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Blue Reflection: Second Light, Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

May 18th, 2022

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu. Today we we’re bringing back Christian LeBlanc, with a very enthusiastic review of a game he has not shut up about on the Okazu discord! ^_^ I was very much looking forward to his review of this game and he does not disappoint. Get comfortable and let Christian convince us all that this is a great game!

 Blue Reflection: Second Light (Blue Reflection: Tie in Japan) available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and PC/Steam (screencaps and review based on Nintendo Switch version)

Cover image.

I’m going to start this review by touching on three very important points right off the bat:

  1. Yes, it’s Yuri
  2. There is, at least in my opinion, a positive depiction of someone with autism
  3. You need to play this game.

With that out of the way, let’s take our time and expand on this a little. Blue Reflection: Second Light (from developers Gust) is a JRPG, Yuritopian, slice-of-life, magical-realism, end-of-the-world, light-feeling comedy/romance/sci-fi/isekai/mystery with a touch of visual novel/dating sim where you and the other magical girls (called Reflectors here) have to figure out why you’ve been transported to an empty school, surrounded by water, and without your memories. And look for a way back home, of course.

I don’t even know where to begin with all that. Ok, it’s a dating sim?

Well, it’s not actually a dating sim per se; but you do spend a fair bit of time on dates with the other girls resulting in Fragments you can equip, powering up their Technique Points to spend on abilities, stat boosts, etc. And they’re not really dates so much as hang-outs: maybe you need to fetch something upstairs together, or you may both decide to visit one of the booths, or someone wants to see the wind generator you’ve built, etc. So it’s a JRPG, but you also just hang out a lot.

Wait, did you just say you build a wind generator?

Yeah, you also get Technique Points when you fulfill requests for people: someone might ask you to find an item for them, or build something for them like a beach chair, or a wind generator, a grand piano, a train platform…Ao’s real handy, what can I say!

Yuki, no!

Ao?

Ao Hoshizaki, the main character you play as. She’s actually the only one who shows up at this school with her memories intact, and she kind of ends up being the Usagi Tsukino of the group. The designers even give you rabbit ears if you pre-ordered, or a rabbit on your head if you clear the free demo (PS4 or Switch only).

Wait, so they’re like “Thank you for supporting us with a pre-order, please enjoy these cute bunny ears. Oh, you held out for the free demo? Here, try not to let this thing crap down the back of your shirt I guess.”

I mean it’s still cute, but, yeah, I see where you’re coming from. Anyway, getting back to the dates – they’re just hang-outs, but you learn a lot about the other characters, you get closer to everyone, and you can flirt like crazy or be more chill (some characters flirt right back, turning the tables on Ao). You get occasional dialogue choices, but the conversations end up at the same place regardless of what you choose.

Ao, slow your roll!

Oh, and you walk around holding hands after you’ve spent enough time with someone! And there’s cinematic cut-scenes. Actually, the whole game has these animated cut-scenes that move the story along, it’s really fun. The camera’s swinging around and zooming in, or cutting between characters – I actually really like the direction they take. These story beats happen during dates, during plot scenes, during Heartscape explorations…they’re all animated computer graphics, and everyone’s real expressive, and –

Wait, you said you hold hands?

Yeah, there’s a fair bit of hand holding! It’s just so…cute!

So is this game LGBTQ+?

Well, mostly. It’s a Yuritopia, where it’s more or less assumed that everyone is into girls, boys don’t exist, and where hand-holding is just an expression of closeness. I just resolved to take the flirting and hand-holding for what it was and enjoy it, but then – we get an actual Yuri relationship in the game!

Yuri confirmed!

Yuri confirmed! Lol. By Okazu standards, it’s lesbian content without lesbian representation, and that’s fine. Honestly, the whole game plays out like a really good Yuri series, so I feel like this will be the first time that some players experience the sweetness that Yuri manga excels at. And also the first time they see a lesbian relationship portrayed with the emotion and sincerity of Yuri, and the first time they see everyone else in a game treat this relationship as just normal (which it is), and I think that’s really cool.

Niche literature.

Getting back to our girl Ao: so she macks on every girl within eyesight?

No, that’s silly…she’s got a cel phone, you don’t have to establish line of sight for her to start flirting.

Well, as long as she knows her way around a good wind turbine, I guess. You gotta bring something to the table, right? So she’s really building all these facilities to impress the ladies?

Well, some of it ties into the plot, too, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

Gotcha. So is there a lot of grinding? Like do you have to keep fighting and fighting to level up before you can leave an area, or save up to buy equipment?

No, just start fights with the enemies you see on the map until you start to feel overpowered and the experience points don’t do much anymore, and then you can just run past the other enemies if you want. You make your own items (there’s a robust crafting system that I mostly ignore until the plot needs me to make something), and there’s no weapons or armor to buy. Everyone fights with the weapons they start the game with: scythe, sword, shotgun, etc.  Everything’s marked on the map for you, too: items, enemies, bosses, etc.

Hinako: I don't think most girls dream of wielding a scythe. Looks like all the action manga was to blame.

That’s convenient.

It is. Actually, there’s a lot of design choices in this game that favor convenience, so you can just enjoy the story and dialogue and interactions without getting needlessly frustrated or held back.

So the gameplay is pretty simple.

