Archive for 2017


Live Action: Mystère à la Tour Eiffel (French)

May 7th, 2017

Back in March, The Mary Sue proclaimed Here It Is, the Victorian-Era Interracial Lesbian Murder Mystery Movie You’ve Always Wanted. I’m not gonna argue with a headline like that, so I threw Mystère à la Tour Eiffel onto my-to-watch list. I’m going to cut to the chase – it was good enough that I watched it twice. ^_^

Louise Massart is a (gasp!) divorced woman in Paris in 1889, just as the Eiffel Tower has been completed (and, loathed by most of Paris,) for the 1889 World’s Fair. (I cannot even begin to tell you how much I adored the Eiffel Tower in real life. It was a sugar confection of a building. And at night it sparkles, so cute.)

A friend of Louise’s is arrested for killing her husband; although she was found in a closed elevator, holding the weapon, she had no recollection of doing the deed. Louise is convinced that Charlotte has been set up and proceeds to investigate. When she is arrested for her father’s murder, she understands that this is much bigger than just her or Charlotte. 

The plot takes her to a lesbian bar in late 19th century Paris, in the company of a magician’s assistant Henriette who takes no shit about her race from Louise. The two later conspire to free Louise from a madhouse, where she has been sentenced for murder. The plot was complicated enough that it was worth watching the story a second time to catch what I had missed the first time around. And it made an awesome watch on the plane to Queers & Comics. Very appropriate, as the story is somewhere between comic booky- and Mystery! on PBS.  

The sexual tension between Henriette and Louise is handled better by the actresses than by the plot, which tries to shoehorn them into a relationship, when the one they were building on their own, was actually better. Both Marie Denarnaud and Aïssa Maïga did a lovely job of watching each other hungrily. I quite enjoyed that. ^_^

So, was Mystère à la Tour Eiffel the Victorian-Era interracial lesbian murder mystery movie I’ve always wanted? It certainly was damned close. If I could have a Henriette and Louise mystery series (and if Louise would just wear that one teal dress a lot, it was so fetching and Henriette that dark red dress which looked just brilliant on her,) I would be a very happy person. ^_^

Ratings:

Cinematography – 6 It looked like a TV costume drama mystery, you know the sort….
Character – 9 Even the bad guy was…good.
Story – 8 Absurd? yes. But exactly just the right kind of absurd
Service – 4 Yes, Victorian underwear is so exciting
Lesbian – 9 A lot of flirting, little making out, and a happy ending.

Overall – 9

It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it when you need to think about nothing much except the pretty clothing on the pretty Victorian Parisian lesbians.





Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 6, 2017

May 6th, 2017

In honor of the upcoming Toronto Comic Arts Festival in Toronto Ontario, which is always a very queer comics friendly event, I’m going to do a big ole queer content YNN Report this week:

Check out the books of Shira Glassman, a queer Jewish feminist author, who has a fab-looking YA series collectively known as the Mangoverse, which are “f/f fairytales focusing on LGBTQA+ Jewish characters getting happy endings” and “found family.” I squeed when I saw this. Gon’ have to get me some. This is creator-owned work that’s worth supporting.

Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness will hit bookshelves on June 6. This is the first lesbian comic essay out of Japan to make it to the west, but if it sells well, I bet it won’t be the last.

Gengoroh Tagame, creator of My Brother’s Husband, which is available now from Pantheon Books, will be a guest at TCAF. He is a genuinely lovely man and his book is fantastic. I hope you’ll support it.

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Small Favors, Collen Coover’s classic “girly porno” comic is getting the deluxe treatment with Small Favors: The Definitive Girly Porno Comic Collection, which collects volumes one and two of Small Favors, the never-before-collected color special, behind-the-scenes materials, and a brand-new introduction.

The Tate Britain is holding an exhibition called Queer British Art 1861-1967. It’s not LGBTQ art per se, but it gives you a whole new perspective of well-known pieces and their creators. Here is Cheryl Morgan’s review of the show that provides some specifics.

 

LGBTQ Events

Tokyo Rainbow Pride and Comitia were held this past week, and if Twitter was any indication, there was more Yuri than ever before at Comitia.

