Archive for the English Anime Category


My HiME Anime, Volume 2

March 26th, 2007

This review has been brought to you by the generosity of Okau Hero Brent A, I believe – there was no name on the shipping label.  In any case, my sincere thanks for his generosity and kindness. This is another of the items off my Amazon Wish List, which I am exceedingly glad to review for you all, as promised. :-) If you would like to sponsor a review, just go ahead and choose something off my wish list – I’ll be sure to acknowledge you with genuine thanks and warm, fuzzy feelings.

So, in Volume 2 of My HiME, we continue filling in the ranks of HiME, get some backstory on a few of the characters and commit the first of what will be a series of heinous crimes against the viewers. The things that were good about this volume were also the things that were bad, so it was an interesting watch from my perspective.

Let’s talk technicals first. The subtitle issue was not resolved for Volume 2, so unless you have state of the art DVD players or computers, you will not be able to see the subtitles. Luckily, since I reviewed Volume 1 I did indeed get both a new DVD drive and new software. Not, you understand, so that I can watch this disk, but because my previous DVD burner began to melt. So, I was able to see the subtitles. And boy oh boy, I understand why they want them to be hard to see! Bandai…appears to be using the teeniest, most pixelated yellow subtitles they can find. I’m not asking for fancy text effects (Ogma knows they’re wasted on me) but I’d like to be able to *see* the subtitles. My laptop screen is 15″. I’m old. They were small and hard to read. And pixelated! That’s all I’m saying.

Once again., let me stress that the animation for My HiME, despite your faulty recollection, is *significantly* worse than that for Mai Otome. Really. If you think I’m lying, you just don’t remember. Because the animation for this volume is *awful*.

Volume 2 deals primarily with two things – the addition of two HiME who function for a *very* short time as foils for one another, and Mai’s personal backstory. The backdrop to all this is rain, so you know it’s dramatic. In fact, the first episode is called “Rain and Tears” in case you miss the point of just how dramatic it is.

But as fast as we gain HiME, we lose at least one in this volume and, in the process, we learn the true risk of being a HiME…that the person (not yourself) that is most important to you will disappear if you’re defeated. On the one hand, we gain a HiME who thinks of her role as a superheroine – and revels in it, much as she revels in her obvious lies about herself and, on the other hand, we lose a HiME who probably wouldn’t have hurt a fly otherwise.

The Monsters of the Day turn up the conflict a notch, Nagi continues to be irritating and wow – is it freakish watching this volume after having been so thoroughly brainwashed by Otome. The level of angst is SOOOOOOO high, that it was hard to take seriously, since I know that all the pain and suffering will…well, I won’t rant about it again. It just seems more like *this* is the fanfic now, where someone took all these happy-go-lucky Garderobe characters, made ’em kids, stuck ’em in a school and upped the angst.

Let me digress a bit and talk about angst. In my Fanfic Writing Workshop, which you can find on “Worldshaking” Fanfic (or at a con near you that is also near me), I discuss the concept of “hand of god” writing. Many people – especially young people, like very angst-heavy stories. There’s a lot of reasons for that that I won’t get into, but I will say this – from the author’s side angst is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to write. You know the saying, “Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard”? This comes from the stand-up comic circuit and it is absolutely true for writing, as well. That’s why so much fanfic sounds like this “Person X is forced to react when Person Y is killed doing something or other.” That’s hand of god writing. To me, the very best writing of all is the kind that plays out in small details. So a lot of anime fails in terms of writing, for me, but some are better than others. I was all for My HiME’s hand of god until the end, where the entire series was invalidated. (Dammit, I promised not to rant again… oh well.)

I had completely forgotten that Nao was Mikoto’s age in HiME, that was really weird. LOL In any case, I found it a tad depressing to watch this volume this time, but if I treat it like a fanfic of Otome, it’s not so bad. ^_^

No Yuri, really, even if you squint and turn up the Yuri goggles, unless you’re counting Mikoto and Mai. Which I’m not.

Last up, the DVD extras. They were universally disgusting. Oh, wait, no, the last one wasn’t disgusting, just pathetic. I know that they are just service for the fanboys, but gawd…how do you guys stand it? I was gagging trying to get through them. (Just another good example of how what lesbians think is sexy and what guys think is sexy is nothing like the same thing…)

Ratings:

Art – 5
Character – 6
Story – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 9
Angst – 8 and going up quickly from here on in.

