Archive for the English Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Devilman Lady

May 28th, 2004

Okay, yesterday I forgot to tell you about the one great big gay character in the Devilman Lady manga, but that’s okay because I’ll be covering her today, with great enthusiasm. ^_^

Let me start off by saying that the anime version of Devilman Lady is SO lesbian, that it’s a wonder it doesn’t get more spin in Yuri circles. I guess the majority of viewers just prefer cute over tough, but call me a happy minority. I’ll take cool, competent and tough any day over cute. ^_^

Where in the manga our heroine, Fudou Jun, was a uber-tough, butched up athlete, even had been in the Olympics as a swimmer, the anime Jun is a quiet, lovely top-notch fashion model. She’s immensely popular and we can see why, because when she gets in front of the camera, she becomes something alive and animal – her charisma is obvious, and so is her hunger.

Into this life comes the (still) completely psychotic Ran Asuka, who throws Jun into a room with a guy who becomes a ravening Devilbeast. The shock of being attacked forces Jun to transform (no demon bats here…) and Asuka calmly tells Jun that she’ll help Asuka hunt other Devilbeasts around the city. Jun, who has pretty low self-esteem, does.

Asuka is openly and obviously attracted to Jun, but pretty much only when she’s in her Devilbeast form.  In any case, Asuka definitely teases her unmercifully, as she forces Jun to travel the country slaughtering people as a Devilbeast; ironically in the name of preserving humanity.

Complicating Jun’s life is the addition of a young friend, Kazumi who, after her parents are killed by a Devilbeast (and she is saved by Jun in her transformed state) moves in with Jun. It is *equally* apparent that these two LONG for each other. You’ll be happy to know that about 3/4 through the series, they finally acknowledge their feelings and even spend a night together, but this series is not a comedy – it’s a tragedy. I’ll leave you to guess the rest.

Episodes 5 and 6 of the series ought really to come with a 100% Yuri label. Kazumi has moved in and now wants to buy a bigger bed to share with Jun. She all buts says, “Look, stupid, I really want to sleep with you” but she’s young and a little unsure of Jun’s feelings. Jun, is agonizing over this, exactly *because* she wants so desperately to sleep with Kazumi. Trust me – this is not subtext. From this point on, whenever anyone other than Jun mentions Kazumi, it’s to refer to her as Jun’s lover, even though they aren’t. Jun wimps out, btw, and buys bunk beds. Kazumi is quite shocked by this admission of Jun’s, because what it says is either “I want you so much I won’t be able to control myself” – which is the truth, or, “I loathe you so much I can’t stand the thought of sharing a bed with you,” in which case she ought to make Kazumi leave. It’s pretty apparent that Jun feels she wouldn’t be able to control herself.

In the meantime,we introduce Jun’s old high school classmate (and, in the manga, rival), Big Gay Aoi.

Let me backtrack. In the manga, Kurosaki Aoi is like 6 1/2 feet tall and HUGE. Muscles everywhere. She makes butchy Jun look like a little girl. She obviously wants Jun, but they have a nasty rivalry between them and Aoi has a abusive background and doesn’t do well when she’s not letting the Devilbeast in her body eat people she hates. The Devilbeast, of course, decides it wants to eat Jun. Aoi and the beast that is her body argue and the beast eats Aoi i.e., itself. Aoi does confess her feelings and in the end, Jun is forced to admit that she was also attracted to Aoi. Duh.

