Archive for 2011


Jormungand Manga, Volume 7 (English)

May 18th, 2011

In Jormungand, Volume 7, we turn our attention to another of Koko’s team, R, someone I had never noticed before they pointed him out. He turns out to be a /spoiler/ and as a result, Koko’s sanity, worldview and reason for living are called into question. In the end, Koko’s okay, Jonah is okay, pretty much everyone but R is okay. Oh well, that’s the price you pay for /spoiler/.

But, you know, we don’t care about death and destruction when we read Jormungand. We don’t care about the iffy morals, the ambiguous-at-best ethical standards of the governments involved in the book. What we really care about is how yet another female operative who is obsessed with Koko shows up. Because, of course, we are obsessed with Koko, too.

For fanservice purposes, Koko feels Valmet up a bit. Neither I nor Valmet seemed to mind. I don’t say this often, but I’d be okay with some pity sex there.

The art seems to have settled way down – I guess Takahashi either got better deadlines or got used to them. And he’s dropped the blacked out eyes every other panel. As a result, the story was much less like a really cheaply made movie. It felt way more high budget movie this time. It didn’t make the story-telling less messy, but I’ve come to find that kind of charming by now.

Other than all of that, people say things that sound really profound about life or death, but when you parse them, it’s all pretty much blah blah blah. And then they shoot at each other.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – Hee hee. But I’ll say 7 anyway.
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 7

The most meaningful scenes in the whole volume for me were when both Hex and Koko commented that they can’t sleep when the moon is full. I can’t sleep when the moon is full, either.





Yukan Club (有閑倶楽部) Manga, Volume 14

May 17th, 2011

Ichijou Yukari is probably one of the most famous Japanese mangaka that westerners have never heard of. Around these parts, she’s best known for Maya no Souretsu but, outside the Yuri Network, her two most popular series are Yukan Club, (有閑倶楽部) which has been turned into a live action movie – and Pride, an on-going opera series. Yukan Club ran 19 volumes, ending in 2002, but the website for the series remains live and kinda fun.

Yukan Club‘s premise seems well-suited for a live-action series. A bunch of high school misfits create a club to solve mysteries. The trailer on the website says the series is full of thrills and suspense, action, emotion, laughter…and even from this one glimpse, I’d say that’s pretty much spot on. It looks like a delightful series that, due to the fact that the art is dated, will probably never be seen in English. But it’s worth a look in Japanese.

In Volume 14, Ichijou-sensei veers slightly away from goofball fun of the Yukan Club proper, into a slightly Yuri story. No real surprise to anyone who is familiar with Maya no Souretsu or Pride, Ichijou-sensei has that early shoujo look to her art, and an accompanying fondness for gender- and sexuality-bending stories.

In the final chapter, we follow Kyou, a high school student who has an older woman as a lover. He’s had many lovers, but has never been in love. His friend is crushing on a girl he sees on the train, but when he points them out to Kyou, she’s with a very boyish woman and  they seem very close. The friend is certain that they are lovers.When his lover takes him to an okama club, Kyou sees Mako-chan, the boyish woman from the train.

Kyou learns that Mako-chan hates men and, while she and Reina are not lovers, Mako-chan definitely has feelings for Reina. Kyou speaks sympathetically to Mako-chan about it, saying, look, it doesn’t matter who you love. Mako-chan reacts with tearful appreciation, thanking Kyou for his understanding and acceptance. Kyou, moved to distraction by Mako-chan’s thanks, comes to realize that he’s fallen for her. She won’t let him touch her, but she begins to open up to him. In a final crisis, it turns out that Reina has become pregnant by her Ballet teacher. Mako-chan tries to keep them apart, but they both swear they love each other and eventually, Mako-chan has to let them be together. They promise her that they are happy together and she lets Reina go. Mako-chan runs to Kyou for emotional comfort.

But, Kyou points out at the end of the story, as a nicely put-together woman walks by them and Mako-chan watches her pass, just because Mako-chan no longer hates men, doesn’t means she’s stopped liking women.

This story has a lot of elements that are similar to stories you’ve already read and/or seen. So many so, that at some point it feels like you must surely have read this story before. It almost got to the point that I was reciting stories that had those same elements. On the downside – hatred of men because of sexual abuse.  On the positive side, disliking men is not actually related to liking women. The end – and the moral of the story therein – were better than I would have expected from a early 90’s manga.