Girls Love Festival is back at the Pio building in the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area, on June 4th. Here is the list of participating circles ,so you can plan your purchases.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival – Guests include Tagame-sensei, the only out gay male mangaka working in mainstream comics in Japan right now, Colleen Coover, creator of Small Favors, Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, creators of Monstress, Skim‘s Jillian Tamaki and many others. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 13-14

My schedule at TCAF  is as follows: (Check the schedule for locations)

Friday I’ll be on a panel about Queer Comics in Libraries as part of TCAF’s Librarian and Educator Day. They know I’m not a public or K-12 librarian, but asked me anyway. ^_^; 

Saturday I’ll be moderating:
11:00 Teamwork: Comics and Collaboration

4:00 Spotlight: Svetlana Chmakova (Awkward, Brave) x Cecil Castellucci (Soupy Leaves Home)

 Sunday I’ll be moderating:

2:45 Sweaty Pages: Comics and Erotics

4:00 Challenged Books

I’ll otherwise be wandering around visiting with folks and eating almost incessantly. I am literally booked for meals all weekend long. ^_^ Better go out for a long walk now. I hope to see you there!

 

Okazu News

Patrons of the Okazu Patreon were treated to a sneak peek of an upcoming article for publication. There’s still time to see it, if you subscribe now!

 

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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!





ROD The TV Anime Rewatch (English)

May 5th, 2017

12 years have gone by since I last cracked open ROD The TV. Wow.

I had so much fun with the Girls with Guns Trilogy rewatch and wanted something else epic (but not tear jerking) to revisit, so the 7-volume box set of the Aniplex anime based in, around and on the READ OR DIE light novels and manga and READ OR DREAM manga series seemed like a perfect fit.  And it was. (For all the anime, manga and book reviews check out the R.O.D Category here.)

Three Chinese Paper Users are hired to protect Japanese author Sumiregawa Nenene. They save her from an attempt on her life, and come to Japan to stay with her. Nenene has been in a slump since her friend and inspiration, Paper Master Yomiko Readman, has disappeared.   Nenene, Maggie, Michelle and Anita are drawn into a plot that is meant to literally reshape the world, lead by Yomiko’s former boss at the British Library, Joker.  

The story turned out to be atrociously timed. As the United States is slipping more quickly than we could have imagined into a not-Democracy, with the assistance of Putin who would love to recreate the Soviet Union as the world leader, watching a story about Joker remaking the world in a former age’s image was hitting way too close to home. I was not series-angry with Joker’s stupid pretension of world peace, I was actually really angry. So that wasn’t so good.

But the story hangs together in ways that I could not have expected and the lessons I came out of the whole thing clutching at were these: In the penultimate episode Yomiko says of Joker “I have to make him give up or he’ll just keep trying again.” This is a lesson for the resistance to any repressive regime. We need to make them give up. And so we will.  It took 12 years and entire world to overthrow Hitler. My calendar is clear through 2028. We’ll get rid of these fascists, too.

Also, there is an important life lesson in the arc in which Joker “reveals” to the three Paper Sisters what the “truth” of their existence is. I use quotes because 1) ultimately it doesn’t matter, as they discover, that they were created and their memories seeded. Their feelings are real, even if the events are not and 2) why would anyone ever believe Joker in the first place? People who gaslight aren’t trustworthy. We’ll trust in our bonds, no matter what they say about us, that our marriages aren’t real, or our lives aren’t worthy. We’re going to tell our stories every day and not let the gaslighters get the final word. 

So plot and character wise, this series hold up really well. But animation-wise? Peee-yeeww. I remember vividly  when this ran on TV, fan complaints about the shitty animation and Aniplex promising that they’d do clean up for the DVD release. Well, they did, but not much and not really well. The first half is still really shitty, up to, including and past the linchpin moment when Nenene finds Yomiko in the stacks at the Diet. The animation is distractingly awful in many places. So awful that when it’s good, it’s distractingly good. “Oh! Look it’s not bad!” you exclaim and then “Oh, it’s bad again.” Over and over. This is not good for an anime series that is otherwise deep and complex and nuanced and needs your full attention to follow it all.

That said, the story is so good that, craptastic animation and all, it’s still worth watching for a definitive “history” of all the Read or Die timelines and a plot that ties them all up in a way that not only works, but provides satisfactory ends for everyone…even the bad guys, but especially the good guys.

