Yuri Bar: Taipei's Taboo Plus

Hello my fellow readers! Sorry about the delay in posts... I try to keep it to 1-2 times a week, but the last week has been pretty crazy for me because I was away on an overseas business trip.

However, thanks to that, I was able to drop by a yuri (fine, lesbian) cafe/bar in Taipei. Yes! Such a cafe/bar concept do exist :) I really love Taipei as a city.

So no manga, but here it is: Taboo Plus Cafe Bar

Honestly, I don't know how many of you will be reading this.. and if you do, will you ever be interested to drop by this bar if you are ever in Taipei. However, this bar is awesome. The food is cheap and good, and the atmosphere for just females in general (seriously, you dont even have to be bisexual or lesbian) is just great. The place is not too rowdy, in fact, its a little quiet.

The location is quite secluded though - it is very near a MRT station in Taipei, but its pretty hard to find the entrance because it is hidden in B1 (the staircase to B1 is also blocked by shrubs if you are entering from the main road).

However, I can assure you, it is a quality find and you will be delighted to spend a night just chilling in the bar... the bartenders are nice (there's a good mix of tomboys and femmes barkeeps) and chatty. There weren't much patrons when I was there.. probably cos I arrived late (I reached the bar around 11pm on a Sat night).

Unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to make any new friends that night save for the friendly bartenders... perhaps because of what I wore. Honestly, I'm no tomboy. I have long hair, I like plain clothes, probably I did not stand out... or catch anyone's eye. Or i was too busy concentrating on Taipei Golden Horse that was screening in the bar to notice anybody paying any particular attention to me. Meh.

But the interior is really nice...:

Anyways, anybody interested can check out their facebook (though it is mostly in Chinese) and if you are ever in Taipei, do drop by and give support. How rare is it that a lesbian cafe/bar exist...

Their address: 

Nanjing East Road Section 5, Lane 66, Alley 2, No. 24, Basement 1, Songshan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 105 (Nearest MRT Station is Nanjing Sanmin on the green line).

Their address in Chinese, in case you ever need to show the taxi driver: 南京東路五段66巷2弄24號B1, Taipei, Taiwan 105

Yuri manga review: The Conditions For Paradise

Picked up this manga randomly while I was scrolling through dynasty scans: The Conditions for Paradise by Morishima Akiko. Fellow Yuri manga readers might be familiar with the author, as she is the same mangaka for Hanjuku Joshi.

Honestly I was one of those who didn't exactly liked Hanjuku Joshi because the main story was uninteresting to me. However, I totally adored the side couple of teacher-student (to be fair the student was already 18 and the teacher is not much older) adult relationship. Being a working female adult, mangas depicting Yuri relations in life beyond high school honestly fascinates me and tends to catch my interest. This manga was exactly one of those.

The story is about 2 high school best friends at 26, discovering what "home" and "love" feels and means to them. Sumi, the short haired protagonist, is a worldly traveler who drifts from place to place while the other protagonists affectionately known (though never explicitly explained) as Sally, is a typical office lady in a stable, good income job living in a city. 5 chapters have been released for this but essentially the last 2 chapters is the same as the first and third chapter, though told from a different viewpoint.

The manga explored on one hand, how Sally's affections for her jet setting best friend grows and how she comes to terms how disconcerting and insecure is it to love someone with such a carefree lifestyle.

I think I have had a similar conversation before like this...

The discomfort of the one who gets left behind

The manga explored on the other hand, how Sumi's love for her best friend evolved over the years from a school crush to anger and denial, then acceptance that it might never happen, before leading up to the events of the manga where the waiting finally paid off. By the way, I use the term 'waiting' loosely, because honestly the kind of I-will-not-date-anyone-while-waiting that frequently comes up in dramas and anime, never happens in real life unless it is a long distance relationship (which cannot be considered as waiting, then). So, this cycle is pretty typical to like 99% of real life lesbian relationships out there, but strangely, not many Yuri manga has been drawn that explores this past the high school juncture.

 

Ah, probably what every lesbian adult went through...

**NSFW part ahead, turn away if you are under 18 or 21, or it is illegal, depending on your country!
..
..
... last warning of it!!**

Sex is drawn pretty realistic in this manga too. Nothing too overtly perverted, but enough for you to appreciate the skinship that is happening between the 2 women.

The manga also wastes no time exploring irrelevant plot points, something one shots are pretty good at (but sadly longer-running mangas like Hanjuku Joshi would suffer from).

Art is fantastic as usual, as expected from a renowned mangaka. However, if you are looking for a Yuri manga with moe-kind characters, then this manga (or works from this author in general) would disappoint.

