Archive for the Artists Category


Live Action: Kekkou Kamen Movie

July 7th, 2005

I was so happy to find a copy of the new Kekkou Kamen live-action movie, even though I was pretty sure that there was going to be no yuri in it.

I have reviewed the Kekkou Kamen anime, manga, and three truly horrible live-action movies, previously.

I had high hopes for the new live-action KK, if only because the new movie version of Cutie Honey had been so decent. Oh well. I guess it was too much to ask that this really trashy series ever be “decent.” ^_^

It wasn’t just that the scenes of Kekkou Kamen on a motorcycle were obviously filmed in front of a bluescreen – or that the “lascivious” behavior of the teachers and their henchmen were of the boring “slavering over a bra” kind. It was more like, it just got gross instead of tacky. Let’s put it this way – this movie actually *stole* the laxative schtick from Weather Woman. Does it really get lower than that?

The plot, such as it was, was not really enough for a real movie, so the middle bit gets kind of unfocused. I thought it was just me, but about 2/3 of the way though the movie, Mayumi breaks the fourth wall and actually speaks to Go Nagai, who pops up in a little bubble on the screen and answers. Clearly they’d lost all momentum by then. I didn’t feel too bad about only half paying attention.

Now – here was the one good thing – the actress playing Mayumi. She was *perfect.* In this version, Mayumi is a transfer student from New Zealand – not too bright, but not stupid; really bad at kanji – but with excellent English, which surprised the hell out of me. She’s not particularly cute, either, but really grows on you. Honestly, she was totally wasted in this movie, which wasn’t even particularly creative with its sort-of-sadistic, quasi-sexual tortures. Nothing even remotely as good as Gestapoko from the anime.

I was definitely bummed at the lack of yuri. There’s plenty of room for it – and its just about the one fetish the movie manages to miss – which, if you think about it could either be good, or bad. lol

The one last major bummer was the crappiness of the theme. In the anime Kekkou Kamen’s theme is sung by Shinohara Emi and is really great. The remake of the Cutie Honey theme for the movie was SO good that I was really hoping for a cool remake for KK’s theme. No dice. The new version is scratchy and whiny and generally suckariffic. Boo hooooo.

Ratings:
Cinematography – hahaha
Music – eh
Characters – Mayumi – wow; Everyone else – shrug
Story – bleh
Yuri – snort

Overall, a resounding noseblow of a movie. If you want to see it, you can borrow my copy.





Yuri Anime: Madlax, Volume 2

July 5th, 2005

It has been pointed out to me in the notes below that this review was full of hot air. I stand corrected – the translation in the one case I illustrated was fine. ;-))

I am so irritated about this volume of Madlax, I’m not really even sure where to begin.

So to begin, I’ll touch on the good things. First and foremost, this volume is fun, with a capital “fu”. I mean, how many other places can you watch a gentle maid go totally postal on some entitled wannabe frat boy?  I particularly enjoy it when Elenore snaps the kid’s wrist, because he hurt Margaret’s wrist. And when Vanessa says, “How vicious,” she really doesn’t sound all that disapproving. ^_^

Other good things – the liner notes include highly amusing fan art drawn by some of the staff, complete with in-jokes that have to be explained. I really enjoyed these.

And that about covers it. The plot is dense, the bad guy is a joke, but those haven’t changed from my first viewing of the series. And the rest of the episodes are actually very interesting, as we finally start to draw a connection between Margaret, the book and Madlax.

(Remind me to engage in a light rant about the book next review…^_^)

The really stand-out not-good thing on this volume is the seriously awful translation. The first volume was pretty good, but again, its like they switched midstream and stopped actually listening to what was being said, and instead started guessing at something sort-of close to the meaning.

I can’t remember all the things that annoyed the living daylights out of me, but there were several. COME ON,  anime distributor companies! We are notstupid. We are not children. JUST TRANSLATE WHAT THEY SAY. Not something “close enough” to it. And leave the \expletive deleted\ honorifics alone, already! Stop the dubtitling.