Well, it is, and it isn’t. My last JRPG was when Final Fantasy was still in single digits, so my learning curve was a bit longer than someone else’s would probably be. But once I got the hang of everything, I ended up actually enjoying the fights and stat boosts and all the nuts and bolts. The gameplay doesn’t just feel tacked on, is what I’m saying. They didn’t skimp on it. But yeah, getting back to convenience: you can just menu your way out of a Heartscape, teleport your way around the school or to a specific character, only watch Magical Girl transformation sequences once a level, etc. And when you’re exploring a Heartscape, you and your whole girl gang ride or die together, so everyone in your party levels up at the same time, even though you’re only fighting with three characters at once.

What are Heartscapes, like the dungeons?

Pretty much. Every character ends up getting their own Heartscape to explore, searching for their lost memories until you fight the boss and get some closure. Each Heartscape is tailored to each character, so it represents them and their memories. It’s symbolism! Beautiful symbolism, actually – Blue Reflection gleans a lot of its character from just how creative and pretty these internal landscapes are.

When you say there’s geography that symbolizes people and you recover memories and there’s an abandoned schoolhouse, I’ll be honest, my mind is going to Silent Hill. This isn’t horror or anything, is it?

I thought that too when I started playing it, but no. I don’t know if it’s intentionally trying to subvert all that, but it treats getting your memories back as a good thing. What you uncover means a lot to the characters, and it can be affecting or touching, but there’s no real trigger warnings I can think to give out. There’s a little bullying in the first set of flashbacks, but it’s kid stuff, nothing real traumatic or anything. Like I say, there’s generally a ‘light’ tone to everything. Sometimes it gets SERIOUS, but never super heavy or anything. Except when it does!

Like when you were up playing this game until 2:30 that one night and sniffling?

…One of the later chapters does *not* hold back. It’s so good. I just couldn’t put it down. And the audio helps out a lot with that. There’s a lot of voice acting in the game, and it’s quite well done. You can really hear the difference when a character lets their guard drop, for example. (This is all in Japanese by the way, subtitled in English.)

How about the music?

It is totally artcore!

Did you just make that up?

No, it’s a thing! Strings, piano and high-energy electronics and beats. Well, those are for the fights; a lot of the game’s music is more chill. The score is mature, but also playful, emotionally resonant, thrilling, intelligent – it enhances what’s going on in the game, or a certain character, but without feeling manipulative. Apparently the first game’s soundtrack is supposed to be even better, and, well, the mind boggles, because I love this soundtrack so hard. A lot of the themes repeat but in different moods, some tunes are re-works of themes from the first game – it’s just really cohesive, you know?

I get it. So who did the music?

Hayato Asano. They also did the score for the first Blue Reflection and those Atelier Ryza games, which are apparently a sister series to BR? I’ve never played them, but there’s DLC you can get that ties into it. Anyway, yeah, the music reminds me of something Sailor Neptune would have composed, which fits, because this is a magical girl game after all.

And speaking of magical girls, you can really feel Sailor Moon’s DNA in little ways in this game. Not just because magical girls in general, but the way Ao is there for everyone, and also how everyone interacts when they’re not fighting. One of my favorite aspects of Sailor Moon is when they all hang out together outside of fights, how they’re free to goof around and just play off one another. There’s a lot of that in this game.

Actually, this was honestly the first time I felt really sad when the game was over because I knew I wouldn’t be hanging out with these characters anymore. Like when you finish a really good book and you’re basking in that feeling afterwards. This very easily could have been an epic sci-fi Yuri manga series, except it’s all in one video game instead, and, I think that this story and these characters just work better as a game – although I’d still buy the hell out of a manga adaptation, if they ever made one.

Ao looks up at the starry night sky.

Everyone just feels so well-developed. Some of them suck at sports while blowing off steam at the gym, while others get way too into it, some of them do fan-fiction, some of them are shounen manga nerds – they talk about foods they like, what they want to be, problems they’re struggling with – everyone just seems so well-rounded and well-realized in the end.

There’s also, in my opinion at least, a really positive portrayal of autism in the game. And I haven’t really seen many people mentioning this online, so I think it’s important that more people know about it.

Is it just, like, this person is autistic! And then they fade into the background, or…

No, actually! Well, firstly, the game never comes out and says she’s autistic, but the way she says she doesn’t experience emotions like most people do, and the way she info dumps on Ao when they’re talking about one of her interests, I think you’re meant to infer. And I didn’t know enough about it to assume, so I looked up information online and actually learned a few things, which made me appreciate the character a lot more – and the game, for getting me to learn more about autism.

That’s cool.

It really is. Like, at first you think she might have alexithymia, which is the absence of emotions, but then you start thinking it could just be a smaller touch of that, along with the idea of someone just processing emotions differently from everyone else. The character is figuring all this out as they’re getting their memories back, and Ao and the others are really supportive – for a magical girl game where Emotions are a form of energy and power, it’s fascinating exploring a character who claims at first not to have any. And I realize that different people will have their own take on this depiction, but it just feels so positive to me that I can’t help thinking this had to be a very close topic for someone who worked on the game. In terms of who you end up shipping Ao with by the time the game is winding up, this person is on equal footing with everyone else. They’re not marginalized within the game, I feel.

So if you like this game so much, are you going to go back and play the first one now?

Yes. Although I heard that this game improves on almost everything: gameplay, playable characters, there’s way less fanservice in this game…I’m not saying it’s service-free, even if they try to avoid it in weird ways…there are shower scenes but everyone’s wearing one-piece swimsuits and talking to each other, so, everyone’s a never-nude, I guess? White dress shirts get wet, but you don’t see much. But there’s so many times you see a character jumping or sliding without the obligatory panty shot that it *does* stand out.

Like the notes you don’t play in jazz – it’s not about the service you see, it’s about the service you *don’t* see.

