I should have been reviewing something, but spent the afternoon doing this instead.
Riff on it, improve it, meme it. Go wild.
Author Archive
Penguindrum Anime Collection 2, Disk 1 (English)
In the first half of Penguindrum, we learned that each of the characters appeared to be existing in a wholly different reality from the characters around them. On the first disk of the second half of Penguindrum, we learn why.
Himari’s health takes a turn for the worse, but that is set on the back burner, as bizarrely beautiful and immediately untrustworthy Sanetoshi-sensei inserts himself into the story, confirming our belief that there are separate, but intertwined, realities colliding here.
Shoma and Ringo confess their realities to one another, only to find that they are the same reality, which makes everything worse. Ringo get caught up in Yuri’s reality. Yuri, while living up to her name, turns out to be a broken and unhappy person, twisted by parental abuse and grief. Yuri’s backstory is absolutely agonizing and horrific to watch. The repeated concept of abusive father who smokes a pipe is starting to worry me, frankly.
But slowly, these realities all start to coalesce around one person and it feels like it all might make sense. Did Momoka change reality? That would explain a lot. That almost makes sense until Masako and Mario’s story pops up. They have their own reality, but is any of it related to anything else? And what is Dr. Sanetoshi’s part in all this?
The most maddening thing about watching an anime by Ikuhara in full throttle is the unshakable feeling that, even when it’s all over, and all the pieces have been played, you may never really understand anything at all.
Collection 2 is going to have a lot more screaming, a lot more adults being horrible to children and more not-quite-matching realities.
Sentai’s translation and technicals are both not noticeable, which is exactly what one wants out of them. Rather than thinking about word choices, I find myself scanning the visuals for more meaningless symbology like the cats, the arrows, cars, towers, (what does Michaelaneglo’s David as a tower mean, really?) apples and, of course penguins. Does any of it have any meaning at all, or does it just look good? Maybe we’ll find out. Maybe not.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8, but super grim, with a side order of misery
Characters -7 Shoma and Ringo become more real, while everyone else becomes a pulp fiction version of themselves
Yuri – 8 It’s all yucky, but it’s there
Service – 5
Overall – 8 A hard watch, a tense watch, but a compelling watch.
Many thanks once again to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for sponsoring today’s review!
Light Novel: R.O.D. Volume 10
I just don’t even…I…don’t…know what…/shakes head/
In R.O.D., Volume 10, Yomiko is sent by Joker to a fancy girl’s school to…something. She’s enrolled as a student, the main point of which is to get her in a school uniform. I gather this because it is mentioned about 8750 times that she is wearing a school uniform. At the school she finds a veritable book heaven. Books are everywhere, *all* the clubs are about reading and writing. Her roommate Kaku Izumi’s name refers to writing, as Yomiko’s does to reading. They become best friends.
There are a few disturbing things about the school – all the teachers are named Haga and they look identical. And while books are revered, romance novels, light novels and other light reading are forbidden. This means there are no books by Sumiregawa Nenene in the school. Heaven turns to hell instantly for Yomiko. But Izumi has one of Nenene’s books in their room. Phew!
Yomiko learns of the “Read Fight,” during which two girls read a book and are quizzed on small points of detail until one fails to answer correctly. Yomiko dominates Read Fight, utterly destroying the barely-in-existence-sanity of the champion, Mitsusei Utsuo. Mitsusei is also the chief dog and enforcer of the Student Council President, Kuniya Kino-sama, thus making their names two of the most tortured puns ever. (Kino Kuniya is easy enough to figure out, if you’re familiar with the Japanese bookstore chain Kinokuniya. Remembering that “mitsu” can also be read “san” and the character used for “Utsuo” is also “do”, instead of Mitsusei Utsuo, one gets Sanseido, another large Japanese bookstore chain.)
Kino-sama as Student Council president is beautiful, charismatic (we are repeatedly told) and prone to vomiting up blood.
…
With Izumi’s backing (who turns out to have a secret – she was the former Vice President) Yomiko runs for Council President and, after corruption in the count is uncovered, wins. As President, Yomiko gets the key to the secret book room, fights off multiple Haga-senseis and retrieves whatever Joker sent her there for. The end.
Aside from clone teachers and a Student Council President that vomited up blood, what made this volume particularly hard to read was the intrusive presence of the author, who not only made aside comments to us, and talked at Yomiko within the narration, he actually inserts himself randomly in two places. The first is an utterly pathetic aside in which he tells us he’s at Anime Expo 2004 in his room working, watching girls playing volleyball outside his window. Later there is a second scene in which he gets a text message on his phone.
These, and oh, the fact that two volumes ago the story was left hanging, unresolved, made this a particularly irksome read. ^_^
Ratings:
Art – 4 I think it’s getting worse
Story – 7 It might have been okay as the second book of the series.
Characters – 7
Yuri – 0
Service – Other than the frenetic repetition of “Yomiko in school uniform!” – 1
Overall – I can’t even….
Do you remember the Monty Python album named Contractual Obligation? This book had that title written all over it.
Yuri Network News (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 23, 2013
It’s a hodgepodge kinda week.
Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 10 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり、 vol.10) hits shelves the end of this month. For the first time probably ever, I like the cover art.
Morinaga Milk’s new series Gakuen Polize (which Ipresume is at least loosely based on an old doujinshi series she drew) is also a March release. Since my Amazon JP order isn’t going to get here for 2 months due to bundling, some of you will read it before me. If you’re interested in a Guest Review, drop me a line!
Adachi to Shimamura (安達としまむら) is a Light Novel that has food and Yuri. I’m there. ^_^ (Thanks to tsuki and kei for the name correction!)
YuriTetsu ~ Shiritsu Yurigasaku Joshikou Tetsudobu (ゆりてつ~私立百合ヶ咲女子高鉄道部) looks vile and it’s from GX Comics, which pretty much guarantees it’s vile, but it does appear to be about schoolgirls who are train enthusiasts…and and it may have Yuri. (Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3) Bruce, if you do get it, you *will* write a review… ^_^
If you’re looking for a legit e-manga site now that JManga is gone, Manga Reborn is still around and is looking darn good. Many of the manga they have up are free to read. Please bear in mind that if you do pay – you are paying for the ability to read and enjoy the content on the site, like Netflix or Amazon streaming services. Like JManga, they have a number of obscure titles and there are some titles that you may be familiar with. They also encourage readers to become translators and editors, so you can roll up your sleeves and get things done the way you want to. Manga Reborn is a legit site – I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the folks who are running it and talking with them. Because some of what they have is also available in English print, you can read, say, the first chapter of Sakuran before you decide to give Vertical Publishing your money (which you should totally do, because it was an amazing manga.) At the moment, they don’t have any Yuri, but that’s subject to change.
Speaking of not Yuri, there are two manga you need to be reading and, while neither are Yuri, that’s just no excuse. ^_^
Moto Hagio’s Heart of Thomas, which is as central to the origin of BL as Shiroi Heya no Futari is to Yuri, has been put out by Fantagraphics (the same company that’s putting out those gorgeous volumes of Wandering Son). It’s a must-read shoujo classic. I’m thrilled we all have the chance to read this in English at last.
Completely different, but no less amazing, Yen Press has given the hardcover treatment to Yamazaki Mari’s wackadoodle classic, Thermae Romae. If you haven’t heard of this one, let me editorialize by saying this is the most bizarre historical manga you will ever read. An architect from ancient Rome is sucked into the bath and finds himself in modern Japan, where he picks up ideas about bath design, bathing and bath culture, which he brings back to ancient Rome. It’s an absolutely fantastic series that I’ve been following in Japanese for a while now.
The commercial for the continuation of To Aru no Kagaku no Railgun is live on ANN. Check it out. The “Sisters’ arc in the manga has little sign of Kuroko or the others, but it looks like the anime will make sure they all get a chance to appear.
And TWO awesome history lessons this week: The first, from Jason Thompson on ANN, a Quick and Dirty History of Manga in the US, and on MTV Geek, Sean Kleefeld’s Part 1 of Fanthropology, which looks at the origin of the concept of “Fandom”. Both of these articles are fantastic reads.
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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!
Dokidoki! PreCure Anime (ドキドキ！プリキュア)
It’s that time of year again, when I dutifully sit down and scan the new PreCure series before I wander off again. ^_^ This incarnation, Dokidoki! PreCure (ドキドキ！プリキュア), is playing-card suit themed: Cure Heart, Cure Diamond, Cure Rosetta and Cure Sword. (You know the Spades of playing cards are the Swords of Tarot, right? Cards turned swords into plowshares. ^_^)
Mana, Cure Heart, is the president of her school’s Student Council. I approve, but not for the reason you might presume. ^_^ Instead of being clumsy and sweet, or full of love and a moron, Mana is a hard-working, intelligent lead character who has earned her rank as leader.
Rikka, Cure Diamond, is Mana’s best friend, her right-hand and she immediately pings the ole Yuridar. You just know she worships Mana, and if you are one of us, you can easily see more.
Alice, Cure Rosetta, is a nice switch around. Usually the Yellow PreCure is the loli-bait and initially it seems that Alice might be cast in that role, but along with being hyper-cute, she’s rich (that’s going to solve a lot of problems up front) and is actually a skilled martial artist. I like that she’s got a tragic back story that was basically she beat people up too much. ^_^
We’ve seen Cure Sword and we’re not 4 years old, so we know who she is right from the get-go, MakoPi the famous idol. She’ll be our resident tsundere. I forsee some light crushiness by Mana.
PreCure has returned to the standard formula – color-coded, themed characters, tons of goods, and bad guys that make you sad with their ineffectiveness. ^_^
The only downside to this series is, well, the preachiness factor is through the roof. Monsters of the Day are created by minor acts of selfishness. Really minor – disagreements, playing one’s music in earphones too loud (really?)…I look forward to the one that represents taking the seats reserved for older or disabled folks and pregnant women on the train. Of course The PreCure will rescue Trump World, but by god if the final boss isn’t a parody of Donald Trump, I’m gonna be pissed.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Character – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 1 on principle
Overall – A solid 7
I don’t see this series blowing me away, but I don’t hate it. ^_^
