Archive for the English Anime Category


Yuri:Anime ROD The TV, DVD Volume 4 (English)

January 25th, 2005

What can I say about ROD The TV, Volume 4 other than, “Omigodomigodomigodomigod!!”

Watching *this* volume of *this* anime is as close to having sex as you can get without doing anything even remotely like having sex.

Episode 13 of ROD the TV is quite possibly one of the best episodes of anime *ever.* Certainly right up in the top three for me. This whole volume had me on the edge of my seat, and I already know what’s going to happen – I mean really, how amazing is that? In fact, although I just watched these epsiodes, I kind of want to watch them all over again right now.

In the original TV broadcast, episodes 15 and 16 had serious art degradation, but Geneon announced that this would be corrected in the DVD release – and it was. The art seems a bit over-kill on the shading department now, but it is a big improvement over the original…and damn straight too, because this is THE volume, kids, THE one! Nenene’s big scene was, in the original version scarred by seriously crappy art. Scarred no more, we can sniffle along with Nenene, as she learns just exactly what’s been going on for the last five years. (And boy is this volume creepy as hell, as we realize just how nuts Joker and Wendy are.)

The translation seemed a little inconsistent, as the translators occasionally slip into telling us something like what the characters said, as opposed to what they actually said; but there are also a few spots where this translation was significantly better than the fansubbers’ – especially in Wendy’s exposition of what the real deal is. This mix of science, history, medicine and fantasy is not easy material to be translating. Clearly. And I, for one, applaud the translators for their fine effort.

Best scene ever in any anime ever, for my money, is when Nenene hauls off and belts Joker. I watched it three times, just because it feels so damn good. ^_^

The only downside to Volume 4? The pencil board. This one isn’t just yucky or offensive – it’s downright getting towards illegal. I was NOT happy with this pencil board. If I haven’t made it clear, then let me be plain. Lolicon grosses me out the door. And folks who find it sexy gross me out too. I’m sorry, but…you’re wrong in the head if you think kids are sex material. I include the folks who decided that this pencil board was a good idea. Hey guys – you were wrong. It wasn’t. This was in plain-old bad taste.

Ratings? 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10 ad infinitum ad nauseum





Yuri Anime: Stratos 4, the overdue review (English)

October 21st, 2004

Stratos 4 is deservedly obscure anime.

I was surprised to note that I have never even *mentioned* it in this blog, and yet I clearly remember watching it all. It wasn’t bad enough to be good, nor was it good. It just sort of..was. I have yet to buy the DVD and I’m fighting hard with myself about it. I kind of don’t want to spend the money on such a lame story, but the Yuri is *way* over the top and funny.

In the near future, the earth is threatened by constant waves of meteors, so an elite force (primarily consisting of sexy young women,) has been created to destroy the meteors before they threaten the planet. These so-called Comet Blasters are “the” elite pilot force, full of young, beautiful things who are superstars to their millions of fans. Stratos 4 follows four girls, Shizuha, Ayamo, Karin, and Mikaze, as they train to be Meteor Sweepers – a sort of space cleanup crew that blast leftover meteor fragments left over from Comet Blaster missions…essentially, they get to follow the elephants. Everyone dreams of being a Comet Blaster, but only the best Meteor Sweepers ever even get a chance to try out.

Mikaze is our nominal heroine – from a long line of pilots, she feels a great deal of pressure to succeed but is, as usual, an idiot savant, showing only barely passable skill in everything until an emergency makes her mad piloting skillz appear. Sure, she saves the day, but she’s a danger to those around her. She and Shima-chan from Stellvia would make an exciting air show, that’s for sure.

While non-Yuri fans may be watching Mikaze and her trials and travails as she tries to keep her unpredictable skills under control, Yuri fans will be watching Miharu, the uber-sexy Comet Blaster as she seduces all the women under her command, and Karin, Mikaze’s friend, as *she* fights off an unnatural passion for Mikaze that has begun to possess her.