Ao: Oh, but I am surrounded by a whole bunch of lovely ladies, just like in my anime!

There’s an anime as well (Blue Reflection: Ray, as reviewed by Aurakin), and some characters from the first game and anime return here. There’s also going to be a mobile game, Blue Reflection: Sun.

Was there anything you didn’t like? You’re overwhelmingly positive here, are you sure you’re not just hyper-fixating on something you’re taken with and ignoring the negatives?

Well, to be fair, sometimes you’ll get really into the story and want to progress and fight, but the girls keep interrupting you for obligatory story dates, so depending what you’re in the mood to do, that can get a little frustrating. Also, sometimes the game wants you to go on stealth missions which can get a little unfair in the later levels. If you keep saving your progress, that will help with that, though.

My biggest complaint is that the game wants you to play through it again after you beat it in order to get the “true” ending, as well as go on more dates etc. that you weren’t able to the first time around – I think most people will just end up going to YouTube for that kind of content, though. Although I’ll admit, I’m actually enjoying my second playthrough, seeing what happens when you make different dialogue choices, enjoying the story with the full knowledge of everything that happens, etc.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Wonderful character designs by Mel Kishida, and hauntingly gorgeous landscapes of imagination to explore. Where Silent Hill goes bleak, Blue Reflection goes in the opposite direction.

Music – 9 Hayato Asano does a fantastic job with the themes in this game.

Characters – 10 I love any piece of media that allows their characters to be dorks sometimes.

Story – 10 The underlying sci-fi mystery is very compelling, and the way everyone interacts with each other is charming a.f. All of the writing awards for Akiko Waba, please. I haven’t touched much on the plot besides introductory set-up because there’s a lot of fun in working your way through and discovering what’s going on.

Yuri – 8 I repeat: this is a Yuri manga in JRPG form. Also, the couple sometimes ask others for relationship advice, which is great to see.

Service – 3 as a base level; there’s some questionable camera work from time to time. You can dress everyone up in one-piece swimsuits if you like, as well as a two-piece for Ao, which bumps us up to a 5. There are also DLC costumes for everyone you can buy, with everything from animal ears to maid costumes to revealing swimsuits, which would probably ramp us up to a 7 or 8?

Overall – 10. I foresee this game achieving cult status, where those who have played it, really love it.

Yuki: Eff yeah!

 

Erica here: I’m sold! I really wish I played games, because this sounds fantastic. One day I’ll have to watch a playthrough. ^_^ Thanks so much Christian for this terrific review.





School Zone Girls, Volume 2, Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

September 29th, 2021

Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! This makes a third guest review in a row and we have at least two more on the way! If you enjoy our guest reviews, I hope you will support the Okazu Patreon. Thanks to our Patrons, who make reviews like Luce’s review of Volume 1 of this series and Christian’s review of Volume 2 possible! Welcome back, Christian LeBlanc for today’s review. ^_^

So, let me admit something to you: Ningiyau’s second volume of School Zone Girls from Seven Seas has proven to be a very hard book for me to review, as I would often find myself re-reading the stories instead of trawling its pages for beats to describe and funny lines to quote. Flipping back and forth through its short, episodic chapters is like a ludic loop of dopamine hits.

With its ensemble cast of misfit high school girls and their cool-as-hell uniforms of black dress shirts and white ties, this manga feels a bit like if Azumanga Daioh went through an emo phase (at least stylistically), abandoned the 4-koma style, and leaned more towards slacker than absurdist humor. Chapters are three to eight pages long on average, and this brevity perfectly suits the lighter tones of this book full of lovable, surly idiots.

Tall, breezy, beautiful Yokoe Rei (as seen on the cover) is still disastrously crushing on her best friend since middle school, the short, perpetually-perturbed Sugiura Kei (last volume’s cover star). Their friend and classmate Negoro Yatsude is the connective tissue between most of the cast, since she’s also friends and classmates with Matsuri Fuji, and club senpai to Hinase Tsubaki, both of whom we’ll get to. Yatsude’s withering reactions of concern and/or annoyance over everyone and their bull$#!t make her the perfect foil for her friends’ eccentricities, bouts of despair, etc.

Hinase Tsubaki is a bit of a wallflower (a friend of a friend describes her as “a gloomy li’l reject loner girl”), although bright and cheerful Kaname Yamashiro keeps taking the initiative of being friends with her. Tsubaki’s twin, Hiragi, is a surly loner, and also has a bright, cheerful classmate (Utsugi Ren) she’s getting closer with. To be honest with you, it wasn’t until I got towards the end of this book that I realized these were four different people, instead of two (Volume 2, due to reasons, was my first time reading School Zone Girls). We do see some flashbacks in this volume, so I expect we’ll soon learn why Hiragi hates her twin Hinase so much (which may or may not be related to Hinase’s let’s-hope-the-author-just-drops-it sister complex, ugh).

Matsuri Fuji is new to the cast, and is first depicted playing a crane game with increasing fury; the prize (which she thinks looks stupid anyway) has twisted itself in her mind into some form of character growth, like a next stage of enlightenment she needs to attain. You’d be right to assume from this that she takes herself way too seriously; she speaks with a heightened dialect that only makes her look more awkward to the arcade employees, and tortures herself with inner dialogue spirals about honor, respect, doing good deeds for selfish reasons, etc.

