Archive for the English Anime Category


Anne Shirley, Streaming on Crunchyroll

April 30th, 2025

In a large field of flowers, two girls make flower crowns. A girl in a green dress and dark hair places a crown of flowers on the head of a red-haired girl in a white jumper dress over a dark read blouse who clutches a flower crown in here hands.Guest Review by Burkely Hermann

Burkely Hermann is a writer, researcher, and former metadata librarian. His reviews can be read on Pop Culture Maniacs or his personal WordPress blog. He can be followed on Instagram, Bluesky, or on Mastadon communities such as library.love, glammr.us, genealysis.social, and historians.social.

Anne Shirley is an eleven-year-old orphan girl who has a troubled childhood and comes to live with her cousins (the Cuthberts) in a house named Green Gables on Prince Edward Island in Canada. While Anne’s cousins were expecting a boy instead of a girl, Matthew quickly warms up to her, taken in by her active imagination. However, Marilla wants to replace her with a boy, at first, but later comes to like Anne. Even so, she attempts to be strict and firm with her, in an attempt to tame Anne’s impulses and occasionally stubborn nature, which are seen as socially unacceptable, like wearing a flower crown to church. Through it all, Anne becomes used to her new life, farmwork at Green Gables, family-of-sorts, and friends, even though she has many insecurities and loses her temper when people make fun of her. Anne Shirley is the newest anime adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic 1908 book Anne of Green Gables. The last time this story had an anime adaptation was in the late 1970s.
The series artistry is colorful and vibrant, thanks to Answer Studio and character designer Kenichi Tsuchiya. He previously worked as the key animator on 37 out of 39 of episodes of the classic yuri anime Dear Brother. Anne Shirley has a nice, charming, and beautiful feel to it. This is complimented by Michiru Ōshima’s wonderful music composition, which sets the mood for series, especially when it comes to Anne, which the series centers around. Ōshima previously composed the music score for Bloom Into You. Series writer Natsuko Takahashi also screenwrote for two series with yuri themes: Blue Drop and Stardust Telepath. Furthermore, some of the series cast have lent their talents to voice characters in Kannazuki no Miko, Fragtime, Blue Drop, Akebi’s Sailor Uniform, and other media with yuri(ish) themes. For instance, Yume Miyamoto, who voices Diana Berry in this series, voiced Rouge Redstar in Metallic Rouge last year. Otherwise, voice acting is one of the strong suits of Anne Shirley.
Vrai Kaiser for Anime Feminist has said that viewers can see traces of protagonist Anne in the “evolution of shoujo and yuri” and stated that Anne’s friendship with Diana fits into the “tradition of Class S” that Yoshiya Nobuka pioneered beginning in the early 20th century. Some years ago, on this very site, it was noted that the scenes, in the original novel, in which Anne and Diana take friendship vows “could be as romantic as anyone could wish.” Otherwise, many years ago, scholar Laura Robinson quibbed that Anne, during the aforementioned novel, “consistently establishes intense relationships with women” and manages, while achieving community social acceptance, to disturb complacent attitudes on everything, including sexuality.
The second episode of Anne Shirley is where the yuri-ish content of the series begins. Anne meets Diana for the first time and they agree to be “very best friend[s].” They solemnly swear to be faithful bosom friends, i.e. very close, cherished, or intimate companions, “as long as the sun and moon may endure,” while holding hands. There’s a certain romantic aura to it, which reminded immediately of the beautiful scene between two protagonists in RWBY‘s most recent volume. Otherwise, Anne gushes about Diana to Marilla, and signals to Diana in Morse code before going to sleep, again showing their connection.
