Watanabe Sarasa is a young woman with a dream. She is entering the Kouka School, in hopes of becoming a Kouka Musical Revue Top Star. Exceptionally tall and outgoing, Sarasa will make allies and enemies in her next two years.

Based on the manga of the same name, which is put out by Seven Seas, Kageki Shojo!! is…well, it’s really quite fantastic. I read and reviewed the earlier manga, Kageki Shoujo!! The Curtain Rises, in 2020 and so knew about some of the distressing events in the beginning of the anime.. Trigger warning for sexual abuse, and body dysmorphia/eating disorders in the first few episodes.

After that story has been told, we move on to the events of the manga after it moved publishers in Japan. It progresses into changing the lives of Sarasa, Ai and the rest of the 100th class at Kouka Academy. When Sarasa encounters her own limitations, and we get background as to why, specifically, she sight reads other people’s performances, the story deepens. As the students in her class get a chance to perform, the entire story takes off in flight. The last few episodes are sublime and triumphant and worth every second they take to watch, even if like me, you are watching Funimation for free and getting the same ad 28 times per episode. ^_^

Most readers here on Okazu are probably familiar with the Takarazuka Revue and it’s school, on which the Kouka Revue here is based. You may wonder about the bullying we see in the story. Sadly, Takarazuka had a long-standing tradition of exactly the kinds of bullying you see here. In previous years, first-years were assigned a specific area to clean and, if a second-year was particularly nasty, could make them clean and re-clean over and over, or force them to do extra homework, even so far as losing sleep. Of course, I feel that this kind of hazing should have been grounds for removing the second-years, but you know adults. They look they other way and don’t see what is right in front of them. In 2020, the school changed some of the written and unwritten rules, in an attempt to curb this kind of bullying and to modernize the school. Students are no longer assigned to cleaning just one spot for the year, and things like natural hair color is allowed.

We’re only getting a taste of the story in this anime series, but it was a great watch and has a manga that continues the story, so it’s something I can whole-heartedly recommend.

Ratings:

Art – 7 It’s good when it has to be
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Not really
Yuri – 0

Overall – 8

I’m interested to see if the story gets as far as choosing otokoyaku/musumeyaku roles, which in this early part of the story seems more or less personal inclination. I’ve read that in Takarazuka, the defining characteristic is pretty much just height.

Happy Halloween! For tricks this year, I found myself watching Castlevania, streaming on Netflix, because we all know how much I love vampire stories. ^_^

The descendants of vampire hunters, the descendants of vampires, humans (almost all of whom deserved an ugly death) and magic users all become involved in two grand plans that will essentially destroy humanity. It…wasn’t bad.

Castlevania has decent enough animation, lots of blood, sex, some creative magical nonsensery and enough cursing to satisfy even this Jersey Girl. In fact, I have added Carmilla’s frustrated and exhausted “What the FUCK is going on?” to my store of mottos. ^_^

Okazu readers are smart enough to know that I am not reviewing this animation because I think vampires are a nifty Halloween tie-in. Clearly there must be some reason I felt it’s appropriate for Okazu? Indeed there is.

In the later half of the story, as our attention turns from Dracula’s decrepit legacy toward Carmilla’s scheme for a new age of vampire supremacy, we are introduced to Carmilla’s vampire sisters, Lenore, Striga and Morana. When we meet them, Striga and Morana are and have been, a couple. Striga is also highly amusing, voiced with brutal sarcasm by Ivana Miličević, which balances beautifully with Yasmine Al Massri’s highly ironic, and only slightly idealistic, Morana.  The two of them are delightful and their fate is a high point of the what is objectively a very, messy, if slightly dewily romantic plot. (I mean romantic in both senses here. The plot tends toward romanticism and Romanticism, if you take my meaning.)

The voice cast was quite good, with the exception of the heavy mumbling by Richard Armitage as Trevor Belmont, and James Callis as Alucard. I kept shouting “What? Speak up!” at the TV, despite the fact that I watch everything with captions now. It’s not that I’m losing my hearing, I just read faster than people talk and I have no patience. ^_^ Nonetheless, mumbling is not a personality.

I particular loved Alejandra Reynoso’s voice work for magic using Speaker Sypha.  She was a delight. Jaime Murray’s Carmilla was also brilliant – angry, imperious, violent. Kind of my perfect woman, except for her being a vampire, which I would find just so tiresome. And last, but not least, everything about Lenore, from her cute blushy cheeks to Jessica Brown Findlay’s masterful voice work, was fantastic.

For the rest of the story, expect lots of body parts, blood, and copious amounts of heavy cursing written in a way that kind of almost sounds like I wouldn’t mind being around these people, except for the stench and the threat of death and undeath. Other than that, they seem kind of fun.