Okay, here in the anime, Jun is no athlete – in fact, she’s anemic, and had a problem with passing out when she got too excited as a youth. Flashback to high school at a swim meet. Aoi sees Jun pass out and carries her to the locker room. When Jun comes to, Aoi tries to kiss her. At first Jun gives in, but then, in a moment of weakness, pushes Aoi away and they never speak again. For years. Now, Asuka sets Jun on Aoi’s tracks, because she’s exhibiting signs of being a Devilbeast. In the manga, where Aoi became a Devilbeast to avenge herself on her sexually abusive stepfather, here in the anime Aoi basically has done it for Jun. Jun visits her at the pool and Aoi blatantly asks Jun to love her back, but Jun refuses, again. (Given Jun’s reacton to Kazumi and Asuka, it seems to me that the worst enemy Jun has is herself. She obviously is attracted to women, but it scares her silly, even after all this time.) They fight and ultimately, to save Jun, Aoi sacrifices herself. Let me just add that as Jun is played by Iwao Junko (Tomoyo in Card Captor Sakura and Aoi’s voice is done by Ogata Megumi who played Tenou Haruka in Sailor Moon, we’re talkin’ serious 6 degrees of Yuri-fest right here. ^_^

Episode 6 is the story of a rival model who also wants Jun and ends up getting her naked and tied up in bed before the Devilbeast transformation happens and Jun has to kill her.

From this point on, the story becomes a triangle between Asuka, Jun and Kazumi. Kazumi wins, in a way, because she and Jun admit that they love each other, but in a more concrete way, Asuka wins, because she makes Jun into what she wants her to become. Asuka also wins because she’s the only transgender lesbian from New Jersey that I know of in anime. We learn that she was born and raised in New Jersey (Montclair, from the looks of it,) and that she was born male, but is now female. So in my book, Asuka wins, hands down, because I can say that she is a transgender lesbian from NJ. In anime. It always makes me happy to be able to say that. It doesn’t bother me that she’s insane because I love psychotic lesbians. ^_^

This series is campy horror, not as violent as the manga, but still violent and has a really sort of ambiguously happy ending. I think it’s one of the most Yuri series out there now and it’s a damn shame more people don’t know how wonderfully weird and bizarre it is. Sure, the girl doesn’t get the girl, but it really doesn’t matter, because it’s a great story, with a strange, but less super-weirdo-bizarre ending than the manga, but still plenty weird.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Characters – 10
Music – 10
Yuri – 10
Service – 10

Overall – 10

Devilman Lady is one of my very favorite anime series in the whole of Yuri-land. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Haibane Renmei

April 29th, 2004

Sometimes a series comes along that is so rare, so special, that it would be worth watching just for itself, without any of the usual hooks one expects in anime or manga. Haibane Renmei is one of those series. It is as worth watching for what doesn’t happen, as what does.

Right off the top, Haibane Renmei has the distinction of being the first anime to be based completely off a doujinshi. Yoshitoshi Abe, well-known for his character designs in Serial Experiments Lain and Niea Under 7 had a vision of a bunch of characters called “Haibane,” (which means “charcoal wings”) one day and collected a bunch of sketches of them into a book called Haibane Renmei, (“Charcoal Wings Federation,) which he published and sold at Comiket in Tokyo. The book became really popular, and people kept asking him who these Haibane were and what they were and so on – and so he drew a little doujinshi about the place they lived, called “Old Home – a sort of “slice of life” of the Haibane. The story had a lot of holes in it – there didn’t seem to be a clear beginning or end, and there were a lot of things that the author didn’t know about, by his own admission, like why they can only wear hand-me-downs, and the like.

These characteristics were, lock, stock and barrel, plopped into the anime of Haibane Renmei. The story doesn’t have a clear beginning, nor are many things explained – in fact, the whole world that the Haibane inhabit is left wide open to the imagination. Because of this, not despite it, Yoshitoshi has managed to design one of the most beautiful and intriguing anime I’ve ever seen. To be blunt, I bawled like a baby through the end, but I never felt manipulated or cheated.

The art is seriously unconventional in many ways, the story line defies description, since it seems to begin sort of in the middle of a thing and go on until it stops. The piece we’re party to are examples of truly fine writing – sweet, whimsical, serious and mature by turn and compelling all the way through. There is a great deal left to know about the world of the Haibane – what comes before, what comes after, where do the come from and where do they go? But I’m inclined, like the people that inhabit the space, to simply accept it for what it is and just enjoy the beauty and poetry of the story.

