Archive for the English Anime Category


If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die

April 2nd, 2020

And so, If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, streaming on Funimation, has wrapped up and I thought I ought to share a few thoughts about it.

This story, of the life of an idol group fan; a fan of the least popular girl in a small, not well-known, provincial idol group was, in turns frustrating and hopeful. The anime had the advantage of being short, and extremely well-voiced. So folks who watch the anime were able to skip some of the more prolonged agony of the manga. I’m pleased for you. ^_^

I’ve written in my manga reviews about how miserable this series has made me feel about the exploitation of the idol industry on all sides. I always felt that the idols were exploited, but I never understood how exploited the fans were, as well. I find it hard to enjoy any real -life group, when I read about the sentimentality porn of “graduations” and the endless number of young women and men leaving for health reasons. There’s no other conclusion to draw but that the entire industry is a “family friendly”  form of human trafficking. And this series made me question it even further, when it uncovers the kind of obsessive indentured servitude fans are presupposed to engage in.

Surely I *cannot* be the only one in the world who thinks not being allowed to like (or let your fave know you like) more than one person or group is bat shit crazy? Fans, like whomever the fuck you want! Your oshi does not own you! You do not own them! This is not a life, it isn’t even a virtual life…it’s a job and fans are paying for the pleasure of working. That’s not healthy. The whole thing is a shared delusion and no one but their production companies win.

And, so, most of you will have watched this series with hearts in your eyes, hoping that Eri will finally be able to communicate with Maina, and that Maki and Yumeri will be happy together. I can’t tell you if they will, only that 6 volumes into this series, they haven’t yet… As the entire series is about lives in suspended animation, that seems fitting.

At least the anime left us with hope, with tears, with gambaru, and with teamwork. Because that’s what it is (supposed to be ) all about, right? We’ll keep trying hard and someday…!!!

And so we’ll keep following our faves and hoping that they make it to the Budokan. Rawr!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Shockingly positive 7
Character – Likeable 8
Yuri – 10 and 0 as only Hirao-sensei can manage it.
Service – Overall, 5 tiresome more than offensive

Overall – I still don’t know, really. If I watched the anime with no knowledge of the manga, 7, 8, maybe?

Ai Farouz deserves a fucking trophy for her portrayal of Eripyo. She was the reason I kept watching.





Cocoon Entwined, Volume 2

March 11th, 2020

Yuriko Hara’s Yuri manga Cocoon Entwined, Volume 2, continues a story of unspoken longing and deep emotion at a girl’s school. And hair.

When I reviewed Volume 2 in Japanese, I said, “To be honest, I did not think that hair could play more of a role than it did [in Volume 1].

I was wrong.”

And indeed I was wrong, as it is the hair itself that provides us the opening narrative.

From there we move on to meet a fourth piece on this complicated chessboard, Kujou, who is the White queen to Hoshimiya’s Black Queen. We now find ourselves looking back and forth at these two, wondering if the game they are caught up in has any meaning for the school, the girls who go there, or us.

What is relevant for me is what will happen between Saeki and Yokozawa. Will Yokozawa be able to disentangle the school prince from whatever binds her and Hoshimiya? I kind of hope so.

Kudos to Yen Press’s production folks for making the grey type visible on the black background. So much better than the JP volume, where it was close to unreadably dark.
 
Ratings:

Art – Hair
Characters – Yokozawa is a 10
Story – Hair
Service – Absolutely still hair
Yuri – 7, a love triangle, a chess game and hair

Overall – 8

I really wanted to just post this as the whole review.

 





LGBTQ Anime: Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 1, Disk 3 (English)

February 26th, 2020

If Sailor Moon Stars did nothing else in the way of being extremely gay, it could easily ride on it’s reputation as an extremely gay anime for the rest of the series. But…it doesn’t. Because in Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 1, Disk 3, Haruka and Michiru show up, are extremely gay, and then Aluminum Siren and Lead Crow show up and are also extremely gay.

In regards to this disk I have some good news and some bad news.

Let us begin with the beginning. Sailor Moon learns from Setsuna, Haruka and Michiru that the enemy is definitely from outside the Solar System and that both Chibi-Chibi and the Starlights might, possibly, be bad. We definitely cannot trust them, for sure. This despite the fact that we definitely seem to be able to trust the Starlights to not throw us at the enemy as a distraction. And we finally learn of Sailor Galaxia.

