Archive for the Series Category


Hayate x Blade Manga, Volume 11

February 27th, 2010

In fighting manga, it always seems like it’s those few quiet moments in between the fights that move the plot along fastest.

This is absolutely *not* the case for Hayate x Blade, Volume 11. In fact, if anything, the plot moves forward most in the giant handwave moments, the sweeping, epic, moments, and any moments that rocks or trees are crashing down the mountain. Frequently, onto Ayana.

Seriously, so much goes on in this arc that I’ll be hard put to synopsize even the broadest strokes.

You may remember from previous volumes, that Hayate’s twin sister Nagi had arrived at Tenchi Academy. Her superiority at the sword and her few-minute edge as the older sister leads both Nagi and Hayate to the conclusion that Nagi will now take her place as Ayana’s sister-in-arms. Hayate, sure that this is a fated conclusion, leaves the school, goes out to mountain behind the school and is found and befriended by obviously crazy Yannagi Makoto. Because of Makoto’s exceptional sword skills, her Edo-period patois and the fact that her hair covers one eye all the time, Hayate calls her Yagyuu (for Yagyuu Jyuubei) and oyabin (“boss” in Edo lingo.)

It turns out that Makoto is the first ever student who graduated from Tenchi’s Sword-bearing student program. Somewhere between her years in middle school and her third year of high school, she broke completely and fled to the mountain behind Tenchi where she has lived and trained, since. We don’t yet know why, but we do get the briefest glimpse of her past in a flashback.

Hitsugi decides that it’s time to deal with Makoto, so she announces a whole-school event – a randori (a many-against-one melee.) All of the swordbearers are told to find Makoto, with no regard for rank, with the exceptions of the student council who are sent out to obstruct the other ranks. The winner will get a prize chosen by which gate they started from – money, food or a trip to Hawaii. All of the students happily head out to find this mysterious graduate.

Except one.

Ayana couldn’t care less about Makoto. She’s super extra pissed off that she’s here at all and she only has one goal – to find and put the beat down on Hayate for being the cause of this nonsense. And, of course, get her back as shinyuu.

There are a number of scenes of awesome in this volume. Asakura Mizuchi’s preemptive introduction, before Ayana can forget her name again. Sid, being booted out of the helicopter by Nancy. The source of Makoto’s sword skills. What actually goes on inside Ensuu’s head. And Jun fighting Sae has some extra awesome on the side.

The randori format means that we’ll get to see pairs fighting that we’d otherwise never see. As Hayashiya-sensei never lets a character drop after introducing her, that means we get some good fights with characters that you probably forgot about.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 1
LoseFanBoy – 1

Overall – 9

The arc isn’t anything like done, although in last month’s Ultra Jump it came to a climax. What the future will bring – and what past will be revealed – is still anyone’s guess!





Yuri Drama CD: Sasamekikoto ~ The Longest Day of Sumika

February 22nd, 2010

The Birthday Gambit. We all know it as one of the most tedious plot complications possible in anime and manga. Whether it devolves into the “What, it’s your birthday?” series of painful lies that end up in a surprise party or the “Invite everyone, even my enemies” style party in which chaos consumes the plot, anyone that has read or watched more than a few anime or manga series will be familiar with the mortification that consumes us as we watch yet another agonizing birthday celebration. What could possibly be worse?

Well…it could be rendered into a musical number about your hopeless one-sided love for your best friend, sung by everyone else in your life.

And this, my friends, is the plot of Sasamekikoto~ The Longest Day of Sumika.

So, it’s Sumi’s birthday and all she really wants is for Ushio to come over and spend some time with her. Ushio, ever insensitive to Sumi’s feelings, begins to obsess over getting Sumi the perfect gift. Of course, the perfect gift would have been for her to come over, but no, that’s not likely, is it?

Sumika ends up inviting Kyori, Miyako and Tomoe, and Kyori ends up inviting Akemi-chan and of course there’s Nori and Sumika’s brothers and father. Everyone arrives for the party, including Sumika’s homeroom teacher except – you guessed it – Ushio.

At which point the Drama CD becomes an overproduced and slightly snarky musical number that I’m singing in my head even now. Whatever you might expect from this…don’t. This is a brutal commentary on what other people think Sumika’s life ought to be like and it doesn’t make her happy. In the original track, which is the longest on the CD, Sumika resists being dragged into the musical number as long as she can.

When Ushio does eventually show up, very late, she accompanied by her sempai, because you see she wanted to get Sumika something perfect, but ruined the dress she was making so took the train out to the beach and forgot her cellphone and purse and couldn’t get back and…here’s a really pretty shell for your birthday.

