Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Battle Club, Volume 1 (English)

March 25th, 2008

Women’s crotches are endlessly fascinating. Or so I assume from the variety and sheer number of crotch shots in Battle Club, Volume 1.

Interestingly, while women’s crotches are absolutely riveting, men’s are apparently unworthy of scrutiny and are therefore pixelated or avoided at all costs.

Even more interestingly, while it is perfectly acceptable to look at women’s crotches, it is unacceptable to become aroused by doing so. If you are aroused, you are labeled as a pervert.

The conundrum appears obvious to me – why torture yourself with something that you can’t enjoy? Sounds like some kind of self-flagellating, mortifying of the flesh thing. In a way, it sort of does explain alot about why prostitution is illegal and why you guys seem to like your fun on the down low. I’ll leave it to others to delve into how sad that is.

Instead, I’ll cover the plot of Battle Club: This manga is about two members of a high school wrestling club, one male and one female, both of whom believe they are the protagonist of the story. The female protagonist, Tamako, is a clumsy, zealous and kind-hearted girl who is impossibly strong and getting stronger, by taking regular beatings from her even more impossibly stronger sempai. The male, Mokichi, is a mealy-mouthed asshole who gets beaten up a lot because he’s an asshole. And, we are assured repeatedly, (although we never see it, see above) he has a teeny dick.

Each chapter follows one or the other in their completely absurd, panty and crotch-shot filled shenanigans which include…not really all that much. Fighting, mostly. Including fighting with a “confused” shark. Lots of service, obviously.

Yuri comes in two flavors in Volume 1. The first is the Vice-Captain of the wrestling team, Higuchi, who is (totally incorrectly) labeled a lipstick lesbian when she first appears, and who openly gropes Tamako at every opportunity while they wrestle. (Like a lipstick lesbian would *ever* wrestle. Pfft. Another manga company that is fail when it comes to properly translating something lesbian-related. ALC is still the only company who can identify a lipstick lesbian and tell the difference between one and a Yuri character.)

The second flavor of Yuri is Shiba, a member of the Karate club whose impossibly strong attacks have no effect on Tamako. She finds herself sexually fantasizing about Tamako (which immediately makes her a pervert, by the rules set out in fanboy-land,) and even making lunch for her. Shiba’s thrown off the Karate team for failing and when they ruin the love-love lunch she made, she’s completely unable to cope with Tamako’s kindness towards her. She runs away, “unable to face her first crush.”

This series is by Shozaki Yuji, the creator of Ikkitousen/Battle Vixens – the story here is thinner than Tamako’s panties. This is absolute 100% crap. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the 15 minutes it took me to read it, because it is such *utter* crap that I found it amusing. I think it makes a fitting beginning to “crappy crap” week here at Okazu.

Ratings:

Art – 7 creative, in its own pervtastic way
Story – 1
Characters – 3
Yuri – 6
Service – Infinity

Overall – 5

Don’t have high expectations. Don’t have *any* expectations. Then lower that a little and you’ll probably find Battle Club not so bad. ^_^





Yuri Light Novel: Strawberry Panic!, Volume 1 (English)

March 16th, 2008

…A pure world within the walls that was reserved only for young ladies. A world of classes, sports, friendship and love, as well as mental and emotional bonds and passionate physical aches.

All of it existing only between girls.

Or, as that last line might be reinterpreted by the fandom:

“All of it existing only between ******girls*******!!!!!!!!111111111111one”

LOL

First, many, many thanks to the fabulous folks at Seven Seas for the opportunity to review the first volume of the Strawberry Panic! Light Novel series in advance. I previously reviewed the Japanese edition of this novel, and Volumes 2 and 3, as well and, by the time I was done with them, I was *dying* to get my hands on a copy of the translation. And now that I have, I can say that Seven Seas has not let me down one single bit. This translation was just about perfect. Not a single moment of eye-popping absurdity has been altered.

It was the uniform of the venerable St. Miator Girls’ Academy, which every single girl desperately wanted to attend.

(Was that every single girl in the world – or every *single* girl? I think the interpretation’s up for grabs. lol)

The overall tone of voice – that pretentious, overformal, precious tone, favored by moe fans everywhere, was captured perfectly. My kudos to the translator and adaptor.

Hikari came off as fragile, Amane as admirable, Miyuki as snarky, Shion as raging against the machine, Shizuma as a playgirl, and Nagisa as…Nagisa. Tamao isn’t as pervy as she is in the anime, Chikaru seems to be written by two different people – the one who acts like she’s pulling the strings and the one who thinks she’s barely interested, and Kaname…is nuts.