In the episode thereafter, Diana’s painting (that she gifted to Anne) is hung in Anne’s room. Later, at the Sunday school picnic, Diana calls Anne her “dearest friend” and places a flower crown upon her head. For two days in a row, Anne walks to school with Diana and the other neighborhood girls, and all of them have fun together. Diana makes clear her worries about Anne after she hits Gilbert Blythe, a playboy adored by fellow schoolgirls, over the head with her school slate after he makes fun of her red hair. Not long after Anne tells Diana she would do almost anything for her before leaving school. In that same episode, the series opening sequence is shown for the first time. Among many other moments, it features Anne and Diana dancing together, and enjoying one another’s company, leaning against a fence, when both are older, with Diana holding a flower crown in her hands.
The most recent episode had some of the strongest yuri-ish moments, if they can be called that, in Anne Shirley as a whole. Anne expresses her worry that Diana will leave her when she gets married to a man. When it is threatened (by Diana’s mother) that they will never see each other again after Anne accidentally gets Diana drunk, they promise to one another in a manner that makes them sound like lovers. At one point, Diana says “I couldn’t love anybody as [much] I love you” and declares that she will always love Anne devotingly. Anne acknowledges and reciprocates Diana’s love. Following this, she kisses her on the forehead and cuts off a lock of her hair (with Diana’s consent), and promises to remain faithful to her. As they part, tears are shed, especially by Diana. Their separation is short-lived. Anne and Diana writes letters to one another, which fellow students pass to them in the one-room schoolhouse, either declaring that they love each other or will be together until “death do us part.”
Unsurprisingly, Anne and Diana are allowed to be on speaking terms again after Anne helps Diana’s sister Minnie May get better from terrible and deadly cough. The episode ends with Anne reading a letter Diana sent her, with both voice actors reading the last two lines together, including the statement that “nothing but death can part us two,” which foreshadows that something will pull them apart in the future. I am reminded of what Pragya Agarwal wrote in The Conversation about medieval women: that letters gave them the opportunity to “express themselves and wield power, when they had little other means of exerting influence,” while allowing them to express their “forbidden” emotions. The same idea applies here to Diana and Anne. When the former’s mother put a clampdown on their close friendship, this did not stop them from communicating. In fact, their communications became more eloquent and abundantly made clear their deep emotional connection.
While the original novel and previous adaptations have a heterosexual ending, akin to the ending of Dear Brother, or the heterosexuality baked into the Western animated series Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, which have yuri themes and yuri subtext respectfully, this series is slated for a full run of twenty-four episodes, with nineteen remaining. It will likely end in a heterosexual way with Anne becoming romantically involved with Gilbert (since Anne dances with him in the series opening). Even so, there is no denying that the strong and intimate female friendship between Anne and Diana will remain a key part of the series going forward.
Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – Maybe 1 or 2? This is pretty tame.
Yuri – 2 or 3
Music – 9
Overall – 8
With four episodes currently aired, I am curious to see where this series goes from here, even though I am fully aware it won’t have yuri themes anywhere close to Marimite nor Rock Is A Lady’s Majesty, both of which have Class S themes. There’s something to be said for intimate female friendship, which seems in vogue for anime these days, and that’s what’s a fundamental part of this series, even if it (more likely than not) has a heterosexual ending.
 
