Archive for February, 2004


Yuri Anime: Yokohama Shopping Log

February 27th, 2004

yokohama-kaidashi-kikouYokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log)

Ahhhh….That’s all I have to say about this absolutely delightful series. Depending on what you like, this series could drive you nuts or be the most wonderful experience you’ve ever had. Let me be up front – *nothing* happens in this story. It’s not *about* anything. It’s what your sophomore year English teacher referred to as “slice-of-life” only you weren’t paying attention, ’cause you had a crush on the girl in science class and were too busy passing notes to a friend about the math teacher’s poor taste in ties to notice. ^_^

Amazingly, despite everything I am about to write about it, this really is a seinen series.

YYK is a very sweet and, oh, simple, look at a post-apocalyptic Japan. Changing weather patterns have altered the map and Yokohama has been mostly submerged. Life is simpler, more rural. In this twilight world, there is a kind of relaxed attitude towards the passage of time. We follow Alpha, an advanced (and fairly rare) type of robot, as she runs a coffee shop, swims with friends, takes pictures, meets people and generally explores the world. The art of the anime is breathtakingly lovely, the art in the manga is simple and sweet, and the color pictures are just heart-wrenchingly beautiful in their simplicity.

Like I said, nothing happens, but it doesn’t happen so….sweetly, that’s it a joy to watch.

The Yuri comes in early on in the story with the introduction of another robot, Kokone, who is delivering a message from Alpha’s absent owner. In what has to be the cutest, sweetest fanservice Yuri scene ever, the robots must touch tongues to transfer the message (I don’t even want to think about the bad science involved with this concept!). Alpha’s taken aback, but from this point on Kokone begins to really develop feelings for Alpha which rapidly become a serious crush. Even after Kokone meets (and delivers a message to, nudge, nudge) another robot, who takes a liking to her, Kokone’as thoughts are always on Alpha.

At one point in the story, Kokone rides out to see Alpha, who has gone on an extended walkabout. Kokone ends up staying overnight at Alpha’s house. Laying in Alpha’s bed, Kokone is seen to stroke Alpha’s pillow and sniff it deeply, trying to capture Alpha’s scent, while saying Alpha’s name. If that ain’t infatuation – I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, the third robot, butchy, artsy Meruko, also female, keeps trying to ask Kokone out (and get messages delivered by her, nudge, nudge) but Kokone spends all her time with Meruko talking about Alpha.  Let’s face it – Kokone is completely gonesville on Alpha, and with good reason, I think. Alpha’s utterly enchanting. ^_^  I guess I’m a little gone on Alpha, too, huh?

The anime consists of two separate two-episode OVAs, a total of four episodes. The second OVA is not as well-executed as the first and looks as if it was actually done *before* the earlier episodes. But it wasn’t – it came several years later, in fact. Nonetheless, both are very worth watching.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: A Quiet Country Cafe has a wonderful opening scene of Kokone and Alpha out for a day’s ride – Kokone comes very close to kissing Alpha.

There’s also a fantastic artbook of the color pictures from the manga and at least two drama CDs for this series – I just wish there was more out there, because I genuinely hate to leave Alpha’s world. The simplicity and beauty of this series would be worth it, even without the delightful characters and story.

For us Yuri fans, Kokone and Alpha are just *so* adorable together….

I know that YYK is an old series, and long past, now, but it’s just so darn…wonderful. :-)

Ratings:

Art – 10, anime and manga
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Music – 9
Yuri – 8
Overall – 9





Yuri Manga: Air Master

February 26th, 2004

Okay, I’m a little tired of talking about shoujo Yuri titles, so I thought I’d cover a few shounen Yuri series of note.

Air Master

I’ve talked about this one before, I know, but it bears repeating. The basic plot is…well, there isn’t really a plot. It’s about an ex-gymnastics champion turned street fighter. Her gymnastics skill manifest as a distinctly unique fighting style which involves seriously BIG air. Hence the name, “Air Master.”

