Archive for the Riyoko Ikeda Category


Yuri Anime: Dear Brother Set 2, Disk 1 (English)

April 20th, 2015

DearBrother2When people referred to the anime based on Riyoko Ikeda’s Dear Brother manga as Yuri, it was primarily this section of the series they were talking about. Disk 1 of the second Dear Brother set is pretty much the pinnacle of Yuri in the series – it’s also a brief moment of life and joy and happiness in what is otherwise an extraordinarily dark series.

In this disk we start to realize that the drama – all of the drama – is centered upon a single person. Ichinomiya Fukiko, known as Miya-sama, is not just a terrible person, she is a pathologically controlling and sadistic person. As Saint Just starts to recover herself, rediscovering a small joy in the physical activity of basketball, Miya-sama reels her back in repeatedly, like a fisherman tiring out his prey.

But even on the darkest days, the sunlight can sometimes shine through the clouds and Saint Just finds enough of herself left to enjoy – fully and totally – basketball again. Mariko, Nanako and Tomoko are friends and can laugh and joke together without the jealousy we saw in the first set. Through Nanoko’s eyes, we discover that Mariko has fallen in love with Kaoru no Kimi. Not content to be a fan or admirer, Mariko has taken a kind of small possession of Kaoru’s well-being and not been rebuffed. This triggers thoughts in Nanako’s mind that she’s never had before and she considers the idea that she is in love with Saint-Just. Saint-Just does her best to prove to Nanako that she is not lovable at all.

But it’s when Miya-sama “teases” Nanako with veiled threats and unfunny jokes that we realize there is something much, much larger than the obvious going on. In the end, it his Ichinomiya Takashi, Miya-sama’s older brother who gives us the first clue to what it might be. We are left wondering why, when she has Saint Just on such a short leash, Miya-sama cares so much about Nanako?

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 9

Enjoy the laughter and the respite from the dark…in Disk 2 the clouds will thicken again.





Dear Brother Anime, Box Set 1 (English)

October 7th, 2014

DB1I never actually thought I’d ever write a review like this, but here I am today, reviewing Osamu Dezaki’s masterful anime based on Riyoko Ikeda’s manga, Oniisama E, translated for an English-speaking audience on physical media. It’s nothing short of a miracle.

Today we speak of the first ever release of Dear Brother on DVD in English.

The story, about “average” girl Nanako, who is caught up in the affairs of her school’s brightest and most influential, is fraught with emotional highs and lows I’ve never seen in any other school life drama.  Nanako finds herself surrounded by people so powerful and so eccentric, it makes the Yamayurikai look pretty much like the normal girls they are.

This first box set covers the intense and often depressing or shocking first thirteen episodes. Issues are dealt with that modern-day dramas merely handwave. Depression, obsession, suicide, drug use…and that’s just Rei. The casual, institutional and individual emotional sadism we see in the first third of the story is breathtaking and heart breaking. The plot offers up unhealthy helpings of manipulation and bullying, but it’s tempered with some pointed socio-political commentary as well.

Like Dezaki’s other masterwork, Rose of Versailles, I can only take Dear Brother in small doses and need a lot of One Piece to wash it down with, or it’s too bitter a pill to swallow. This is Drama with a capital D. And it hurts. Much like GUNJO, you’re walking a knife bridge with Dear Brother and the tension never really lets up. I’m tense when watching any and every episode. I know, I make it sound so appealing, right? But it’s worth it.

The translation is good enough to completely ignore – which is exactly what I want out of a  translation. It should be there to facilitate my understanding, not clash with it.

But what really stands out to me is the animation. Yes, the characters styles are dated (and yes, I far far prefer them to the current character design trends) but the backgrounds, wow. Remember, when you looks at Miya-sama’s hair, or the smears on a chalkboard, or the way cloth is rendered – all that was done by hand. Every shadow, every seam was inked by someone without help of software. Every once in a while, I’m standing at Mandarake in Nakano and a cel from this series is for sale, and I stare at knowing I will never pay the price to own it, but wanting to oh so badly. (I’ve already got a Drama CD fetish, I’m not going near cels.)

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Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Yuri – 3
Service – 4 Of a different sort, with the Beautiful Ones far, far more beautiful than high school students are in the real world.

Overall – 9

With a combination of tightly wound story-telling, unforgettable characters and timeless art, Dear Brother is, IMHO, a pinnacle of shoujo anime, a classic that I’m very proud to have helped bring to DVD.





Rose of Versailles Anime, Part 2, Disk 3 (English)

July 2nd, 2014

Rose-of-Versailles2 The third disk of Rose of Versailles, Part 2 is brought to you by the word “clusterfuck.”