Once arcade employee Kishiya admits to feeling embarrassed over something, she becomes an inadvertent mentor to Fuji, helping her realize that even adults can be imperfect – and that’s ok. It’s almost like the relationship between Miyako and Sayaka at the coffee shop in Bloom Into You, except, well, Miyako would never laugh her ass off if Sayaka freaked out and gave herself a nosebleed. (Or keep replaying the moment in her mind, laughing a little harder each time.) Incidentally, I hate to admit how much Fuji reminds me of myself at that age, and I have to wonder why I’m being called out in this manner.

Most of the time, our cast is just $#!tting around: hanging out at school, riding each other over who can’t wink with their eyes, watching TV during homework dates, falling down 3 flights of stairs into a bloody mess before admitting they need someone to walk them home because the ad for a scary movie messed them up, etc. Stakes are fairly low all around, in spite of how hard Rei freaks out whenever she interprets Kei’s gruffness as affection, or Fuji’s obsession with winning that stupid stuffed toy at the arcade.

As I said earlier, School Zone Girls eschews the 4-koma style, so the comedy has more room to breathe naturally. Chapters are exactly as long (or short) as they need to be, contributing to the natural rhythms and quick pacing. I think this makes the poignant 18-page It Was a Joke stand out that much more, increasing its dramatic impact. This tale sees present-day Rei narrating some flashback scenes from middle school that shed light on why her crush on Kei hasn’t gone any further than it has. I’ll admit, the slapstick and spit-takes up to this point had my guard down, so I wasn’t expecting to see such an affecting portrayal of why two girls would still be stuck in a “will they or won’t they?!” stasis required by the plot. And, I know I can be a bit of a soft touch for scenes like this, but I dare you to flip back to the first page of this chapter again after you’ve read it and not feel something for poor Rei.

This section actually struck me as realistic (as opposed to contrived for the plot), but I got hung up on whether or not that was for me to judge. I asked Erica for her opinion, and she reminded me that authenticity is individual, but to go with my gut; my gut simply told me not to speak for others on what is or isn’t authentic to them. And then I wondered if I wasn’t overthinking a book where someone got punched in the tit last issue. Such is the genius of School Zone Girls!

Ratings:

Art – 9 A good comedy needs expressive, inventive body language and exaggerated expressions, and this one has it. Clean lines, screen tones that expertly give depth to the page and guide the eye, and engaging character designs all contribute to this rating. Ningiyau is particularly skilled at rendering affectations of disdain.

Story – 7 There’s a lot of fun nothing happening, except when Ningiyau decides to hit us in the feels with some of those bittersweet drama times. And that’s fun too.

Characters – 7 The twins still confuse me, but there’s hints that we’re about to see their history soon. Rei is best girl and I want everything to work out for her.

Service – 2 One panel stands out as a little cheeky, but otherwise there’s a welcome lack of gaze.

Yuri – 6 The audience is meant to root for Rei and Kei to get together. I can see some relationships forming among other cast members, and others staying platonic, but everyone else is just friends at this point.

Overall – 9 There’s a fair bit of substance here, in spite of its plain title and covers. The humor is dumb but in a smart way, and it feels like there are hints of relationships and future story arcs sprinkled throughout.

Special commendations should be given to the translation/adaptation team of Avery Hutley and Jamal Joseph Jr. for translating a comedy that reads briskly, naturally, and lands all the jokes and interactions, along with slang that sounds fresh, natural and unforced. Aidan Clarke’s lettering helps convey all the different beats as well – font types and sizes change when they need to, and sound effects do a great job matching the varying ways the original kana are written.

Erica here: Thank you so much, Christian! You and Luce have convinced me to read this comic! As we mentioned last time, Volume 3 is on the way in November, as well.





High-Rise Invasion on Netflix, Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

May 26th, 2021

Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! Today’s review is a gift to me as much as to you. ^_^ I was thinking about watching this anime on Netflix when Christian said he had just watched it and needless to say, I was delighted to invite him to bring us all this review! Please welcome Chris back once again, and thank him for taking one for the team. ^_^ The floor is yours, Chris!

When I first read the description for High-Rise Invasion on Netflix (based on the manga Tenkuu Shinpan by Tsuina Miura and Takahiro Oba), I wrote it off as silly, violent edgelord fare, along the lines of what I thought those Purge movies must be like. Fortunately, I gave those movies a chance and found a suspenseful string of films that turn a critical eye on society, capitalism and marginalisation, with a cynical view of where America’s current darker impulses are leading it. Unfortunately, I also watched all 12 episodes of High-Rise Invasion.

Well, I say that, but I’m honestly of two minds about this show. The first time I watched it, I could practically hear the writers coming up with the plot: “Wouldn’t it be fuXXed if you got transported to this alternate realm where you have to go from high-rise to high-rise across rope bridges, and there’s brainwashed people in smiley-face masks trying to kill you by making it so you’ll throw yourself off the buildings, because that’s the only way down to the ground anyway, and if the masks get damaged then they have to kill themselves, and there’s all different ones so there’s like a butcher Mask, and a baseball player Mask, masked everything right, and there’s like a ton of blood whenever anyone dies, and it turns out this is all a way to create God, like how fuXXed would that be.” (dramatic pause while writer takes a long drag off a smoke to let these ideas sink in)

I mentioned to Erica that I watched it because I’d heard the main characters described as Yuri and wanted to find out for myself, and before I knew what happened I’d agreed to write a review for her. I hadn’t taken any notes the first time around, so I watched it all again and, while I’m not proud to admit this, I started to enjoy it.

