Iono the Fanatics by Fujieda Miyabi is a short yuri manga with a vastly distinct premise. The queen of a small nation, Iono-sama visits Japan in search for women with luscious black hair to take as concubines (sobame). After meeting and and quickly seducing Eto, Iono tries to convince Eto to leave Japan as her sobame. Iono the Fanatics depicts the pair’s time in Japan before Iono returns to her country. Clearly, this is not the usual overused schoolgirl romance.
Iono the Fanatics does not take place in a school. The characters are not students infatuated with their sempai. Instead, Iono-sama, Eto, and her ministers are all assumed to be adults (except that one cute loli). With that comes a lack of teenage drama and a maturity in all the characters. This is something I really appreciated.
Further, unlike other yuri manga depicting adults like Octave, Iono the Fanatics features almost no angst. The characters do not show much insecurity or self-doubt over their love for Iono. There is no gray area between romance and friendship nor conflicting thoughts of social conformity. The romance is lighthearted but firm and the characters are honest about their feelings. For example, Iono is very clear on what she wants from Eto and she is very aggressive in getting what she wants… Free from all the uneasiness, the manga remains a fun romantic comedy all the way through the two volumes. This is particularly important also because Iono the Fanatics is a harem yuri manga.
Harem and yuri are two genre that are rarely paired together. Most notably Shoujo Sect has done it before, albeit with less focus on the actual simultaneity of relationships. The notion of being in love with a single lover still remains in Shoujo Sect. Iono, on the other hand, is frank about her status as a queen and her voracious appetite for cute girls. She makes it clear to Eto and the ministers/ mistresses that she cannot love only one woman, and Iono’s harem embraces this. Of course, Eto and some women do wish for more attention from Iono at times. However, as alluded to before, the comedic and loving mood of the manga allow these issues to be addressed easily and pleasantly. Jealousy among the women never becomes anything too serious or ugly. Iono’s charming personality probably helps a lot with that as well.
Iono is definitely quite the character. She is beautiful, cute, ecchi, fun, aggressive, a bit conniving, and most importantly, very queenly. Miyabi Fujieda succeeds in portraying this incredibly lovely queen through Iono’s various interactions with other characters. There are several glimpses of her elegant eminence, during which the readers could really understand why the women willingly follow Iono despite having to share her love.
Iono the Fanatic has always been a favorite. It is a rather unique yuri manga that breaks the popular yuri stereotypes set by Marimite and Strawberry Panic. It is a romantic harem comedy and it does all three genre really well. The romance is heartwarming; the harem is lovely; and the comedy is funny. Moreover, consistent with Miyabi Fujieda’s style, it has no ecchi at all even as a harem manga. What it does have is lot and lots of cuteness. In fact, everything and everyone are so cute that I just cannot fault it for anything.
![Blue Friend [Yuri Manga]](https://i0.wp.com/lh3.ggpht.com/_c3hWUvy__P4/TODtxeH57fI/AAAAAAAABRM/Jrn29X5gz0U/Blue-Friend-yuri-manga-cover-1.jpg?resize=200%2C200)
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YuP!!! I totally Love the manga… Non-eechi and Good YURIIIII!!!
Just re-download all the chapters not long ago. Re-read it too…
I will give a great 5/5 on everything. Best of all part of the manga is the total YURIIII HAREMMMM!!!
Not many Yuri Harem mangas can be found around… T_T
But i think Manga Shitsurakuen & Kampfer(?)is also good too except Marimite [Problem: tooooo LONG!!!] n Strawberry Panic [which stopped half way on manga T_T]
Any other yuri harem mangas to recommend?
The artwork looks very good and the characters design too!! any plan ahead for the anime??
I heard the loli tag used alongside both yuri and harem. I’m here.
Ehehehe, at first I thought ‘Iono’ was the slang form of ‘I dunno’ that’s been flying around ^^;
No angst sounds wonderful, especially as it’s the primary trope nowadays. That’d be an excellent break.
