Archive for the Series Category


New Season Summer 2008 Anime: Ikkitousen: Great Guardians

June 24th, 2008

Ikkitousen returns, with bigger breasts and less sense than ever before. Moving on from merely double D size, Ikkitousen is now a hefty GG (ostensibly for Great Guardians, but duh, we’re not so stupid as to have missed the point. )

Ikkitousen:GG is a slightly alternate universe for Ikkitousen, which basically means nothing to us at all except that Ryoufu is no longer dead and her hale and hearty heart, which beats once again in a hefty chest, is set against Ryomou as her rival. Not a rival *for* anything particular (yet!) just someone to slam around in as many fights as possible.

My beloved Ryomou, sadly, is made to obsess over Saji, instead of following Goei with her eyes the way she did in the original series. I don’t mind, since we already know that as anime goes, Saji’s a reasonable lover. Nonetheless, I don’t expect a happy ending for them.

Since Ryoufu was resurrected – so far, anyway – without Chinkyuu, and Ryomou spends her time running after her erstwhile boyfriend, we turn our Yuri-hungry eyes upon our last, best hope and we are relieved, since not only does Kanu still have a raging crush on Ryuubi, she is in fact, turned completely, hopelessly, absurdly gay for her. Kanu Unchou, who once was nobility and power embodied, is now a comedic gimmick of raging lesbian hormones. Works for me. ^_^

Story? Oh, I imagine there will be something that can masquerade as a plot. For now, we are introduced to a new character who adds a whole new fetish to the lineup and, to be honest, it’s a fetish that really needed to be added. We *finally* have a character who will get captured, undressed and almost raped at least once a show and not fight back (yet!). As an added bonus, she will scream “Oniisama!” and “Oneesama!” annoyingly, so the segment of the population that finds that appealing will finally have someone to care about. Phew for them.

Never high art, if you go into Ikkitousen with anything other than resignation and amused tolerance, you are bound to be disappointed. If you were worried that Ryomou may no longer be wearing underwear or that Ryofu’s breasts are somehow not as large as before she died, then you will be mightly pleased at the new series.

Ratings:

Art – Hah!
Story – Snort
Characters – LOL
Yuri – That too
Service – Are you kidding me?

Overall – Not too bad, considering it’s utter crap

I’m almost relieved that this series drops the Romance of the Three Kingdoms tie-in since, in a lot of ways, it just got in the way of the panty shots.

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Yuri Manga: Sasamekikoto, Volume 2 (ささめきこと)

June 23rd, 2008

Yuri, as I have mentioned, is not the same thing as lesbian. There’s some overlap, of course, but Yuri as a genre has an awful lot of not-really-lesbian-at-all tropes, with which we’re all familiar.

Sasamekikoto, Volume 2 (ささめきこと)  does something quite interesting with some of our more familiar rehashed conventions – in a sort of meta-Yuri manga, we get several layers of Yuri convention running on top of one another, each at a different angle to the others.

Sumika, a girl in love with her best friend Ushio – who loves cute girls, but not Sumi – has been blackmailed to join a club that consists of women who love women (and their friend Kyori who is just a member to make the requisite number.)

But first! A “funny” chapter about Sumi on a date with the guy, Masaki, who likes her, who has a side career cross-dressing as internet idol and model Akemi-chan, and whose little sister is extremely creepy.

After that, the story settles down a bit into something that looks like this:
Classmates ask Sumi whether Tomoe and Miyako are lesbian, but Sumi avoids answering. The two come back and tell the classmates that they shouldn’t be asking other people about their identity. The classmates get all riled, calling them “rezu” and “hentai” when quiet Aoi-san stands up and tells them all to be quiet – that one, the classroom is for studying, not this, and two, real love between women looks like these novels that she obsesses about. lol The novel covers look *awfully* familiar. (And, btw, the novels are penned by Ushio’s brother, something that both Ushio and Sumi don’t want Aoi-san learning. lol)

When Aoi-san runs out after having been emotionally brutalized, Sumi goes after her to see of she’s okay. Aoi-san instantly forms a crush on Sumi and assumes that she too is a fan of the novels. Ushio walks in on them at a touchy moment, which sends her into tears, not so much because Sumi might like the other girl – she’s more worried that Sumi isn’t a fan of those damn novels!

Tomoe, as club president of the jyoshibu, decides that the club should go on a club overnight. However, a misunderstanding forces Sumi into helping Aoi-san with her doujinshi for “Yuri Fest,” a summer doujinshi event. So instead of going with Ushio to the beach, Sumika finds herself helping her new friend making a doujinshi and selling it at this Yuri otaku event. Sumi’s day is made when Ushio ditches her summer vacation, and comes to the event to visit her.

