Well, we have one more for Reali…../screeching noise of needle being pulled over a record surface/

No, no. There is nothing real in today’s review. Quite possibly my opinion is an unreal as everything else here. ^_^  The Vexations Of A Shut-In Vampire Princess, streaming on HIDIVE is the last of this season’s Yuri offerings and as offerings go, it’s pretty pale and thin in comparison to some of our other choices.

A weak vampire is not much of a threat
Until her army is much in her debt
When she throws down the glove
Her maid who’s in love
Takes on enemies and friends and et. cetera.

Terakomari Gandesblood is not a great vampire. Small, weak, unable to stand blood, she’s been a shut-in for the last three years. But circumstances drive her to ascend to the generalship of an army, which she runs with the assistance of her pervy, obsessed maid, Villhaze. As a series from a Gangan magazine, I had little to no hope that it would be good, but that I might find something to talk about. In both cases, I was correct.  ^_^

The plot is a very violent one and that, at least, I approve of. Vampires that are not appalling violence machines bore me. (Well, all vampires bore me, honestly.) But the violence here is impermanent, wars are pointless and death is played for a gag most times.  And then in episode 3, a plot complication arrives that completely killed my interest in the story, but it might be to your taste. 

We learn that Terakomari became a recluse because of bullying at school. When her bully returns, she is clearly entirely, sadistically psychotic and gloating, as she kidnaps and tortures Villhaze to manipulate Terakomari into fighting her. This one sentence contains all four things I despise most in story-telling, so I am highly likely to nope out of this series shortly.

Episode 3 also gives us the clearest glimpse that Villhaze’s perverted obsession with Terakomari is actually rooted in genuine admiration and love, and so is another example of exactly the kind of problematic behavior Rae engages in in I’m In Love With The Villainess for the exact reason she states that she does it. Villhaze has no hope that her love will be returned and so over-acts her affection as a creep, in order to make it a joke. For many queer viewers that kind of “joke” is well more than tired and trite. And loads of people have commented that Rae’s behavior makes them uncomfortable. So to see that same exact thing presented here as the “comedy” in an otherwise fairly horrifically violent series is…well, it’s not fun for me, at any rate.

I do like the OP of Terakomari dreaming she’s a pop idol, though. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Murgh
Story – Dumb Ways to Die
Characters – The animals are far more likeable than the humanoids
Service – Yes, absolutely, constantly staring at Komari’s legs from below and between is extremely weird and creepy
Yuri – You have to ignore everything else about Villhaze to think her love for Terakomari is sweet

Overall – 4

Thankfully there are a number of other wonderful Yuri anime for us to enjoy this season and Whisper Me A Love Song coming our way in the new year. My hatsumode wish will definitely be “May we never to have to suffer the indignities of “funny” same-sex harassment in anime ever again.”

So today we’re finishing up ‘Reality in Anime’ week with a decidedly unreal anime. ^_^

Umika is a high school student with severe social anxiety -so severe that she feels completely alienated from her fellow humans. She’s unable to respond even when a classmate is kind to her and bids her a good morning. Umika avoids most of her classmates, and their banal concerns, spending her time wishing she could meet an alien, for surely she would be able to talk to one!

When classmate Akeuchi Yuu declares herself an alien – and announces that she can read Umika’s mind when their foreheads touch – Umika’s life begins to change. Last spring I found time to read the first volume of Hoshikuzu Telepath manga ahead of this season’s anime…and I found some things that surprised me.

So now that the anime has premiered, what do I think of Stardust Telepath, streaming on Crunchyroll?

Well, to begin with I should note that, as Sean Gaffney so cogently put it, I don’t Kirara as well as I used to. I have a harder time with extremely high-pitched voices, and while I have found value in watching cute girls doing things cutely, series centered around people with severe social anxiety make me very anxious. But I also knew that the story wasn’t going to stay centered on Umika’s anxiety. So I cleared my slate and began to watch. As I predicted, Episode 1 was a little rough going, but by the end of Episode 2, as the story shifted away from how crippled by social anxiety Umika was, to the ways people around were making her feel included… my own anxiety about her anxiety lessened.

Additionally, in conversation on the Okazu Discord, at least one person felt that Umika’s character read autism-coded to them, especially in her interactions with the teacher, who treats her like she’s lazy or unmotivated when that’s not the issue at all. I also resonated with Umika’s desire to find a solution to her loneliness outside human society, although my particular forms of escapism in adolescence never included me wanting to be in those worlds, they were nonetheless critical to my surviving my teens. ^_^

So, at first we are presented with Umika, who is having a very hard functioning in the society of school. When Yuu arrives and is everything that Umika is not, it could have been a devastating blow to Umika, but instead Yuu reaches past Umika’s inability to communicate and makes it easy for her to get her ideas across. This theme is an important one, as new personalities are introduced in future chapters. Whe class president Takagi Haruno uses friendship with Yuu to be able to create a friendship with Umika, we can see the power of making a place for people to be themselves. None of the three girls have to be something they are not, but all of them can still be friends.

