Archive for the Artists Category


Yuri Manga: Hayate Cross Blade, Volume 3

November 28th, 2005

Swords, girls, Yuri and baka galore! What more can you ask from a manga series, really? Not much.

Unless you’re me and then you want Drama CDs! Luckily, that’s exactly what we’re getting. But more on that tommorrow. Today, we do the manga – and a contest. But you’ll have to read to the end to learn what the contest is. :-)

First, let’s talk Volume three of Hayashiya Shizuru’s action comedy Hayate Cross Blade (or Hayate x Blade if you prefer.)

At the end of Volume 2, Hayate had befriended Sou, a girl older than herself, but who looked the same age. Sou’s shinyuu is manipulative Mizuchi, who has some issue with Ayana. To make things worse, Mizuchi’s mother is the one behind the destruction of Tanpopo Koen, the orphanage Hayate is trying to rebuild. (It’s the usual story, Mom wants the land…)

Sou is very distressed when Mizuchi challenges Ayana, but despite her partner’s proclamations, Ayana beats her down practically with one hand, which *infuriates* Mizuchi. To add salt to the wound, Ayana doesn’t remember the insult (baka) that she handed Mizuchi last year…in fact, Ayana has no clue who Mizuchi is. This all rankles, but Mizuchi with Sou following behind her, backs off.

At this juncture we meet yet another new character. Pale, sickly Yuho, who turns out to be Jun’s shinyuu. Yuho is in and out of the hospital, therefore Hayate hasn’t yet met her. Yuho and Hayate get into a friendly argument about who would win, Jun or Ayana…which naturally becomes a challenge for a battle in the next Hoshidori. Whee! Jun vs Ayana – they should have sold tickets.

Ayana finds out that Mizuchi’s mother is behind the desctruction of Tanpopo Koen, and, with a paper bag over her head as a disguise goes off to disuade Mom from encroaching – ever again. I can never begin to express to you how hysterical this scene is…it’s something you have to see for yourself. The whole thing with the paper bag is insane and I love and adore Hayashiya-sensei for being the kind of person who can come up with this kind of madness. (In an earlier scene Hayate and Ayana – with paper bags in place – had protected the orphanage from Mizuchi’s mom’s henchdude. Hayate gave herself and Ayana nicknames based on the grocery stores names on the bags. When she goes to Mom’s office, Ayana, killing herself for being a total baka, uses the name “Lawson Kamen” once again…then goes and bangs her head against a wall for a while afterwards.)

Meanwhile Shizuku, who is my third favorite character (right behind Jun and Ayana) is down with a cold. She can’t ring the Hoshidori bell, so no fights can happen. The bell, apparently, is insanely heavy and she’s the only one who can ring it. In order to feel better, she inexplicably takes Hayate’s baka advice and makes herself *really* sick. The chapter ends with an incredibly touching and emotional scene between Shizuku and her shinyuu, the Head of the School, Hitsugi, right after which Hitsugi gets ill from taking care of Shizuku.

While the challenge between Jun and Ayana brews, we learn some back story stuff about Jun’s relationship with Yuho. It turns out that *waaaaaaaaay* back, Yuho’s family and Jun’s were the same blood. But Yuho’s side was royalty and Jun’s side served them. And to this day, she serves Yuho as a retainer. In fact, she calls Yuho “Hime.” We also learn that Yuho isn’t just anemic sick, she’s like terminal sick. And her mother objects, strongly, to her being at this school – blaming Jun, of course, because Yuho wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for her. Yuho’s mother shows up, slaps Jun, is beaten about by an angry Yuho, hops on her broom and leaves. Now Yuho really wants to fight with Jun. And she wants to fight Hayate and Ayana.

Hayate and Yuho discuss their relationships with their partners and Hayate likens them to shampoo and conditioner. Each is fine, but limited, but togther – they work perfectly. Yuho feels less of a burden after this baka therapy. Meanwhile we’re getting backstory about Jun and her early training in swordwork by her father, who instills in her a strong sense of duty to protect and serve.

Hand in hand, Yuho and Jun face off with Ayana and Hayate. Yuho and Hayate, as “Ten” (heaven) fight each other, and Jun and Ayana, as “Chi” (earth) square off. Hayate’s complete lack of style is immediately no match for Yuho, but Jun and Ayana appear evenly matched.

As they fight, the tension rises, and we learn in an amazing display of power that Jun isn’t just a servant to Yuho – she’s a ninja. We’re all impressed, but Ayana just smiles. As Hayate falls to Yuho’s superior skill, the manga ends with Ayana and Jun passing each other in the usual samurai sword battle thing – gasp!

Here’s the question I have for you…who do you think wins? Leave your comment here – who wins and why do you think that person wins. I will choose one person’s comment and that person gets a Hayate Cross Blade figurine as a prize!