Overall – 6





Yuri Anime: Project A-ko

February 14th, 2007

Here’s why, until recently, I had never seen Project A-ko. ^_^

In the dawn of time, MTV was carrying extremely late night anime, (they were dubbed, and mostly old-school. This was long enough ago now that the current anime/manga boom could not have even been predicted as a possibility,) and I was working three jobs: a full-time day job, teaching martial arts at night, and on the weekends, selling swords at a RenFaire. I’d get home Saturday night at about midnight and be completely fried. The wife was working two jobs (day job, and doing henna in Soho in NYC on the weekends) and while waiting for her to come home, I’d stare at TV.

I watched Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, which was so screwed up it put me off the series for years, until I watched some of the TV series for review purposes years later, which put me off it forever.

And I saw one teeny, tiny, wee bit of Project A-ko. The dub voices sliced through my exhausted nerve endings, leaving me shaking. I turned off the TV and never again even tried to watch A-ko. I should have tried again, of course. I mean, history, and all that. But the dub left such an unpleasant impression, that I’ve just sort of skirted the issue all these years.

And that’s where it might have stayed, except for a recent barrage of cajoling and wheedling by members of the Yuricon Mailing List, which culminated in Jen hoisting me with a quote of my own, from my Kekkou Kamen anime review, praising the voice acting skills of Shinohara Emi. Well, Jen won. I caved. I watched.

It is an apparently well known fact that A-ko was originally supposed to be part of the Cream Lemon hentai series, but was not, in the end, included. It has much of the same kind of art, and a great deal of fanservice. It also has a strange edginess that I find hard to explain. It’s not desperation, it’s almost…like the voice actresses found the story so bizarre and laughable that they just decided to go ahead and do it as over-the-top as they could.

I’m kind of glad I watched it when I did, because I was sick and heavily medicated, which made it more enjoyable, I’m sure. ^_^ Seriously, it was…inexpressibly bad, in that totally kitschy funny way. The writers clearly knew what they were spoofing, and why, and did it in a way that *just* rode the line between being godawful and hysterically funny.

B-ko, voiced by Shinohara Emi is, as many people pointed out to me in their campaign to entice me to watch it, a very Evil, very Psychotic Lesbian. As EPLs go, B-ko provides an exquisite example for the young EPLs-in training of the world, like Miu from Ichigo Mashimaro – except for her execrable taste in women, as C-ko is quite possibly the most annoying creature to ever grace any anime ever.

A-ko, ironically, was voiced by a young Itou Miki. She and Shinohara Emi have recently been working together again as part of an anime you may have heard of – Maria-sama ga Miteru.  Is there a less likely pairing for Youko and Sachiko’s voices than B-ko and A-ko? It’s almost surreal to imagine.

Which leads me to this comment I made on the YCML, “My last thought was that the dub must have been pretty good, since the level of nerve shredding in the voice acting was consistent with what I remembered from that aborted late-night attempt at watching it.”  How’s *that* for a compliment? ^_^

The music is also quite excruciating, even surpassing the oh-so-80s music from the original Bubblegum Crisis for cringe making.

If you already are a fan and don’t already own it, the box set, pictured and linked above, is a genuinely good deal (2022 Update: The new link goes to the Diskotek Perfect Edition with remastered animation and extras. The edition I reviewed here is long out of print.).

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 4 realistically, but 7 for crackheadeness
Characters – B-ko – 8, everyone else – 6, C-ko owes me points
Yuri – 6
Service – 8

Overall – can you even do an overall for this kind of crap? Let’s say 6

You know, A-ko wrong in so many ways, that we had to show it at Yuricon’s 2007 “Yurisai” event. ^_^





Silent Mobius Anime Volume 1 (English)

November 6th, 2006

I was asked a while back to review the Silent Mobius series and, as I needed to re-watch and read it anyway for that winning story for the “Worldshaking” Fanfic contest, this was as good a time as any other. :-) I was lucky to get the box set of the anime for a really good price, which will allow me to clear out some precious shelf space. I recommend the box set – it’s a good deal – about a buck an episode. Of course I’ve linked to it above. lol

To begin with, Silent Mobius is set in a future dystopia in which two worlds, that of humans and a parallel universe full of demony things called “Lucifer Hawks” have collided. Lucifer Hawks feed on, slaughter and breed with humans like the inhuman creatures of the night that they are.

