Like Code Geass, Red Garden is a series that is more properly attributed to the Autumn 2006 anime season, but I’ve been too lazy busy to review it until now.

The plot is still a bit obscure, and I am not sure how much will be or can be explained. But in short, four high school girls learn that they are technically dead, but have been given a second life in order to fight off diseased men who become beast-like. So it kind of has a vampire-y, werewolf-y, undead, creature of the night feel to it. Both the reason the men change (attributed vaguely to a curse) and the reason the girls should kill them is left rather shadowy at the time I write this, which is probably midway through the anime. We learn that the family whose men are affected by the curse are attempting to reverse it. Which side is good, and which is bad – or if there is indeed a bad/good, right/wrong, we have yet to learn. And we may never learn it, frankly, which would be no detriment to the story.

The four girls involved have absolutely nothing in common, except that they attend the same school, which is supposed to be set on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The cityscapes are one of the many things I like about the series. The high school is exceedingly un-New York like, however. ^_^

The first of our four and, indubitably, our heroine, is Kate. Kate seems to be a “regular” kind of girl. Smart, pleasant, boring. As the story opens she is dealing with not only her own horrific situation, but also the apparent suicide of her best friend Lise. Lise, like Kate and the others, is not at all what everyone thinks she is.

Rose is a “poor girl”. Her mother is hospitalized and she works hard to take care of her two much younger siblings and keep their family together. Rose is naive, timid and kind-hearted.

Claire represents a different kind of character altogeher. She appears to be extremely poor, but there’s a story there that belies her whole existence. She is a loner too, but that’s about to change. Let’s call her “outcast” girl.

And completing our primary characters is Rachel, our “cool” girl. She is trendy, fashionable, cool and superficial. At the beginning.

These four find themselves becoming friends through circumstance, and then, just because. But the circumstance remains – they must fight these beast-men, together.

I can’t tell you a lot about the story, because it’s not over yet and there’s no real way to tell where it’s going. (I don’t read fan forums and I’m content to watch it play out. So if you think you’ll be clever and spoil it for me with a comment, don’t. Please.) I can tell you that there is decent enough writing going on – even in the mostly cliched plot complications. ^_^ And I liked the fact that in the early episodes, the main characters would suddenly start singing – not well, mind you – and sort of express their feelings that way. It was a bit like watching a musical, without the sticky music or good singing voices.

Okay, so for Yuri. Kate is a yuri magnet, without a doubt. We learn that she and Lise had an exchange diary and that they were very close. fandom will undoubtedly interpret that as *very* close.

Kate is also a member of “Grace,” the name for the school’s student council. Because of her new circumstances she’s been late recently, hanging with a bad crowd and other un-Grace like things. Another member of Grace, Jessica, is seeking to remove Kate from the Council, but is continually blocked by Paula, the council president. (Remember what I said about “Student Council President”? It’s totally the new code for “lesbian.”) Paula is incredibly supportive of Kate – and rather touchy too. Stroking, hugs, holding hands, all in the name of friendship. As Kate has developed a mild case of boyfriend mid-series, I see that crashing, and soon, around Paula’s feet. I predict that she will become Kate’s number one enemy, and not ever know why she feels so betrayed. I also await a flood of Paula x Kate art and stories. Yesterday on the 2chan Yuri board, I saw a simple comment that fully expressed what I see:

Jessica → Paula → Kate.

Yup.

Although I’d wager that Jessica’s jealousy lacks that crucial ounce of desire that would make it “Yuri.” She’s just jealous of Paula being so easy on Kate and paying so much attention to her. “Normal” friend jealousy.

And lastly, I’ve already seen artwork pairing Rose with either Kate or her best friend whose name is escaping me as a I type.

Kate herself appears pretty straight, as do all the others. Shame about Claire, though, she’d make an admirable lesbian. ^_^

What makes this series work for me is that around the unreal storyline, the four main characters appear to be handling real(ish) issues realistically. Certainly consistently with their personalities, anyway. So despite the high pretension level, and the perhaps incoherent plot, the characters are very strong and very likable. With some fanon Yuri.