Ratings

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 2
Yuri – 6

Overall – 8





Yuri Manga: Iono The Fanatics, Manga, Vol. 1

November 11th, 2005

To put it simply, Iono the Fanatics, aka Iono-sama Fanatics is an excellent yuri manga and everyone who enjoys Yuri really needs to run out and buy it now.

To start with, the artist is Fujieda Miyabi of Miyabi’s Moonphase, the same artist who does Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo to, the cute miko/witch story for Yuri Hime. And a bunch of other stuff you may recognize if you are in the habit of trawling the Japanese Yuri blogs and boards.

The story is, simply, a love comedy starring Iono-sama, the queen of a small country, who happens to love women with long, black hair. She comes to Japan to hit on girls and try to convince them to join her as a sobame, a lady-in-waiting.

Iono is rejected by one girl – and this same girl keeps coming back like a bad penny as a running gag – and runs into our heroine, Eto. Eto agrees to be a sobame, but insists she’s only joking, when a crazy woman attacks her and the Queen. The Queen takes off, carrying Eto with her. They end up at an onsen, where the Queen convinces Eto to join her and, incidentally mentions that the crazy lady who attacked is one of her staff. ^_^

We learn that Eto was, in fact, in love with her kouhai in high school, but the younger girl left her for someone else. Now she’s in college, but she thought she was past this kind of thing – but Iono is *very* convincing. Iono goes super cool and hits Eto with her magical lesbian powers and classy style and Eto falls into her arms, happily.

Iono is very, deeply and personally, in love with all her sobame. There’s Cass, the blonde crazy who attacked them earlier. She’s Iono-sama’s personal secretary and insanely jealous. She wants Iono to love her exclusively. Which Iono does, when it’s Cass’ turn. ^_^

Aida Bloomer is the Queen’s costumer. She seems to understand the Queen – and Cass – way better than they do themselves. I’d say Aida has a thing for Cass, but as Cass is obsessed, Aida just plays with it a bit and doesn’t stress.

Freshi is the Queen’s security chief and her daughter Argent acts as the Queen’s security force. Freshi is the black-suited G-man type, while Argent, who everyone calls Arugi or Aru, is a little goth-loli girl. With a sword.

Eto is a little depressed when she meets the other sobame, because they all have specific roles, while she’s sort of a free agent. The Queen convinces her that her role is to “be there” and that’s enough and invites her to debate various topics with her in the evenings (to which Aru comments that Iono probably means ero-topics…). But Aida helps Eto decide on the role of Tour Guide (complete with cute costume) to Japan, in order for Iono-sama to find more cute girls. Eto gets to show Iono-sama her favorite place in the world. Iono comments that this is no longer her job – this is now a date, and they spend quality time together.

Iono determines to hold auditions for more sobame, which drives Cass crazy – and into disguise. But Iono-sama knows all the women she loves, in disguise or out and Cass is found out. Cass gets some quality Iono-sama time, this chapter.

My personal favorite is the last round of auditions. One of the candidates, an adorable girl named Arata, misunderstands “sobame” to mean a woman who makes soba noodles. :-) Arata is initially unsure whther she can do the job, but she decides to go for it, after Freshi meets her in the hall and gives her encouragement. Arata does make delicious noodles. After an attempt on the Queen’s life, leaves Freshi wounded, when Arata and Freshi are staring deeply into each other’s eyes, Argent just gives her mother the old “Gambatte, Mom” and Iono-sama gives her blessing to them. They are impossibly cute together, especially as Freshi is a tough as nails, black glasses, gun slinging kind of gal, and Arata is a little soba maker. All I can say is “squee!”. ^_^

I recommend “Iono-sama Fanatics” highly for Yuri that makes you smile. For Yuri that is sexy without explicit sex, and funny and cute – this is an excellent example of the breed. I know that I personally am looking forward to more.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

2005 has been abysmal for yuri anime, but the manga has been exceptional. Let’s all support Iono, Yuri Hime, Hayate Cross Blade, and of course all the 100% yuri from ALC Publishing! If we buy good Yuri manga, they’ll make *more* good Yuri manga…





Yuri Anime: Noir, Volume 4

October 19th, 2005

Get Noir, Volume 4 on the Yuricon Shop!I rewatched Volume 4 of Noir in the post-Onna! “marathon of watching and reading things non-stop so I don’t have to talk to people” fest. It’s quite good. And remarkably bad.

Let’s get the plot complication stuff over quickly…the first two episodes are designed to make Mirielle and Kirika seem more human. I think. In the first episode of the volume Kirika befriends an ex-mercenary turned painter and takes up painting herself. Mirielle warns her away from befriending anyone, but Kirika persists, with tragic results. In the second episode, we learn yet another little piece about Mirielle’s past and, if we are not entirely clueless, will come to realize that this is not just “making Mirielle seem more human” but really a hint that her past is quite relevant to the story. Think about it – Kirika has no past and we never, not really, try and figure out who she is. But little by little Mirielle’s family, and their fate, keep popping up, over and over and over….