Which brings us to the bit that actually makes this series worth watching – while the main plot is complicated by a government conspiracy that threatens to ground the girls just when they are needed the most, *we’re* watching this bizarro case of viral lesbianism spread through the secondary cast. And that’s *exactly* what it is – a space virus spread by kissing (and, one hopes, by passionate sex). It appears initially to affect only women, but in the end we see some guys with it, too. However, we are spared the sight of any of the lovely Comet Blaster ladies actually kissing any those whatsits without the chest handles.*

Of course Miharu and the rest of the CB ladies aren’t gay – silly Yuri fan, what were you thinking? They are all possessed by the evil space virus. Miharu is really in love with her old flame, a loser mechanic who has the super-duper special prototype Spaceship That Will Save Us ALL (TM) in his garage.

And Karin isn’t a lesbian either, of course. In a feverish battle with her virus-borne lesbian pathogen, she realizes that she loves Mikaze too much as a friend to want to have passionate sex with her…or something like that. She overcomes her unnatural tendencies to return to being the bland and uninteresting character she was previously, with moderately more lines, and Mikaze and her posse roar off to save the day from space viruses, lesbians and sexually frustrated Comet Blaster babes.

Is this a good series? I don’t know. Fans of space opera may enjoy it. All I remember was thinking, “Uh-huh.” A lot. The fanservice was of the panty variety and, IMHO, quite utterly dull. Because we *needed* to see them on their rockets from the back looking forward. Yup.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Music – 6
Service – 6 The creative team sure likes asses
Yuri – 6

Overall – 6

* This line was paraphrased from a parody of Boku no Sexual Harrassment called Boku no Sucky-Sucky. The original line is from one of the salarymen (who isn’t gay, he just prefers sex with men) about a group of women sitting at another table. The salaryman says something to the effect of, “Oh look! It’s a group of those, whatsits, with the chest handles.” This line slayed me and is now a standard around the house.





Stellvia Anime, Foundation 1 (English)

September 28th, 2004

I reviewed Stellvia almost a year ago. Well, now it has been released by Geneon, and so, I thought it deserved another look.

Geneon had a big-ass booth at Otakon this past year, and even sponsored a mini-concert by Angela, the singer for the opening and Ending themes for this anime. I hadn’t watched Stellvia since the very first time I saw it, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the music. It’s a strange OP, sort of yodel-y and it was appealing in an unusual way. When I watched the DVD, I found myself turning the volume way up on the opening credits.

So, Stellvia of the Universe, or Uchyuu no Stellvia, is, as I mentioned in my previous review, a space opera. Katase Shima has always wanted to see space “head on,” so she applies to “Foundation Stellvia,” a space station academy, to learn to become a pilot. The plot hasn’t changed much since my last review, so I’ll focus only on the actual DVD release.

Right off, I decided to purchase the plain DVD in a case version, eschewing the DVD in series box. I cannot imagine that whatever extras you get with the box is worth the $15 more in price. That’s practically a whole ‘nother DVD, for pity’s sake! And pencil boards go for around $3…, so…. You get 4 eps for your $20, which isn’t jump for joy great, but it’s not like I feel like I’m being taken to the cleaners, either.

The no-frills DVD is definitely that. You get nada with it. No liner notes, no anything. Just a notice of future release dates and a market research card. (Dear Geneon, Please license Maria-sama ga Miteru, I have lots of money to spend. Thanks so much. Love, Erica.). The cover of the DVD is the same as the Japanese version – a sort of lurid green with Shima-chan floating uncomfortably alone. The DVD itself is really lovely…the green sky theme repeated as a green DVD with cut-outs where the prismatic DVD is visible, like stars glowing in a green sky. Cle-ver…

The soundtrack was fubared on my DVD and I’m not really sure why. It would only play in monotrack on my TV, but worked fine on my computer. Other DVDs worked fine on the TV, so it had to be the disc. No clue what was going on there…and I didn’t lose much, just a few background noises.

The translation was, for the first episode, stunning. Absolutely fan-tastic. Shima-chan was appropriately translated as Shima-chan, the twice it was used. Honorifics in place, all’s well. And then the episode ended and aliens took over the translation for the next three episodes. Can we say, “wtf”?