The AMP, “Attacked Mystification Police” force is an all-female squad assigned to the single job of dealing with Lucifer Hawks. Who the members are, and why they, particularly, are chosen, are the subject of many of the first half of the series’ episodes. I will say this – I remember much of these character stories – they were very, very good.

Also good are the relationships between the women, and between them and characters outside the group. Everyone seems very human, very real – far more real than many current series ever get close to – with far fewer inexplicable hand-waves and plot holes. This story is quite seriously, well written and conceived.

Like You’re Under Arrest, Silent Mobius is an extremely straight story, but because of the nature of fandom, people just aren’t willing to settle for that, dammit, and go through all sorts of hoops to make couples of the women of AMP.

Frankly, I’d forgotton how much I like Kiddy and Ralph together. LOL And Roy and Katsumi are kind of sweet, too, even though I know that they are doomed. ;-)

Yuki, if the story were redone now, would be drawn as a 12-year old goth-loli and Nami’s the female equivalent of a eunuch. Lebia Maverick gets my vote as “character most likely to prefer sex with herself”. ^_^

Which leaves us with the only two characters who ping *my* Yuri-dar….Mana and Rally.

But I get ahead of myself. In this volume we have no more to ID them than exceedingly severe shoulder pads and a ball-buster attitude. (One day, many years ago, I went to work in a suit jacket, tie and long skirt. At least three guys told me that I looked “severe” or like a “ball buster”…I never really thought about it until I re-watched this DVD. I see what they mean!)

There is of course, Rosa, who with her S&M dom look and sister complex gets some people’s blood going. Not mine. And she hasn’t shown up yet, anyway. ^_^

Volume 1 is pretty much just a intro to the story. There are a few differences from the manga, the most notable of which is that Mana is already with AMP, and that it is told chronologically from Katsumi’s arrival in Japan. I think I prefer the manga, but that’s probably just me. There’s nothing wrong with the anime.

“Kindan no Pensee” is a really good opening theme, too – it was the first MP3 I ever downloaded to play on my computer. Ah, nostalgia…

Yuri? Not in Volume 1, but this story is more about good action, and solid characters than it is about Yuri. I’m surprised how well it holds up – even if the clothes look awfully 80’s “vision of the future.” ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7 (The Lucifer Hawk had to be severely simplified for animation, which makes it easier to see them and what they do)
Story- 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 7

A strong action/magic/scifi/ball-busting severe woman/future dystopian/romance of a story.

With big shoulder pads.





Yuri Anime: Madlax DVD Volume 4

December 1st, 2005

Every time I watch the fourth DVD of Madlax, I think, “This is probably the best work Bee Train will ever do.”

The story doesn’t yet make sense (and doesn’t ever make *complete* sense, but that’s okay) and the characters aren’t resolved (nor do they ever fully resolve) or even developed, but the sense of hanging tension and anticipation is what I think they are trying to do – the later development and resolution of characters and plot is almost anticlimactic. The questions are the point, not the answers. But, where in Noir the questions never get anything like real answers, in Madlax they do – even if they are a bit fantastic. Which is why I say that this volume is pretty much the pinnacle of Bee Train’s work, as I understand it.

What *does* happen in this volume? Well, the link between Margaret and Madlax is drummed into our head in three refrains: hot drinks; red shoes; pasta.

Madlax stares into the eye of Enfant and find her brain leaking out her ears from the mystical words of the book Firstari. Twice. And twice Vanessa saves her sorry possessed ass.

Vanessa and Madlax get all touchy-feely.

Carlossur Dawn realizes that he’s going to have to choose soon, between the truth and his job.

Vanessa gets to play the prince to Madlax’s lost princess, but is way glad when Madlax takes the role back.

Margaret doesn’t have enough brains left to be affected by her own book, Secondary.

Eleanor is still a really strange maid. ^_^

Rimelda is on the cusp of realizing that her life is meaningless without Madlax in it.

Vanessa and Madlax visit the place where it all began, and Margaret knows it, somehow.

Naharu walks around looking mysterious and cool, but adds nothing appreciably to plot or character.

