Archive for the Series Category


Maria-sama ga Miteru Christmas Album

January 26th, 2010

It’s a day early, but today’s post is a welcome guest review from Okazu Superhero, Guest Reviewer, supporter, fan and friend, Eric P. The occasion for the Guest Review today is a good one – I will be giving a keynote speech tonight at the ArtsCAP’s Electronic Media Bootcamp in Asbury Park, NJ. Because my schedule will remain a tad overbusy until the end of this week, I make no promises about reviews for a few days. In the meantime, please offer a warm welcome once again to Eric!

Christmas Album: La Vierge Marie Vous Regarde

A holiday-themed review would be considered overdue at this point, but — better later than never, perhaps? Anyway, one may assume taking the Catholic schoolgirls of Maria Sama ga Miteru and putting them together to do a Christmas album would make an obvious and fitting combination. By and large, one would be correct.

I never saw any point in collecting the MariMite Drama CD’s because I can’t fully appreciate what I don’t understand listening to, unless it’s J-Pop or J-Rock. So when I heard of there was a MariMite Christmas album, I figured I should at least get this. I went in half-expecting to hear holiday music backed up with broken English (every time I hear or say those two words I can’t help but think of the song). It turns out that their English is actually pretty good, but if you’re really listening then of course some of the pronunciations may be off. But that’s really a nitpick that can’t be helped, and the seiyuu still sing with their own natural grace, so that it is easy to overlook.

Their voices go so well together, almost like an angelic chorus, with a melodic flow. It only makes sense that most of their songs are classic Christmas songs like “Joy to the World”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “Silent Night” and “Angels We Have Heard on High”. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” with its danceable beat would almost feel out of place on this list, but it seems meant to be the one fun break before the seiyuu return to the softer tunes. The only other non-religious song is “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” serving as the album’s appropriate sign-off.

Since the credits on the album are in Japanese, and it’s been a while since I watched the series, I can’t really tell which specific characters sing which songs. I would imagine that Yumi and Sachiko lead most of them, or perhaps it could be Shimako since that’s her picture on the cover. Inside is a booklet containing the lyrics along with a square-card version of the cover image. This card offers us in plain English best wishes throughout the coming year, making it seem like Shimako is praying as much for us.

The only downside is you can get so into the music but it’s over before you know it. The whole thing is literally just 20 minutes long, with 6 songs. They really could have added more to make a fuller-length album so it wouldn’t have to end so soon, but it’s still a very fine CD made up of lovely music nonetheless. You may not be a fan of Christmas songs, and I for one have been fed up with them over the years, but it helps to be even a casual MariMite fan to appreciate this ensemble’s rendition. Some time by the next holiday season, assuming this CD stays in print that long, feel free to add this to your collection (you too, Erica!). And here’s to looking forward to Right Stuf’s future release of the 4th season of Maria Watches Over Us.

Ratings:

Overall-9 (minus 1 point just for the short length)

Thanks Eric! I’ll be passing on this, because there is *more* than enough Christmas music in my house and as a non-celebrant, I feel happier avoiding it as much as possible, sung by popular voice actresses or not. ;-)





Aoi Hana Official Book

January 26th, 2010

If you’ve fallen for Fumi and her friends; if you’re a collector; if you’re a completist – you want the Aoi Hana Official Tokubon. If you love the series for the art, are interested in the points of view of the writers, the artists, or the voice actresses – you should get this book.

Photos of Kamakura lined up against their animated counterparts and staff picks for their favorite moments of animation give you a warm fuzzy feeling. The interview with Ikuhara Kunihiko about the opening sequence provided was more information than I expected. He’s either gotten way better at expressing himself in words or they guessed. lol

For me, the very best thing were the discussions between mangaka Shimura Takako and Ono Natsume (Ristorante Paradiso) and Umino Chika (Honey and Clover) and Matsunae Akemi (Junjou Crazy Fruits).

And for dessert, there’s a short manga about Pon-chan, which was very cute.

However, if you are looking for any discussion of the Yuri, aside from a few platitudes, you won’t be finding any of that here. In fact, the only one of the cast even asked about the onna-doushi storyline is Horie Yui, the voice of Kyoko. Presumably because she’s the most established and has the least to lose if she says something scandalous.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Content – 9
Yuri – 2

Overall – 9





Yuri Network News – January 23, 2010

January 23rd, 2010

Of course, since I took a week off big news hit. Isn’t that always the way? Here we go!

Yuri Anime

Top story of the week is something that I alluded to some time ago – ANN reports that Yuri Hime series Yuri Yuri has been greenlighted for an anime series. I’m happy that we’re finally getting a Yuri anime from one of the Yuri Hime magazines, I personally wish it were a series I liked. Yuru Yuri will appeal to the Lucky Star-type fandom and, so, it’s a wise choice in that way. I suppose I should feel lucky that they didn’t choose Love Cubic, but I admit to being a tad disappointed in the choice when there are other, so much better IMHO, series to have chosen from.

Clarification: Japanese YNN correspondent Y_Y points out that the ANN article is not entirely correct – the obi says that it would be nice *if* Yuru Yuri has an anime – and the Yuri Hime editorial staff blog also said they think it would make a nice anime…but there is no anime greenlit as of yet.

***

Yuri Manga

Top story here is still Gunjo, which will be re-serialized in Ikki magazine in Japan – starting in the April issue which, for reasons known only to some publisher in the depths of time, will go on sale February 25.

The first 13 chapters (the ones that ran in Morning 2 magazine) will be re-serialized and the first volume will come out this spring. Once the series is caught up, it will continue in Ikki with, Nakamura-sensei tells me, volumes 2 and 3 slated for 2011 and 2012.

