Archive for the English Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You Premium Box Set, Disk 1 (English)

December 10th, 2019

Welp, I’m convinced. For once in my entire life, I feel completely justified in buying a premium box set Blu-Ray edition of anything. Sentai Filmworks’ Bloom Into You Premium Box Set was totally worth the money I paid for it.

Bloom Into You is based on the manga of the same name by Nakatani Nio, which is available in English from Seven Seas. The story follows first-year highschooler Koito Yuu as she becomes involved in Student Council activities and involved in an intense, and sometimes confusing, relationship with the Student Council President, Nanami Touko.

Yuu becomes interested in Touko initially over a perceived shared inability/unwillingness/lack of desire in regards to romance, but almost immediately Touko confesses that she has fallen in love with Yuu. How Yuu feels about Touko is the main part of the story, but by no means is it the only thing going on.  Council Vice President Sayaka has her own feelings about Touko to deal with.

You may remember I spoke to the fine folks at Sentai Filmworks at AnimeNYC 2019. We had a terrific conversation and while I was there, I bought this for myself as a present. When Bloom Into You anime streamed on HIDIVE last winter, I subscribed just to be able to watch it. And generally, I found it to be worth it, with a few small exceptions. Those exceptions became relevant once again…as they have, very unusually, been addressed.

It was inexplicable to me that the animation for the scene in which Touko confesses to Yuu be so seriously lacking. This moment, which comes early on, is one of two key scenes of the entire first disk. For it to have been so flat and lifeless was intolerable. Imagine my surprise then, when that scene was done beautifully for this disk. I was beginning to think I had imagined it, but an episode or two later, when Yuu reminisces about the moment, the flashback was not corrected and it was, as I had remembered, cheaply done. It was gratifying to see both the scene fixed and that my memory in this regard was not wrong. ^_^

The higher definition visuals also mean the backgrounds look breathtakingly detailed and if the character animation had not been improved it would have made them look just that much worse. There are still scenes that distinctly look like the B-Team did the art, sometimes, merely an angle or a part of a scene, and it can be a little bit disconcerting. But overall the art is much improved. So that all gets a big thumbs up from me.

The second change of note was the eyes. We spend a *lot* of time in hyper close-up in anime these days, which is really just a waste, since eyes are rarely animated that well. In this anime in particular I remember bitching about the eyes being so oddly drawn. That too has been corrected for the Blu-ray. We still spend way too much time staring at eyeballs, but at least they look better.

Disk 1 contains episodes 1-9 of this 13 episode series, in dub and sub. I have not yet watched the dub, but plan on doing so for Disk 2. Disk 1 contains the episode where Miyako tags Sayaka, she confides in the older woman and we get insight into the VP of the Student Council. I wanted to watch that in original, before I gave the American VA a chance. ^_^

But what really makes this set stand out are the physical extras.

To begin with, the box the set comes in is nice enough, although I have always felt that on their own collector’s boxes are not worth a jacked up price. What sets this set apart is that it has a pleasant assortment of physical extras. The physical extras include a booklet of storyboards for the OP and ED, an attractive booklet of key animation scenes, character references, interviews with staff and cast. It’s a book I actually want to read. Extras include some double-sided art cards, the script for the Student Council Play and Yuu’s older sister’s cheesecake recipe, which I will be making this year for my wife’s family Christmas get-together, in the interest of a complete review. I’ll let you know how it goes. ^_^ Both the recipe and the DVD come in an inner box with series art.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Visibly better when its better!
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3 especially towards the end as Touko is more aggressive physically
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

A really nice variety of physical extras, sub and dub of an anime series that improves upon the manga in a number of ways and a better visual experience over the streaming version, all of which justify putting this set on your wish list!





Sailor Moon SuperS Anime, Part 2 Disk 3 (English)

December 4th, 2019

In my review of Disk 2 for this series, I forgot to mention that apparently the Inners got tired of the color coding their clothes thing. I can see that getting pretty boring after a little while. Meanwhile,in Sailor Moon SuperS, Part 2, Disk 3, Nehelennia is finally getting serious and threatening Zirconia and the Amazoness Quartet while she threatens the White Moon. And the Inners get serious about doing something about the bad guys, instead of faffing about with the Lemures. Mamoru begins the inevitable process of becoming a burden to everyone.

