Archive for the Light Novel Category


Yuri Light Novel: Strawberry Panic, Volume 2

July 25th, 2008

Strawberry Panic Light Novel, Volume 2 is the touching story of girls in love at three girls private schools on Astraea Hill.

At Miator, the star, the Etoile of all three schools, Hanazono Shizuma has found herself completely out of control in her attraction to new student Aoi Nagisa. Nagisa is thrown into the competition for this year’s Etoile with Shizuma and, as a result, bears up under a alot of scrutiny and some bullying. Her attraction to Shizuma is so strong that neither bullying, nor knowledge of Shizuma’s past playgirl ways is enough to deter her – but upon learning that Shizuma truly loved her former Etoile partner, she finds her confidence wavering and her resolve starting to crack.

At Spica, the reticent and lone-wolf Ohtori Amane had found herself equally as head over heels about a transfer student, this time the angelic Kotohana Hikari. That Spica’s representative in the Etoile battle is a mere transfer student is so outrageous an idea, former student and famous violinist Kusanagi Makoto comes running back to Spica to sabotage her school’s best chance at winning. In the meantime, Hikari and Amane realize that their love is way deeper than anything they were prepared to deal with – especially Amane, who never cared for expressions of love between women.

And, at LuLim, the graceful Madonna of the school, Chikaru, pulls strings behind the scenes, and spoils her own harem rotten as she prepares them for a life of cosplay and intrigue.

…Dammit. I was trying to maintain a tone of affected sincerity, but blew it.

Oh well. lol

The book is filled with kisses- who can forget those touching moments when Shizuma gives Nagisa a hickey, or Yaya has her way with Hikari in the pool, or Chikaru gently kisses Kizuna’s butt. Not you – because I will keep reminding you of those things. You will never be allowed to forget them. Every time you tell me that this is a serious love story I will look at you and say – absolutely, especially when Chikaru dressed Kizuna up as a playboy bunny and kissed her butt. LOL

OTOH, Hikari and Amane’s love isn’t maddening. Yes, Hikari cries in every scene (see my review of this volume in Japanese for my suggestion about that) and yes, Amane doth protest too much, but they win hands down for best – well, least irritating – couple.

And I’m *still* annoyed that Makoto didn’t shut up long enough to kiss Chikaru. Makoto is so much more annoying in English, because now I have no excuse to not understand her tortured sentences.

Speaking of which, boo to Seven Seas for not crediting both translators on this book. (In fact, boo to them for not crediting every single person who works on every single book. There are a few books I from them have which only credit translator, adaptor and editor, as if it didn’t take tons of retouching and lettering, layout and production editing to make a book. Bad, bad. People who work on a book – *especially* people like the retouch and lettering people, who have hellish jobs – deserve to be credited.) There was a changeover in translators midway – which was very apparent in at least one thing. At the beginning of the book, Chikaru looks out the window as a white pigeon flew by. Okay, true, doves and pigeons are 1) the same family and 2) the same word in Japanese, but usually to be more symbolic and all, they are referred to in such moments as “doves,” because pigeons are basically considered to be rats with wings by those of us who have ever actually looked at one. LOL

Anyway, the translation smooths out and later on, they are indeed referred to as doves…which makes me wonder why the proofreader didn’t catch that and fix it. It takes a village to make a book, let me tell you. :-)

And in the end, all the lead contenders for Etoile are disqualified and/or pull out, leaving Makoto and Kagome which is still a breathtakingly bad combination.

I remembered this volume as being less servicey, more sincere and slightly more romantic than the first book of the series, and the English edition managed to capture that perfectly. It’s also still wild over-the-top melodrama that makes me think it would make the most awesome live action story ever. Even better than “Passions.” Actually – kind of like a Yuri version of “Passions.”

Ratings:

Art – 6 (one point off for so often illustrating things we don’t want to see and not illustrating the ones we do)
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Reproduction – 7
Translation – starts out a little roughly at 6, but moves up to 8

Overall – 7

Little Princess Sara‘s English title is A Little Princess, fyi.





Yuri Light Novel: Vanilla, A Sweet Partner

July 4th, 2008

You may have gotten the mistaken impression from reading these reviews, that I enjoy making a complete fool of myself in public, by laughing out loud and snorting in amusement while on public transportation, airplanes, waiting rooms, etc. This is not true – it’s just that, given the average quality of what I read and watch, I can’t help myself.

Which brings us to today’s review of a high quality lesbian schoolgirl killers Light Novel, Vanilla, A Sweet Partner, by Asaura. And special thanks to Anastasia Moreno for pointing me in the general direction of this work of “literature!” ^_^

Vanilla follows the lives of the totally deranged schoolgirls Kei and Nao and their guns. And the guns of everyone around them. And random gun information, because, you know – guns! Yes, the author is a gun otaku and since I am not particularly enamored of guns in my native tongue, other than the fact that Kei used a Beretta 90 TWO and Nao a Takami rifle, I can’t tell you a single thing about any of the weapons so lovingly described.