In summary, I would rate this a solid 7/10, above average. Try it, if you have an hour to spare and like Yuri manga. Adult females like me would enjoy it especially.

Tl;DR: this is a sweet manga with a realistic depiction of Yuri (I.e lesbian) relationship between 2 mid 20s adults struggling with what it means to be in love and to be "home". I recommend it for a good short read if you have an hour to spare sitting in a cafe (more private corner though) or at home.

Yuri Manga Review: Love Sign (short one-shot)

I just love public holidays... don't you? It is like the best break a working adult can get in the working world...

Anyways, a short manga review today. More accurately, the manga is a one shot - just 9 pages long - called Love Sign by Katakura Ako. Honestly I came across this manga much earlier than today, just that I decided to do a quick review today to catalogue that I have ever read this before, and for my readers of this blog who is looking for a quick fix of yuri manga.

It seems all I have been reviewing are more non-popular yuri manga, and they are not necessarily of good quality. Well, I will try from now on to slot in a few good yuri mangas, while compiling a top 10 list of my favorite manga all time for any readers' reference. Stay tuned :)

**if you, my reader, is under 18 (or 21 in some countries), or is surrounded in a public place/at work, I strongly advise you to close the browser as the below content or the manga is NSFW**

Back to the one-shot, it is really a good but NSFW (again!! NSFW!!!) read:

Yes.. the manga hooked me in the onset with a french kiss.

The manga's plot and message is simple - sometimes tsundere characters make their partners worry if they aren't happy. In fact, I can't count the number of times this has happened to me, or my friends in real life. The lack of expression of love from one party to the other would get to the other party, sooner or later. The manga waste no time in explaining or portraying things that do not matter to the message. This helped because the lack of sidetrack does not dilute the main message and makes the plot easy to relate to.

Fortunately, the manga ends on a sweet note. And with that, I present to you an additional NSFW (last warning, seriously) screen grab from the manga:

In summary, I would recommend this short read and rate it a 6/10. Try it, if you are alone with 5 mins to spare. The 9 pages shouldn't take too long to go through :)

TLDR; Try it! Short, hot and sweet.

Yuri Manga Review: B.G.M.R.S.P.

Also known as: Bousou Girls-teki Mousou Renaiteki Suteki Project. I came across this manga B.G.M.R.S.P. by Kwai Rou because it was recently updated on Dynasty Scans (haha I know I need to expand my reading horizon a bit more).

I shall just be upfront and say that this manga is an average read to me, and I would rate it maybe a 5/10. The manga has released 5 chapters translated to English on Dynasty Scans and is still on-going, last I checked.

The premise of the manga is somewhat similar to A Kiss and A White Lily (which I have reviewed previously, you can check it out here). I, being an adult working woman, am a sucker school life genre of mangas because it helps me re-live the past I never had. Anyways, the manga is centered around 2 protagonists, where 1 of them, Nakano Aoi, is a handsome "princely" sort of protagonist at the onset, while the other protagonist Shibuya Beniko is the all-rounded femme semi-tsundere character that excelled in everything she does but longs to "beat" Nakano Aoi in school.

The fact that they are childhood friends, and have been opposites of each other since young was also set out at the beginning of the manga. Both protagonists, I would say, are typical...Nakano Aoi was portrayed like the typical arrogant "prince" of the school, while Shibuya Beniko is your typical elitist character with a semi-tsundere side to her to give her a bit of that dark side...

The yuri in the manga is basically slow... the relationship between the 2 protagonists throughout the manga is literally like the screenshot below, which is from the first page of the manga. They are childhood friends with unrealised/undiscovered feelings for one another, so they literally behave like the kids they were despite being in high school already:

I have to say the art reminded me of another manga, Asago to Kase-san, because the "princely" character somehow reminded me of Kase-san, though the story is nothing like it. The fantastic-as-usual art won't disappoint, though.

The plot in the manga does not stay my interest for long as the supporting characters are hardly developed. They have unclear motive of doing what they do... while the 2 protagonists just go on mini battles so that Beniko and defeat her childhood friend. Seriously, the 2 biggest supporting characters (I cannot even remember their names despite writing this review straight after I have finished all 5 released chapters) have no rhyme or reason behind why they behave the way they do:

Good thing about the plot is that it hardly leaves any cliffhangers, usually a chapter is opened and concluded in the same chapter or the next.

The particular thing I liked about the manga's plot, despite the typical characters, uninteresting stories and undeveloped supporting cast, was that one of the chapters climaxed through the evolving dynamics between the 2 protagonists. It was like from this:

before:

after:

This is honestly the most radical transformation/ evolved dynamic that I have seen in a short 5 chapters manga so far, since I have started picking up yuri manga 3 months ago.