The first and most persistent of the several not-good things in this part of the story is that exactly zero new ideas appear in this series. The Starlights take over for the Outers in Stars with “we are not allies, despite all evidence to the contrary” and “they cannot be trusted”– exceptionally ironic coming from the Outers who, you may remember 2 whole years earlier were in the exact same position. Chibi-chibi is given the exact same cover story as Chibi-Usa. If we were rational beings, about now, we’d doubt the writer’s abilities. But no, we too have been besotted and smile and nod like this isn’t the laziest writing in the known universe.

Worse – and worst, IMHO – is the aggressive ball of toxic masculinity passed off as perfectly normal. Seiya and Haruka are ridiculous at each other. Seriously if they were real people saying this shit, we’d be like, “dudes, you have some issues.” And Michiru has developed a deeply not-real-world okay tic of shooting Haruka down in public. Passive-aggressive much Michiru? I will handwave Michiru’s behavior toward Seiya, pretending that she also sensed something and wanted to be sure, or something…but “or something” was what I said a lot during this bit. Worst, when Usagi went to help a hurt child she made him feel insecure about his pain and told him that boys don’t cry. That…actually really annoyed me. What a hypocritical thing for her, of all people, to say.

On the positive side, Haruka and Michiru, having come completely out of any small closet they were in are gaying around town. You know they are. They say really suggestive stuff right in front of us, so only the most aggressively clueless among us can still pretend they are not gay, by covering their eyes and ears when they are on the screen. This is so classic “we are out of the closet, dammit” behavior, I actually find it a bit cute. ^_^

And then the surprisingly adult pair of Aluminum Siren and Lead Crow show up and again, you’d have to be ignoring every single thing about them to not see how much of a partnership they are. Next disk, they will prove me correct.

The art on this disk is not particularly good, but there is no inconsiderable effort to show Ami, Rei, Makoto and Minako as visibly more grown up than they were in previous seasons. I appreciate those touches.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 7 Much less bad than I anticipated
Characters –  7
Queer – 9
Service – 5 The Inners have racks, too. When we seem them shirtless, the Three Lights don’t have a six-pack. They deserve six-packs.

Overall – 7

Overall, this disk isn’t nearly as bad as I remember, and I find myself not-disliking the Starlights as much as expected to. I’ll even grant that Seiya might even be good with Usagi, if it weren’t for Mamoru. It’s hard to not be angry at Mamoru for making Usagi sad, but as he’s dead, I’ll give him a pass.





LGBTQ Anime: Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 1, Disk 2 (English)

January 29th, 2020

Welcome! Have a seat, grab yourself a drink, get comfy, because today – at long last – we will be talking about the Three Lights/ Starlight Senshi. ^_^

In Sailor Moon Stars Part 1, Disk 2, Usagi must say goodbye to Mamoru, who heads to America to study. Unbeknownst to Usagi he is immediately disappeared and will not return to the story, except as a maudlin little plot device.

We turn away from that tragic loss which will never be fully processed, to a new set of complications. A popular idol group, the Three Lights, has transferred into the high school attended by the Senshi. Once again, I note that had there been an actual adult among the children, very little of the conflicts that pass for plot would have worked. Someone – ideally Ami – might have noted that the popular idols and the Sailor Starlights popped up at the same time and hey…hrm. But…no. So the Inner Senshi find their time occupied with fighting a new enemy, the Animamates, to restore people’s Star Seeds, and confronting yet another new set of Senshi(?) Also ideally, the Outers ought to have noticed. I love them unconditionally, but for people’s who sole mission it is to protect the Solar System from invasion from outside, they suck. ^_^

None of that is important, though, because we, the audience have done this before. WE know that the Starlights are not the enemy, everyone will die and we will save the world. And we’re being distracted by the fact that the boy idol group Three Lights, when they transform, are girls. The animation takes great pains to highlight the secondary sexual characteristics as Senshi (e.g., breasts) and in at least one episode we are treated to a detailed cut of Seiya’s masculine 6-pack. In any case, we are to understand that the Three Lights are male.  Much has been written about Takeuchi’s surprise about learning the direction the anime took the Lights. In the manga they are, like Haruka, women who wear men’s clothing and their Senshi form is their true form.  In the anime, the Starlights are women who transform into male form as their disguise on this planet. This has spawned generations of fandom among sexual and gender minorities, every one of whom has a valid personal relationship to the narrative.