Erica here: for this interested in the making of the original 1979 anime based on Anne of Green Gables, check out ANN’s Richard Eisenbeis talking with the voice of Anne for that anime, Yamada Eiko.




Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty, Streaming on HIDIVE

April 14th, 2025

Four girls, dressed in old-fashioned modest white Japanese school uniforms, with black trim, rock out hard at one another, glaring over their instruments.If you hang around in Yuri spaces long enough, you’ll discover that an inordinately large amount of early Yuri takes place in private schools for young women from the upper classes. There are several good reasons for this. One, by putting the story in a place or time or status level that is unreachable by the average reader, the story is given an exoticism, and therefore freedom to explore outside the mores of Japanese society. This story happened “over there” and “at that time,” so our rules do not apply.

Also, as James Welker explores in his book Transfiguring Women in Late Twentieth-Century Japan: Feminists, Lesbians, and Girls‘ Comics Artists and Fans, that exoticism adds legitimacy by the connection to high art of the 20th century through cinema, literature and drama. This second piece was a new thought to me, but when James mentioned this in his book lecture at NYU, it opened a whole new field of perspective for me. Of course artists and writers of the Japanese new wave were reaching over towards their literary, artistic and cinematic peers in Europe and America.

This perspective is shockingly relevant for this season’s girl band comedy-drama, Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty, currently streaming on HIDIVE. Especially as I am reading Ada Palmer’s book, Inventing The Renaissance, in which she makes a strong case for “legitimacy” as a kind of currency among the elite.

We are swept up in the life of Suzunomiya Lilisa, a first-year at Oshin Girls’ Academy. She is admired by the students that surround her, for her grace and refinement but this is a façade, as Lililsa is a Suzunomiya by marriage and is working on faking her way into legitimacy to make her mother’s life easier. When she finds a guitar pick that was dropped by the equally refined and graceful Kurogane Otoha, Lilisa is sucked back into her previous life of hard rock, competing with Otoha for supremacy in music.

If this story sounds intense, well, it is, but it is also very funny, as both Lilisa and Otoha are vulgar at one another, as they seek to dominate the other in an abandoned music room, drum versus guitar, but the very essence of polite society in other ways. Their Keigo is polished and perfect. We have had discussions here on Okazu about the status of elite families in Japanese entertainment being communicated by the number of syllables in their family name. 3-4 syllables is pretty common. Lilisa’s family is a clearly superior 5-syllable family. When we meet the Student Council President, we are meant to understand that Fujimurasaki Yukari, with her impressive 6-syllable name puts her way above even Lilisa’s family’s elite status. We all had a good laugh about it.

I admit to having been disappointed by some of the music in last year’s girl band stories, but Band-Maid puts down some strong work in that department for this anime. The music is good and hard, which aptly fits the story.  The music scenes are animated with CGI, which not everyone liked, but I think it’s fine here, because, more importantly, what we see them playing is what is being played. That is always important to me, that it’s not just generic wiggling of fingers.

Yuri fans might expect that a story set in an elite private girls’ school might have something of interest, and indeed, there is. Otoha’s behavior towards Lilisa rides a boundary of shameless macking designed to excite the girls around them into absolute tizzys…which is exactly what happens. Lilisa is not above noting how beautiful Otoha is and their first meeting is wrapped in a haze of “fated meeting of one’s eternal partner in front of Maria-sama,” or something similar.

Ratings:

Art – 7 More funny than good, and YMMV on the CGI, but it works
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service –  Otoha does it all on purpose
Yuri – 4

Overall – 9

With two episodes having aired, I am an enthusiastic fan of the mashup of Class S school vs commoner sensibility, Yuri service and rock and roll that Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty is offering up.





Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Season 1 Blu-Ray Steelbook, Disc 2

April 13th, 2025

The front and back cover and two blu-ray disks of a steelbook set. On the right is a girl with scarlet hair in a white uniform with black and gold collar, on the left is the same girl standing in front of a giant white robot with red, blue and yellow features. The two disk are gold and black. If you have ever watched Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Season 1, then you know why it took me this long to get through disk 2 after I reviewed Disk 1 in January. It is large heaping doses of trauma with just enough wholesome that you’re ready to be traumatized all over again.

The duels has been all but rendered moot, by the corporate shenanigans of unsavory adults who see their and others’ children as pawns. The council members frankly lose their minds in this disk. Guel’s arc becomes increasingly desperate, culminating in yet another horrific moment, while his brother Lauda begins his descent toward unhinged. The politics of Space vs Earth, which one might hope makes sense, simply doesn’t. as Earth attacks not the products, but the people, with a team lead by a psychotic pilot. The plot spins out of control, and Shaddiq pulls strings to no apparent purpose. Who was any of that for? It wasn’t going to help Earth, obviously and no one in Space gained, either.

Suletta and Miorine have one of their periodic fights only to be reunited just before they suffer yet another trauma, this one well-intentioned, but utterly horrific, nonetheless. Suletta’s continued “baby seal waiting to be slaughtered” isn’t the right tone one wants from one’s hero…or villain. And one begin to feel that Prospera doesn’t love Suletta so much as sees her as a useful pawn, like all the other adults in this story. Should there be a moment of respite, another trauma will rush to fill the void.

