Archive for the Guest Review Category


The Vexations Of A Shut-In Vampire Princess, Guest Review by Cryssoberyl

January 24th, 2024

Girl with long blonde hair, wearing red military-ish uniform holds her hand palm out at us,while blue-haired maid clings to her. They are surrounded by generic moe anime girls' heads bedecked by a variety of hair colors and stylesThere is a long-running video game series that I have been a fan of for going on two decades now. It’s called Disgaea, and the general theme is a zany, tongue-in-cheek netherworld of fractious demons who love to war with each other, but ultimately it’s all in good fun and although they are often selfish and pretend to be “bad”, most of them really have hearts of gold…if buried at varying depths.

No anime has ever felt more like “Disgaea: The Anime” than Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon, streaming on HIDIVE as The Vexations Of A Shut-In Vampire Princess.

This was actually an intimidating review for me to approach. I personally really enjoyed the show, but there is no doubt that, especially early on, the show relies on a lot of very “dead horse” off-color jokes and tropes. This is unfortunate, as I feel the early episodes are not good indicators of the show as a whole (something which is a truism for anime in general, but along with WataOshi and 16bit Sensation, was particularly the case for shows of this season). Yes, Villhaze oversteps boundaries, yes there is a persistent gag of everybody wanting Komari. Part of this stems from the fact that this is ultimately an example of the “battle harem” formula, and characters having an absurd preoccupation with the MC is how this song is danced.

For me, the elements that I know other people might find problematic were not dealbreakers. I don’t have a problem with service unless it’s egregiously coercive or humiliating – and I’ll admit, I will give a lot of things a pass if it happens between two women than I would not if a man were involved; rightly or wrongly the feeling of predation, power imbalance, and othering is just not the same for me. Nothing in Hikikomari crossed the line for me, although I certainly rolled my eyes sometimes. Despite these things, I found a lot to love in this show. Even my best friend, life partner, and love of my life Zefiris (LURB <3 n_n) who is much more sensitive to these issues was able to enjoy the show quite a lot on the whole.

Although the characters can be easily defined as “types”, they all had distinguishing qualities. Komari is not simply the hapless harem MC, she has a natural instinct for BSing her way through the messes she find herself in; I for one love characters who display unexpected competence when thrust into unfamiliar situations. Villhaze is no mere kuudere maid, she is also Komari’s spin doctor, tactician, and bodyguard. Sakana the “yandere little sister” type is a skilled assassin and 4D chessmistress when it comes to planning her gambits far in advance. Nelia the deposed princess fights for the future of her country with admirable bravery and conviction. And finally there is Millicent, who after chewing the scenery as a gloriously villainous antagonist, goes on to be that greatest of all characters, the former villainess who becomes an awesomely badass antiheroine.

As mentioned, this is undeniably a yuri “battle harem” franchise, and over the course of the show no less than three young ladies form varying degrees of attachment to Komari. (Four if you count Millicent.) On the one hand this is great, I for one love yurification of existing genre formulas. On the other hand, one cannot but feel sorry for Villhaze, the obviously designated main love interest, who feels like a neglected character after her early arc concludes and the show goes on to focus on other characters. Presumably the source material circles back around to her later, but speaking just for this adaptation, it was slightly unfortunate.

Finally, I must shout out the small cameo by legendary yuri seiyuu Yuuki Aoi. I won’t say who the character is; when the hotblooded screaming starts, you’ll know.

Ratings:

Art – 8/10, pleasantly competent and consistent considering the designs, although visible cracks in some action sequences.
Story – 7/10, sometimes wacky, sometimes unexpectedly serious, frequently bombastic.
Characters – 7/10, for me at least the characters defy their usual typing.
Service – early in the show 8/10, later on 5/10. It definitely drops off, though there are still occasional moments.
Yuri – 7/10, a yuri harem is definitely forming but Villhaze feels left behind after her arc.

Overall – 8/10, it was not art, but it was definitely entertainment.

Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon is currently available for streaming, under the title The Vexations of a Shut-in Vampire Princess, on HIDIVE.