I can hear you asking, “yeah, but is there Yuri?” My answer has got to be that that depends on how you define “Yuri.” If you mean sex between women, then no, definitely not…. What you can say is that Haibane Renmei is about an incredibly intense emotional bond between two women, one that significantly alters their lives, or at least what we see of their lives. For die-hard Yuri-seekers, I think there is *definitely* a case for calling Reki woman-identified, if not women-loving. Her former intense relationship is also with a woman, and that one is portrayed as being awfully close to love. I’m of the opinion that Reki and Rakka have as close to a love relationship as is possible in the Haibane’s world.

So, despite the fact that it’s not about anything, and nothing really *happens*, and there being no overtly Yuri relationship, Haibane Renmei wins, in my opinion, as one of the hands-down finest anime I’ve ever watched.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Music – 8
Story – 10 The story is breathtakingly well-written
Characters – 8

Overall – 9

This is a must watch for anyone who loves good storytelling.

***

And now, for something completely different – here is *my* interpretation of the events of Haibane Renmei. I don’t claim to be right, or even close – this is just what feel was going on:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS WARNING

Rakka was in love with someone…let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it was another girl. She and the other girl decided to kill themselves so they could be together eternally. The crow symbolizes Rakka’s lover – she “freed” her in a sense, but is also the reason she crashes, and ultimately, she needs to let go of that attachment to her previous life before she can move on.

The world we see is a kind of Purgatory, which is why the Haibane stay there for inconsistent and erratic periods of time – because you’re going to be there as long as it takes to do whatever it is you have to do. Life isn’t bad, it’s not Hell, but it’s not great, either, because its not Heaven. And the people who live there and sort of take care of the Haibane are other people who have not committed a “sin” so much as simply died with their souls in a limbo state…so they expiate their crimes wth service and another lifetime.

What are the Haibane, then? I think that they are children who died under extreme circumstances. The older ones might have killed themselves, or been killed, the younger ones may have died through accident or injury, but whatever the circumstance was, it was a violent death and therefore a “sin.” Perhaps the little kids died without being baptized.

In any case, these children die with what *they* feel is a spot on their souls and end up here. Like they feel partially responsible for their own deaths. If they felt completely filthy, they’d likely end up in some sort of mutually created Hell, so in this case they feel ambiguous about their nature. As they do their “work,” they expiate those sins, cleanse their spirits and eventually have to move on.

So, that would explain why Reki and Rakka bond so closely…perhaps in life they had similar stories, dying on account of the oh-so-popular “forbidden love” and intuiting that they could feel safe with one another. Or maybe they were just falling for each other, who knows? But there they were in Purgatory, where relationships have to be non-sexual, and temporary, because of the nature of the thing.

We can always fantasize about what happens when Rakka goes ober the wall herself, right? Maybe she enters her version of Heaven. meets up wih Reki and they fall in real love and live in eternal happiness. Sounds nice, right? Maybe someone will write a fanfic.

Anyway, so there you have it…*my* interpretation of Haibane Renmei.





Kekkou Kamen Anime, Manga and Live-Action

April 8th, 2004

My face is masked, but I bare my body for justice!

Kekkou Kamen, misspelled as Kekko Kamen for the anime release, is one more utterly bizarre story brought to you from the warped mind of Go Nagai, the creative genius behind Cutey Honey, Devilman, Mazinger G, Devilman Lady and more. But of all these, Kekkou Kamen wins on several levels – it’s the least plausible (and that’s saying something, if you’ve ever seen or read any of the others!), has the most naked women and is just the most utterly, indescribably *strange* anime and manga I’ve ever encountered. I absolutely love it.

The story takes place at Toenail of Satan’s Sparta Academy, an incredibly strict private high school, where physical and emotional torture are use to motivate the student body to excel. “Toenail of Satan” is the Principal’s actual name, btw. We follow the travails of hapless student Takahashi Mayumi, whose inferior grades and hot body make her a prime target of all the “punshiment specialist”s hijinks. To protect Mayumi, and the other students, a mysterious naked woman has appeared on the scene – she bares her body for justice, she says, but keeps her face covered because she’s embarrassed.

