Archive for the Series Category


Yuri News This Week – September 27, 2008

September 27th, 2008

Yuri Events

I hope you can join me today for Morris County Author’s Day at the Morris County Library, and/or the Yuri Panel tonight at the New York Anime Festival!

Don’t miss the upcoming MangaNEXT Event, on Oct 31- Nov 2. Rica Takashima, creator of Rica ‘tte Kanji!? will be a guest at the event and will be at the Yuricon Table in the Artist’s Alley. Please don’t hesitate to drop by and ask her unanswerable difficult questions about lesbian life in Japan. She loves those. :-D

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Snatches of Yuri

Just *had* to tell you about a new manga called Escalation: Girls Inside the Walls which takes place in a girl’s reform school. Unlike the original Escalation series, it is not sweet, cute, or Yuri. There’s some marginal sexual harassment by the crazy butch character, so if that works for you, get it. :-) (Before you ask – yes, I got it. lol)

Soutenzen-iro Otome-gumi is a story of love among school girls, one of whom is “boyish.” With such an original plot, I know you’ll all want to run right out and read it!

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Maria-sama ga Miteru

Sarcastic weasel reminds us that a new Maria-sama ga Miteru web radio is up. This is the post-Lillian Festival issue, so hopefully, they’ll mention the anime. :-)

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Yuri in the News

I forgot to tell you this earlier. I was contacted by the LA Blade and The Advocate for interviews about Yuri. In a brilliant display of synchronicity, they contacted me the very same day, asked me all the same impossible to answer questions and then asked me for a pictures, contacts and lists for the next three weeks. It was actually pretty funny. The Advocate article is up online now and printed in the October 12 issue, no clue for the Blade.) The Advocate article is a pretty decent (if not 100% accurate in all things) article about the complexities that make it impossible to map the term “Yuri” to “lesbian” in any socio-politically meaningful way. More importantly, the illustration they chose for the article is a lovely picture of Yuricon mascot Yuriko kissing one of her pre-Midori paramours drawn by our own Kelli Nicely for Shoujoai ni Bouken: The Adventures of Yuriko, Volume 1.

We’re getting closer to my goal of total media domination. First Curve, then the Advocate, then …who knows? People magazine? Inquirer? Sky’s the limit. LOL

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That’s the Yuri News for September 27, 2008 – see you next week!





My Zhime (My Otome) Anime, Volume 6 (English)

September 24th, 2008

It is entirely thanks to the kindness and generosity of Eric P that I am able to bring you today’s review, so everyone say “Thanks, Eric!”

Volume 6 of My Otome does something completely unheard of in the
Mai series to date…it begins to *answer* some of the questions asked in the earlier episodes.

Who is the true Queen of Windbloom?

What is the Harmonium’s power?

What really happened to Mai?

And more of your favorite hits in this volume of…

There’s a lot going on in Volume 6. The story is moving rapidly towards a climax that feels, at this point, as if it might *actually* climax, unlike other Mai series we could name.

The action comes fast and furious. Arika and Mashiro, having found themselves a haven, are ripped untimely from it and deposited safely in the bosom of the legendary
Black Valley, where they encounter a bunch of ridiculous legends which are all true.

Nina becomes the possessor of the Harmonium’s power through a gambit that I actually thought was incredibly clever and deserves the writers a pat on the kepi.

The Valkyrie squad is deployed. Tomoe jumps at the opportunity to crush people
she thinks are beneath her like a bug, which is to say, everyone. Chie plays it more cautiously, and finds herself in a lose-lose situation. But we trust that she’ll come out on the right side of it because, after all, she has 1000x lesbian power. The forces of evil seem to have the upper hand, but the forces of good are beginning to set their playbook up in the background. Meister we don’t care
about die, while ones we do care about seem to be hanging in there, biding their time.

Yuri comes mostly in the form of Tomoe’s fixation on Shizuru. And her…interests. We also briefly get a glimpse of Chie reunited with a presumed-dead Aoi. She was only mostly dead, apparently.

But Yuri isn’t the point here. The point is war. That’s what we’re gearing up for and that’s what we have to be ready to deal with next volume. We’re ready, I say.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 6

Overall – 8

And let us not forget the hallucenogenic effects of Maki-maki-ing.

