When we last left Hyou and her never-ending battle against the youjin in Hakodate Youjin Buraijou Himegami, her bacon had been saved by a pack of totem-animal dressed ninja women whose fishnet ninja clothes look exactly like that worn by Hyou’s protector Himegami.

Volume 3 begins back at the Butterfly Caberet, Hyou is telling everyone about the women who saved her. She says that its not the first time a mysterious woman has protected her – when she was young, as her father lay dead at her feet, a mysterious creature known as the Colobockle took her hand and comforted her. One of the cabaret girls laughs and Hyou flounces off, annoyed, to lay flowers at her father’s grave.

Himeka offers to go with her, but is sidetracked by a piercing whistle. She’s called to the side of her compatriots – the ninja spirit warriors of the night before. Ranka, whose totem is a bear, Kirika, the hawk and later we learn that the little girl having a snowball fight with Hyou is Aika, with her two ferrets, Black and White. We also learn that the Colobockle Hyou met as a child was none other than Himeka, who has been watching over her since then.

The Butterfly is facing a crisis – all their customers are going to the new cabaret in town, the Black Widow, where they are not just getting lap dances, they are getting sex with bosomy foreigners. Run by the cross-dressing French woman, the Black Widow appears to be bewitching the entire town.

When Hyou and Himeka are attacked by newly born youjin, they are saved by some random wandering rounin, who appears to know (or at least know of) Hyou. The youjin turn out to be two of the Butterfly’s customers, not youjin at all, and Hyou and Himeka realize that something very evil is going on. Himeka and Hyou head over to the Black Widow to find out what *is* going on – and to protect Melanie, one of their own dancers, who has gone there.

The police too are on to the trail of the youjin. On all the murdered men (the ones cut down by Hyou and her friends) they find a handkerchief with a spider logo. One of the policemen admits to having one of those handkerchiefs, which he got by “doing it” at the Black Widow, and the police chief puts two and two together. He decides to go undercover to the cabaret – as a woman. (He is very pretty, so this is not as unlikely as it seems.)

He and Himeka meet while waiting to be seen by the owner of the Black Widow, as Hyou is caught and thrown out by Melanie. Hyou sneeks back in with the help of Aika and they spy Melanie and the rounin having some adult fun. (Melanie later says that he’s a really nice guy….). The rounin meets with another samurai and it turns out that they are not only friends, but friends of Hyou’s father.

Himeka puts a charm on the police chief’s hand, saying that she’s drawn the character for “person” on there and if she gets nervous to squeeze her hand shut. Himeka disappears into the room with the owner of the house. When she later hears Kirika’s whistle, she finds herself tattooed with a black spider, just as we learn that Melanie also bears the mark.

When it is at last his turn, the owner asks the police chief to strip; he hesitates. But when he does, we learn that he is actually a woman after all.

As the owner realizes that her house has been infiltrated, she commands the men with the handkerchiefs to become youjin. Hyou and her new allies face the human/youjin hybrids, Himeka runs to save the police chief, screaming that she should squeeze her hand – the charm works and the owner of the cabaret is blasted backwards, giving the chief and Himeka time to run. But they are not in time to save Hyou, who is now mad with the pain of the youjin being born and the blood of the ones she is killing. To be continued….argh!

Yuri is the usual here – when Hyou is suffering from the pain of the miburo, she relies on Himeka for comfort. When the hybrid youjin first appear, Himeka thinks that Hyou is coming on to her and she glad gives in, until the real cause makes itself known. Kirika, who has some jealousy issues about Himeka, points out that Ranka likes girls, in general. I’m thinking it’s a Himegami trait, myself. Nothing explicit, but I keep hoping that Himeka will at least get that kiss from Hyou she wants. ^_^

Still a very violent and service-y series. And as a woman, the French owner of Black Widow has such *enormous* breasts that its absolutely laugahble that she could pass for a man but, heck, she is a magic user, so it could be a glamour for all we know. And now we know why the police chief understood immediately that she was a woman passing as a man, since she is as well.

So, let’s see, that makes 4 Himegami, a samurai, a rounin, and Hyou on the one side and like 14 million Youjin on the other. Seems like a fair fight to me. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 3
Service – 6

Overall – 7

I’m either getting used to the art or it’s getting better…. I’m betting it’s the former. ^_^

As I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Red Garden manga, Volume 1 and Volume 2, the story in the manga is mostly similar to that in the anime, with a slight emphasis on the grotesque and gothic. This trend continues in Volume 3.

Herve’ woos Kate while hating her, and Kate struggles with her position in “Grace” at the school, while Rachel fights a battle on all fronts. We watch Herve’ flail against his sister’s fate and we watch Kate, Clare, Rachel and Rose try to understand the truth without giving in to it.

As in the anime, all of this is punctuated by moments of complete normality, and moments of violent battle again men who have turned into slavering beasts.

On the Yuri side, Paula is stepping up her campaign of touchiness in regards to Kate. Unlike the anime, where her love comes across as genuine, touching and admirable, her behavior here is inappropriate and makes Kate very uncomfortable. When it appears that Paula is stalking Kate, Kate flat-out tells her to leave her alone.

