Yuri Danshi, Volume 1 (百合男子) is…unsettling.
The premise for those of you not reading it, is the life of a Yuri Fanboy. Hanadera-kun is sincere, but creepy. In fact, that’s kind of the point – he’s sincere in his love for Yuri and his desire to see and nurture true Yuri love in the girls around him. Which is just creepy when you’re one of those girls.
Each chapter begins with a challenge – buying Yuri at a bookstore, uncovering what he considers to be a pure Yuri love in his classroom, visiting a Yuri doujinshi event…and each chapter ends with a realization that his love for Yuri, as passionate as it is, is completely hopeless and empty, because where there is a “Yuri couple” someone like him would be no more than an annoyance at best.
It’s a funny series, overall, but I still can’t quite get a hold of who it’s supposed to be for. As a portrait of Yuri fanboy life, it’s a little distressing. I asked a friend in Japan his opinion of it and he said that he also finds it unsettling, as that is pretty much him on those pages. I commented that the series gave Yuri Fanboys a little taste of what it feels like to be a lesbian reading Yuri manga. And maybe that’s the point.
Katherine H has the best line about it, “I’ve never read Comic Yuri Hime thinking ‘Gosh, I’d really like to read a satire about the daily life of a Yuri fanboy.’” Yup.
In the end of Volume 1, there is an interview of creator Uso Kurata, by Comic Yuri Hime editor Nakamura-san. In the interview we learn that this is Kurata’s semi-autobiographical tale of being a Yuri LFB, but that doesn’t make it any less unsettling. As a portrayal of a Yuri Fanboy, it’s the equivalent of Mai HiME‘s Shizuru as a lesbian. Not really wrong, per se, but not really a comfortable or laudable portrayal, either.
So, while I don’t hate Yuri Danshi, I probably won’t be getting the next volume unless there actually is some Yuri in it that isn’t in Hanadera-kun’s imagination.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – …
Characters – …
Yuri – …
LoserFanBoy – …
Overall – …
Who is this comic *for*? The 70% female of readers of Comic Yuri Hime to have some lolz at the 30% male readership? Or the 30% male Yuri Danshi readers to teach them what it feels like to be a lesbian reading Yuri? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
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