On the other hand, I can tell you all about Kei – she’s *crazy*. When we first meet her, she’s recounting how she bit a piece of her stepmother’s ear off, because the woman redecorated her real mother’s room. Kei basically spirals downhill from there – from selfish, spoiled and slightly volent to selfish, spoiled and insanely violent. At first I kind of assumed that she and Nao were professional killers who killed people they don’t like for fun, but no…they just killed people they don’t like because they don’t like them. Sure, the three guys who assualted them in the alleyway…but uh, hello, you were two defenseless girls in the alleyway late at night. Set-up much?

We have less info on Nao, but enough to know that her violent tendencies stem from chronic sexual abuse.

So, Nao and Kei love each other very much. Very, very much, they reassure each other a zillion times. They don’t like other people, but they love each other. This is good, because when Kei shoots her father and stepmother in the face in a public place, at least they have each other to rely on as they escape from the police.

Still very much in love, they hide out at their school, where a classmate offers to assist them, because he kind of likes them. But, ultimately, the police track them down and what follows is a long, drawn-out siege which ends with a shootout, but no deaths. Unless I misunderstood the end bit – which might have been the case, because I was a little fried when I read it.

So for Yuri, we get repeated protestations of eternal love and a bunch of kisses, and one implication of maybe some heavy petting – in front of a camera for maximum service. These two are in no way lesbian – but they are definitely Yuri.

Guns, insane, violent schoolgirls and Yuri – what’s not to like?

Ratings:

Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Oh and yes – it made me snort on the train. ^_^





Light Novel: Maria-sama ga Miteru: Margaret ni Ribon

June 5th, 2008

In Maria-sama ga Miteru: Margaret ni Ribon, White Day is approaching and Yoshino, Shimako and Yumi have all gathered at the Rose Mansion to plan a way to return the chocolates that they received on Valentine’s Day. They decide to buy candies and make small bags that they will decorate. As they decide on the forms, materials and decorations of the bags, each conversation leads into a short story.

The first story picks up with the current life of former Rosa Chinensis, Mizuno Youko, first-year law student, but forever meddler and onee-sama to everyone around her. Youko’s determination to be a completely different person – say, someone like Sei – fails utterly.

Then we take a moment to look at former Rosa Foetida, Torii Eriko’s, relationship with Yamanobe. This story was the best in the book, as she meets, befriends and ultimately agrees to be rivals with, Yamanobe’s daughter. It was a short story, but very touching and beautiful. We get to see a side of Eriko we’ve never seen before. Great story.

Sean will be happy with the next story, as we follow former Rosa Gigantea, Satou Sei’s, side of the trip to Italy with Kei, her decision to not see or be seen by Shimako, and her immense satisfaction with the parakeet joke. ^_^

Then comes a very short, but absolutely excruciatingly adorable vignette as the three Rosas (and yes, although Rei and Sachiko have not yet graduated, they are acting Rosas) consider dropping the “-san” from each other’s names. While they do manage to call each other by their first names only, they mutually decided that it’s pretty much too embarrassing, so they scrap the idea. It was brutally cute. ^_^

In the course of their conversation, Shimako offhandedly refers to her personal situation that I never told you when I reviewed Kira Kira Mawaru, because it was a spoiler. I am going to continue to not tell you, because it continues to be a spoiler.

The next two stories follow Yumi after she leaves the school. In the first, she runs into Shizuka, who has returned home for a funeral, and in the second she makes her hatsumode (first shrine visit of the year) to an Inari shrine with Touko.

The last story follows the adventures of Yumi’s blue umbrella after she loses it in Rainy Blue. In ten days it is witness to several lives in transition. ^_^ We learn that the person who sewed it up was a guy – he chose pink because it was a cheerful color and he didn’t have blue. ^_^

In the Afterword, Konno Oyuki comments that she didn’t actually set out to name the book after two Shueisha comic magazines (Margaret and Ribon), really. But she realizes that no one will believe her anyway. ^_^Also, she addresses the issue of Sachiko’s graduation and whether this series will end. Do I tell you what she said or not? Do you really want to know? Let me know!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 2
Service- 6

Overall – 9

This was probably my favorite of all the short story collections. The stories were fun, touching and we got to see the former Rosas just a bit. A wonderful book to sit and read on a beautiful spring afternoon. ^_^





Yuri Novel: Escalation – Die Liebe (エスカレーションディ・リーベ)

April 28th, 2008

Today’s review  is dedicated, once again, to 828-san.