Ratings:

Art – 8 I like the old school look, except for Mako-chan’s hair, which was criminal throughout.
Story – 8 – Has some issues, but works overall
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4 yes, Mako-chan likes Reina, and yes she continues to be attracted to women, but she ends up mostly with Kyou
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Today’s review is due to the kindness and generosity of YNN Correspondent and Okazu Superhero Katherine H. Thanks for this classic find, Katherine and thank you for allowing me to review it. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫) May 2011

May 16th, 2011

Another excellent volume of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫). At this point, the magazine is balanced pretty well for me, by which I mean there’s about half stuff I like and half I don’t. It’s good that there’s stories I don’t much care for, because it gives people with different tastes than my own a chance to enjoy the magazine, as well.

“Justice For Girls” starts off on the cover once again. This time, we’re back at the high school in which all students carry firearms and shoot at each other. A girl is in love with her class representative. Did I mention they carry guns? Well, they carry guns. My favorite line comes in the beginning, when the class representative, Kotono, describes Hisami’s gun and mentions how annoying it is. Good writing, because I found her gun annoying too.

Of course the opening story in this volume is “Yuru Yuri” with a ton of info about the anime.

Among the most memorable series for me were:

Uso Kurata’s “Yuri Danshi” adds a fourth girl to the fantasy Yuri team in Hanadera-kun’s head, and offers a variety of new Yuri fantasy scenarios to his delusional brain. When he confronts Matsuoka and tells her he’ll be her ally, she replies with a strong hook to the eye. I loved Matsuoka at that moment. ^_^ But…maybe Hanadera wasn’t wrong after all?…. …. ….

“Start Line” by Nanzaki Iku is a nice look at tension between two girls who never spoke while they were in school together. Will this continue? I certain hope so.

Tanaka Minoru writes a vampire story with an ironic twist in “Vampire Girl.”

Ah ha! I was right after all and I’m not that happy about it. “DNA Double XX” by Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki is doing exactly what I thought it was going to do and I’m vexed all over again. OTOH, I trust them to balance it, so it doesn’t just become a fake-BL story. I really feel quite strongly about this, because BL has some tropes I find strongly unappealing and I really hope they’ll avoid those. On the other hand, I very much liked Aoi’s challenge to Sakura for being so utterly dumb that it was funny. I’m trusting them…I’m trusting them.

Minamoto Hisanari’s “Fu~Fu” follows Kina’s older sister Kana, as she deals with something she’s not used to – failure with a girl.

“Renai Joshikka” was Morishima Akiko at her finest. This is a woman’s perspective, looking back at the turn of the century, and youthful behavior, and  grimacing. ^_^ This chapter introduces some new characters in our all-lesbian Wedding Boutique. For the first time, the issue of…ready?…same-sex marriage…is broached in Comic Yuri Hime. Rah! Rah! Morishima-sensei!

The story that blew me away though, was a surprise. I didn’t much much like Momono Moto’s earlier works, but “Aru Shoujo no Gunjou” was fantastic. A high school girl finds herself drawn into the life of a female couple and witnesses their break-up, and becomes part of the solution to healing. Although there were some very typical plot points here, the story worked as a whole.

Kowo Kazuma offers a solid give and take between two girls in “3-Second Rule,” which is a great title. The 3-second rule is simply -if you ask a girl to go out and she doesn’t answer in 3 seconds, cut your losses and move on.

And last for me, if not for the magazine, was a side story from the “Itoshii Hito” series, about Nana’s second chance to apologize to Youko for rejecting her years ago.

Overall, a strong volume with a lot to like. The more experienced creators are really coming up with characters we can care about, and there’s less and less reliance on the tropes of “Story A.” I think we can safely say that Comic Yuri Hime is growing up nicely. ^_^

Overall – 9





Yuri Network News – May 14, 2011

May 14th, 2011

Yuri Anime

The Subaru-sponsored short animation, Houkago no Pleiades, will be coming to movie theaters across Japan…as a series of “Mind your manners” shorts, before the movie plays.

YNN Correspondent George R submits this report on Yuri in the novel Moshidora, on which the anime is based:

Following up on an item from the April 9 YNN, I found the Yuri in Moshidora. It’s not quite as imagined as I thought. It happens in chapter 3, page 77 (which is animated in episode 2). Yuki, the baseball manager who’s currently sick in the hospital asks Ayano, the shy manager, why she joined the baseball team. Ayano’s response is to tearfully admit that she wants to make friends with everyone and be useful to them, then adds “Watashi, Yuki-san ga suki datta’n desu!” [I do like you, Yuki-san], explaining that she’s always looked up to Yuki, wanted to be like her, be useful to everyone like she is, make friends with everyone like she does.

