Archive for the Guest Review Category


LGBTQ Visual Novel: Heaven Will be Mine, Guest Review by Louise P

January 16th, 2019

It’s our first Guest Review Wednesday of 2019! Please welcome back Guest Reviewer Louise P for a look at a new Yuri Visual Novel for us. Take it away, Louise!

Heaven Will be Mine is a visual novel that starts right at what would be the climax for any other super robot story. The three factions have all their players, two super prototypes are finally operational and everyone is headed to the moon for the big final confrontation. There the future of humanity in space will be decided; or rather the future of humans who already live in space will be decided. Do they ‘return’ to Earth, live in space or cease to be human at all? These conflicts will be solved both with giant robots (called Ship Selves) and sexting in equal measure.

Heaven Will be Mine ditches a great deal of unnecessary visual novel tropes. There are no ‘heroine’ characters instead we have three protagonists, all equally important. There’s Pluto: the idealistic leader of Cradles Graces who finally has a ship self that matches her own overwhelming power. Luna-Terra: the jaded veteran of Memorial Foundation who has now broken so many hearts in space that it is finally catching up with her and finally Saturn, a pilot who totally gets this is a game about relationships and space robot battles and jumps into merging fighting and flirting so naturally it’s a surprise to hear that it is her first time in the pilot seat.

The story follows all three in their journey from the outer solar system to the showdown at the moon from the perspectives of Pluto, Luna-Terra or Saturn. While we begin right in the thick of things and there’s a lot of back story hanging over the characters and we are given enough credit to piece it together ourselves, as we see events from the perspectives of each leading character and their supporting cast. Emails often fill us in on the back-story, while the pilots live-chatting with their comrades provide some of the biggest laughs in the story.

But center stage is taken up by the confrontations between Luna-Terra, Saturn and Pluto. I do mean confrontations, because each character is an ace pilot for one of the three factions warring for the future of space; they’re supposed to be enemies. Like many other giant robot stories, this is fantastic ground for romantic tension and unlike many other giant robot stories, Heaven Will be Mine is doing this deliberately and it all pays off in the end.

What Heaven Will be Mine manages to create is a genuine sense of chemistry with the three main characters. Luna-Terra and Saturn slowly open up and learn to be vulnerable with each other. Pluto and Saturn learn about each other beyond their status as psychic celebrities and see each other as people. Luna-Terra and Pluto start with a tonne of baggage from the beginning but gradually work and fight through it. It’s a real delight to read as each scene is a blend of two of these unique voices that give a face to some very real queer experiences.

But while we may see these characters move from fighting with each other to falling for each other, that is not what we as the reader get to influence. Instead we decide what faction gains an advantage from the protagonist’s confrontations. What this really means is that we don’t decide who falls in love with whom but who makes the best case for what society that love has to live within.

Because, what everyone is fighting for in Heaven Will be Mine is whether or not they return to an Earth that sees them as something alien. Every character already knows what is at stake, but eventually it becomes clear that aside from the cool robots and space colonies, space is a place where it is easier to be a queer person. It is a place unencumbered by the history and preconceptions on what it is to be human, which allowed the people in space to have the bodies they have, the relationships they have and, most importantly, the power to shape their own destiny and make political decisions.

In space a queer trans woman can be accepted not just as a the woman she is, but as a leader of an entire movement. This looks alien to the majority on Earth, and so terrifying that Pluto and everyone like her are thought to be worth purging, either through exile or extermination. No one will care if the alien dies.

We look for lesbian characters with society and agency here and Heaven Will be Mine not only has those but makes the formation of a LGBTQ friendly society and what shape that will take, the climax of the story. Even though there doesn’t exist a route where everyone gets everything they want, everyone does agree to work to make it the best it can be.

 As Pluto says: “We don’t need a true ending. Whatever it is, we’ll make it the true ending.”

 

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Yuri – 10
Service – 3 (but also kinda 10)

Overall – 10

 

I am not saying that Heaven Will be Mine is perfect, it is exactly what I needed to read at exactly the point I needed to read it. Thinking about this story and its characters makes me a happier person and that’s why the score is so high. It is available on itch.io, Steam and iTunes.

