Yearning for Yuri: Otsu Hiyori

I’m not going to lie; I basically forgot about this until the last minute this week, and so, lacking an actual plan, I decided to merely review the works of one of my favorite yuri mangaka. Otsu Hiyori is a female yuri mangaka who’s been working in the genre for quite some time. Her art has a heavy shoujo-aesthetic, and her stories mostly follow suit. That’s not to say they’re super heavily Class S or anything; they aren’t, but her stories tend to follow general shoujo tropes and take place in high school.

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Yearning for Yuri: Wife and Wife

Yuri featuring adult characters faces a few problems. The first is that adult characters are just generally less popular in anime and manga, especially in romance. The second is that yuri, in particular, is a genre which has evolved from Class S roots, meaning that those who’ve grown up reading it are going to be used to schoolgirls, and likely write more schoolgirls as a result. Lastly, adult-focused yuri, when not just porn, is usually far too serious and dramatic. That’s not necessarily a knock; I quite enjoy my serious and dramatic stories at times. However, a lot of the time I want something a bit lighter when I read romance manga, and considering I only read yuri romance, I often find myself looking towards fluffier titles. Fortunately, Minamoto Hisanari’s Wife and Wife avoids this, portraying adult characters in an incredibly cute and fun way.

[Script] How Isekai Shokudou Keeps a Simple Premise Interesting

We’ve reached a point where isekai shows are a turnoff to many, including myself. Every season seems to have a few, and for the most part, they’re all the same. Generic Japanese young adult man is killed in a freak accident, but thanks to the grace of God he’s allowed to reincarnate into another world that just so happens to resemble Tolkienesque fantasy. Along the way, he builds up a harem of girls and fights towards the goal of defeating the demon king. Some of these shows, such as Konosuba, use comedy to avoid the feeling of staleness, but self-awareness has itself become a trope of this genre to the point that it too is obnoxious. These shows almost never bring anything new to the table, so for those like me who don’t enjoy their formula, there’s nothing of value in there.

Yearning for Yuri: Pure Water Adolescence

Pure Water Adolescence is an alright yuri manga. Really, it’s nothing special. Sure, it’s a teacher-student relationship, but those are all too common in yuri. The art doesn’t stand out, it’s not particularly well-written, and it doesn’t contain any important lessons or perspectives. I’ve highlighted a few works on here that I don’t adore, and I’ll probably continue to do so; some works are important even if I don’t think they’re all that good. But that isn’t the case here. So why am I even writing about this manga? Because it allows me to explore the realm of teacher-student relationships, an area I’ve been eager to explore for a long time.