This story is a pure yuri.

The setting can be seen as "stupid", "unrealistic", "yaoi" or a "commentary about our own world", but I'd say it's mainly inspired by Takarazuka Theater, as hinted in the note of this page.
Takarazuka is a all-female revue, where the actresses are either musumeyaku (female role) or otokoyaku (male role).
When you enter in Takarazuka, you enter in a fantasy world with only "women". It's the same with Love DNA.

The otokoyaku (and thus the Adam in the manga) isn't male, but she is the incarnation of the ideal shōjo, who manage to be both the "ideal man" and the "ideal woman", the prince and the princess.
A shōjo isn't simply a "little woman", but she is more or less considered as a third gender by the japanese gender studies, distinct from male or female. There is a ton of things to say about "what is a shōjo exactly?", but I like this definition: "the shōjo is a female yet sexless being, with homosexual experience and heterosexual inexperience". That's the foundation of the yuri, especially the Class S thing of the prewar Japan, homosexuality between shōjo, and not women.

Takarazuka is one pillar of the shōjo (and thus yuri) culture/identity (the other pillar is Nobuko Yoshiya, the author of the first yuri (Class S) stories). You can find its influence everywhere in shōjo, yuri and even yaoi manga. From Princess Knight to Rose of Versailles, Utena, Sailor Moon, Oniisama e…, Kaze to Ki no Uta or Ouran High School Host Club.
Love DNA is simply a continuation of this tradition. And it's one of the more "genderfuck" yuri out there, far behind Simoun, but still. At first I was lost by Simoun too; for me the heroines in this story weren't women, or even girls, they were children, sexless, and thus speaking of "yuri" for Simoun was absurd in my eyes. But now, after reading studies about shōjo/yuri, I understand that Simoun is the best example of what yuri is. Love DNA takes another route than Simoun, but is similar in many ways.

If you're interested by the otokoyaku, the shōjo et cætera, you can easily find information about it in virtually all scientific studies of the shōjo/yuri manga, and a little in yaoi manga (where the bishōnen archetype is inspired by the otokoyaku too), many of them are freely readable on the internet.
But this one is a good start, I think : https://webspace.yale.edu/anth254/restricted/AE_1992_19-3_Robertson.pdf

That Oscar cat,
He's so heavy... I mean, 12 kilo's?!
My cat, is fat, and her weight is 6 kilo...

That's it? 17 chapters?! Nuuuuuuu~! I want more~! >.<

This story is a pure yuri.

The setting can be seen as "stupid", "unrealistic", "yaoi" or a "commentary about our own world", but I'd say it's mainly inspired by Takarazuka Theater, as hinted in the note of this page.
Takarazuka is a all-female revue, where the actresses are either musumeyaku (female role) or otokoyaku (male role).
When you enter in Takarazuka, you enter in a fantasy world with only "women". It's the same with Love DNA.

The otokoyaku (and thus the Adam in the manga) isn't male, but she is the incarnation of the ideal shōjo, who manage to be both the "ideal man" and the "ideal woman", the prince and the princess.
A shōjo isn't simply a "little woman", but she is more or less considered as a third gender by the japanese gender studies, distinct from male or female. There is a ton of things to say about "what is a shōjo exactly?", but I like this definition: "the shōjo is a female yet sexless being, with homosexual experience and heterosexual inexperience". That's the foundation of the yuri, especially the Class S thing of the prewar Japan, homosexuality between shōjo, and not women.

Takarazuka is one pillar of the shōjo (and thus yuri) culture/identity (the other pillar is Nobuko Yoshiya, the author of the first yuri (Class S) stories). You can find its influence everywhere in shōjo, yuri and even yaoi manga. From Princess Knight to Rose of Versailles, Utena, Sailor Moon, Oniisama e…, Kaze to Ki no Uta or Ouran High School Host Club.
Love DNA is simply a continuation of this tradition. And it's one of the more "genderfuck" yuri out there, far behind Simoun, but still. At first I was lost by Simoun too; for me the heroines in this story weren't women, or even girls, they were children, sexless, and thus speaking of "yuri" for Simoun was absurd in my eyes. But now, after reading studies about shōjo/yuri, I understand that Simoun is the best example of what yuri is. Love DNA takes another route than Simoun, but is similar in many ways.

If you're interested by the otokoyaku, the shōjo et cætera, you can easily find information about it in virtually all scientific studies of the shōjo/yuri manga, and a little in yaoi manga (where the bishōnen archetype is inspired by the otokoyaku too), many of them are freely readable on the internet.
But this one is a good start, I think : https://webspace.yale.edu/anth254/restricted/AE_1992_19-3_Robertson.pdf

This. This. This. This. This.

It ended sooo quickly. They could have made it so muuch longer, like going deeper into what will happen on their attempts to reform their world, or just by taking a look at the other couple's relationship, they could easily reached 30 chapters. But hey, guess I can't complain much since Im not even buying the manga to support them, lol.

