[Februaryuri 2026] Hana Monogatari

02 Mar, 2026

(base post on Februaryuri 2026 here!)

Hana Monogatari by schwinn

Publication

Ended (3 volumes, 2022-2023)
Not published in English (fan-translation readable here or here)
Published in French (Akata editions), 2 volumes so far, under the title Les fleurs se maquillent aussi

Summary

At 65, the death of her husband is a catalyst for Hanayo. She finally gets some space to unpack how much the old man made her care for everything throughout their life together, and how he criticized her for everything she did - either too feminine for an old lady or not enough for a woman. She doesn't want to badmouth him, of course; but she now slowly settles into a freedom of living that she never had before.

She notably learns to claim back makeup and pretty outfits, things she had mostly learned to discard as she had aged - and that had otherwise always been forced onto her "to please men". And, well, mayyybe her interest in makeup is also renewed by her unexplained interest in talking with the makeup store lady, a woman her age who looks proud and graceful and kind.
Hanayo doesn't realize that this may be love, though. She vaguely knows, of course, that women who love women exist, but she was never told that this could be about her.

The other woman, Yoshiko, is the opposite. She always knew that she was a lesbian - always knew the value of fictions where she could find something of herself. But when she was young, no lesbian fiction existed with a happy ending; nothing to reflect her desire to grow old with the one she loved.

Yoshiko grows closer to Hanayo, and quickly lends her one of her favorite story anthologies: Hana Monogatari by Nobuko Yoshiya, a prominent figure of Japanese lesbian fiction.

And slowly, slowly, Hanayo learns to live for herself.

Comment

Sometimes, the premise of a manga is low-key groundbreaking in its own subgenre, and within a few chapters it is apparent that the author is keenly aware of what they are talking about - that you can trust them deeply in writing this. How can it not become one of your favorite mangas, then?

Hana Monogatari is a rarity first because it's old women yuri, something that basically doesn't exist¹. Most of its characters are more than sixty(!!!), and this grounds the story in every single way.

Hanayo's experience, for instance, is one of a housewife made to be a caretaker her whole life, finally realizing how much the constant sexist criticism of her husband (and later on, her son too) affected her decisions, and notably how it made her withdraw both from what she liked, and from most other relationships. Her finally getting to see other older women being active and interested in so many topics, among Yoshiko's customers and her own neighbors, is obviously meaningful.

The manga has so many elements that hit right about small manifestations of sexism, overall. It's never preachy or exaggerated; no, it's always very real in how it is depicted (and always condemned by our lead characters). And it shows particularly well how femininity is both enforced and mocked all the time - be it on Hanayo herself, or on Yoshiko and her girlfriend from when they were younger.

As such, seeing our protagonists reclaim makeup as something fun and for themselves is already very sweet.
But the manga does even better: it intertwines this criticism with one about heteronormativity. Because those systems are entangled. Because things like criticizing a woman for her """vanity""" are both sexist and full of heterosexual assumptions. Because at the end of the day, her husband making fun of Hanayo's appearance is on the same spectrum as him downplaying every time she felt starstruck by a woman. Everything she ever did was always framed as a vain yet necessary competition with other women to please men; but this just isn't true.

And the crux is, Hanayo herself never learned any other way of seeing things. She went through that stiffling housewife life because it was the only thing she was ever told existed; and now she confusedly realizes that she's left behind everything she liked to fit into that role.

As we see our protagonist reexamining her life and standing for herself, we also witness something fascinating: the quiet life-changing contact with sapphic people and fictions. There is a scene at the end of volume 1 that shows in a simply incredible way how it feels to realize that your life may be queerer than you were ever told it was. I was already amazed by Hana Monogatari but that moment just made me fall head over heels for it considering how relatable it was, how it clearly was written by someone who went through that same feeling: the one that feels like lighting a fire inside you that you didn't know was there.

This is also where Yoshiko is a great counterpoint to Hanayo's experience. Having her as a character that always lived in the margins, that never followed this "normal" life template, is an extraordinary thing to put Hanayo's slow lesbian awakening into perspective - all the more with how right Yoshiko is depicted. Once again, her experience is incredibly grounded, here in Japanese lesbian history, because... because we need to talk a little about Nobuko Yoshiya.

Nobuko Yoshiya was a 20th century lesbian novelist, and the most prominent figure of Class S, an early 20th century Japanese literary movement which had a strong focus on depicting romantic friendships between girls at all-girls schools. Class S is widely considered to be the ancestor of the yuri genre, and an entire branch of the yuri genre is abusively called "Class S" as a renaissance of those settings and themes - heck, even a lot of high school yuri of today have evolved from these same Class S roots. This article by YuriMother is a pretty good introduction to the topic, if you're interested.

As a consequence, it is extremely meaningful that the character of Yoshiko in Hana Monogatari would have resonated with Nobuko Yoshiya's body of work when she was young. And to see Yoshiya's legacy of lesbian literature have ripples in a yuri manga that purposefully bears the same name as one of her most well-known anthologies is just perfect.

And with this, Hana Monogatari (the manga) broaches yet another incredible topic: literature studies. At some point, Hanayo wonders why almost all stories written by Nobuko Yoshiya end badly; and with Yoshiko's help, she enlists into a literature course about the author. And this allows the manga to provide so many more elements of social criticism: around the perception of lesbianism in early 20th century Japan that led all of those fictions to be tragedies, but also around what is currently considered the Japanese literary canon - which is, as they all are, biased against romance, biased against popular culture writings, and generally sexist.

And at this point Hana Monogatari just has so many themes brilliantly intertwined in its criticism of a heteropatriarcal society.

All this may make it feel a bit daunting, but it's really not. At its core, it's also a really really cute story of seeing Hanayo and Yoshiko grow closer². It's just also extremely sharp in its critique, in a way that feels effortless.

All in all, I find Hana Monogatari fantastic. With all these layers to its reading, and no heavy or unaddressed content warning, it may be the one yuri manga I'd put into anyone's hands³, no strings attached.

If you can't tell, I'm absurdly glad that this manga exists. Here's to more old women yuri - all the more written this masterfully.

#februaryuri 2026 #yuri