Archive for the English Anime Category


Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

October 10th, 2022

In space, capitalism still sucks. And, with the addition of weaponized armored robots, it looks a lot like war. In a world where different corporate concerns are literally fighting for control of market share, a family is torn apart, but not before a young child bonds with her mother’s mobile suit in a way that no one else can attain. Now, 14 years later, Suletta Mercury has come to Asticassia School of Technology to train as a pilot, only to find herself in a series that was brilliantly summarized by Kat Callahan as “Revolutionary Mobile Suitena.” ^_^

At Asticassia, Suletta functions both as a blithering idiot-type protagonist and a True Hero TM type protagonist. She finds herself in the middle of a duel to protect a girl she doesn’t know and, as a consequence of winning the duel, is “engaged” to the girl, one Miorine Rembran, who lives in a small greenhouse on campus. By now, you’ve probably cottoned on to the fact that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is honestly, in some key ways, Utena in Space.

There’s no doubt, from the credits to the character named Chu-Chu, (with a mouse-ear like hairstyle) and, of course, the duels for Miorine, this homage is deliberate and not especially subtle.

But this is not Utena, it is Gundam, which has plenty of its own references. Also, interestingly, it may be Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Suletta’s Gundam is named Aerial and the head of the Mercury-based Shin Sei Development Company, Lady Prospera is a pretty strong nod in that direction. Prospera is also this season’s Char Aznable-helmet wearing character, because if we don’t have one of those is it really a Gundam? ^_^

As many people have pointed out, Miorine is not at all a passive Anthy. She’s actively seeking to effect change and it seems likely that she’ll be a key piece to overturning her father’s influence. Suletta has a normal sense of what is right and wrong, and she can see that there’s a lot of wrong stuff going on. They may be very good for each other. One hopes so. Guel Jeturk is already our Saionji character and we can see hints of the rest of the student council, at least in part. I sincerely dislike the character designs, and the school uniform, but that’s fine, it’s unimportant.

So this season is carrying quite a heavy load of symbolism and imagery in the first few episodes.  But don’t be deceived, this is still a Gundam and is therefore full of politics and business that have a tenuous relationship to how those things work in real life. If it did, Miorine’s father, Delling Rembrand, would have been removed by the rest of the board long ago. Corporate extortion is one thing, but having to listen to the shouting is not. Those 30 other board members could just pool shares and bounce his ass. He’ll be a drag as a big boss.

And then there are the Gundam themselves. Aerial takes on the heroic white/red/blue and yellow “main Gundam of this series”* design, with unrealistic and very cool transforming weaponry. I am a huge sucker for transforming weaponry, apparently. Honestly, the Gundam battles are among the best parts of the series thus far. I’m glad, too, because they’ve had decades to get that right and it would have been depressing if they weren’t.

I have no idea how much of or how long, this series will be wearing Utena cosplay, plot-wise, but I’m hoping that it sheds it and movse on to a powerful story of its own. I’ve only seen a few Gundam series but one that makes strong anti-war and anti-capitalism statements would be welcome, although I wouldn’t bet on that this time. At least we have a female lead and a couple right from the beginning…let’s see what they do with that.

Ratings:

Art – Good on tech, less good on people, let’s give it a 6
Story – Well, since at the moment it’s 3 series trying to figure out who’s boss, also a 6
Characters – Other than Delling, who is stupidly unlikable, I’ll go 7 and hope some of them go up in score
Service – Erm, not really, but I don’t know if I should be reassured or not
Yuri – Again, erm. It’s Utena, but we’re at the beginning and who knows what will develop. Say….2 for the homage.

Overall – A strong 7, with loads of room to get amazing…or not. Guess we’ll find out!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is streaming on Crunchyroll.

* I know every Gundam is different and fans could tell me in great detail why. They mostly look the same to me, but I feel that way about cars and planes and other forms of transportation, too. Feel free to detail your feelings about Aerial in the comments. ^_^





Revue Starlight: The Movie

September 6th, 2022

In 2019, Revue Starlight hit the anime scene with a bang. It was shiny, with a setup of a Takarazuka-like school, the intensity of competition and performance and internal struggle embodied in duels referred to as “auditions.” These duels allowed characters to work through personal and relationship issues with their partner/rival, and were accompanied by character image songs that expressed deep emotions – what could not be said, could be sung. I reviewed the anime on Okazu, with a ranking of couples, rather than rating the anime itself. ^_^

Now, HIDIVE is streaming Revue Starlight: The Movie and so, I took an appropriate day off to watch it. It had some truly excellent moments.

