Archive for the Series Category


Hayate x Blade Ultra Drama CD Sanban Hoshi! Hyuuryuu Tsumeawase (はやて×ブレード ウルトラドラマCD さんばん星！ 漂流つめあわせ)

August 12th, 2011

Hayate x Blade Ultra Drama CD Sanban Hoshi! Hyuuryuu Tsumeawase (はやて×ブレード ウルトラドラマCD さんばん星！ 漂流つめあわせ) broke my head. Just seconds ago, I could feel it go “pop.” I’m pretty sure steam came out of my ears, too.

As with the first two of these Drama CDs, the 3rd of the series follows three shinyuu couples as they do utterly ridiculous things in the utterly ridiculous, mutually exclusive ecosystems that surround Tenchi Gakuen. We already know from the manga that there is a mountain behind the school (from Volume 11 and Volume 12.) We also know from the first of this Drama CD series, that that there is a jungle wilderness, and so, it should really come as no surprise that there is a beach as well. As the title translates to something like “An Assortment of Drifting” it should also not be too surprising that this CD follows our principles as they wander around these ecosystems aimlessly.

Hitsugi and Shizuku (and Tatewaki) go to the beach, where Hitsugi tortures Shizuku by crafting nefearious plans and tortures Tatewaki by torturing Tatewaki.

We are then allowed to enjoy an extended visit with Sid and Nancy that begins propitiously with Sid composing a little ditty about being hungry and ends up with her unpropitiously being eaten by a giant snake. (Clearly our Yuri military force needs Giant Snakes. We’ve had them in many of our best series!) Sid worries that Nancy will leave her, but when Nancy rescues her from being eaten, she realizes that she will never get that kind of fun with anyone else.

Next up, Akira and Sae. Is there a more typical couple in all of Tenchi? Akira’s butchy grumpiness, Sae’s complete unconcern for anything except having a little fun at Akira’s expense and her ineffable cheerfulness in the face of hardship, like being stranded on a desert island….and even a very little Yuri-service for the Akira x Sae fans out there. Very little.

And in the end it was all one of Hitsugi’s nefarious plots. ^_^ But that wasn’t what broke my brain.

What broke my brain was the very final seconds of the CD as Tatewaki does her rendition of being the phone clock. You remember that, don’t you? From the days before cell phones? You’d call the number and a woman’s voice would say, “When the tone sounds it will be Eleven-thirty and 45 seconds in the morning,” then the tone sounds. Then she’d say, “When the tone sounds it will be Eleven-thirty and 50 seconds in the morning,” and it would repeat endlessly all day. Well, you haven’t heard it done right until you’ve heard it done by Tatewaki. /pop!/ ~(^_^)~

There is a mini-comic that, if I were to live in Japan I could get by order from from this CD, but since my chances of getting here are small, so I won’t be able to review it. If anyone does nab a copy, let me know how it is!

Ratings:

Overall – 9 just for Sid singing about how hungry she is. And Giant Snakes.

Not too long ago I said on Twitter than I consider Hayashiya-sensei to be the best story teller in manga. I stand by that. She loves her characters, that’s obvious. And as a result, I love them too. ^_^

Hayate x Blade, Volume 14 should hit the shelves any day now…I cannot wait to review it. I have been planning this review for *months!* (^_^)v





Yuri Network News – July 23, 2011

July 23rd, 2011

Yuri Manga

Morinaga Milk-sensei’s popular Yuri series Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo will be re-serialized in Comic High starting with the September 22 (October) issue. She had intimated that there *might* be a continuation forthcoming, so we can keep our fingers crossed.

Good news for Sailor Moon fans, our friend Bill Flanagan was officially announced at SDCC as the translator of Kodansha’s release of Sailor Moon . We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the translation is in good hands.

Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 5 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) wll be hitting shelves at the end of August.

Cassiopeia Dolce, Volume 3 (カシオペア・ドルチェ 3) became available this week, for all your doll-makers who bathe Yuri needs.

Don’t forget to get yourself a copy of September’s Comic Yuri Hime, with obligatory swimsuit cover.

Tsubomi, Volume 13 joins us in August. There was a HUGE cliffhanger in Volume 12, so for once I’m really motivated to get this!

***

Snatches of Yuri

You know what we need more of? Questionable Yuri 4-panel gag comics from MangaTime Kirara. Luckily, there’s Marshmallow Typhoon (ましゅまろ×タイフーンッ).

***

Other News

The Japanese Digital Manga Association has announced the August launch of Jmanga.com, an initiative by Japanese manga publishers to make manga available online to a worldwide audience.

***

That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!





Suite Precure Anime

July 21st, 2011

Suite Precure is the tragic story of Seiren, a singer. Betrayed by her homeland, Major Land, rejected as the Song Princess she is, she defects to Minor Land where, like so many defectors, she is forced to prove her loyalty over and over. Put in charge of incompetent and insubordinate subordinates, Seiren labors to resurrect a magical score so that she can at last sing as she was meant to… and who, of all people, must she contend with? Her own best friend and protégé, the very same creature for whom she was cast aside …Hummy.