Aikawa Maki is a great heroine. Competent and cool in her millieu, sort of dorky and insecure outside it, she’s surprisingly human and likable. Her friends are quirky and funny, and her enemies even quirkier and, in many cases, funnier. Of these, the best, by far and away is Sakiyama Kaori, who may possibly be the funniest, most imaginative and most likeable psychotic to ever grace a manga or anime.

The Yuri comes in right at the start, as Maki’s new friend Mina develops a raging crush on Maki, which quickly develops into a raging lust for her. In the anime, this is seriously minimalized, but in the manga, there’s some terrific scenes as we get to see what Mina’s actually thinking (hoping/wishing/fantasizing ) about in regards to Maki.

There’s a few downsides to this series – for one thing, the manga art is *seriously,* distractingly ugly.  There’s some intense fighting violence (which I quite like) and some serious sexual violence, as well (which I don’t.) Episode 24 of the anime is one of the single most violent 20 minutes I’ve ever seen animated that didn’t involve guns or mutating things. The little old lady who sat next to me on the plane while I watched it on my computer, almost had a heart attack, poor thing. And there is unneeded and egregious, yet expected service.

On the good side, you have great characters – I mean REALLY great. With the exception of one or two characters, even Maki’s opponents are engaging and fun. In the tradition of shounen fighting anime, most defeated opponents become allies, so it’s nice to have them stick and around and keep coming back. Rematches with defeated opponents are actually better than the original fights, as Maki’s skills keep improving over the series.

Ratings

(Manga) Art – 2
(Anime) Art – 6
Characters – 9
Story – 7
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8





Jubei-chan 2: Revenge of the Siberian Yagyuu Anime

February 25th, 2004

How About A Quickie?

I’m a little pressed for time today, so today’s review will have to be a quickie…

Jubei-chan 2: Revenge of the Siberian Yagyuu

Let me cut to the chase here – no Yuri. BUT, it has instead everything else that makes a series worth watching, lots of hot women fighting with swords, wearing eyepatches and ninja clothes designed by Frazetta.

While there is no overt Yuri, Jiyu and newcomer Yagyuu Fureesha (Felicia?) get awfully snuggly at times, and their relationship has tons of that popular love/hate tension. And when Jubei-chan rescues Fureesha from the moat….drool. I have no less than 3 screencaps of that scene. :-) There’s plenty to work with in terms of fanon Yuri here.

The side characters are still bizarre and kookie, Mikage is still a babe, Jiyu’s dad is still a goofball. With the exception of Koinusuke, pretty much every fun character from the original series has returned. Instead of Koinuske’s incompetent adorableness, we have his repulsive, if competent, son. And tons of drama, of course. 7 episodes into this series and it’s been great.

If you liked the first series…or you like really hot, competent women who fight and are cool as hell (and wear eyepatches….did I mention that? I think that I’ve developed an eyepatch fetish – between Yuriko from Yuricon, Ryomou from Ikkitousen and Jubei-chan, I’m starting to realize that I *really* like women with one eye covered. ^_^;) then you’ll enjoy this series too. No Yuri, but lots of everything else and plenty of room for Yuri subtexty fandom.

Ratings:

Art – N/A. The art in the series varies wildly from stunning to awful on purpose. It’s impossible to rate Characters – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 1

Overall – 8





Two Not-really Yuri Anime

February 23rd, 2004

When I hear that a series has Yuri or Yuri subtext, I’ll usually give it a chance, even if it’s not my particular thing. Just in case it is worth it, or might be of interest to Yuri fandom in general. Well, this past week I wasted a cumulative total of 46 minutes that I can never get back, watching two not very compellingl new anime series. Consider yourself warned.

Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie

This is a one-shot OVA for what must be a much longer, if not more complex, story. Rabbie is an “Angel,” or attemtping to be one, to be just like her cool, competent Mother. “Angels” are a combo of magical girl, hardsuit-wearing fighter chick and space police. In other words, they are a mixture of nearly every trite cliche’ possible.