This disk is rough, there’s just no getting around it. Knowing that going in to it did not actually help. Worse, the animation is really very good, one can mostly follow the mobile suit fights, which are always, IMHO, the weakest points of any mecha show. Good animation when terrible stuff is going down, again, does not make it better. ^_^;

Phew. I’ll need a long break between this disk and the next season, for sure.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – The continued trauma of children for no reason is so much fun. Not.
Characters  –  Deep breath….8
Service – I’m going to say that the violence is the “service” this time. That’s a lot of detail for animated violence.
Yuri – 5
Rage – 10

Overall – 8

In those few moments when Sulette and Miorine do connect, one feels hope and sees the beginning of a meaningful relationship. I know it’ll be fine, but there’s a lot between the story now and that end.





Project A-ko 2, 3, and 4 Blu-Rays

February 19th, 2025

A Blu-ray cover, a girl with a lot of red hair, in a yello tank top over white -t-shirt runs full speed, while a little girl in pink dress with a flower in her blond hair hangs on. A cool beauty with long blue hair and a glowering man with purple hair in the background.by Matt Marcus, Staff Writer

In the wake of the success of the original Project A-ko film, A.P.P.P. released three sequels, all of which now have Blu-Ray releases from Discotek. All three—running for around 50 minutes compared to the original’s 80—felt a little too scant to review individually, so I’ve opted to combine my thoughts here (much like their previous DVD release from Central Park Media, subtitled Love & Robots).

Project A-ko 2: Plot of Daitokuji Financial Group

Three weeks have passed since the end of the first movie. The defeated alien ship remains perilously perched upon the military command tower at the center of Graviton City, but now it’s been converted to a glitzy shopping mall and recreation center. Of course, this is cover for Captain Napolipolita and her henchwoman D to raise funds for repairs, after which they intend to fulfill their original mission of returning the lost alien Princess C-ko to her home planet.

But this time, the villain is the military industrial complex, in the form of B-ko’s weapon’s dealer mogul father Hikari Daitokuji (or, as I like to call him, Phoney Stark). He sees the alien ship as a goldmine of advanced technology he’d like to steal and exploit for his own ambitions, and so the Plot of the Subtitle are his machinations trying to hoodwink the defense force into doing the dirty work for him. (Notably, he’s been stealing mecha designs from B-ko.)

Meanwhile, our main trio are simply looking forward to a summer break of fun. They end up obstructing both the aliens and B-ko’s father’s schemes, mostly by blowing everything up. Graviton City is left a smoldering ruin again, but life goes on.

All of the elements of the first film are here. The A-ko/B-ko/C-ko triumvirate continue their schtick. There’s a decent amount of mecha and exploding shit. Surprisingly, the non-mecha fanservice is relatively tame; I found the fully-animated scene of A-ko changing into a bathing suit without exposing herself particularly funny, as if it were an intentional troll to those seeking more cheap thrills. Honestly, the funniest bit was how the Alpha Cygnans painted C-ko’s face on the front of their ship, goofy open-mouth grin and all.

The extras are notably sparser than those for the first film (no extra documentaries or feature commentaries this go ‘round). The only unique bonus are screenshots from the PC-88 casino game collection tied to the film, which included several scenes lifted from the film but drawn in that classic 8-bit style.

Overall – 6

Project A-ko 2: Plot of Daitokuji Financial Group Blu-ray available on Amazon and Crunchyroll

 

A red-haired girl in a red dress and a blue-haired girl in hakama and gi glower at each other over their shoulders. Behind and above a gaping blonde with a flower in her hair and a boy in black.Project A-ko 3: Cinderella Rhapsody

This film is based around Spring Break, and every girl in Graviton High School is thinking about romance. A-ko becomes obsessed with a dress she can’t afford, and starts working at a fast food restaurant to save up. B-ko is still using her posse to stalk her, and of course the two are still fighting before school every day. C-ko is starting to feel neglected by A-ko, 

All of this is thrown out of whack when C-ko runs into the street and is nearly run over by a hunky-yet-gormless guy named Kei. A-ko falls for him immediately, followed by B-ko, while the whole time, Kei has caught feelings for C-ko. So much for the Yuri.