Erica here: Wow, this sounds appealing, if this kind of thing ever appealed to me. ^_^ Thanks for the review! 





Yuri Manga: Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 7 (English), Guest Review by Christian LeBlanc

November 28th, 2018

Hello and welcome to Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! Yay! Today we welcome Christian LeBlanc of 3Dcomics.weebly.com to our loving embrace. Or, was that deadly clutches…I can never remember. ^_^ In any case please give Christian your full attention…as we head out together on today’s review.

By Volume 7 of Kiss & White Lily for My Dearest Girl by Canno, (translation by Leighann Harvey, letters by Alexis Eckerman) we’ve firmly settled into the template for a K&WL book: several chapters will showcase the new characters shown on the cover, and the remainder will focus on a ‘legacy couple’ (more than likely Ayaka Shiramine and Yurine Kurosawa, as is the case in this volume).

Our newest cast members are piano-playing junior-high student Haine Aoi (who has recently joined the gardening club so she can get closer to Yurine), and her supportive aunt Aika Yukimura, a senior at Seiran. (scratchy noise of a record skipping) Yes, I did say aunt, so let’s address this elephant in the room right away before it knocks over something valuable.

Canno portrays many different types of relationships in her work. Countless micro-stories fill the “Kiss Theater” bonus pages at the end of each chapter. Her story in Éclair: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart follows a 28-year-old rogue and the 16-year-old girl who pursues her, and she’s even explored monster girls in a MONSTAR doujinshi (along with circle mates Nega and Kawauchi).

Non-romantic friendships are also valid story fodder, as we’ve seen in Volume 4 with Kaoru, Kohagi and Momiji. Here, then, Canno continues exploring different relationships between women by focusing on an aunt and niece, close in age, who were brought up as siblings. Canno even makes it explicit in one scene that they will never be paired romantically, when one character momentarily considers the possibility and is put off by it. I think Canno felt this was necessary given the expectations of romance set up by the cover (and genre) (and by contemporary stories such as Citrus, coughcough), but it still feels a little strange that they consider it at all. The alternative, I guess, is to not show this scene, and leave the reader with a seed of doubt: “but . . . are we supposed to think of them as a couple?” Better to just nip that question in the bud.

This all being said, Haine and her aunt Aika end up being a delightful pair to read about.  Their affection for each other is sincere and touching, rendered even more so by Leighann Harvey’s thoughtful and expressive translation. They both suffer anxiety over the idea that siblings are supposed to drift apart to some degree in adulthood, but Aika receives advice from a returning character on this. There’s also some tension between the two early on concerning piano skills (something they once bonded over nearly drives them apart!) and Haine needing her space and independence (I know she’s just at that age, but oh boy does she act like a brat!), so in all, we still get our ‘romantic conflict’ for our cover stars to work through.

As for our returning players, we see some major growth in effortless-genius Yurine and her relationship with hard-working honors-student Ayaka. We’ve already seen hints throughout the series that Yurine’s advantages over her classmates have caused her some alienation. This comes to a head when Haine triggers a depressive episode in Yurine by telling her she has an empty life for failing to find a passion for anything. Ayaka gamely tries to help her recover, still grateful for Yurine’s help back in Volume 5 when Ayaka was at her lowest.

Contrasted with this, however, is Ayaka’s negative reaction when Yurine later suggests throwing the exams to let Ayaka take back first place. Ayaka has always been comically tsundere before, but there’s nothing funny about her reaction this time – her words are cold and mean, with no underlying hint of “but I really like you!” at all. It feels especially shocking given how much Ayaka was earnestly trying to help Yurine in this book, and speaks volumes about her unresolved hang-ups concerning perfection.

This is also the first volume to end on a cliff-hanger, incidentally: as their relationship evolves, Yurine feels something different after one of her many kisses she’s forced on Ayaka, and it freaks her out – the next volume is about her sorting through what these new feelings mean, so stay tuned! Volume 8 is currently scheduled to be published by Yen Press on March 19, 2019.