The improbably named heroine, Lasty Farson, has all the typical qualities of a mediocre shoujo heroine; she’s clumsy and constantly late, has inexplicably good fighting skills and a best friend who passionately loves and desires her.

There’s a mysterious “bad” girl, a renegade Angel who, in the manga, probably also desires Lasty, but in this shortened OVA, only says one line, smiles enigmatically and moves her cape around a bit.

Perhaps the Yuri fanservice (and I can tell you know with complete assurance that that’s all it would be) is greater in the manga, but there’s so little even of that in this OVA that it’s not worth saying its there.

The characters are very moe, so they look years younger than they are, but have fully developed chests – ac onvention which repulses me – and the transformations Lasty goes through are unnecessary and ridiculous. The plot, if you can call it that, is superficial in the extreme. I probably wouldn’t even push any of the characters out of the way of an oncoming train.

This series is a big zero – give it a miss if you value your sanity.

Futari ha PreCure (Pretty Cure )

This is a generic magical girl anime.

Two girls, butchy and athletic Nagisa, and smart, feminine Honoka, somehow manage to be drawn together to form the magical team of Cure White and Cure Black, who fight for…shall we *all* say it…”Love and Justice.” Their costumes aren’t even good, just sort of stupid. Of course, the butchy girl is REALLLY straight,and we have that beaten into our head a thousand times as she moons over some faceless boy.

The art is wholly uninteresting, the story predictable and tiresome, the Monster of the Week was *dire*, but thrn this is targeted to children and they are probably not as cynical as I am.

But the worst, the absolute worst, thing about it was the ubiquitous cute, fluffy creatures. These were so horrible that I grit my teeth simply thinking about them. Each girl has been given what can only be called an anthromorphized cell phone which is really a cute, fluffy creature. These two creatures appear to be in love with each other. Mippiru and Meppuru add the syllables of their names to every sentence, which was enough to make me scream at the screen after five minutes of “Mippu, mippuuuu!”. I found it difficult to tolerate.

It’s very obvious that the entire point of this series is simply to sell stuff – in the first episode we get no less than 6 objet de plastic they will eventually try to sell.

Any Yuri is strictly fandom-based. These two characters have to hold hands to attack, but there’s no anything between them. Unless Honoka develops a raging crush on Nagisa, I’d recommend treating PreCure like the commercial franchise it is.





Live Action: Tipping the Velvet

February 20th, 2004

Today’s review is a bit “off-topic” since it’s about a live-action DVD, and a western one to boot, rather than something animated or drawn. But, in all honesty, this was SO good, I thought you ought to know about it.

Tipping the Velvet,  is a truly excellent three-part costume drama based (with reasonable accuracy) on the novel by the same name. TtV was written by Sarah Waters, who also wrote Fingersmithing which was an incredibly surreal and wonderfully weird book…I’d love to see THAT made into a made-for-TV drama!

TtV is a costume play set in Victorian England, dealing with the ups and downs, fame, fortune, loves and lovers of Nan Astley, a fisherman’s daughter who grows up to be a famous stage actress and infamous lesbian. If you want to know more about the story, go visit the BBC website – it’s much more thorough than I could be here. I just want to note a few basic things, like:

1) Rachel Stirling is so amazingly hot as Nan, she’s breathtaking. She’s Diana Rigg’s daughter, and it shows – she has her mother’s sensuality, and her cheekbones but…that voice! She does a superb job and deserves some kind of award for looking that good in a tux.

2) The lesbian sex is very nice. ‘Nuff said.

3) The ending is slightly different from the book, but the outcome the same. To cut to the chase – the girl gets the girl and lives happily ever after.

4) Did I mention the copiuos sex scenes?

Anyway – this is a DVD at least worth a rent, if not a buy. Great story, fantastic acting, hot women…magnificent clothes and a yuri lover’s fantasy ending. This gets 10s all the way around. Put it on your “To Watch” list immediately and thank me later.