Archive for July, 2007


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime Selection, Volume 1

July 25th, 2007

First of all, welcome to everyone that comes to Okazu from Afterellen.com! I hope you’ll enjoy the reviews, the biting humor, the random mixture of internet and anime fandom slang. :-) I apologize for starting you off with a Japanese-language magazine – it was what I had slated to review today, since I expected the Afterellen article to run tomorrow. Woops. :-) I’ll try and put definitions after all the jargon for non-otaku (obsessive anime/manga fans.)

Today’s review is Yuri Hime Selection, Volume 1 the third all-Yuri quarterly publication from Japanese publisher Ichijinsha. Sister to Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S, Yuri Hime Selection is a mix of stories originally published in the now-defunct Yuri Shimai magazine and new stories. Yuri Hime Selection is, for our new readers, a Japanese-language magazine.

One of my original complaints about the stories that ran in Yuri Shimai was that they were heavy on the schoolgirl crushes. While reading Yuri Hime Selection I was also reminded that many of them were about abortive schoolgirl crushes or were, in other ways, kind of annoying…

Case in point, the first story, “Under the Rose” about two half-sisters whose incestuous and abusive relationship got completely under my fingernails the first time around. Four years later, it is no less irksome. But the next two stories, also by Kita Konno, are much more interesting, if a little on the bland side.

This goes for many of the stories that follow – Girl A finds Girl B interesting, but don’t expect much more. Some lost opportunities, pleasant memories of school years gone by – even the ghost story is about a love lost. There’s a lot of that in this book. When one remembers that the audience for Yuri Shimai was straight women, this is not too surprising. This is not “Yuri” nearly so much as “memories of first crushes for women who went to girls’ schools.”

The second half of the book contains new stories. The first, by Hiyori Otsu, fits right in with the first half of the book. The second, by Morishima Akiko, stands out as being completely out of sync. About Sarina and Sumi (from Yuri Hime 8) the story is about adult women on the cusp of a new relationship, with only a short flashback to their school years.

This is followed by the 4-panel comic “Apple Day Dream” which, if you’ve ever read any of my previous Yuri Hime reviews, you know that I enjoy about as much as biting my own cheek. Kaoru and Mayu work at a fashion house. Kaoru still likes big breasts and Mayu still has them. Lots of passive-aggressive behavior and pretty clothes.

Following that is yet another story of children with absurdly large heads and awkward relationships, by Hakamada Mera. Less repulsive than the most recent Yuri Hime S story, it’s got that similar bitter unrequited love feeling as most of the stories in this magazine.

Next is more of the wacky 4-panel comic “Nanami and Misuzu” which remains impenetrable and unfunny as always. LOL (Why is it that comic strips are so exhausting to read? In English, they are the easiest to understand – in Japanese, I feel like I need an advanced degree to “get” them.)

The final story is a sketchily drawn, but entertaining sempai-kouhai (upper-/lower- classman) relationship by Aikawa Jinko. Still, in the end, there is nothing more than beautiful memories.

I can’t say that Yuri Hime Selection is my favorite of the YH magazines. Many of the older stories seemed pale in comparison with the likes of the currently running series. The newer stories fell into line with lots of unrequited love, lots of first loves, beautiful memories of love, etc, etc. Not at all to *my* taste but, if you’re a completist, or only started collecting after Yuri Shimai went out of print and want to have everything in the series, you’ll probably want to get Yuri Hime Selection too.





Guide to Yuri on Afterellen.com

July 25th, 2007

Lesbian pop culture site Afterellen.com has published a “Guide to Yuri” written by yours truly. It’s nothing you folks don’t already know, trust me. This was more for folks who don’t know where to start.

I cover a lot of series and I missed a lot more (only had 1500 words to play with,) so *please* feel free to comment with more series that I didn’t cover in the article.

The only things I ask are that you 1) make sure there’s actually Yuri in it and you’re not talking something that needs Yuri Goggles, ’cause we don’t want to waste people’s time and; 2) try to stick with series that are licensed for western release – giving a one-line description is a good idea too, so people know what they are looking at. Remember, tastes differ. That’s why I covered as many types of anime and manga in my article as I could.

The more interest the article gets, the more likely it is that they will have me back to write more. Tell your friends, make those comments! :-)

(Ironically, as I cannot access Afterellen.com from work, it is thanks to loyal reader Derek that I know that they published the “Guide” today – it’s a day ahead of schedule. :-) Thanks Derek!)





Bakuretsu Tenshi Infinity Anime OAV

July 24th, 2007

When I heard that there would be a prequel episode to Bakuretsu Tenshi I felt a moment of hope that we’d get to see some of the magic that was Jo and Meg in the manga series. But, no. Instead, Bakuretsu Tenshi Infinity was more of the same Meg and Jo of the anime.

The prequel took us *way* back, back before there was a Meg and Jo, much less a Meg, Jo, Amy and Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth.

Meg was, apparently, before meeting Jo, the clever older sister-type to a bunch of street urchins. With Meg’s stunning organizational skills and coordination, it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that they were all surviving, but okay, handwave. Luckily, as *soon* as obviously not-human Jo appears in her life, Meg becomes the lovable incompetent we all enjoy watching get kidnapped as regularly as clockwork. (“What time is it Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth?” “About half past Meg getting kidnapped.” “Time for dinner then, so it can be interrupted.”)

The plot goes something like this – Jo fights, Meg screws up, gets kidnapped, Jo fights, Meg sleeps leaning on Jo, Jo fights and gets her hair cut off during a fight, Jo wins. In the grand finale, Meg leaves the kids behind with nary a farewell and in a supreme moment of hot Yuri luvin’ gives Jo a scarf, which we know she still wears.