It very much seems that the direction the anime is taking is “amateur rocketry is fun!” which is a terrific focus for this series. Since I have not yet read the rest of the manga, one hopes that her interest in rockets will actually one catapult Umika to the stars in the form of JAXA, the Japanese space agency. But even without that focus, this story is off to a good start, despite a very difficult premise for a launchpad.

The animation is utterly not to my taste, although the OP is quite lovely. Still I have hope that we’ll get some shots of rockets reaching new heights.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – Begins at a 5, hits 7 by Ep. 2 and has potential for more
Characters – I’m not even sure what I think of them yet, let’s say 7
Service –  3 Not as such, but skirt/legs/beutt shots and pan-ups do get on my nerves
Yuri – 1 as of now. This series is always on Yuri lists, so I’ll trust

Overall – 7 seems like a good place to start

I have hope that this story will be about making friends with neurodivergent classmates and building hope along with rockets.

Welcome to Reality Anime Week. First, we’re taking a look at Kibou no Chikara ~ Otona PreCure ’23 ~ (キボウノチカラ～オトナプリキュア’23～ ), streaming on Crunchyroll as Power of Hope ~Precure Full Bloom~, a shockingly depressing look at post-magical girl life. I’m not kidding either, although we can see where this is likely to lead and the title is the Power of Hope, not the Power of Hopelessness, so I think we’ll be okay…eventually. ^_^

As we open, we see that Nozomi, the former Cure Dream from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, (two seasons I have not watched for reasons I will discuss) is an adult and has become a teacher. These two season are among those that Crunchyroll does not (yet) have streaming, but I hope that if this season is popular, they might consider getting them. Nozomi and Rin (Cure Rouge) meet up to get drinks and bitch about work which, for both of them has been brutally depressing. By apparent chance they encounter the remaining team members, Urara, Komachi, Karen and Kurumi. Each of them is struggling in their “dream” career. It also comes to light that none of them can transform any more, as their devices have just disappeared.

Of course we need them more than ever and, when shadows attack townspeople, Nozomi struggles to protect students. In the nick of time, she transforms, but she finds time unwinding and she returns to the teenager she was in order to become Cure Dream to the disappointment of folks on the Okazu Discord.

So, let’s look at the reality of the adult world. In every case, the former Cure finds that they are expected to be able to do things without support, or with outright antagonism from the systems they work within. When they get together, they end up drinking as a form of anesthesia, a way to speak their minds and a way to blow off the frustration of their “dream” jobs being less a dream and more a nightmare. While surely this speaks directly to an audience of former PreCure fans now dealing with those same flawed systems, what does it say about us as adults? The only way we have to cope is excessive alcohol? Yikes, there’s a message I hope the kids aren’t hearing. ^_^;

But, given the setup, we’re definitely going to have to see the adults in the room become children once more in order to find their power…and in that I see possibility. Because it is not all that hopeful to imagine we must once again be young to have the power of hope. What I’m hoping (argh) to see is that in finding themselves once again, and their dreams, the Cures find power as their adult selves. Otherwise, ugh, that really would be depressing. “Adults are actually pretty useless and drown themselves in anesthesia so they don’t go mad over the banality of their lives!” … just doesn’t seem like a PreCure message. ^_^ Especially as folks are happy about the return of the Yes! and Splash Star team members who will populate this story.  And let’s not forget the fairies.

I mentioned that I had never watched Yes! Pretty Cure 5 and Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo!, despite being assured that they were pretty Yuri as PreCure series went. This is not entirely true – I did try to watch them both, but found the fairies absolutely intolerable. Episode 2 of Kibou no Chikara reintroduced the fairies with their original voices and instantly, I felt they were absolutely intolerable. ^_^ So this series is going to be a trial for me no matter how it goes. I don’t think I disliked any other series’ fairies as much as I disliked this crop.  Oh PLEASE give me an adult version of Heartcatch, pretty please?

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 5, but it had to start somewhere
Characters  –  I’m punting on this, as I don’t know them well enough yet, I’m hoping Kurumi kicks the CEO’s ass
Service – I’m punting on this one too, for reasons
Yuri –  Other than Mint x Aqua doujinshi, I’m not holding my breath

Overall – 6 so far, we’ll see where it takes us.

“The Power of Hope” is a pretty big tease for a series that has begun knee-deep in powerless and hopelessness. I’m very much keeping my  Cure Mo ready for an adult power up to adult PreCure lives.