Kekkou Kamen-oneesama, as Mayumi calls her, always comes in the nick of time and uses her Spread Legs Attack to defeat the foe. The foe usually being some drooling pervert of a teacher who is just on the edge of sexually abusing Mayumi or one of the other female stdents. (The boy students appear to be only beaten, not sexually abused.)

And yet, (she says, knowing that after the prevous paragraphs everyone’s lips are curling in disgust,) despite all this, Kekkou Kamen is really incredibly funny. Mostly because it’s so amazingly awful and offensive that to take offense is impossible.

The anime is actually laugh-out-loud hysterical right from the beginning, when the first punishment specialist is “Gestaopoko” a S&M Nazi-themed dom with a whip and questionable fashion sense. Kekkou Kamen defeats her by remembering something she heard – that S&M Queens *really* want to be whipped themselves…. There is tons and tons of Yuri implication and overt Yuriness in the anime, which makes it worth buying. There’s also a terrific moment when the characters blast the fourth wall to hell by telling us that there’ll be more anime if this volume sells well. ^_^ It didn’t and there wasn’t.

The manga is a little more horrible and abusive, but so eyebrow-raisingly weird, that again, its hard to be offended. In the manga, we finally learn who Kekkou Kamen really is…and there is no way you’d ever be able to get it from the anime, so don’t bother…she doesn’t even show up as a character in the anime. Basically, by the end of the manga, every girl in the school is naked and masked and all are claiming to be Kekkou Kamen, but eventually, when she does show up, she does manage to save the day *and* Mayumi, once again. Yuri-wise there’s mostly akogare-type adoration and hero worship on Mayumi’s part, but I don’t really get any strong Yuri sense from that. There’s one totally butchy teacher, with a cross-dressing (and passing) younger sister, but again, the lesbo vibes are low-level at best. A shame too…I think this manga *needs* at least one openly lesbian character. If Go Nagai ever re-does the KK manga for the new century, I hope he adds one. ^_^

That takes us to the original Live-Action movies, of which there are three. These live-action movies were all unremittingly low-budget and poorly acted, with awkward scripts and BAD staging. So, of course, I adore them. The first movie is pretty close the the basic plot of the manga and the guy who plays Toenail of Satan is magnificently bad in the role. He’s perfect. The woman who plays Kekkou Kamen was some JAV star and pin-up, so her playing naked was fine. Her acting is …adequate, but really, who cares? The end of the movie is hysterically bad, and there is some Yuri subtext.

The second movie is the strongest in Yuri…there’s even a little actual girl/girl (not too much, don’t get your hopes up) thing going on, but with lots of subtext and one cool, butchy teacher. The same acting/script/low-budget thing applies to all three movies, so don’t think that they got better as time got on, either. ^_^

The third movie is actually kind of sad and funny, with lots of Go Nagai in-jokes, as Toenail of Satan’s family shows up to visit. Most of them are spoofs of other Go Nagai characters. And Kekkou Kamen falls in love, sadly with a guy, but whatever. There’s a funny scene at an amusement park, as KK tries to eat ice cream through her mask, and the ending, during and after the credits is absolutely insanely funny, as the girls of the school persuade a beaten and defeated Toenail of Satan to come back to the school and start playing soccer with him. As they run down the train platform, T of S’s last act is to plummet off the platform, then reappear, abashed, then he and the girls all share a good laugh. The End. No, really.

And, now, at last, there is a new KK Live-Action movie release to the theaters, which premiered this past week in Tokyo! The trailer makes it look hopelessly artless and fun, even if it has no obvious Yuri.