For most fans, the immediate visual reference would be the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, what with musical duels and emotional purging. Clearly, the visuals were meant in many places to call Ikuhara Kunihiko’s work to mind….I’d say there’s as much Mawaru Penguindrum as there is Utena in this movie. But still, as with the TV show, I felt the shadow of Melody of Oblivion hovering in the corner of my mind the entire time. If Birdie Wing‘s mecha golf course came with epic music, it’s much the same feel, when the mechanics and music combine. Visually, this series was epic and surreal. It Ikuhara’ed. And in several cases, it worked.

There were only two things that did not work for me, personally. The first and most critical was the insertion of extended scenes of Hikari’s and Karen’s backstory. I am of the belief that few, if any, people were going to see this movie without having seen the TV series, so not only were these redundant, but they were also rather dull. As I said in my original review, Karen and Hikari were the least interesting pair in the series. Having to spend more time with them and their convoluted non-conflict was a chunk of time that added nothing. I’ll get to the second problem in a moment.

An initial fight scene is quite shocking, but when the pair duels actually arrive – they are excellent. The duel that ought to have been the best was, in fact, the best. The “staging” during that duel was animated like actual staging. Despite the leads being two other characters, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off Claudine and Maya. It was perfect. Junna and Nana’s duel was redemptive in a way that I felt really worked and I really dug everything about Futaba vs Kaoruko.  And then the end comes, and the final duel is HUGE and full of everything.

The second issue with this movie is that, despite this, the emotional stakes are low to non-existent. I didn’t care who won, or why, because I knew perfectly well that everyone was just going to grow up and move on. Yes, absolutely, high school is weird and a performing high school by it’s nature has to be extra weird. A high school of performing arts at which musical existential duels are performed on shapeshifting stages, presided over by a nihilistic giraffe is just too weird for me to ever develop any emotional buy-in. ^_^

Aside from that, it was a good movie if you’d like to see folks who work with the specific kinds of forced surrealism that Ikuhara favors, combined with a musical emotional journey (oh! Here’s another reference…Red Garden for similar musical therapy  sessions and inside voices.) I do enjoy such things and, as a result will quite probably watch this again…this time zapping forward through all the Karen x Hikari stuff. If you have HIDIVE or want an excuse to get a free trial, and also like such things, Revue Starlight: The Movie is definitely worth a watch.

Ratings:

10/10 for Maya v Claudine
9/10 for Nana v Junna
8/10 for Mahiru v <spoiler>
8/10 for Futaba v Kauruko
7/10 for Hikari v Karen

The epilogue in the end credits was quite nice, too. I’m a big fan of epilogues.





Lycoris Recoil, Streaming on Crunchyroll

August 15th, 2022

In a near future, the world is peaceful because, in part, of an elite group of teenaged girls who are trained in the art of defense and assassination. Called Lycoris, they are highly skilled, obsessively competitive and dangerous.

When Takina comes close to putting one of her Lycoris peers in danger, she’s shunted away from the headquarters to a branch office/cafe. Here she meets an infamous Lycoris, Chisato, who only uses non-lethal bullets. Despite the obscurity of their office, and the absurdity of their situation, Chisato and Takina are drawn into a series of terrorist attacks that could shake the foundation of their peaceful world. This is Lycoris Recoil, Streaming on Crunchyroll

Okay, that’s the basic setup. And, I have to be honest…it’s really stupid for a reason I will get to in a second. I wouldn’t have watched it at all, except I saw someone on Twitter describe it as “John Wick with cute girls” and after redefining in my head it as “John Wick with moe blob-faced girls for imagination-impaired adult men” I started to watch it. I really like it, despite a list of flaws longer than the cast and staff. ^_^

So if I like it, why do I call it stupid?  Let’s start with the idea of 16 year-olds being better at assassination than anyone else. For one. Then you take the two absolute best agents you’ve ever had…and exile them. For reasons.This is SO fishy that it reminds me of why Magical Girls have to be so young. No one with an ounce of emotional maturity could possible not see that some shit is up. I’m not sure I would have been that naive at 16, even.  On top of this, we have a series of character types, not characters. Including an absurdly young-looking hacker, thank you Serial Experiments Lain for giving us that forever. And let’s not forget drunken adult lady. Our one bright light is the office head, who is black, gay, smart and a decent guy, who just happens to have an obviously tragic backstory and was an assassin and all sort of other bad things. Also, a bunch of reveals that are super obvious. 

