Author Archive


Yuri Manga: Bousou Girlsteki Mousou Renaiteki Suteki Project, Volume 1 (ボウソウガールズテキモウソウレンアイテキステキプロジェクト(B・G・M・R・S・P))

February 21st, 2014

When I read the first chapter of Kawai Roh’s  Bousou Girlsteki Mousou Renaiteki Suteki Project (ボウソウガールズテキモウソウレンアイテキステキプロジェクト(B・G・M・R・S・P)) in Comic Yuri Hime, I actually was pretty excited for the series. It was an all-girl harem battle! The uber-cool boyish girl versus the feminine girl. It sounded like it was going to be a lot of fun.

And indeed, the premise starts off well enough. Unfortunately, the story handicaps itself right from the start. Beniko, the apparent ojou-sama type, likes one of the underclassmen, but she seems to have become attached to Aoi, the otokoyaku type. Instead of charming Shino away from Aoi, Beniko has hysterical fits and Aoi appears the type of person to trip someone in the cafeteria.

Instead of putting cool, athletic Aoi and beautiful honor student Beniko on equal footing, the two start, continue and end by making snarky asides, trying to cheat and accusing each other of cheating. By the end of the second chapter you sort of desperately flail around looking for someone to like. Shino, the first-year they fight over, is nice, but one-dimensional, a human-shaped stuffed animal. Their mutual friend Kimi seems to have her head on straight, so you sort of glom on to her as a bright point.

The second half of the book completely loses coherence. The student council president is, apparently, the character I expected Beniko to be, but she’s underhanded and manipulative. She coerces Beniko and Aoi to run for the council then makes Beniko be part of her harem through the misuse of a beauty contest.

By then end of the volume, I wanted to go back in time and whisper in the creator’s and editor’s ears to throw all of this out and write a good story.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – 4
Characters – 3
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 4 and I’m being nice about it.

Seriously disappointing. Of course I had been reading the chapters as they were run in Comic Yuri Hime and have been progressively more disappointed, but I kept hoping that when I read them in a volume, it would all gel, as it so often does. The months in between me reading chapters means I lose threads so, often the stories hold together better when I read them in volume form.  This story was the opposite, it worked worse all together, when I couldn’t forget how nasty Aoi had been or how hysterical Beniko was last chapter.

The best part of this story is the title.





Hourai Girls Manga (蓬莱ガールズ)

February 20th, 2014

Sometimes you just need a manga with some bite and no mushy romance will really scratch the itch for adventure. Enough school girls suddenly realizing that they are madly and passionately in love with the back of the person in front of them’s head, or their sempai in debate club. (Do Japanese schools have debate clubs? I have no idea, honestly.) What you need is a grand rope-swinging girl pal/buddy movie, with zombies and pirates and other stuff.

Hourai Girls  (蓬莱ガールズ) is just the manga for you.

Set in a fantasy land that is vaguely 17th century Chinese, with heavy overlays of sorcery, Rinka is a princess and rich girl in name only. Her father, an abusive wizard/warlord, keeps her locked in the house with only her childhood friend YanYan to look after her. YanYan, who is a zombie, called a “soma, has all the best qualities of a rag doll, in that easily detached limbs are also easily re-attacked. As a soma YanYan fits right in with the rest of the household staff, who also appear to be stitched up zombies.

Rinka makes a few attempts at escaping, only to be recaught, and beaten into oblivion by her father, who then rends YanYan into pieces so we can hate him more, then he goes off and chortles over his creepy soma armies. It’s obvious to all of us that he will be the ultimate boss. But in the meantime, Rinka and YanYan have to get out first. And they do.

They decide to head to “Hourai” a probably fictitious land in a children’s book. Rinka learns about money and shopping and YanYan stops her from being arrested about a million times. Because of YanYan’s visible stitches, she is immediately tagged as a soma. The villagers have no good feelings for soma, but when the headman offers to pay them to stop a truly horrific creature who is slaughtering villagers, Rinka and YanYan take the job. They kill the multi-armed, regenerating creature and are paid in money…and a tragic backstory. The creature was the headman’s wife who killed herself after their child was kidnapped and whom he brought back to life, but not humanity, with sorcery. Boo-hoo. Rinka gets a glimpse of the harsh life outside her father’s house, but is not fazed. Off they go…they charter a boat!