 





Yuri News This Week – September 20, 2008

September 20th, 2008

A happy birthday to two of the most important men in my life, Ed. Ed and Dad. You all owe my father, btw. It’s from him that I get many of the interests that make me the reviewer that I am. He fostered my love of comics, action flicks, sports and soft-core crap. lol Thanks Dad, and happy birthday!

Yuri Anime

By now many of you will have heard the big news…The 4th anime season of Maria-sama ga Miteru has been announced. Last Monday was the Autumn Lillian Festival where it was announced that the new season will begin in *January*. I have already been asked if I’m anticipating it – of course the answer is yes, but probably not as much as the rest of you. I now have to contend with the issue I feared all along – I’ve read the novels. I know what’s going to happen and have my own ideas about things. But, provided we get Shouko, and you get to see some of Touko’s true self, I’ll be happy.

Fans of Lucky Star will be want to view the online streamed “promotional video” (in the real world we call that a “commercial”) for the upcoming OVA. This OVA is rumored to be Konata x Kagami friendly – I note that the promotional art accompanying the above article has whichever one of them it is holding leeks, a popular Japanese Yuri meme. Before you write and express that you were right and I was wrong, let me remind you that I have never watched the series and have no opinion about it whatsoever. I do not see an overt K x K pairing in the OVA as validation of your interests, but as a catering to it in order to separate you from your money. Just wanted to be clear on that. Should it be true that they are paired in the OVA, my opinion will be that I am pleased that the collective whim of fandom has once again triumphed to put another Yuri couple on the map. :-)

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Yuri Events

Next Saturday, September 27, I will be at *two* events. In the early afternoon, I will be attending the Morris County Author’s Day at the Morris County Library, one of the best county libraries evar. I invite you all to come, get your books signed by the authors, ask us for advice, get advice which will not be of help to you, and check out the really excellent graphic novels section in the library (which is rather heavy in Yuri, due to yours truly. Whenever I review an English-language manga that I do not need to keep by my side, I donate it to the library. Everything but the crap. I encourage you to do the same. Libraries need and want your help.)

Immediately after the library event, I will wing my way over to Manhattan and the New York Anime Festival. I and Sean Gaffney will be running the Yuri Panel at 8PM on Saturday. It says in the program book that it is an 18+ event, but that is wrong. I’ve asked for and gotten permission to make it more open. The bottom line is, I don’t want to talk about sex – and especially not with you people. Anime and manga, yes, absolutely. We’ll talk about that till we’re hoarse. :-) Sex? No.

Also Maiden’s Garden, the Yuri doujinshi event, is coming up in Kyoto. As always, you can find all the latest Yuri Events on…the Yuri Events page on Yuricon!

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Yuri Manga

Friend of Yuri Eric P wrote in to let us know that he’s seen a preview of Hayate x Blade in his newest issue of Anime Insider magazine. He says it looks pretty funny. It is funny – and I can promise you that the second volume is even funnier. ^_^ (Off-topic, Eric also wrote an Evangelion review that has recently been posted on Anime News Network, so congrats, Eric!)

Yuri Hime S is once again out, this time accompanied by two collections, Hanjuku Onna by Akiko Morishima, and Gokujou Drops, by Mitsukuni Hachime. (Late breaking news. Erin tells us that these collections have been delayed and are now slated for *next month*. Thanks for the heads up!)

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Snatches of Yuri

Ririi no Kago (Basket of Lily,) looks to be a collection of stories about Girls’ Love. It is not a “lesbian” collection, a reviewer tells us, but it’s a good collection. This is a book, not a manga, fyi.

And one more book for the pile of novels that I will never get to, Yoshiya Nobuko’s Kuro Shoubi (thanks for the correction, Komatsu-san,) (Black Rose) tells the story of a young woman who goes to teach at an all-girl’s school and a student who falls in love with her. For what it’s worth, I am once again tackling Yaneura no Nishoujo, but Akiko is such a mopey girl. In the last scene she actually sat there for like 20 pages whining to herself. Ugh.

Hakamada Mera’s manga series Akatsuki-iro Senpuku Majyo (The Hidden Witch of the Dawn, I guess I’d translated it as) is much like the more well-known Last Uniform series, only this series takes place at a school of magic. Stories of friendship, love and Yuri, so pretty much the same old-same old in a different series.

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That’s it for this week. More already on the horizon, so come back next week for more Yuri News!