Anyway, good read, I've been avoiding this for some time since I saw in the comments that it might be something like a yuri/yaoi hybrid story, but I didn't see it like that. This is purely yuri and I'd recommend it to anyone who loves that, but the ending did feel kinda rushed.

If you're interested by the otokoyaku, the shōjo et cætera, you can easily find information about it in virtually all scientific studies of the shōjo/yuri manga, and a little in yaoi manga (where the bishōnen archetype is inspired by the otokoyaku too), many of them are freely readable on the internet.
But this one is a good start, I think : https://webspace.yale.edu/anth254/restricted/AE_1992_19-3_Robertson.pdf

That was a very interesting read, thank you. What would you recommend to read if one wanted to know more specifically about the studies of "shoujo yuri" you have described? Also would you know about any actual academic analysis of Simoun? A friend of mine wanted to write a larger paper, maybe even a book on it, but has disappeared of my radar long ago. :-(

last edited at May 28, 2017 10:34AM

been a long time since I re-visited this.
glad that my scanlations had served well :)

Conflicted about this story, the relationship progress well but I felt like the story really ended before much could happen.

last edited at Jan 27, 2018 11:25PM

I didn't realise this during my first reading, but this story is a yaoi disguised as a yuri. Weird. I still like it though.

So, only the girls, who go to elite government schools, get to have families? The population was already cut in half, when the men died out. Now they're further narrowing the gene pool, by being picky about who can breed. That seems like a fast tract to extinction.
Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

last edited at Jul 28, 2018 7:07PM

Boy, they've really forced the adams, to go all out, with the whole crossdressing thing.

last edited at Jul 28, 2018 9:10PM

johnb posted:

Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

Author created only women world, to then separate them by sex and make same sex relationship taboo. What's the point? If they wanted to write forbidden relationship story, couldn't they just write about all female/male military school in our world?

last edited at Jul 28, 2018 9:32PM

johnb posted:

Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

Author created only women world, to then separate them by sex and make same sex relationship taboo. What's the point? If they wanted to write forbidden relationship story, couldn't they just write about all female/male military school in our world?

It is fun to think about what love and relationships would look like if one gender was totally wiped out, and science somehow aloud our species to survive. I didn't think it would be like in this story, though. It's been awhile since I've read this, the first time, but I think, in a later chapter, the people in charge admit it's a stupid system. They just set it up this way, to sell homosexuality to a mostly straight population. I guess it kind of makes sense.

johnb posted:

Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

Author created only women world, to then separate them by sex and make same sex relationship taboo. What's the point? If they wanted to write forbidden relationship story, couldn't they just write about all female/male military school in our world?

the point was to show how stupid the system is and to make paralles with similar social structures irl. thats why at the end, everyone ditched the system and decided to just go with whoever they liked.

I'm on chapter 4 of my reread, and the sexism, in a unisex world, just keeps getting worse. It's almost like the authors are saying, "Somebody needs to marginalize us women, in order for the human race to survive. If men are gone, then we'll just have to do it ourselves."

On a side note. Why did Aoi look shocked, and appalled at the thought of an all girl mixer (ch 4. pg 7.). She supposedly lived, all her life in an all girl world.

johnb posted:

Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

Author created only women world, to then separate them by sex and make same sex relationship taboo. What's the point? If they wanted to write forbidden relationship story, couldn't they just write about all female/male military school in our world?

the point was to show how stupid the system is and to make paralles with similar social structures irl. thats why at the end, everyone ditched the system and decided to just go with whoever they liked.

I'm not sure, the story was ment to go, as deep, as to be social commentary. I just think it was a way for a couple of yaoi authors to bring a yaoi flavor to a yuri story.

I'm not sure, the story was ment to go, as deep, as to be social commentary. I just think it was a way for a couple of yaoi authors to bring a yaoi flavor to a yuri story.

Actually, I am pretty sure that was exactly the intention. :-) If you want to know what yaoi-flavored yuri minus the social commentary from these authors looks like, just check out their other series here on the Dynasty.

last edited at Jul 29, 2018 2:32AM

I'm not sure, the story was ment to go, as deep, as to be social commentary. I just think it was a way for a couple of yaoi authors to bring a yaoi flavor to a yuri story.

Actually, I am pretty sure that was exactly the intention. :-) If you want to know what yaoi-flavored yuri minus the social commentary from these authors looks like, just check out their other series here on the Dynasty.

I find anime, and manga seem to be naturally sexist. Tropes like the grade school girl cooking and cleaning, for her widowed father, and women feeling the need to get married, and have kids, in order to feel fulfilled as a woman, are just some of the sexist things, I see, that lead me to believe, Japan's feminist movement has a long way to go.
I'm not sure if the sexism in Love DNA XX is ment to show people the absurdity of it, or are Eike Eike and Zaou Taishi just writing what they see. After all the point of the Eden project was to get the world back to something close to familiar, so the women would feel comfortable enough to except it.

