I’m very active on a Q&A website called Quora. Quora has private board/blog things (affectionately known as bloargs) and you know, I needed *another* timesink and place to write about random anime-related crap, so I created a bloarg entitled Utter Crap I’m Listening to Right Now there, just because I found it amusing to do so.

I post the (mostly) anime music I’m listening to and the stories behind the series and what makes it meaningful to me. This will have a fair amount of Yuri-related stuff on it, because that’s the way I roll. Drop by if you want to know what crap I’m listening to right now! (Or if you are massively bored and want to read any of the 2500+ answers I’ve posted there.)

Quora is a closed community, but with the link above you *ought* to be able to see the bloarg without difficulty. Enjoy the stories, the videos and the Utter Crap I’m Listening to.  If you decide to register on Quora, you can Follow the bloarg and never miss a single piece of crappy music. ^_^

So, speaking of “strong women.” ^_^

Venus With Biceps is the product of an overtly acknowledged lifelong fetish  for muscular woman. David L. Chapman has collected memorabilia, advertising, erotica, and other ephemera portraying women with muscles, often nude. I’m not going to tell you it’s not fetish-y as heck. It is. But it’s still kind of interesting. My favorite pictures in the book are advertisements showing women lifting weights and the like.

While I like muscular women, I have only one story about me and bodybuilding:

In 1993, I volunteered for Gay Games in New York City as security. This mostly meant sitting around and BSing with folks at the Martial Arts competitions, because the Games were full of really nice people and went off without a hitch the entire time. My last event was the Bodybuilding event, being held in Paramount Theater in Madison Square Garden. The guy running the event was, well, a drama queen, and spent most of the day having screaming fits about the parade of contestants, or locking himself in the office sulking. I ended up directing contestants to the warm-up area which was: down the hall, take the elevator to the top floor, across the hall, in the back, through the door…behind Barbra Streisand’s tour equipment. ^_^

I wandered up there when all the contestants had checked in, hung out with a young woman who was also security whose girlfriend was a Judge for the competition. I met a woman who eventually went on to get the silver medal – she let me feel her bicep. That was special, let me tell you.

The MC was a comedienne whose shtick was extremely abrasive humor. She called the audience “tampons” and was angry, because at the last second, they added a second MC. He was, if anything, even more abrasive than she was. The crowd disliked them separately, but when they started trading sexist insults at each other, we all squirmed in embarrassment.

Finally – 3 hours late – the bodybuilding competition began. At 2AM it was finally done. And so was I. I’ve never watched another bodybuilding competition in my life.

Fun book, though. ^_^

If  you’re a fan of Girl’s Ride, hapless thieves or vaguely futuristic settings and happen to have an obsession with drawings of girl’s butts, Umesato the Third! Volume 2 (三時代目は梅くくり！) has something for you. In my review of Volume 1, I covered the basics of the setup: Kukkuri is an extraordinary schoolgirl, surrounded by sidekicks Hana and Niki-ne who aid and abet her in her hijinks as master thief, the third of her name.

Fans of Isomoto Tsuyoshi will appreciate the art and the carefree nature of the story. Like Sei and Nan, Kukkuri, Niki and Hana are not weighed down by life drama. You might also like the DIY steampunk/futurist technology, like the Tin Man-esque  Yuuji-san and the helmet that takes Hana’s brain over and causes her to attack Kukkuri.

The plot is classic “wacky thief is wacky,” complete with cops running along after them, like Lupin, St. Tail and so many thief series before it.

Yuri is, as it was in Volume 1, Kukkuri’s extreme physical snuggliness with Niki and Hana’s raging crush on Kukkuri. Like the rest of the story, it is playful, rather than deep. And it would be more than good enough for me, but the tortured anatomy just to allow ass/crotch shots sucks away the fun.

Ratings:

Art- 6
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri- 4
Service – starts 4, but ends at like 8. …the fuck?

Overall – 6

I like the series, but the service destroyed my interest in reading Volume 3. And since clearly, as the thing went on, the editors insisted on more service, I think it’s just a good idea to stop here.

Our own Rica Takashima has new art project – Aliens in New York and she needs our help! If you’ve ever enjoyed any of her Rica ‘tte Kanji!? comics, or any of her work, please consider donating and helping her reach her funding goal. Visit her project on Artspire to donate. Why “Aliens”? Here’s a comic that explains where the concept comes from:

I’ve already donated. This is her masterwork project and I want to see it happen as much as she does. ^_^

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Next up is a piece of Whoo-hoo! news! “Your Hair” by Niki Smith, originally published in Yuri Monogatari 5 (of which there are very limited amounts left, so get one soon before it’s all gone!) is now available on Comixology for 99 cents. Check out the newly drawn, moodily colored version and support Niki in her work. ^_^ Niki also draws In Maps & Legends. You should check that out. Not Yuri, but wonderful!

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Also on Comixology, Issue 4 of Bandette by Colleen Coover and Paul Tobin. Paul says of this issue, “Yes, that’s right, Bandette # 4 is up and ready for your reading pleasure! What waits within? Will there be a fight? Looks that way! Could there also be… a mysterious woman?” ^_^ He had me at “fight,” but “mysterious woman” is always a plus!

Let me just end with a bit of editorializing. Honestly, when I was a child I presumed by now we’d be using our taxes to fund art, scientific research and space exploration, not wars. Since our governments are still busy play war games, as a non-artist I’m using my money to fund the arts, since it gives us all so much pleasure. I hope you’ll consider doing the same. Thanks in advance!

Back in 2011, there was a surprising renaissance of shoujo Yuri. All three of the top Shoujo magazines, Nakayoshi, Ciao and Ribon were running titles with Yuri plots and characters. After those series ended, what was left was a very silly title called Sabagebu! (さばげぶっ!)I first wrote about Sabagebu!  when I was reading Nakayoshi again for Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi.

“Sabagebu!” is short for “Survival Game Club”. The story follows normal girl Momoka as she’s recruited into the Survival Game Club by insane club leader Miou. Momoka’s adventures in surviving Miou’s crackpot plots is the bulk of the manga.

Yuri is provided in the form of extreme crushiness (everything in this manga is “extreme”) by Urara, an underclassman with a raging crush on Momoka. Momoka turns out to have some marksmanship skills and, as Volume 3 opens, the Sabagebu heads to the game center to practice shooting on first-person shooters. Momoka gets caught up in a battle for supremacy with a hyper otaku type. She wins, but not before she clubs him over the head with a real (replica) gun. Chuffed with her victory, she allows the guy to take a two-shot puricula with her, which she later regrets. Urara regrets that she wasn’t able to take a two-shot with Momoka.

I said that everything in this manga is extreme. Here’s what I meant. Meiji chocolate company puts out two snacks that are identical in all ways but their shape. Kinoko no Yama are mushroom-shaped, where Takenoko no Sato are shaped like bamboo shoots. When some members of the Sabagebu express a preference for the one over the other, war is declared with a school-wide “indoor survival game” to prove the superiority of the one over the other. (If I had to take a side, I’d be on the Takenoko team. Better cookie to chocolate balance.) Or the day Momoka vists a new dog cafe with club mascot Kamo…who is a duck. It’s all dumb and over the top, but it still makes me laugh.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 1 (mostly for gun fetishists)

Overall – 7

Not high on Yuri, but off the scale on goofy.