To start with: is this a Yuri anime? Well, the high-school aged main character’s name is Yuri Honjo, so there’s that. Yuri quickly meets high-schooler Mayuko Nise, and unsuccessfully tries to stop her from stabbing an innocent man in the throat. After their little meet-cute, Mayuko becomes ride-or-die for Yuri, blushing and looking away whenever Yuri does something cool, gives her a compliment, hugs her, flashes her panties, bathes or changes in front of her, kisses her while she’s unconscious and struggling for her life, etc. You know, the same way we all secretly showed our feelings for that girl we liked back in high school; for her part, Yuri pretty much feels the same way about Mayuko.

Is this a Yuri romance? Definitely not. This is grindhouse action/suspense through and through, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be Yuri, of course, and whether it qualifies or not. depends on your own feelings. Mayuko blushes her heart out at Yuri constantly, but it never goes beyond hand-holding, even though they are intimately acquainted enough that Mayuko can recognize her crush by just a quick glimpse of her posterior (which actually happens more than once). Mayuko’s first love, however, is stabbing people in the throat. If there’s ever a second season we’ll see if she has to choose between her two devotions, but for now, we’ll see her face redden either from sweet emotion, or other peoples’ sweet, sweet neck blood. (And to be fair, this is a Shounen anime, which means that the straights don’t get any further than getting exaggeratedly flustered and denying any interest in each other.)

So what’s this all about again, anyway? Well, Yuri’s main goal is to find her brother, who’s also trapped here. Mayuko’s goal is to help Yuri find her brother (and, on a personal level, stab so many throats). Kuon Shinzaki has pink and blue hair, and an app on her phone that lets her use a giant building to shoot down other buildings; she wants to become God so she can bring peace to this realm. She also has a crush on Sniper Mask, an amnesiac, self-aware Mask whose goal is to recover his memories.

Aside from that, the show tends to abandon plot points, theories and objectives almost as soon as they’re thought up. Yuri rebelliously declares to Mayuko early on “I’m not going to kill any humans. I refuse to follow this world’s rules.” A minute later and she’s enthusiastically doing her best to shoot down a helicopter with just her handgun, and she’s unloaded a full clip into an assailant ten minutes later (before he commits suicide by biting off his own tongue, naturally.)

Various exposition-dumps throughout the show explain the different types of masks and how their programming bestows powers/constraints on the wearers. There is a consistent, if convoluted, logic to the masks, but the rapidly-shifting goals and theories the main characters have obfuscate this logic, making it feel inconsistent initially. Still, trying to puzzle out these mysteries helps hold the viewers’ interest in between gory fights with the Masks (or Angels, as the antagonists refer to themselves…Angels to some, Masks to others, I guess).

Trigger warnings? This show has geysers of blood, flying eyeballs, severed fingers and limbs, decapitations, and crazy amounts of stabbing and shooting. The violence in the show doesn’t bother me all that much because it’s expected for the genre, and even gleeful in its execution. There’s a ton of violence, but very little of it feels truly horrific; it’s all in good fun.

On a sexual note, however, Yuri is forced to strip at sword-point for a rogue cop (ACAB) in the first episode, but she’s managed to set his corpse on fire before things go much further. Happily, I don’t remember any further sexual threats to anyone after this.

Is this show dumb? Oh, it is so dumb. Yuri’s brother tells her over the phone that she should immediately murder her new friend Mayuko, because “In this world, there are no such things as allies.” (This very same brother is shown leading his own litter of new pals minutes later.) Sniper Mask’s main personality trait is smoking and looking cool in his stylish suit, and is so good at shooting guns that he can shoot a knife on the ground forcing the bullet to ricochet 90 degrees towards a target hiding around a corner. Yuri happily hands a firearm to a small child because he’s excited and would really like to see it. Mayuko’s shirt gets ripped open in the second episode, and until she replaces it with a slightly darker shirt in episode 11, she’s just walking around with her chest and bra completely exposed. Yuri never fixes the revealing rip in her skirt; characters change their priorities far more often than they change their clothes. Yuri can shoot ballistics out of the sky. Someone says the name of the show out loud. Characters gain new abilities as soon as the plot requires them, and the entire raison d’être is to simply show Masks looking creepy and cool in a wide variety of cosplay and violence. No, seriously; when it looks like one character is about to die, he at least comforts himself with how cool he’s going to look.

“Tasteless” is probably the best way to describe a show with this much blood, this many panty shots, suggestively-posed corpses, and a villain who calms himself by plunging his face into a Mask’s fully-clothed chest (she’s wearing one of those anime suits where the fabric acts like it’s painted on, you see).

I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to watch this show, and yet, depending where you find your bliss, I’ve also given you plenty of reasons to watch this show. If you’re in the mood for senseless, bloody violence and you’d like to see some ladies being badass and causing most of it for once, and you can dim your brain just to the point where you can buy in and enjoy the spectacle, then you might enjoy the bright, stylized, creepy bloodshed and mystery contained in these 12 episodes.

 

Ratings

Art – 6 There’s a very ‘basic’ quality, but it’s also stylized, and there’s no denying the care that went into animating the many sprays of blood.

Story – 6 There’s enough of a plot that it might keep your brain entertained by trying to puzzle out what’s going on, at least.

Character – 7 Nobody’s too complex, but it can be a joy watching Yuri flip her internal ‘cold as hell badass’ switch when she goes into action, ambidextrously shooting with both hands.

Yuri – 3 There’s a cute scene near the end where, separately, Mayuko and Kuon are each helping Yuri and Sniper Mask dress for battle, both wearing the same blushy, besotted grins as they think the world of their champions. Some viewers may need Yuri goggles to find any representation, but I don’t think you’ll need a very strong prescription.