Black Rose Revue: Act 1, Guest Review by Ashley

January 17th, 2024

In classic 1970' shoujo manga black and white art style, we see a woman with short hair in a men's tuxedo, a woman with long black hair in a stylish "villainess"-esque dress and a woman with pale hair in a white dress between them on the sofa. The words "You Are Cordially Invited To The Black Rose Revue" are prominent in the middle of the image.Chihiro Sato is the rising star of The Black Rose Review. She has proven herself so skilled in her recent major role alongside top otokoyaku Rika Ikeda that she has now been picked for the staring role in the next production. But this rapid assent brings with it the problems of antagonistic seniors and a mysterious E.M. who keeps sending Chihiro bouquets of roses.

So far only act one of Phantom of the Black Rose Revue is available on itch.io and it does everything a good opening should do.

The game wastes no time introducing us to the cast. Everyone has at least one scene that gives us their deal or mystery. It truly is the very start of this story so we really only have the very first threads of characterization to chew on, with the exception of Chihiro, who is already a rising star, not a student. This is a choice that elevates her instantly compared to other similar characters like Kageki Shoujo‘s Sarasa Watanabe, Revue Starlight‘s Karen Aijou or the characters from Awajima Hyakkei.

Chihiro already has a role in the Black Rose Revue and so the focus is on how she can further her career; rather than if she is suited for it at all. A refreshing change from the usual when it comes to stories about performers. The adult world of working in the theatre is not a distant haze that Chihiro is striving for, but a world that she is trying to live in.

With that, what a world indeed for Phantom of the Black Rose Revue to take place in! What this preview does best in the short time it takes to play it is provide us with a monochromatic optical feast. The character designs homages to Riyoko Ikeda right down to the powerful reaction sprites lovingly spelled with sharp highlights. But the stark black and white look of manga goes far beyond the characters and into the backgrounds. The backgrounds are drawn in the same style as the character designs allowing both to mesh together into a single image far better than games with a team more than triple the six people credited for the team here. Combined with lively sprite direction it makes the visual elements of this visual novel far more important than many others. I often found myself taking the time to just look at an animation or transition over and over because of the incredible synergy Phantom of the Black Rose Revue is capable of.

It is this effort to keep the different visual elements of the game congruent with each other that stands out the most in this brief demo. When the finished game is available to buy we can be certain that it will have a unique and complete sense of style, something that very few games manage to achieve.

No ratings yet, as this is only the beginning of the story.

Phantom of the Black Rose Revue can be downloaded on Windows, MacOS and Linux at name your own price on Yamino’s itch.io page.





Just Friends by Ana Oncina, Guest Review by Em Evergreeen

January 10th, 2024

Two women hold hands by a vast, purple sea under a yellow sky. One has long curly red hair, wears a hat and and a yellow denim skirt. The other has short black hair, wears a pink shirt with long black sleeves, a backpack and shorts. A large white cloud in the distance billows up from the horizon.Em Evergreen is a lonely lesbian with a manga addiction. Find her at linktr.ee/em.evergreen.Just Friends is a one volume Yuri manga by Spanish mangaka Ana Oncina. Originally published by Planeta Cómic in Spain in 2021, the English edition comes to us courtesy of Tokyopop, with translations by Nanette Cooper-McGuinness. Just Friends was awarded a silver medal at the Japanese Ministry of the Exterior’s International Manga Awards in 2023.Just Friends has the form of a manga, with right-to-left paneling and Japanese-language sound effects, but the lower-line-count art style hints at its overseas origin. It’s an opportunity to read a different type of Yuri, one that plays with the tropes of a culturally distinct adolescence – no sailor uniforms, student council officers, or onigiri are in evidence. Instead our story is set at sleep-away camp, where our teenage characters wear graphic tees and eat pizza and baloney sandwiches.Our protagonist, the introverted Erika, is reluctantly packed off to said camp without any close friends. On the bus there, she meets her polar opposite Emi, who takes an immediate interest in Erika and declares them “inseparable” before they even arrive. The story of their whirlwind relationship that summer is framed by more brief flash-forwards into their future, where we see them meet again as thirty-somethings. As with any good real-life sleep-away camp, the setting gives Erika the chance to step outside her comfort zone, figure out some things about herself, and perhaps explore that most new and exciting phenomenon to a teen – romance.To some young adult readers, especially queer ones raised in a similar context, the story will at times be almost painfully relatable. The realistic depictions of social anxiety, bullying, awkwardness, and underage-drinking-fueled misadventures might resonate a bit too strongly for comfort, but you’ll likely chuckle more than cry. Erika and her peers don’t have the communication or conflict resolution skills of adults, but their conflicts aren’t the focus. This is a romance at its core, with a side of navigating heteronormative expectations while figuring out who you are.Just Friends is very much not a Yuri without lesbians. Its mix of LGBTQ issues and romance is distinguished from recent standouts like Shio Usui’s Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon or Sakaomi Yuzaki’s She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat by its strong focus on the drama of adolescence. In that respect, it calls to mind Yuhki Kamatani’s Our Dreams at Dusk, though it’s lighter in tone and less ambitious in scope. Just don’t go into Just Friends expecting a neat and tidy ending, or a sweet story of first love. It’s too grounded in the complexities of real-world romantic relationships, teenage and adult, to give us that. Like all good one volume manga, it leaves you wanting more.Art – 5, effective if not awe-inspiringStory – 8, a nostalgic, bittersweet romanceCharacters – 6, more realistic than memorableService – 3, sex isn’t ignored, but the teens aren’t leered at or sexualizedYuri – 10, Houston, we have lesbians (and/or bisexuals)Overall – 7