In any case, this attempt by Mirielle to recreate an old relationship fails in a slightly more tragic way than Kirika’s attempt to make friends. In Kirika’s case, the guy is killed more by circumstance than anything else; in Mirielle’s case, she actually pulls the trigger and kills her beloved uncle.

The second two episodes are ridiculous. I love them, but if they were disappeared the story as a whole would not suffer one iota. A Chinese Tong sends a irresistably goofy assassin to take out Noir, (she kills with poison nails…and wears a fashionable leather jacket, all at the same time!) with predictable results. This is the mini-arc in which we see Kirika’s magic bullet shield on full – she kills about 40 people and not one of them manages to so much as graze her with a scathing look.

But, let’s let that all go and talk about the Yuri. In Volume 4, where Kirika obsesses about a guy and Mirielle about her uncle? Why, yes, now that you mention it.

This one was easy – watch Mirielle react to Kirika’s new hobby. Neutral, a little amused. Then watch Mirielle react to the cause of the new hobby…open jealousy, baby. I never noticed it the first time, but Mirielle spends the entire rest of the episode *bristling* when she thinks about Kirika spending time with that guy. Great voice acting from Mitsuishi Kotono there – she sounds deeply irked and bitchy. ^_^

Then we have the other half of the equation – Mirielle returns with the news that her uncle is in town, yay! Kirika would, assumably, be annoyed, yes? Something to take away from the well-oiled machine that is Noir? Nope. She’s pleased as punch that Mirielle has regained this link to her past. Why – because she can see how happy this has made Mirielle.

Now add those two little things up. They equal a relationship. Not, perhaps one between lovers, but certainly one between people who care, a lot, for each other.

Now, Bee Train has already said about Noir that if you see Yuri, it’s there. I choose to see a relationship that is beginning to leak past professional into personal.

And because, for some reason I cannot fathom, some people like Chloe, I’ll also mention her stalking Kirika to Hong Kong as a sign of her obsession about the other girl. But I strongly feel that the vibe is one-way. While it’s clear that Chloe sees Kirika as her perfect future partner, I don’t get the sense that Kirika even sees Chloe as a an existence, really. Her mind is on her partner *now*. And from my perspective, it stays there…except in the bits where they brainwash her. But I’m getting ahead of myself. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 6, it’s horribly inconsistent from scene to scene
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Music – 9
Yuri – 5

Overall – 7 and a great way to pass a gloomy Sunday afternoon. On par with a decent kungfu flick. ^_^ There was something terribly important I wanted to say here, but now I’ve forgotten what it was. Oh well.





Yuri Anime: Madlax, Volume 3

September 12th, 2005

Madlax, Volume 3 Sometimes you get a craving and nothing but sociopathic women with guns can fill it.

Volume 3 of Madlax is both wonderful…and frustrating. Wonderful, because all the connections start coming together, leading you forward towards who knows what. It’s also frustrating for the exact same reasons – you keep feeling like everything is going *somewhere* but you’re just not getting quite enough info to piece it all together.

For me, the volume is very satisfying, as it focuses primarily on the character of Vanessa Rene, whose efforts to find out exactly what’s going on bring her into contact with Madlax, and with Enfan, thus knitting together the three great variables in the story: Who is Madlax, and how did she get those mad assassinatin’ skillz; what on earth is Enfan’s relationship to the civil war in Gazth-Sonika; what does Margaret have to do with any of this?

None of these questions is answered, of course – but Vanessa actually articulates the first two – and the third is implicit in the storyline. Bee Train isn’t giving anything away in this anime, we’re going to have to work for our payoff here. When I watched this part the first time around, I was skeptical that we would get *any* payoff, but now I know we will, and I’m content to let the story play itself out.

In writing the above, I just realized that watching Madlax is a bit like watching a play by Chekhov – you have to let the characters repeat their particular bete noir over and over until the threads all ravel and it begins to make sense. You can’t rush it, or guess what will happened/has happened. You just have to wait.

On the yuri side, I love this volume for what it doesn’t say. There’s still the weird vibe between Vanessa and Eleanor, which makes me think that they slept together, but don’t have a “relationship” per se. Eleanor would be hard work – her focus is so single-minded, that to make her notice her existence, Vanessa would have to do something irrevocable and awful. Vanessa ain’t no dummmy – she lets whatever is between them stay as whatever Eleanor makes it.