The boat captain is a decent guy. He’ll take them as far as he can and he teaches Rinka to water ski. When soma mermen attack the ship, YanYan and Rinka are not surprised to find that Rinka’s father is behind it. They tell him to get lost and head west. Dropped off in the harbor, YanYan is immediately captured for being a soma, by a self-selected police force. Apparently this town has a recent run-in with soma that destroyed both town and citizens. The townspeople also have cute, fluffy dog tails.

The head of the secret police squad thinks Rinka and YanYan are so damn cool and the fact that they are going to Hourai is cool and everything is so coooool!, that he lets them go and off they head to find their Shangri-La. To Be Continued.

YanYan and Rinka are close, but there is no Yuri, or even a hint of such.. This is shinyuu manga, BFFs, best buds, gal pals. There’s no lovey-dovey, but it was still fun.

I found this book in a Book-Off in Tokyo and picked up on a lark. It was a fun…if occasionally creepy…read. But the fact that it was very high pirate fantasy adventure meant no nightmares, even with all those body parts strewn around. I wasn’t going to bother with the next volume, but it looks like it is the end of the series, so maybe I will, after all. You never know when I’ll get that urge to read about besties killing monsters and having adventures together again.

Update: I sure did get around to Volume 2 and…it has a happy ending!

Ratings:

Art – How does one rate zombies and multi-limbed human eating monsters? 7
Story – 8
Character – 7
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 8 Itch scratched





Puella Magi Madoka Magica Rebellion Movie – Guest Review by Katrina C.

February 19th, 2014

This has been an amazing month for Okazu, new Okazu Heros and Guest Reviewers! And today, we welcome Katrina C. for the last of our Madoka Movie reviews…she’s taking on Rebellion, and I know a number of you really want to know how that turned out.  Rebellion is available on DVD or Blu-ray and there is a Rebellion manga, as well. So let’s had the stage over to Katrina! /Applause/

Beware, there be Spoilers here. 

Hello everyone! My name is Katrina. I write queer fairytales, stories and games over at Darkmooncity. Sometimes I also throw events where people can enact those games.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion is the continuation of the story after Madoka makes her universe-changing wish to stop magical girls before they turn into witches. It starts off with our dream team actually…being a dream team. All five of the Magical Girls are present and accounted for, fighting Nightmares, loving and laughing together. It’s kind of the moment we’ve all been waiting for…but wait.. How is that possible?

As the movie progresses and continues to darken, we see the world fall apart (again) and uncover what’s actually going on (again). And like the first series (or first two movies if you watched those instead), it sort of breaks our heart.

Let’s start with the bad. The big bad is and will always remain that Madoka is a shiny thing with very little personality. It’s even more evident in this movie that Madoka exists pretty much so Homura can idolize her. That’s it. That’s her role. I can no more understand Homura’s attachment to Madoka any more than I can understand my own obsessive first loves. Like to my own sixteen year old self, I can try to explain patiently over and over again… but Homura’s not listening. It lessens the story for me because while I lap up Homura’s angst, it’s flattened by the lack of personality in Madoka.

For lesser bad, a lot of timey-wimey cop-outs happen to explain why Sayaka and Bebe know what’s going on… Sayaka I kinda get because she’s dead but who the heck is Bebe anyway? After the movie, we had a lot of deconstructive conversation and pretty much decided the humanoid Bebe was essentially her pre-witch self from the timeline where she didn’t bite off Mami’s head. But that really fails to cover it. Despite her inexplicable presence though, Bebe was darn cute and creepy. We sort of huddled together waiting for her to think Mami would be a tasty treat again.

This movie goes in cycles which for the most part I was indifferent to. It’s an echo of things that happen in the series but it has a deliberateness that makes it tolerable and part of the atmosphere rather than terribly boring.

The good part about this movie is that I found it immensely satisfying on a level that I can’t quite explain. The Incubators were once again being shifty, horrible creatures and Madoka once again does her whole god-form transformation. Except this time as she embraces Homura to ‘save’ her, Homura rejects it and becomes the devil. She rewrites the universe differently than Madoka did, based on her own personal desires. I found it satisfying to see Homura change her fate and Madoka’s. So many years of watching Yuri stories that don’t meet a satisfying conclusion has put me firmly in the “Yeah, it’s messed up but at least she got what she wanted” camp. I think I had trauma flashbacks to Yami to Bōshi to Hon no Tabibito during the end of the original series as Madoka floated away to become god. I loved that Homura’s will stood – that despite Madoka’s role as the Pink Magical Girl Savior, we’re left with a darker ending than the series – Homura’s ending. And one that could essentially pull everyone back into a time loop. We could essentially argue that Homura’s decision brought us right back to the beginning – that this was the Devil’s story all along.

