Archive for the Series Category


Best Student Council Anime, Volume 6 (English)

January 8th, 2008

Best Student Council, aka Gokujou Seitokai, was never a Yuri series. It is, however, a series about love. And much love to Ted, the sponsor or today’s review! (And thanks, too, for Volume 5, which I did not review here, because there really was just nothing relevant to our interests…)

One of the things we’ve talked about on and off, here and on the Yuricon Mailing List, is the obsessive propensity for Fans of both genders to eroticize practically every relationship they see. The commonly held assumption is that this is because Fans tend not to have erotic entanglements of their own, even though that is not true. So why do we insist on seeing couples every where we look? I’ll leave the answer to the philosophers and psychologists among you. I just wanted to note that there really aren’t any couples in this anime. Just in our imagination.

Volume 6, the last of the series, is more about love than any of it’s predecessors. But the love here is the love of family, of friends, and the family you make with your friends – something that I’m sure a lot of GLBT people can relate to.

In Volume 6, we finally hit the wall we always knew was coming – Kanade is required to leave school and become the new Jinguji clan leader. This is apparently paramount to becoming Emperor, so that in order to function as leader, she needs to be locked in a box and “protected” by scads of black suits from ever leaving. Of course, the girls of the Gokujou Seitokai reject this idea. Individually, they leave the school to see Kanade, discover that they all had the same idea, and finally band together. They aren’t trying to rescue her – they just want to see her, they rationalize. Rino is, of course, the most vociferous in her wish to do so. But all the others, drawn by the common love of their leader, are glad to join her in her quest.

Because this is an incredibly silly comedy anime, need I say that their quest is successful? Probably not, but I do want to mention that in order to succeed every single loose end and tertiary character that ever appeared in the anime, reappears to help the Seitokai gain access to the Jinguji enclave. So Rein meets her father at last, and Sayuri’s rival appears randomly to help her fight, etc, etc.

Ultimately, it’s Rino who makes the difference, as her Jinguji power – the ability to transmit her voice and feelings vocally and telepathically – manifests fully. Thus dooming her to life as a member of this ridiculously elite family against her mother’s wishes. Pfft. And of course, because this series is what it is, they all get to bask in Kanade’s wonderfulness again.

The epilogue to the story is well summed up, by someone, Ayu, Rino, Puu-chan, I don’t remember. As Kanade “graduates,” then immediately installs herself as the chairman of the school, and Nanaho becomes the new Seitokaichou, and Rei and Sayuri run in screaming about an emergency, someone comments that it all looks exactly the same as before. Bwah bwah bwaaaah~ It’s meant to be funny, but I bet every viewer was vaguely relieved, because we don’t *want* anything to change. Then it wouldn’t be funny anymore.

This series showed wonderful examples of filial affection, maternal affection, family bonds, best friends to the point of being sisters, rivals who respect one another, sisterly devotion, peers who work together, adult female relationships, and respect and admiration for a beloved leader. And other than Kaori’s thing for Kanade, why do we insist that they are all couples?  Haha at us.

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 7

Two final notes. Despite all the above, I still see Nanaho and Kuon as a couple. Just wanted to say that. Secondly, I forgot to add Kanade to the list of Nabatome Hitomi characters that all hang out in the “fun idea, but actually a bad story” thing from a few days ago – so, Eriko, Nobue, Shizuma, Letti and Kanade,





Yuri News This Week – November 1, 2008

January 1st, 2008

Yuri Events

As you read this, I am at MangaNEXT along with a bunch of the Yuricon staff, Rica Takashima and a host of awesome con guests!

Here is my Panel schedule for MangaNEXT:

Friday – 7PM – Writing for Manga

Saturday – 2PM – Yuri Panel
6PM – 10 Steps to Impressing a Publisher

There’s loads of other great stuff, too. Mari Morimoto will be discussing Gay Manga 101 on Friday, and the Manga Library will be hosting a Book Club discussion of Rica’s works on Sunday. In between there’s tons of stuff for fans of every genre, so I really hope you’ll pop by to say hi and stay for the great panels and people.

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Yuri Manga

Okay, the news is out, at last. Sometime last spring I learned that Tokyopop licensed Yamaji Ebine’s Love My Life, but was asked to not say anything. Well thanks to Amazon’s advance listings, I no longer have to take the rap for being the leak. Hah.

Probably no one cares about this but Amuria in Star Ocean, which had tons of almost-but-not-really-Yuri ends its run in the December issue of Dengeki Daioh.

Nakamura Ching, creator of Gunjou, wrote me to say that she’s getting a lot of overseas requests on how to purchase copies of Morning 2 magazine. Because she’s a really lovely person, she’s gone and created a guide to purchasing back issues from Kodansha’s website. It’s a step-by-step process, with key things translated into English for your benefit! She’s asked me to pass on the information that back issues that contain chapters 1-3 of Gunjou are no longer available, but chapter 4~ are. I seriously think we need to thank her for that effort – it’s completely above and beyond the call of duty, don’t you?

Sean writes in to tell us that Gunsmith Cats Burst is coming to an end in Japan. And the most recent chapter includes a kiss between Misty and Rally. A kiss that is lovingly detailed over *3* pages. It’s a damn good kiss, I have to say. lol Sadly for Misty x Rally fans, it’s a good-bye kiss. But all I have to say is “I knew it!” (That’s sort of a joke, based off my recent GSC fanfic. Just saying. lol)

For Aria and Aqua fans, Amano Kozue has announced a new manga series to begin in March, called Amanchu. The art has two girls, so undoubtedly there will be fans who see it as Yuri. :-)

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Yuri Anime

Once more Crunchyroll offer free, legal streaming Yuri-ish suff. This time Toei announces, among other things, streaming piles of PreCure. :-)

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Other News

I just wanted to take a moment to thank three gentlemen for their kindness and friendship. 828-san, Yuki-san and Komatsu-san. Komatsu-san, particularly, sent me a huge pile of books, all of which I will review here (including the surprisingly Yuri PreCure manga.)