Ratings:

Art – 3
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – Paula – 8 (she is so gay); other than Paula – 2
Service- 1

Overall – 7

I found it amusing that last week at my house, I was watching a vampire/undead-type anime with girls as the main characters and some mild Yuri, while the wife was watching a vampire/undead-type anime with boys as the main characters and some mild BL.  ^_^

Yuri’s been pretty thin the last few months in anime – most of what is there is yuri goggles and/or wishful thinking. ^_^ So it’s nice to see at least one or two characters here and there that aren’t completely made up from whole cloth by Yuri fans.

To be accurate, this series is really an Autumn 2006 anime series. I’m just getting around to it now.

Code Geass is in no way a “Yuri anime.” It’s an action story, set up like a multi-level chess game. And for that, it’s worth watching. As long as Sunrise and Gonzo have some kind of actual ending for it, it’ll be worth having seen. If they screw up the end with a reset or something else half-assed, we shall never mention it again. ^_^

I’ll try to be brief about the setup, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to both coherent and brief. Here goes:

In 2010, the Brittanian Empire invades and defeats Japan, turning it into a subjugated space of the empire, known as “Area 11.” For many reasons, a young Brittanian, Lelouch, wants to bring down the Brittanian empire. His best friend, the son of the defeated Japanese Prime Minister, Suzaku, would like to set his people free, but believes that the system can be changed from the inside. When Lelouch gains a mysterious power to control people’s minds, he creates a false persona, Zero, to lead a rag-tag band of Japanese resistance fighters; turning them into a knightly order and the enemies of Brittania. Suzaku becomes, through chance, the pilot of a superior armor technology. Unbeknowst to one another, the two friends fight on opposite sides of the battle – and each against their own people.

Okay…that’s the bare bones of the plot in a nutshell. Hope it makes sense. The details that flesh those bones out are the bits that make the series intruiging, so I won’t go into them. Just go watch it.

By day, Suzaku and Lelouch attend a Brittanian school, very high-class. Which brings us to the details which are pertinent to this review.

The president of the student council (clearly a new code for “lesbian,” like “riding a motorcycle”) is Millay. In early episodes, she shows pronounced attention to women, in particular Lelouch’s obligatory love interest Shirley. (Shirley is actually an excellent character, don’t let my previous comment diminish her in any way.) As befits all good anime lesbians – or at least the recent ones, anyway – Millay is barking mad, with boundary issues. She’s kind of fun in a loopy, not-at-all-real way. She seemed the front runner for “lesbian character with unrequited crush,” for most of the first few episodes.

In Episode 08, Millay, Shirley and Nina all go to a resort for some R&R. Nina is a squirrely, timid geek girl, who has massive fear issues. She clearly fears both men and 11s, (as the Japanese are called). Japanese men bring her to near-hysteria. So, while the three girls are at the resort, one of the Japanese guerilla organizations take them and all the others at the place, hostage.

Among the many that are caught up in the situation is Euphemia, the Vice Governor General of “Area 11” a daughter of the Britannian King AND obligatory love interest of Suzaku. (And yet, like Shirley, she’s a great character.) “Euphie” is quite likeable, even as a representative of the invading forces.

When Nina’s terror causes her to insult one of the Japanese rebels, it looks like she’ll be hurt pretty badly, killed, maybe…or worse. At which point Euphie stands up and introduces herself by name in order to save Nina’s life.

And all of a sudden, Nina takes the lead for “lesbian character with an unrequited crush.” Because she falls head over heels for Euphie. Understandably – how many times have we seen a girl fall for a guy who’s saved her? 14 million? You know – “My hero!” and all that. So let’s give Nina the benefit of the doubt, okay? Thank you. ^_^

Sadly, in episode 12, the writers make Nina do dirty things to herself while she looks at a picture of Euphie, something that was really uneccessary for the story or the character, but I’m sure someone, somewhere, got off on it. And it does hammer home the point that Nina’s feelings are *not* just admiration.

