Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime: Shoujo Sect OAV 3

November 27th, 2008

Here we are, at the final OAV of the Shoujo sect anime. And compared with the last two volumes, it was way closer to the manga. But….

Okay, so, Ma-ya and Shinobu have their little moment, and Shinobu is molested by the evil sempai. That situation was changed around a bit, but the rewrite didn’t kill the scene particularly. Momoko’s reaction was modified, for the worse, I think. The fire extinguisher wasn’t just an expression of violence – it was an absolute expression of just how deeply Momoko felt about Sempai’s attack on Shinobu.

The end too was rewritten slightly. Instead of Momoko moving away, and Shinobu and she having a reunion after four months, we harken back to the their first meeting on the playground and their first kiss (which had also been changed from the manga.) This leads into the final sex scene for the series.

And that, I’m sorry to say is where this series is a complete turkey. Porn, unless I’m mistaken, is meant to be sexually titillating. Listening to the voice actresses suck and slurp and lick so absurdly in this volume was absolutely laughable, and a little nauseating. I get it, I do. Sounds have to be exaggerated for effect, but uh…no. A thousand times, no. When I turned the sound off, the sex scenes weren’t that bad, but when I offered an earphone to the wife for a moment she said, “Eww?!” and made the same scrunchy face I myself wore. Each to their own, and all, but for me, the best part of the sex in this anime was that each scene was short, due to time constraints.

What did you think of this series?

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 6
Yuri – 9
Service – 8

When the sex in a piece of porn is the least good thing, you know you’re watching a real turkey.

And speaking of turkey – in the spirit of the Thanksgiving, I would like to express my thanks to all of you, my readers, fans, Okazu heroes and superheroes! I couldn’t do it without you!





Flamboyant Artbook (English)

November 23rd, 2008

Thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric for sponsoring today’s review of the Flamboyant art book by Hakua Ugetsu, translated by DMP!

This artbook contains a number of full-color artworks by Hakua for the Bakuretsu Tenshi, aka Burst Angel series. The art is colorful, servicey and full of action, scanty clothes and Jo. Sometimes a picture might also have Meg, Amy and Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth.

There are a number of pictures in which Jo and Meg are touching and/or are in close proximity to one another. There is even one where Jo’s scarf becomes a red string of fate that binds Meg to her. Sadly, the one picture I like best, of them sitting in each other’s laps in bed, was included only as a sketch.

The remainder of the book includes art from other series (including the intriguiging-looking Everybody’s Bounty Hunters, in which girls with guns stand near each other and sometimes touch) and some original sci-fi and fantasy art. the book also includes sketches and commentary by the artist, which I found to be both amusing and alarming. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Yuri – 2
Service – 8

Overall – 9

I’m quite pleased to be able to add this artbook to my collection, where it will live with some of my crazy out-of-print artbooks that one day I will get around to reviewing.  ^_^





Yuri Anime: Strawberry Panic, Volume 4 (English)

November 19th, 2008

Way back, I read a book whose entire plot revolved around the fact that the two main characters did not communicate with each other in any meaningful way. Take that same story and transport it to Astrea Hill and you’ve basically got the plot of Volume 4 of Strawberry Panic.

In this volume, Nagisa finally learns the whole story about Shizuma’s past. But instead of the truth freeing her, she decides that she can’t live up to the perfection of Shizuma’s lost partner. The truth, instead of bringing them together, drives an enormous wedge between them.

In the wake of the flashbacks and intense emotional loss, the only character other than Shizuma and Nagisa who gets a piece of the action is Miyuki – who has to face the loss of not one, but *two* objects of affection. Everyone else in the story is relegated to background noise while we watch the tension build between the main pair.

Nonetheless, this volume is plenty Yuriful. We learn that even if Shizuma didn’t *love* Kaori, her feelings at least included physical attraction. (I’m never going to stop thinking that making love outside is not, perhaps, the best choice for the terminally ill.) There’s Shizuma’s hurtful – but brutally truthful – kiss with Miyuki. And, of course, we get to enjoy the bathtub playtime of our resident EPLs, Kaname and Momomi.

But most of all, this volume is filled with fraughtness and tension as we wade through the high emotion and drama that makes up Shizuma’s backstory. We then watch Nagisa put herself, Shizuma, Tamao, Miyuki and her fan club through hell as she wallows knee-deep in some good, old-fashioned self-pity.

*This* is the volume that all the fans who consider this series to be a beautiful romance are thinking of. It has all the classic memes of a million gothic romances, but as the storm howls around Shizuma and Nagisa at the summer house, I prefer to think this series is the direct descendant of that fateful scene from Cream Lemon Escalation at Naomi’s summer house – at which Rie learns the even more shocking truth about her beloved Naomi. ^_^

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

Once again, my sincere thanks to that collective of Okazu superheroes, Media Blasters, for this volume and for being a fabulous bunch of people. And once again, I didn’t notice anything especially annoying with their adaptation, other than the continuing lack of “onee-sama” as an honorific. ^_^ It’s nice to be able to put a MB DVD in the player and know that neither the translation nor subtitles will subtract from the experience. Keep up the good work!





Yuri News This Week – November 15, 2008

November 15th, 2008

Away we go!

Yuri Anime

Mediaworks has announced a Strawberry Panic anime box set in Japan. It’s not out of the pale to think that we might see one for the English release as well one day.

