Archive for May, 2010


Yuri Manga: Saki, Volume 3

May 31st, 2010

In Saki, Volume 3, the curtain has already opened on the High School, Regional Mah Jong championships. The Kiyosumi team is meeting, some for the first time, their rivals from the other schools in the area.

Don’t click around looking for reviews of Volume 1 or Volume 2, btw. I haven’t read or reviewed them. On purpose. For me, Saki truly begins to be interesting at the regionals. And from here on in, it gets more interesting.

If you’ve seen the anime, the manga will be entirely familiar, as the women of Kiyosumi meet their rivals from Ryuumonbuchi, Kazekoshi and Tsuruga High schools. And, as we meet the various competitors, we learn their back stories which are almost universally Yuri-ish enough in nature to satisfy almost every craving.

In Volume 3, Yuuki suffers her devastating loss due to lack of Tacos, followed by a frustrating loss by Mako. When the third match begins, it’s up to team Captain Takei Hisa to make a splash – and so she does. Kazekoshi’s captain remembers her, and is distressed that she can’t warn her teammate about Hisa’s crazy play style.

Meanwhile, while Nodoka and Saki snuggle in the resting room, two creeps steal Nodoka’s stuffed penguin. It’s recaptured by none other than the infamous Ryuumonbuchi player, childish Koromo, who delights in being able to return it to Nodoka and make a new friend.

For me, this is where the series actually began. Everything up to this point was no more than a prologue, and an introduction to the main players. They are all here now, and the game is heating up.

What amazed me about the series at this point is that all the characters were likable. There were no evil rivals, only worthy adversaries, with their own passionate reasons to win – and that reason was often another member of their team. Interpersonal loyalties ride right on the edge of love and desire and in some cases, step well past that line.

This is not really a “Yuri” manga, of course. It’s a sports/game manga in which nearly everyone is a member of the Order of the Lily. Which just makes it double the fun for us. Especially as mahjong bores me to tears and I need something to pay attention to because I couldn’t care less what the game play is. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5 They have no noses! How are they supposed to breathe? Moe art really distresses me….
Story – 8 Other than the fact that it’s about mah jong, it’s *great*
Characters – 8
Yuri – Tons. Everywhere you look. In fact, it almost seems hard to find a character not locked in a passionately emotional relationship in this manga
Service – 7 One more view of a thigh at the edge of a girl’s skirt and I was going to scream.

Overall – 7

I will happily pick up the remaining volumes to watch the manga move past the regionals and head to that mythical place Saki and Nodoka  yearn for – the National Championships. /fanfare/





Hidamari Sketch x 365 Anime Complete Collection

May 30th, 2010

Hidamari Sketch X 365: Complete Collection (3pc)Hidamari Sketch x 365 is one of the best-named anime out there. It is indeed a snapshot of the entire year, laid out in a crazy paving of random days in the life of a student at an art school and the women with whom she shares a dorm. Like many 4-koma heroines, Yuno is a reliable, pleasant and energetic young woman. She shares her dorm with a pretty typical selection of characters – the crazy one, the butchy one, the one who worries about her weight obsessively…but, in this case it all works.

I never reviewed the first Hidamari Sketch anime series not because it was inherently unworthy or anything, I just couldn’t sit through it. The animation style made me a little queasy. This reboot was much easier on my eyes. We do get a glimpse of Yuno’s first days at Hidamari and her meeting with nutty Miyako, talented artist and writer Sae, motherly Hiro, Yoshinoya-sensei of the no boundaries and the depressed landlady of the Hidamari apartments.

The 4-koma style suits this anime, in little day-to-day vignettes. The series is at its strongest when it’s not trying to do gags, but just let’s the slice-of-life style slide by naturally.

Yuri is both really obvious and completely non-existent at the same time. Everyone comments that Sae and Hiro seem like a couple. Yuno even goes as far to say that they seem like the Dad and Mom, and Yuno and Miyako like the kids. She’s only kidding, but there’s no doubt that that dynamic seems spot on. The problem is, that while Sae is butchy and cool and Hiro is a wonderful wife to her, they really aren’t a couple. It’s maddening because they should be – they obviously are, I mean come on! The problem most likely isn’t Hiro, who never reacts with surprise at the suggestion that they are together. It’s Sae, whose denial is exceedingly irksome. From time to time you really want to slap her. We must console ourselves with the belief that one day she will start thinking about graduation and about the possibility that she and Hiro will separate and become desperate to not be parted from her and clue in on the obvious.

Sae’s obtuseness is particularly annoying because they could have played Hiro and Sae like Haruka and Michiru in Sailor Moon and it would have worked. I doubt that fans would have complained. However, I’m just being grumpy.

Another student in Sae’s year, Natsume, is said to like Sae and so acts like an ass throughout. I don’t get the appeal of the “I like you so I’m mean to you” past 5 years old or so, so I guess if you want to see her as liking Sae that’s fine. I don’t particularly.