Art – 7 Significant improvements: hair is given a lot more definition and shading, and there are more efforts to visually distinguish Yurine from Ayaka (their height difference feels more pronounced, for example). However, I have to knock two points off the English edition for being printed with significantly thicker blacks than the Japanese version, which destroys a great deal of subtlety in the tones and shading; scenes set in the dark particularly suffer from this. Additionally, Yen Press routinely trims off a fair bit of bleed art, and it was frustrating to see Ayaka’s and Yurine’s test results get cut off as well.
Story – 9 Again, Leighann Harvey has done a wonderful job translating this.
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 3 My wife may or may not have uttered “Holy Bazongas!” when she happened to glance over my shoulder at the bath scene, and if you have a thing for Santa dresses, Canno’s got you covered with the introduction to the closing chapter.

Overall – 9

I really enjoyed this volume. There are many returning characters, giving the book a welcome ensemble feel for the first time, reinforced by four bonus chapters at the end. The two main stories connect quite seamlessly, and the Christmas backdrop leads to some very pretty scenery (the cover, with its snow-flecked poinsettia, pinecone and holly border sitting above a starry-looking field of snowflakes, is my favorite of the series for this reason). It’s also refreshing to see Yurine struggling for once – she’s come a long way from her one-dimensionally super-human portrayal in Volume 1.

Erica here: Thank you so much for your insight, Christian. If I wasn’t already reading this series, your enthusiasm and affection for it would surely convince me to pick it up! Thank you again for a wonderful review. ^_^





DNA Doesn’t Tell Us Manga, Volume 1 Guest Review by Day

October 3rd, 2018

It’s Guest Review Wednesday again and we sure have a Guest Review for you today! Welcome back Day who know hos their own category, where you can find all their reviews. The stage is yours Day…take it away!

What if, all over the world, animals suddenly began turning into teenaged girls? Well, in DNA Doesn’t Tell Us, Volume 1 (published in English by Seven Seas) what happens is that special schools would be formed for these young ladies to attend, complete with exploding uniforms (sometimes the girls revert to their animal forms, you see, and mere clothing rarely survives). Youko, our lead, happens to be one of these young ladies; once upon a time, she was a bighorn sheep, but after living for two years with a farmer, she’s now a student at Animalium in rural Japan. Animalium’s purpose is to teach former animals how to live in the human world as humans. Youko herself is displeased with being separated from her father figure, but she adapts fairly well to the situation and makes some friends.

What follows is fairly standard stuff for what is probably best classed with monster-girls-go-to-school tales, itself a fairly large subset of the burgeoning monster girl genre. Youko and her friends have a career day, there’s an athletic day, we spend an inordinate time peering into a high school locker room, Youko teaches her friends how to bathe like humans do… there’s a sexy lady in a skirt suit who runs the place, and who is, of course, there for those of us who don’t dig schoolgirl panties. But through it all, we get a pleasant surprise – Youko is far and away the most competent girl in the room, her time living on the farm as a human having already done a lot to ready her for the wider world. Given how common heroines are depicted as being “cutely” stupid and clumsy, it’s such a relief to run across a case where that isn’t so, and its genuinely enough to elevate this manga from tolerable to decent for me. Well – that, and that we get a good-natured story that, despite the fanservice, doesn’t descend into mean-spiritedness in its treatment of its characters.

I’ve made a bit of the visual fanservice thus far, so I feel its worth noting that while there is a decent bit of nudity, it declines from the quarter-way mark or so. There is a former Jersey cow later in the volume whose breasts are genuinely overwhelming, but, mercifully, she’s an adult, and she only shows up for a few pages.

