Archive for the English Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Fragtime (English)

November 19th, 2019

The two most-hated posts here on Okazu are, to-date, my reviews for Candy Boy and Mariaholic. In both cases, my reviews say something like, “sexual harassment and assault against women is gross and if you find it entertaining, you are a terrible person.”

I am prepared for today’s review to join those ranks because sexual assault as entertainment is gross and if you enjoy it, you are a terrible person.

Fragtime, animated by Tear Studio, directed by Takuya Satō, produced by Terada Yusuke, is based on a manga by Sato that ran on Akita Shoten’s Manga Cross website from 2013-2014. The OVA premiered in North America by Pony Canyon at AnimeNYC 2019, with guest Producer Terada and voice actress Ito Miku, who played lead Moritani Mizusu.

The Fragtime OVA has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and the manga has been licensed by Seven Seas.

Moritani Misuzu (played by Ito-san) is a high school student who has the ability to stop time for three minutes. She stops time in order to look at classmate Murakami Haruka’s (played by Miyamoto Yume) underwear, only to find that Murakami is not affected by the time stoppage. In response to learning that Moritani likes Murakami, Murakami agrees to go out with her…as long as Moritani does whatever she wants. By this, she means that Moritani will stop time only at her request.  As the film progresses, we learn that both girls have problems relating to people around them and, as they become closer, they work through those problems. Moritani gains confidence and stops running away from human contact, however, this causes her to lose her ability to stop time. But, as the end of the film approaches, it is clear that this is not a tragedy, and marks a new beginning for both Moritani and Murakami.

The overall plot of Fragtime is not bad, and both acting and animation are adequate. The overwhelming problem with Fragtime is the super-creepy male gaziness of it. (Learn about Male Gaze here and here.) Obsession with women’s underwear is centered as more important than the girls’ narratives. Moritani commits sexual assault because she “likes’ Murakami. Murakami is manipulative and exploitative, Moritani is manipulated and exploited. All of this – every last unhealthy, over-sexualized, underwear-obsessive thing in the story is presented to us as either an expression of “like” or as comedy. The sound of juicy male laughter as Moritani buys a pair of underwear just like Murakami’s made me so upset I stood and almost left.  And again, in response to Murakami threatening to break up after misunderstanding why Moritani stops time not by her command, (which Moritani had done to save a friend from mockery) Moritani does not tell her why she stopped time, but instead lifts up her skirt to show the matching underwear. As if that is, in any way, a meaningful act. Or something a woman might do. This time when there was laughter I came close to tears, as a woman’s humiliation is presented as a comedic beat.

The behavior of the lead characters makes no sense. Yes, they both have emotional issues, but nothing they do is sensible. Their behaviors do not fit their pathologies. Their behavior does fit the desire of men to endlessly stare up women’s skirts in the most grotesque way.

When the anime began, the crowd was slightly less big than for the Kase-san premier, occupying just over half the room. No one left at the first upskirt, as we mostly knew that that was inevitable. Apparently I was not the only one who hoped it would improve, because with every subsequent underwear scene, people got up and left. The audience was hovering around half-way filling the room when it ended.

Questions were…not good. It was clear that most people lined up to ask questions without a question in mind. When they got to the mic, it was apparent no real question had come to them. The translators struggled to make sense of the unformed ideas to which they were being subjected.

Most damning was the relative silence of the audience as they left the room. After Kase-san, there was a buzz of conversation as people stood around and talked about how good it was. After Fragtime, there was…nothing. People just left. Fragtime was especially disappointing as Pony Canyon attempted to sell this as another sweet love story, a worthy successor to Kase-san, when it is the opposite. Where Kase-san is a lovely female-gaze story about two nice kids, this is a creepy male gaze story about two broken kids.

Let me be clear – women do not upskirt other women as an expression of “like”. Every woman understands that it is a violation of her privacy and is a form of sexual assault. Women may upskirt themselves as a form of sex work. And, yes, abusive women act abusively. Moritani presumed Murakami could not consent and did it anyway. That is an assault. This was not cute, nor fun nor, gods help us, funny. It is not an expression of like. Almost every scene that involves the time-stoppage is a scene in which someone is humiliated, mostly (although not completely) without any consent.