Hijinks ensue, which culminates with a destructive showdown in the fancy hotel atop the yet-again-renovated alien ship, which is now a theme park. As the chaos expands, the commander of the defense force decides to neglect his duties this time (off screen, no less), so a group of under-cover protective public works employees mobilize, which turns into a cavalcade of mecha and sentai winks. They even included a cameo by BaBe, the idol duo who sing the film’s theme song “Get A Chance!” (The English Version plays over the credits, the lyrics of which are basically inscrutable.)

In the end, everyone’s heart gets broken. Kei confesses his love to C-ko, who harshly rejects him, while A-ko and B-ko see their fantasies shatter along with the floor of the hotel. Everything resets back to the status quo again. Hooray.

This one definitely feels like a step up from the previous film, but having the central conflict shift to center on Kei was honestly a bit deflating even if, as the trivia notes say, this would have been expected by the audience at the time. I know that the joke is that his cool surface image is actually the result of being too shy to talk, but it’s not quiet a strong enough joke to hang an entire plot on. I also wish more came out of the extensive mobilization scene; having Graviton City secretly be a hotbed of superheroes and super robots could have been used more for the comedy besides “look, an off-model reference!”

As with the previous release, the bonuses are relatively slim, though the trivia section is always a fun treat. I did notice one omission, though, which led me down a bit of a rabbit hole. In the film, we see a brief segment of a porn flick, where a girl with short blue hair (and no clothes) is about to, uh, impose herself on a red-haired girl. The scene is interrupted by the mobilization call (somehow within the movie!) by a girl with orange pigtails. Turns out, these three are the animated versions of an idol group Lemon Angels, a multimedia project that was an offshoot of the Cream Lemon hentai series, much like what Project A-ko began as. Seems like an odd thing to leave out from the otherwise exhaustive trivia notes, especially since they are even explicitly credited.

Overall – 7

Project A-ko 3: Cinderella Rhapsody is available on Blu-ray from Crunchyroll and Amazon.

 

Red haired girl in a school uniform, blue-haired girl in black dress and cowering little blonde girl with a flower in hair are backed by a mecha that looks like the redhead, a pair embracing in wedding clothes of a guy with brown hair and a teal-haired girl.

Project A-ko 4: Final

The aptly-titled fourth film of the mainline series is about two impending threats: a new alien invasion, foretold by ancient inscriptions found in Iraq, alongside the teacher Miss Ayumi’s engagement to…Kei??!?!

Out of all of the sequels, this one has the strongest set-up for farce. Phoney Stark is back as the facilitator of the omiai between Miss Ayumi and Kei. Since he is basically in charge of the military, he orders them to protect the bride and groom from terrorist threats (read: B-ko, who is back on a rampage to steal Kei for herself). This provides cover for the defense force to mobilize against a massive alien fleet that is approaching earth (circumventing the cowardice of the commander who bailed in the previous film).

A-ko is, for her part, is also trying to wreck the wedding, again leaving C-ko feeling abandoned; in fact, her crybaby friend begins to fear that A-ko and B-ko’s love of fighting is going to turn into feisty romance, leaving her alone. When it turns out the fleet is helmed by C-ko’s long-lost mother, C-ko decides willingly to leave. (We are led to believe that Ayumi is tied to the aliens, but that turns out to be a fakeout.) A-ko and B-ko fail to take her back, only for C-ko to unceremoniously show up at A-ko’s door the next day, having changed her mind on leaving. C-ko asks A-ko not to fight B-ko anymore, to which A-ko happily agrees.

To be honest, this one might be my favorite of the bunch. Seeing A-ko and B-kos fights become so regular that even their friends see it as just another ordinary morning got a good chuckle out of me. C-ko getting Yuri-goggles was a fun twist that I wish the movie leaned more into. Still, the plot AGAIN is centered around Kei, who is even less charismatic here than in the previous film.

The extras here match what we saw in the previous releases. Would you know that there are a lot of Lupin cameos??

Overall – 7

Project A-ko 4: Final Blu-ray is available on Amazon and Crunchyroll.