Service – 8 Panty shots, bras, stripping, bathing, changing, anatomical impossibilities, and skinny-dipping into dream-states (my number refers to quantity, not quality). Conspicuously absent is a ton of boob-jiggle; I suspect the budget for that animation all went towards depicting the copious blood-letting instead.

 

Overall – 7 And I’m recommending this to nobody.

Erica here: /standing ovation/ Absolutely splendid review! You may have convinced me to watch it…after all, grindhouse violence, cute blushes and throat stabbing…it reminds me of my youth. /nostalgic sigh/  LOL

One point of order, The manga is released on Shueisha’s Manga Box app, and I’m inclined to think it’s Seinen, with that amount of blood.

Spectacular review, Chris!

 




Yuri Manga: Kiss & White Lily Volume 9 (English) Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

May 29th, 2019

Hello and welcome to Guest Review….Thursday. Yeah, I dropped the ball yesterday and simply forgot to post this. But I didn’t want you to miss this terrific review by Senior Kiss & White Lily Correspondent, Christian LeBlanc of 3DComics! So please welcome Chris back and give him your kind attention as he breaks it all down once again for us.

Let’s cut right to the chase: this penultimate Volume 9 of Canno’s high school “Yuritopia” Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl (translation by Leighann Harvey, lettering by Alexis Eckerman) is a better end to the series than Volume 10, and if you enjoy these books well enough but happen to only own a few volumes, you owe it to yourself to add this one to your collection, because s*** gets real.

How real? Well, one girl forgets her toothbrush after sleeping over at her girlfriend’s house, someone else gets so angry at the world that they turn to cosplay to cope with it all, and in the climax of the series, another girl tells off their mom and then makes out with the girl she likes! (Suggested listening for this scene: your favourite pump-up music, be it something from Sailor Moon, Kill La Kill, or, if you want to get real campy, the opening 27 seconds of “Everything Louder Than Everything Else” by Meat Loaf.)<

With that out of the way, let’s back up a little and talk about our final new pair of characters. Asuka Sakurada finds herself repeating her final year of high school due to a basketball injury that made her miss too many days (it must have been a concussion or something, because she’s only shown with a broken leg in flashbacks, and I assume the poor girl would have had access to crutches). As a senpai forced to join her kōhai, she gets a *huge* chip on her shoulder about it, attending only the bare minimum of classes, refusing to integrate or socialize with anyone, etc. Her self-destructive attitude becomes extreme enough that she turns to that most delinquent form of rebellion, cosplay, which is how she meets Mikaze Hagimoto. Asuka cosplays a character who has a lot in common with Mikaze and vice-versa, the two hit it off, and we quickly see them making out on school benches, fashion wigs and all.

All of this is framed as a tragic romance, by the way – the first two words in the book are “It’s over.” If you’re like me and have a predilection for the melancholy, it means good times all around: put on your favourite gloomy Cure record and enjoy the tearful scenes that are to come. (I joke slightly, but it does get dark for poor Mikaze, who takes the break-up very hard indeed: the color has gone out of her world, she can’t concentrate in school, she starts skipping classes…we see later on in flashbacks that she spent at least one night alone with Asuka, which perhaps sheds light on why she’s having such a tough time, if things had gotten that intense between them.)

I think a much stronger ending would have seen these two making peace with each other as friends, but, you’ve already seen the cover, and you’ve probably read at least a few volumes of this series before, so you’ll just have to put on a different Cure record, I guess (one of their happy ones, that make you want to live). This is why Volume 2 will always be my favorite, by the way – Chiharu is rejected, but we get to see her *move on*, and she gets the entire volume in which to do so. Here, it feels like Canno wanted to explore a good break-up story, but had to wrap things up in order to get her characters posed happily for the cover shot; Asuka’s sudden change of heart even feels more like a plot requirement than anything sincere.

As for flagship characters Ayaka and Yurine, both characters get the plot resolution that the entire series has been building towards. Both of their chapters start with the same event (viewing exam results, the only thing that makes Ayaka feel alive…I worry about how she’s going to cope after high school, actually), and then follows either Ayaka or Yurine for the rest of their respective chapters as they resolve their plots in a neat bit of parallel story-telling. Yurine even gets a call-back to the very first chapter of the series, which makes it feel like a better ending than Vol.10, even without things “officially” wrapping up.

For analysis, let’s back things up again a bit. Ok, a lot: having lived and died centuries before Yuri began 100 years ago, René Descartes likely did not anticipate getting the opening quotation, “Conquer yourself rather than the world!” In this book, this means bringing about change through internal, rather than external, factors. Ayaka can’t change how her mom feels, but she can change how she accepts and internalizes the support she gets from others. Yurine doesn’t stop feeling alienated because of how she performed on any external exams, but by realizing she’s been gradually becoming a “normal girl” with her own community of friends all along. Mikaze tries to become someone “special” enough to win back her ex-girlfriend, but realizes it’s much healthier to try and accept the break-up, who she is, and that neither partner should have to change to suit the other. And Asuka stops cutting herself off from everything, after realizing she’s gone too far in cutting Mikaze out of her life. To drive the point home, Asuka’s pocket mirror keeps getting passed back and forth between her and Mikaze, further reflecting (sorry) this focus on the self and internal change.