 





Y/CON 9 Event Report by Laetitia Albine Kambou

January 3rd, 2024

It’s our very great pleasure today to introduce a new guest writer to you…a person I met online under what has to be some of the strangest circumstances ever…  and I am so pleased to have here! Please welcome Laetitia Albine Kambou with her report of Y/CON 9, France’s Yaoi and Yuri convention. ^_^ Take it away, Laetitia!

It was promising. Even exciting. After a 2022 edition sold out weeks before the event, Y/CON – the one and only convention dedicated to homo fictions in France – moved to a bigger space near Paris for its 9th weekend. More accessible (relatively speaking, because everyone knows how terrible the Paris metropolitan is when you are disabled), with more people able to attempt. Everything went higher, even the ticket, but hey, that’s the price of glory.

November 4 and 5. Two days in what is described as the safest con to be when you are queer. A wholesome crowd eager to discover talented artists in every genre and fandom possible. Yuri, bara, fanart or original creations, books or comics, fluffy or pervy, you name it, they have it. Diversity is everywhere on each side of the tables, alongside a simple and strong feeling to be back at home after one year navigating in the Big Bad Heteronormative World.

Publishers like Taifu, Hana, Akata or Reines de Cœur were just robbed of their merch. In France, LGBTQIA+ sections are nearly non-existant in general bookstores, so the majority of the sales are made on the internet and during cons. This year saw the great entrance of the webtoon format with Kbooks releasing two anticipated titles, Rose and Champagne and The Dangerous Convenience Store, two 18+ yaoi.

But, as much as I enjoyed my days in this bubble of happiness, acceptance and too much money spent on cute goodies and prints, some clouds appeared above the parade. Being bigger seems to make things more obvious, especially when my personal awareness of all problems queer people must face on a daily basis grows equally bigger.

As the name of the organizing team, Event Yaoi, suggests, Y/CON was originally fully about Japanese boy’s love, acknowledging other genres, medias and demographics as the audience make it clear they want more variety. This year, yuri and other sapphic stories received a well deserved recognition during the panels, and more artists were selected because of this content. Yaoi is always dominant but things are in progress.

What needs to be done better are panels and moderation. Sure, some guests came ready to have fun, but also talk about creation, history and representation of queerness, publishing and more, but other panelists showed a disturbing lack of reflection about those same subjects or their own work. After #MeToo and the rise of topics questioning how queerness is portrayed on medias, hearing people saying they don’t see their work as a window or a way to talk about it is a let down, to say the least.

And on that, the casting of the panels was the real issue. With Ttung Gae, korean illustrator of Rose and Champagne webtoon, canceling their venue, it appeared that the majority of the guests were cis white non (visibly) disabled people, contrasting with the more diverse public mentioned before. Such assembly can only result in failing or dodging  to talk about more specific matters, and stay at the surface.