 So, with Yuri goggles on, I can interpret that as Ayano having a romantic crush on Yuki. On the other hand, when I read the novel, I left off my goggles and interpreted this as Ayano wanting to break out of her shell and not be the “expressionless android of a model student” that she was accused of in junior high. Sure, Yuki was someone she admired and wanted to emulate, but I didn’t see it as romantic or Yuri. Given that interpretation, and a bit of fuzzy memory explains why I was shocked other folks saw Yuri in Moshidora. Welcome to the wonderful world of “the ambiguities of ‘suki’.” However I think this qualifies as Yuri just as much as a lot of MariMite does. Goggles-yay!

Yeah, it’s about as Yuri as K-ON! Yuri Goggles help. ^_^

***

Yuri Ero-game

There is nothing about the new Yuri ero-game that I could say that is not already captured by the title. The new game is called – and no, I am not kidding – Yukkuri Panic! Escalation. Yes, this is the story of Cream Escalation, with a new title. Yay.

***

Yuri Snack News

Convenience store chain Lawson is promoting a series of K-ON! inspired snacks and goods through the end of May. I want that stapler.

But hands down, the best snack-related item on today’s report is the Tohato Caramel Corn with eyes drawn by Ryoko Ikeda. ^_^

***

Other News

Manga translator Dan Kanemitsu has worked with artist Nogami Takeshi to develop a bi-lingual Strike Witches doujinshi, Witches of Africa. Nogami also worked on the Bill 156 doujinshi, which Dan translated and Nogami-sensei’s a friend of another translator I know, so he’s kind of immersed in the idea of cross-cultural expression. I am very excited about the idea of bi-lingual doujinshi, as it seems like a natural progression. You can get this collection from Amazon JP, among other sales outlets in Japan. (And, if you run a sales outlet here, Dan and Nogami-sensei are looking for sellers here in the west, too.)

Also in bilingual news, Japanese art site Pixiv is creating an English-language encyclopedia.

Last up for today, YNN correspondent Jenna M. reports that Japanese seiyuu Ogata Megumi, who many Yuri fans remember fondly as Tenoh Haruka/Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon, is on Twitter for a limited time, to promote a charity event and birthday concert.

***

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 Light Novel, Volume 2 (下)

May 13th, 2011

Volume 2 of the Light Novels based on the anime CANAAN is, like the first volume, an exact rendition of the anime to text form. Where that worked well for the first volume, the emphasis on action scenes – specifically one-on-one confrontations – made for some really slow reading in this volume.

It’s not that the author is bad, it’s just that the action scenes are literally descriptions of the action portrayed in the anime. So literal that, after a while, it begins to feel like one is reading an RPG which, if you think about it, you kinda are. ^_^

So, after 350+ pages of “Person A does a thing. Then Person B does a thing. ‘Blah, blah,” Person A said,” I found myself replaying the scenes from the anime in my head to remember the energy and passion contained within them. Painful or awkward scenes were especially slow. Hakko’s final hours and Liang Qi’s fate were rather more excruciating than they were in the anime. To be fair, this is probably because it took *me* so long to make my way through them, and not any particular fault of the scenes themselves.

The few good Yuri scenes we had in the anime remained good in the novel. The night before they enter the destroyed village on the Silk Road, in which Canaan and Maria realize just how much they mean to each other, was quite wonderful. And, in the same way, the moment when Canaan sort of belies that by naming their relationship “friends” is just as disappointing to us. However, I’m more convinced than ever that it was not the death knell for Yuri, but the beginning of Maria and Canaan being able to see each other as equals and from that…who knows. It still seems to me that what they had was far more intimate (in an emotional sense) than a friendship.

At the beginning of the series, Canaan is more like Superdog than anything else. Super-powered, cute, a little alien, a little exotic, a lot “what do you do with this?” Maria is naive and helpless. They have to move past those things to be people who can look each other in the eyes squarely. Now, as the story comes to a close, I can see the two of them learning to love one another in a not-childish way.

But, the pages of the story do come to a close and so must this review.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – In my hopeful delusion, I’m going to say 6
Series – 4

Overall – 8

As with the first volume, if you very much enjoyed the anime and wish to level up your reading skills (there is a lot of scientific and military terminology, as well as just adults having adult conversations) you will probably enjoy CANAAN.