Then, everyone goes to the pool, tickets courtesy of Aoi-san’s thankful parents. Kyori, in a moment of epic genius, separates Aoi-san, Miyako and herself into the “kids” team – basing this on relative size – and leaves Tomoe, Ushio and Sumika to be together. Tomoe gets the drift immediately and goes off on her own, so Sumi and Ushio finally get some alone time. Aoi-san spends the entire time trying to escape to be together with Sumi, but finally sees what we have seen since the beginning, that Sumika and Ushio are in love with one another. And sad as she is, she backs off. On the train, Tomoe talks about how beautiful their love is – especially because they can’t see each other’s feelings. She calls it “delicious.”

The final chapter follows Sumi and Ushio just missing one another at a local festival but, when they finally do connect, the relief and joy on their respective faces speak volumes.

So the trick here is that were have a 1) girl who loves another girl 2) who loves her, 3) but they don’t recognize it yet, and who is the 4) object of a crush of a girl 5) who likes Yuri light novels, and they are in a 5) club for girls who love girls, and hang with a 6) lesbian couple. You see what they did there – the creator layered several “Yuri” tropes on top of one another for a reasonably effective comedy.

And it is quite funny. My favorite moments are when Sumi and Ushio fall into a visually wacky private language that’s basically not describable, but is lol funny.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

I wasn’t sure if the whole “best friend who loves her best friend from a distance thing” was going to work for me, but in Sasamekikoto, it absolutely does work.





Yuri Anime: Maria Watches Over Us Preview (English)

June 19th, 2008

Yesterday, I received a preview copy of Maria Watches Over Us, the Nozomi/Right Stuf US release of Maria-sama ga Miteru. Thank you Right Stuf for the preview! I was warned ahead of time that this preview only included the non-honorific subtitles track. :-)

Before I start to pick nits, let me sum up by saying that even with “Lady Sachiko,” I’d give the translation an 8 out of 10. One of the points lost was for a genuine error that made no sense. The other was for a few translation moments that were not wrong so much as just out of step with fan convention. No points were lost for the things that weren’t wrong, but just felt weird.  After the nit-picking, I’ll touch upon some of the good things, just to balance it all out. ^_^

The Bad:

Unforgivably, Sachiko is translated as telling Yumi that her “scarf” is crooked. That doesn’t even make sense. She says “tie” using the English word, and even if one was going to mistranslate that, “collar” seems the most reasonable mistake. It’s September – no one is wearing scarves, and they call those mufflers anyway. And no one is wearing a fashionable scarf with their uniform, either. Given the many millions of “crooked tie” gags that have beeen propagated across the intertubes, this seems a particularly egregious error. ^_^

The Indifferent:

Both Japanese and American fandoms tend to use and become familiar with certain terms. In several cases, the RS translation isn’t wrong, but it just isn’t the same as the ones we’ve become comfortable with.

“Forest of thorns,” as spoken by Tsutako is rendered “forest of briars.”

“Mother Maria” seemed an odd choice in every language, since one naturally assumes that the translator would choose either English or Japanese. Mother Mary/Maria-sama/Blessed Virgin, whatever. But “Mother Maria” seems like a strange juxtaposition chosen only for its ability to be not instantly identifiable by people looking for things to get outraged about.

I’m pretty used to “Yamayurikai” but here it is translated as “Yamayuri Council.” Not hideously awful, just again, a sort of weird halfway-translated term.

And again, in the song Maria-sama no Kokoro, “Yamayuri lily” is pretty redundant. “Wild lily” or “mountain lily” is surely sufficient.

And while we’re on the topic of “Mother Maria’s Heart” – I don’t care that the correct name for the bird is the bush warbler – I find that amusing in an totally infantile giggly kind of way. lol

The Good:

All the Rosa’s retain their titles. Rosa Chinensis, Foetida and Gigantea are unmarred by attempts at translation. And so are their en bouton. “Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite soeur” graces our TV screen accurately, if unwieldily. ^_^ I absolutely appreciated that. In fact, that was kind of my biggest concern.