Because I feel so strongly about the fact that Fragtime is not just an unpleasant depiction of two young women in love, but is actually objectionable, I am going to do something I have never done: No dissent will be tolerated. Do not attempt to defend upskirting or endless humiliating underwear shots (or otherwise whine that I was mean in this post.) Your input in that regard is not welcome. Should you feel that you can discuss Fragtime for other qualities (there were some brief decent moments) please feel free. Under no circumstances will I put up with any defense of upskirting. It is a repulsive act and ought to be subject to jail time.

To sum up, Fragtime is a really shitty premise wrapped around the dark kernel of a completely different story that the creator didn’t want to write.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 2
Characters – 4 but had they been treated with any respect they could have been better
Service – 10 all creepy service
Yuri – 6

Overall – 2 I was hoping it’d at least be a 5, but…nope.

There are two things that really upset me in this life. Exploitation of children and sexual harassment and assault of anyone. This series had both, but did not deal with either. It didn’t discuss anything important and presented the assault as comedy.

I am very sorry for Sentai and Seven Seas, but I cannot and will not endorse Fragtime, it will not go up on the Yuricon Store. It won’t affect their sales, but it I won’t be assisting anyone to buy it. I won’t be linking to it, or reviewing it further upon release.

Chika Anzai plays Kobayashi Yukari, the only other character with more than dialogue in passing and the Kase-san voice actresses have cameos. The best part of the entire premiere was the MC, whose name I missed, who was fabulous. When it came time for questions, she said of Ito-san, “No personal questions, please, I am her mother.” I think I’m the only one who laughed.





Sailor Moon SuperS Anime, Part 1, Disk 3 (English)

October 25th, 2019

Disk 1 gave us the SuperS Special, with it’s Yuri lovefest. Disk 2 turned a little dark, but was deeply queer.  With Sailor Moon SuperS, Part 1, Disk 3, we find ourselves deep into the middle of the 4th season of the original anime, with virtually no more information about the plot than we had in the first disk. Less, because this disk devolved into a a kind of pissing match between Hawk’s Eye and Tiger’s Eye about how many women they can seduce while Fish Eye seeks to seduce men, during which they occasionally remember they have a specific mission to discover Pegasus hiding in a human’s dream.

Because the mission has largely been forgotten, there are a number of things that draw our attention in this season which are problematic. Even setting aside Chibi-Usa’s crush on a talking horse, which reads more “fantasy” than creepy, and some of the earlier, quite creep lolicon, there is the frankly sexually violent way in which the Amazoness Trio immobilize their victims, rip people’s dream mirrors out of their chests, open them, thrust themselves in and out while digging around, as their victims scream. This violent act is horrific on it’s own, but that it keeps being conflated with seduction…I find myself at a loss for words.

This season adds shotacon to the pile of things to be made uncomfortable by, if you’re keeping a record, with Fisheye’s lame attempt as seduction/assault/mirror rape of a young boy and…Shingo and Ami. This is an equal-opportunity fetish series.

As I contemplated writing this review, I struggled with this disk. SuperS is my least favorite season for any number of reasons, the above paragraphs among them. I was considering skipping this disk in fact, as it seemed to me aggressively straight, until I began to really watch it, through the lens of my 21st century understanding. All three of the Amazon Trio are gender non-conforming and Fish Eye is, to my eye, trans. Minako’s “two-timing” episode is a poorly constructed episode that I would rewrite into her being poly and pansexual, except that of course, the Amazons are an alien enemy, not two genderfluid humans. ^_^;

I used to feel sympathetic to the Amazon Trio, but I’m not feeling it this time. I find myself actually looking forward to the theatrical release of the first Sailor Moon Eternal movie (functionally the 4th season of Sailor Moon Crystal) in which we blow through them to get to the Amazoness Quartet (whose story is sadly abbreviated in manga as well as anime and also needs a rewrite.)  The manga also has the much better powerup of the Inner Senshi than the one on this disk, which strips the agency from the Outers and gives it to Pegasus…which was just annoying.

Technically, this disk looks amazing and I only picked up the DVD, not feeling enough love for it to get the BD. While the art is retro as always, the quality of the reproduction and sound is absolutely stellar, as if it had been made for digital. Great job with the remaster and no over-saturation of the color needed. Extras on this disk are trailers only.

SuperS is never going to my favorite season, but my favorite episode of this season is coming up on the next disk, so that’s something to look forward to!