As an out, queer woman I still cringe away from the idea that Homura’s love is cast as impure against Madoka’s universal-I-love-everyone-so-we-can-never-kiss sentiment.. that the source of Homura’s pain is her impure desire and Madoka’s serenity is her universal Mother Mary approach… but I’ll still take it. I always liked the Devil better anyway.

Ratings

Art – 8 – Because this story takes place in a Witch’s Barrier.. and we all know the Witch’s Barriers are the best part.
Story – 7 – No one really learned anything.
Characters – 5 – Homura is the only actual character here.
Yuri – 8 – Because Homura finally comes out to say it. Love.
Service – 8 – Extra points because Mami is like 14 and I’ve seen shots of her breasts more times that I’ve probably seen my own. And I model naked. Think about that.

Overall –  7

Once again the creators of Madoka have shown us that while they can think critically about Magical Girl and Yuri tropes, they can’t think critically enough to escape those tropes. But that’s okay. They tried at least.

Erica here: I’m pretty sure that, should I watch this movie, I’d come to the opposite conclusions on most points, Katrina, so thanks for weighing in with your perspective! ^_^





Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary Memorial Tribute Album (美少女戦士セーラームーン THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL TRIBUTE)

February 18th, 2014

What with the weather and all, it’s been a crappy month personally, and I really needed a pick up, and lo and behold, things arrived from Japan! Yesterday, Okazu superhero Jye N. has sent me Volumes 3-6 of the new Sailor Moon manga and today, the rest of my last order , which includes the  Sailor Moon 20th Anniversary  Memorial Tribute Album (美少女戦士セーラームーン) THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL TRIBUTE). I am blasting it as I type.

When it arrived, I tweeted:

I have acquired the 20th Anniversary Sailor Moon Tribute Album. It comes with art, lyrics and feels. (T_T)

Mitsuishi Kotono’s message on the Tribute album site also basically says “Oh, god, the feels” only coherently and in Japanese.

It’s a good thing I already know the words to these songs, because the lyrics are written in hot pink over pastel backgrounds.  Clearly, they do not think you will ever need to read them. ^_^

The art was a sweet touch. Lots of pictures any fan would know, (including a bunch of Haruka and Michiru appearances). The album cover is, as you can see, an original piece, similar to the new cover for Volume 1 of the new manga edition. The back has a classic Takeuchi image of all of the Senshi.

rock

 

It was the image on the final page that finally got me choked up.

HSsenshi

I’ve already gotten grumpy responses about this album. Look, let’s be honest, the music was never good. It has positive associations for some us. If you’re in the habit of retconning your life, or insisting things were always better back then, or just generally hating on the music, that’s fine. I’m perfectly okay with a new version of “Otome no Policy” because it was never really a great song. If you’re all ready to hate this album, fine. Go for it, be a frowny grump. I’m on my second listen and I’m smiling happily.  ^_^

The album starts, as it must, with “Moonlight Densetsu,” sung by Momoiro Clover Z and it sounds pretty much exactly like one would expect. There’s no substantial changes to the song, and they do a good job with it.

The second track is “Heart Moving” sung by Nakagawa Shouko, known as Shokotan. Again, the song is substantially unchanged and she has a pretty confident voice. I wish they’d given her a better piece to sing, frankly. I know, I know, OP/ED, but there are better songs, dammit!

Track 3 is “Princess Moon” a song that I actually could not recall for a moment, by Fukuhara Haruka, a singer I do not know. She apparently performed this during the live concert. I have to say, her voice actually fit the “girlishness” of the song well. Once I recognized the song, I realized why I did not recognize it. It ended a portion of the anime I watched only a few times, compared with some of the other series, which I have watched over and over. And over. /cough/S/cough/

For Track 4, Yakushimaru Etsuko sort of breathlessly whispers her way through “Otome no Policy”. I kept waiting for the synth drum to pick up and the energy to rise. It wasn’t bad, though, just sort of quiet. It’s a song I can take or leave, so the remix was fine for me. ^_^

Tommy Heavenly 6 kicks on track 5, “La Soldier.” Honestly, if the preview for this track had not been good, I would never have bought the album, I love the hell out of this cheeseball song. Lightning strikes, rain and organ riffs, but no dogs howling. It’s still a hoot. We add the howls in ourselves.