Episodes 2-4 were dreadful. Translation was bland & colorless, and the honorifics were disappeared and carted off, never to be seen again – I cried when I realized that they were never coming back. I don’t know WHAT on earth happened to the translation, but clearly they need to find the folks who did the first episode and apologize for offending them and get them back on the job!

One last note – I had originally commented that the characters looked too young for my taste. I guess I had never noticed before, but the art looked about the same level as Digimon. The same faces and bodies on the characters, the same high-end CGI, but low-end character design…all very weird when put together.

I had also forgotten how GOOD the script was. For all my bitchin’, the story is still solid, the voice actors are still decent and Machida Ayaka, the hyper-competent, bitchy (and ultimately psycho lesbian, so you KNOW I like her) in the big 4 is voiced by Toyoguchi Megumi, who also voices Satou Sei in Maria-sama ga Miteru! (For the record, Kuzuhara Yayoi is voiced by Orikasa Fumiko.)

The DVD release is only a 6, but the story still gets an 8, for an overall 7.

This series is definitely worth a rent and, if you’re willing to wait for the payoff, a buy. I know I’ll look forward to the next volume, just because the story is really damn decent.





Yuri Anime: Digimon Tamers (English)

September 14th, 2004

You are probably sitting there, at your computer, boggling. “Digimon?” You are asking incredulously. “Did I read that right?”

Let me begin with the beginning. The first season of Digimon is really the story of a little girl, called Hikari in the Japanese original and Kari in the English language version. There are some older girls in the series, Mimi and Sora, but they don’t interact as much as one would hope. But in the second season, Hikari and Sora have a kind of relationship, partially through themselves, partially through their Digimon. I personally did not see what they has as a “relationship” if you know what I mean, but many, many people did. There is a fair amount of Kari/Sora stuff out there, if you care to look for it.

But what I really wanted to talk about was the third season. Known here in America as Digmon Tamers this season came on TV and went and barely left a trace. In every way, this Digimon series was the *best.*

Right off the bat, the main female lead, Rika in English, Ruki in Japanese, pinged every gaydar alarm I have. She’s tough, she’s intolerant, she’s an ice queen, she wears utterly butchy clothes. She’s better at the Digimon game than anyone else (they call her the “Digimon Queen”…uh-huh…) in the story. Inside that icy exterior, of course there is a fragile and lonely (read: codependent) girl. Her mother is a top model and only wants Ruki to be cute and doll-like, ignoring the obvious signs of babydykeness in her daughter.

Ruki’s Digimon is “Renamon,” a fox-creature. If you know anything about female fox spirits, this will make you smirk, since foxes are reputedly very sexual. At first Ruki only thinks of Renamon as a fighting animal – Renamon lives to serve, like all good butches – so fight she does.

As the series goes on, Ruki is worn down by Renamon’s loyalty, friendship and ultimately, love. From about 1/4 into this long season, Renamon and Ruki are *so* a couple, it’s rather frightening at times. Their conversations sound like actual conversations lesbian couples have…it’s a little creepy really. ^_^

Renamon digi-volves into progressively cooler forms. From Renamon, she becomes the nine-tailed fox-spirit Gyuubimon, the short-lived Viximon, and the way very cool and mystic Taomon. But it is in her final form that she and Ruki really, quite literally, merge. Together they become Sakuyamon, a priest-warrior female fox-humanoid thing. Trust me, it’s pretty cool. :-)

In order to leave to fight the final battle, Ruki is forced to “come out” to her mother, about herself, about Renamon…and her mother accepts her for who she is (and buys her a great big clunky belt buckle for her dykey belt, a sort of ritual acceptance of her daughter’s inevitable butchiness. ^_^)

The end of the series is, IMHO, tragic. Ruki and Renamon do not live happily ever after. I was really bummed at the end, as Renamon and the other Digimon are forcibly devolved and sucked back to the Digi-world, leaving their human friends alone and crying hysterically, but determined to get back to the D-World to find them again. Sob…

So, yeah, the ending sucked, but overall this was a really good series. By far and away the best of the whole bunch. Ruki and Renamon are an incredibly well-played couple…and I have to hand it to the American voice actors – they didn’t even suck. Mari Devon’s gruff Renamon was as close to on par with Orikasa Fumiko’s Renamon as I could hope to expect from a dub and Melissa Fahn was pretty spot on an angry babydyke Rika.