No ecchi though pricks me a little, but I’d read this just for her choice of headwear. I give mad props to awesome hats.
Simply put, I agree. The worst thing I can say about it is that I think there are too many women with glasses… and that’s just a matter of personal preference. A short, fun work that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I read this one too ^^;;
This looks like an interesting manga, I definatly have to check this out!!!!!!!
One of my favourite manga! Iono is such a great character, fun-loving, ecchi, but she can also be serious and strong-willed. It’s too bad it’s so short, but I think longer than what it is can get it trapped in that stereotypical harem story, so it’s good when they just focus on the current sobame from Japan, Eto. Perhaps an anime adaptation? 🙂
The kind of mangas i like to read. 🙂 I’ll check if it’s already released in french. Much easier to read for me ^^
Thank you for the review.
I always like the art from Fujieda Miyabi.
He’s got such cute art. =)
The story seems interesting. I haven’t really read/watched something from this genre but I might give this a try. Thanks for sharing. ^^
Really liked this manga when I read it, though always felt it was a bit short and some of the action/political plot elements were a bit over the top. Always felt it could have had more impact if they had kept it more realistic.
You hit the nail on the head by identifying it’s a welcome change from school setting based yuri stories in how the characters, their concerns and evolution are as such more mature even though of course the story has plenty of humor and light-heartedness.
If you drop the name Shoujo Sect, then you’ve immediately got me interested.
Interesting title and it’s good to see a yuri manga series focus more on older folks than the schoolgirl stuff that are more commonplace. What makes it better is a harem take upon the whole thing and if nothing else, I wouldn’t mind seeing what sort of parallels there are between those, and the regular harem stuff that we’ve come across. Also, seeing how they differ is going to be fairly important since I would hope that they highlight the gender differences so as to make this kind of scenario more unique.
The lesbian in the suit and sunnies looks awesome. For that reason alone, I shall give this a try.
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of yuri manga, have you read Hayate X Blades by any chance?
Ah the last picture is kawaii 😀 In the third picture who is that silver hair girl with the long sword. Looks really good ^^
Sorry I don’t read manga so can’t really comment much, but nevertheless thanks for introducing this series 😀 Will check it out if time permits!!
Mmm Yuri … awesome graphics … mmm … a bit of loli … mmm … some royalty elements … okay where do i sign up !!!
Damn there’s no close mangas shops from my home, damn damn. I’ll have to order it online, definitely.
This is typically a mangas for me !!
Thanks for sharing this with us.
My heart stopped for a moment when I thought I saw Uesugi Kenshin go yuri and get married.
This one looks interesting (from the manga cover and photos) though I’ve not heard of it at all. I like this kinda genre I guess. Probably, I’ll check it out first before I jump into any conclusion and comments. 😉
That art pulled me in to read this post in full. Maybe I’ll try yuri, after all I did like Candy Boy.
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@shinra: I read this a long time ago but never got a chance to write something on it. I re-read it recently too for this post and still absolutely love it.
I’m a bit hesitant on Kampfer, but I should definitely check out Shitsurakuen. That looks great.
Anyway, I don’t know that many yuri harem manga. I think there were a few in Yuri Hime, although the titles escape me right now.
@phossil: I would hope so, although I doubt it. Yuri is not that mainstream and something short like this tend not to get animated, especially if it’s not ecchi. The artwork is really cute though.
@Ningyo: Yep. No angst really makes it so much more enjoyable. Anyway, I love her queen costume and her huge hat too! And I’d read it for her choice of girls as well. ^ ^
@Sellers: Now that you mention it, there were quite a few glasses. I didn’t mind particularly that too much. Anyway, a really a cute fun little read.
@moemoekyun: Me too. ^ ^
@Andrew: I hope you enjoy it.