As for Yuri… on the back cover, there’s a panel re-printed showing one girl biting another girl, with the caption “#girlxgirl”. I am sure that many readers fervently believe that the scene this is drawn from is a love confession scene which involves supporting characters Shin and Usami. I am equally sure that many readers of Okazu would feel much more skeptical toward it. A bit more grist can be drawn from Youko’s friendship with another sheep, her room-mate,and former Australian Merino, Fuwako. They actually seem genuinely fond of one another, which helps; its clear that Fuwako relies on Youko, and Youko enjoys spending time with Fuwako. She also regularly helps Fuwako get dressed, and we all know how sexy it is to have to clothe your romantic partner every day, right? Right??? Ahem; I’m being a bit mean, but although there’s more grist there, I myself still don’t see it, and its pretty obvious that the folks involved in this manga’s production want people to think its so without actually having to move it to the realm of text.

All in all, this is a decent if not particularly novel manga about girls in a special school with a solid heroine anchoring the whole thing, and I found it entertaining enough for a rainy afternoon. I am even considering picking up the second volume! If you dig monster/animal girl manga, but prefer to leave out the harem aspect many of those carry, this will likely float your boat. I wish the art was a bit less moe, but its polished and, sure, it’s cute (other than the poor Jersey cow woman), even if there’s no way any of the girls remotely resemble a teenager.

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 5

Overall – 6

Thanks again, Day!





Sailor Moon R Movie and Sailor Moon S Movie Double Feature (Guest Review by Pat M)

September 12th, 2018

It’s Guest Review Wednesday and today I’m pleased to introduce you all to a brand new Guest Reviewer and long-time friend, Pat M! Pat’s giving us a two-fer today, after watching both Viz’s releases of the first two Sailor Moon movies in the theater last month. Please welcome our dear friend Pat and sit back and enjoy the double feature!

 

The Sailor Moon R and S movies recently hit theaters in a limited release by Viz. Sailor Moon is one of my favorite anime of all time, so I rode the nostalgia wave to a nearby theater to watch the double feature with subtitles.

Sailor Moon R Movie takes place after the second season of the same name. Sailor Moon S takes place after the third season of the same name.

In the Sailor Moon R movie, the gang are enjoying a day out at the botanical garden when an alien materializes before them and speaks directly to Mamoru. It turns out that Mamoru met Fiore when they were children. He gave Fiore a rose before the alien left Earth. It was an act of kindness that stuck with Fiore, and drove him to search out the most beautiful flower worthy of his new friend. This is Sailor Moon, so the flower that he finds naturally turns out to be an energy sucking evil monster that causes him to have plans of world destruction. He’s also very attached to Mamoru, and does not appreciate the fact that Usagi declares herself Mamoru’s girlfriend. Sailor Moon and the gang have to stop Fiore from destroying the earth with a giant seed-shaped asteroid that is on its way to spread evil flowers everywhere.

Both the movies are from the 1990’s. On a technical level, I think that Sailor Moon R had a better transition to high definition video and audio. The animation was smooth, and the sound was fairly good for something that wasn’t mixed with today’s digital audio in mind. I always mention the high production value of the R movie. The visual quality is higher than any of the other Sailor Moon movies. This is also the movie that has the song “Moon Revenge” in it. It’s a high power song sung by the whole cast, and it’s worth watching the movie for.

Unlike the other movie, Sailor Moon R does not resemble the TV series feel. The characters seem more serious. There is much less slap-stick humor. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Watching the R movie again after so many years reminded me of why Usagi is such a powerful character; she can’t bear to see anyone in pain. This is the driving force behind her character. Usagi is frequently the focus of slap-stick humor in the show. It’s nice to see a story in which she gets to display a maturity that makes it believable that she could grow into a legendary leader in the future.

The first major fight scene in the movie has always been one of my favorites. It takes up a good amount of time, looks great, and is brutal. The monster isn’t just weird, it’s creepy. It’s also important to note that the R movie gives us a rare glimpse into Mamoru’s past. Even Usagi admits that she doesn’t know much about his life before they met.

Sadly, there is no Yuri in the Sailor Moon R movie.

