Archive for February, 2004


Yuri Manga: Read or Dream, Volume 1

February 4th, 2004

I have actually already covered the anime addition to the ROD series this past December in an earlier entry, but that was a while ago now and I want to cover the series as a whole continuity – and review the new manga.

As mostly everyone knows, the original ROD was a 3-episode OVA, and a 4-volume manga. Read or Die is the full title of this earlier series.

Read or Dream is a new manga, of which one volume is out, so we don’t quite know where it will end. And ROD The TV is the (so far) 26-episode anime currently running on Japanese television. What some of you may not know is that there are also several ROD novels, at least one of which may contribute to the current timeline in a meaningful fashion. (I have not seen, much less read, the novels, and everything I’ve heard about them are unsubstantiated rumor, so I’m including them only as a point of interest.)

I’m not going to explain the basic plot here – I’ll assume that you know the story at least a little. If not- click the links above and read up.

In terms of yuri, Read or Die the OVA has luscious subtext. Not a few folks, including the artists at Newtype and Megami magazines, had a field day with Nancy and Yomiko. As a story, it was a neat, enjoyable 3-episode action story with good music, and great characters.

Not so the original RODmanga. Read or Die the manga was a frankly mediocre exploration of fanservice, tedious plots and uninteresting characters. I tried and failed to be interested in the ROD manga several times. If you were *very* clever and ignored all the evidence to the contrary, you could *try* and make a case for Nenene and Yomiko…but you’d be stretching the bounds of plausability. As an action story it was…okay. (The worst of it was that Yomiko, who in the OVA was almost unconsciously competent, was rendered clumsy and goofy in the manga.)

Then came ROD the TV. In practically one fell swoop, it not only gave us Nenene and Yomiko as a viable relationship, it also gave us butchy Maggie (a yuri fan’s dream in terms of possibilities) and Anita’s relationship with Hisa. Then it threw in five years of something between Nancy and Yomiko, just to keep things interesting. Whether one sees it all as overt text, or subtext, the complex relationships between all the women in this anime keep me on the edge of my seat – not to mention the incredibly decent (if really goofy) plot, which has been crafted to even *my* standards. This TV series isn’t over yet, but so far, it’s been stellar. While it helps to know enough of the manga to know who Donny is, or how
Nenene and Yomiko met, it isn’t absolutely necessary. You can always catch up on the conversation at the Yuricon Mailing List, where we’ve dissected this baby within an inch of its life. ^_^

Which brings me to the new ROD manga. I didn’t, honestly, have much hope for the Read or Dream manga, given the crappiness of the Read Or Die quadrilogy. Well, once again, I’m wrong, because while it isn’t high art, the first volume (for all I know, it’s the only volume) of Read or Dream is a lot of fun and full of yuri. Of the six chapters, two deal with a blind girl who falls in love with Maggie. It’s an incredibly sweet story, right to the very end, with one amusingly mortifying scene for poor Maggie:

Faye asks her to read a story she has written out loud. Maggie begins to read the story, and realizes that it is a self-insert love scene between her and Faye. What’s worse is that Faye, being blind, had to have had her mother write it for her…but Maggie reads the story right through to the final kiss. So I’m raising the Yuri flag over the Read or Dream manga, too.

So far, with the exception of the initial manga, this entire continuity has Yuri all over it, and I recommend it strongly to all but the hardest-core shoujo fans. If you can’t stand a story that doesn’t have shoujo bubbles and flower-laden backgrounds, avoid the ROD series, but otherwise, learning Japanese is worth it, just for series like this. ^_^

Ratings:

Yuri – 8
Art – 8
Story – 10
Music – 9
Characters – 10
Overall – 9





Yuri Anime: Oniisama E / Brother, Dear Brother

February 3rd, 2004

Things I’m Not Going To Write About
Part 6

Oniisama E (Brother, Dear Brother) –

Steadily holding the #3 poster child position for Yuri for many years, was this timeless classic anime and manga created by Ikeda Riyoko. So much of what we consider to *be* Yuri had early roots with Ikeda, so it’s only fair that she be on any Yuri-related list as often as possible.

Most people know the anime version of this series as fansubbed by the passionate, if heavy-handed, Technogirls. Despite the subbers’ belief that there was *no* Yuri in this series at all, no one who has ever seen Rei (Sainte-Juste) as she dressed in her nice white suit, fixed her tie, and bought flowers for Nanako, can really doubt that what she was doing was getting ready for a date.

There is a great deal of akogare in this series, and very little outright Yuri, but I’m going to have to weigh in on the yes, Yuri camp. What Rei had with Miya-sama and, later, with Nanako, was something as close to love as makes no nevermind. And that’s not even counting Mariko’s crush on Kaoru-no-kimi and Nanako’s crush on Sainte-Juste.

The manga is surprisingly short and painfully hip – Sainte-Juste has scary bell-bottom pants and mod vests. It’s kind of hard to remember she’s so cool when the clothes are so distracting. :-) Both manga and anime have a happy ending, but of a strictly hetero sort.

Oniisama E is soapy and angsty and really, really shoujo. If you’re a guy, or a chick who likes action, you probably won’t enjoy this, but I’ll go to the grave saying this – no one makes doing drugs, smoking, going mad and dying tragically look as sexy as Sainte-Juste does. Yeah.

Ratings: Yuri – 8, Art – 6, Story – 7, Music – 4, Characters – 8, Overall – 8





Yuri Anime: Azumanga Daioh

February 2nd, 2004

Things I’m Not Going to Write About
Part 5

This week, we’ll continue the series of short opinion pieces on popular and well-known series with yuri content. Why not, eh? Next week, we’ll pick up with some older, obscure works.