I’ve been honest about this – my wife and I have never liked the Starlights. Her because Seiya harasses Usagi, me because Seiya will not take not for an answer, Taiki is nasty to Ami and Yaten is a jerk generally, but especially to Minako. It does not matter to me that Ami changes Taiki’s mind, and Minako Yaten’s, there was no need for them to be asses. We were not children when we saw this the first time and did not need what the Starlights offered. It has been 20 years and my opinion of them is different. I still don’t like them, but I can give them more space to be children and make terrible decisions.

Still, in order to do so, let me let you in to *my* headcanon regarding the Starlights. First, the premise is that The Three Lights are merely a disguise and are not specifically important to their story at all. As it was in the manga. They are, as the Inner Senshi are, young. They are in a sense child soldiers, as the Inner Senshi are, but they lack a Moon Princess, whose sole ability is to love everything so much that it becomes whole. If Kakyuu could kiss a thing and make it better, they wouldn’t need Usagi.

In my 21st century rewrite, I think that the Starlight’s native planet doesn’t have genders the way humans do, hence the apparent switching, which is probably totally normal for them. To me, Seiya would trend more masculine, Taiki more feminine and Yaten would tell us to fuck off generally and specifically about all of this, gender, idols, school, all of it. So I unofficially declare Seiya trans masc, Taiki trans fem, and Yaten is the agender Senshi we all need. That’s how they read to me. In no way does this invalidate your take. ^_^

Now we’re sorted to watch the next 4 disks worth of Sailor Moon Stars.

Ratings:

Art – 4 A little better than the opening arc, but those head – body proportions ouch.
Story – The Inners come off strong so, 6
Characters –  I find the Starlights to be a 5 at this point
Queer – 9
Service – 5 Yes, the Starlights have racks.

Overall – 7

I’m here clutching my aspirin until Siren and Crow.

 





Yuri Anime: If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die (English)

January 26th, 2020

Dear Everyone Watching If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die (streaming on Funimation.com),

You have not had to sit through a Hirao Auri series before, so you have hope that what you are seeing in If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, will resolve in some fashion.

Let me assure you that there is no hope. 

***

Eripyo is the only fan of a minor member of an “underground” pop idol group. While the management is clearly pushing the “top three,”  ChamJam member Maina is always in the background. But Eripyo is determined to contribute to Maina’s success…and would totally tell her, if everything in the world didn’t conspire to keep them apart.

I’m not trying to be a downer. I have been following this creator for about a decade, beginning with Manga no Tsukurikata, a “Yuri manga” with little to no Yuri. I have been following this manga series, Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu, since it debuted in 2016. I recommend you read my reviews, because they detail exactly why this series is not a comedy, it is a tragedy, dressed in a clown nose and funny wig. This story is a brutal look at the pop idol industry from the point of view of the fans who are willingly manipulated by it. It’s harsh. It’s hopeless. And yet, because Eripyo and Maina could love one another, if they could ever manage to speak to one another, it strings you along, like Eripyo herself, with unfounded, idealistic hope.

Yuri is complicated in this series. Eripyo is clearly besotted, and she and Maina might, in some other reality, be able to fall for one another. In some ways, the more interesting relationship is hinted at between Maki and Yumeri (although I thought it was Yumeri and Yuka in the manga. Maki is one of the few characters I can actually recognize in the manga, where everyone’s hair looks similar.) In any case, Yumeri is the queer girl in the mix. Since Maina’s story is not within the group itself, it isn’t really something they discuss. There’s the group’s collective internal life, which has it’s own drama, and Maina’s little issue, which is droll and unrelated.)

The animation here is not terrible. I was super pleased that ChamJam got an actual song to sing for the first episode and the animated dancing looked pretty much like the kind of minimal choreography one might actually expect from a group like this. The voice acting is very decent, Ai Faoruz is doing a genuinely fantastic job as Eripyo.  In fact, all the voices are spot on. It’s just that I have no hope that there can be a happy ending. Certainly not for the anime, as the manga is ongoing. If you’re really enjoying it, hang on, because one of the next few episodes is breathtakingly horrible and once past that, it settles down into an low-level existential dread-filled hope/disappointment cycle. This is a direct quote from my review of Volume 5: “Their eyes meet, they have a conversation, no plants fall and Eri doesn’t end up injured. They are practically married.”

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – I don’t know what to say
Character – 8
Yuri – 10 and 0 as only Hirao-sensei can manage it.
Service – Because animators can’t just not.

Overall – I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Just leave me alone and let me sulk.

Watching this series is even worse for my blood pressure than reading it. I’ve had to stop joking about strangling the author in a comedic fashion, because it’s no longer funny.