Kaname drew a red rose seemingly out of nowhere and offered it to Amane.

“Please give up; this is our fate. It’s all right. It only hurts in the beginning….”

And the Etoile competition is, to quote Tamao, a “festering pile of trickery.” She’s right, too. ^_^

I enjoyed every second of this novel, for the amusingly over-the-top tone, the heavy beating with the Yuri stick, and the fact that while I thought it hysterical, I am sure to get many emails and comments on how “beautiful” a story it is. My answer in advance, is to once again quote from the book:

Of course, most of the young ladies used their judgment when they heard those legends. But there were some who really believed them. …And yet those same young ladies grew into fine women.

Ratings:

Art – 6 (I’ve revised this down, because it’s too cute for some of the characters, who are supposed to be seen as sexy, or sensual, or masculine.)
Story – 6 (I’ve revised this up, because I’m no longer weighing this series against anything I take seriously)
Characters – 7 (Ditto)
Yuri – 9
Service – 8

Overall – 7

Translation – 9
Adaptation – 9

Strawberry Panic! is stellar as a comedy. Fans who don’t see that will find it to be stellar as a Yuri novel, because it is indubitably Yuri and therefore must be excellent. ^_^





Burst Angel Anime, Volume 5 (English)

March 9th, 2008

This review was made possible by the generosity of Daniel P., and I offer many thanks in his general direction. :-)

Today’s lesson is how you can take a moderately entertaining action series and ruin it, part 37. We’ve talked previously about things like doing reset endings so everything that happened up to that point is rendered meaningless, and getting sidetracked in long, drawn-out and irrelevant back or side story. Today’s lesson is “establish a primary couple as the focus of the story then ignore it completely.”

The early volumes of Burst Angel establish Jo and Meg as the primary couple and set Meg up as the *reason* Jo fights with such gusto. In Burst Angel Volume 5, Meg just about drops off the face of the series.

So we start off with the second half of Jo’s battle with a samurai in an alternate dimension against a monster, which is coincidentally similar to Django and piloted by a girl who is clearly the same as whatever Jo is. She says that Jo has to come back with her, but, no, that’s not happening. Jo fights, wins, we leave the alternate dimension and move on.

We move on to…a filler episode about a cyborg who used to be a classmate of Kyouhei’s. Very tragic.

Then Akane from Osaka drops in and police cybots go beserk and – can you guess? Jo has to fight them! Only, Akane seems to be victim du jour.

And where is Meg in all this? Jo’s boon companion, her Boston Marriage, her raison d’etre? Sitting in the trailer eating pizza and not much more than that.

Once again, I found my attention slipping off every episode, because the thing that made Jo interesting was her dedication to Meg and her passion in saving her. The Jo of this volume appears to get fired up over any old thing donuts, ants, and uses any old excuse for a fight. So…what was the point of Meg in the first place? We don’t even get a nice reunion after Jo and Meg are together again after Jo’s been missing for a while.

Lots of extras, as usual, interviews, radio dramas, American voice cast BSing while an episode plays in the background, and a two-sided DVD cover, which made me think how creatively they manage the costumes for maximum perviness.

Ratings;

Art – 7
Story – 5
Characters – There’s more than one? Seems like Jo’s the only one in the story now. 5
Yuri – 0
Service – 6

Overall – 5

Today’s lesson – don’t forget the winning formula.





Maria-sama ga Miteru Licensed by Nozomi/Right Stuf

March 6th, 2008

Nozomi and Right Stuf have an adorable announcement “Nozomi, Right Stuff and the Students and Faculty of Lillian Girls’ Academy are pleased to announce the North American debut of Maria Watches Over Us.” On Lillian stationery.

How cute is that? :-)

So – Good heavens, Marimite is licensed for the US!!!!

We’re getting subtitles only, season box sets for VERY reasonable prices. I am about to go pre-order my copies right now.

…A sign of the end times, surely. Hope I get my DVDs before it all comes crashing down. :-)





Yuri Manga: Gunjou

March 6th, 2008

A few months ago, I mentioned that I created a page on the Japanese social networking site Mixi. It’s been a very good exercise so far. For one thing, I have to be semi-coherent in Japanese when I post there, so I’m forced to practice my appalling communication skills. Because I am a shameless American, I’ve been wandering around the Mixi communities, introducing myself and pimping Yuricon & ALC Publishing where it seems to fit.