And a gloaty bad guy. I fucking hate gloaty bad guys. Get your thing done right, then gloat. UGH.

Despite these flaws, I’m really enjoying the heck out of Lycoris Recoil, because really, it’s John Wick with moe-faced girls and that is Perfectly Okay. ^_^

The Yuri is very much by implication. Since Lycoris (pronounced licorice with a soft ‘c’, not ‘sh’) work in pairs, and rely on each other in life and death situations, we’ve got a totally Spartan dynamic between couples. Chisato is, apparently flakey and maybe not super insightful, but she’s cheerful and absurdly good at what she does, while Takina is brooding and dark, making them the traditional Yuri trope pair, only make them assassins. In a recent episode, Chisato went for a femme fatale look and Takina took the butch route and we all nodded in approval. (Of course most of the art seems to be more obsessed with Takina’s head briefly hitting Chisato’s butt, thus a Beavis and Butthead rating. )

Specific episodes are underwear-level humor, with a very unfortunate tendency by the translators to rely on utterly outdated and lazy translation choices. Insisting on using “panties” for underwear, and saying an admired character “swings that way” when discussing that he is gay. I commented on Twitter that translators don’t have to do that – they are not obliged to make characters sound like 80 year old homophobes. They can and should make better choices in 2022. We can’t tell the writers to stop pandering, but we can expect the translators to grow the fuck up.

And still, I am very much enjoying this story. Watching two children beat the crap out of supposedly professional hitmen is amusing.  I’m good with amusing crap.

Ratings:

Art – Pretty bad, honestly, but whatever
Story – Cute girls shoot guns, men drop like flies
Characters – Surely Chisato will both help Takina find meaning in life and redeeem herself then convince Takina to reject the things she thought she wanted, probably by fake-dying.
Service – Heh heh, Takina’s head touched Chisato’s butt
Yuri – Takina’s head touched Chisato’s butt/ Butch x femme dynamic / Sisters-in-arms/ Two girls on the screen together

Overall – A fun 7

This ain’t no Birdie Wing, and fandom has even odds on Chisato fake-dying by the end of the season, but if you like mindless violence perpetrated by anatomically inaccurate teens, this may be your jam.





The Executioner and Her Way of Life Anime, Guest Review by Megan

July 7th, 2022

Once again, I am extremely pleased to welcome Megan back for a Guest Review here on Okazu. This summer has been magnificently busy and I’m thrilled to welcome Megan back to have her thoughts on this anime!

The rise of isekai has been unstoppable over the past decade or so, and it’s no surprise we’ve seen isekai media branch out into different genres and demographics: from mature ‘slow-life’ stories, to BL and Otome. As regular readers of Okazu will know, as part of this trend we’ve been seeing some excellent Yuri isekai. Mato Sato’s light novel series, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, marks the milestone of the first Yuri isekai to receive an anime adaptation. 

Executioner begins with our titular character, Menou, being assigned the task of taking out a reincarnated Japanese girl, Akari. In this world, all ‘otherworlders’ are marked for death, thanks to the destructive powers they will develop if left unattended. Akari’s power presents a unique problem though: She has the ability to wind back time, meaning the usual tricks of the trade can’t finish her off. With an unassuming Akari in tow, Menou sets off on a journey to find a method capable of carrying out the execution – that is, if her growing feelings for the other girl don’t get in the way first. 

The plot is an interesting mix of some elements that feel familiar to many isekai anime, and others that subvert isekai expectations. There’s a medieval setting, there’s a magic system, and there’s Japanese people reincarnated into this world along with powerful skills. Even the detail of Japanese influence on this world’s culture, from architecture to language, has parallels in popular isekai like Re:Zero. The twist to the isekai formula here is that the Japanese transfers’ powers soon turn destructive: indeed, this anime’s world is something of a post-apocalyptic one, picking up the remnants of a once advanced civilisation destroyed a millennia previously by the four otherworlder “Human Errors”. Finding out the truth behind these Errors (just the names are evocative: the Sword of Salt; the Mechanical Society) turns into a major reason to keep watching. 