Now, before you you go running around screaming, wondering when you might see it in Viz’s SigIkki online magazine, and start a letter campaign to Viz to ask them to license it…let me ask you to take a deep breath – and wait. Just wait. I’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as I can but, for the moment, just hold off on blasting Viz with emails. I promise to let you know if that’s going to be necessary. ^_^ If you do want the latest on the situation, and don’t mind getting it in Japanese, I strongly recommend reading Nakamura-sensei’s blog directly. She’s very open and upfront with her information.

Today, as a special manga feature we have a mini-review from YNN correspondent Mara on another Viz title, Jormungand:

I grabbed the first volume of Jormungand off the shelf because it stood out from the others as it was published by the Viz subsidiary Sig, the same publisher Dogs, Bullets and Carnage has. I quickly read the back and discovered that it was about Koko Hekmatyar: a highly active weapons dealer who is into making a lot of money off appropriately vague wars over the world. She shares the spotlight in this with Jonah, a child soldier, who is recruited by Koko to join the other mercenaries she has as part of her entourage.

So upon reading that blurb I immediately bought it, read it and found it to be most entertaining. Koko for one is a fun, kooky yet incredibly sharp protagonist who makes the sale and then gets out of doge before anyone can aim a gun at her.

Should anyone manage to get Koko in trouble aside from Jonah there is Valmet to help as well and here is where the possible Yuri comes in. Valmet is shown to find Koko cute to the point of ‘comical’ nosebleeds and an extra at the end of the volume shows that Valmet is indeed very focused on Koko and even likes her bad points, like how she complains a lot.

I feel the Yuri is set more to what we connote from what we are shown rather than stated at the moment. There needs to be more character development for Valmet before I can say anything for certain and considering this genre of manga it is highly likely the kinds of scenes that I read in the manga could never happen again or it could be explained in a different manner.

While there is very little to go on in the first volume I wished to highlight this series to you as even if the Yuri does turn out to be false this is still a fine series in the style of Black Lagoon or Dogs. Great fun and has a female protagonist who is for once given the appropriate ‘rights of the protagonist’ for this kind of series.

Thanks, Mara! Sound really interesting – I’ll be sure to add it to my cart. :-)

***

Other News

I don’t know if you all saw this a few weeks back, but Brazilian artist, Mauricio de Sousa had planned a joint venture with Osamu Tezuka, but Tezuka died before their dream could be realized. Now, de Sousa’s work, which will include character-of-interest Safire from Ribon no Kishi is going forward. There’s been a lot of renewed interest in this series, from the not-great remake recently in Nakayosi magazine to the constant requests directed (by me and others) at Vertical. It will be a great day when this first Princess-Prince series finally manages to make it over here.

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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!





Yuri Drama CD: Maria-sama ga Miteru Premium CD Volume 1

January 19th, 2010

Maria-sama ga Miteru Premium CD Volume 1, which should not be confused with the Maria-sama ga Miteru Special CD, Volume 1, because they are two different things with the practically the same name, was wonderful. Absolutely squee-worthy.

The dramas alone were a full hour or so and cover the most pertinent bits of Souer Audition, i.e., Tsutako and Shouko reunited for the first time since they first met (squee!), and “Joanna,” the short in which we see Yumi manipulating Touko by being honest, sincere, enthusiastic and loving. (squee!) Poor Touko…there was no hope for her after that. lol You’d have to be a very evil person to not love Yumi at that point and Touko was never evil.

The discussion portion had Ueda Kana and Nabatome Hitomi discussing – among other things – cream-filled doughnuts and Russian fairy tales. I love the idea that they are on the clock eating shu-cream filled doughnuts. If I didn’t know that the rest of their job was beastly, I might envy them.

We now have all of the Tsutako x Shouko story on various CDs. If they are smart – and they are, I have no doubt – they will package them all together as a Drama CD with figurines of Tsutako Shouko and we’ll all cough up *another* pile of cash to get it. ^_^

Now all I need to make me happy is Kira Kira Mawaru and Margaret ni Ribon on CD and I will be the happiest of fangirls. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9.5, because this is just about the best Tsutako x Shouko scene until Kira Kira Mawaru

Squee!





Yuri Anime: El Cazador de la Bruja, Volume 2 Disk 3 (English)

January 15th, 2010

El Cazador de la Bruja, Volume 1Disk 3 of El Cazador de la Bruja is when it all happens. Everything that was building up to a climax is shifted around and everything we thought was important is set aside.

Disk 3 of El Cazador de la Bruja is when the things we never noticed become the things we stare fixedly at, and the things we thought we noticed stare back at us, challenging us to deny their existence.

Disk 3 of El Cazador de la Bruja is about one conspiracy becoming less important than we thought and another, even more obscure conspiracy, stepping in to take it’s place.

Disk 3 of El Cazador de la Bruja is about love. Tough hitman Ricardo loves his little adopted daughter Lirio, who clearly loves him back. We learn that Ellis loved the professor who ran tests on her, and that LA, as far as he’s capable in his cracked and broken way, loves Ellis. We learn that even Rosenberg, as selfish and miserable a man as he is, is capable of inspiring love. And above all, we can see that Nadie loves Ellis, even if she can’t quite see it herself – and Ellis loves Nadie enough for the whole world to see.

Disk 3 of El Cazador de la Bruja is about myths come to life and fantasy and scifi stories that are real.

Above all things, Disk 3 is when we realize that we will be singing the Amigo Tacos jingle for weeks on end and will never get it out of our heads.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 3

Overall – 8

And again, our sincere appreciation goes to to Okazu Superhero Amanda M. for sponsoring today’s review!