Back in November 2007, I reviewed the Cream Lemon: Escalation light novel. It was pretty good, for what it was. The language was flowery and the overall emotion behind the BDSM was really very sweet.

In stark contrast, Escalation: Die Liebe (エスカレーションディ・リーベ) was written by a man (how can you tell, Erica? you ask. I answer – it’s seriously obvious,) with limited sexual imagination. Also, for whatever reason, it is not a “Light Novel,” it is full paperback novel size, but still has illustrations. They are still quite laughable, as they were in the original.

The plot (tell me when you stop laughing and I’ll continue) of Die Liebe starts with Naomi-sempai abusing Rie a bit as a good-bye present and leaving her to pick up the pieces at school. Arisa, the student Rie chose as her pet at the end of Escalation is disappeared and instead we get a stoolie called Yukari and the target of her affection, a whiny, soppy kid named Tomoe.

Rie and Midori see Tomoe crying against a tree on the first day of the term and Rie decides that that girl will be her new pet. Only, uncharacteristically, she seduces Tomoe’s roommate Yukari first in order to something something…because it makes no sense at *all* that she needs more than a “You – Me – Now,” gesture at Tomoe and be able to have her. And, um, btw, the girl you seduced, Yukari? She is your pet. In case you didn’t notice. Midori is also written completely out of character. Suddenly popular, she is head of the tennis team, and really nice. Um…okay. Whatever floats your boat.

The entire novel follows Rie’s pointlessly complex plot to get Tomoe. There’s a lot of nothing that goes on and remarkably little sex. …And the author has a spanking fetish.

I believe that Die Liebe is the novelization for a game of the same name. I can only say that if it follows this novel, it’s probably *dire*. ^_^

What this novel did make me long for was to see Naomi come back bringing Arisa with her, and for me write a 5-girl pileup fanfic using the same girly, flowery language used in the original novel. ^_^ (How convenient, I have time now to work on it!)

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 4
Characters – 5
Yuri – 10
Service – 10

Overall – 5

Unlike the original, this wasn’t pretty good, not even – not especially – for porn.
As a conversation piece – this book is total win, however. ^_^





An Open Letter To Publishers of Manga and Light Novels

April 1st, 2008

Today on Tiamat’s Disciple (link via Mangablog,) there was an interesting post about how Light Novels are failing here in the west, a point of view that has been echoed by publishers and others. In a moment of weakness, I wrote a comment and in another, I want to share it with all of you, and hopefully, a few of the publishers that might possibly see it.

**

We’re bumping up once again on the dichotomy between “projections” and reality.

In Japan, LNs have magazines of their own, the audiences of which overlap, but do not completely merge with, the audience of either anime or manga for a series.

The Japanese LN audience is well established before a collected volume is ever put out. Fans are drawn into LN sales through advertising in anime, manga, CDs, live performances and other media, like web radio.

The same is true with manga (through weekly, monthly, bimonthly and quarterly manga magazines) and anime (TV and satellite station weekly and monthly distribution.) Advertising is constant, word of mouth is a negligible factor.

Bring these media over here where there are – completely legitimate – delays to releasing a series in any medium, where word of mouth and “next big thing” are just about the only advertising done and where the audience has been trained by itself to feel entitled to immediate, free and “good enough” releases.

So when I see that LNs, or any other medium, are selling “below projections” I roll my eyes. Who is projecting that suddenly 5000 people will spontaneously want to buy the Light Novel upon which an inexplicably terminated, unfinished, although lush, anime was based – an anime that came out several years ago, no less.

I love LNs, myself. Even those that are brainless rip-offs of their own series, in a desperate attempt to wring more money from a cash cow. *I* am the correct audience for Maria-sama ga Miteru LNs. I am older, I keep up on the series as it comes out in Japan, and I have discretionary income. Is the average 15 year old girl – who has never heard of Maria-sama ga Miteru, and why on earth would she pull out an LN called Mary Watches You anyway, ever truly likely to read it, much less buy it?

The fault lies not in our stars – it lies in the lies that the companies are calling their “projections.” If the Japanese companies are dictating the number of books they think American companies can sell, then it’s time to grow a pair and *make* them understand that, without the barrage of advertising and the streams of distribution, their projections are as real as the worlds in their LNs.

We’ve all been talking about the fansub/scanlation issue to death. LNs are not failing because of scanlations. They are failing because it is time for American companies to stop acting like beaten curs. Stop sticking your collective tails between your collective legs and state the facts as they are. The American buying audience is a few thousand strong – at best. Stop lying about it. Rework your projections and admit that you’re all working in a teeny-tiny grassroots industry. Then grow it for real, like every other company has to – through advertising, promotion and quality products. If fandom bitches that it’s not good/fast/cheap/free enough, tell them to fork over money or stfu.

The boom is over – now let’s get down to business already.