sexual behavious, not to mention the school nurse, who would like better if some subjects were discussed a bit more privately.
What I love: It's fun! It's interesting as a teaching manga! I love all the girls!
What I don't love: Even if there is some evolution of the relationship between the teacher and the school nurse, I don't think they have a whole romance. It ends when the nurse gives her a chance, but I would have loved to see them fall in love too. Well, it wasn't the subject.
SHWD bu sono.N (3 volumes, finished, I only read the first one but I want the others, but the English edition is late and the French one doesn't exist)
Summary: Koga is a new recruit at the Tokyo branch of SHWD. They fight former bio-weapons, who have both huge strength and attack psi-powers. She teams up with veteran Sawada.
What I love: It's the kind of back-to-back badasses story that I love, with angsty fights (psi powers!). I don't have a muscle fetish, but I still appreciate the willingness of the artist to show the (uncommon in yuri) body types of women who look like they fight every day with big axes.
What I don't love: As it's short, I don't know if the manga will talk about the origin of monsters more in depth; if it does, it's gonna make me very happy, but it's more plausible they won't.
Even though we're adults / Si nous étions adultes / Otona ni Natte mo by Shimura Takako (10 volumes, finished, I have only read one)
Summary: Ayano meets a woman when going to drink after work and falls in love almost instantly. They sleep together, but Ayano is married, and Akari, the other woman, didn't know. Being honest is hard, and can seem selfish, and hurt more than lying, so Ayano finds herself in a difficult situation.
What I love: I was promised depth in characters and psychological realism, in addition to adult characters having adult problems, and it's exactly what it delivers.
What I don't love: It made me realized that even when it's well done, mundane cheating plots bore me. I mean, it's almost exactly the mocked literary fiction cliché "middle aged teacher considers adultery" and even the yuri won't make it my thing.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me / Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi (9 volumes, ongoing)
Summary: Hinako is a depressed girl, the only survivor of an accident that killed her family, thinking about death very often. When Shiori, a mermaid, tell her how delicious she would be to eat, she has no objections. But Shiori doesn't want to eat her right now; she wants to make her better by protecting her, letting her mature. Hinako agrees, but if she really matures, and enjoy Shiori's company, will she still want to die?
What I love: The summary is exactly my thing. I love mermaids, I love cannibalism, and yeah, I love suicide pacts, especially unrealistic like this one. It also looks pretty nice.
What I don't love: Because I love these themes, I have read them many times, and I feel like reading a list of compulsory figures, with no originality. Of course I'm aware it's because I only read the first volume, that is the set-up, but still, I was a bit disappointed.
Introduction au théorème du triangle amoureux / Gôkaku no Tame no! Yasashii Sankaku Kankei Nyûmon by Canno (2 volumes, finished)
Summary: Mayuki is deeply in love with her sempai Akira, whom she used to play basket with. She's not a good student, but she wants to go in the same prestigious school as Akira does, so she starts taking math courses (her worst subject) with Rin, another high schooler from the same school. Never does the think that Rin and Mayuki might know each other...
What I love: Starting the manga, I was like "this is a set up for a poly setting, not a love triangle, if it doesn't end in a poly ship I'm gonna be sad'... and I got the ending that I wanted! Yeah! It has interesting things to say about the expectation of monogamous relationships, even if a world where apparently f/f relationships bother no one.
What I don't love: The evolution of feelings is pretty fast (especially Akira->Mayuki), and the way it becomes physical is pretty fast for me too, especially when one is an innocent middle schooler. I would have loved more detail and psychological depth. Also, far less math jokes than the title promised me.
She wasn't a guy / Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta / The guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all by Arai Sumiko (2 volumes, ongoing)
Summary: Aya has a crush on the young guy who sells music at her local shop; they have exactly the same tastes, and he looks so cool! The young seller is actually Mitsuki, a girl in Aya's class, who wants to look forgettable in class and tell no one about what music and clothes she likes.
What I love: The art is super-cool, I love the way the green colour is used. I feared it would be misunderstanding about Mitsuki's gender all the way, but not at all, this is cleaned since volume one, and it becomes a manga about discovering and accepting who you are and what you want, even if others don't agree (can be cool clothes, cool music, and yeah, can be liking girls too)
What I don't love: The embarrassing moment at the end of volume 1 is not my kind of twist. Also, I know they're young and Japanese, but it's weird and a bit embarrassing to see them be "no one understands us" about music that, in my occidental eyes, is the most mainstream music ever (still good though).