Yuri Guy posted:

johnb posted:

Really they're wasting alot of breeding potential, just by making half the women play "daddy". In a situation like this, you would think it would be all wombs on deck.

Author created only women world, to then separate them by sex and make same sex relationship taboo. What's the point? If they wanted to write forbidden relationship story, couldn't they just write about all female/male military school in our world?

the point was to show how stupid the system is and to make paralles with similar social structures irl. thats why at the end, everyone ditched the system and decided to just go with whoever they liked.

I thought it might happen, but I wouldn't know, since I got bored of it pretty fast and dropped it like after 4-8 chapters max. Still we already know this system is stupid in our world. From what you say they just discover homosexuality is ok, so setting it in all women world, where homosexuality should be obviously fine in the first place, still feels pretty forced. And still they could do the all female/male military school with exact same conclusion homosexuality is fine and there would be no difference. And same with classes systems etc. You don't have to invent your own setting and then create a issue that shouldn't exist there, just to explore something we already have in our world. To me this series is just 1 big wasted potential.

last edited at Jul 29, 2018 6:55AM

You know, the back story between Erica and Sakura would be a great set up for a romance shoujo. I think I would rather have read that story.

Another side note: Why do they keep having little moments where the characters act like a girl being into another girl is unusual, or weird. like ch 11. pg 9. Where Sakura asked if Aoi has ever kissed another girl before, or like ch 8. pg 15. Where Aoi is absolutely shocked to see Klara an Mizuki kissing. I'm pretty sure girls loving other girls would be the norm in an all girl world. I don't even know if it would be considered homosexuality anymore.

You know, the back story between Erica and Sakura would be a great set up for a romance shoujo. I think I would rather have read that story.

Another side note: Why do they keep having little moments where the characters act like a girl being into another girl is unusual, or weird. like ch 11. pg 9. Where Sakura asked if Aoi has ever kissed another girl before, or like ch 8. pg 15. Where Aoi is absolutely shocked to see Klara an Mizuki kissing. I'm pretty sure girls loving other girls would be the norm in an all girl world. I don't even know if it would be considered homosexuality anymore.

Just because the male half of the species is wiped out it isn't likely to change the fact that the vast majority of women would be born heterosexual. They just sadly wouldn't have any way to fruitfully pursue those desires. I guess it is true that society as a whole would tend to be a lot more accepting of homosexuality, but I imagine it would still be a minority of people that are actively lesbians.

last edited at Aug 2, 2018 3:54AM

You know, the back story between Erica and Sakura would be a great set up for a romance shoujo. I think I would rather have read that story.

Another side note: Why do they keep having little moments where the characters act like a girl being into another girl is unusual, or weird. like ch 11. pg 9. Where Sakura asked if Aoi has ever kissed another girl before, or like ch 8. pg 15. Where Aoi is absolutely shocked to see Klara an Mizuki kissing. I'm pretty sure girls loving other girls would be the norm in an all girl world. I don't even know if it would be considered homosexuality anymore.

Just because the male half of the species is wiped out it isn't likely to change the fact that the vast majority of women would be born heterosexual. They just sadly wouldn't have any way to fruitfully pursue those desires. I guess it is true that society as a whole would tend to be a lot more accepting of homosexuality, but I imagine it would still be a minority of people that are actively lesbians.

I disagree. I think the human animal needs love and physical contact. I think you place people in an unisex environment they would bond with each other, especially after a few generations. The same sex taboo would be gone and the women would find loving other women just as natural as it use to be with men. The alternative would be a life of lonely masturbation, or worse, living a sexless existence with no intimacy at all. I think that existence would drive people mad.

Just an added thought: If it turns out that you would be correct, that would make that ridiculous adam and eve system even more stupid. Instead of forcing woman to simulate hertosexual marriage, they should just let them choose if, and when they wanted to have children. They could partner up with a friend, for help if they want, or go it alone if they wish. Heck they could join a commune of women and raise the children sister wives style, if they wanted. Minus the dirt bag polygamist husband, of course. I should think that, would be more productive, and frankly way easier to sell, than arbitrary and meaningless pair bonding.

last edited at Aug 2, 2018 5:43AM

I take my opinion back. This was definitely social commentary.

I take my opinion back. This was definitely social commentary.

Of course. It’s a big fuck you to heteronormativity. But also emphasizes gender stereotypes. I would’ve loved to see a girl who embraces both “Adam” and “Eve.” Though Sakura and her sister have long hair despite being Adams, even more blurring of gender binaries would’ve been nice to see

I really liked this manga and it’s “no men” motif. I enjoyed Spring, Summar, Fall, Winter too. The artwork is great, all the characters have slightly menacing faces.

oh boy, reading this in the year of our lord 2k19 is an exercise in simultaneous frustration & bemusement. granted this was penned over a decade ago b4 questioning gender roles became more mainstream, but it just goes to show how easily the male/female dichotomy starts falling to pieces under any small degree of scrutiny.