Maya no Souretsu

Maya no Souretsu (Japanese: 摩耶の葬列; Maya’s Funeral Procession) is a Japanese one-shot manga written and illustrated Yukari Ichijō. It was first published in the July 1972 issue of Ribon and has been collected into several anthologies alongside Ichijō's other works.

It was one of a number of shōjo manga works released in the early 1970s that depicted intimate relationships between female characters; and helped reinforce the first archetypes within yuri.

Reina, the only daughter of the Harukawa Jewelry Store in Tokyo, meets the mysterious girl Maya at a mountain villa where she has come to escape the summer. While continuing her unwanted trysts with her fiancé, Taku, she is drawn to Maya's enigmatic aura and finally kisses her in the shade of a tree. Meanwhile, her fiancé's father is found dead by drowning, and an eerie atmosphere hangs over the mountain. Reina is pressured to marry her fiancé, who wants to take over his father's business, but her feelings for Maya only grow stronger.

Meanwhile, Maya approached Rena with the intention of taking revenge on Rena's family, who had killed her parents, but she too was drawn to Rena and was tormented by her feelings. However, her sister's death prompted her to decide on revenge. After killing Rena's father, Maya tells Rena the truth and pressures her to kill her, but is refused. When it comes time to kill the last person, Rena's mother, she is shocked to learn that she and Rena are actually sisters, and throws herself into the flames.

Later, Rena marries her fiancé to start everything over, but at the wedding, she throws the bouquet in memory of her first love, Maya, who is no longer with us.

Written and illustrated by Yukari Ichijō, Maya no Souretsu was first published in the July 1972 issue of Shueisha's manga magazine Ribon. In 1973 it was collected into the second volume of "Yukari Ichijo's Complete Works (一条ゆかり長編集, Ichijo Yukari Chouhenshuu)" alongside "Ame no Nioi no Suru Machi (雨のにおいのする街)".^[1] In 2005 it was the main feature of a new collection, "Yukari Ichijo's Unique and Masterful Novels: Maya's Funeral Procession (一条ゆかり異色長編傑作選 摩耶の葬列, Ichijō Yukari Ishoku Chōhen Kessaku-Sen Maya no Souretsu)".^[2]

Maya no Souretsu is considered one of the earlier examples of yuri manga, releasing only a year after Ryōko Yamagishi's Shiroi Heya no Futari, which most critics identify as the first yuri manga. Erica Friedman of Yuricon notes in her review of the 2005 collection that Shiroi Heya no Futari's influence is already being seen within Reina and Maya's designs as the "average blonde and stately brunette"^[3] or what Yukari Fujimoto has noted to be the "Crimson Rose and Candy Girl" dynamic.

• Maya no Souretsu (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia