Archive for the English Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Simoun, Volume 1 (English)

October 22nd, 2007

So, last week, we were talking about managing expectations in order to enjoy anime more.

And there I was this weekend, staring at Volume 1 of Simoun and wondering – how on earth would I manage my expectations of *this*? ^_^

Here’s the dilemma – I loved Simoun. I named it the best Yuri series of 2006 and I meant it. It was one of the most interesting anime series I have ever watched, and full of so many wonderful points that we can mull over and over to endless annoyance/satisfaction, depending on who you are and what you like.

And I really, really love the folks at Media Blasters. I’m thrilled that they are so genuinely interested in Yuri and want to reach out to the Yuri audience.

But, traditionally, I have not loved MB adaptations. Not because they were bad, but because I thought they were okay, but could have been better. To set the stage, let me explain why it matters so much to me:

I watch an anime with no other expectations than my own, as I said previously. In most cases I can understand some, if not most or all, of what is being said when I watch a series raw. And by doing so, I establish my own understanding of the series. When/if I watch a series subbed, I use it to fill in holes I have, and also to compare my understanding to the subbers’ interpretation. When, after all that, I have loved a series, I want to be able to wholeheartedly suggest it to other people – not only other people who are also already fans, but to people who may not have ever seen the original. And for these last, I need the translations to be all that. Otherwise, what I see as awesome, may come off as being incomprehensible, or uninteresting. Most people who watch an anime are not me. I read fast, seeing the subtitles almost as a subliminal. If the words in the translation don’t match my understanding of what’s being said it jars me. But for a person who relies on that subtitle for the entire meaning of the story, if the words are lazily written, or difficult to follow – or plain wrong, then that person is getting a whole chunk of the story taken away from them. Like having a huge black line through the art – sure you can watch around it, but it’s hard to enjoy.

Okay, that all having been said, let me cut to the chase – overall, I think Media Blasters did a very good job with Simoun. Better than usual, and much better than I expected.

Phew.

It’s not perfect, by any stretch, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Okay, first things first. I need to thank the folks at Media Blasters with all my thanks. They didn’t just send me a copy of Simoun to review – they sent me the very first copy to be printed in the US. And the cover art is signed by everyone who worked on it. There aren’t any smilies that express the sort of thing I felt when I got that DVD. So, my thanks and hugs to everyone at MB. ^_^

I’m going to start with the nitpicky things, starting with the one thing that has GOT to be fixed, or I’ll go mad, and working my way down in urgency until we go into the good, so we can all have a happy end. :-)

The one thing that has GOT to be fixed, is Rodoreamon’s name. For some reason they’ve got it as Rotreamon, which is just wrong. I double-checked the Japanese official website and the Japanese credits – Rodoreamon. Definitely “do” there, not “to”. It looks wrong and everyone definitely says “Rodo”, so please fix that!!! It just looks bad and doesn’t match what they are saying.

Okay, that’s out of my system. So. The names. I appreciated the consistency in the way names were written. In every case, without exception, the final “u” was removed from names. So, Anubituf, Kaim, Aer. I have no trouble with the transliterations they chose, although I’d have been more literal with Alti, instead of Alty. But okay. However, for Aeru’s name, I’d have left the “u” in, because later on, this is going to be an issue. Her name is pronounced “Ah-eh-ru,” not “Ah-er.” However, as this is not a major thing and it matches well enough, as well as being consistent, I’ll drop it. All the long vowels are written with the somewhat old-fashioned symbols “ā” or “ō” so “Wapōrif” and “Māj”. This leads to one really unfortunate typo. The first time the characters discussed doing a Māj, the “a” is left out and what we see is M_j. Erk. (Later, in the extras, Rodoreamon’s name is misspelled, as “Rorteamon.” Two typos on one disk is really not so good. Guys – ask me to to a last disk check. I know the series, the names, the words. Seriously. I’ll be glad to look it over. I do editing on the side.)

The translation. Overall, I think this might be the best translation I’ve ever seen from MB. They left in the honorifics which, in this case, are primarily “-sama.” Can I just tell you how NICE it is to *see* Alty say “Para-sama” when she’s saying it? Later, in the extras, “-chan” is used as well. I’d have loved to see a screen still with an explanation of the honorifics for the potential viewers who don’t know what they mean, but I am so excited to have the honorifics at all, I can barely contain myself. lol

People’s titles are translated. High Priestess, Governor, Captain. No problem. Country names are not translated, but left as they sound. Personally – I liked that. Thumbs up.

Extra points for making everything they say totally comprehensible. If you were one of the people who saw the extremely incomprehensible fansubs of the first three episodes by a particular group, you’ll know why this is so important – the first three episodes are *crucial* to our understanding of WTF is going on. Making it all make sense is not easy and I think they did a really good job. In fact, until the last episode on the disk, I think the translation was very tight. At the end, there was a bit that I felt got lax and fell back into that “this is what they meant, so it’s close enough.” Or maybe it’s just something about the way Dominura speaks that made the Translator want to make her a bit more…casual. (She certainly comes off an an odd bird. If it was done on purpose, then fine. If it was laziness, then bzzt.)

Also, I’d really like to see a Romaji version of the opening and ending themes. It’s pretty usual for anime and fans like it, because we always end up trying to learn them anyway. Alternate bwtween English and Romaji, or run them at the same time as. Either way, I think it would add some value.

The technicals. Well, the usual thing from Media Blasters – no inserts, which made me sad, because I had asked to have inserts of the cover art that we lost as mini-posters or something. This disk contains episodes 1-6, which is *very* good, but since the Japanese DVDs were two-episode disks, we lost two pieces of cover art in the process. I love the cover art – it’s hugely service-y, provocative and sexy. I had really hoped we get them as inserts. But hey – 6 episodes to a disk is *nice*. The whole series in 5 disks would be awesome. Especially for the price – $20 at Amazon ($15 if you pre-order). That’s just over $3/episode. No complaints here. Especially as I’ll probably be buying some Simoun for holiday presents. ^_^ There’s no dub track (although I know that some people like the dubs, and some people felt that they wouldn’t watch it without a dub, the idea makes me shudder, personally) and only the one audio track. Again, I passed on the idea of a 5.1 audio track, so you can’t say they didn’t know fans wanted it. I wouldn’t mind it myself – makes the music, which is so wonderful, even better.

The disk itself is very pretty. Huh, how about that? It surprised me, because I don’t usually notice the disks. This has to be up there for one of the nicest looking DVDs I own. ^_^

And, the extras. As usual, MB has included the extras from the Japanese volumes, which I like a lot. The first is an excruciating interview with the VAs for Aer and Neviril. And the “MC”, who is a horrible lollipop with eyes stuck on and a computer-modulated voice makes it just that much more horrible. Seriously, just skip that extra. The second extra is much, much better. It’s a trivia and quiz game special, pairing up, well, Pairs. Hosted by Morinaga Rika, Mamina’s seiyuu (who is incredibly cute in a punk-y kind of way, with an unrealistically silly voice) each Pair vies for points on how well they match answers to questions, and know trivia from the anime. I was absolutely hysterical during this segment. I had already seen it raw, but I had missed a lot that went on in the background. It was darn funny. I hope we get more of this kind of thing. And bizarrely, when Toyoguchi Megumi is referred to as “Megu-‘nee” it was translated as that. (Well, “Meg-nee”, anyway.) So…erm, why was Alty’s “Kaim-‘neesan” translated as “Big Sister Kaim?” No clue.

Last up. The actual anime. I was so certain that I’d be disappointed watching Simoun this time around. Remember how we retrofit memories? I fully expected to find all sort of flaws with my memory that Simoun was teh awesome. You know what? I was wrong. God DAMN this is a good anime! Two minutes into it and I was glued to the TV and remained that way for all six episodes. Then I was sad that I didn’t have any more to watch. The music remains brilliant. The story remains fascinating. I love the art, the detailed CGI over not-at-all detailed watercolor. I love the ridiculous contrast between our beautiful peaceful sun-filled country and the enemy’s pollution-ridden world of darkness and filth. I love The Arcus Prima, the Simoun, the fact that Morinas is a tease and the fact that all the seiyuu are women. (The wife reminds me that I also still hate the character designs, especially Neviril’s sex-doll mouth. Which is true, but you can’t have everything.) After more than a year, I still love Simoun.

In terms of Yuri, there’s a lot of service. :-) Lots of kisses. And, while it was pretty subtle for an anime, girl-loving LFs of every gender got their RDA of panty and breast shots. But seriously, Yuri in this volume = Neviril x Amuria. The story revolves around what could have been, what happened and how Neviril can’t move on. She *must* be a lesbian, she’s unhealthily obsessing about her ex. :-) And surely we can’t ignore poor Kaim and her not at all unhealthy interest in Parietta. She gets points for trying *really* hard to make Parietta to look away from Neviril. And it’s not really her fault that she fails. And then there’s Morinas and her obvious, immediate, interest in Wapōrif. Can’t say that she’s just interested in him for his great personality…not yet, anyway. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 6

Overall – 8

Translation – 7
Adaptation – 7
Technicals – 7
Extras – 6

Should you get it? Hell yeah. Then email the folks at Media Blasters and let them know what they did right – and what they can improve. Let’s see if we can make Volume 2 even better.

Media Blasters responds: In regards to the artwork, we don’t always get the chance to use all of the artwork we receive, especially since we have a disproportionate number of release volumes to the Japanese version. It’s possible we can make an art gallery as an extra on one of the disks…. In terms of translations…the name translations were given to us by the licensor, so we didn’t have a lot of room for interpretation.

This is Erica again: I’m not surprised about the name thing. Thanks, Media Blaster representative, for commenting. It always helps to know what’s going on in the background, so we don’t feel like we’re out of the loop. ^_^





Yuri Anime: My Hime, Volume 6 (English)

October 18th, 2007

You wake up on the wrong side of the bed, stub your toe on the dresser and almost choke on your cereal. When you sit down to watch anime under circumstances like that, the *last* thing in the world you want is something happy and carefree. No, you want to wallow neck deep in someone’s life that sucks more than yours does.

Welcome to My HiME, Volume 6.

Despite the uptick on the misery quotient, this is my favorite of all of the volumes for this series. And my deepest thanks to Ted who provided it for review and the entertainment of all Yuri-kind.

Mai’s life isn’t getting any better and now, as Nagi predicted ever so snarkily, the HiME find themselves turning on one another. Nagi sort of misread the feminine mind there when he told them that the winner gets Highlander-esque powers. Because they didn’t really care about that. But once a whole bunch of manipulative assholes dig their fingers into a situation like this, and the natural inability of the human under pressure to think clearly, with the addition of hormones and outside stress levels, you just know someone is going down.

And down they go.

Despite the losses from our ranks in this volume, there are some really great moments.

One of the best has got to be when Mai and Mikoto accidentally witness Akira and Takumi in an embarrassingly tender moment. We know Akira is a girl, but they don’t, so it has a little gender-bendiness to add to the titillation and cringe-making cuteness.

Of course, for Yuri fans, this volume also offers the horribly over-used, abused and mused upon scenes where we learn, at last, what we already knew – that Shizuru is very gay for Natsuki. Really? We’re shocked. SHOCKED, I tell ya. We also get to see Shizuru jump all sorts of aquariums of sharks and go from competent and crushy to ragingly mad rapist and psychotic murderer. Hey, but she’s so cool – clearly Natsuki’s an idiot for passing that up.

(Which makes me wonder why there was never any hue, cry or outrage that Shizuru was the tedious psychotic lesbian stereotype? When Sharon Stone did it, everyone screamed in anger. Why did everyone continue to idolize Shizuru when she went batshit crazy? I know why *I* liked her. She has a polearm and I like psychotic women. But that’s me. Surely that can’t apply to every nutball in Yuri fandom? ^_^)

This is probably not a spoiler anymore (and all my posts are at least partial spoilers, and I will say some mildly spoilery stuff after this as well,) but I imagine that someone will get pissed at me for writing it (again). So if you do not want massive spoilers, stop reading here and pick up again after the second set of thre asterisks.