Now, since neither Millay nor Nina can have the one they want, there’s some folks who want them to end up together, so they can have the one they’re with. My personal jury is still out on the matter. I’ll let you know when they make a decision.

Ratings:

Art – characters designed by CLAMP, with fetching giant robots – 7
Story – So far, riveting – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 5

Overall – we’ll give it a 7 at the moment, and see where it goes.

As I mentioned last week in my review, the second volume of the Kannazuki no Miko anime, makes a nice lead-in to a brand new anime this winter 2007 season.

Well…let me rephrase that. A new anime series.

I’m being a tad precious about the way I put it, because in reality, there is *nothing* new about Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora (“Kyoshiro and the Eternal Sky,” if I’m not misreading the kanji.) This is the Kaishaku equivalent of Tsubasa Chronicle, a revisiting and reshaping of already-been- there characters, ideas and concepts.

The main story will follow Kuu (whose name in Japanese means “empty,” but is written with the same character as “sky”) and her adventures as she’s thrust in just about the same exact kind of story as Himeko was in KnM. That is, all of a sudden two things invade her boring little world – a boy who looks just like the prince she’s been seeking since childhood arrives and molests her, and secondly, giant robots attack her. Kuu is just as passive and as much a non-entity as Himeko, so her reactions are along the lines of “Huh? What’s happening? I’m confused.” The prince look-alike, Kyoshiro, is a new transfer to the school and clearly has a lot of information about what’s going on that he has yet to share.

Additionally, in the first episode we meet Kozue, who is pretty much exactly the same character as Himeko’s best friend in KnM, only slightly butchier, and Oogami Souma has morphed into Oogami Jin – which is basically the same heavy-duty name, only different. Instead of being a rival for Kuu, Oogami leads this year’s meme du année, which is to say, an uber-cool knightly order of froods. The voice actors and actresses for all the KnM clones are the same as they were in the original.

We retain the same fetishy kind of bad-guy thing that happened in KnM, as well – our first attacker is the stereotypical annoying catgirl, nyan.

In episode two, we meet this series’ reincarnations of Chikane and Himeko, named Kaon and Himiko. Chikane/Kaon remains competent, cool and intelligent. She explains to both Kuu and the audience, that she (and the catgirl, and Kyoshiro’s familiar Setsuna, and a host of other characters to come including one voiced by my own beloved Ogata Megumi) are “Absolute Angels” and they fight…erm, for some reason. We are also given a nod to another Kaishaku story, Koutetsu Tenshi Kurumi, known here as Steel Angel Kurumi. The Absolute Angels are the so-far ultimate expression of the same technology that created the Steel Angels. And just as useful, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately for us or Kuu, Kaon and Himiko this time are on the side of BAD – in this case, the evil mistress of the evil school for evil girls, who is already on my personal list of Evil Psychotic Lesbians.

All this leads to the two things that make Episode 2 worth watching. Kaon, as an Angel, needs to draw energy (mana) from a human in order to survive. Himiko and Kaon are obviously actually in love, but in order to protect Himiko from the repercussions, Kaon refuses her mana, until Himiko insists and kisses Kaon. It’s a very shiny kiss. I mean that literally. With sparkles and stuff. Kaon heals, but with Himiko in her arms, can’t effectively fight Setsuna, Kyoshiro’s Absolute Angel, as she re-kidnaps Kuu. Once again, we see Chikane/Kaon suffer from unhappy fate, as evil Headmistress Mika blames Himiko and takes her off for person punishment. Insert salacious, knowing laughter here.

The second worthwhile thing is something Kuu thinks, as Himiko and Kaon kiss. She thinks that she’s never seen anything like this in real life, but she’s seen books like this on Kozue’s shelf. That made me laugh out loud, it really did. In case we’re all deaf, dumb and blind, Kuu goes on a bit about how beautiful secret love between women is, and all that. Got it, we got it. Thanks for beating us with the Y uri stick – we might not notice otherwise.