The Excellent:

The story itself is something I have not actually watched, or read, in a long time (although I am reading the novels voraciously these days.) So once again I felt that it was very nostalgic to see Yumi dealing with the Rosas for the first time. It’s a very, very amusing story. Sure Sachiko’s a raging bitch, but I love her for it – especially the moment when, after visibly having no recollection of ever having met Yumi previously, she blatantly lies to Youko about how close she and Yumi are…. ^_^

To sum up – there may be some issues even with the inclusion of the honorifics (and I don’t know to what extent honorifics will be included. Will “oneesama-gata” stay “dear sisters” or not? I don’t know for sure. Or will Maria-sama get her honorific back? No idea.) But I think that even with “Lady Sachiko” and “older sisters,” the translation was not *so* heinous that it couldn’t be enjoyed. It would be lovely to be able to give it a 10 out of 10, but with a little more smoothing, a 9 out of 10 ought to be easily obtainable.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 2
Marimite Fan – 100

Translation – 8

Overall – 8

Aside from the usual fannish grinning like a moron, I’m very prepared to fall in love with this series all over again for the fourth time. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Strawberry Panic, Volume 2 (English)

June 16th, 2008

I’m sitting on my beloved sofa, watching Strawberry Panic, Volume 2 and two things occur to me. One, it feels like this a very, very old series, one that I haven’t watched in a million years, and two, every time the story tries to be serious – or heaven forfend, menacing – it’s a total laugh riot.

Then a third thing occurred to me as I watched it, which needs a bit of a lead-in.

Sometime in the past few months, I was in discussion with the president of another manga company and we got on the topic of companies and their flexibility re: acknowledging mistakes and fan sentiment. The other President confidently told me that “fans don’t like it when you change things mid-series” to which I replied quickly that, speaking as a fan, if you did it wrong the first time, then yes, yes we do like it. It means you listened to what we had to say and responded. For instance, Right Stuf is making a very good effort to not only listen to fans’ concerns about the Yamayurikai members titles, but to be responsive and let people know that they have been heard. They clearly had a subtitle track all ready to go, but are creating a second one. They didn’t have to do that. We could have watched the first track, bitched that the anime companies *still* don’t get us, and moved on.

Which brings me to Strawberry Panic. When I reviewed Volume 1, I expressed some major misgivings about both the quality control and the translation of the series. I forwarded my review to Media Blasters. (As I have said many times, I think the folks at MB are wonderful. I’m not *trying* to be a nag. I’m trying to help…but I kind of wondered if they appreciated it or not. You know, like, “thanks for constantly pointing out our inadequacies Erica, you dumb so-and-so!” ^_^) I also wondered if the reason that MB’s work was sometimes so sloppy was because no one really ever cared about them. Like the kid in class whose parents don’t really care if he’s got clean clothes or not. Well *I* care about MB’s work, especially when it applies to my beloved Yuri, so I feel like I’m making sure MB combs their hair and puts on clean underwear before they send out a DVD. lol

All of this a roundabout way to say that Strawberry Panic Volume 2 is the BEST work I’ve ever seen from Media Blasters. The translation is nearly seamless, there are no typos and best of all, they listened to my complaints and are no longer translating “oneesama” as “Big Sister.” NOW it sounds okay. “Shizuma-oneesama” “Chiyo-chan” “Hikari-san” etc, etc.

Thank you to everyone at Media Blasters for listening. And thank you for sending me this disk for review! Now…can I ask you for *one* more thing? LOL Can we also have the opening and ending themes in romaji too? It can be at the same time as in English, or alternated, one English, one Japanese. Either way is fine. Thanks. ^_^

Now, on to the series. This volume basically covers three main issues, with some side stories thrown in. One – Hikari and Amane like each other. Two, Shizuma and Nagisa realize that they have actual feelings for one another. And third – and most important – Kaname and Momomi are barking mad.

This third point was really the best part of the anime. Kaname’s plan to thwart Amane from pursuing the Etoile title (which she has repeatedly said that she doesn’t want) is nothing short of brilliant – she’ll force Hikari to love her instead, so she doesn’t think about Amane. Which might actually work, if she wasn’t such a ham-handed creep. Well, you know what they say – if subtlety and charm takes too long, just rape her. That’ll work.

…

What’s worse, Kaname is totally tedious about it. There she is, holding Hikari down and instead of actually doing anything, she’s going on and on about how, after Hikari has her as a lover she’ll never look at Amane again. Yes, she continues, she an amazing lover. Yup, really and truly. No one’s better… Have I mentioned how good she is? She did – like five times. Without so much as even vaguely attempting to do anything. Kaname, Kaname, you’re a crappy rapist.