The random days of the year format allows us to visit all the typical key days of school life in Japan, but with no particular order. In one sense it’s refreshing and in another sense it means everything sort of melds together in a purgatorial eternity where nothing ever changes and time never moves on. :-)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8 (I favor Miyako, because her madness had method)
Yuri – 1 or 8, depending on how you read Hiro and Sae, and Natsume.
Service – 2, on account of expository bathing.

Overall – 7

Once more, my sincere thanks for pleasant hours of entertainment go to Okazu Superhero Ana M, for her kindness and generosity in sponsoring today’s review!





Yuri Network News – May 29, 2010

May 29th, 2010

Snatches of Yuri

Looking for crazy hijinx in a manga club that never draws any manga, but does a lot of cosplay, with a little light Yuri yearning? Then you’ll be happy to hear that Manken Volume 3 is out!

Somewhat subsumed by the noise of the Marimite movie, another live-action movie based on a Margaret manga hit all the corners of the Yurisphere. Bushido Sixteen, which has pretty much all the bells and whistles of classic Yuri-ish material. Girls, sports, swords, high tension, attraction/desire/rivalry, etc. Volume 1 of the manga was supposed to have have potential, in Volume 2 of the manga it ignites. Ish. Is it just me, or is Margaret a totally passive-aggressive magazine? Every time it gets a really good GL-themed thing, it starts to kill it off. I’m not sure what the deal is.

Running in Renai Paradise magazine, one of those teens have sex too-type magazines that are scattered around Japanese bookstores, is a series called Warui Onna, which one Japanese Yuri blog hailed as a “real-life teen Yuri romance.” Only, not so much. :-) Sample pictures from the creator’s blog here and here (NSFW, which is the point I’m making!) say its more like “yet another lesbian porn story.” That’s not fair – it might really be a love story with lesbians and everything. :-) I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt until I see it for myself. But it does run in a magazine for teens in which everyone has sex in pretty much every chapter.

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Yuri Manga

Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends, Volume 4 will be hitting the shelves on June 11.

On June 18th, we’ll be getting Takemiya Jin’s Yuri Hime stories collected in Love Breaker and Yuri Hime Selection 3, the third volume of collected one- and two-shot stories from previous issues of the magazine.

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Yuri Light Novel

Itsuwari no Hime ha Kishi to Odoru Double Engage is both a new Bunko Iris Light Novel from Ichijinsha and a candidate for one of the silliest titles I’ve seen this year. A glimpse at the cover with basically tell you everything you need to know about it.

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Yuri Anime

The new “adult” anime based on the popular Yuri ero-game Sono hanabira ni kuchizuke wo anata to koibito tsunagi will be making its debut in Japan on July 30.

Anime News Network reports that the So Ra No Wo To website has a 132-second trailer for a bonus episode that will be packaged with the upcoming Japanese Blu-Ray release.

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Maria-sama ga Miteru News

Thanks to YNN correspondent Erin S for clarification on this news: The Maria-sama ga Miteru manga is starting up again in The Margaret magazine, picking up with with “Cherry Blossom,” when Noriko sees Shimako for the first time. We’ve already reported that the previous volumes of manga are being reissued as omnibus volumes and, with the movie coming out in the fall, this is great timing to stimulate interest.

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Other News

This is unrelated to Yuri, but it is totally worth reading. Takashima Misako, an artist who draws manga for children  and teaches art workshops to kids under the name Misako Rocks! (and who has been a guest at a number of anime/manga events across the country) recently did an interview with Mainichi about the differences in culture in terms of what is considered “appropriate” in the US and Japan, among other things.

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!





Canaan Radio CD and Aoi Hana Sweet Blue Radio CD

May 29th, 2010

I’m still making my way through the last of the items I bought while in Tokyo. Not surprisingly, the Light Novels take the longest. And since I’m now working from home, I no longer have a commute during which to listen to my Drama CDs. (I know, I know, poor me….) Today I happened to be driving down the office, so I had a chance to listen to the Aoi Hana: Sweet Blue Radio CD. It has very little Yuri. I had listened to the first Canaan DJCD a while back, but as it also has only the vaguest hint of Yuri, I decided to not review it.

Well, while it’s true that both of them have very little Yuri, they both have something much more important in common – the content is primarily the voice actors and actresses screwing around and cracking themselves up. I figure that’s worth mentioning.

To start with, the Canaan Drama Cd was backwards. That is, although Maria and YunYun are on the cover, the content actually features Tanaka Rie (Liang Qi) and Ohkawa Toru (Cummings.) The two of them really don’t need us during this CD, because they are perfectly capable of amusing themselves without us. There were times during the conversations where they had themselves laughing so hard I couldn’t for the life of me understand a word.

They also both slip in and out of their roles freely so, when Ohkawa-san makes a bad joke, Qiang Li suddenly threatens him with punishment. I recall (it was a few months ago that I listened to it) that there were at least a few scenarios in which Tanaka-san, as Qiang Li, moaned with desire over Alphard. That was pretty much what Yuri there was.