L'internat des fleurs / Mejirobana no Saku / A White Rose in Bloom by Nakamura Asumiko (4 volumes, ongoing, I only read one)
Summary: Ruby is in an all-girls school. This night, for Christmas, her parents won't take her with them, so she has to spent all the holidays with only one other student, the mysterious Stella, very popular, but with lots of dark rumours about her. It's not enough of one holiday for Ruby to like her, or so she says... but she becomes a bit obsessed with her and her secrets.
What I love: I love how the mysteries are done, how the rumours are neither all true nor all false, but not in a way you can guess. I love how both girls are allowed to get angry, for different reasons.
What I don't love: I've read only one volume and neither girl is immediately sympathetic (also high school narratives aren't my faves), but I'm invested in the mysteries enough to keep reading, and hopefully love them!
Contes merveilleux du printemps / Qitan Huawuyu by Recover Monday (one-shot)
Summary: Four short stories about girls who love each other and mysterious supernatural occurences.
What I love: I love the atmosphere of these ghosts stories where nothing is directly told, magic as feelings work by analogies and metaphors. Art is very pretty and narratives are original.
What I don't love: It has the other side of what I loved the best: it stays so mysterious that it lacks reveals, resolution, closure. It stays always unexplained.
Notre été éphémère / Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata By Yuama (6 volumes, finished, I have only read one)
Summary: Shizuku has just finished writing a novel. She wants to throw it away, not wanting other people to read it. By accident, Kaori, a pretty, popular girl of her class, reads it and enjoys it a lot. She offers to fake date Shizuku all summer "to give her inspiration". Shizuku doesn't think she deserves love, for reasons that will be revealed later.
What I love: Shizuku's secret is uncommon, Kaori's answer is too, it's enough to gets me curious about where it goes.
What I don't love: I love stories about art. Not knowing what the book Kaori reads is about, not having it be a central plot point, frustrates me quite a bit. Not having them talk more about their tastes in books too. I thought it would be a manga about writing and reading books, ha ha, but it's on me.
This time, I had done a list about all the yuri manga I had read and liked, but not loved enough to do a specific rec post. You can encourage me to read more, or give me extra recs. Don't hesitate to disagree with me :D
Sex Education 120% by Takaki Kikiki (3 volumes, finished)
Summary: A new sex education teacher arrives at school. From the first day, she attracts attention by giving dental dams in addition to condoms. The manga is mostly didactic, but with interesting characters, Moriya, who has a girlfriend in another class, Matsuda, a yaoi fan, and Kashiwa, ace but very interested in animal sexual behavious, not to mention the school nurse, who would like better if some subjects were discussed a bit more privately.
What I love: It's fun! It's interesting as a teaching manga! I love all the girls!
What I don't love: Even if there is some evolution of the relationship between the teacher and the school nurse, I don't think they have a whole romance. It ends when the nurse gives her a chance, but I would have loved to see them fall in love too. Well, it wasn't the subject.
SHWD bu sono.N (3 volumes, finished, I only read the first one but I want the others, but the English edition is late and the French one doesn't exist)
Summary: Koga is a new recruit at the Tokyo branch of SHWD. They fight former bio-weapons, who have both huge strength and attack psi-powers. She teams up with veteran Sawada.
What I love: It's the kind of back-to-back badasses story that I love, with angsty fights (psi powers!). I don't have a muscle fetish, but I still appreciate the willingness of the artist to show the (uncommon in yuri) body types of women who look like they fight every day with big axes.
What I don't love: As it's short, I don't know if the manga will talk about the origin of monsters more in depth; if it does, it's gonna make me very happy, but it's more plausible they won't.
Even though we're adults / Si nous étions adultes / Otona ni Natte mo by Shimura Takako (10 volumes, finished, I have only read one)
Summary: Ayano meets a woman when going to drink after work and falls in love almost instantly. They sleep together, but Ayano is married, and Akari, the other woman, didn't know. Being honest is hard, and can seem selfish, and hurt more than lying, so Ayano finds herself in a difficult situation.
What I love: I was promised depth in characters and psychological realism, in addition to adult characters having adult problems, and it's exactly what it delivers.
What I don't love: It made me realized that even when it's well done, mundane cheating plots bore me. I mean, it's almost exactly the mocked literary fiction cliché "middle aged teacher considers adultery" and even the yuri won't make it my thing.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me / Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi (9 volumes, ongoing)
Summary: Hinako is a depressed girl, the only survivor of an accident that killed her family, thinking about death very often. When Shiori, a mermaid, tell her how delicious she would be to eat, she has no objections. But Shiori doesn't want to eat her right now; she wants to make her better by protecting her, letting her mature. Hinako agrees, but if she really matures, and enjoy Shiori's company, will she still want to die?