It’s absolutely infuriating to pay money for something that is not done properly. It may be cheaper for you to dubtitle, but it stinks for those of us who want to watch the Japanese. Thanks for treating us like second-class citizens, when we are your fan base.

No ratings, I’m in a bad mood.





Yuri Anime: Noir, Volume 2

June 27th, 2005

I spent some time this weekend rewatching anime that I own, but haven’t yet reviewed here. It was edifying, let me tell you. There were some things that were great and some less so. I decided to start the week off with a reasonably strong entry. ^_^

Noir Volume 2, *feels* like a second volume. The art is significantly less good than the first volume, the plot sort of drops off a bit in favor of character development (sort of) and the use of repeated footage begins to grate. But otherwise it’s excellent. ^_^

On the positive side, the characters do become more than just ciphers. Despite myself, I was feeling a little for Mirielle and Kirika as they faced what, for them, were major life crises – Kirika’s lack of knowledge about herself and Mirielle’s past trauma coming back to haunt her.

We also get a glimpse of Mirielle in bed in the nude, which has carried Yuri fans for some time, as there is only one bed in the room. It would take a strong woman, so we rationalize, to sleep in the nude with someone with whom you are not sleeping. ;-) In fact, I think it’s a bit early for them, but hey, yuri goggles go a long way to building character development. ^_^

Geographically, we go from New York City to (the wildly improbable deep woods and high mountain passes) of New Jersey to sunny Sicily. For this alone, the “Intoccabile” arc is worth it. But this arc is worth watching, in general. I think Intoccabile would have made a much worthier opponent than Chloe and it was a damn shame we used her up so soon.

This volume also gives the viewer glimpses into a Kirika who is exactly as she appears – a young woman, apt to fall for a cute kitty or a good sob story. I liked that. It gives her more depth than most people assume she has. And Mirielle gets a chance to gently gloat about her superior knowledge of Russian literature. ^_^

So, yes, the second volume has problems – notably the art and repeated footage issue (and the no-wound thing, which plagues the whole production), but as far as giving the characters some three-dimensionality, this volume is fairly crucial – and actually not a bad watch.

Ratings:
Art – 5
Music – 7 (Salva Nos playing as they run through NJ’s bamboo forest is, to me, priceless)
Character – 8
Story – 7

Overall 7

Not as strong as the beginning, or the end, but a must for fanfic writers. ^_^





Sister Red, Volume 1

June 14th, 2005

Another first today for Okazu! But a rather bizarre one, I admit. Today I am reviewing Sister Red a manga with absolutely *no* yuri at all whatsoever, except in the most peripheral sense.

Once again, I’d like to offer my gratitude to Touko_no_doriru-san, who gave me both volumes of this manga in Tokyo. Subsequently I have learned that Comics One has translated it into English. Sister Red, Volume 1 is available through Amazon.com.

If it ain’t yuri, then why am I reviewing it? Because it’s the second series by manga artist Hayashiya Shizuru, creator of yuri series Strawberry Shake and artist for the mostly-yuri doujinshi circle, Jesus Drug. It is therefore of interest to me, and perhaps to other fans of her art.

To put it simply, Sister Red is a vampire story, although the word “vampire” is never used.

We are introduced to our heroine Mahito, during a typical school day. Mahito lives with her father and her cousin, Erika who is very like a sister to her. Erika is a little spacey, and has a tendency to be weak physically and emotionally. Mahito loves Erika and is always there to protect her, but is also, deep inside, a little resentful that Erika doesn’t fight back more for herself.

One night, on the way home from school, Mahito decides to take a shortcut home and is promtply hit by a car. As she bleeds into the street, the men in the car see her dying and run off without calling for help. Mahito sees a mysterious woman in a black trenchcoat who says inexplicable stuff about her heart. She closes her eyes – only to find herself at home in bed, with a doctor in attendance. Unfortunately it wasn’t a dream, as she learns when the mysterious woman, Alice, appears again and explains that she has given Mahito part of the heart of Scarlet in order to keep Mahito alive. Because, in fact, Mahito did die because of the accident. Now Mahito is one of the walking undead, and is developing mighty weird powers.