Art: 9
Story: 7
Music: 9 – Moon Revenge!
Characters: 7
Service: 2
Yuri: 0 

Overall: 7

 

In the Sailor Moon S Movie, Luna, the cat who told Usagi about her destiny to become Sailor Moon, stumbles around with a fever on her way home. She is saved from being run over by a nice scientist who happens to work in an observatory and is obsessed with the moon. In her delirium, Luna falls in love with him. Around this time, a frozen alien woman who resembles Elsa Gone Bad shows up and is intent on freezing the Earth. She’s after an evil crystal that Luna’s scientist found. It’s been sucking away his energy and turning him into a really rude and cranky guy who lashes out at everyone but Luna. Bad Elsa wants the crystal because it’s a piece of her comet and she can’t freeze the whole earth without it. I think that she just wants a bling broach for her open gossamer shirt, but who says that both reasons can’t be true. Luna wishes she could be human and spend time with her scientist, but alas, she’s a cat. Everyone shows up to save the world and blast Bad Elsa back to Arendal (or wherever she went after Serenity blasted her from the Moon Kingdom the first time).

The Sailor Moon S movie did not fare as well in the transition to high definition. There were several scenes in the movie that looked as if they had characters added to the cells after production. The lines for the additions were much thicker and darker, so they stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of the cell. These were almost always during crowd or street shots, but they were really jarring at whatever pixel depth the theater showed the film in. The animation quality for the movie was a step up from the show, but nowhere near the quality of the R film. Sound in the S movie was not consistent. There were times when one track would be very low, but another would blare loudly. An example of this is when the Outer Senshi first transform. The music was loud, but the dialog during it was so quiet that I couldn’t hear it at all.

Sailor Moon S felt much more like the TV show. Rei and Usagi fight like they always do. Chibi-Usa and Usagi are ridiculous to the point that they actually trick a monster into looking the other way as they escape just by pointing in unison in that direction. There’s also a romance in the form of a story for Luna that lasts from the beginning of the film to the end. While it isn’t as high on my list of Sailor Moon songs as “Moon Revenge”, “Moonlight Destiny” plays at the end and is a lovely song.

The Outer Senshi are in the S movie, so technically there is Yuri just by their presence. There is only one scene that I can point to as a Yuri moment, and it is so short that if you blink you’ll miss it. During the first café scene where Haruka, Michiru, and Setsuna are hanging out, one of the Snow Dancers crashes through the window and Haruka wraps her arm around Michiru before diving out of the booth with her.

Art: 6
Story: 5
Music: 7 – Moonlight Destiny
Characters: 8
Service: 2
Yuri: 3 (1 for Haruka, 1 for Michiru, and 1 for Haruka protecting Michiru) 

Overall: 6.5

Thanks Pat! I really appreciate the overview. I’ve noticed that sound is always a huge problem with these remastered versions…and it’s really apparent with large screens and good sound systems. (Some of us may remember the issues we had with sound on CPM’s version of the Revolutionary Girl Utena Movie. ) These movies have not yet had DVD/Blu-ray releases, but as soon as they do I’ll provide links for you all!

 





Pretty Derby – Umamusume Anime (English) Guest Review by Day

July 18th, 2018

I am super jetlagged and whiny (I know, I know, you totally sympathize with me being exhausted from too much food and travel) and here comes Day, riding up like a heroic white charger horsegirl, ready to save you from me making too many unfunny horse jokes. So let’s saddle up and Day will will lead us along the bridle path of Umamusume, streaming free and legally, with regional restrictions on Crunchyroll.

“In an alternate world which resembles our own in every respect but one – there are horse girls (the titular umusume) – we meet Special Week, a young horse girl headed off for the big city, where she plans to pursue her dream of becoming the “best horse girl in Japan”. Challenged early to define what this means, Special Week (nicknamed Spe-chan) flounders a bit before deciding that it surely involves running very, very quickly. And, she hopes, at some point running very, very quickly with her personal idol, Silence Suzuka, a popular and successful fellow horse girl. Silence Suzuka, it turns out, is also her room-mate at her fancy Tokyo training school, where horse girls from all over Japan train hard to participate in the horse girl racing circuit in Japan and abroad. Thus begins Spe-chan’s quest.