The Inners and the Amazoness Quartet face off and we get to listed to “Sailor Team Theme” (Minna, Henshin yo Makeup!”) in the background, which makes that scene a little worth it. Sailor Moon is more concerned with the nature of her enemies and Chibi Moon with the nature of her ally than the problem at hand.  Helios arrives and explains what the Dead Moon are, and we all on board the necessity of saving Helios. And what a surprise, Chibi-Usa has the Golden Mirror!

While I was waiting for the conclusion of this arc, I thought about ways the Sailor Moon franchise could weather the gap between the 30th anniversary and the 40th. Of course, there will be a 35th anniversary something but 35 isn’t as powerful magic as anniversaries with 0s. What I came up with were a series of novels, each focusing on a pair of the Senshi. If they didn’t want to bother with wholly original content, they could just insert each within an existing season. Mercury-Mars in a story within Season 1, Jupiter-Venus in Season 2, Uranus-Neptune in Season 3, Chibi-Usa-Pluto-Saturn in Season 4 and Usagi-Mamoru in Season 5. Put one out every other year. I’d buy ’em. Heck, I’d write ’em.

In the meantime we have learned that Nehelennia was basically a creepy stalker without the ability to distinguish between “I want it” and “It is mine.” Of actual interest is the Amazoness Quartet’s decision to defect. Especially in light of the fact they unwittingly awoke Nehalennia.  Interestingly, while Beryl was sort of vaguely sympathetic (albeit a creepy stalker) and Ail and An were sort of vaguely sympathetic and Professor Tomoe was vaguely sympathetic….Nehelennia is an asshole. But she does give us an important – and relevant – tidbit, “Devouring other people’s dreams is the way to immortality.” Given what we know of history, she’s probably not wrong.

Mamoru gets a powerup and I’m reminded that I feel that the story treats both he and Chibi-Usa a little unfairly. Usagi has her guardians, but both Mamoru and Chibi-Usa encounter their guardians as enemies and only learn the truth when it’s too late. Would it have killed them to let the Generals and the Asteroid Senshi be part of the narrative? Something else again for our 21st century rewrite in which old family gets to stick around, the way they do in the Nanoha series (when the story is allowed to progress, and not just recycled..)

Kaiju Chibi-Usa brainwashing the children of the city, having them to chant “moon crisis power” is not the choice I might have made for a story that ostensibly is about people’s “beautiful dreams.” A giant looming Chibi-Usa is certainly not any dream I ever had.

The final battle is mostly a waiting game, while everyone talks.

Overall, this is still my least favorite season, but that gave me time to really appreciate the fine job Viz did on it.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 2 It gets even more unfocused at the end
Characters – 6
Service – There is some creepy shit in there, even aside from lolicon bondage and panty shots
Yuri – 0

Overall – 5

I have watched this season once again. I expect the next time I watch it it will be the 50th anniversary hologram release. Nothing less will entice me to watch this ever again, beyond the Super S Special episode with Haruka and Michiru.

 





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

December 3rd, 2019

In Sailor Moon SuperS, Part 2, Disk 2, we finish up the Inner Senshi’s power up episodes with a shared episode between Makoto and Minako. It’s a fine lover’s quarrel, with some bold fashion choices by Minako, who favors “space idol, Jetson style” and Jun-Jun, who goes in hard for “Pat Benatar Music video couture.” (And if you miss either one or both these references, even after Googling, then just ignore them. They aren’t worth the effort to explain. Just acknowledge the cultural or age gap and move on.)

We then turn our eyes to Chibi-Usa with our full attention.

Have I ever told you how much Araki Kae’s voice grates on me? Well, let me tell you. We were introduced to her as Chibi-Usa, and of course she is meant to be grating, as Usagi is meant to be shrill. This was back in the days when there were Video rental stores and one of our local stores had an extraordinarily decent anime section.* So we were renting nearly everything they had.** One of the anime was Fushigi Yugi, which they had in full, in both dub and some sub. The first volume we watched in dub, but Ruby Marlowe’s voice made us irritated, so we switched to the sub…only to find that Miaka was played by Araki Kae. Clearly Miaka was a whiny grating character and there was nowhere to turn. So, though it’s not her fault, Araki Kae’s voice rubs me raw.

Midway through this disk, I decided this would be an excellent time to listen to the dub. Since I didn’t care what was going to happen, plotwise, I could just put it on and see how it went. I don’t usually choose dubs when I watch home video, not at this point for any reason other than I’m a seiyuu otaku. I’ve got no problem watching them, I sometimes put on Cartoon Network or something and let the dub of a cartoon I don’t care about it run. In fact, I’ve only ever see episodes of Naruto in dub. Dubs are perfectly fine.

