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.

When they were 9 years old, Haru and Shio met during the summer. They spent happy days bug hunting and hanging out, swimming, all normal summer things. Haru fell for Shio, and considered him her first love. When they parted, they promised to write to one another, which they did. Years passed and Haru was preparing for high school, she gets a postcard from Shio saying that he’ll be going to the same school!

Imagine Haru’s surprise when she sees Shio again for the first time in 6 years. Shio’s short hair is now long, straight and black. And his chest is decidedly un-boyish. Surprised, Haru asks when Shio became a girl?!? Shio says she always was…….

At which point, the entire love interest issue is dropped, except when it’s brought up in the beginning of every chapter as a recap. In every other way, the story stops being about Haru and Shio and becomes about Shio and the rest of the class.

Shio, it turns out, is not good with people. It’s surprising even to her that she became friends with Haru, as she’s a crybaby and can’t remember people’s names. One of the girls in the class is snarky to Shio, which bothers her less than the boy who makes fun of her big chest.

Towards the end of the book, Haru and Shio have a fight, over something. A misunderstanding, a difference of human interaction styles, whatever. They make up, obviously. And the book ends. And, um…that’s it. This is Volume 1, so there’ll probably be a volume 2.

Ratings:

Art – 6, Haru and her father did this weird lip-pursing thing, which was supposed to be funny, but was really just weird
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 6

Issho ni Kaero  (一緒にかえろう) is a 4-koma manga with an amusing premise that is reintroduced every chapter, then set aside for other, less amusing things.

In Volume 1 of Morita-san ha Mukuchi (森田さんは無口,) we met Morita Mayu, a girl who is, compared with other high school girls, very quiet. We also learn that it’s not because she can’t talk or doesn’t want to talk, she just never manages to spit it out fast enough.

In Volume 2, Mayu still doesn’t quite manage to get the words out, but that isn’t stopping her from having fun with her friends, making fun of her parents or bonding with her pet fish. In fact, because she keeps her mouth shut, doesn’t interrupt, always pays attention to the speaker and doesn’t do something else while they talk, we learn, she’s a favorite among her peers. There’s still one girl (unnamed so far) that has a crush on Mayu and a number of girls would rather be with Mayu than with one of the guys in the school.

In a sweet scene, Mayu’s best friend Hana is having boyfriend problems. They, and some other schoolfriends, go to a shrine for New Year’s Day. Mayu receives a fortune of “Half-luck,” which puzzles her. After helping cheer Hana up, Mayu and she eat some hot anpan. When Mayu loses her her grip and drops hers, Hana immediately breaks hers in half to share. Mayu thinks to herself that maybe this is what “half luck” meant.

In the main, this is a typical one-gag 4-koma, but there’s enough charm and reality in the characters that it doesn’t wear on the reader.

As with the first volume, the Yuri is scattered here and there throughout the story. Mayu’s unnamed admirer pops up from time to time to remind you that she exists, and there’s a general feeling that if Mayu should ever break her silence, the girls around her would swoon. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4
Service – 1

Overall – 8

In general, Morita-san ha Mukuchi is a silly, light-hearted comic strip that asks very little of the reader, except to accept that Mayu is not a big talker.

I’ve been out all day, but that doesn’t mean you have to go a day without me. ^_^

On David Welsh’s Manga Curmudgeon, I was honored to be allowed to review Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime. You can find my review here: http://precur.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/guest-review-book-girl-and-the-suicidal-mime/ Short version: I liked it a lot.

Out in the wider world of comics, my monthly column at Hooded Utilitarian, “Overthinking Things” this month is a Portrait of Compulsion (in 140 characters or less.) I love writing for HU, I get to really indulge my wankery pretentious side. ^_^

Of course I hope you enjoy reading these, as much as I enjoy writing them!