An isekai needs to nail more than the background lore in the transition to anime though, and Executioner offers a mostly engaging mix of fun scenes with the characters, action, and the occasional flash of horror. On the last point, this anime adaptation irons out some of the tonal inconsistencies the novel’s earlier volumes struggled with. The anime’s generally lighter tone, with the dark and horrific scenes presented as more of a contrast (at least until the B-movie turn of the final arc), also help make this series more accessible to a wider audience, which I think is, in this case, a beneficial move. 

As for the Yuri in this Yuri isekai, our main couple is Menou and Akari. From the start, their relationship has a couple of hooks. First, the girls are a classic case of “opposites attract”: Menou, closed-off and traumatised beyond her years, and Akari, bubbly but more than a little airheaded. Second, the entire structure of the narrative is a constant reminder of the tragic fate – of executioner and victim – we want the girls to somehow escape. Before long, a certain reveal suggests there may be more to Akari and her past than we think. There’s a good amount of screentime devoted to building up the girls’ bond, and while by the end of the anime Menou has barely taken a first step towards figuring out what Akari means to her, overall it’s easy to get invested in the girls over the course of the show. 

This anime may be a case of the side couple stealing the show from the main, since we also have Momo and Ashuna. Momo starts the show as Menou’s junior and sidekick, and honestly my initial impressions of her and her creepy clingyness with Menou were not good. That being said, the story soon makes the fantastic decision to split Momo from Menou and instead pair her with the violence-loving AWOL princess Ashuna. Every scene of their love-hate relationship is a blast to watch, and if anything I was left wanting to see even more of them (or with Akari and Momo pairing up like happens later in the novel). 

Another relationship that defines Executioner, though in this case for all the wrong reasons, is that between orphan Menou and her mentor in the execution profession, Flare. Personally, there’s something about the story of Flare taking this little girl and putting her on a path to becoming the same sort of monster she is that I find strikes a frighteningly real note. The anime’s OP also smartly suggests that Flare may be the truest villain of Menou’s story. The mysteries set up around Flare do reflect a weakness any 1-cour light novel adaptation like this almost inevitably struggles with: there’s a lot of intriguing questions, but only hints at answers by the time episode 12 ends. Still, this isn’t something I can hold against the show too much, especially since both the source novel and manga adaptation are available in English for anyone wanting to continue the story. 

Before Executioner’s anime aired, my expectations were tempered by the fact JC Staff were handling the animation. Seasoned anime viewers may know them from a string of disappointing adaptations, from One Punch Man’s season 2 to the recent and underwhelming Rose King. All this makes me happy to report that JC Staff did a solid job this time round, despite the typical decline in quality in the last few episodes . The characters are expressive, the magic is flashy, and the action scenes are suitably fluid. One point I have to particularly praise the anime staff for is significantly reducing the fanservice compared to the novel’s frequently questionable art. There’s still the occasional bath scene, but at least the framing usually avoids leering over the girls’ bodies more than the source text strictly requires. 

Executioner might not win over viewers put off altogether by isekai, but with its combo of likable Yuri romance and some smart twists on the usual tropes, it has potential to appeal to fans tired of the usual formula. It represents a confident step in a new direction for both the Yuri and isekai genres – one with room for improvement, but a step in the right direction all the same. 

 

Ratings: 

Story – 7, does just enough to stand out from the usual isekai anime
Characters – 8, it’s a lot of fun watching the characters’ personalities bounce off each other
Art – 7, nothing exceptional but attractive with good action
Yuri – 6, plenty of potential 
Service – 4, pleasantly turned down from the novel art 

Overall – a high 7 

PS –  in case you’re wondering about the anime’s seemingly unrelated alternate English title “Virgin Road”, I’d guess it’s an awkward case of Japanese to English translation from one possible abbreviation of the the series’ Japanese title 処刑少女の生きる道. Thankfully the official English novel and manga releases, as well as HiDive’s stream of the anime, have restored a better translation. 

Thank you for reading another of my reviews! I’m currently on break from my Twitter, but I might be returning soon-ish. In the meantime as always I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Erica here: Thank you so much Megan! To sum up my own thoughts, I think this anime was far better than the source LNs deserve, which was…unexpected. 