Ratings:

Art – 7 It’s noticeably improved on this disk
Story – 2 So much screaming
Characters – 4
Service – This disk adds shota to the pile.
LGBTQ – 6 For an aggressively heterosexual season, SuperS is really queer

Overall – 6

This disk leaves me with three questions:

1) Where does Mamoru get his money? He doesn’t work, goes to med school, lives in a huge apartment and has a European sports car in late 90’s Japan.

2) Do the Inners get tired of buying clothes in the same colors as their Senshi fuku? Because this season they are all-in on the matching color scheme.

3) What lessons is this season supposed to be teaching us? Because I don’t think those are the ones we’re learning. ^_^





Sailor Moon SuperS Anime, Part 1, Disk 2 (English)

August 12th, 2019

After the wonderfulness of the Sailor Moon Super S Special on Disk 1, is there really anything left worth talking about in this season? Apparently…yes. ^_^

Sailor Moon SuperS Anime, Part 1, Disk 2 continues what I personally find to be the most difficult season to watch – not only because it focuses so heavily on Chibi-Usa, but also because Usagi is positioned as exceptionally grating as a result of her jealousy of Chibi-Usa and Mamoru. Much more importantly, the rest of the Senshi are largely sidelined throughout this season, until their power-ups are needed.

Nonetheless, I think it’s worth mentioning the very queer character who steps front and center on this disk – Fisheye. All of the Amazon Trio are boys, Tigereye tells us explicitly. Fisheye appears to see themselves as female, certain as female presenting. Fisheye’s affection is for men. Fisheye might be  gender non-binary, gender-X, gay, trans, or some other identity, but that is not the point I wish to make. The point that is worth noting is that, 25 years ago,  yet another season of this cartoon gave queer folks a character they could claim as theirs.

I have been thinking about this a lot these days; about how critical it is for young people especially to see someone like, if not the same, as themselves. This is the heart of why I think Shimanami Tasogare is so important. In the story itself, the young protagonist is given a number of older role models who each contribute to his evolving understanding of himself and the people around him. Before Misora, before Shuu-chan from Wandering Son, there was Fisheye, a doomed character because they were on the side of evil (through no fault of their own,), but who provided an example of a way to live to young folks in the mid 90s in Japan. And how powerful a thing is that?

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 2 Usagi is not much better than Chibi-Usa, frankly
Characters – 4 I’m feeling for Fisheye
Service – More lolicon creepiness than I’m comfortable with, frankly.
LGBTQ – 5

Overall – 6

I am literally keeping a list of queerness in Sailor Moon. I expect to write up an article on it when I’ve finished reviewing the Viz edition, In the mean time, I find myself impressed all over again at how freaking queer this 25 year old kid’s anime was. ^_^





Kakegurui Season 2 Anime (English) Guest Review by Mariko S.

July 3rd, 2019

It’s Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu and today I a very pleased to once again welcome back Mariko S with another terrific review. I hope you’ll all setting for a treat and let Mariko wisk us away to a world of unhealthy obsession. Take it away Mariko!

You may recall that I previously gave a qualified enthusiastic review of this little “high stakes high school gambling addict” sports anime’s first season. Well, it seems its bombastic debut was popular enough to bankroll a second season, so what do Yumeko and the gang have in store for us this year?

To recap, in an elite private school where the children of Japan’s upper crust seemingly don’t study at all, but do spend all day gambling the GDP of small countries on increasingly elaborate contests, wildcard transfer student Jabami Yumeko arrived to shake up the status quo. She took down (and subsequently befriended) an escalating series of insurmountable opponents from the all-powerful Student Council in search of the pure essence of gambling and the chance to compete against the Yin to her Yang, President Momobami Kirari. Having miraculously won the right to stay in her gambling paradise, the season closed with a tease showing a hospitalized woman who looked like Yumeko folding paper cranes…

Kakegurui, Season 2 opens in media res on Yumeko gambling for some painful stakes with old frenemy Midari and a new goth loli girl. The next episode rewinds to tell us why: for some reason, Kirari has decided to step down from her position at the head of the school and offer it up to a school-wide election to be determined by – what else? Gambling. Since the position of Hyakkaou Gakuen student council president is apparently something akin to both Don of a mafia family and maybe head of a shadow government, the election has drawn the interest of a motley crew of teens from the other branches of the Momobami group, determined to take power for themselves. Every student in school is granted 1 chip, and whoever has the most chips at the end of the election period is the new president. May the games begin.