Oh, Sumi, please forget Ushio. Please. She’s a clod. Be slightly hurt and grow up and find someone wonderful, okay? Thanks.

In any case, this CD is perfectly in keeping with the anime, in that it’s unfocused, mostly in Sumika’s head and silly. You could do worse for a Drama CD.

Ratings:

Story – 7-WTF
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Loser Fan – 1

Overall – 7

Really, the song is incredibly sticky. Someone needs to make a AMV to it.





Light Novel: R.O.D. Volume 3

February 12th, 2010

Meet Wendy Earhart. She’s working at the British Library, mostly because her Best Friend Forever Karen is, as well. Karen is working to pay the hospital bills for her mother who is in a coma. Karen is driven, focused and determined. Wendy’s just sort of there to be there. She likes working at the British Library, but she has no passion about it. She’s there to support Karen.

Until Wendy and Karen interview to work in the Special Weapons Section. They meet Joker, who asks them a question with no right answer: If you were on a boat with a famous author and his priceless manuscript and the boat went down, which would you save – the author or the book? Wendy says she would save the author, because people are more important than books and the author might create more great literature if he is alive. Karen says she’d save the book, because it is irreplaceable and who knows if the author would ever write something good again, but the book can be reproduced and bring joy to everyone. Joker tells them that they are both wrong.

Joker offers the job to both Karen and Wendy, but Karen turns it down. Wendy, who wants both the job and to support her friend, is roundly scolded by Karen who tells her to get her own life. Karen says goodbye to her ailing mother, cuts the life support, then leaves the Library for good, leaving Wendy to find her own way.

Wendy’s crisis starts when she tries to interrupt someone reading in the Library late at night and almost dies for her trouble. And so, Wendy Earhart meets Yomiko Readman, who ultimately tells her that she would save the book AND the man. But you can only save one, Wendy says, to which Yomiko replies, “That’s why I would save both!” Wendy goes back to the Library and accepts the new job.

Meanwhile teen author Sumiregawa Nenene is doing a book signing in Tokyo and she is not having any fun. And to make it all worse, Yomiko is late. In fact, she’s so late the book signing is over when she arrives. And she’s filthy and smelly. And someone is trying to kill Nenene.

Nenene and Yomiko, having defeated the bad guys, head out to Kyoto for the next book signing where Nenene is once again attacked – apparently her new book appears to have been plagiarized from the best seller by Clive Cussler. Cussler fans are not happy at all about this. But Yomiko – and the pelicans of Kyoto’s landmark tower – save Nenene once again. In a moving scene, Nenene asks Yomiko if her book does seem like she lifted the plot and Yomiko admits that not only does Nenene’s book seem like a ripoff of Cussler’s, Cussler’s was better overall. Nenene is very thankful for the honesty and realizes that she needs to grow and mature as a person in order to mature as a writer. She has a lot of fun at the next book signing as a result of her insight.

The final scene is why Yomiko was late. In short – she was stranded on a tropical island – with no books. It was a rather disturbing short with a bitter look at the difference between liking books and being an obsessive-compulsive bibliomaniac.

As with all the ROD novels, the beginning of Volume 3 was a little slow, the action was a little silly and Yomiko didn’t get to be quite cool enough to slake our thirst. But, the time she spends with Wendy and with Nenene she is so charming, that it’s easy enough to forget the bits where she’s freaking out for lack of something to read.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 2

Overall – 7

Nenene and Yomiko’s reunion and their subsequent heart-to-heart make everything worth it.





Yuri Network News – February 6, 2010

February 6th, 2010

Sailor Moon is all the rage again. I ain’t complaining.

The news on the grapevine is that Toei is gearing up for a Sailor Moon re-release in Italy, after some sporadic releases in Japan. Simon Jones of Icarus calmly points out that, hey, Kodansha, that would be a pretty good core release here in North America, hint, hint. Since Kodansha USA’s intentions here are obscure at best, we may or may not ever get any kind of response from them. He very sensibly points out that a reboot of the anime which was only ever brought over in bowdlerized form and the issuance of the new anniversary edition of the manga might be cool for those of us who obsess about Senshi – among which I count myself. Would I buy an anniversary reissue of the manga (which I already own all of, in two languages) translated by someone with a clue or a reboot of the anime with, say, not a third-generation Japanese sound track? Yes. Yes I would. I have fought with myself multiple times about getting the anniversary edition of the manga in Japanese, despite the fact that I have it all in Japanese already. Sometimes I pick up Volume 8 and stare at it longingly, then think, well, I can’t *just* get Uranus, I need Neptune too, then think, heck I’ll jut get all the Outers, then start thinking about buying all of the volumes and then I put Volume 8 down again and walk away. It’s really quite sad. lol

Nonetheless, I support and pray for a re-release of the manga and the anime and will be very glad to introduce a whole new generation of potential Yuri fans to the wonderfulness that is Tenoh Haruka and Kaiou Michiru.