No one, at least for now, asks Y/CON to become a place of activism and claiming equality in a political way. In a country like France, being The Safe Place for a week-end is already a huge step and commitment. But as the people attempting it are constantly and unwillingly subjects to debate, it demonstrates by its very existence that a certain number of voices wish to be heard, and found an echo chamber there. It would be interesting if these voices, in all their diversity, could now grab a mic and get real visibility and interaction with the public.

See you next time, 9-10 november 2024.

 

Erica here: Thank you so much Laetitia, for the thoughtful report. The issues you bring up are common to many events and having folks speak up to con organizers and take an active role themselves, are the best ways to fix things.

I hope to be able to attend that this year, so if you are local to Y/CON do tell them you’d love to see me as a guest. ^_^ But I’ll be just as white and not-visibly disabled as the rest, which would not address this issue at all.





Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity To An Android, Volume 1 Guest Review by Matt Marcus

December 20th, 2023

A gynoid with purple hair undressed her nonplussed mistress on the cover of Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity To An Android, Volume 1 Matt Marcus is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network. He is still on the hook for a Xenosaga KOS-MOS x Shion fanfic for their next Patreon goal.

Sometimes, you come across a piece of media that really strikes at the heart of humanity. What does it even mean to be human? To have emotions? What if there were beings that look like us, feel like us, act like us, but are wholly man-made? Is synthetic love still…love?

If you are looking to explore these heady ideas, then may I suggest Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka, now with a fantastic anime adaptation on Netflix (who did not sponsor this post).

However, if you are looking for something less Philip K. Dick and more, say, Philine K. Shlick, you could pick up volume 1 of Does It Count If You Lose Your Virginity To An Android? by Yakinikuteishoku. Now, I hear you saying, “But Matt, shouldn’t the title say ‘gynoid’?” Well observed, dear reader! In fact, the referenced lovebot uses the term herself, but alas, it seems that it failed in focus testing, much like my alternate title Is It OK To Objectify A Sapient Sex Toy?

Here’s the rundown: in a near future where AI isn’t about art theft and Google Glass manages to succeed, Tsuda Akane is an office worker in her late twenties who is very reliable and professional on the clock, but outside of work she’s a complete slob who drinks heavily every night and has no real romantic experience to boot. During a drunken stupor, she places an order for a cleaning robot but what arrives the next day is a super advanced—and very illegal—sex gynoid named Nadeshiko. Akane spends the volume constantly at her wits’ end trying to keep herself out of jail and her incorrigibly horny new companion in check, however much to her chagrin she is very much putty in Nadeshiko’s skillful hands.

I expected this manga to be hornier than a buck hunter’s trophy wall and, sure enough, page one opens mid-coitus. Hell, the central point of conflict is Akane’s refusal to register herself as Nadeshiko’s owner via a fingerprint scan, and I’m sure you can infer what that entails. The premise is so nakedly (ha) transparent in its aims that even when a gag is eye-rollingly contrived (of course that’s where the power switch is! Of course!) I find myself unable to find it distasteful. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pandering as all get-out, but it doesn’t rise to a significant level of grossness unless you give any thought to how rank that apartment must smell.

What really made this volume stand out as more than just I, Robot After Dark is the snappy writing. Huge credit to the localizer Casper Kazor, who really punched up the dialogue to great effect. There are a lot of really fun little turns of phrase that got me chortling, none of which I will deign to spoil. This is one to pick up for tits and giggles.

So, back to the titular question: does it indeed count?

رارا I Evess

(all apologies to KC Green)

Thank you to Seven Seas, who also did not sponsor this post, but did provide a review copy.

Art – 8 All the character designs are cute but the fluids are a touch excessive
Story – 7 It’s a gag comic were sex is The Joke, but the flourishes in the writing elevate it
Characters – 6 This ain’t Bladerunner 2049, but I’m sure no one needs it to be either
Service – 9 Docking it one point for the few services that Nadeshiko will not provide
Yuri – 7 / LGBTQ – 7 Akane seems to be a clueless ladykiller with a cadre of admirers at the office 

Overall – 8 

You cannot fathom how disappointed I was that Seven Seas beat me to the Electric Sheep reference–and on the back cover, no less. So many jokes lost to time, like tears in the rain.