Okay, so Kaon and Himiko are a small side story, and in order to find out what happens to them, we’re going to have to put up with Kuu and Kyoshiro. But hey, Ogata Megumi as yet another Angel is da bomb and it’ll be a short anime like KnM was, so I’m down with it.

It’s crap, my friends. But we’ll watch it and we’ll like it. Like cod-liver oil anime. And we’ll say it was good for us, too.

Ratings:(What were my ratings for KnM? Everything’s the same, only different.)

Art – 7
Story – 5
Characters – 6
Yuri – 8
Service – 4 (bra/panties, excessive bathing, some light molestation)

Overall – 7

If Kaon and Himiko have a chance, and MO is cool as Waltesia, then we might get as high as an 8.

Did I say it was going to be a long day? Well, let me tell you, I was prescient.

The morning came with good and bad news: the wife was feeling better, and I was feeling not so much. Luckily my immune system was up to the task and she was on the mend, so overall, we were both okay for the trip home. Which was good, because our plane was delayed by 5 hours.

Narita isn’t as big as it looks initially, when you have something like 9 hours to kill. :-) Oh, and it closes, I mean the airport *closes* at 10PM. Lights going off, TVs off, stores closed. Our plane began to board at 10:15 or so. I feared that if they didn’t get us off the ground soon, we’d be stuck overnight.

But off the ground we got and miracle of miracles, the car service was there to pick us up, so here I am, at home, on my comfy sofa, contemplating sleeping in my pluffy bed. But before I did that, I wanted to share a picture with you all.

This is all the stuff *I* brought home in our checked luggage, not counting all the shrine related goodies and the wife’s stuff (well, I included her Sailor Moon lockets.) This is all the stuff that, should it be lost in shipping, I’d cry. There’s novels, Drama CDs, anthologies, manga, artbooks, calendars, some key doujinshi and a whole lotta other crap. :-) Or, as the wife says, “It’s not crap, it’s good stuff.”

The prize among all of it, is the stuff I got at Fujieda Miyabi’s table at Comiket – the stuff I waited an hour to get, and when I got it, it was totally worth it. :-) There’s an artbook, a nifty bag, a calendar called “Iono-sama’s black haired girls” which is squee-worthy for the picture of Frechet (official spelling at last!) and Arata all snuggly. Squueeee! :-) And some doujinshi, including his Strawberry Panic doujinshi.

Now, I must end this narrative and dive into my pile of good stuff, wallow a bit, then crash. Before I do, let me take this opportunity to thank, from the bottom of my heart, Rica Takashima and Bruce Pregger. Not only could I not have done half what I did without you, having you there made it just that much better. :-)

Tomorrow – reviews!

We’re sitting around the room, with about an hour before check-out and heading to the airport.

Now we’re both sick (whee!) and have about another 24 hours to face until we’re home. :-)

Last night I started watching TV when, to my disbelieving eyes, there was yet *another* tuna related show on. This time we followed a real maguro fishing boat. It was riveting, I assure you.

I started to watch Byakkotai, but there was a lot of talking and very little training. The plot was cute in a stupid way, but the whole “joining the Byakkotai” scenario was *exactly* like the “joining JAL as a flight attendant” stuff that had been on the night before in a live-action version of “Attention Please,” a manga oddly enough, that I’ve read.

As I type this entry, there is someone below on the Sumida river water skiing. On Jan.7th. I boggle.

We cancelled meeting Rica yesterday. Wifey was just too sick and I was too worried, and the weather was foul in every way. So the day passed as the wife slept, and I read Marimite doujinshi anthologies and a book that was neither as erudite as the Umberto Eco it aspired to be, nor as easy a read as the Dan Brown it hoped to cash in on. Instead, it was just sort of a constipatedly predictable “ancient secret” suspense mystery.

Keep us in your thoughts, please…it’s going to be a long trip home this time.

But reviews will resume as soon as I get home and settled. And heaven knows I got tons to review! :-)