Let’s just get this out of the way – this season was a massive disappointment to me. We can start with its fatal case of “sequelitis.” Basically, the creators decided to repeat everything from the first season, but MORE. The absurd gambling games are even more far-fetched and less-related to anything resembling actual gambling. The grotesque faces that accented the escalating stakes last season, that were so unique and added such strong emotional visualization, are now omnipresent and ratcheted up to 10. Instead of the contests being a battle of wits and wills between Yumeko and a clearly defined opponent, the games this time are gimmicky and involve bloated groups of 3 or more gamblers. In fact, Yumeko regresses completely as a character this time out – you can barely call her the protagonist, as she functions almost entirely as a pure gambling id to catalyze the people around her. We learn nothing new about her, she does nothing to deepen her personality, and in fact in some of the episodes she is literally sidelined as the other characters work out their issues. She does and says things that directly counteract her previously demonstrated core values, and even the things she directly said moments ago. The first season supported Yumeko as both a force of nature and a complex person, and one who would show her gradually escalating excitement at the art and science of each gambling moment in lunatic ways. This time, she’s basically a service delivery device where the slightest hint of any opportunity to gamble making her come is her entire character.

Speaking of the visuals, they take a step back across the board. Gone is the surreal artistic masterpiece opening that Yamamoto Sayo put together for the first season, replaced by a workmanlike sequence that just displays the characters as cards, with lots of shots of Yumeko’s bouncing chest. The ending is basically the animators deciding to “yes, and” Yumeko’s rain walk from last season, as this time she turns into some kind of naked busty blue fairy surrounded by rainbows doing the same walk, just more cheaply animated. I lost count of the number of times someone’s chest was groped or faceplanted into. I already mentioned the overuse of the funhouse faces, but, at the same time, overall things felt more static and less inventive. The Momobami clan gives us a ton of unnecessary new characters, each with a distinctive visual design but little run-time to allow them anything but the shortest backstory and motivation. In fact, you could basically say this season was about healing the defeated opponents from last season more than anything else, as one-by-one the contest they take part in allows Yumeko to play Manic Pixie Dream Gambler and show them the heart, the courage, or the brain they always had inside them. And finally, the season ends on a complete “Huh?” Setting aside the resolution to the final gamble, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that the election isn’t even decided. Things just… end.

Can I say anything positive about this season? I guess one of the things that was interesting was how clear the show tried to make it that Kirari and Yumeko are two sides of the same coin. Kirari is a crazy sadist who sees the school as her personal aquarium and the students as the fish to be used, observed, experimented on, or discarded at whim. Yumeko also kind of sees people as a commodity, in her case, gambling fodder. She is kinder, yes, and almost accidentally more helpful, but is more of a masochist who likes the helpless feeling of chance. Her philosophy seems to boil down to, “if we have a good gamble, whatever happens was meant to be, so everyone should enjoy the outcome,” even if it’s utter devastation. Similarly, Kirari, though powerful, isn’t power-hungry – she just wants to be entertained as well. In her case that doesn’t always mean gambling, as long as she gets to watch someone squirm under her microscope.

On the Yuri front, this season is a step up, at least in quantity. Student Council secretary Sayaka, who is infatuated with Kirari, is given her own episode replete with lily imagery and, I suppose, as happy an ending as could be possible for someone in love with a misanthropic sadist. Midari is around for several episodes, displaying her usual over-the-top lust for stimulation by an alpha dog like Yumeko or Kirari. And one of the new characters, Batsubami Rei, though a kind of butler to the rest of the -bami tribe, is given a tall, handsome, princely aesthetic that charms the many girls around the school that she interacts with. However, the resolution to her story is, in my opinion, problematic. (Can’t say more without spoilers.)

Bottom line, if you liked the first season mainly for the kooky gambling antics, you’ll find more of that here to enjoy. If you were hoping to learn more about Yumeko’s past and see a character drama of ratcheting intensity, or even a magnetic attraction between two the-same-yet-opposite supernovas, you’ll be disappointed. Here’s hoping that if they gamble on season 3, Kakegurui can roll a 7 next time.