I went into Umamusume expecting a complete trashfest. I am shocked and happy to announce on the other end that that isn’t remotely what I got. Instead, Umamusume is a good-natured sports show which is quirky and typical in about equal measure, as it hits many of the usual tropes of the sports genre even as it throws in some more unpredictable plot elements. On the one hand, Spe-chan’s story is largely that of the spunky underdog who makes good on her dreams; on the other, Suzuka’s experience of triumph followed by near-tragedy, and how that interacts with Spe-chan’s own ups and downs, presents us with a rival whose story doesn’t simply end with their defeat by the protagonist.

And then there’s the fun details, in everything from the fact that the girls all nail horseshoes to regular shoes to the oversized telephone handsets perfectly designed for top-of-the-head horse ears. Every girl has her own special racing outfit, none of which are at all suited to running. And then there are the more alarming details, like the fact that, just like real horses(!), a horse girl who falls during a race can very easily die from it. Oh, and, lest anyone become upset if they discover this when watching and not because I forewarned – the single stupidest element of the mobage from which this was adapted has been preserved, so, yes, we get a few post-race idol concerts. You can skip them all.

As I mention having anticipated trashiness, the relative dearth of fanservice bears mention. In fact, there is so little fanservice that I wouldn’t even be mentioning it at all if the property didn’t look like the sort that would have a lot of it. Unlike many of its kin, Umamusume proves fully capable of showing off athletic girls without treating the audience to extended locker-room sequences, and there’s nary a dreaded bloomer in sight when everyone dons their training uniforms.

Having said that, we do get a few stabs at the ol’ “guy mistaken for pervert” routine, and its just as tiresome as every other time we’ve seen it. And while this “gag” disappears by episode three, subsequent developments just make it worse, as the guy thus mistaken is the otherwise decent and solidly-handled coach, known, bizarrely, only as “Trainer-san”. (I can only assume this is a carry-over from the icky tendency of idol shows to have all the girls merely addressing their producer as “Producer-san”.) I hated him off the bat, but by the end I was just irritated that the production crew were so committed to checking boxes that they did a disservice to the character. It was especially galling in light of the great rapport which develops between him and fellow trainer Hana Toujo, a dynamic which manages to steer clear of the misogyny-tinged nature seen in other similar shows wherein a man and a woman are up against each other in training young women in a competitive realm.

Yuri is pure subtext. Am I surprised? No, I really am not – but I am a bit disappointed, as the years-old PV gave us a smooching couple performing a pairs figure skating routine. The characters who were thus featured there are relegated to peripheral roles here. Spe-chan and Suzuka form a close bond which begins as idol worship, wraps into codependence, and finally emerges as one between equal partners by the close of the series, but the show is satisfied to leave it up to us to draw the obvious conclusion. Beyond that, Spe-chan has two mommies, although one of them is dead and may’ve had sex with a man at some point, given Spe-chan’s existence (“may’ve” because in the first episode we’re informed that horse girls come about as… impregnation by the gods, or something? Its a little vague on the details!). Also, there’s a character who is Oscar de Jarjayes, but a horse girl. Everyone is in love with her.

Production values overall are… not great. In an era of visually impressive sports shows like Haikyuu, Yuri on Ice, and Hanebado!, Umamusume is distinctly lackluster. Character designs tend toward the cookie cutter, and racing sequences range from merely acceptable to awkward. At least, though, this was one of the once in a blue moon moments where P.A. Works opted to leave the lacquer at home.

Taken altogether, Umamusume is a sports anime that is probably best thought of as being pretty standard for the genre in spite of the seeming oddity of the premise. However, its good-spirited nature, combined with just enough deviations from the norm in terms of plotting, leaves something better than the sum of its parts. While I won’t feel any great grief if no more is made, I’d watch a second season in a heartbeat.

Art – 5
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 3
Service – 2

Overall – 7

Erica here: “Also, there’s a character who is Oscar de Jarjayes, but a horse girl.” LOLOLOLOL. Thank you, thank you. I will never watch this anime, but I am so very glad I was able to read this review! Now I can ride off into the sunset….