Azumanga Daioh:
This isn’t a “yuri” series, per se. One of the secondary characters, Kaorin, is, however, clearly a babydyke in training. Her crush/obsession with the magnificently kakkoii Sakaki is *definitely* yuri.

The manga makes it plain that Kaorin worships and, at least in a vaguish sense, desires Sakaki. The anime loses any of the “vague” about it and makes it really, really obvious. (There’s the seven jets flying overhead with rainbow colored smoke and wedding bells ringing as they dance, or perhaps it was Kaorin’s New Year dream in which she was rescued from a girl gang by Sakaki on a white horse, awakened *just* as they are about to kiss…) The relationship is played for laughs since its completely one-sided, but the whole series is played for laughs, so that’s not a negative thing. This is a loopy, silly series that makes me laugh so hard I snort. And it has yuri. That makes it good in my opinion.

The manga is alreadyavailable in English from ADV Manga and ADV Films has the anime slated for a Spring 2004 release. The downside to this is that the English translation of the manga is pretty lame. For once, the translators kept the yuri intact, but the translation tries so hard to adapt the manga for an American audience, that almost all of the jokes fall flat. It was very disappointing, especially as the manga is really quite funny, at least in Japanese. Unfortunately, ADV decided that we wouldn’t “get” it, if they left Yukari-sensei as an incompetent English teacher, so they changed it to Spanish, thus rendering all of the gaijin and English-language related jokes completely meaningless. As a result, I hold low expectations for the dub adaptation of the anime, but they can’t really screw with the Japanese version, so just watch that.

On an entirely wacky note (as befits this series) my *biggest* complaint about Azumanga Daioh is the lack of decent yuri doujinshi. There are many, many doujinshi of this series – a side effect of the minimalist art, which allows many people to recreate the style easily – but they seem to fall into two categories: 1) sexless parody and gag and ; 2) appalling hentai. Most of the AD doujinshi I saw at Comiket were in the former category, which was fine. But the few hentai doujinshi I saw were just…yeah. I mean, Sakaki and the *cat*??? Chiyo-chan and anyone? Hello? What about Sakaki and Kagura or Kaorin and Sakaki? Sheesh, I would have even accepted Tomo and Yomi…and I’m really stretching there, I think. LOL But bleah…the cat. I swear to god, every series I ever like, the doujinshi pairings are always the most appalling…sigh. There is exactly *one* KaguraxSakaki doujinshi and everytime I see it on Yahoo Japan, it’s starting at $20. I’m just too cheap to spend that on something I can’t see first.

But this is all irrelevant, isn’t it? The series itself is hysterical and I encourage you all to purchase it (not download ripped files…go and get a job, become a productive member of society, pay taxes and support your evil habits honestly) and join us on the Yuricon Mailing List to chat about how funny it is.

Ratings for the Japanese version only: Yuri – 6, Art – 5 (it’s intentionally minimalist) Story – 9, Music – 7, Characters – 8, Overall – 8





Four Quick Anime Yuri Updates

February 1st, 2004

Mezzo:
I’ve been seeing some noise on the Japanese Yuri sites about this anime that follows the OVA Mezzo Forte. At episode 4 I can’t say I’ve seen it, but there’s still the possibility of Yuri. Mikura is certainly admired strongly by Asami, the girl she rescues in the first episode, but I think any real anything will come from the rival she hasn’t yet met and will next episode. Cute girls with guns. Possible Yuri. Keep your eyes peeled.

 

 

Tokyo Underground:
I can only assume that the Yuri mentioned in this series exists in the manga, ’cause it sure ain’t in the anime. The second episode for this series was the single most predictable thing I’ve ever watched, ever. Chelsea Rorec is cool…but if she’s in love with Ruri-sama, then she hides it well. It reads more like a “devoted servant to her master” kind of relationship than anything else.

 

 

Kaleido Star
What a challenge, watching a raw episode of anime…with no sound. But I just did it. Very intruiging…what were they talking about? Who can tell!

I was watching the most recent episode of this series because its silly and kind of fun, not because it has any great merit. I was also thinkng that, now that Layla’s not performing, there’s not a whole lot o’ yuri…since the second 13 episodes was more about her and Sora than anything.

Well, at the climax of Ep. 43, there is a sweet romantic scene between Mr. Policeman and his girlfriend, Kate. It’s cute, and goofy and anyone who’s ever been in love will be smiling, just because. Ken, the boy who’se gaga over Sora turns and looks at her longingly as she watches Police-san and Kate, but more importantly, behind Sora are Anna and Mia, staring into each other’s eyes and smiling. Awwwww…. we’ve always known they’re a pair, we just don’t get to see it often, so that was kinda nice.

It’s not that Anna and Mia are hidden as a couple, it’s just that they aren’t really major characters. We’ve seen ’em sleeping together, and now this, but we’re never going, I’m sorry to say, see them kiss or probably even touch…it’s just not that kind of show. Nonetheless, it was one more Anna/Mia moment to add to the yuri pile.

Avenger:
I guess some people probably thought that the relationship between Layla and Nei was yuri-ish, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say two things here: 1) The Russians will win gold in Olympic figure skating and; 2) What Layla and Nei had was really a mother/daughter thing, not a love affair. Of course, we’ll never *really* know about Layla and Nei, since Bee Train once again didn’t really explain anything of importance by the time Avenger ended. How Nei and Layla met, why Layla cared, what will happen afterwards, how they will all avoid death as the moon crashes into Mars…nah, we’ll never know about any of that. Check back in a few weeks, though, to find out about the figure skating results.