Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The car came on time (early even), the driver was pleasant, the woman who helped us check our luggage was pleasant and even ran after the wife when she dropped a credit card while getting out her passport. The people on the (short) security line were pleasant and I wasn’t pulled over for a special search.

Welcome to bizarro land.

If you are familair at all with me, you know about my magical power to slip through the cracks and be forgotten, lost, abandoned.

This time – the plane was comfortable(?!) the food edible and even weirder, when we finally arrived at the hotel, they knew who I was. It’s all been so…*strange*.

Anyway, I’m here in Tokyo in a hotel where the staff has, thusfar, been stellar (!) and now I crash.

Good night sweet princes and princesses. See you at Comiket!

Just for not having any schoolgirls, this series is clearly the most awesome manga ever.

Seriously, this week, I’m going to try and see if I can not review anything with schoolgirls. Just to see if it’s even possible.

As with my re-watch of Silent Mobius anime, Vol. 1, I have been re-reading the manga for several reasons; in order to write the “Worldshaking” Fanfic Contest winner’s fanfic, and also, because it is, quite genuinely an excellent series. Translated ages and ages ago in 2001 by James D. Hudnall & Matt Thorn, I think this series stands up strongly to most, if not all, of what’s being translated these days. The translation itself is strong – really strong. And this was never an easy series to translate. Of course, all the honorifics are lost. Shame.

The timeline on the manga differs slightly from the anime, but in general it’s all the same story. The manga begins with the AMP team already assembled and we learn through flashbacks and or current storylines about the various team members’ pasts. I think it’s a bit more effective than the anime’s straight chronological order and in particular, I think Katsumi comes off as a stronger person for it. As that is crucial to the storyline, I’m on the side of the manga over the anime on this.

The Lucifer Hawks are much more complexly drawn creatures than they are in the anime; the art is heavy on black line and shadow and in some cases, they are very hard to see clearly …something else I think works in the manga’s favor.

There’s a nice blend of physical action, guns, chases, all set against the dystopian future where both technology and magic work, with a frisson of horror that we’re just not getting these days in our stories. Add to this a cast of genuinely three-dimensional, competent adult men and women who have jobs, but also time for real, and adult, emotions and what you get is a top-notch manga for grown-ups. No little-girl faces on adult bodies – while there is service, it’s much more “I like to look at beatiful women naked” (or, as Kyanite points out, in uniform) rather than today’s “I like to sneak peeks at little girls’ underwear” variety of service that makes my skin crawl so. SO much less vile.

As far as yuri goes, in the first six volumes of the manga, there is minimal to none. As I said in the anime review, despite fanon, Katsumi and Kiddy are both refreshingly straight, and their relationships are really pretty uncomplicated and realistic for any manga. ^_^ Ralph and Kiddy remain a particularly favorite couple of mine. If this manga was being drawn now, there’s just about no way they’d have gotten together – it would be all pointless unresolved sexual tension and Ralph “accidentally” getting panty shots and nose bleeds….

I know that at least a few fans see some kind of sexual tension between Rally and her evil sister Rosa, while I maintain that Rally is totally gay (using only my gaydar and my unflappable belief that lesbian manga characters are, in fact, cooler, better looking and more competent than the other characters around them.  ^_^) Although it is never, ever, stated or implied, I also remain convinced that Mana and Rally were lovers before Mana got married (to the world’s biggest loser…by which I mean the biggest loser in *their* world.)

In short, if you are a grownup, and like series written for grown-ups, there’s a good chance that you’ll like Silent Mobius. That having been said, this *is* a dystopian sci-fantasy (“speculative fiction” as they say these days) world and there is a great deal of violence with some serious death scenes – with no impossible, unbelievable resurrections to take the edge off. People who die stay dead. On the other hand, this isn’t misery for misery’s sake either and there are various lights at the end of various tunnels, all of which make the Silent Mobius series well worth reading (or re-reading, as the case may be.)

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 1
Service – There is service, but there’s very little loser-ness to it. Nothing wrong with enjoying attractive men and women’s bodies. Let’s call it a 3.

Overall – 8

If you, like me, long for a story NOT about children and NOT about school or teen angst, with competent, beautiful adult women (in uniform!), then old-school Silent Mobius will feel like a refreshing change of pace.

I liked the anime for Coyote Ragtime Show immediately. Right from the first moments…the energy, the devil-may-care pirates in space, the absurd levels of violence, and Angelica’s obsession with eating, totally did it for me.

If only, I thought, there was an evil, psychotic older woman with a uniform fixation and twelve goth-loli assassin android “daughters.” ^_^

(Seriously, I was watching an episode with some Yuricon staffers and my only comment was, “I like this series quite a bit. When you see Madame Marciano, you’ll instantly know why.” And so they did.)

Let’s back up. CRS was a short 12-episode series about space pirates, aka “coyotes.” Coyotes are assumed to have a serious code of honor and an inner nobility, which puts this story strongly in the realm of fiction. ^_^ Our pirate ships are spaceships; Han Solo would be impressed with the mean piloting skills we see. And the government is, if not entirely corrupt, then just plain dumb. Typical SF space pirate fare.

Our main players are:

Angelica – good, smart, attractive female cop who has a crush on

Mister – smart, noble, attractive older guy coyote

Madame Marciano – smart, evil, psychotic underworld leader who’s in it for the violence, power and money

The rest of the cast are the people arrayed around these three. Mister is the protagonist, so in a sense everyone is arrayed around him, but these three represent the three warring forces of the series – the coyotes, the authorities, the criminals (who are different from coyotes in that they appear to have become *successful* at crime and are living lives of luxury, instead of living hand to mouth in filth and poverty.)

The main plot is full of action and fun and goofy – all very enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed when Madame Marciano and her 12 assassin android daughters (each named after a month of the year) destroyed the Guild of Underworld Baddies, because they weren’t being evil enough. I think I fell in love with her right then.

But the one thing that was lacking from the anime (which has been licensed for US release, I”m glad to say) was the “L” part of Madame Marciano’s EPL(Evil Psychotic Lesbian) character – in other words, there was not too much Yuri in the anime.

There was a “thing” building between May’s disembodied android head and Angelica, which many Japanese fans saw as Yuri. I think it was probably just respect, but there’s a definite vibe, yes, on May’s part which can be read as pinging the old Yuri-dar. Even if she does spend a large portion of the series as a disembodied head…

But more importantly for us, in the manga we get a glimpse of Madame’s other use for her beloved androids…other than slaughtering people violently, that is. Clearly Madame favors the Goth-Loli look…and she likes her women as violent as I do. April, the leader of the 12 “sisters”, is also Mommy’s personal favorite, if you get my drift. (It’s the manga to which I’ve linked the picture and title above for that reason. When the licensed version of the anime is available in the US, you can be sure I’ll link to that as well.)

Is it meaningful that it’s April and May who are the Yuriest? I have no idea. All I know is that just about the time I was whining that Madame Marciano would be my perfect women if only she had a taste for women, I learned that she does.

Madame Marciano is my perfect woman. ^_^

And Coyote Ragtime Show is a great, goofy comic book of an anime, fun for the whole family…assuming your family is like mine.  (You know, thinking about it, my Dad would love this show…)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Character – 9
Yuri – 2 anime, 4 manga
Service – Considering the possibilities, the service rating is a surprisingly low 2.
Erica – 9 – Madame hits just about every major fetish I have, except one.

Overall – 8

It’s got all the qualities of a classic adventure series. Unless you’re a strictly shoujo fan, definitely worth a look!