Right Stuff has announced a slightly delayed release date for the second season box set of Maria Watches over Us. Now it’s slated to hit the streets on December 9, 2008. And they’ve given us an initial release date of February 24, 2009 for the third season, the OAV box set!

Katherine shares news about an upcoming anime called Queen’s Blade, which will include women fighting in bikini-like battle armor for the approval of the Queen. (I’m kind of loosely summarizing there, lol). In any case, she thinks we’ll find it relevant to our interests and there’s plenty of Yuri-service for those as who find that good enough. :-)

Winterbraid has weighed in to let folks know that the third volume of El Cazador de la Bruja hit the European market without fanfare – or indeed, without promotion of any kind. I want to take a moment to include some of Winterbraid’s review here, because no only do I sympathize, I think it’s worth reading:

Unfortunately, the release leaves much to be desired. The translation
goes down the toilet right from the start of this volume, and doesn`t
get much better towards the end; I have caught a typo in the polsub that
would for sure give any of my former language teachers a heart attack,
and the characters mostly use language you`d expect from a
half-illiterate person.

[nag]
I don’t get it; Polish is in my opinion one of the most beautiful and
poetry-friendly languages in the world (not that I know that many
languages, mind you ^-^;), yet most translators write as if they`d
stopped their education at elementary school level. (Although I remember
being able to write way better than that in the elementary school.) It
makes me recall a very wise sentence, which says that a person doing
translations doesn`t need to know the language of the original work
perfectly; however, they must excel at the language they are translating
into. Sadly, the majority of translations indicate that the reverse is
more often the case. :/
[/nag]

Gerdub doesn`t fail at life any less than it did previously;
unfortunately, I listened to quite a bit of it, `cause Mplayer went on
strike and VLC switched to gerdub by default on every new track. >_Maybe it`s just me, but even the postcards in this volume seem a bit
weird. The cover is Ellis and Nadie with cat ears, the inside is the bad
guys on one page and Lilio on the other, and the DVD label is E/N in
waitress uniforms;

LOL, we sympathize on those dub issues, Winterbraid!

Winterbraid also wants us to know that the Murder Princess OAV is available in a single box set in Europe. A bit pricey, we’re warned, but hey – it’s all in one.

***

Yuri Manga

Silapa is proud to announce that the CoYuHi forums have launched their original Spanish-language Yuri Project manga. Good luck to them!

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Yuri Contests

Just as a reminder, Okazu is holding a special Hayate x Blade contest. Entries will be accepted until November 30, so entertain me and get a copy of HxB for yourself or for a library near you!

Johann writes in to let us know that not only is there a spiffy Maria Watches Over Us poster in this issue of OtakUSA magazine, but they are holding a contest as well! The current giveaway, Johann says, includes two Marimite S1 DVD box sets. Nice.

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Yuri Artbook

Johann also pointed out Flamboyant artbook by Ugestu Hakua, the artist for Burst Angel, (aka Bakuretsu Tenshi,) has been translated and released by DMP. He tells us that the first half of the book is all BA pictures, so if you ever wanted Meg, Jo, Amy and Sei-who–is-not-named-Beth in full color, here’s your chance! Great catch, Johann!

***

I think that’s everything for today. My continued thanks to the folks who write in with tidbits (or, perhaps I should use the British alternative for that?) and news items for us all! Please feel free to send any news you come across of Yuri interest and I’ll share it with everyone. :-)





Yuri News this Week – November 8, 2008

November 8th, 2008

Yuri Anime

Forgot to mention this previously, but the Lyrical Nahoha A’s season boxset pre-order is available for an early 2009 release.

A new ero-fan book has been annouced for the series Ikkitousen. LFs of both genders can marvel at the fact that the female characters of Ikkitousen have genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics, creatively (not realistically) rendered by people who have never actually seen a woman naked. Go fans.

***

Live Action

Osama Tezuka’s MW is being made into a live-action movie. It’s clear from the trailer that the creepy remains intact, but whether the relationship between the two male leads will be kept is yet to be revealed (based on the movie description, they’ve taken out the fact that the priest and the kid are lovers.) The chances of getting even a cameo for the one stable, normal, and completely emotionally healthy character in the book – the lesbian newspaper editor – is unlikely, but we can hope. Because her insertion in the story as everything is going to hell was not at all capricious, and sends a powerful message.

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Snatches of Yuri

In the interest of mentioning novels none of us will ever read, Kanjou Kyouiku seems to be more of the same high school love stuff, taking place in a slightly fantasy school setting. In fact, the synopsis made it sound just like the movie Teresa and Isabel (which, if you have not watched, you should. It’s quite nice.) The love is real, but not “real,” I’m betting.

And speaking of fantasy schools, Youkai Gakuenki is about – you guessed it. Girls at a fantasy school. Looks way too moe for me, but the Yuri blog boys in Japan give it top ratings for Yuri. So…expect service. Looks like you’ll like it if you like the whole animal-eared girl thing.

Sugar ha Otoshigoro – instead of moe animal ears, you’re back in the huge breast fetish world. Although I’m prepared to bet that it’s all still schoolgirls. Oh look at that, it is.

***

Okay, that’s enough today. I’m schoolgirled out. When I get home tonight, I’ll have the newest issue of Gunjou so I can stop thinking about “pure” and “innocent” (blecch) love during school years and think about horribly broken, violent adults instead. Phew.