Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Gunjou, Chapters 8 and 9

September 5th, 2008

Erica is on vacation and is likely having way more fun than you are right this moment. Except for the bits when’s she’s feeling a bit socialist and irritated by the excess of early 20th-century landowners and captains of industry. Tacky bastards. In any case, expect delays…with…stuff…and stuff, until she gets home and caught up on sleep and reintegrated into life.

Squee! Two whole chapters of what is unconditionally my favorite manga of the year.

In Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, the blonde (called “Sensei” by the Japanese fandom, on account of her being a vet,) and the brunette (likewise referred to as “megane” for her glasses) have spent a tempestuous evening, full of heightened emotions, dark despair, sexual tension, passion and fury. We left them in the tub, as the blonde lets the brunette see the tearful face she makes – as she tries to kill her.

In Chapters 8 and 9, we take a step back to see the moments before the beginning. When BL and BN have met again for the first time in many years, and how their akashic ties slowly, surely and irrevocably become intertwined in a way that affects not only their own fates, but those around them.

We know what happened to BN’s husband – after all, his murder is the beginning of everything in this story. But, what happened to BL’s life when she picked up one day and walked out of it? We know that she has an ex-lover. What we learn here is that she and her lover had been together for almost ten years and that her lover had gone so far as to call her parents and invited them to visit, because she wanted them to meet the person she wanted to spend her life with. They do arrive, but never get to meet that woman….

We see the results of the violence, the cascade of emotions that catapult them eventually into a life on the lam. We see the friends, the coworkers, the normality that BL walks away from. In counterpoint to this, we see the misery, the drudgery, the physical and emotional agony, and the utter hopelessness that BN faces every day.

In fact, we gain such a clear picture of how we got here, that the only question that remains has *got* to be – where are we going?

In her blog, Nakamura-sensei has discussed the sadness with which she contemplates the end of this series. It makes me lonely to think of a life without Gunjou, so I can understand her feelings – and their aren’t even my characters! ^_^;

Here’s my thoughts on the end of this series. I think that the *best* we could hope for is that they die together. But that’s not the way this series has gone at all. So, my real guess is that when the police catch up to them – and they will – the blonde will confess to the murder and to having kidnapped and beaten the brunette, turning her into a helpless and sympathetic victim. The blonde will take the rap and by doing so, will free the brunette for the first time in her life of being beholden to anybody at all.

It’s not what I *want* to happen, of course. ^_^ That’s what I *think* will happen.

In the meantime, I wait with bated breath for my next monthly fix of the most amazing manga I’ve read in ages.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 10





Yuri Anime: Ikkitousen GG

August 31st, 2008

Erica is away on vacation this week. She will have sporadic computer access at best and frankly, isn’t really worried too much about checking in. So please be prepared for comment approval to be delayed, and for your thoughtful comments to go unanswered for some days, as Erica focuses on more important things like fish-shaped churches and orgone cannons.

When Ikkitousen: Great Guardians was announced I was cautiously hopeful that this series would contain the same kind of absurdly service-y Yuri that made the first series so entertaining. As of the time I am writing this review, it has been nearly everything I had hoped.

One of the significant problems with the original Ikkitousen series was that it attempted to have a plot. It is with great relief that that has been set aside form much of GG. Instead, we’re treated to Kanu’s sexual fantasies about Ryuubi – and watching Kanu follow in the footsteps of Kuga Natsuki as all her coolness is turned into nothing more than a wall of stoicism to be cracked repeatedly by stupid sexual gags.

More importantly Ryoufu is brought back from the dead, and set up in a situation that is one death away from being the perfect Yuri couple for this series. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who would like Saji/Ouin to die painfully and release Ryomou to find her true partner. Of course, Ryoufu being Ryoufu, there’s plenty of nasty Yuri-service to amuse us as well.

There’s a pretty good chance that the series will be over by the time this review posts, but as of the time I am writing, I expect Ryomou to throw the feelings that fetter her to Saji aside to save Ryofu, who will die nobly, yet again. Hopefully with at least one kiss between them. But I’m not holding my breath.

