So, I’m off.    o(o^_^)  (^_^o)o  o(o^_^)  (^_^o)o <–Me doing a happy dance.

For the next week, I will be running around two of Japan’s finest cities, with a host of characters accompanying and/or meeting me. (*_*) <–Bruce   (^ ^) <–Komatsu-san   (~_^) <–Ana   (^_^)b <–Rica

I very much hope to update you all as I go, but no promises, because I may be busy having fun without you!  Wish me a safe journey, or you won’t get to see my pictures!

Bye! (^_^)/

When I was watching the Saki anime, the two things that really made it compelling watching for me were the great stories of love and loyalty among the players battling in the regional mah jong chamionships and the way the game strategies were brought to life through animation. It made the whole mah jong thing so much more interesting.

In Volume 4 of the Saki manga, we are well into the competition. With two losses and one win, Kiyosumi High enters the final two rounds with some ground to make up, but in a good position. The story begins as Nodoka heads out to her round, a little depressed because Saki hasn’t woken up yet to see her. When Saki runs out to reaffirm her love their vow to reach the nationals, Nodoka powers up.

The book is primarily taken up with Nodoka’s round against Ryuumonbuchi club captain Ryuumonbuchi Touka. Touka’s imagined scenes of RPG-like battle with Nodoka were captured in stills here – and were no less amusing than they were in the anime.

Interstitially, we learn about how Touka not only reformed her teammate Hajime, but also gave abandoned and unloved Koromo a family. Self-centered and absurd as she may be, by the end of this volume you really have to respect Touka.

Additionally, we learn the story of how Tsuruga’s Yumi tracked down and found “Stealth” Momo and how she too threw a lifeline to a girl who had been left alone and ignored by almost everyone else.

After a climactic, hotly contested (and slightly silly) round, Nodoka passes the baton to Saki with a lead.

As we head into the final round, Kazekoshi finally has an actual chance to make an impression with their captain Kana taking the helm against Koromo, Saki and Yumi.

It’s all down to the final round as we head into volume 5!

Personally, I’m really looking forward to Volume 6, and the stuff that comes *after* this final round, but I’m not going to skip it or anything. :-)

There are a lot of things to like about Saki. The tales of intra-team love and loyalty are tops of this list. By the end of the championships, there are pretty much no unlikable characters in this bunch, which counts for a lot with me.

The one serious downside of this series is the service. Nodoka’s breasts are voluminous and omnipresent. We pretty much always are looking at her breasts, unless we’re also getting to look at her thighs, too. It’s absolutely exhausting.

But it’s the price one pays to read a ridiculously fun and somewhat Yuri-ish series about, heaven help me, mahjong. ^_^

Art – 5 Nodoka has breasts, really, reallly BIG breasts
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

Zettai Ryouiki. WTF. Get a grip on something other than your penises, guys. Really.

Today will be a few dribbles of things Pretty Cure-related. If actual shoujo anime and manga don’t interest you, cut your losses now, because it’s all girly stuff all the way down, today. ;-)

To start from the beginning, there was Futari ha PreCure, which is available to be watched for free and legally on Crunchyroll.

This was followed by a second set of PrettyCure heroines, PreCure Splash Star. I reviewed the Splash Star movie manga last year.

Okazu hero, my good friend and all-around PreCure fan Komatsu-san kindly sent me a copy of the Splash Star movie, PreCure Splash Star: Chikuwaku Kiki Ippatsu! to enjoy. As I expected, the movie is exactly like the manga, only we have to hear the voices of the cute, fluffy sidekicks which were, as expected, quite annoying. :-) The monsters were actually less menacing in the anime than in the manga, which makes sense. The critical scenes when Saki and Mai are being berated by their cute, fluffy sidekicks were very enlightening. Where Mai was being entreated gently and reminded that she is not alone at all, that someone needs her, Saki was being screamed at to STAND UP, DAMMIT. It fit their femme/butch personas very nicely. Their subsequent reunion and power-up was, as expected, full of desperate longing, tempered by a desire to kick the baddie’s ass. I think I preferred the manga, because I can shift the pacing and voices around at my whim. But the movie was a nice adaptation.

After Splash Star, there were a number of other PreCure series, none of which really ever captured my attention.