@lightningsabre: I could have used another 5 volumes of this manga, but I do agree that part of what makes it so great is its short story. I hope for an anime adaptation as well though chances are bleak.
@Lylibellule: If it is released/ scanlated in French, I would recommend and hope you enjoy it. ^ ^
@shijima: Fujieda Miyabi has got some really cute characters and I love many of his works. The stories all tend to be rather subdued and lovely, such as the Tea House one, so I really like that about his yuri manga as well.
@Xine: It might not be as enjoyable if you are not into yuri, but if you have no opinion on the genre, I would really recommend this.
@Smithy: I think that the over-the-top elements of the action/ politics around Iono is something I didn’t mind too much because the manga sets out to be somewhat unrealistic and not serious. Anyway, it was a refreshing difference from the angsty school based yuri.
@glothelegend: Shoujo Sect was one of the best yuri manga ever, as is Iono the Fanatics.
@zzeroparticle: I haven’t seen that much traditional male centered harem anime, but from the few I have seen, there are marked differences between those and Iono the Fanatics. For one, this has no emphasis on fanservice nor any weird situations to get the main character into “fun” situations. Further, the center of the harem is not a wimpy person who’s simply lucky. Iono actively seeks out and creates her harem. It’s an interesting take.
@Snark: I have read it but dropped it after a few chapters. I couldn’t get into the art style, but I’ll try picking it up again.
@chubbybots: The silver haired girl with the long sword is the loli bodyguard of Iono-sama. She has a role in one of the arcs of the story, and she is just lovely. If you have the time, I would highly recommend this.
@Katsura-chan: “Mmm Yuri … awesome graphics … mmm … a bit of loli … mmm … some royalty elements … okay where do i sign up !!!”
My sentiments exactly. Yuri, cute art, loli, royalty… everything I want in a manga.
Anyway, you could look for scanlations from Dynasty Scans or on Mangafox.
@Shin: That would be so awesome.
@softz: I think it’s one of the best yuri manga around and I really hope you enjoy it. ^ ^
@lovelyduckie: I personally really love yuri, so maybe that kind of helps. Anyway, Candy Boy is an amazing manga.
I actually heard of this title before somewhere, but now that you mentioned it here again , I’ll definitely give it a try. Looks fun ! kind of want to take a short break on angsty themes now, need to cheer myself up from all the hectic stuff
@Akira: Yea, this will definitely be a fun thing to cheer you up and a nice break from angsty stuff. I hope you like it. ^ ^
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This one’s nothing special. There are just too many familiar tropes to me, though this one is definitely better than most of the recent stuff out there. An animated version would be very amusing.
@Ha: Agreed that there are familiar tropes to be fair. But I thought the simultaneity aspect of the harem is much rarer for such a sweet yuri.
Definitely better than many of the recent stuff.
OMG!! This one is must read shoujo-ai manga XDDD
@xX777Xx: Yes it is! Glad you think so too. ^ ^
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where do you find it
I’m pretty sure it’s on Dynasty Reader: http://dynasty-scans.com/reader/
i was looking and found it at stoptazmo.com
That’s a nice site. Thanks for the link!
I really like Iono. She makes me laugh every time she uses her catchphrase “Why,…” Also, she’s not an airhead or a bumbling fool who gets tongue tied, no, when she wants a girl, she’ll use her black hair scanner and lock onto her prey immediately. Plus, she’s beautiful underneath her garbs. As you can tell, I’m an Iono-fan. Oh, and her servants (especially Kass) are also a blast to read about.
Great review yet again comrade Yi.
I love Iono. She has a wonderfully kind and charismatic personality. It’s hard for anyone to not fall for her. She’s my favorite from this manga. Even after so long, I can still distinctly remember this character. This is harem manga at its best!
Why, this comic was a most enjoyable read indeed. I posted my comments on this one in a Pm towards you. Suffice to say it contains nothing but praise. “Ho Ho!”
Haha. I’ll reply via email as well.
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