Archive for the Artists Category


Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady, Disk 2

January 17th, 2021

Things fall apart rapidly in the second half of Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady.The center was never meant to hold.

Jun advocates for the humanity of those people who show signs of the Devilbeast Progress, while the humans that are creating the afflicted – then dehumanizing them and hurting them – become less and less human themselves.

Having saved and lost Kazumi several times and only for one brief night allowed to acknowledge their love – Jun becomes despondent, then ultimately enraged, as society crumbles. As Asuka pushes Jun to her limits, Jun finds some strength at last.

In a deeply dark and violent ending, Asuka, who is intersex, rapes Jun, then forces her into a hell of Asuka’s making. There Kazumi is able to speak with Jun one last time and Jun sheds the very last of her inhibitions to become the Devilman Lady that defeats Asuka’s distorted form of godhead, saving what is left of humanity.

Through the final arc, as Asuka’s past comes to light, I was reminded so very much of Apos in Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne. Also portrayed as a evil “hermaphrodite” (a word that has had a long road, from tragic Greek figure to slur,) Apos and Asuka also share megalomania and disinterest in humanity other than as tool for their own ambitions. I now wonder how much Apos was influenced by Asuka…and how much Rin: Daughters of Menmosyne was influenced by Go Nagai Devilman franchise. The Devilman himself, Akira, makes a cameo appearance here, and where the rest of this series is very 1990’s, he is purest 1980s.

This series remains a dark, violent and often depressing look at humanity’s inability to treat others well, very similar to Devilman Crybaby. Sure the monsters are scary, but armed men with guns threatening innocent children is far more terrifying  because it is something we all actually see on a daily basis. But. Unlike Devilman Crybaby, it has hope. It is true that Jun does not have a happy ending with Kazumi, but because of her, Jun is finally able to accept herself. The world is not destroyed. Children play, humans evolve after all, despite themselves. There is hope for the future, for Jun…and for us.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9 Horror in every form.
Characters – 9
Service – 8 Yes, very. This is Go Nagai we are talking about.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

As I have said elsewhere, “All of the Devilman franchise seem to be about humanity’s complicity in its own destruction. By that standards, Devilman Lady has a happy ending as Jun only loses everyone she’s ever met, and both arms, but Tokyo/Earth survives.”





I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 2

January 8th, 2021

Remember how amazed we were in Volume 1, when the characters of Claire, Misha and Rae had a frank discussion of sexuality? Well, I’m In Love With The Villainesss, Volume 2 has looked at Volume 1 and said, “Hold my mead”….

Rae Taylor is an extraordinary young woman, because in fact, she is not a young woman. She is a corporate drone from our world who has found herself in the world of her favorite otome game as the player character. Instead of romancing the princes, however, Rae has opted for a new route; one in which she is romancing the villainess, the aristocratic and strong-willed Claire François. Here in Volume 2, the holodeck controls are off and Rae and Claire run full speed towards a resolution that even Rae with her knowledge of the game can not predict.

As a reader and as a writer, I ascribe to what we called at the Fanfic Revolution called the “one-handwave” theory. This theory allows every world is allowed one massive, ridiculous, inexplicable thing that must be accepted at face value and cannot be questioned. This volume of I’m in Love With the Villainess, *immediately* blew that theory to hell in the most hilarious way I have ever seen. And then it did it again. And again. The rules? They are for some other story. This story could not have cared less what rules say. Massively important plot points were handled with literal magical handwaves, while actual time and attention were given to discussions of same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria, and, of course, the social impact of income inequality and political upheaval. It was compelling to say the least. It was a little too on the nose for this week, in particular.

This volume is significantly larger than volume 1. Given the resolution there’s only one thing the author left undealt with so Volume 3, when we get it, ought to address that.

In the meantime, this was an amazing read. Whatever benchmark might have been set by Volume 1, was shattered with sound-of speed waves as this volume goes blasting by it. It got exponentially queerer as the story went on. Final tally – 6 queer characters among the main cast, and a happy ending for our principles. And an epilogue that made me ugly cry at 2AM.