Now, if only they would release it on DVD – I’d so buy this series….

Ratings:

Character – 9
Story – 9 (Really…this was a decent story with a real plot…and the kids’ parent weren’t totally clueless, etc. etc.)
Animation – 7
Music – who can tell? The American version uses some heinous made-up theme. Bleah)
Yuri – 8
Overall – 8

Seriously. It may be a kid’s show and all about dumb monsters…but Ruki and Renamon rock and the story’s not bad. ^_^

2013 Update: You can now get the entire season of Digimon Tamers on DVD! (Dub only.)





Yuri Anime: Azumanga Daioh Vols. 1,2, 3 (English)

September 13th, 2004

It’s always touch and go when an anime series that relies as heavily on puns and humor as Azumanga Daioh does is translated into English. ADV Manga tried to be too clever when they translated the manga, and as a result the first volume really lost some of the funnier bits…but I’ve been told that the problems were rectified in the later volumes.

Nonetheless, it was with some trepidation that I purchased the first volume of the DVD. In general I was pleasantly surprised.

Let me start off with the good – the liner notes. I have never seen such excellent liner notes *ever,* in any release. Not only do they explain the puns (and how they developed the English-language equivalents) they have fun comments from the designers and directors and other Japanese staff. Because a lot of these comments are silly and irrelevant, they fit with the general tone of the anime well. The liner notes also include character sketches, which I personally don’t care for much, but I’m sure some people would be thrilled with. (The killer for me on these was that for Sakaki-san’s character sketches, they completely don’t show her in the uber-cool gakuran she wears at the second Physical Fitness Festival. I mean – if we can’t see that, who *cares*? ^_^)

There wasn’t any “get” until the third volume – a pretty decently made cloisonne’ pin of nekokoneko. I wouldn’t mind a few more pins. (I’m betting the Otousan cat wil be one of them, though…sigh.) The DVDs come with reversible covers, which seems to be the norm now – I quite like that.

Of course, I wasn’t happy with the use of honorifics, or lack thereof, but at least they are consistent and explicable. Essentially, they left “-chan” the way it was, since they couldn’t translate it in any meaningful way, but translated “-san” as “Miss” or “Mr.” and “-sensei” the same way…mostly. It gets a bit uncomfortable when Tomo calls Yukari-sensei “Yukari-chan” and they don’t really translate that….

Again, I remain a purist on honorifics, because there is no English equivalent to the hierarchies implied by their use. PLEASE translators, leave them alone!

Because so much of Osaka’s dialogue is horrible puns, I have to admit they really went out of their way to figure out reasonable English equivalents, which was good, but…I was disappointed that they use the English-language script as the subtitle script. So we don’t get those complex puns as she says them – we get the made-up equivalents. The liner notes cover the puns, so you can learn what Osaka really says…but they could have just translated them directly for the subtitles. Oh well.

Lastly, in terms of number of episodes, this series is wildly inconsistent, running from 6 episodes to 4, depending on the volume. Which isn’t heinous. And getting 5 or 6 eps. on a DVD always makes me feel pretty good about the purchase.

In terms of story: this series still cracks me up every time I watch it. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, all while being pretty mild and goofy. I smile a lot at the characters involuntarily.

Kaorin is *still* hugely and openly gay. Her crush on Sakaki goes well beyond akogare/admiration. You can tell because of the rainbow colored jets and church bells and lily imagery that they shove down your throat whenever she has a Sakaki moment. ^_^ This is a comedy – she’ll graduate never having told Sakaki a thing, but you can be sure that Kaori will be wearing rainbow accessories in her future. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 8
Character – 9
Yuri – 7, since Kaorin is just a side character.
Music – 7
Service – 3
Overall – 8

This is laugh out loud funny and a nice change of pace from angsty Yuri. A definite must-have. ^_^