 

All in all, none of these films reach the heights that the first film did, and in some cases detract from it (*cough* Kei *cough*). That said, if you wanted to see more bubble-era OVA hijinks chock full of parody, none of these are an awful time.

 

Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, as well as the writer for the blog Oh My God, They Were Bandmates analyzing How Do We Relationship in greater depth.





Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Season 1 Blu-Ray Steelbook, Disc 1

January 30th, 2025

The front and back cover and two blu-ray disks of a steelbook set. On the right is a girl with scarlet hair in a white uniform with black and gold collar, on the left is the same girl standing in front of a giant white robot with red, blue and yellow features. The two disk are gold and black.I managed to get through two of the 6 episodes on this disk without being enraged. Good for me!

In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury Season 1, Blu-ray Steelbook, Disc 1, Suletta Mercury comes from provincial Mercury to Asticassia School of Technology. Suletta is sincere, a lot nervous and excited about this new experience and the people she will meet, but of course she has stepped into the middle of a class war. She is immediately sucked into duels for the hand of a girl who very much has no interest in being anyone’s prize. The mobile suit she pilots with skill is branded illegal and, of course, she is treated with disdain by both the elite Spacians and the downtrodden Earthians.

This story begins as many anime do – a young person wholly unsuited to a elite and codified environment shows up and sets everyone’s teeth on edge, upends the school rules and becomes the new punching bag of everyone who has an agenda…which is everyone. In this anime, all of that is accompanied by corporate misbehavior and intrigue, so that the duels fought by the children are a reflection of the machinations of the parents. Abusive parents creating unkind children who will forced to battle for no good reason whatsoever, at the risk of their mental and physical health sounds like more than one anime…but it is still absolutely enraging. Nonetheless, we cannot stop ourselves from rooting for Suletta and by extension, Miorine because that is how these things work.

The nods to Revolutionary Girl Utena are very loud here at the beginning of the series. The opening credits borrow at least two visuals from the opening of Utena – The scene where Suletta and Miorine walk in opposite directions closely mirrors the same cuts in the Utena OP, the two protagonists spinning in the show logo – and the duels to become the fiance’ to a girl with no agency who grows things in a greenhouse loom rather large. Know your meme has a few related items, as well.  And Chuchu, of course. Chuchu is the wind beneath our wings. Chuchu’s rage is our rage and when she snaps, it’s the best moment on the whole disk. I was able to breathe again for a few minutes and stopped ranting at the absolutely shitty people around Suletta Mercury, who only wanted to make friends at school.

And finally, read your Shakespeare for other key references you don’t want to miss. The Tempest has it’s fingerprints all over this series. Suletta’s mother is Prospera, her Gundam is Ariel,  Gundam pilots get wrecked in a “data storm.” It is not subtle, but it doesn’t have to be. Prospero’s story isn’t his own, either.

The art of G-Witch is how these wildly different elements, all the back-and-forthing of every Gundam “the ruling body changes constantly and so do the rules and allegiances,” Utena and The Tempest are brought together. The series may not make sense, per se,  but it at least has us caring enough about the characters to keep us coming back. Even though we know that pain and suffering is the main plot point.

The steelbook itself is nice enough, but wow am I annoyed that we’re back to 5 episodes per disk, two discs per set and two sets for a season. I remember clearly when DVDs were sold as being able to hold way more than a measly few episodes. Capitalism, yay! We’re paying for the packaging here – there are no extras, either physical or digital.

But there is Yuri, even if it is borrowed whole from Utena at this point. Miorine Rembran is an angry Bride, but so was Anthy, who had has ages to learn to hide her rage behind a smile. As the Holder, Suletta is the worthiest of fiancés, but it will take them both time to figure that out.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – grumblegrowlgrrrr
Characters  –  Deep breath….8
Service – The service here is largely the Gundamy stuff. The different build, the launch sequences, all the mecha stuff being mecha stuff. For that audience – 10
Yuri – 2
Rage – 10

Overall – 8

More than a year has gone by since I watched this series and I’d forgotten how angry the child soldier hurtfest of Gundam is NOT FOR ME (TM). But I’m going to stick it out to see what is the closest thing to a happy ending that I can remember in a Gundam series.