***

Some extra spoiler space for the weak of constitution

As much as Shizuru’s descent into madness is interestingly animated, with nice background music, lots of purple lighting and a cool polearm. It is Yukino’s defeat and Haruka’s reaction that makes this volume purest win.

Shizuru defeats Yukino heartlessly (and somewhat pointlessly, as well. Yukino was never a threat to Natsuki in any way. But try reasoning with a madwoman….)

As we all knew, Yukino’s most important person is Haruka and immediately, she begins to disappear. Of course, she has no idea at all what’s going on, but she gets all the points in the world from for forging ahead and punching Shizuru up the conk as she fades.

If that was not your favorite moment, well, then, you’re not coming over for lunch anytime soon. That’s all I’m saying. ^_^

That moment was so win, that clearly the writers realized that they had made the wrong person in that pair a HiME. They corrected the oversight for Mai Otome. ^_^

Extra spoiler space on this side for symmetry.

***

Other stuff happens too. We delve into mostly every HiME’s backstory and find that each one is essentially human, and therefore manipulable. And Miyu gets resurrected, because, we need Ayanami Rei clones in order for this to be a real anime. Also Mashiro turns out to be something other than what she seems.

The DVD extras are sort of interesting and sort of not. The first is a long, slow, lingering look at an inexplicably bound and hunkified Reito. No hollow-chested lad here – he’s so muscular he looks western. I imagine that this was service for the three gay guys who watched this series ’cause let’s face it, no one but me likes the hunky guys – everyone else seems to go gaga for the hollow-chested lads. Blecch. Next up is a retrospective by Natsuki about how much she treasures Shizuru’s friendship. She is clearly talking about friendship and nothing more, but that hasn’t stopped hordes of ShizNat fans from pointing out that she is also talking about Shizuru and not, say, her mother. The last extra is a bunch of words randomly spoken over pictures of Midori and Mai in bikinis.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

So, sure, we all get beat over the head with the misery stick and sure our “best lesbian candidate goes nuts (along with mostly everyone else) and sure the rewards for lesbian love are death, destruction and despair.

But hey, it’s a great volume! ^_^;





Yuri Anime: Battle Athletes Victory, Volume 7

October 15th, 2007

Properly speaking, Volume 7 of Battle Athletes is the penultimate volume, but realistically, it’s the conclusion of the story. Everything that has been masquerading as the plot for this bundle of clichés is tied up neatly here. In other words, we finally learn who wins the title of Cosmos Beauty.

Did we, in fact, have any doubt who would win? All we needed to do was watch the first episode and note that our protagonist was not only the least talented, least deserving and least competent person in the show, but also the most annoying, to recognize that she would of course, be the winner. I’ve talked a lot about the idiot savant hero/ine here. Akari is pretty much the epitome of the type. Her mad skills only kick in when she’s boosted by an outside stimulus. Thankfully, there are many recent anime that go the other route and show us the hero/ines practicing until they drop. Because I am not naturally talented at anything, and everything I have ever become even mediocre at has been because of long hours of practice, it’s no surprise I prefer that latter stories to the former. :-)

But.

Battle Athletes was from way back in the stone age, about a decade ago. It is decidedly old school in its power-ups – as well as in animation, music, voice acting and, well pretty much everything. As it also is rife with Yuri, I’m inclined to be generous. Plus, if you’re watching Battle Athletes in the first place, you gotta know to manage expectations anyway – this is not and never will be high art. :-) (Remind me to share my recent moment of satori about expectations and anime with you all sometime.)

So, we have two decidedly Yuri-riffic couples facing off in the finals of the CB tournament. The two best athletes evar versus two newcomers. In their defeat, Lahrri and Mylandah find each other, and get a nice little backstory which ties them neatly together, leaving Akari and Kris to have last minute angst at/about one another. In the manga, this was fueled by Akari learning that her father chose Kris over her, for no other reason that that he is (apparently) a victory-obsessed psychopath. In the anime, we learn that Kris cannot run the day chosen for the race, due to religious observances. Hmm…which is punchier plot complication? Hard to decide. At least the manga father wasn’t “Mr. Miracle” the chocolate hound. (Which always reminds me of a very evil drawing in the Jesus Drug doujinshi for this series. It’s just not right that that image is burned into my head…)

In the end, of course Kris gains dispensation to run. At last, Akari and she face off in a final battle.

Because it’s so much better, let me talk about the manga here. (And before I do, let me just remind you that the manga is LONG out of print, so please don’t ask me where you can find it. I got my copy at Book-Off, the used manga store, and I have also seen it for sale at Mandarake used book store in Tokyo. If you have a buyer, you can try looking on Yahoo JP auctions or the Amazon JP marketplace. Good luck.)

In the manga, Akari and Kris tie for first. Then they kiss in front of everyone in the whole world. Having achieved her dream, Kris returns to the Beginners to become a priestess.

In the anime, Akari wins and Kris disappears to return to the Beginners to become a priestess. Akari, having just been crowned, runs after her, catches up to Kris and her cow. Kris gently kisses her goodbye.

Read those two paragraphs again. Can you *guess* which one I prefer? I think you can.

And that’s pretty much it. Akari is Cosmos Beauty and she beat her mother’s time. Wow. Amazing. :-)

Oh, wait, here come the aliens! We’re under attack!

End of volume.

There were so many ways this volume could have been *brilliant*. Instead it was all right. Although Mylandah x Lahrri = win. And they will continue to be win through the farce that will be Volume 8. There really was no Akari x Kris, except in the hearts and minds of fans. Bloody shame if you ask me. But that too will come back like the bad penny it is in Volume 8. Because we can never have enough of our old friend old-school UST, i.e., “unresolved sexual tension.” (Remember, this was a staple for all anime of the time – not just Yuri or Yaoi. It won’t make it less annoying, but it makes it seem less unfair.)

So, for a resolution, it kind of wasn’t. I’d REALLY like to see this anime remade, this time with the right ending. ;-) Kanon, pfft. I want to see an updated BAV.

Ratings:

Art – practice profiles please – 6
Story – clinging to cliches is cheesy – 6
Characters – alas and alack, a lack – 7
Yuri – opportunity and motive, but no crime – 5
Service – as you like it – 5

Overall – slightly better than the sum of its parts, minus one for the cow – 6

For what it is, which is incredibly silly old-school junkiness from Mediaworks, Battle Athletes is pleasantly entertaining, without being good. ;-)





Best Student Council, Volume 4 (English)

October 4th, 2007

Best Student Council, Volume 4 is silly. I know that that will come as a shock to you. But it is. The volume is subtitled “The Secret Lives of Students,” which is pretty accurate for the first three episodes.

The first two episodes are a two-part look at two students with secrets – covert squad member Kutsugi Kotoha and Covert Squad VP Ginga Kuon. Because Kuon’s secret (which isn’t a secret to either Kanade or Nanaho) is shocking, Kotoha feels that Kuon is a huge threat – and that she will no longer take orders from Kuon. Of course, it all works out, because Kanade’s secret is also really obvious. (Sorry if that seems a bit obscure. I’m trying to not spoil too much.)

Episode three is both the funniest episode and the most painful of the entire series. Cyndi’s mother is due to arrive and we all learn that Cyndi has been telling her a pack of (not very intelligent) lies, which the entire Council spends a lot of time and money trying to make come true. The best scene of the episode has to be when several of the council members are forced to hula dance as Cyndi has dinner. The episode ends with a stunning confession by Cyndi about her true love, which happens to be the only male member of the cast. The only non-human, as well. I particularly liked Cyndi’s mother’s vile and crude Japanese language skills which frequently had her saying the exact opposite of what she meant – and usually very rudely, as well.

The final episode is an exploration of the fragility of women’s friendships. I’ve been a bit mean the last couple of weeks about Japanese men, so just assume the rant and let me explain a thing. In most cultures, when a woman got married, she was taken to her husband’s house and basically, never saw the light of day again. This relic still exists in anime/manga in the seemingly bizarre idea that after a women marries she will never again see friends or be able to work or anything. It seems bizarre to us that women would simply have to stop working, but lots of them do, still.