Track 6 is “Ai no Senshi” and while I didn’t dislike it, I can’t say I liked it. Mariko Goto and Avu Chani sound like  Yumi and Yuki from Marimite singing one of the two standout Sailor Moon music hits – and the one I like best. Okay, but not to my taste. I wish this had been a stronger track.

Now, if I had produced this album right here is where I would have put “Moon Revenge.” I know it’s not a OP or ED, but neither is “Ai no Senshi”  and it’s absence is notable – Mitsuishi-san also makes the comment that she wishes they had included it.  It’s a great song (by my standard of “great” Sailor Moon songs, of course. ^_^) Oh well.

Instead, Track 7 is “Tuxedo Mirage” ably performed by Momoiro Clover Z.  This about where I started to cry. I have listened to this song so many, many times watching the anime. So many. I’m re-listening to this track right now…and I think they do a lovely job.  I’m really okay with them. It “feels” a bit like the Peach Hips’ version. Very nostalgic. (For those of you not familiar with the original anime, “Peach Hips” was the unfortunate group name given to the five Inner Senshi voice actresses – Mitsuishi Kotono, Hisakawa Aya, Tomizawa Michie, Shinohara Emi and Fukami Rica – when they sang songs for the series.) The wife heard it for the first time and also fell apart, so I’m glad it wasn’t just me. (T_T)

Momoi Haruko, known as Halco, does a fine job with “Rashiku Ikimashou”, but I’ll forever resent it. ^_^; On relisten, this is a very good version of what is a really annoying song. ^_^ The wife was like “wow, I haven’t heard this in forever.” And I said, “SuperS” and we both nodded, like, right, of course we wouldn’t have watched that more than necessary.

Track 9 is the best track, IMHO. Horie Mitsuko, voice of Sailor Galaxia in the original anime, is perfect for “Sailor Star Song” which, admittedly, is one of my top five songs from the series, so I am massively, unrepentantly biased. I could listen to this over and over and I imagine I will.

Track 10 is an interesting remix and  a very sweet rendition of “Kaze mo Sora mo Kitto” by Kawamoto Makoto. Many feels for this song because of the visual for the ED. The more I listen to it the more I like it.

The final track was an interesting and appealing choice. “Legend au clair de lune” is a French-language version of “Moonlight Desentsu” sung by Clémentine, a French singer who is based in Japan. This was really a nice nod to the support and popularity of this series in France. This track is a very “French”-sounding piano version; I almost expected to hear Jacques Brel start singing.  Quite nice, really.

I was ambivalent when I ordered this album, some of the previews sounded meh, but really, if you are already a fan, it’s a decent tribute album. Nothing is going to convince anyone who is not a fan that this is stunning music anyway, so go ahead, enjoy it. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Put it in your media player and unlock the feels!

Oh, and after listening to this album twice through, the snow stopped, the temperature rose 10 degrees and the sun came out. Just sayin’. ^_^





Yuri Network News (百合ネットワークニュース) – February 15, 2014

February 15th, 2014

YNN_Lissa

Greetings from the 7th circle of Hell. We have been frozen in place for what feels like an eternity and the despair is palpable up and down the street. Tokyo is likewise in a state of suspended animation (pun intended).  5 weeks until spring.

So, from the midst of despair and misery, I can’t think of a happier thing than Northwest Press’s winter sale! Get Lesbian comic The Legend of Bold Riley and many more exciting LGBTQ works! Support LGBTQ comics, get great stuff to read in a selection of formats until spring comes for 25% off. Go. Buy. Enjoy.

Yuru Yuri is getting a new animation project, which is good news for fans of the series.

AnimeSols previews some of the goods that backers of Dear Brother can look forward to!

Interestingly, after the upcoming release of of the S.H. Figuarts Sailor Venus figurine, the next figure they’ve teased is Sailor Saturn.  Since the art style has so significantly youthened since the days of the original anime, the vote for moe-bait goes to Sailor Saturn. ^_^

If you’ve been watching the Madoka Movies and were wondering when Rebellion is being released, YNN Correspondent Joel K. has the news for you: April 8, 2014 is the street date on the official website. He notes that, like the first two movies, it will be available on DVD and/or Blu-Ray and will be available through RightStuf as well as Amazon. I’ll add links when they become available.

Let’s end today on a positive note with Sarah and Catherine Satrun’s We are all Wonder Woman print. ^_^

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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!