Luckily for Yuri fandumb, screencaps seem to indicate many moments of Yuri-ness between Jo and Meg, relieving most fans of having to notice that, in fact, there was little to nothing. But hey, screencaps! :-)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 3
Service – 4
Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth – 10 (even though she’s not in it)

Overall – 6

If you liked the Bakuretsu Tenshi anime – licensed here as Burst Angel – there’s no reason you wouldn’t like this OAV. It has good animation, hot fight scenes, and Jo and Meg pretending that they are in the same anime. If you’re looking for something more, say on par with the manga, you’ll be disappointed. So manage your expectations and enjoy the luv.





Yuri Licensing Announcements – Otakon 2007

July 24th, 2007

Not much this time around, most of the big announcements were made at Expo.

Bandai announced Mai Otome Zwei (episode 2 of which was awesome – Haruka x Yukino 4tw!)

Funimation announced that they have licensed Ouran High School, notable for the ‘Zuka Club.

ADV announced Venus Versus Virus – tune up your Yuri Goggles and turn them up to high.

Geneon did not scream “Shut up about Maria-sama ga Miteru already!” for which I give them credit. ;-)





Otakon 2007 Day 2 and 3

July 23rd, 2007

Let’s get this out in the open – sales sucked. Every single person who came by with idiot questions like, “why don’t you have more things for sale?” and “why isn’t the booth bigger?” – the answer is “Because Yuri fans are cheap.” If you’ve ever wondered why there’s more Yaoi than Yuri (setting aside the fourteen million cultural, business and social reasons,) the answer is, “Yaoi fangirls buy WAY more Yaoi than Yuri fans buy Yuri.” And btw – don’t come up to the booth asking stupid-ass questions like why isn’t it bigger, when you won’t even cough up a freaking buck for a post card. Cheap. Cheap. Cheap.

BUT, I do want to thank everyone who did come by and supported us, bought a book or a postcard, had a nice chat. It’s always great to see folks every year. So thank you folks! You are the ones who make it possible to do things like publish Yuri Monogatari 5, and run events like the “Yurisai” event! On behalf of everyone at Yuricon and ALC Publishing – thank you!

Now that that is out of the way, I had an *awesome* time at Otakon this year. I spent more time with friends than I’ve managed in a long time. I already mentioned that we had a Yuricon staff dinner, which was cool. The next night some of staff/friends got together and went out with Tran and Isabel from Drama Queen, a Yaoi publishing company. We had the best time. Great food and great company. The DQ folks are just great. We’re hoping to do a show together this winter. It ought to be a hoot. :-)

Sunday we finally had our Yuri Panel. We were originally scheduled for Saturday at 10:30, which would have been great, but hey, we at least got a panel. (They had a lot of panel issues this year.) Considering our time slot, 1-2PM, which is basically the last panel of the whole con, we had a nice crowd. More importantly, the three girls I met two weeks ago at AnimeNEXT came, and they dressed as the Marimite girls again for us. Leanne and her sisters were as awesome this time as they were last time, but now all my friends know what I mean when I said how adorable they were. I did get better pictures this time, but no, you still can’t see them – you’re all too creepy. LOL

I really need to thank their father, though, because he was so cool about it all and just laughed when I said that if *I* was being to creepy, he should just tell me to back off. He also didn’t beat me to a pulp when I inadvertently said something a tad crude in front of his little angels. The youngest of the trio, who was a perfect little Shimako, was so bored during the panel. I expected her to fall asleep any second. It was breathtakingly cute. Yumi was bored too, but she was very polite about it. Leanne – please thank your sisters for being so nice to us. They deserve an ice cream or something for being such good sports.

Ohohoh – I forgot to tell this story. Leanne has the *win* story of the con that she told me. She was walking down the hall dressed as Sei when Noto Mamiko, the seiyuu who plays Shimako in Marimite, saw her and gave her a hug saying, “Onee-sama!”

She wins.

I started the panel with “Who here is on /u/ on 4chan?” Two guys w/yuri paddles raised their hands, but when I said, “Get out – you can’t have it both ways” they just looked puzzled, which made me laugh, so I let them stay. Because it was Sunday, I had no voice, so I had planned to give each of the panelists a few minutes to talk about a series of interest to them – with clips and/or screencaps where we had time to get them. Serge talked about El Cazador de la Bruja, Katie discussed Red Garden, Bruce wowed everyone with a great sell on Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which made me want to run out and read it all over again and Sean covered Maria-sama ga Miteru. I finished with Nanoha StrikerS. The audience didn’t seem to know anything newish, so hopefully they’ll all look for those and for Media Blaster’s Simoun and Strawberry Panic releases. Although it was late in the con, I thought it went very well. If you enjoyed the Yuri Panel, let ’em know – and tell them to not bury it next year!! LOL

After the Dealer’s Room closed, I wrapped up some stuff and we met Sean and his friends for dinner, at which we got to enjoy Sean’s drunken ramblings. :-)

I went to a party afterward, but ran out of social skills early and left to go back to the room. When I got back to the hotel, I went over to Tran’s room and chatted with her and Isabel, forgetting to check in with my roommates, who tracked me down a few hours later and gave me a tongue lashing for making them worry. I felt so loved. :-)

So, in a nutshell, that was Otakon. Mostly it was time spent with friends, getting to kick back and actually relax a bit.

The next con up on the schedule is – Yuricon’s 2007 “Yurisai” Event! We’ll see you there!!