Ah…the trailer reminded me – I have to mention the *song.* The song that you hear in the trailer, and as the theme to the anime (sung by Kekkou Kamen’s voice actress Shinohara Emi, aka the voice of Sailor Jupiter/Kino Makoto in Sailor Moon, and Rosa Chinensis/Youko in Maria-sama ga Miteru) is amazingly funny. And in the manga, *Kekkou Kamen* herself sings the song as she fights, which makes it just that much better. I’m so very glad that they kept it for this movie, because it’s wonderful and camp and just about defines this whole series in a nutshell.

So, there you have it – Yuri in the anime, a little in two of the movies and not really any in the manga. Enjoy, but probably not. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Stainless Night, Parade Parade

March 19th, 2004

purpleGirls With Something Extra

Today we’re gonna talk about a coupla Newhalf anime. This may not be considered by some people to be *real* Yuri, and I understand why…but bear with me and let me see if I can convince you of my position. ;-)

To start with, futanari is the Japanese term for what we tend to call “dick girls” or “she-males,” i.e., characters with breasts that look, act and sound like girls, but happen to have male genitalia. (As opposed to transgender people, which is a completely different thing.) These stories are targeted to a male audience, and almost always involve the futanari girl getting it on with a “real” girl. This is because the original target audience for these stories were adult men who cross-dressed and thus the futanari embodies what they wanted to be seen as – completely feminine, with that little something extra. Since these guys are almost always straight, none of them want to see the girl having sex with a guy (ewwww), so that’s why there are mostly Yuri futanari stories out there.

Nowadays, I think the genre has split a little – there are characters which are fairly obviously meant to be girls with penises, and characters that are guys who have breasts. (I’ll talk about these later….) If you’re not diehard anti-cock, there are a few fairly decent Yuri hentai out there. Let’s look at two:

Parade Parade

This two-episode OVA is not high art, if you know what I mean. (Nor is it High Art, if you know what I mean! ^_^ Sorry…little lesbian movie joke there….) It tells the sex-filled story of Kaori, a rising pop idol who’s female manager is madly, and quite passionately, in love with her. But Kaori has a secret…duh. The end of the first episode brings the arrival of Kaori’s manager’s old lover, (a typical anime-style S&M ojou-sama and her slave,) who challenge Kaori and her manager to a sex duel. Hilarity ensues.

Whether or not you think that Kaori is a girl or not, the other characters are *definitely* female, so this is almost completely Yuri, even discounting Kaori, which I don’t. I think she’s a girl. With a dick. So, IMHO…this is 100% Yuri and really, its kinda cute and silly and sweet. As Yuri hentai goes, it’s harmless fun and not disgusting or dismissive, as so many are.

Stainless Night

This is a sort of scifi Yuri thing. Android Linnea (Linear) is awakened from a long stasis to find herself revived by a team of female scientists. She and one of the scientists fall in love, have sex, and are attacked by Linnea’s evil nemesis robot (the usual cheesy S&M-style evil kind). In the end, Linnea determines to learn more about herself, but she’ll come back, she promises!

I can’t even really consider Linnea a futanari, because she’s not human at all and she only develops the extra body part in the throes of ecstasy….it’s all very tastefully done.

Most importantly, the story isn’t awful, the sex is quite nice and all in all, one of the best Yuri anime I own. If the thingy between Linnea’s legs bugs you, then probably you shouldn’t watch Yuri hentai much, since this is pretty tame by hentai standards.

Just in case you care about this kind of thing – both of these stories have no guys, no tentacles, minimal bodily fluids by comparison, and no seriously violent rape. They both focus on “nice” as the main relationship factor and actually have love somewhere in there. Sort of in the “awwwww” category for hentai. ^_^

Both these are legitimately licensed anime, owned and distro’ed by Media Blasters, so do make sure you purchase these, as opposed to engaging in illegal downloads. Or, rent if you prefer – several of the online DVD rental companies have hentai anime available.