Ratings:

Art – 5 A dramatic decrease in quality from last season.
Story – 4 The election framing device was decent enough, but there was not much beyond it except at a superficial individual level.
Characters – 4 The gutting of Yumeko, the glut of little-more-than-sketches new characters, and the near omnipresence of the animal-hoodied loli and her minions as the “election monitors” send this one plummeting.
Yuri – 5 As described above.
Service – 10 Still a 10, but a different sort of 10 this time around. I didn’t care for it.

Overall – 4

Technical Note: Netflix continues to struggle with translations, but one of its mistakes is pretty funny on a meta level. Irrelevant-self-insert-male-narrator Suzui Ryouta’s name is sometimes miswritten as “Suzuki,” which is perfect for his interchangeable blandness.

Erica here: “as happy an ending as could be possible for someone in love with a misanthropic sadist.” is such a great line, I wanted to cut and paste it just to enjoy it all over again. I watched all of Season 1 and wished I had liked it more than I did. I’m sorry for you this wasn’t as solid but am regardless very happy you stopped by to let us know! Since I watched that first season, Netflix suggests this to me constantly – and you know how their ads autostart.. Watching a popular baking show?  Try Kakegurui.

Oh, you like My Little Pony? HAVE YOU LOOKED AT KAKEGURUI? 

Hey, we see you watched these murder mystery shows…. MAYBE SOME KAKEGURUI NOW?

Look, you watched Into the Spiderverse…

 

It’s actually pretty funny, unless I have guests over. ^_^;





Sailor Moon SuperS Anime, Part 1, Disk 1 (English)

April 15th, 2019

It’s been a long time since I watched Sailor Moon Super S the very first time and I am not at all surprised to find that I consider it as unwatchable and excruciating as I felt the first time! It’s got just about everything I don’t like all crammed into a very thin plot (Chibi-Usa, Pegasus, creepy Amazon Trio ripping women’s dreams from their chest while they beg them not to….shudder…) , and while I – like all good fans – have rewritten and retconned it in my own head to be a valuable piece of the mythology, in reality it’s really pretty eh, unless you genuinely enjoy Chibi-Usa and Usagi screaming at each other for a lot of episodes.

That said, there are actually a couple of really interesting plot needles among the rest of the plot hay. So, I’m basically ignoring the story of SuperS for all of those.  You know the rule – it’s 25 years old, there can be no spoilers.

The first interesting plot element is that the Amazon Trio are all male (do not try to make sense of the name, therefore) but Fish Eye is the second gay male character who crossdresses in the series.  With all the women who pass as men in the spotlight of ‘S’ and “Stars”, its sometimes easy to forget Zoisite and Fish Eye who provide the queer quotient in the first season and “SuperS.”

The animation suffered significantly for this season. Remastering could only work so far when the original just wasn’t that great to begin with. The sound quality was surprisingly good, but as the music was mostly on automatic, it adds little to the overall experience. Even the end theme “Baby Baby Love” is not one of the strongest in the pantheon of Sailor Moon music. Especially when you consider the end theme of Stars, which is weep-messy-tears worthy.

I hope you will forgive me for otherwise ignoring much of what happens in this season. I would probably not even be reviewing it but for the most amazing thing being included on Disk 1. The Sailor Moon SuperS Special consists of 2 short stories both of which are basically the only reason this whole season has for existing. This is the first official release of this special in English and you must run out and watch this immediately if not sooner.

Part 1 of the SuperS Special follows Haruka and Michiru as they encounter the Dead Moon Circus at a resort hotel. Haruka is sick in bed and flirting with the maid who is taking care of her, forcing Sailor Neptune to fight the Dead Moon Circus alone.  The punchline of this episode is Michiru’s line – which is the one of the three best lines in all of Sailor Moon – “There seems to be a misunderstanding. It’s not worth saving a world without Haruka.”

Part 2 is the only Chibi-Usa story I can tolerate and is one of the chapters from “Chibi-Usa’s Picture Diary” from the manga.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 2 Ask me how much I care about Chibi-Usa and Helios. Have a seat. It’s gonna take a while.
Characters – 3 Hawk’s Eye and Tiger’s Eye did not age well as character designs or concepts, but we’ll get more Inners, later.
Service – More BDSM creepiness than I’m comfortable with, frankly.
Yuri – 10 A whole episode of Michiru and Haruka being so very, very gay.

Overall – 9 for the Special, 6 for the rest of the season

The SuperS Special and the SuperS movie are good. The rest of the season can go hang. ^_^