Did I mention Vanessa and Madlax snuggling?

The music in this particular set of episodes is pretty much the same three songs you keep hearing over and over, but at this point they become symbolic, as well as decorative. In fact, Madlax’s own theme becomes so crucial to the plot, Japanese fans apparently joked that the word “Yamaani” which is the repeated opening word of her song, gave Madlax superhuman powers. ^_^

Sometimes a story takes too long to get to the point. To be honest, I don’t really care if there ever is a point in this anime – it’s a fun ride, full of gunfire and other people’s misery and deeply mystical, occult symbolism that means nothing to me. ^_^

My only complaints? Friday Monday is STILL the worst name EVER for a bad guy…and…Firstari? Oh, come *on*! Primary. The word is P-r-i-m-a-ry.

When they use Thirdari, I just start to cry.

There’s no overt Yuri. Vanessa and Madlax snuggle in a comfy, friendly way, but I’m not opposed to the idea that it went further somewhere along the line. Nonetheless, I hold in my heart Madlax x Rimelda and Vanessa x Eleanor.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Music – 8
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7.5

A strong action story, with a little light magic thrown in.





Yuri Anime: Stellvia. Volume 5

September 16th, 2005

The reason this review took so long to get to was simply that I had a really hard time finding this volume! Amazon had it on backorder and at Otakon, not a single vendor had a copy by the time I got to go shopping. It was really irksome. (Amusingly, at the Geneon booth, the sales guy tried to sell me Vol.6, but I kept saying I wouldn’t get it until after I had Volume 5. He was like, “But you’ll need it eventually.” ^_^)

Let’s get right to it, shall we? This volume has a lot of good things, but I’m about to start with the bad.

The art. Where do noses go when they aren’t on faces? Is there a graveyard of lost anime noses? The art is *so* inconsistant in this volume. The older characters are fairly treated, but the main characters…ecch. It definitely looks like we had more than one group doing the art – and one of them sucked. Specifically the group handling Shima and Arisa.

There’s a scene in the second episode (which otherwise has better art than the first) on the volume where the girls are teasing Shima about Kouta. Shima and Arisa are all over the room, while the background characters are all stock still for nearly the entire scene, with fixed faces. Obviously, they didn’t bother animating anyone who wasn’t absolutely necessary. And it looks it. Awful, awful, awful.

The other major bad thing is Kouta. He’s heading into major idiot savant mode and from this point on, I really don’t like him. He’s so…removed…about people, and about Shima in particular. So while she’s growing, and trying harder and harder to reach him, he’s just being a nothing. But he’s a main character, so we have to watch him being a nothing all the freakin’ time! It’s downright distressing.

But that’s about it for really, really bad.

On the good side, all the little relationships are starting to mature – there’s a fair amount of time given over to taciturn Akira and runty Jojo. The volume starts them off on a rough foot, but they really get to spend some quality time onscreen. And along the way, they have a couple of short, but quite meaningful and interesting, scenes. With really good dialogue and everything.

There are some moments in this volume that approach excellent – particularly the political fragmenting of the humans involved in the different aspects of this “war.” People who feel its necessary vs people who feel its a plot by the military, vs people who think its a hoax, vs people who think war would be fun. With our current situation here in the US, it reads as quite realistic.

The most well-executed scene is towards the very end, when the war becomes a reality for our young characters. Seeing a battle, in which “our” forces take a thorough and fatal beating, through Shima’s eyes is quite painful, even as it is exceptionally well-executed.

For our Yuri couple, Yayoi and Ayaka, there is only one scene towards the beginning – but it’s a good one. ;-) With a short, fanservicey, flashback to when they originally met, we get a tearful and emotional reunion between them. Otherwise they are never seen together…but later when Arisa teases Yayoi about Pierre (who has a openly-acknowledged crush on her) Yayoi basically says that he has no chance. Everyone laughs and moves on. They know he has no chance – they just think it’s cause he’s a doofus and Yayoi is a lady.

Ratings:
Art – yucky to not too bad
Story – fun, interesting, emo
Characters – real
Music – doo-doo-doo

Overall – just watch it

In general, this volume is good, solid space opera fare. The aliens are bugs, humans are torn over what to do, and the kids…are kids. All in all, a good story that stays good with ocassional moments of excellent and awful.