In all, it’s a wonderful volume of Kiss & White Lily – we get closure for plots that have been in motion since the very first chapter (along with some related tender scenes), Ai Uehara and Kaoru Machida each get some good scenes to help lighten the mood (Ai could be one of Yuri’s best supporting characters ever, if we only got to see her more often), Asuka and Mikaze bring some enjoyably melancholy drama, characters in Kiss Theater flit in and out of cameos as always, and anyone who’s ever been on a cover of K&WL appears in at least one panel.

Canno’s Continuity Corner: there’s an incidental panel of Ayaka and Yurine starting Year 2 from Volume 3 (this time drawn as background characters); Lyrical Seira, which Asuka and Mikaze are cosplaying as, is the anime from their childhood that Sawa and Itsuki went on a movie date to see in Volume 5; there’s some bonus Valentine’s Day vignettes at the end featuring our cover-stars from Volumes 5, 6 and 7; we briefly see Yurine’s little sister again (poor Sumire – this marks her last appearance in the series, and she only gets the one panel, just like in Vol.7). In one of my favourite tiny details, the exam results show Nagisa and Hikari from last volume placing in the top 10, consistent with their characterization as high achievers – not only that, but Nagisa is even 4 places higher, which fits with how she had complained “Why does everyone always put Hikari and me on the same level? I have better grades!” while a visual of their test results shows her getting 98 vs Hikari’s 97.

Ratings:

Art – 9 The thicker blacks compared to the Japanese edition aren’t as destructive this time around; I looked, but couldn’t find any tell-tale moiré patterns. A point is still taken away for how much art gets trimmed off the edges, though. Canno’s art is gorgeous, expressions are delightful, and backgrounds really contribute to the atmosphere in a few key scenes.
Story – 9 Plot resolution, dramatic tension, sweetness, cosplay…this one has a lot going for it.
Characters – 10 Ayaka and Yurine have grown a lot as characters, and their relationship has evolved over time to reflect that. Asuka and Mikaze with their cosplay were a fun change of pace as well.
Yuri – 8
Service – 3 As Erica said in her review of the Japanese edition: “I’m not gonna lie, that kiss was pretty hot”

Overall – 10

I still remember back in April 2018, how excited I was when the 2-page colour illustration from the opening was teased on Twitter, showing Ayaka and Yurine holding hands while they emerge from a cold, snowy winter and walk off into the warm spring-like foreground together; I immediately retweeted it stating “THEY ARE HOLDINGS HANDS THIS IS HUGE THIS IS NOT A TEST” in all caps. It’s still one of my favorite illustrations from the series.

And, you don’t have to be a genius like Yurine to know how things will end up, but you’ll still want to see how it all happens in the final Volume 10, which is set to come out on October 29, 2019 from Yen Press.

Erica here: “anyone who’s ever been on a a cover of K&WL appears in at least one panel.” Foreshadowing the entirety of Volume 10, frankly.
Christian, you deserve an award for this review. It was absolutely brilliant and got both laughs and thumbs up from both members of the household here at Okazu Central. Well done.





Yuri Manga: Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl Volume 8 (English) Guest Review by Christian Le Blanc

April 17th, 2019

Welcome back to Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today we have a special Guest Review by Christian Le Blanc of 3DComics! His love for Kiss & White Lily is infectious. Let’s all be whisked away by his enthusiasm!

“Love is not gazing at each other, but looking in the same direction together.”

So opens Volume 8 of Canno’s Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl from Yen Press (translation by Leighann Harvey, lettering by Alexis Eckerman), and it’s as romantic a spin as can possibly be put on this volume’s tsundere vs. tsundere cover stars. Hikari Torayama (reddish-brown hair, Tiger type, Ayaka analogue with her long hair and headband) and Nagisa Tatsumi (silver hair, Dragon type, Yurine analogue with her cool personality) are rivals for the position of Student Council President. Who can’t stand each other. And who also, as luck would have it, live together – a twist of fate has landed Hikari as a guest in Nagisa’s house. We need this plot device to force them to spend time together, because otherwise they’d avoid each other like the plague and we’d have a different pair of girls on the cover. Which would be a shame, because once I got over the fact that these two are not going to be acting lovey-dovey and give me anything to swoon over, I started to enjoy their relationship, which exists as a mirror for Ayaka and Yurine. Ayaka and Yurine are rivals who want to be more than just that, while Hikari and Nagisa can’t think of anything they’d rather be than rivals with each other. “Even if we stop being rivals someday…we might eventually see eye-to-eye,” Ayaka tells Hikari…”But just as classmates, of course!” she adds, still in denial.

The Tao of Canno

It’s easy to suppose how Canno came up with Hikari and Nagisa – start with the idea of tsundere vs tsundere, and then inform their personalities and rivalry with Tiger vs. Dragon, the eternally-opposed yin and yang of Taoist mythology (the kanji in Hikari’s last name means “tiger” and “mountain,” while Nagisa’s means “dragon” and “sea”). Both are symbols of strength, of course, and both girls dominate over the rest of Seiran High School: they excel in academics, they’re in competition for Student Council President, and they feel ‘larger than life’ compared to everyone else; they’re the boss characters, if Kiss & White Lily were a video game brawler (now there’s a thought!). Of Tiger traits, Hikari demonstrates protection: “She’s good at taking care of people.” She’s concerned about the smaller, more vulnerable clubs, and picks up after Nagisa at home. Of the Dragon traits, Nagisa demonstrates prosperity: she favors the larger clubs, and acknowledges that “My family is relatively well off.” They hang out on the forbidden school roof a lot (the heavens); naturally, the little white cat they’re looking after together adores Hikari and hates Nagisa. Maybe they complement each other, maybe they even need each other, but it’s no accident that we don’t see them exchanging chocolates in next volume’s Valentine’s Day back-up story. All the same, through their three chapters together, it’s fun not only watching them bicker, but also seeing how they react whenever something threatens to send them in different directions.

