Today is the day when Americans celebrate their independence from the British Empire – and by extension, their general sense of freedom.

I personally tend to not be the most patriotic, in the sense of being an aphorism-spewing, flag-waving, love it or leave it kind of person, but I am very grateful to be living in the US, if not in agreement with all of my government’s policies and actions. One of the best things about being American is that you *can* call the current President an insult to orangutans everywhere and not get disappeared overnight…so far.

However, I do love celebrating Independence Day with an intense bout of wachting fireworks and being nine years old. Tonight, I walked down the road to watch a local fireworks display from up the street. I could see all the explosions that went high enough to clear the trees, which was about 1/2 of the display. What I saw made me very happy and I stood, by myself, in the street clapping and saying, “oooh” like a kid.

And then the finale began. Most of the fireworks didn’t clear the treeline, so all I saw was a series of flashes and loud booms, and my blood ran cold, because, but for the grace of many gods, I might have been standing there watching Cedar Knolls being blown to hell. It was a very sobering thought…and one that made me really thankful to be where I am, to have what I have. And tonight, my prayers will definitely be with anyone, anywhere, who aren’t watching fireworks when the booms and flashes come.

Happy 4th of July

It’ll be a quick one today…

Houkago is a new serialized manga running in Cookie monthly magazine. It just started this month, so it’s hard to tell if the potential for Yuri has got any staying power. In fact, I’m not even sure it wasn’t a one-shot story. (The monthlies are getting very lax about telling you when/if another chapter will run on some of the series. And many of the mangaka end a chapter with “The End” so you don’t know if it’s the chapter that’s ended, or the series. Drives me nuts.

Anyway, Cookie is the same magazine running Nana which has some serious crushiness bordering on Yuri, but sadly, nothing will actually happen. Nonetheless, a lot of Yuri fans like Nana.

Houkago is a short chapter, about a girl who is being picked on by classmates at school. As the story continues, the teasing predictably gets more vicious. The girl is befriended by the cool class loner and they two of them start spending alot of time together and being happy in each other’s company.

There’s much hand-holding, and an embrace or two, but no declarations of love or kisses in this chapter, so it’s nothing ground-breaking or notable. It’s just another high-school Yuri potential romance. ^_^

I’ll keep you posted if anything good happens in it.

Haru Yo Koi is one of those perfectly typical shounen manga where there’s a Yuri relationship, sex and all, and you just *know* that it’s going to go south almost immediately in favor of straight relationships…and it does. But, surprise! It seems to have taken a different route, so here’s a quickie review:

Mafuyu is a high school student that has fallen in love with Sae, another girl in their school. After being caught inflagrante delicto with Sae on the school roof, Mafuyu was expelled from school and her parents threw her out, so she’s moved to Tokyo to live with her brother. However, Sae follows her and the three of them live together in an awkward setup. The brother, who is the most genuinely decent guy I’ve ever read in any manga, shoujo or shounen, finds this all unbearable…but for all the right reasons. Heck – I’d be peeved, too.

Sae has given up everything she ever had – friends, family, her home, to be with Mafuyu…but then the story gets horribly predictable. Mafuyu starts to date a guy and leaves Sae alone in the house, where she, in turn, falls for the brother (who has a nice girlfriend, thank you very much.) Typical love polygon, no surprises here.

We follow the brother as his relationship with his girlfriend develops – this is a very refreshing arc, because the progression seems normal – they meet, date a while, eventually sleep together, like each other’s company…you know *real* relationship stuff, without the endless supply of emotional and sexual dysfunction that populates so much manga. He can’t help but feel bad for Sae, and they kind of have something between them…but he has a girlfriend he loves, and Sae was, after all, his sister’s girlfriend. So he declines to take advantage of Sae.

Then we follow Sae – she runs away, so as to not have to deal with all the conflicting emotions she’s feeling. She becomes a hostess and shares a room with another hostess. In the meantime, the brother has asked all his friends to keep an eye out for her, which they do. When one friend finds her, he hides the fact from the brother, and tries to woo Sae, but she’s basically fallen in love with the brother and the resulting chapters are a little tiresome, as the friend lies and cheats and does basically every skanky guy thing he can think of to sleep with Sae. He just won’t get the “no” part of “no.” Eventually he gets it and tells the brother and he and Sae meet. But she says she won’t come back until she’s standing on her own two feet again and knows who she is and what she wants.

And then we turn to Mafuyu to se what she has been doing all this time. She dropped Sae, pretty coldly, for a guy she met at work. And although she’s sleeping with him, its obvious that the two have no connection. On the side, she’s had a skinship with a classmate, but Mafuyu is repulsed by her own behavior, even as she’s kissing the girl…comparing herself to a male character in a dating sim game. When she finds out that the guy she’s dating is cheating, she’s not really even angry – almost relieved. But she’s still in a bad mood.

And then a new, young and good-looking substitute teacher arrives. Nijiko-sensei is popular among the boys, but it’s Mafuyu she pays attention to. When she finds out that Mafuyu’s being cheated on, Nijiko-sensei takes her out for a night of eating, drinking and dancing. Almost immediately, Mafuyu finds herself attracted to her new teacher.

One day, Mafuyu decides to tell the teacher the whole story – about Sae, and the guy, and how she started dating him to prove to herself that she wasn’t gay…but now she realizes that she is. And she tells the teacher that she’s attracted to her – she knows that the teacher isn’t interested, but she, Mafuyu, just wants the teacher to know.