Ratings:

Animation – As good as 8, as bad as 5
Story – It was three or four messes worth of mess, but does it matter? 7
Characters – 9 The main reason I kept watching, honestly
Service – 10 I did mention, the blood and violence and sex, yes?
Yuri – 9  It’s only one little piece of the story, but a nice one

Overall – 8

Alucard was all out of luck
Human lives were all in the muck
Magic and mayhem
Meant monsters and brain stems
And all anyone really wanted was a good…roast duck.

And maybe a beer. And a shower. And fewer undead monsters trying to kill them.

Q-Force is about the first Queer superspy team in AIA (ahem) history. Shunted aside by homophobic commanders, top spy of his class, Steve Maryweather (voiced by Sean Hayes, who was the first gay ever for a lot of American households, by way of Will & Grace,) is shunted to boring duty in West Hollywood*, where his team is an apparent bunch of underfunded and ignored misfits, who are berated constantly by their homophobe commander. Given the premise, it could be easy to dislike this series before it gets off the ground. But, while this is no Steven Universe, I would argue that Q-Force is actually worth watching.

Let’s start with the problems with this series, before we get on to why it does, honestly, exceed its limitations.

The homophobia is…not great storytelling. In fact, the first episode really bogs down as the prejudice of the people around “Agent Mary,” as they take to calling Steve, is given primacy over literally every other aspect of the story. In the early scenes, it is tiring, as Steve is pushed aside by and for wildly incompetent toxic straight men. Worse, it hits a nadir, when 10 years have gone by, and we know that our Federal agencies may still have homophobes in positions of power, but also know they are not allowed by law and policy to be…this. So, it’s a story written by/for people with paltry imagination who cannot imagine that the world, organizations or any individuals within them can move past the trauma of their past. Honestly, this continues to be a problem throughout the story, and occasionally really gets stuck in this viewer’s craw. When homophobic jerk Buck (voiced by Rick Harbour) is assigned to the team, it makes no sense, as he had been promoted to top spy. In a real story, it would be a subplot that he is being punished, but here, he is assigned there to torture Steve, which makes no sense and just is a stereotype of every jock bully ever. It doesn’t create depth, it robs it….until the last few episodes, where the story finally finds a place to use Buck cleverly.

Despite that, the story works.

For one thing the team is great, full stop. Each individual voice actor was excellent in their role and the stereotypes were treated with love and genuine humor. So, Deb the lesbian, voiced brilliantly by comedian Wanda Sykes, whose wife thinks she works at Pep Boys (does the rest of the country know Pep Boys? I thought it was a NJ/Philly thing,) is actually a great mechanic whose car is named SubaRue McLanahan. ^_^ That’s several in-jokes right there.

Stat the hacker (Patti Harrison), and drag queen Twink (Matt Rogers), make up the rest of the agents in Q-Force. For both these, their various obsessions and fandoms are given room to show up as not only acceptable, but come in handy. How many otaku dream of their favorite show being actually relevant to something they need to know right now? Everyone’s quirks are presented as skills that come in handy, from Twink’s Ariana Grande impersonation to Stat’s encyclopedic knowledge of a fictitious in-show show, Cobblestones. I am endlessly fascinated with in-media, and deeply enjoy it when it becomes part of the story.

Coming as no surprise to anyone who has ever read a review here, is my favorite character, team leader V. Voiced by Laurie Metcalf (probably best known as Roseanne Barr’s sister, Jackie  in Roseanne.) V is given a lot of depth and a whole arc of her own. An arc that, while it was ultimately more “homophobia bad, gay good,” had some surprising and funny moments.

Where the story works is, like all good ensemble casts, when they start working together. It becomes a minor triumph when they realize that they are actually a team. Having been raised on anime, I expect the story to happen at that point…and it does! The story is utterly absurd and joyously ridiculous from that point on to the end…and it all works. Every stupid sex joke, and reference to unreal media influencers, a company called, brilliantly, “Honestly?”…it all works. Like the first season of beloved media franchises, the first few episodes have to be endured so the rest of the season can develop.

At the moment, Netflix has not greenlit this for a second season…I can’t really decide if that’s a good thing or not. As a short one-season goof, Q-Force is fun. As a longer show? I don’t know how it would hold up. But because it is so short, I can recommend you watch it if you can and just let it happen. Don’t take it too seriously, don’t look for lessons beyond “We’re Q-Force! Yay!” Which made for a fun evening’s binge watching.

Ratings:

Art – Not entirely bad, with some very good moments
Story – Gays are funny, homophobes are bad, and anyone can be evil or a hero
Characters – Stereotypes, but when they flesh out, they work
Service – Yes. There are a fair amount of sex jokes, mostly male and some nudity, mostly male, but yes, service. Not all of it played for laughs
Queer – 10

Overall – 7

It had a rough start, but it quickly grows into itself and has some fun on the way.

Props to Fortune Feimster as Desk. A great supporting role that she was perfect in. I’d like to see a short with her as lead. Maybe team her and Caryn up, writers!

*Who would ever complain about being assigned to West Hollywood? I don’t do gay scene things ever, and if someone paid me to live there, I’d suck it up. Sheesh.