So, when the four are walking through the woods where Lise’s body was found, in order to maybe learn *something* about what is going on, they are all horrified at finding yet another body – even more so to realize that the corpse is Paula’s. The implications hit hard and we leave the volume with the four of them in complete shock.

It looks like the Yuri is headed towards the unbalanced, pervy side, but now that we know that Paula is “one of us,” i.e. dead, I wonder if Kate will find patience with the perpetrator. :-)

I’m too tired to really give this manga the praise it deserves. This story is compelling, the characters and their wardrobes are charming, the craziness is utterly appealing and the violence is…violent.

And my goodness, Clare is so hot on the cover.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 3

Overall – 7

EPL Paula works for me, too. ^_^

The first day of Otakon was a hoot, saw lots of old friends, made some new ones, and Rinu – if you want to catch a flight today, there’s still a chair behind the Yuricon table for you if you want it. ;-)

No news so far from Otakon, but bear in mind that I’m the last to know, stuck down in the DR without a computer. lol

Yuri Anime

An anime has been announced in Japan for Maria Holic, a story about a girl who obsesses about Yuri and the girl she falls for, who is really a crossdressing guy who is an asshole. Perfect for people who like their Yuri unfulfilling on several levels. lol Thanks to Eric for pointing this out.

Alexandra tells us that El Cazador is also coming out in France, the first boxset is due out on August 20. There’s no French dub, just subtitles. She wonders though, why it was licensed before Madlax….

***

Other Yuri News

Suzanna wants me to share the news that along with German and Japanese, the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels are out in Korean.

One of the questions we received yesterday at the Yuri Panel was whether we thought the novels would ever be licensed here. We agreed that yes, we do think that *eventually* they will, because as recently as last year, we were sure we’d never see the anime here – surer of that than of the novels. And here we are with the anime officially licensed and not sliced to shreds. So, there you go. ;-)

While I’m on it let me thank all the people who came to the panel – you were a great crowd, with great questions and we had a blast talking to you!

I’m off to spend the day destroying what’s left of my voice in the DR today – catch you there!

After my Ghost in the Shell lecture at the Brooklyn Museum, myself, Sean and the wife went over to the shiny new Kinokuniya bookstore on 6th Avenue in Manhattan. It was indeed quite shiny and had goodies like that month’s Cobalt Shueisha and a few other things of interest. Including Hanayashiki no Junin-tachi, the subject of today’s review.

Yet again, based solely on the cover art and my knowledge of Japanese manga, I was prepared to hate this story. lol I can’t say I hated it, but it’s not going in my top ten either. The art looked vaguely familiar to me, and I now find that the artist also did Blood +, so that explains that.

I knew that the story would have to be a threesome that included – and starred – a guy, since there are two girls on the cover, touching and this is a Kadokawa book. It could not *possibly* be a Yuri manga about two girls. And indeed, it was not.

The story follows a poor bastard named Aki, whose father is a drunken loser who beats Aki all the time, because he has the nerve to be a good cook – and that’s *women’s* work. His grandfather also obsesses unnaturally about gender roles so, to teach Aki a lesson, he forces Aki to live in one of the dorms for the girls’ school he runs. The dorm is called the Hanayashiki, the Flower Residence.

Normally, in a series like this, we would expect “accidental” walking in on half-dressed girls and other tedious unfunny scenes, but no. Aki is a very decent person and only once accidentally walks in on someone and it really was completely accidental and totally forgivable. And, just to hammer home the point, he does what a normal person might actually do, hastily apologizes and leaves. No nose bleeds, no falling on the girl, nothing else that makes one’s eyes roll.

So, while staying at the dorm, Aki is befriended by Renge, who is a nice girl who helps Aki out when she can, which is right away, as the first thing that happens is that the dorm leader demands that Aki survive some kind of crazed cooking challenge. Which of course, he does. But she didn’t do it out of malice or anything – she just thought it would be fun. ^_^

While living in the dorm, Aki also runs into mysterious and maturely beautiful Ayame. She seems to be very uninterested in classes and is always polite, but cool, to Aki. He starts to become interested in Ayame, especially when he learns that she and Renge are close friends.

Bizarrely, for all her lack of interest in classes, Ayame seems to be a good student. But that turns out to be because Ayame has a twin brother who also lives in the dorm and pretends to be Ayame when tests come around. Her brother actually passes as a girl because he wants to, but is glad to have a male friend around. Aki’s more and more interested in Ayame, when an incident with a school peeper brings out that she really dislikes men.

However, Aki is confused when Ayame admits to a bunch of students that she has someone she likes. Aki, who has completely decided that he likes Ayame, suddenly realizes that the person Ayame likes is Renge, as the book comes to a close. zOMG!

So, on the good side, Aki’s not a wimp, not a dork, not balless and not perverted. He’s the kind of guy you might actually like if you met and wouldn’t mind being if you were a guy. Renge is cute, but not a ditz. On the down side, Ayame is another man-hating psycho lesbian. Well…okay, that can be the good side too, if you want. ^_^

In any case, the Yuri, such as it is, will never be the point of the story and I don’t see Ayame and Renge ever getting together. But Hanayashiki no Junin-tachi not the worst book I’ve ever read and is much, much better than the cover led me to believe.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 2

Overall – 7

I’m torn between wanting to know what happens and not really caring all that much. ^_^;