Ratings:

Art – 3 Godfuckingawful
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – There’s a whole lot or none, depending on how you want to see it. I say 9
Service – 5 Boob mechanics are just the most pathetic thing ever,

Overall – 10, possibly 100

It’s still an amazing story. I just wish it had gotten the animation it deserved.

 





Rose of Versailles Manga, Volume 13 (ベルサイユのばら)

May 4th, 2017

Rose of Versailles, Volume 13 (ベルサイユのばら) is both a touching story and a really ridiculous, overblown melodramatic piece of nonsense. ^_^

In the first half, Oscar’s feelings towards Fersen become complicated by a melodramatic overblown psychological examination of her fears and desired around being raised as a man, complete with fantasy self dooming her to misery. This part of the book was a missed opportunity to really have Oscar delve into gender politics, but no, it’s all about one-sided love for a man she hardly knows.

The second half of the book was far more interesting, focusing on a watch that was beloved by Marie Antoinette, the circumstances around which it came into her possession and the tale of how General de Jarjayes recovers it for her, to give her comfort in her final hours in prison. It also tells the story of the watchmaker and France at the same time. The bits in prison with Marie were the best parts, showing her, not as a clueless Kardashian-like creature, but as a woman who loved what she knew of France as much as anyone. That her experience of France was vastly different to common people’s is plain. And we get to see Marie standing before the guillotine with a thought for France to prosper, which were in fact not her last words at all. (She is purported to have apologized to the executioner for stepping on his foot.)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Service – 2
Yuri – 0 This is a very straight book.

Overall – 8

Frustrating and touching, melodramatic and epic, Volume 13 is perfect example of the breed. Although, in retrospect, I cannot imagine General de Jarjayes would have survived the guillotine for long enough to be around when Marie was killed. Really, we can only imagine Bernard and Rosalie (who makes an appearance as Marie’s attendant in prison) to be the sole survivors of the story.





Yuri Manga: Hana & Hina Afterschool, Volume 1 (English)

May 3rd, 2017

After reading the English-language version of Volume 1 of Milk Morinaga’s Hana & Hina Afterschool, I’ve decided that it is a series of tropes that, at first, appear to be struggling to find their story. In my review of the Japanese edition I called it “a Cards for Humanity “Yuri Tropes” edition. Which, I pointed out, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Hana is a typical high school student with an illicit after-school job in a store selling character goods.  She enjoys the job, but makes no effort to understand the stock. I don’t need to explain to you how vexing it would be if you wanted the special edition Senbonzakura Miku, not the Spring Version Miku and the salesperson didn’t have a clue what you meant. 

Hina is a tall attractive, mature-looking young lady with an encyclopedic knowledge of character goods. She is an amateur model and gets a job in the store working with Hana. And, it turns out, she attends Hana’s school And, Hina is younger than she seems. In one moment, Hana gains a kouhai at school and work.

Hina and Hana have a slightly uncomfortable relationship as they become more friendly on the job, but feel that they must not interact at school. The tension between them increases as both girls begin having a harder time balancing their friendship and school life. The tension comes to a crisis during the sports festival when they decide they will just go ahead and be friends. But…it appears that that solves only one of their problems – Hina is still afraid of scaring away Hana, by liking her too much. 

Although I know how the series ends, I still managed to feel some concern for Hina’s  distress. Which says a lot for both the visual narrative and the translation, as handled by Jennifer McKeon and adapted by Shannon Fey. As we have come to expect, the reproduction here is top-notch. Long ago are the days of backgrounds that are masses of moire and migraines. Of course that means we’re looking even more closely for imperfections. And it’s a pleasure to know that those are rare with Seven Seas’ publications.

Morinaga series are, for better or worse, relatively formulaic. When it works, it works well. In Hana & Hina Afterschool, it has the potential to work. The pacing is uneven, which keeps this story from just being another Odd Couple mis-match fable and the characters are likable which keep you rooting for them.

Ratings:

Art – 8  with an emphasis on the cute
Story – 7 with potential 
Characters – halfway through I’d have said 6, but by the end, 8
Service –6 I mentioned the cuteness, right?　And, dressing and undressing.
Yuri – 4, but climbing

Overall – 7

Again, quoting my initial review, “You want them to come together – but you want it to be realistic and have depth of connection, not just ’cause this is a Yuri manga.”