Also amusing was the episode that blatantly ripped off Marimite’s “Rainy Blue,” cleverly titled “Hydrangea.” If you take the ane/imouto argument tension out of Rainy Blue, and turn the focus on the lost umbrella, so that it no longer represents the loss of everything important in Yumi’s life, but instead is merely a lost umbrella, that sort of is what “Hydrangea” was about. With alot of “shared umbrella of love” fantasies thrown in. (The wife says, “For all you umbrella fetishists out htere – this is the episode you’ve been waiting for!”) My favorite moment is where Shizuma thinks that her umbrella is too big for two people, because she and Nagisa don’t have to huddle underneath it.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 6
Yuri – 7
Service- 7
Umbrellas – 10

Technically, this volume was a pleasure to watch. A good translation can’t make a bad series better, but it can keep a mediocre series mediocre. Content-wise, this series is still a bowl of derivative anime crack; a cheap shot that makes for a few moments of fun.





Yuri News This Week – June 14, 2008

June 14th, 2008

It was a long week this week and all sorts of news from all over…

Yuri Anime

Amuri in Star Ocean, which is a manga series that runs in Dengeki Daioh magazine has posted a streamed version of the anime trailer on the website Amuri.jp. Amuri consistently has some Yuri service in the manga. I don’t actually know if the anime has any or not. Interestingly though, the trailer is available in a “moe” version and a “sci-fi” version.

The Shoujo Sect anime trailer has been uploaded for you to do whatever it is you want to do while watching it. Looks like they are covering quite a few of the scenarios from the manga. All I want is the very final chapter. Probably not, because it has comparatively little sex.

And Right Stuff has said that anyone who directly preorders the first season of Maria-sama ga Miteru from them, will get a Rosa Chinesis phone strap as a free chotchke. I spoke briefly with them about gew-gaws. We agreed that this audience would be a huge consumer of “stuff” if they let us get any. :-)

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Yuri Manga

The husband and wife team that writes and draws He is My Master has split. Asu Tsubaki, the artist half, who draws for Yuri Hime S, among other things, has said she will not continue the series. I’m heartbroken, as you can imagine.

Steady Beat creator Rivkah reports that Tokyopop will be releasing the third volume of her series on the Web only. This seems to be the fate of many of their World Manga/OEL titles.

Someone asked last week what the TP contraction would mean for the Yuri titles. I think its safe to say that the one or two titles they had that were even vaguely Yuri will take a hit. The third, which had not been released yet, will also likely not see the light of day. I’m conjecturing here, but overall, compared with Yaoi/BL titles, Yuri do comparatively poorly in sales. I’ve figured out why, too. BL titles’ audience – women – *buy* more than guys. A lot more. Guys, if they like a thing want to know where to download it – for free. Women come running up to a table, buy everything and run off. lol Don’t know why, but I’ve seen it over and over at events.

Also, to continue a conversation on the Yuricon Mailing List, this contraction has already trickled to the Tokyopop UK group and is likely to hit Germany and France soon. What that means for the translated Maria-sama ga Miteru novels in Gernmany is as yet unknown. Money talks, so if the books are selling well, they may well be continued.

Friend of Yuri Steven reminds me to mention GIRL X GIRL X BOY, a manga series I keep meaning to review, but keep forgetting. It’s out in tankoubon now. As the title indicates, it’s about a love triangle. While not earthshatteringly brilliant, it does have a happy ending.

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Snatches of Yuri

From Rei, a news item that Shin Megami Tensei Kahn has utterly trash-ariffic Yuri. The Publisher’s Weekly review listed on the Amazon site sums it up nicely: “The book has a surprising amount of violence and nudity: nearly all the female leads appear nude, including Nobu’s mother. Saeko is coerced into graphic demon lesbian sex in one very long scene. At worst, this book is a poor introduction to the MegaTen franchise. At best, it is a mediocre story about demons and a fast pulp read.” Okay then.

And once again from Ana, who knows me so well!, a mention that Light Novel Vanilla – A Sweet Partner has trashy Yuri girls with guns. I am *so* there. I’ll be sure to report back – and put it on the Yuricon Shop’s Light Novels page!

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Other News

Since I mentioned Tokyopop’s collapse, I guess I ought to to give ADV the same courtesy. ANN reports that the next issue of PiQ magazine, ADV’s replacement for Newtype will be its last. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I did think it was a decent magazine. It’s just that the costs of printing and distributing magazines these days make it hard to support the business model. I hope they think about continuing it as an online or mobile magazine.

And last for today, once again my novel Shoujoai ni Bouken is the subject of discussion at Ultimo Spalpeen (In Japanese.) This time Komatsu-san informs me, he is reassuring Japanese readers that my understanding of Japanese culture is not cringe-making. lol Thank you once again, Komatsu-san! I wrote it 8 years ago now, and there are definitely things I’d do differently, but I’m very pleased to have no huge gaffes instantly apparent. Phew. :-)

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That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to join me at 12:30 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art for Ghost in the Shell: Innocence!. See you there!