New Anime Season Winter 2008: Three Anime With Some Yuri (That I know almost nothing about)

January 31st, 2008

A new anime season has opened and Yuri fans are looking high and low for anything with…anything. Yuri just isn’t a popular fetish this season. I’m not sure whether we should be sad or not.

I’m going to take a break from reviewing decent Yuri to comment on things about which I know next to nothing. (For some of you, this seems like S.O.P. here at Okazu, I know. ^_^) And to make it worse, I’m going to pepper what little I do know with spoilers, because I don’t care. :-)

Age before beauty, so we’ll start with Dragonaut – The Resonance, which isn’t a Winter series at all. It started quite a while ago. I just never got around to mentioning it before. This anime appears to be a speculative fantasy that combines the two eternally popular themes of dragons and the possible end of all life as we know it. It is not a comedy. I was informed that there was at least one Yuri-ish couple or, as the sage Katie put it, “ambiguously Yuri couple is ambiguous.” There’s plenty of screencaps that place Akira and Machina within touching distance of one another – and you know what that means. In later developments, I’m also informed that a character named Nanami exhibits trace elements of Yuri. These tendencies are removed from infecting any other characters by the usual standard procedure of killing the lesbians.

I haven’t watched Dragonaut and don’t intend to, so if someone wants to write a coherent review of this series, I’ll be glad to consider posting it.


Next up is These Are My Noble Masters which started out on the wacky side, then slid quickly into Love Hina-esque endless scenes of the lead male “accidentally” seeing the lead females in states of undress. God how hysterical that was. Especially the 500th time. I mean, it just gets funnier and funnier. Masters follows the comedic adventures of a brother and sister who are running from a tragic backstory and find themselves employed by three immensely rich and completely self-indulgent young women, each of which represents a couple of currently popular fetishes. This series *is* a comedy – in case you can’t tell.

Beni, the head maid, is unhealthily obsessed with her mistress. In an early scene, we have Beni giving her mistress Shinra a tongue bath in the bath, with extra leg fondling. I tried to watch this series, but not even an eye-patch wearing woman in vest, tie and pants couldn’t make me continuing watching it. She even wore it on the right eye. :(

And lastly, Shigofumi.The plot of Shigofumi is interestingly similar to that of the manga series Epitaph, which is running right now in Yuri Hime. Fumika and her adorably petulant wand Kanaka deliver letters from the dead to the living. Tragedy and misery abound. (Also not a comedy. In case you didn’t get that.)

Looks like we have a Yuri flashback, with an unspoken promise to be tragic. I was expecting a Jigoku Shoujo-like series, with mostly episodic morality plays, but after three episodes, this series is showing signs of being vaguely interesting. Ueda Kana as Fumika helps. Ueda Kana involved a tragic lesbian backstory helps more. I’ll watch this tonight and see what happens. I expect it to be a one-shot. (Post-watching comment. One-shot yes, tragic no. Not a flashback. So that’s kind of nice.)

Yuri fans can look forward to horror-series Mnemosyne, and we can always make soup from stones with Aria, but this season is weak indeed.

I’ll try and do a few more anime wrap-ups from the distant past soonish, and we can all move on. :-)

7 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    Is it just me, or does Sawashiro Miyuki get to voice Yuri characters with a tragic fate lately? I sure hope this doesn’t become a pattern.

  2. Anonymous says:

    The Yuri in Shigofumi is in episode 4. It’s not a flashback, and doesn’t end tragically. So go watch it!!

  3. Anonymous says:

    As for me, DENNO: Coil was totally awesome and totally GAY )))
    On japanese boards YasaIsa has quickly rizen into the first 5 of Yuri pairings)

  4. ArcaJ says:

    I’ll give Shigofumi a try as I enjoy series about death, loss and reflection.

    The others i won’t touch. I’m just sick of watching bad series just to glean some Yuri.

    Thanks for the heads-up Erica!

    ::HUGS::

    Arca Jeth

  5. Anonymous says:

    I could take a crack at Dragonaut if you didn’t mind.

    Katie

  6. Katie – I would be delighted if you did. By all means, yes!

  7. Anonymous says:

    Thanks for the Shigofumi review. I was getting irritated with all of the god-awful anime misses to my palette. I began watching this series after reading your review, and am finding myself enjoying it. :)

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