All of this is to explain why the fourth episode is supposed to be “funny.” In this episode, the two teachers deal with marriage meetings and their friendship. The moral of the story is the assumed “women’s friendships are weak, because as soon as a man comes into their lives, they stop being friends.” That this was mandated by culture and law never seems to sink into the superior male’s mind. (It’s not like they’d make a saying “Women’s friendships are weak, because after we’ve screwed ’em, we put them in a box and never let them out.”)

The bottom line – I hated this episode, and I hate all similar things, like Doki Doki School Hours‘s “Mika-sensei’s getting married we’ll never see her again,” episode. Welcome to the 12th century.

For the technicals, as usual, there’s no extras worth calling extras on the DVD and the case…well it has a case. ^_^

But aside from the irritating premise of the last episode this is another funny, silly disk of Best Student Council. With some serious Kuon time.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 6

Not a lot of Yuri, but some good Kuon service, which has to be worth *something*. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, Volume 2 (English)

September 24th, 2007

The subtitle of Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, Volume 2 is “Triangles Hurt” but what it really ought to be is “Tomari lies to herself, then stops.”

Because that’s what this volume is about, mostly. Tomari, having seen Hazumu and Yasuna kissing, jumps to the obvious conclusion that that kiss was sealing a deal between them. Hazumu liked Yasuna and now, for whatever reason, Yasuna returns the emotion. Except….

Tomari berates herself for dragging up old memories of lil’ Hazumu and she talking about getting married, and berates herself more for being jealous of Yasuna. She pretends to be happy for Hazumu, but is obviously being eaten up inside.

After a day at the beach, in which Yasuna does everything she can to include Tomari as a friend, Tomari has to finally be honest. As much for herself, she tells Yasuna that she likes Hazumu, too. And in a moment of gracious acceptance, Yasuna acknowledges her as a rival. I liked that quite a bit – so different from the usual snarky girl “you’re not worth me being worried” kind of thing. Also, completely unrealistic, but hey – aliens, spaceship in humanoid form, duh. If we’re going to look for realism in our Yuri, *this* is not the place to start. ^_^

Having admitted her feelings to herself, it’s a short step across a wide chasm for Tomari to admit her feelings to Hazumu. Surprisingly, it’s Hazumu herself who creates the opening, by bringing up the same memory that Tomari had been mulling over in the beginning.

We step aside from the main story a little to learn that Ayuki has no intention of ever telling the person she likes about how she feels. This will be the third time I have watched this episode and I’ve read it twice (once in each language) and I still think it looks like she likes Hazumu. I wonder if the mangaka started off with the harem idea, then changed courses for some reason.

This digression leads into our final episode of the volume in which we learn that Hazumu has a terminal case of the SPCD decideritis. She can not and has never been able to make up her mind. And there is still some small part of my soul that thinks that the fact that this is a plot complication is sad. (Aliens, Erica. Spaceship. Right, right….)

So at the end of the volume we’ve all moved forward into square one. Or should that be “triangle” one? Now, at least, all are clear on the landscape – Yasuna and Tomari both like Hazumu and Hazumu likes both of them and cannot decide between them. An admittedly difficult choice. Almost epic – the musician versus the athlete, the arts versus sport. Culture vs Activity. The result of this decision could change the world!

Or not.

The point is, the stage is set.

Technically this DVD was a mixed bag. It starts off really strong, with everyone referring to Hazumu as “she” then suddenly, for no reason, they all revert back to “he”. I watched the bits a few times when it first happened, because when they are referring back to Hazumu the child, it seems natural to use “he” but everyone somehow forgets to switch back when speaking of the current Hazumu. I wasn’t sure if that was an editing oversight, a translation decision, or no one noticed. But I did.

Aside from that the translation was pretty smooth, with the exception of the usual honorific thing that makes me unhappy. And the DVD comes with nifty interviews with the Japanese voice actors, which I always enjoy. They have nothing to say, but that’s okay – I like hearing them say it. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 7
Music – 6
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 6

Overall – 8

Thanks once again to the generosity and kindness of Media Blasters for giving me this DVD to review – and for allowing us to show Kashimashi and Strawberry Panic!, and most of all to premiere Simoun at Yuricon’s Yurisai event!