TLDR: I would recommend the manga as a short, average school life read that will surprise you in one of the chapters. But aside from that, the manga is still pretty average, though the cast is seriously sub-par.

Incidentally, I wonder how old are my blog readers? (leave a comment if you feel brave enough :) )

Yuri Manga Review: Transistor Teaset

Someday... I would review my favorite, popular mangas. But right now, let's get to a not-so-popular yuri manga, Transistor Teaset by Yoshimi Sato. The manga is currently still on-going but fell into my radar when I saw it was recently updated on Dynasty Scans.

I would start off saying that this manga epitomises the very existence of Akihabara, from my memory of it when I visited 2 years ago. The strange mix of mecha and maids are evident in almost every corner of Akihabara (from a tourist point of view) - one side of the road you'll see maid cafes, cosplayers, cosplay costume shops and anime girls posters. On the other side, full of electronic parts and electronic shops. It is every anime/gaming geek haven. I have to say I was not comfortable sticking around in Akihabara... if you even walk anywhere near a 10m radius of the AKB48 maid cafe, it reeks of sweat and body odour of poorly dressed males lining up for the cafe, burying their heads in their mobile entertainment devices.

I really do have to give credit to the author for creating the idea to marry these 4 genres: maid, mecha slide of life and yuri. On top of that, the author manages to throw in a bit of supernatural, martial art, politics, genius-type characters and war history into the fray. I have to say this manga tries to do a lot in just the 11 chapters that it has released so far. 

But, it doesn't really excel in any genre that it has tried - honestly I was wishing the manga to be a bit more of this:

How nice if the yuri manga (or any yuri manga) was like this!

However, the bulk of the manga concentrated around the odd genres in slice of life situations.  No, seriously, the plot in each chapter is typically boring, despite how promising the genre-mix sound. It is like everytime the author stumbles across something interesting to explore or go in-depth with, the author backs out to the boring slice of life genre. For instance, in one of the chapter the manga explored an elderly man's romantic past, where he lost touch with the girl he loved when he got shipped off to war. Instead of concentrating and expanding on the supernatural aspect of the chapter that it started out with, it ended off strangely with the old man entering drinking coffee while proclaiming he entered into a wide age-gap relationship with his ex-lover's granddaughter and the manga did not go beyond exploring the supernatural aspect. This is just one example that the mangaka strangely let the story turn weird and die off, despite the initial supernatural hype and promising premise.

Another example would be, probably everybody's favorite, how the mangaka failed to develop the headless maid robot:

The only reason why I sustained on reading the manga was really just so I could write this review properly. And this headless robot maid. Serious.

Hell, I would love to read a story about a headless maid robot! But strangely, it was never mentioned again past the chapter it was featured. It was almost like the author had all those interesting ideas when drawing the manga, but got tired of it mid-way and decide to settle for a boring and perplexing turn of events to end off the chapter.

The only interesting part, I wouldn't even say chapter because I literally only got interested to read more when I read the scene, was when it was revealed that both protagonist of the manga were geniuses in their own specialty but decided to give everything up, or put everything on hold, just so they could fulfill the obligations or promises that had made in the past. And the reason why they were so hung up on the obligations was never properly explained, especially why the maid protagonist choose to throw away her rich and important life just to open a maid cafe beside her mecha-crazed childhood friend. Of course, yuri specs on, the reason is easy to speculate. But seriously, the manga would be so much more interesting if the premise had been explored and built upon, rather than just a touch-and-go.

The best scene in the manga next to the headless robot maid... but unfortunately, also the last scene released in the 11 chapters so far.

Overall, I would really rate this manga 3/10, giving it a point for the author's creativity, another point for yuri and the last point on the art. The art is not bad but seriously, the other mangas I have reviewed previously would probably be a better worth of your time.

But nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed reading this post :3

Yuri Manga Review: Haru Ni

Quick post today about a one-shot I randomly came across scrolling through Dynasty Scans (I think that's probably my favourite past time right now... ).

The title of the yuri one-shot is Haru Ni by Huyou Satoyoshi:

I will start out by saying that the scantalations group translated a short intro on the author at the beginning of the manga, and being female myself, I always find it surprising how male authors can do yuri mangas (converse is true too, how female authors could articulate yaoi mangas).

The manga depicts a conversation between 2 childhood friends, on the day of their high school graduation. It somehow reminds me a little of the movie, Before Sunrise, where much of the movie's plot is told through conversations between the 2 protagonists. You actually don't get much of an introduction to the 2 protagonists in the manga (hell I have read the manga twice over the last hour and I still cannot remember the names of the 2 protagonists), but that's not important because not much character development takes place in the one-shot.