Then Heartcatch PreCure showed up. I reviewed the anime a few months ago. If anything, the Yuri quotient bumped up with the addition of Itsuki, the cross-dressing President of the Student Council to the PreCure team. Itsuki’s Takarazuka Top Star charm isn’t lessened at all with her transformation into Cure Sunshine. It’s not just Tsubomi that’s wowed by Itsuki’s cool, an entire episode is taken up with another member of the fashion club, Naomi’s, desire to become closer to Itsuki.

The manga for the series, which runs in Nakayoshi magazine, has little of the Yuri quotient. The focus is on the cute, the power of teamwork and the transformations, which are lavishly drawn all over page after page, in the middle of teeny-weeny little plots. The manga for this series can be summed up as form over function, and surprisingly for me, I prefer the anime.

Komatsu-san, wanting to make sure that I can never stop loving this series, sent me a copy of the Heartcatch PreCure “Marugoto Book,”which contains shiny color pages of all the goods I should be buying, and a short extra comic about a totally different Cure.

Komatsu-san also sent me a copy of the Heartcatch Vocal Album, which has full-size versions of the opening and closing, and image songs for all of the Cures…including Moonlight.

There I am, listening to Hisakawa Aya singing a plaintive song as the emotionally broken Moonlight and thinking, “wow…how nostalgic.” Because of course, one of the first anime soundtracks I ever bought was a Sailor Moon album, with Hisakwa Aya singing as Sailor Mercury. This was a pretty fun CD. I’ll be adding a few of the songs to my iPod.

For those of you waffling on the anime – Cure Moonlight is slated to return this autumn. Be there to write slashfic between her and Dark Cure or be unsquare!

As always, my sincere thanks to Komatsu-san for fostering yet *another* obsession in my already unbalanced brain. ^_^;;

Ratings:

Overall, Heartcatch PreCure is a solid 8. If they really do up Dark x Moonlight, I can easily see it shifting to 9.

For the first time that I can recall, all three of the leading shoujo manga magazines have series with Yuri themes or characters running concurrently. Ribon has the soon-to-be frustrating Blue Friends, Nakayoshi has the totally satisfying Strawberry Panic-like Nobara no Mori no Otome-tachi and subtexty Heartcatch PreCure, and now Ciao magazine joins the pack with Waza-ari Kiwami-chan, which has by the least Yuri by far, but is nonetheless an interesting read.

Kiwami is a young girl who steadfastly refuses to think of herself as anything but the equal of any boy. According to ANN she is supposed to be the “World’s Most Powerful Girl.” What I see is a completely normal girl who sees herself as powerful and, as a result, has all the girls around her seeing themselves that way too.

The chapter I read in the August issue of Ciao takes place at the summer camp Japanese schools seem to make students attend. While the girls prepare dinner, the boys screw around, instead of lighting the fire as they are supposed to. So when the girls have to collect the wood and light the fire to make dinner, they are absolutely not inclined to let the boys eat. You didn’t help with the chores, they tell the boys, so why should we give you anything? I just about stood up and cheered.

After the girls eat (and clean up, of course, because you couldn’t possibly expect the boys to learn any lessons from that clear and simple statement,) the boys demand a kimodameshi – a test of courage. Kiwami is not cowed by this at all – she considers herself the equal of any boy, so runs off as fast as she can towards the goal. She, and the leader of the boys, fight about everything, but when the light goes out, Kiwami tears up. He’s shocked that Kiwami – *that* Kiwami, he thinks, is frightened, so he’s galvanized into getting them out of there. Then it’s his turn to be terrified when one of the “ghosts” grab him by the ankles. But, we are assured, summer camp ends safely for all.

The Yuri in this series is one Ibuza Ai, nicknamed “Rabu” (Love.) Ai is absolutely gaga over Kiwami, refers to her as Kiwami-sama, idolizes her from afar and close by and generally worships the ground she walks upon. Because of Kiwami’s inner strength, Ai and Teruna, Kiwami’s posse, both find it possible to tell the boys off when they are acting like assholes. Which is like every ten minutes.

So, as a Yuri story, Kiwami-chan is pretty thin. As a much-needed feminist primer for elementary school Japanese girls, I think it needs to be treasured and perhaps made mandatory reading for all genders.

It’s unlikely that Love’s love for Kiwami will ever be anything, but just to watch Kiwami not tolerate being treated crappily by the boys, it’s worth a look.