The plot of Sister Red is actually rather complicated – Alice is being tracked by her half brother Yuri who wants the heart back so he can become truly immortal. But who Scarlet is and why Alice has her heart is still a mystery to Mahito at present. In the meantime, she is forced to deal with other Night creatures – some of whom masquerade as human and prey upon real humans. Mahito starts to embrace her powers when another night creature seduces and kills her kouhai, an innocent and sweet girl. (This is the only even vaguely yuri-ish bit in the story, btw, since the creature was masquerading as a girl – and implies that she had her way with the kouhai before killing her.)

It’s a dark story, moody, and really, really violent. Lots of blood and beheaded bodies and mangled body parts and the like, once again showing that Hayashiya-sensei is not afraid of a little gore and random acts of extreme violence. Some of the action scenes are exceptionally well executed – especially in the second fight with Yuri’s first lackey, whose name escapes me at the moment. And I’m not just saying that because she’s an eye-patch wearing kick-ass chick. lol

The only downside is that the character development is a bit rushed, because it’s a short series.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 6
Yuri – 0.5

Overall – 7

All in all, a dark, creepy, gory, yet fun to read, vampire story from Hayashiya Shizuru





Madlax, Volume 1

June 6th, 2005

I’m not sure if Madlax is better than I remembered it to be, but it is definitely damn good. In this series, I think Bee Train might well have hit their peak – animation, story, music, etc, all work together to make a really enjoyable whole.

I reviewed the early part of the series about a year ago in June 2004, so I won’t repeat the basic plot stuff since, obviously, that has not changed. ;-)

So let’s talk packaging. Like Noir, the packaging is minimal. No posters, no pencil boards, just a disk and some liner notes. The notes are interesting, but not Azumanga Daioh-level stellar. 4 episodes on the disk. I know it’s standard, but you know my rant – it shouldn’t be. 6 episodes on a disk *should* be standard, or why have we switched at all from VHS?

The music has a definitely similarity to that of Noir, without being a complete copycat. I did notice, this time around, that “The Book” (or individual pages from The Book) has a plinky, irrirtating theme, much as The Watch did. The book also comes with a pretentious quasi-militaristic, vaguely Teutonic male choir, which means that even if you’re only half paying attention, you’ll look up when it comes on-screen. :-)

I’m always fascinated by the phenomenon of watching an anime I enjoyed with that 20/20 hindsight that comes from knowing what will happen. It frees one to notice many more details – in this case I was able to appreciate just how really flaky Margaret is. lol

For the yuri fan, there is instant rapport between Elenore and Vanessa, who seem to be sharing some kind of obvious secret as they trade snarky comments. And Rimelda gives off gaydar vibes like crazy…but maybe that’s just me.

The whole war thing actually makes more sense this time around – I think we get alot of Madlax’s point of view in the beginning just to establish that pretty much everyone knows this war is meaningless – except for the guys fighting it. Hey, *that* sounds familiar…. I also like Madlax’s sensuality in the middle of everything. The first time watching it seemed frivolous – this time it feels somehow necessary.

The biggest downside to this series hasn’t really yet been established: Bee Train has a nasty tendency to severely overuse repeated footage, like some kind of animated nervous tic. In the case of Volume 1, we have yet to really see the repeated scenes, but we will, we will…established by Episode 4, they just keep coming back again and again and again, until we want to scream. Or maybe that’s just me.

Other than that – the violence is appropriate, people bleed (an issue I had with Noir) from their wounds and the only serious handwave is Madlax’s mad assasinatin’ skillz. Which is *the* handwave, really, so we’ll let it go. She can fight in a cocktail dress if she wants, so there.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (I think BT really hits a high here. It’s the best they’ve done so far.)
Characters – 8 (Intriguing rather than interesting)
Story – 7
Yuri – 4 with a hint of more to come
Music – 9

Overall – a strong 8. If you liked Noir, you’ll probably like Madlax. Get it at the Yuricon Shop and support yuri!