***

Snatches of Yuri

A while back, I noted that Kishi Torajiro had a new, potentially Yuri, story called i.d.. I want you to know that I have read it, and will not be reviewing it because it was vile. It’s one of those series that shows repeated extreme violence against helpless women under the guise of watching them endure and triumph, but the focus is actually on the repeated humiliation, abuse, gang rape and defeat of their spirit. It was revolting to me in every conceivable way. I will not judge you if you purchase this manga, but I wanted to let you know what it was like, before you did.

***

Yuri Games

It’s pretty common knowledge that Final Fantasy XIII (link to PS3 version) has a Yuri couple, so here’s a request for a review by someone who has played it and is interested in letting us know about them. In case you didn’t know, FFXIII has two female characters that are meant to be perceived as a couple.

This spring, you can look for salacious screencaps from a new adult Yuri game, Subarashiki Hibi. To me, it looks like all the others; characters drawn to look unappealingly young, ridiculously heavy shading in the art, storyline that is laughably thin. I’m sure people will love it and will clamor for an anime. :-)

Speaking of which – here’s an anime series I’m looking for a reviewer for – So-Ra-No-Wo-To. Any takers?

By the author of the EbiMayo series in Tsubomi, comes a mostly Yuri collection, Sex Nanka Kyomi nai. This is another Ikki comic, so who knows, maybe one day you’ll see it in SigIkki. Hah.

And one more review request for good measure. If you are buying and reading Eru Eru Sisters, (not just reading scans), I’d love for your to review the series for us. I have no intention of reading it no matter how many Yuri lists it’s on. :-)

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Yuri Manga

YNN Correspondent, Okazu Hero and beloved Yuricon staffer Bruce P mentioned that the story in Yuri Hime S that I liked so much, “Fufu,” was in fact written by an assistant of Fujieda Miyabi’s, which explains why I liked everything about it. :)

Tanaka Rin-sensei who apparently does a lot of shoujo and josei romance is going to included in the next Yuri Hime Wildrose, which is out this month. She has done some Yuri parody work, but I’m most interested because she seems to have primarily drawn romance for a female audience as a professional. I wonder if she’ll bring a different feel to the book. I wasn’t going to buy Volume 5 of Wildrose, but now I will.

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Yuri Drama CD

There are plans for a Drama CD for Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends. No date as of yet, but I’m actually holding out hope for an anime for this series. It’s got all the elements to make it successuful, since it’s a “shoujo for guys” kind of story.

***

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!





Gunjo Preorder (Japanese edition)

February 2nd, 2010

As I mentioned on Saturday, I will be placing a bulk order for the first volume of Gunjo, so should you be uncomfortable ordering from a Japanese website on your own, you can order through me.

Here’s what I’ve come up with on costs for the Gunjo order. These have been rounded off for convenience to my brain.

Book – $10
Shipping From Japan – $5
Domestic Shipping – $5 (Priority mail)
International Shipping (this includes Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and Mexico, I’m afraid) – $15 (Priority)
Handling – $5

So, Domestic US (48 contiguous states) – $25
International – $35

I’ve added in a “Handling” charge to cover Paypal fees and packaging materials, which, sadly, do cost something. That makes the International cost $35, which is edging very close to you getting it on your own. But I don’t want to say US only, because I know that Europe always gets left out of the equation.

For what it’s worth, I am *only* shipping priority, because trust me, the alternative means your book goes for a week or two long vacation to a warehouse somewhere where it will be lost, probably forever.

So, I’ve listed the links below. Domestic will be $25/book, International will be $35/book and I apologize, but it’s still cheaper than $50/book, which is roughly what it would be if you ordered by yourself through Amazon JP with nothing else in the order.

Orders must be placed through Paypal, no money orders, because I don’t want to lose my mind doing this. :-)

The book won’t ship until it’s released, so let’s say, Pre-orders will be open until February 20 and then I close them.

Domestic Order – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=QPE7LL64CHXT4

International – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=YGJJXZ8WTV5B6

I hope this makes life easier, not harder, for you all. :-)