Later that night, Nijiko-sensei pays a visit to Mafuyu at home and confesses that she’s a lesbian and, if Mafuyu graduates and still has feelings for her, she’d be willing to date her. But they have to wait, because it would be more than a little awkward if they were found out while they were still teacher and student. Mafuyu agrees, stunned.

But…Mafuyu breaks the promise, and one day at school, corners Nijiko-sensei and kisses her. Hard.

And that’s where we are, kids – in the middle of a manga that was getting boring, but has suddenly gone all interesting again!

There’s nothing really standout about the series, except the brother’s character: the art’s fine, the story is okay, but that kiss was pretty much worth the whole thing so far. ^_^

How About A Quickie?

I’m a little pressed for time today, so today’s review will have to be a quickie…

Jubei-chan 2: Revenge of the Siberian Yagyuu

Let me cut to the chase here – no Yuri. BUT, it has instead everything else that makes a series worth watching, lots of hot women fighting with swords, wearing eyepatches and ninja clothes designed by Frazetta.

While there is no overt Yuri, Jiyu and newcomer Yagyuu Fureesha (Felicia?) get awfully snuggly at times, and their relationship has tons of that popular love/hate tension. And when Jubei-chan rescues Fureesha from the moat….drool. I have no less than 3 screencaps of that scene. :-) There’s plenty to work with in terms of fanon Yuri here.

The side characters are still bizarre and kookie, Mikage is still a babe, Jiyu’s dad is still a goofball. With the exception of Koinusuke, pretty much every fun character from the original series has returned. Instead of Koinuske’s incompetent adorableness, we have his repulsive, if competent, son. And tons of drama, of course. 7 episodes into this series and it’s been great.

If you liked the first series…or you like really hot, competent women who fight and are cool as hell (and wear eyepatches….did I mention that? I think that I’ve developed an eyepatch fetish – between Yuriko from Yuricon, Ryomou from Ikkitousen and Jubei-chan, I’m starting to realize that I *really* like women with one eye covered. ^_^;) then you’ll enjoy this series too. No Yuri, but lots of everything else and plenty of room for Yuri subtexty fandom.

Ratings:

Art – N/A. The art in the series varies wildly from stunning to awful on purpose. It’s impossible to rate Characters – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 1

Overall – 8

When I hear that a series has Yuri or Yuri subtext, I’ll usually give it a chance, even if it’s not my particular thing. Just in case it is worth it, or might be of interest to Yuri fandom in general. Well, this past week I wasted a cumulative total of 46 minutes that I can never get back, watching two not very compellingl new anime series. Consider yourself warned.

Tenbatsu Angel Rabbie

This is a one-shot OVA for what must be a much longer, if not more complex, story. Rabbie is an “Angel,” or attemtping to be one, to be just like her cool, competent Mother. “Angels” are a combo of magical girl, hardsuit-wearing fighter chick and space police. In other words, they are a mixture of nearly every trite cliche’ possible.

The improbably named heroine, Lasty Farson, has all the typical qualities of a mediocre shoujo heroine; she’s clumsy and constantly late, has inexplicably good fighting skills and a best friend who passionately loves and desires her.

There’s a mysterious “bad” girl, a renegade Angel who, in the manga, probably also desires Lasty, but in this shortened OVA, only says one line, smiles enigmatically and moves her cape around a bit.

Perhaps the Yuri fanservice (and I can tell you know with complete assurance that that’s all it would be) is greater in the manga, but there’s so little even of that in this OVA that it’s not worth saying its there.

The characters are very moe, so they look years younger than they are, but have fully developed chests – ac onvention which repulses me – and the transformations Lasty goes through are unnecessary and ridiculous. The plot, if you can call it that, is superficial in the extreme. I probably wouldn’t even push any of the characters out of the way of an oncoming train.

This series is a big zero – give it a miss if you value your sanity.

Futari ha PreCure (Pretty Cure )

This is a generic magical girl anime.

Two girls, butchy and athletic Nagisa, and smart, feminine Honoka, somehow manage to be drawn together to form the magical team of Cure White and Cure Black, who fight for…shall we *all* say it…”Love and Justice.” Their costumes aren’t even good, just sort of stupid. Of course, the butchy girl is REALLLY straight,and we have that beaten into our head a thousand times as she moons over some faceless boy.

The art is wholly uninteresting, the story predictable and tiresome, the Monster of the Week was *dire*, but thrn this is targeted to children and they are probably not as cynical as I am.

But the worst, the absolute worst, thing about it was the ubiquitous cute, fluffy creatures. These were so horrible that I grit my teeth simply thinking about them. Each girl has been given what can only be called an anthromorphized cell phone which is really a cute, fluffy creature. These two creatures appear to be in love with each other. Mippiru and Meppuru add the syllables of their names to every sentence, which was enough to make me scream at the screen after five minutes of “Mippu, mippuuuu!”. I found it difficult to tolerate.

It’s very obvious that the entire point of this series is simply to sell stuff – in the first episode we get no less than 6 objet de plastic they will eventually try to sell.

Any Yuri is strictly fandom-based. These two characters have to hold hands to attack, but there’s no anything between them. Unless Honoka develops a raging crush on Nagisa, I’d recommend treating PreCure like the commercial franchise it is.