This dub was honestly excellent. It took me a while to get the hang of everyone’s voices, but by the last episode of the disk I was able to just appreciate their work. Amusingly I had left subtitles on, so I could see where dialogue was changed. In general the changes worked well and in one or two moments, I actually preferred the English script over the somewhat dated and – if we are to be honest –  sexist, dialogue.

And then, Stephanie Sheh blew me away. There was a scene, possibly all of the Inners and Mamoru, sitting around talking about Chibi-Usa maybe being in love and Sheh said something and I literally stopped what I was doing and stared at the TV. She wasn’t dubbing a cartoon…she was Usagi. At no point did I feel like I was watching a dub…I was just watching Usagi. That was amazing.

I’m actually looking forward to watching some of Stars in dub now. So kudos to the VAs, because that was some damn fine work.

Ratings:

Art – 7 It seems to have settled down again
Story – 3 I just don’t care about Chibi-Usa or Helios
Characters – 5
Service – Makoto and Minako 4ever
Yuri – 0

Overall – 5

 

*Those were halcyon days as the *two* video rental places in town actually competed to have better anime sections. Then the places outside my town joined in and soon, we could rent a massive amount of anime from the 5 closest rental stores.

**Except – and I remember this clearly – we could never bring ourselves to rent Ping-Pong Club, which looked abysmal, even compared with all the outright anime porn we watched. I mean, when the story looks shitty as compared with Demon City Shinjuku, it is not good.





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

December 2nd, 2019

Sailor Moon SuperS, Part 2, Disk 1 functionally ends my interest in this entire season, with an episode that is supposed to be about Hawk’s Eye seducing Makoto, but ends up being about Ami seducing Makoto and Makoto seducing Hawk’s Eye, which I am fairly certain was the actual intent of the episode. Bad lessons about waiting for someone aside, I have always loved the image of Makoto and Ami dancing.

(When this series is all over, I will draw up the *actual* relationship chart. The Stars pamphlet was not just wrong about Haruka and Michiru. ^_^)

The rest of the disk is given over to the literal humanizing of the Amazon Trio, who learn that they are anthropomorphized animals, but decide that they do have a dream after all…to become human. I find this completely unbelievable. What animal wants to be human? We can’t swim, or fly or run, we can’t smell, we’re feeble compared to animals. But whatever, they get their dream as they are removed from the story, leaving us to wonder can hawks, fish and tigers be genderqueer? This is not, probably, the actual intent of the episode.

We are then introduced to the second set of bad guys whose story is not appropriately told and who desperately need a 21st century rewrite. Not for their sexuality, but for their history which will be dumped over our head at the end of the arc, like Gatorade at the conclusion of a sportsing thing. The Amazoness Quartet are important! Why do they get such a shitty arc?!? Chibi-Usa is the point of this whole forsaken season, you’d think that these being her Senshi might get a fucking mention. But that is definitely not the actual intent of this season, more’s the pity.

Back to this disk. Ami’s power-up episode was so much-better drawn than anything else on the disc, someone really put time and money into her. Rei’s episode was over-colored, like they had fixed it post-broadcast. But in every way Viz had control of, the disk was as good as SuperS can be.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Weirdly inconsistent
Story – 2
Characters – 4
Service – Ami and Makoto dancing is my kind of service
LGBTQ – 4 for Ami and Makoto, 0 for the rest of the season

Overall – 5 This low score is no fault of Viz or the VAs or anyone, I just really dislike this season from here forwards.

I was sort of half-assedly live-tweeting me watching this on Twitter and people were actually following it for some reason. So I’ll probably keep doing that. But the part I want to tell you about was my dream.

I had a dream that I was going to some amusement park where there was going to be a Sailor Moon Store with everything that had ever been sold. When we got there, it was actually some guy’s collection, so we couldn’t buy any of it. BUT – and this is the important part – there was a set of white matte bisque china plates with each Senshi shown in silhouette, half of their face on the plate rendered in their color. No lines, just the color cutout of half their face on the plate. I can see them vividly and thought they were the most beautiful things. I want someone to make them so I can own them. Anyway, that was the dream.

I sat through probably a dozen “Rashiku Ikkimashou” playthroughs of the end credits Saturday and I still don’t hate it. I have no idea why.





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.