The slope towards the Revolution has become decidedly slippery. The strongest leadership is on the side of change, and the status quo just crumbles in the face of it. Perhaps, it is hard for us to understand how significant this was. Kings were not just rulers, like Presidents and Prime Ministers, who are expected to be human and flawed – they were practically gods on earth. The idea that the King of France was not a good leader seems almost obvious from our perspective. For commoners and landed classes to fight back against the established order was fairly significant.

As France descends into chaos, we’re watching Oscar, tortured by the old order and yet, not part of the new. Her life is in a tailspin, as she realizes, for the very first time,, that she has feelings for Andre’, and cares more about the health of France than about following orders. “Watashi no Andre’!”

Rosalie is back for a brief moment, so we know that she is, finally, happy.

In addition to the suffering on the macro scale, we’re getting little dollops of personal suffering on top, just to add a piquant taste to the general misery.

On the positive side, I spend a lot of time, while watching this anime doing historical research. I’m a bit more grounded now in bits of the history of the French Revolution than I was when I started.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters 9
Yuri – 0
Service – 1 (on principle)

Overall – 8

Dear gods, this series is just about all I can take in terms of drama and human suffering. No wonder I avoid watching the evening news. If I had to watch current stories like this, I’d be a wreck.

Before I finish up for today, I just want to do a piece of Okazu News. Amazon has taken a stance that is decidedly anti-publisher, anti-competition and frankly is plain assholish. So, where I can do so, I’m moving my affiliate links to RightStuf. For our purposes, this means mostly English-language anime box sets and manga. RightStuf has competitive pricing and, so far, good customer service. Japanese manga and other items will probably still have Amazon links, but where I can, I’m moving us over to TRSI. If you want your purchase to be on my affiliate code, use this link when you’re shopping and this link when you’re searching. If you’re looking for a direct link to an item, please feel free to write me and ask!





Dear Brother, Set 3 Campaign is on!

March 4th, 2014

Dear BrotherToday Animesols announced the opening of the crowdfunding campaign for the third and final set of Riyoko Ikeda’s classic shoujo series Dear Brother. The second set was fully funded in a weekend in conjunction with a matching donation, this time we’ll have to do it ourselves.

It’s already a good year for LGBTQ comics and anime fans and it’s only February! ^_^

 





Rose of Versailles Anime, Part 2, Disk 2 (English) and Contest Results!

February 27th, 2014

Rose-of-Versailles2In Part 2, Disk 2 of Rose of Versailles, the story takes a massive turn. The story had been very strongly focused on Marie Antoinette and the effect her choices have made in the life of Oscar Francois de Jarjeyes.

In this disk, Oscar comes to two extremely important decisions about herself. First, she sees Fersen and immediately realizes than her love for him has not subsided and is, if anything, stronger than before. She and Fersen have a painful reunion and parting, made unintentionally far more painful by Andre’s confession that he has loved her all along. When Andre compounds Oscar’s emotional wounds by forcing himself on her, Oscar decides that she’s making a break with her former life and her former self. She leaves the Royal Guards, and is assigned to the commoner brigade, the French Guards, where she and Andre, who has followed her against her wishes, find themselves unwelcome. In a final insult, just as she decides to live as a man, Oscar’s father suddenly regrets raising her as one and wants to marry her off. This news does not go over well.

Until this point, Oscar’s sex hasn’t really been a big deal in the series. Her cross-dressing and living as a man has been mostly accepted and little commented on by the nobles. Like a court dwarf or rare animal, she has been mostly accepted for her proximity to the Queen… and her own abilities when they chips are down, with a side of “entertaining gossip.”

But, now, Oscar has left those rarefied circles and instantly is made very aware that men do not consider women their equals even when they are visibly capable. She defeats the men of the French Guard in combat, but they basically don’t care. She’s a woman and they will not be led by one. And it takes a brush with death for her father to realize that he have made an even worse mistake by insisting Oscar embrace a life as a woman this far into things.

I am, once again, left breathless at the timelessness of the narrative I’m watching. All week, I have been fielding questions on the Internet that blame feminism for everything under the sun and equate masculinity with having a penis and then I watch this disk and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  Once again, I want very much for this story to get a modern reboot, in which Oscar gets to be the soldier and leader she was and get the guy or the girl or both or something else, and be happy. Poor Andre. Poor Fersen. Poor Oscar.

I am impressed how deeply the thorns of Rose of Versailles still pierce.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters 9
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Here’s the fun part. I have two Box sets to give away, courtesy of RightStuf, and today they will be given:

Grisznak and kc – you are our contest winners!

Please contact me at yuricon at gmail with your mailing addresses and they will go in the mail as soon as I can get them there. Congrats to both of you!