If you like Ikkitousen for the fighting or, god help you, the plot, (or if you insist on being deranged about the series and comparing it to previous series and expecting continuity and consistency) you may not like GG. If you’re more sensible and are watching it for the large breasts and service, then you’re welcome to join Serge and myself as we pronounce it the best of the Ikkitousen series. Especially if Saji dies. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Series – 10

Overall – 8

I find it highly amusing that Ryomou has somehow become the tragic heroine of the series.





Drama CD: Mai HiME Destiny, Ryuu no Miko, Volume 2

August 28th, 2008

In Volume 1 of the Mai HiME Destiny Drama CD, everyone ran around screaming, with a few thoughts here and there for the mystery of the new girl with the Dragon handcuffs and the incredible power.

In Volume 2, all of that is set aside in favor of an extended investigation into who is taking, copying and selling pictures of the various girls with their underwear down. This issue takes up about half the CD. The short answer: It’s Tomoe.

The second half of the CD is far more interesting, as we actually briefly touch upon the mystery of Mayo and her powers. Because, it turns out, some of the photos appear to have been taken in the past – or perhaps the future. More importantly, there are people in the photos that are not *at* the school right now. Several of the older students and staff recall that Mayo’s powers were held by a previous student, the legendary Mashiro. And the equally legendary Yumemiya Arika is mentioned as being one of the people in the pictures.

Quite suddenly, a bunch of the characters find themselves in an alternate world (past, future, we don’t know) and we meet both Mashiro and Arika, who are exactly the same as in the Otome anime, except now they are the previously mentioned legendary former students of this Garderobe. Like Mai and Mikoto in Otome, this Mashiro and Arika simply live outside the confines of the normal world. Everyone is appalled to find that the legendary students act like a squabbling couple of 17 year olds, but then the dragon arrives!

Mayo’s powers as the Dragon’s priestess take a hold of her – and the Dragon, accompanied by severe winds, attacks. The wind is felt in Garderobe, where Fumi and Reito comment on what will befall them should the Dragon not be stopped.

Just as it looks like it’s too late to turn the tide, Shion leaps in and kisses Mayo, sealing her powers and putting Mayo to sleep. She admits to having had that ability since childhood (and so, admits to having known Mayo since childhood, which she had completely denied up until now.)

And you know…I don’t have the vaguest clue how the Drama CD ends. I think with Mashiro and Arika arguing. ^_^

This DCD is set up just like an anime epsiode – it has an opening scene, an OP, commercials, and EP and a “next time on…” segment. It also has more Yuri in the commercials for Mai Otome than it has in any of the actual story segments. At least once Shizuru makes suggestive comments to Natsuki, and Tomoe says something suggestive about Shizuru.

The best thing about this series is the way in which they’ve integrated the HiME and Otome characters into yet another alternative Garderobe that has some slight sense of three-dimensionality. I’m kind of fond of the constant rehashing of the same characters in mostly the same situation, but everything is slightly different, setups. I’d like to see them continue this ad nauseum, just to see how crazy they’ll become trying to come up with the fifteenth version of this story and these characters. ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 3, then 7
Characters – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 6

Overall – 6

The bits of this story which are not pandering to bottom-feeders are actually quite good. If you skip the first couple of tracks or so, you’ll get to the bits which don’t suck. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Strawberry Panic, Volume 3 (English)

August 25th, 2008

If the Strawberry Panic anime had begin with what is now Volume 3, I think that I just might, maybe, have liked it a lot more than I originally did.

It’s true that if the series began at the beginning of Volume 3, we wouldn’t have been treated to 11 episodes of *absolutely nothing* in which Nagisa is ever so cute as she remains confused and out-of-place, and we probably wouldn’t have seen Hikari cry a couple of times. Certainly we wouldn’t have been treated to Amane riding up on her horse, saying practically nothing, then riding away. And of course, we would have missed all those almost-kisses that so delighted us through the first half of the series, as Shizuma teased Nagisa.

Episode 12 picks up with as significant an episode as we’re likely to find in this series, as Tamao symbolically ties a ribbon onto Nagisa’s arm “for protection.” Like Chekov’s gun on the wall, you just know that this has to play a part and so it does when, after Shizuma and Nagisa have admitted feeling lonely when the other isn’t around, they “fall” into the pool and kiss while the ribbon symbolically unties and floats free. Afterward, in Shizuma’s room, Shizuma begins to have her way with Nagisa, but a memory of Kaori brings her up short, allowing Nagisa to escape back to her own room.