I give it my strongest recommendation. If you have not read this series, I hope you will. I know isekai isn’t everyone’s thing, but this is a shining example of exactly what I was talking about in my essay about queer representation Author Inori doesn’t consider that the limits of the worlds that previously existed are the limits of what the worlds could be. They’ve taken an already played-out plot driver and used it to explore very real-world situations in fantasy cosplay and come up with a different resolution. Rather than just assuming what was is what has to be, this series models a new ideal.  I feel even more confident that this was the right choice for my Top Yuri of the year for 2020, and it is going to be very, very hard to beat for 2021. But you know….I really hope something does beat it, because that would be something. ^_^

 

Ratings:

Art – 7 Okay. I’m still angry we didn’t get a picture of Claire in the tux in V1.
Story – 10 Perfection
Characters – 10
Service – 3 Yes, but…somehow this time didn’t bother me at all.
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10

Overall – 10

“Miss Claire, watch over me now.” I am slayed.





Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 3

December 24th, 2020

Capping this weird, and horrible and amazing year off is the volume that I have been waiting for since April, when I raved about the Japanese edition. At last I can share with you, the joyousness of Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 3!

Saeki Sayaka, a girl who tends overthink most things, is confronted by a situation that requires faith in the future.

I almost don’t want to tell you anything about it, because I want you to enjoy the whole thing on your own, without my prompts. I’m also tempted to just quote huge chunks of my initial review at you, since the things I loved about the book in Japanese hold up beautifully in English, thanks to the deft translation by Jan Cash and Vincent Castaneda and Jenny McKeon’s adaptation. They captured Sayaka’s cool, reflective, outside voice and the increasing turmoil inside her head beautifully.

The humor fit perfectly, even the one thing I *felt* but wasn’t entirely sure was real, was communicated well. Everything here is as polished as it needed to be, with the result that I picked this long-waited volume up after dinner and did not put it down until I had finished it.

The Regarding Saeki Sayaka series was an unexpected bonus for this reader of Bloom Into You. Sayaka was the reason I kept tuning in. This novel reminded us again of the importance of Miyako as an older role model for Sayaka. How much angst and loneliness might she have to struggle with without someone to just talk to? Instead, this series had carefully, cleanly laid the path out for us to see Sayaka become a person who understands she likes women and feels neither shame nor confusion about it. Having cleared the way of negativity, we are allowed to watch Sayaka become interested in someone for their own sake, for the first time in her life. And, so, we can fully enjoy that moment, alone in her room, when Sayaka says, “I have a girlfriend.” out loud, to her own amazement. ^_^

I tip my hat to Hitoma Iruma whose work here – which included a brief conversation about gaydar, as well – is some of the best they’ve done.  I am so very much looking forward to Iruma and Nakatani’s next collaboration. With this book, Bloom Into You is over, but we have End Blue (エンドブルー) to look forward to.  They really seemed to bring out the best in each other, and here we are, able to reap the benefits. Even if you weren’t a huge Bloom Into You fan, I recommend this LN series.

My sincerest thanks to the folks at Seven Seas for their work on this series. Clay Garderner’s interior design was lovely, Nicky Lam’s cover, as well. And thank you Seven Seas for crediting *everyone* who worked on the book. It’s a pleasure to see the team get their due.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 9
Character – 10
Service – 3
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

Spending time watching Sayaka bloom into herself is absolutely worth your time.





Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji, Volume 1 (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ)

December 18th, 2020

In the Yuri world Ikeda Takashi is best known for Sasamekikoto / Whispered Words in English, from One Peace Books. That series made fun of every Yuri trope, balled them all into one funny, poignant and, in the end, beautiful comedy-drama with the perfect ending. It’s been about five years since we got the ending of that in the west and, whike Takashi-sensei has done other series, few of them have wandered into our territory.  Until now.

Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji (ふたりはだいたいこんなかんじ) is a slice of life manga about two adult women who are a couple, and who are happy and settled in their relationship. Sakuma Eri is a writer and Inuzuka Wako is an aspiring voice actress. Together they eat and sleep and do work and spend their days happily in one another’s company.  We meet some of their friends and colleagues and, ultimately family, which puts this story into one of the very few Yuri manga that provides the main characters with something that resembles an actual life.

The art is very chill and adult, even as Ikeda-sensei still uses wacky expressions and visuals. Since the scenes take place in their apartment or sometimes at the recording studio, there’s little detail or frivolous background. The story is very much centered on the relationship between Wako and Eri, and how they react to one another’s needs, both spoken and unspoken.