Likewise, in Sweet Blue Radio, Gibu Yuuko (nicknamed “Gibuling”) and Takabe Ai (“Rabuling”) really didn’t need us so much. :-) The bulk of the radio CD was the two of them doing their best impressions of other kinds of voice jobs – AM and FM radio announcers, the person in a department store that calls for lost people, the women on all those ubiquitous food shows who ooh and ah over mundane items like the sandwich she gushes over. Of these scenarios, the one in which Takabe-san does her impression of an AM radio DJ actually made Gibu-san snort out loud. That was worth hearing.

Also amusing was the next to last track in which Okudaira Akira was a special guest and when she “leaves” the studio and “forgets’ her handkerchief, Gibu-san “runs after her” and “misses” guest Manjoume Fumi when she comes to visit the studio. It was idiotic, but they were having fun with it.

In this CD, there is a ‘memory’ of Fumi telling Akira that she likes her and Akira responding that she didn’t mind, no…she was happy about it. That’s about it. But it was a sweet moment.

Both CDs are more silly than special. If you love the series and/or the voice actors and actresses, its worth it for the giggling, the puns, the utter goofiness when people who get along screw around in front of the mic.

Ratings:

Canaan DJCD – 7

Sweet Blue Radio CD – 8





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 20, Part 2

May 27th, 2010

The second half of our overview begins with Takemiya Jin’s “Kirakira,” in which Saya befriends Mari, the plain sister of magazine model Ria in order to get closer to the famous sister, only to find that her interest no longer lies with Ria at all.

With the kind of synchronicity I’ve come to expect from her, Miura Shion’s Yuri essay discusses Ohana Holoholo.

The “Para Yuri Hime Ten” strip is about a girl who discovers Girls Love manga and life in elementary school.

Meiko is 28, and she’s having an affair with Yukari, a girl years younger than she in “Lunch Box.” She feels a little guilty, then a little jealous and then mightily annoyed, when Yukari tells a friend that she’s not seeing anyone. It was just a case of miscommunication, though.

“Mizu-iro Cinema” comes to a close with Tae leaving Yui to allow her to get back together with Akane, without asking Yui if that’s what she wants. She doesn’t and they end up together. Phew.

In “Moso Honey,” Nonoka’s Student Council tenure seems to involve her being depantsed/deskirted rather more often than you’d expect. Nozomi-sempai is cool, because we’re told she is.

Fans of service will enjoy the color pages, wherein the Sono Hanabira, Ikkitousen XX, Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan and other anime and movies are discussed.

Mist-a-like, “My Unique Day” brings star actress/dancer Miki into the orbit of her admirer Sorako, and their brief mis-start before they both find the right method to fit their relationship.

Hayase-sempai rises to the occasion with an impassioned, if fictitious, defense of Mashiro when they are both dressed down by a teacher for having a relationship out in public where peeping toms and jealous classmates can tattle about it. Hayase says that she coerced the younger woman. When Hayase returns to argue their case, since it was in fact the jealous classmate who tattled, the teacher shuts her down. Crisis looks like it might actually loom in “Sayonara Folklore.”

And at last, a story I skipped. I’m finding the bittersweet not-quites of the Black Cat Mansion series to be pretty dull.

“DNA Double XX” returns with a chapter that has a lot of potential and fails almost utterly to maximize any of it, cashing it all in for a pile of cliches. Aoi cleans up nice for the dance with the Eves, to learn that the Adam’s plumage is not the only thing they do to attract mates in this society of peacocks. There will be duels, we are told, so it’s no surprise when, after Aoi disses Erika for her unkindness to a clumsy, sincere, bespectacled girl who wears underwear which we are forced to look at repeatedly, Sakura appears to defend the Eve-in-chief. Duel? Do ya think?

Skip the next, as “Hime Koi” has roundly failed to capture my interest.

And lastly Hakamada Mera’s “Kimi ni Naru” goes where we hoped it would go, as Amane spills to You just what her history with Yuki was. It turns out to be slightly more seedy than expected, as Yuki became pregnant by her tutor. You offers herself to Amane as a stand-in for her lost love but, after a rather hot kiss, Amane reels herself in. She pours cold water on both of them by telling You that she can stay the night but after this, she doesn’t want to see her ever again. Understandably, I think, since it would take a seriously strong person to avoid that particularly slippery slope. I want to categorically say that between this story and “Kaichou to Fukukaichou” in Yuri Hime S, I’ve come around to Hakamada. Her characters still have giant heads, though.

The ad for the next issue offers a 5th anniversary special “surprise.” Along with all the usual fun, there’ll be a pin-up by and interview with Aoi Hana‘s Shimura Takako. And, most importantly, from this issue forward, Yuri Hime is moving from a quarterly to a once-every-other-month format, so 6 times a year from the current 4. I hope you’re as excited about that as I am.

Overall – 9.5

So, 5 years into this experiment, we have a solid handful of some really decent art, storytelling and by god, adult women in relationships. Now we just need to get it over here legitimately and we’ll have arrived.