One last note about futnari. Earlier on, I mentioned that there *were* stories with guys who have breasts, as opposed to the above, here’s two quickie examples:

Chimera – The manga for this has a “Yuri” scene between the main character and a woman (who is obviously a lesbian, as she has about three female servants draped over her, naked.) Chimera, however, despite “her” ability to pass and function as a woman is really a guy…a guy who looks really nice in women’s underwear. The anime is a hoot, too, but sans the Yuri. The story is suposed to be about Chimera’s deadly assassination skills and her quest for revenge, but it’s mostly about her dressing in women’s underwear. I loved it for its utter cheesiness.

Purple – This is a completely obscure manga I discovered in Japan, but didn’t buy, then obsessed over for months, until I found here at a used manga store. It’s about a boy who falls in love with a girl who transfers into his class. She’s *very* forward with him, and basically seduces him on the roof, only….she’s a guy. And very openly so. She has breasts, but she’s got a penis too. He freaks out, but can’t get her out of his head. In the meantime, a lesbian in the school falls for her, and *they* start dating. The heroine tries to sleep with the lesbian, but *she* freaks about the penis, too. Poor heroine…no one loves her penis. In a wonderful scene, the hero just…gives in. He really does. It was so sweet – he just decides that he loves her and wants her too much to let something like this get in the way. So he sleeps with her, which is good, because up to that point he’d become a raving asshole, who kept just-about-raping a girl who liked him in order to prove he was a “real” man – did I mention he’s horribly conflicted because he sleeps with his mother? Ultimately, the heroine goes off to have a sex change, and ends up living with both the hero, and the lesbian in a strange, but happy love triangle. I really liked this story, and for the life of me, I have no idea why. ^_^ If you like a challenge, grab up a copy of Purple and let me know what you think!





Yuri Anime/Yuri Manga: Hen

March 16th, 2004

A Strange Series About Strange Love

I’m not really sure I agree that Hen, aka Strange Love is really hentai…but as it’s usually lumped in with the “adult” anime, I guess I should. What it *is* is a very funny, and sometimes touching romantic comedy starring two mismatched girls, from a distinctly seinen perspective.

Hen is the story of extremely well-endowed high school student Yoshida Chizuru. Despite the fact that she’s under age, Chizuru has a part-time job modeling, on account of her exceptional looks. The first part of the anime and the manga is incredibly dumb, as Chizuru seduces/outsmarts a pervy substitute teacher. The fun begins when a cute, very childish girl moves in next door to Chizuru’s boyfriend’s, rock star Hiro Yuki’s, apartment.

At first, Chizuru dislikes little Azumi; snubs her, makes fun of her, etc…but after a few days, she realizes that she’s begun to obsess about Azumi. (This leads to some highly amusing scenes in the anime, as Chizuru tries fantasizing about other schoolmates, to see if she is, perhaps, gay after all.) In a life-changing realization, Chizuru decides that she *is* in love with Azumi, and will marry her, despite the obstacles.

The anime ends at this point, but the manga goes on and on and on…. There’s a ton of really silly stuff that happens, some more bizarre than others, and everything, except Chizuru’s emotions, are played for laughs. There are a couple of touching scenes as well.

Is this a series worth watching? I think so. The OVA is only two episodes, but there are some really funny moments that make it worth owning.

The manga is *definitely* worth having. But, beware – there are two Hen manga, one that is Yuri, one that is BL…and they coincide at some point in both stories, so it’s a little confusing. It’s probably easiest to remember it this way – the Yuri Hen is the one with white spines, the BL has the colored spines. The Yuri Hen is 8 volumes, the BL Hen is 13 volumes…if you’re a completist, you’ll want those too, to get *all* of Chizuru and Azumi’s story.

By the way – the series, despite everything, *does* have a happy ending, as Chizuru and Azumi fly off together “to America,” which we all know is manga code for “to have a happy lesbian relationship.” ^_^

The art is really…odd, and the characters have awful ears, there is much fanservice, breast and panty shots, but if you look past the surface, this is really a very sweet series.