Our Returning Champions, Ayaka and Yurine

The book opens with Ayaka considering her own run at the presidency, which organically introduces our cover stars who go on to enjoy the spotlight in the next three chapters. Yurine has started to act goofy and awkward around Ayaka, a result of her growing and changing feelings towards her, especially after Ayaka helped her out of her depressive episode last volume. She’s torn between wanting to support her friend, knowing she could help the school as much as she helped her, but also knowing she won’t get to see as much of her if she wins. When Ayaka tells her her decision concerning the elections, it helps Yurine realize her true feelings for her, and grow out of her selfish and simplistic ‘deredere’ (constantly, clingingly affectionate) archetype. She can finally be honest with herself, something Ayaka is still struggling with when we see them again in the fifth and final chapter.

Speaking of this last chapter, Ayaka’s cousin and roommate Mizuki has had just about enough of Ayaka’s blitheness. She’s graduating soon, and, having been her emotional support for the past several years, wants to make sure Ayaka will have someone she can talk to after she’s gone. When she realizes that Ayaka still doesn’t even have so much as Yurine’s phone number, she demands that she asks her for it first thing in the morning, later hinting that she needs to be way more honest with herself.

It isn’t until the walk home from school that day that Ayaka finally does clumsily take the next step, managing to ask Yurine for her number. She tells her “Sorry. I kept you waiting too long” when she makes her miss her crosswalk light, but I think it’s meant to apply to more than just that.

This entire chapter, Yurine has been the model example of supportive. She knows Ayaka’s been trying to tell her something, and gently gives her the opportunity. Instead of making a huge embarassing deal out of getting her number, she just lets her know that she can call her anytime. Which is good, because Ayaka’s mom phones her that very night, triggering one of those depressive episodes that Mizuki was so worried about. Yurine handles it like a frigging champ, though. She didn’t really know what she was doing when she helped her out of a similar episode in vol.5 (we see an allusion to this episode on this chapter’s title page), but between that experience, and the help she got from Ayaka last volume, she’s become the epitome of everything you’d want in a friend helping you out when you’re at your lowest.

Lastly, we’re treated to two bonus stories at the end of the book. I didn’t really need an origin story for how Nagisa was recruited into the student council, but it did at least give Canno an excuse to bring back the eternally beleagured treasurer from vol.3 (who Yukina kept butting heads with…she even gets a name in this volume!). The other story brings back Amane, Ryou and Nina, the cover stars from vol.6, to show where the little white cat came from.

In fact, there’s a ton of returning characters this volume, obscure and otherwise: Rika “not good with her hands” Kouno is in one panel, who was only ever in two pages in vol.4. Tsubasa and Karin appear in one panel at the dorm, who likewise were only ever on two pages from vol.2 (Tsubasa was the one who accidentally locked Chiharu and Maya in the dorm’s storeroom together). We see members of the public relations committee again from vol.5, and, charmingly, their club sign that’s still only taped up over the more permanent “science” placard underneath. Characters who had leading roles in previous volumes play supporting roles here as well (we only get the back of Izumi’s head in one panel, but she’s there!). Not only does this provide more of an ensemble feel for the book, but it’s a good bit of world-building that makes Seiran High School feel more ‘real’ and lived-in. Further realism is established via small details like how Nagisa has a ‘lazy’ version of her hairstyle when she’s lounging at home, and how she and Hikari are on a first-name basis, sans honorifics, when noone else is around. This all makes re-reads a lot more interesting for me, because it always feels like I’m catching some small detail or other that I hadn’t noticed before. We’ll be seeing more adherence to continuity, as well as progress on Ayaka and Yurine’s relationship, in the penultimate Volume 9, due out very soon on May 21st, 2019 from Yen Press.

Ratings

Art – 7 I feel so petty bringing this up, but the English edition again uses significantly thicker blacks than the Japanese version, which causes tones and shading to suffer on occasion. Worse, however, are the jpeg compression artifacts visible on the front and back covers. As for the art itself, it is as detailed and charming as ever. Hair in particular has a great deal of definition and shading, rendering it with a great deal of volume and depth, and the snow and moon in the last chapter are rendered beautifully. (I’ll admit that maybe…in the right light…Canno isn’t all that great at drawing cats, but that just adds to the charm for me)

Story – 9 I average an 8 for Hikari and Nagisa, and a 10 for Ayaka and Yurine. We’re nearing their endgame, and watching Yurine be there for Ayaka was one of my favorite chapters in the series. Leighann Harvey has done a wonderful job translating every word, barring a weird side note concerning the quotation at the start of the book: my wife recognized the quotation, which is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince (uncredited here). The quotation at the start of the Japanese edition is already in English, and is closer to the more proper quotation “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” I think Leighann Harvey must have translated the Japanese version of the quote into English, ignoring the English version that was already there, all of which says nothing of the original French version of the quotation (!). Not a big deal, just a neat peek behind the curtains of translation.

Characters – 9 There’s a ton of character development going on in this volume.

Yuri – 7 That might seem like a high number considering three out of four main characters are tsundere, but you have to keep in mind that nearly everyone at Seiran is in some form of Yuri relationship.

Service – 1, by default. (I thought it was a cute touch when Nagisa’s mom told her to stop laying around in her underwear, but Canno withheld such salaciousness from the visuals)

Overall – 9