So this month and next are going to be a bit of a lot, and I was looking for something to fall into for relaxation, I popped over to Bookwalker JP and thought I had bought the Super Cub light novel series. Trying to make sense of technical manual talk for a scooter I don’t own sounded about right for taking my over-stimulated brain offline. Well, it turns out I bought Volume 1 of the Super Cub manga and you know…that worked for me very well. I’ve seen the anime, and this can just remind me of that, until I get to the end and then pop over to the novels. Since I read it, the differences between the manga and the anime are much on my mind.

To begin with there are two major changes. One, the manga is full of creeper gaze service, which never adds anything good to a story. So be warned.

The second thing that is different is pacing. I’ve talked about this a lot over the years on Okazu. I read quickly  and even my reading Japanese is going to take less time than an animated scene that takes its time. In the case of Super Cub anime, the first few episodes of the anime are handled with deliberation. We spend time watching Koguma’s daily schedule and really get to feel the emptiness of it. That emptiness becomes a burden for the viewer, each detail weighing us down more as a form of sympathetic depression. It’s rough going, but we *need* to feel that, so the change in her world that comes with her Super Cub will feel that much more uplifting. The manga takes pages to tell a story where the anime took episodes., so if you have not watched the anime, it will feel less like a miraculous change from the beginning of the volume to the end. 

Nonetheless, Koguma’s life does change  –  quite radically – with the purchase of a used Honda Super Cub. While she’s still on limited funds – more so now – her day is less filled with the drudgery of riding her bicycle along mountain roads to school. She has free time and mobility. And, as the volume closes, she finds herself making an acquaintance. Again, in the anime, this was extraordinarily difficult for Koguma and she held herself back from friendship for a long time, unwilling to be hurt.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of women’s friendship in my love of anime. Mainstream media, focused on stories of romance and  – oh, you know straight women doing straight women things with wine and man bashing and other things completely alien to me – rarely shows women just relying on each other, being there for each other. Which is why I so obsess over She Loves To Cook, She Loves To Eat.  Super Cub does tell just exactly this story, from the perspective of a girl who has been so cruelly treated by life, she literally describes herself as having nothing in every way. By the end of this volume, she has one thing – Koguma has a Super Cub –  and that one thing is going to lead her to many other things.

Ratings:

Art – barfing noises
Story – Not as hard one the emotions as the anime, but still rough
Characters – Can we give Koguma some props for existing at all? I’m not sure I would have.
Service – barfing noises and with Reiko, it ain’t gonna get better
Yuri – 0

Overall  – 8

Postscript:  If you come here too late to get a Lucky Box, you know what? Contact Me and I could, possibly put one together for you. I got plenty o’stuff sitting around.

Among the many things I am doing now that my health is improved is cleaning up the office.  ^_^ Yuricon & Okazu Central gets so absurdly filled up with stuff that it’s time for Lucky Boxes!

This time we have 3 Lucky boxes as you can see on the left. They are full of comics and manga and poetry and magazines. All of these boxes include other flat fun things like stickers, bookmarks, comics, or postcards which are equally random and frequently bizarre (and often not at all Yuri.) As always, there are candy and toys. These boxes all include some special CDs, as well!

My promise to you is that you’ll get random things, sometimes in other in random things. ^_^ I assure you that this is all 100%, unadulterated stuff.

This time we have 1 Large USPS flat rate box and 2 Medium USPS flate rate box.

Large Box 1 – $50 – Claimed
Medium Box 1 – $30 Claimed
Medium Box 2 – $30 Claimed
***

To be eligible to buy a Lucky Box, follow these instructions carefully. Please. Thank you. Failure to follow all of these instructions will disqualify you. It’s not personal, they are all claimed pretty quickly and I don’t have time to track you down for a piece of information.

1. You must live in the Continental USA (contiguous 48) only, no APO/FPOs. This is disappointing for me too, so I apologize.

2. You must be over 18, I am not policing books or recipients.

3. Email me with the Yuricon Contact Form with the subject “Lucky Box.” Use an email you check regularly. Because I will reply asap. The first person who responds to my email gets the box.

4. *****Please include your name, age, mailing address. ***** Tell me which box you want. Even if you’ve given me your address previously, please include it, I am very lazy.

5. I will contact you at that point and give you details about payment by Paypal. Please be prepared to check your email and get payment out so this post doesn’t linger. Thanks in advance. These will be shipped out asap, as well; the whole point of this is to get these out of my house. ^_^

This whole process will be handled with utmost capriciousness, as usual. ^_^

Ready….Steady…Get Your Lucky Boxes!

The first thing that must be said about Pension Life Vampire by Shouichi Taguchi, is that it is available to read in English, for free on the Shueisha Mangaplus app. I like this app, because it has all the popular Shonen Jump comics, and some from Ultra Jump and other Shueisha mags. It is completely free to use and read, but there are time embargos on some chapters of some series. (For instance, if a volume is on shelves now, those chapters are not available.) Many series are completely free to read – once. Once you open a chapter and read it, it is no longer available to be read. As compromises go for free, this is perfectly fine for me. I’m following a number of series on this app.

The second thing that must be said is that Pension Life Vampire by Shouichi Taguchi is a lot of fun. You may recognize the art style or Taguchi’s name, because he is the creator of Futari Escape from Comic Yuri Hime.  Volumes 1-3 are available in English, Volume 3 came out this week in fact. Volume 4 is slated for 2024 English release. Like Futari Escape, Pension Life Vampire is goofy, Yuri-adjacent and worth reading if you like that kind of stuff.