When she meets Madlax, its obvious that Vanessa is resonating to something within her – there’s an obvious desire to connect with this mysterious girl, and maybe protect (or perhaps treasure) her a little. There’s a very, very slight yuri feel there, but I think that’s because they are strangers and Vanessa doesn’t yet know who/what Madlax is or how to approach her. I don’t have any difficulty in believing that Vanessa would sleep with Madlax, if she thought that would be a good idea for them both. We know, with 20/20 hindsight, what the thing she feels in Madlax is, but as she doesn’t know herself – and never does learn – it leaves an interesting edginess between them.

As for Madlax, she clearly sees the relationship between her and Vanessa as a mirror image of Vanessa’s interpretaton: she’s the prince protecting Vanessa, the princess. We’ve already seen that Madlax isn’t afraid of sex and, once again, I think Madlax could well sleep with Vanessa, if she felt that it was the thing to do.

Will they, do they? I don’t think so. But that edge between them is fascinating and titilating.

And there’s Rimelda. This volume could be entitled “The birth of an obsession” and I think it’s a beautiful thing. ^_^ I’m not usually fond of obsessive relationships, but again, I know what’s coming and this one works for me.

Ratings:
Art – 5. It’s very inconsistent, with that BT tendency to have really bad people on top of really lovely backgrounds
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Music – 8
Yuri – 6, with loads of possibility

Overall – 8.

Madlax is a story that remains intriguing and fun, as long as you don’t need it to “make sense.”





Yuri Anime: Noir, Volume 3

August 15th, 2005

Just as a reminder, it’ll be a short week for Okazu, since Otakon is coming up on Thursday. I’ll have my computer, and there’s a small chance that I’ll be updating, but no promises! ^_^

Okay, so despite the fact that my life is nearly 100% Maria-sama ga Miteru right now, I thought I’d move off it for a sec, and harken back to the golden days of yesteryear, when yuri anime existed, and women who carried guns ruled the small screen. That’s right, its time for Noir. (You can use the search feature up on the top of the page to find my reviews of Volumes 1 and 2, because I’m too lazy to look them up for you. Just stick in the word “Noir” and the links’ll be the top ones.)

In this third volume several significant things happen. For one thing, the gradual character development of the second volume is left behind, and the sense that something important is looming just ahead is notched up several, erm, notches. The character Chloe is introduced in this volume and, most importantly, in Episode 10, one of the faceless henchmen actually gets *wounds* when he is shot! And here I have been saying that that never happens. Wrong again, Erica.

Before I comment on Chloe, let me first mention Altena. Altena was a completely wasted character. For someone who got so much build-up through the series, they really never *did* anything with her. She was supposed to have been the other Soldats branch, supporting the “pure,” ritualistic Noir, as opposed to the crime syndicate assassin-for-hire Noir, but they really never managed it. Bee Train has improved at stroy writing since this anime, so I won’t beat it to death, but really, Altena was a waste. Which is a shame, ’cause she might have been cool. (Not as cool as Inccontabile, who I still think would have made a better adversary.)

And then there is Chloe and her spork. (Damn you Dreiser, for destroying my brain with that image!)

Chloe is meant to be creepy and cool and scarily ubercompetent. And fandom seems to agree, overwhelmingly. But I think she’s pretty boring, myself. In the Volume 3 liner notes, we learn that of the four major characters Mirielle and Kirika were created by one woman, Chloe by another and Altena by a third. The three characters designs were integrated for the story. I don’t think it worked, sorry. Chloe would be great in say, ./hack‘s The World, but in France, she seems utterly ridiculous. I realize that I am in a minority of one when I say that Chloe and Kirika together as a couple would not only be horribly unsexy, but utterly, mind-numbingly boring. And don’t get me started on that cape. LOL And it’s a damn shame, because as everyone knows, Chloe’s voice is done by the utterly fabulous Hisakawa Aya, for whom I have nothing but the most immense respect. She does her best to bring some depth to this role, but its a doomed effort, since Chloe really just doesn’t have any. I will say for Chloe that in this volume, at least, she gets some modicum of personality – and we get the glimmer of Chloe’s genuine desire to be paired wth Kirika. So that works whether I like it or not. ^_^

Be that as it may, Volume 3 starts to pick up the action a bit from the slightly slower and more melancholic Volume 2. In general, it’s a great set of episodes, with a hint of the “40 versus 1” that will come in the future, in which Kirika can stand in a open space and not be shot by the several dozen men shooting at her, while she takes them down with a bullet each. Totally realistic. ;-)

Ratings:

Art – 7 (Chloe’s face is often uneven and the people stand out as really bad in front of lovely detailed backgrounds.)
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Music – 9
Yuri – 6

Overall – 8

Watching Noir is like the old potato chip tagline – you can’t watch only one. It simply *begs* for a 26-episode all night carbohydrate and alcohol-laden marathon. Great, goofy, henchmen-slaughtering fun.