Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Burst Angel, Volume 1 (English)

October 1st, 2008

BurstAngel1I previously reviewed the Burst Angel manga back in 2005. You can find all of those reviews under the Bakuretsu Tenshi category on the right-hand sidebar, if you want to compare and contrast my first impressions.

In the original manga reviews I pointed out that the manga is somewhat – not significantly, but somewhat – Yurier than the anime. Sure, in the anime it’s *obvious* to anyone with two eyes that Jo and Meg are together. They even go so far as to show affection for one another. What we *want,* however, is a big old snogging scene where Jo rescues Meg and reaps the just rewards of that effort.

We don’t get that in Volume 1 of Burst Angel manga, either. ^_^;

What we do get, is more of Meg fantasizing about the life she’d like to live with Jo, instead of the hand-to-mouth, job-to-job, violent existence that they currently lead.

I’ve read comments here and that dismiss the manga because there is a young boy character inserted into the story. Don’t dismiss it because of that. The story is never about the boy, even if he does return later in the volume. The story is absolutely, firmly, about Jo and Meg. And, like the anime, it quickly becomes about Jo.

If you like the classic western structure of the early anime episodes – Meg and Jo get a job, defeat the bad guys, don’t get paid, move on, get a job, etc., you’ll enjoy this volume of the manga. If you’re looking for something more like later episodes of the anime, hang on – it’ll get there. The last chapter gives us a glimpse into that, as Amy and Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth show up on the very last pages, hinting at more to come.

The translation and adaptation are all fine, no complaints here, but I was really floored at how awful the reproduction of the art is for this TokyoPop edition. It’s pretty loose art, hard to follow at times in the original – very pencil drawing sketchy, if you know what I mean – but the pages of the English language edition…! If you don’t have the original to compare from, it might not seem that bad, but wow. It really is. I hope the second volume is reproduced better, since it’s my favorite of the three.

In the meantime, enjoy this action-filled prequel to the Burst Angel anime!

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

Thanks once again to Eric P. for being the sponsor of today’s review! You have joined Dan and Ted the Awesome in the ranks of Okazu superheros. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Maria Watches Us, Volume 4 (English)

September 28th, 2008

If you were among the many that ran out the first second you heard that Maria Watches Us was available in box set, it’s likely that you did so more for this one volume than for the rest of the series. Because saying you like Sei is, as we all know, like saying the sky is blue. :-) (Which, by the way, was part of one of the questions I sent in to Konno Oyuki-sensei last month when Right Stuff opened that form for us. I thought she ought to know that we say that.)

And here we are, arrived at *last* at the zOMG! official release of “Forest of Briars” (as Right Stuf translated it) in the US. Surely I am not the only person who thought that we would never, ever see that.

In the winter of her 17th year, Sei suffered a parting that was very painful, she relates to us in the opening.

Yumi overhears classmates talking about Rosa Gigantea, and then rumors of a book begin to filter though the school. A book, she later reads and finds to be about two students at Lillian who attempted suicide to be together. Yumi finds out that Sei’s past includes some kind of situation that makes it a likelihood that she is the author of the book!

Sei’s honesty is pretty stark, and she admits to having been in a situation that’s pretty similar to the one in the book. Neither Yumi nor Yoshino seem particularly surprised to learn that Sei fell in love with another student. Yoshino’s biggest concern is that Sei might have been hurt, so she decides to find out who wrote the book, only to learn that it was a memory of a distant past and nothing, except by coincidence, to do with Sei.

It’s hard to imagine, having seen only the teasing, openly grope-y Satou Sei, that there was a time when she was withdrawn from everyone and cold. And that the reason she changed was not, as one might expect, because she had fallen in love. In fact, it was quite the opposite – her heart had been broken, forcing her to lean on other people and see how many people genuinely cared about her. In “White Petals,” we watch Sei meet, fall in love with, be rejected by, reconcile with and lose Kubo Shiori. A lot of the novel had to be cut out for the anime, which really is a shame, because it’s an excellent novel. (Including at least a *little* recognition of the issue of lesbian identity.) But what is left is still a very moving story…and the source of 90% of Youko x Sei slash, as well. lol

The last two episodes are the Valentine’s Day date episodes, in which Yumi losing sight of Sachiko for a moment is turned into a laughably absurd cliffhanger and which also had a great scene truncated, so all we get of Yumi listening to Sachiko changing in the jeans shop is a little clothing noise and Yumi blushing – but it’s enough. ^_^

Shizuka and Shimako continue to confuse fans, because both are so difficult to read. But, watching their date now, with all those novels between this episode and me, I find them an utterly fascinating pair. There’s a line towards the end of their date that characterizes them perfectly. If Rosa Gigantea hadn’t existed, then we might have been soeur, Shizuka says. But she does exist, Shimako says. And so, Shizuka concludes, taking Shimako’s hand, we are both happy. It’s a great line.

Yoshino has her moment of satori about why stalking is bad and ends up having an armful of crying Chisato, then turns around and gets mad at Rei for not being more considerate of the girl’s feelings and getting an apologetic embrace from Rei in return.

And so, with the addition of the Don’t Tell Maria-sama extras, we come to the end of the first season of Maria Watches Over Us.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 8
Service – 0

Marimite Fan – 100

Overall – 10

Now I have to go and watch it all over again in a marathon. And memorize the novels. Perhaps start camping outside a Japanese bookstore in anticipation of Before Graduation which is due out next month. (I’d add “stalk Konno Oyuki-sensei” but I learned my lesson from Yoshino. ^_^)





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!