The official Japanese title is 『処刑少女の生きる道』(しょけいしょうじょのバージンロード),  Shoukei Shoujo no Virgin Road, so not a misreading. Ikiru michi is just supposed to be read “virgin road.” FWIW, “virgin road” is what Japanese versions of western-style weddings call the wedding aisle, so perhaps it’s meant as a comment on the “purity” of these pure priestesses. Or, maybe, it’s one more messy thing shoved in by a writer who care very little about keeping the story tidy. ^_^

Thank you again for your thoughts and we’ll look forward to your next review!





Birdie Wing -Golf Girls Story-, Season 1

June 29th, 2022

From the gritty world of urban decay and underground mafia golf to the well-manicured lawns of elite golf clubs in the shadow of Mt. Fuji, Birdie Wing -Golf Girls Story-, Season 1, has exactly none of the things you might expect if I mentioned I was watching a “golf anime.”

Birdie Wing has given us a sports anime that is very similar to the isekai of I’m in Love With The Villainess. In sports anime, there will be sweat and tears and hard work and competition and characters striving to reach their goal – this is a genre with rules. Instead, in between Gundam references and throwbacks to Yuri anime of the 00s, we have a a sports anime that gleefully flaunts the rules of the genre. Where ILTV took isekai and squeezed it until it told a story about social justice, Birdie Wing is doing the opposite. Sure, there is sweat and training, but there are no tears here.

In most sports anime, the arrogant and competent athlete is our rival…someone to try and beat, and having beaten, befriend. Not here. In Birdie Wing only the strong survive. Everyone on the screen is confidently arrogant about their skill, and competent enough to back it up: With the most arrogant being Eve and Aoi, whose supreme confidence in their skills turn errors into comedic moments, instead of tragic ones. There is nowhere for them to go but up, like the symbolically rising arc of their shots off tee.

Our team is, in actuality, a comedy troupe composed of two odd couples, a hefty splash of eau de Yuri and a soupçon of old school shoujo series wrapped in the sponsored gear of a sports anime…and an audience of adult Japanese men who are being wooed to play in beautiful, exclusive, undoubtedly outrageously expensive links. Last night, while playing around, I found the Raiou Girls’ School golf team clubhouse in the real world, a clear indication that you and I are not the intended audience of this anime, but merely lucky bystanders.


Season 2 of this delightful romp was announced before Episode 13 premiered on Crunchyroll. Visit the BW official site for spoilers and implications.

Will Aoi, Eve, Ichina and Amane being able to, I dunno, take down the evil, sexy mafia lady and fulfill Coach Gundam-injoke’s dream before he coughs up blood and dies? Probably not, honestly. But I am here for it, no matter.

Which brings me to the Yuri. Is this Yuri? The series has not been at all shy about implying that Eve and Aoi are sisters. In fact, it’s gone out of it’s way to beat us over the head with the idea. Eve is using kisses to coerce Aoi, in an absurdly cute and screencappable way, and Ichina has kindly noticed the Yuri score rising, but whether our ball is headed into the rough or toward the fairway we don’t yet know. (Yes, here at the end, I finally allowed myself a stupid golf metaphor.)

Sceencap by Hyperart Marcus-san

When I initially reviewed Birdie Wing, I asked for a smidge of Yuri…and totally got that and more. I called it “overtly subtextual” in my first review. Now it’s a bit more complicated. Eve is using her natural charm to seduce a willing Aoi, and it’s right there in the open. But will it be passionate platonic sisters or passionate platonic partners in golf or… passionate platonic something else that they’ll shoehorn in? And will we even care?

The good news is that we will get the end of this story, which has me absolutely ecstatic. But…will we get the end we want? Probably not, but we’ve been talking about this series a lot on the Okazu Discord and we think the series has a twist or two up it’s sleeve for us yet.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Great scenery porn and animated drives
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 4 There is some service, but they’re keeping the creep low-key and tolerable
Yuri – What the heck, I’m going for it ……10

Overall – 10

In my recent video on Yuri Studio, Sports in Yuri Anime & Manga, I said that this anime was very close to being the greatest Yuri sports anime of all time. Here at the end of Season 1, Birdie Wing is even closer to being the greatest Yuri sports anime of all time….and I’m not even sure it needs more Yuri to hit that mark. ^_^

What a great anime this is. I can’t wait to rewatch it!