Yuri Anime: Simoun, Volume 5 (English)

September 19th, 2008

Sometimes, the worst part of a choice is the time before the decision is made. The doubts, the waffling, the feeling of “what if?”

In Simoun Volume 5, all the choices are made, the cards are dealt and the fate of not only the Sibylla of Chor Tempest, but all the people whose lives touched theirs, is decided.

I don’t think I breathed once while watching this volume.

There are many people who did not enjoy Simoun. It was non-linear. There were giant holes in the construct of the world in which the Sibylla lived (although if you like your worlds tidy, I can’t *imagine* that there’s too much anime that suits you. Maddening inconsistency is about the only constant.) We never really learn the answers to a lot of our questions.

Honestly, I can’t imagine caring a damn about any of that. This series has beautiful art (with the exception of Nevril’s sex-doll mouth,) amazing characters, fantastic music, a terrific plot. And…above all…it made me realize exactly what I think makes a good story.

To me, a *good* story travels a considerable distance in character development from the moment we meet the character to the moment we last see him or her. If the characters grow, change, respond to circumstances and learn from their experiences and choices – that is a good story. If the character starts the story and ends it roughly the same, I might enjoy it, but I won’t consider it *good.*

So, Strawberry Panic (anime), for instance, isn’t *good* by my standard; Nagisa and Shizuma do change a little bit from the beginning of the series to the end, but not a lot. Neviril and Aeru travel astronomical units by comparison. They pretty much reverse roles completely from the beginning of the anime to the end.

Yun, who comes to Chor Tempest seeking absolution for not dying with her previous Chor finds her absolution in saving one woman. And the rest of the Sibylla face what they thought they wanted, and found out what was really important to them after all.

If Simoun was too hard to follow or just annoying to you, I won’t try and convince you to watch it. But there is *no* doubt in my mind, that this will be the best Yuri Anime once again this year for me. (With at least two Yuri couples and as many as four if you have no pride. ^_^)

The Director comments were particularly interesting this time. The director says that, at the beginning of the volume, when Aeru confronts Neviril about her feelings, he (the director) had ceased to think of them as two girls. Also the Animation Director commented that she felt that Yun was in love with Onashia, which I completely agree with. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 9

Technical – 9

Couldn’t ask for better.





Battle Club Manga, Volume 6 (English)

September 18th, 2008

While Battle Club is in no way a “Yuri” manga, Volume 6, the last of the translated volumes, has a pretty big chunk of Yuri.

Ostensibly, the story is still about Tamako’s quest to gain strength and skill through wrestling, but since the book starts with their teacher Tondemon disappearing, we pretty much abandon that quest to wallow in cosplay, lesbianism, tragic tales of the past, trap-infested obstacle courses into mansions of the rich, ghosts and other completely real things.

For those of you who read Battle Club for the plot, you’ll be pleased to note that for all that these stories are pretty much unrelated to the wrestling club, in their own way they have *more* plot than the entire story up to this point.

The rest of you, which is to say, all of you, will be pleased to learn that there’s plenty of service in both quantity and variety. For the purposes of this blog post we’ll stick to the Yuri.

After Mukoda is defeated by Tondemon-sensei and Tondemon disappears, we turn our attention to Shiba, ex of the Karate club and supposed lesbian. She starts the chapter off by an extended fantasy about sex with Tamako, followed by a string of circumstantial circumstances that, lo and behold! are exactly like her dream. Only she doesn’t get to have sex with Tamako.

Later, as Wrestling Club Captain Taiki reflects on his past and how he became a cross-dresser (although not as to the origin of his large rack of lamb) we get a glimpse of the (of course) lesbian feelings heaped upon the (of course) receptive captain of the Black Cat High wrestling club.

I’m fascinated at the eroticization of wrestling. Although I don’t find it half as appealing for myself as someone just seriously putting the beatdown on someone, I can kind of see where people are going with it. And this manga takes it to such utter bizarre extremes that it ultimately would have to be read as a comedy, even if it weren’t also full of ridiculous gags, puns and purely comedic scenes. I wonder if that makes Battle Club the first erotic wrestling comedy in manga? Probably not, what was I thinking?

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 2
Characters – 3
Yuri – 6
Service – a zillion

Overall – 4

I don’t have anything left to say about this manga except my thanks to Everett L. for his sponsorship of today’s review!

…oh wait, yes I do. When Shiba joins the wrestling club, they spell her name wrong on the name plaque in the dojo. D’oh!