Well, one day I got a message – always an occasion of entertainment, (I’m not afraid of rare hunters who just want me for my strangeness.) This message, however was a very polite comment from someone named Nakamura who thought that since I seem to like Yuri manga, I might be interested in their new manga series. The post they linked me to starts “A non-moe Yuri manga.” My cute little ears pricked up because, of course, I *long* for non-moe Yuri stories.

Let me side-step a second. The day before I received this message I was trawling the Yuri board at 2chan and saw a picture which interested me greatly. I didn’t read the post, because I was in a rush. But the art really stuck out because it was two adult women, looking decidedly grim and I liked it instantly.

So, when I popped onto Nakamura-san’s page and find myself staring at the same exact picture, I think my heart rate increased a little. Probably got a little color in my sallow cheeks as well. After reading the description of the series, I fearlessly added Morning 2 magazine to my last order from Amazon JP.

Friends, I just want to say this, Gunjou is awesome and Nakamura Ching is da BOMB. Thank you, thank you, Nakamura-san for pointing out your new series to me!

As I reported in my Yuri News report a few weeks ago, Gunjou by Nakamura Ching is the story of a woman who asks the lesbian who is in love with her to kill her husband, and their life on the road after the deed is done.

The woman, whom I will refer to as “BN” for “brunette,” because she as yet has no name, is not a nice person. If I was her husband, I’d probably be abusive too. She’s manipulative, self-absorbed and nasty. Her friend, who is also nameless, so will be referred to as “BL” for “blonde,” is a lesbian who has been in love with BN for some time. She identifies as a lesbian and she’s prone to fits of violence. Needless to say, as I read Gunjou I practically shuddered with ecstasy. A nasty woman and the EPL who loves her. Sounds like my household. LOL

In chapter 4, which is where I picked the story up, they are casually discussing how they would want to kill themselves. BL suggest self-immolation with gasoline – and buys some just in case they want to try it. They return to BN’s childhood home, since her parents are safely dead. She tells BL how much they and her husband trapped her for her entire life. She heads off to have a cigarette and take a walk – we later see her at the public phone. BL finds some ero-magazines and picks one up, only to find that the girl in the story being schtupped looks scarily like BN. They find a game of LIFE and start to play, but in a fit of nasty, BN trash talks BL, then tells BL that she called the police on her. BL beats the bejeebus out of BN, then threatens her life with a broken bottle. BN begs for her life, they drink, they eat some sushi and go outside for a walk. Whereupon BL douses herself in the gasoline. But then worries when BN takes out a cigarette. The chapter ends with them both sitting on the ground outside the car, BN’s hand on BL’s thigh and BL carefully holding BN’s lighter.

Chapter 5 starts with some color pages, and BL with wounds that look like knife marks on her chest. No hospital, she says, in her near dementia. BN has no clue what to do, but she remembers BL talking about an older cousin she used to visit in the area where they went to school, so BN heads there. They park, BL saying she doesn’t want to go to a hospital, and BN saying that she isn’t – they are at her cousin’s place. “I don’t have a cousin,” BL says, just as her (obviously) ex-lover walks up. Woops. LOL

BN is laying on a futon on the floor when BL starts to gag and vomit. The lover comes in and comforts her, and in case we were very stupid, she holds her close, they have a lover’s reunion right there, while BN eats her own liver out. The whole thing is massively awkward. As BL recovers, the lover takes BN out to dinner, blames her for the failure of their (BL x lover’s) relationship, and the current state of things. After gently tipping her dinner over BN’s head, the lover proceeds to try to strangle her to death, saying she won’t give BL back now that she has her again.

BN drops the car keys into the car and starts to walk away, but BL leaves her lover with an apology. As the chapter ends, the two of them walk off arm in arm.

The art is a bit unusual, josei meets action drama – but don’t get me wrong, this is NOT a josei manga. Morning is a guy’s magazine and this is a manga for an adult, male, audience. The characters aren’t attractive, but that’s more because their expressions are often distorted by rage, frustration and bile, than anything else. Every once in a while they soften and you instantly begin to like them.

While I’ve focused on the major drama in the synopsis, there’s actually quite a bit of softer character development going on. And despite the dysfunction and manipulation, the relationship between BN and BL has some moments that are really quite tender. Since Nakamura-san describes this series as a Yuri series, I’m very interested to see how their relationship develops. I don’t see a *happy* end in the future, but I bet it’s interesting. I’ll definitely be following the series as it comes out in Morning – hopefully a tankoubon will be out soon.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 6 for anyone sane, 9 for me
Yuri – 4
Loser FanErica – 10

I cannot *wait* until the next chapter. I might just die from anticipation!