By the end of the volume, the story starts to take off, as Sakuma shows her understanding and appreciation of Wako’s hard work, and we finish the volume off with a visit from Wako’s mother to meet Eri that is only the normal amount of “mom is visiting” stressful and not angst from coming out or hiding. As we’ve seen mom earlier, all excited about meeting her daughter’s special person, we know it will go well. Overall, the story is comfy and not at all stressful, with added bonus heartwarming moments.

This is a story about the everyday life of two people in a functional relationship, with low drama and very comfortable affection and caring. Ikeda-sensei still knows exactly how to end a volume. Such a terrific way to end this week, honestly, and I look forward to Volume 2 when it comes out. ^_^ (Update: Volume 2 was even better.)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 5 a bit, it’s a story for adult readers
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

This volume is available on Amazon JP, of course, and if you’d like to read it digitally outside Japan, it’s also available on Bookwalker Global, where you can also check out a few sample pages.





Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady, Disk 1

December 13th, 2020

Fans of Go Nagai’s work are probably pretty familiar with his Devilman franchise, which has spawned a number of anime and manga series over the decades. More recently fans may have encountered his work in Devilman Crybaby, which streams on Netflix. I personally found that iteration to be one of the best anime I’d ever seen.  Yuasa Masaaki’s directorial touch meshed perfectly with Go Nagai’s conceptual framework for a truly epic series.

Devilman Lady has always been a less-known sideshow of the Devilman franchise, but it has also always been one of my absolute favorite anime, for many reasons – among them, top voice actors, Go Nagai’s vision, the soundtrack and that the story is profoundly and overtly Yuri. Now, almost 20 years after the anime was first released in the US by ADV, here we are thanks to Diskotek who has reissued the complete series in a 2-disk Blu-Ray set. Honestly…I still think it’s fantastic.

The story follow Fudou Jun, a professional model. It’s almost hard to understand what people see in her, as Jun is painfully awkward and nervous but, when she gets in front of the camera, something seems to come over her. One day she is kidnapped and forced into a warehouse with a beast-monster, and learns that she is, in actual fact, a Devil Beast. Unlike many of the transformations happening around town, she retains her humanity when she transforms, making it that much more awful when she has to kill beasts she knows were once- and maybe could still be – human.

The Yuri in this series is so constant that it’s almost diminishing to lay it out. Jun encounters an old classmate who was in love with her, and a new rival model who desires her on this disk, in two fantastically gay episodes. Asuka openly desires Jun when she is a Devil Beast. It is not subtext to say that the entire story is constantly reminding us that Jun is closeted about several things, not just being a Devil Beast.

Diskotek has done a stellar job with this anime. The animation screams 1990s, but the visuals look fresh and crisp and the sound is excellent. Diskotek used ADV’s English track which was good for its time, but very much has that feel of early voice acting when anime was just taking off here.

The soundtrack deserves a mention, too. The theme for this anime is fantastically gothic. I actually bought the soundtrack album for it, and it’s basically the same one theme remixed a couple of times. ^_^ The fight scenes though, have music that sound like the opening theme of a night-time crime-solving couple series from ’90’s American TV. Cracks me up every episode. Giant horrific Devil Beast monsters fighting over Tokyo and the BGM is like Hart & Hart. ^_^

I know horror is not for everyone. Go Nagai is not for everyone. This series is definitely Nagai’s specific brand of sexualized demonic monsters, with both physical and psychological horror elements and dustings of dread and misery and pathos as needed. It will occasionally make you very sad and possibly quite angry. It’s a shockingly good Yuri anime that has an ending that is good and bad, hopeful and miserable all at once.

Ratings:

Art – 9 for 1990s
Story –  9 Depressing, scary and creepy, sometimes emotionally crushing. But fascinating, even compelling.
Characters – 8 No one is what they initially seem, especially not Jun.
Service – 8 Yes, very. The is Go Nagai we are talking about.
Yuri – 8, but wait, there’s more!

Overall – 9

If you don’t want to commit to buying this set, you can watch DevilMan Lady as the dubbed version The Devil Lady free and legally on RetrocrushTV.

In my opinion DevilMan Lady is an absolute classic of Yuri and should not be ignored. I’m thrilled we can experience it once again.

Many, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P for his sponsorship of today’s review!