Seiren is torn between her anger at being betrayed and cast aside, and her affection for the friend who was so important to her. Unfortunately for Seiren, the elite warriors of Major Land outgun her own Minor Land forces and her continued embarrassment at the hands of the Precure begins to eat at her.

Until, one day, Seiren snaps. She regrets her defection, she longs to repair her life and in a weak moment, becomes one of the elite Precure warriors herself. Now, full of loathing and self-doubt she wages war against herself, with no home to return to….

Well…okay, that’s not really what Suite PreCure is about, but it’s better than the real story, so I’m sticking to it.

Kanade and Hibiki, Cure Melody and Cure Rhythm, are best friends and have to be “in harmony” to transform, so the Japanese fans on Twitter are calling it Yuri. Seiren only transforms to save Hummy, so if you count Hummy as female and cats as eligible for Yuri, then there’s Yuri that way. And I’m counting Cure Muse because her costume screams Go Nagai designs.

I like Cure Beat best because 1) She is not wearing pink (which Toei pointed out that all girls like and so, *for the first time EVER* both main characters would have pink elements, how exciting!) and 2) Toyoguchi Megumi (Marimite‘s Sei) is voicing Seiren/Beat with everything she’s got, considering the character is a cat.  Purple Cures are always the coolest.

If you ignore all of this nonsense, Suite Precure is a completely predictable, music-themed magical girl cartoon for little kids.

Ratings:

Art – 7, it’s returned to type from the Heartcatch designs
Story – A little sillier than usual, I think – 5
Characters – 7
Yuri – 1
Series – 1

Overall – 7

I should also point out that the Fairy Tones, the cute little gem-like creatures that represent the notes of the scale, are excruciatingly cute and I adore them. That’s a major step up from previous Precure  cute, little mascots. Hummy can die a painful death, though.





Light Novel: R.O.D., Volume 7

July 19th, 2011

R.O.D. Volume 6 ended with Yomiko in a precarious position. Quite literally, in fact, as she had been captured and put in a giant birdcage in Dokusensha’s Headquarters.

So of course, it’s no surprise at all for Read or Die,Volume 7 to open with Yomiko in her apartment in Jimbochou, rolling around in a pile of books; specifically the series that she she has been reading steadily for four days.

Wait, what?

After about 10 pages of detailed explanation about the “Zoolander Saga,” the scifi series in which Yomiko has immersed herself, I suddenly thought, “Am I reading the right book?” For some reason I expected Volume 7 to pick up at the end of Volume 6. But, no. Volume 7 is a gaiden, a side-story, as we would call it, that has nothing at all to do with the main plot.

Volume 7 continues on its merry way with a convoluted and utterly unfunny scenario in which Yomiko bathes in a large barrel on the roof of her building and is likely seen in her birthday suit by a neighbor who has nothing else to do during business hours.

Thankfully this ends and we’re left with Nenene and Yomiko taking a walk to the most secret store in all of Jimboucho, and thence to a bookstore where, through complications of plot, they end up running the store for an afternoon.

It is Nenene who gets to be cool this volume, taking out a disruptive creepy dude in the store, and garnering applause from the bookstore patrons.

This is followed by a short coincidence that ties the book up neatly and is notable for including the October 1972 volume of Shounen Jump, the significance of which I don’t know, but I bet the author does.

The final pages cover the tragic story of Dokusensha’s paper user Ou-En and his doomed little sister, the death of their parents and how he ended up at Dokusensha.

And so, this volume comes to a close after having been alternatively cute and frustrating  for a little over 200 pages and still, somewhere, Yomiko sits on a perch in a cage in Dokusensha’s HQ, faced with the choice of marrying Faust or being killed by him.

As a  side story, it was cute, but I felt like it was a whole-carbohydrate meal and I was craving protein. IMHO, any volume of R.O.D. without Yomiko going all paper master and kicking ass, is not the greatest use of a volume of R.O.D.

Ratings:

Art – 5
Story – Silly, but it had room to be awesome and just wasn’t – 5
Characters – Nenene – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 7

Overall – 6

Next volume, we return to our original programming.





R.I.P. Wada Shinji

July 5th, 2011

We at Yuricon are very saddened to learn of the death of Wada Shinji, creator of Sukeban Deka, Crown  and many other series.

Dan Kanemitsu reported on Twitter that Wada-sensei’s death was confirmed by a number of sources. Dan mentions, and I agree, that Wada-sensei’s contributions toward female leads in manga is immeasurable.

As you know, if you are a regular reader here, Sukeban Deka is one of my favorite series, and one of the three classic girl-gang series I love so much. Wada’s genius will be missed.

To paraphrase the last page of the Sukeban Deka manga, “Goodbye Wada-sensei, forever.”