Eri was part of an elite force of teens, the Rewriters, who were tasked with hunting legendary monsters. When the war is over and the Rewriters disbanded, Eri starts a new life as a student in a regular school. She really gives it her all, and actually figures out this making friends thing, which was refreshing. She also discovers a cute little vampire who is running a boarding house (the “pension” of the title) close to the school. Eri ends up working for Veronica – call her “Nica” – and having a life still filled with monsters and mayhem, but also with ice cream parfaits and friends.

There is a warm heart at the center of this story. Even as shouty and full of hijinks as individual chapters are, the jokes are only slightly groan-making and generally sweet, rather than mean-spirited. Nica is kind to Eri, who is learning to be a person after having been a soldier for most of her life, and new characters quickly become friends.

I said that this series is Yuri-adjacent, and I stand by that. Much like Futari Escape, (in which there’s no way to know that the protagonists are a couple, except that we are told they are,) Vampire Pension Life is filled with hijinks and jokes, some of which are based upon the idea that Nica actually like-likes Eri.I would dismiss it entirely but in a chapter where Eri thinks she is about to lose Nica, she becomes upset far out of proportion to losing the acquaintance of someone she hardly knows. To her credit, Eri understands that she’s overreacting and implies that…maybe…her feelings are not just friendship. Then the hijinks continue.

If light-hearted vampire x vampire hunter comedies are your thing, I think I can actually recommend this one. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6 It’s Taguchi, so the focus is on ebullient rather than good
Story – 7 Amusing, occasionally laugh out loud funny
Characters – 8
Service – 1 on principle, but it’s not the point
Yuri – …probably a 2, but let me have my fun.

When a vampire hunter needs a new life
A mysterious vampire think she’ll make a good wife
Monsters great and small
Walk up and down the hall
But in this monster’s house there’s no strife

A vampire story I can enjoy. Woot.

It wasn’t that many months ago that we encountered news of Ocean Bomb brand’s series of Sailor Moon sparkling waters. I have pursued with otaku single-mindedness getting all of these and drinking them. It’s been a bit of a challenge as nowhere seemed to have all of them. I found my first two at the Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ, then have used a variety of online shopping services for the remainders.

Back in November I did a full roundup of the Sailor Moon Sparkling Water Review – Inner Senshi Edition. Of them, Sailor Moon won fairly. And I learned an important lesson – what food you pair these with makes a difference. ^_^

In January, I found the Sailors Neptune and Uranus flavors. The Sailor Moon Sparkling Water – Outer Senshi Edition, Part 1 was a hit. Both Sailors Uranus and Neptune gave Sailor Moon a run for their money.

Now we have the final two flavors, Sailor Pluto and Saturn. Were the worth the wait? Keep reading our final chapter of

Thanks to Christian for the image. ^_^ It makes me laugh every time.

These cans were purchased from Umamicart, which seems to primarily be a Taiwanese and Korean vendor, with a little Japanese. We got some amazing items from them, but they shipped everything unwrapped or protected in a huge box, so Saturn is a bit dented. Okay, are we ready?

Sailor Pluto – Watermelon Flavor

I approached this one with caution. I love watermelon and don’t mind artificial watermelon flavor ( from years of surviving on watermelon Jolly Rancher in high school.) But…clearly this is unlikely to be yummy with random food. ^_^ So I took my first sip with a clear palate.  It smelled very watermelony, sugary and not floral at all. Overall, it tasted like watermelon juice that has been carbonated.

After a while the flavor became a bit bitter, so I cleared my palate with almonds, so as to not affect the flavor. That allowed me to enjoy the rest of the can.

Gonna say, Pluto was a huge surprise and a great success!

8/10 Very refreshing, until it isn’t. Maybe share a can with a friend

Then it came time to have the final flavor and I had wildly unrealistic expectations. I love grapefruit soda (except Fresca, that shit’s nasty.) I like grapefruit in just about anything from a G&T to a salad, so Hotaru had a huge handicap. Was this going to be good? Or would it ruin grapefruit flavor forever for me?

Sailor Saturn – Grapefruit Flavor

Bing! Bing! We have a winner! Sailor Saturn wins with flying colors.

Okay, if you hate grapefruit, this will not be the sparkling water for you. But without a heavy floral perfume of the Inners flavors, the fruit is able to stand on it’s own. This is a crisp, pleasant, fruity sparkling water that I could drink without hesitation or pairing it carefully (like Uranus’ Pineapple flavor).

The Outers were clear winners here. No too sweet, not too floral, they felt less ornamental and more like an actual drink.

And now we have our final tally:

Sailor Chibi-Moon – 0/10
Sailor Venus – 4/10
Sailor Mars – 5/10
Sailor Mercury – 5/10
Sailor Jupiter – 6/10
Sailor Moon – 7/10
Sailor Pluto – 8/10
Sailor Neptune – 8/10
Sailor Uranus – 9/10
And our winner is…! Sailor Saturn 10/10

Epilogue

I ordered these last two cans and some other items, including Assam Oolong Milk Tea, which is now my favorite drink in the world. I liked it so much, I decided to go to an actual physical store to see if I could find (I couldn’t.)  I haven’t been well enough to do a physical store, so this was a huge outing. My wife and I walked into the store…and saw this:

Maddening, right? ^_^ Well, at least I’ll be able to get an undented Saturn and maybe a whole set as a prize for something. ^_^

Thank you all for joining me on this journey and let me know your favorite Sailor Moon sparkling water flavor!

After 13 years, I’ve been let go from my job.if you enjoy the stream of Yuri news and reviews you get here, I’m asking you to help support the work by becoming a patron on Patreon or Ko-Fi Your support is greatly appreciated! I’m taking a day or two to settle myself and reviews will commence. ^_^