The plot revolves strongly around the theme of "farewell" and "crushed dreams", dramatising how the realities of life destroys dreams and hopes of teens. As the 2 teens reminiscence how life throws them lemons,  honestly, as an adult female reader out in the working world, I find it hard to empathise with the 2 protagonists. Perhaps today I am in a bad mood, or perhaps I just simply do not understand the point of the author centering the story around crushed dreams. I somehow find that the whole manga felt like 2 spoilt teenage girls complaining that they did not get all they wanted in life.

When life throws you lemons, make lemonades! Girls, be ambitious!!

Honestly the only part of the one-shot that resonated with me was when 1 of the protagonist gambled everything and suddenly confessed, out of the blue. However, there were no nuances in the story previously to suggest that they had any special kind of relationship aside from being childhood friends. But seeing as one of the theme of the manga is "crushed dream", you could probably guess what happened next.

The art is not too bad, but not fantastic. I didn't like the way the protagonists were drawn as I personally prefer traditional moe-look for manga characters, but I have to say the author drew the sakura trees and some of the background splendidly. Therefore, no particular complains in that department.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this manga, unless you are really bored and need to look for some SFW yuri to kill 10 minutes of your time. Otherwise, don't bother, they are much better manga out there (hint, my previous 6 blog posts). I would rate this manga a 3/10.

Yuri Manga Review: A Kiss and A White Lily

The manga that I'm going to review today is A Kiss and A White Lily by Canno. I actually came across this manga while non-chalantly flipping through the recent additions to Dynasty Scans, and I have to say, this manga was a pleasant surprise to me.

First off, let me start by saying that this manga stays very true to its Tsundere tag. The manga series, though still ongoing, is at 17 Chapters on Dynasty Scan and has several pairings already, typically involving an excited partner with a tsundere partner. However, the transition and interlinks between the couples are done tastefully well by the author, that none of the couples are come across as annoying or redundant.

The foreground characters are also the first and main pairing of the series

The first pairing that the series introduced, and perhaps the main pairing in the series, is honestly not my favorite, but did well enough to capture my attention. They are the titular characters shown in the above picture, with the one on the left being Shiramine Ayaka, the primary tsundere character in this pairing. Shiramine is the typical honor student - smart, works hard and takes pride at being at the top. Guess a picture says a thousand words, so I'm just going to let the picture below speak for itself:

The other character is Kurosawa Yurine, who is a genius that the outperforms Shiramine, and basically everyone in the school in everything, without even needing to try:

Over the first chapter, the 2 characters draw closer to each other mainly through Shiramine's competitive spirit and Kurosawa's amusement. It was interesting premise since this was somewhat similar to Kare Kano (if you haven't seen this anime, its a hetero romantic, school-life story between a top female honor student and the top male honor student). Kurosawa's indifference to everything makes her genius-like abilities very likeable, coupled with how that makes Shiramine irritated, produces quite a bit of comedic moments. 

At first glance, I thought the manga would be a drawn out tsundere-type story as Shiramine sees another side of Kurosawa and etc., and I was honestly ready to pass my judgement (and maybe give up on the manga if it was going too slow) on the first chapter of the manga until I saw this at the last few pages of the FIRST chapter:

Then it's game on.

And immediately my interest was piqued and sustained.

My favorite pairing of the series is actually Senoo Mizuki (incidentally, Shiramine's cousin) and Nikaidou Moe:

These 2 remind me of the couple from Kase-san, where Mizuki who is nicknamed “prince” is actually not very princely-like, while Moe does not exactly fit into the damsel in distress stereotype. These 2 display to me a somewhat more evolving, mature side of school-life, yuri romance that is similar to Sasameki Koto. Without spoiling the manga further for you, I would say this pairing would not disappoint if you are looking for a romance similar to Sasameki Koto.

There are other pairings in the series too, namely a senpai and kouhai relationship (or should I say 2 senpai and kouhai relationships) and another pairing involving a more psychotic tsundere partner (not Mai-Hime’s Shizuru psychotic-level but still, pretty intense) and a gardening club president. All of the pairings really has their own appeal which would most likely keep you reading on, rather than skipping the pages and looking for only the main pairing.

Aside from the story and the characters, the art is, as usual, of very high quality. The characters and background are very well-drawn that I have not spotted any peculiarity at all.

Overall, I would rate the manga a solid 8/10 and recommend that you try it, if you like a good school-life yuri romance manga.