What I love: The summary is exactly my thing. I love mermaids, I love cannibalism, and yeah, I love suicide pacts, especially unrealistic like this one. It also looks pretty nice.
What I don't love: Because I love these themes, I have read them many times, and I feel like reading a list of compulsory figures, with no originality. Of course I'm aware it's because I only read the first volume, that is the set-up, but still, I was a bit disappointed.
Introduction au théorème du triangle amoureux / Gôkaku no Tame no! Yasashii Sankaku Kankei Nyûmon by Canno (2 volumes, finished)
Summary: Mayuki is deeply in love with her sempai Akira, whom she used to play basket with. She's not a good student, but she wants to go in the same prestigious school as Akira does, so she starts taking math courses (her worst subject) with Rin, another high schooler from the same school. Never does the think that Rin and Mayuki might know each other...
What I love: Starting the manga, I was like "this is a set up for a poly setting, not a love triangle, if it doesn't end in a poly ship I'm gonna be sad'... and I got the ending that I wanted! Yeah! It has interesting things to say about the expectation of monogamous relationships, even if a world where apparently f/f relationships bother no one.
What I don't love: The evolution of feelings is pretty fast (especially Akira->Mayuki), and the way it becomes physical is pretty fast for me too, especially when one is an innocent middle schooler. I would have loved more detail and psychological depth. Also, far less math jokes than the title promised me.
She wasn't a guy / Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta / The guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all by Arai Sumiko (2 volumes, ongoing)
Summary: Aya has a crush on the young guy who sells music at her local shop; they have exactly the same tastes, and he looks so cool! The young seller is actually Mitsuki, a girl in Aya's class, who wants to look forgettable in class and tell no one about what music and clothes she likes.
What I love: The art is super-cool, I love the way the green colour is used. I feared it would be misunderstanding about Mitsuki's gender all the way, but not at all, this is cleaned since volume one, and it becomes a manga about discovering and accepting who you are and what you want, even if others don't agree (can be cool clothes, cool music, and yeah, can be liking girls too)
What I don't love: The embarrassing moment at the end of volume 1 is not my kind of twist. Also, I know they're young and Japanese, but it's weird and a bit embarrassing to see them be "no one understands us" about music that, in my occidental eyes, is the most mainstream music ever (still good though).
L'internat des fleurs / Mejirobana no Saku / A White Rose in Bloom by Nakamura Asumiko (4 volumes, ongoing, I only read one)
Summary: Ruby is in an all-girls school. This night, for Christmas, her parents won't take her with them, so she has to spent all the holidays with only one other student, the mysterious Stella, very popular, but with lots of dark rumours about her. It's not enough of one holiday for Ruby to like her, or so she says... but she becomes a bit obsessed with her and her secrets.
What I love: I love how the mysteries are done, how the rumours are neither all true nor all false, but not in a way you can guess. I love how both girls are allowed to get angry, for different reasons.
What I don't love: I've read only one volume and neither girl is immediately sympathetic (also high school narratives aren't my faves), but I'm invested in the mysteries enough to keep reading, and hopefully love them!
Contes merveilleux du printemps / Qitan Huawuyu by Recover Monday (one-shot)
Summary: Four short stories about girls who love each other and mysterious supernatural occurences.
What I love: I love the atmosphere of these ghosts stories where nothing is directly told, magic as feelings work by analogies and metaphors. Art is very pretty and narratives are original.
What I don't love: It has the other side of what I loved the best: it stays so mysterious that it lacks reveals, resolution, closure. It stays always unexplained.
Notre été éphémère / Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata By Yuama (6 volumes, finished, I have only read one)
Summary: Shizuku has just finished writing a novel. She wants to throw it away, not wanting other people to read it. By accident, Kaori, a pretty, popular girl of her class, reads it and enjoys it a lot. She offers to fake date Shizuku all summer "to give her inspiration". Shizuku doesn't think she deserves love, for reasons that will be revealed later.
What I love: Shizuku's secret is uncommon, Kaori's answer is too, it's enough to gets me curious about where it goes.
What I don't love: I love stories about art. Not knowing what the book Kaori reads is about, not having it be a central plot point, frustrates me quite a bit. Not having them talk more about their tastes in books too. I thought it would be a manga about writing and reading books, ha ha, but it's on me.