Meanwhile, Kaname and Momomi step up their “seduce Hikari to break her up with Amane, and make Amane depressed so she won’t run for Etoile” campaign. This is the source of the infamous and utterly hilarious “Global Warming” scene, which is no less fabulously stupid than the first time I watched it. The entire series peaks at that moment, I think. Everything afterward is simply denouement. LOL (If you can stop laughing long enough to listen to the rest of Kaname’s monologue, it carries on, no less amusing than the beginning.)

From this point on, the entire series takes a turn. Amane and Hikari go on a romantic date, only to have Hikari return home to find Yaya crazed with desire, the result of which is that she is the object of a sexual attack for the second time in one day. Rough day for Hikari. This is followed by an episode in which Hikari and Yaya make up. Good thing for Yaya that Hikari is another Himeko.

And then suddenly, it’s time for the school festival and the play, a time-honored subject of pretty much every anime ever. And yet, these final episodes of the volume are probably the best in the entire series. They have a good plot – actual grasp of and use of character and a pretty good climax, if you ignore the utter absurdity of our resident EPL duo’s “plot” to take Amane down. Since absurdity is practically the raison d’etre of this series, by now we’d better be sucking this series down with handfuls of salt – preferably adorning the rim of colorful glasses holding margaritas. :)

And just in case we don’t yet really get that this is a Yuri series, with Yuri, we are treated to several bath scenes involving nekkid Kaname and Momomi doing Yuri things.

Last note – I was warned by the folks at Media Blasters (who I once again have to thank for this review copy) that this volume was full of typos but, if there were any, I missed them. In fact, the quality of the DVD was so consistent and decent, that I just barely remembered to even mention it – which for this kind of thing is the highest praise. In a nutshell, the technical aspects of this DVD were so good that I never noticed them. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7 (towards the end, 8)
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 9

I’m going to pretend that I used the above French terms in honor of the “Nagisa studies French” episode, but in reality, it was just coincidence. ;-)





Battle Club Manga, Volume 4 and 5 (English)

August 20th, 2008

Battle Club is one of those manga that I read, then immediately think “Why am I reading this?” I’m not desperate for the sight of breasts or crotch shots, and I’m not enamored of bathroom humor. So after asking myself “why?” pretty much every single time I finish a volume of this, I can only come up with two possible answers: 1) I’ll read just about anything and, 2) I’m taking one for *you,* my loyal readers, so you don’t have to. ^_^; You’re welcome.

To be blunt, there’s nothing good about Battle Club. It scrapes the bottom of the gutter with every issue. In a bizarro way, it’s still sort of entertaining, if only to watch the author flail as he has to come up with new set-ups for the same three gags (“accidental” breast nudi

Volume 4 is pretty much Yuri-free, but has lots of the usual service as the members of the Swan HS wrestling club take on the nefarious – and rather irritating – members of the absurdly named N.O.B. organization. Tamako loses, which crushes her ego for a whole *chapter,* before eating a lot of curry and beating a bunch of guys up, which cheers her up right away. I can sort of sympathize with this. Beating people up makes me happy too. :-)ty, crotch shots, hard-on/pee jokes.) I love the pointless attempt to include something like a plot in the middle of these three things over and over. Very amusing.

Volume 5 continues the N.O.B. arc, and implies that there’s a real plot behind this all, but in reality the important scene is when the “lesbian” Vice Manager of the club, Higuchi, fake-kisses bathing-suit wearing loli Koumoku for mouth-to-mouth, then precedes to strip her and assumably do something naughty, or something. We are archly reminded that the VP is a lesbian, because we might have forgotten – or more likely thought that she was really a bottom-feeding guy. She is also seen later with a gaggle of female attendants giving her a tongue bath. Lesbians always do that, too. Mukoda almost fake-kisses Tamako, but doesn’t. The rest of the volume is cluttered up with wrestling and revenge and other uninteresting plot stuff.

Hey – did you know that girls wear underpants? But not bras, apparently.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 1
Characters – 3
Yuri – 2
Service – a million

Overall – 4

Thanks to today’s heroes, Dan P. and Everett L. for sponsoring yet another Okazu review. Your kindness is greatly appreciated. Now can you get me something *not* scuzzy to read? ^_^