All three have sent me beautful art and/or books and all three offer support to both myself and to Yuri-dom at large. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

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Another Yuri-ful week. How cool is that?





Yuri Anime: Noir, Volume 6

December 19th, 2007

May 5, 2005. That was the date I reviewed the first translated volume of the now-classic Noir. And I’m *still* not done reviewing this series. lol Don’t want to rush things, ya know?

It’s a testament to the genre’s growth in the past two years that it’s taken me so long to get around to Volume 6. (Check out the Noir category on the sidebar for the other reviews.)

My first thought, upon pulling this down from the shelf where it lives was to wonder how it would hold up in my post-Madlax, post-El Cazador de la Bruja brain. It’s a testament to the series that I found it as enchanting, as exhilarating and as entertaining as I remembered it being the first time around. When I have a weekend where I have time to take myself off-line for three days or so, I’m going to marathon them all in a row just to see what a head-to-head comparison leads to. ^_^

In fact, Noir was so good, that I found myself taking notes to remind myself of the things I wanted to mention here. I wrote them down in no particular order and they will be relayed to you with the same randomness as I conceived of them. ^_^

The sound of a shell being ejected from a gun is a sound that fills all three of the “girls with guns on the run” trilogy. It’s almost, in a creepy way, comforting to hear it. Ah, we’re in a Bee Train series about women who kill things. Ahhh…

Volume 6 provides us with as much of an explanation of the internal political situation in Soldats as we’re going to get – and it’s a good place to realize that Altena is pretty much barking mad. One half of Soldats is about the power and money, very Illuminati-esque, and Altena, cracked as she is, wants to destroy the world for its “own good” and return to an 11th century “purity,” using the two maidens who embrace sin. Um, yeah, sounds great, uh gotta go, look at the time… All I’m saying is that Altena, Friday Monday and Rosenberg in a room together would rival Sartre’ for surreal conversation.

The one thing I thought was exhausting was that Chloe was there at the horrible past event that, when both Mirielle and Kirika remember it, pretty much changes nothing, except for their ability to be honest with one another. Please. Mirielle’s house must have been crawling with random people wandering in and out or something. Cats, kids with guns, donkeys, etc,….

I also noticed that Chloe’s eyes are really small and suspicious, like adults typically have, but her worldview is surprisingly naive and childlike. In contrast, Kirika’s eyes are huge, like the typical little girl, but her worldview is very scarred and bitter and adult.

In Volume 6, you can actually pinpoint the moment where everything unravels. Kirika begs Mirielle to kill her now that they know the “truth,” since that was what they had promised. Mirielle fails to do so. Kirika interprets Mirielle’s failure as a form of punishment, forcing her to stay alive and face her crimes. Mirielle inteprets her failure as a weakness of spirit when all it is, really, is that she’s grown to care about Kirika.

From this point, Kirika erroneously decides to embrace her fate as Noir, since she believes that Mirielle has rejected her. Mirielle is grasping at trying to put some meaning on her failure to keep their promise. When she reads Kirika’s farewell letter, she realizes what it means, and it gives her strength to go after Kirika.

Which brings me to the letter. “Daisukina Mirielle” it reads, which the translators translate as “Dear Mirielle.” Which I think is fair, although I really would have preferred, “My dear Mirielle,” as encompassing a slightly more intense, but no less ambiguous, feeling.

As I’ve mentioned here many times, Bee Train has publicly said that if you want to see Yuri in Noir see it. If not, don’t. I know that Yuri fans want commitment from the creators of anime so that we can point to a series and say “See? This is *Yuri*!” which is why Strawberry Panic will always be popular. Noir is not that series. But whether you see Kirika’s letter as an admission of love love, or of friend love, it’s still a nice letter and a great scene.

Interestingly, the liner notes for this volume include a little essay on Yuri in Noir. Overall it gives a fair assessment, considering the Yuri as part of fan parody, the fans playing with this series. The conclusion drawn is, basically – feel free to have a little fun with the characters and if you see Yuri, go ahead and see Yuri. It interests me to note that Bee Train and the director felt like they could “have a little fun” with the characters in El Cazador themselves, and make the Yuri a little less ambiguous while they were at it. ^_^ As if they were heeding their own advice.

The other extra of note was an interview with one of my all-time favorite seiyuu, Hisakawa Aya, as she discusses voicing Chloe and her relationship with the other voice actresses. I clearly have to go back and watch the extras for earlier volumes that I completely missed. Duh.

Ratings:

Art – wildly inconsistent from 4-7
Character – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 1, but I can’t actually think of much

Overall – 8

The other thing I wanted to mention is that joining conspiracies is definitely the way to go. All the Soldats, Enfant and Leviathan folks seemed to have been pretty successful, so there’s obviously some kind of lesson in that. ^_^





Yuri Live-Action: Cutie Honey the Live

December 17th, 2007

It’s not like Cutie Honey the Live is good or anything. In fact, it’s pretty horrid; a veritable blivet of pandering, service and pervtastic-ness. And yet…I love it. Like Ikkitousen and Kannazuki no Miko, I can look past the stuff crammed into it to pander to the somewhat-lower-than-lowest-common-denominator to see something worth watching.

Like all of the versions in the Cutie/Cutey Honey mythos (barring Cutie Honey Seed) in this edition, Kisaragi Honey is the android daughter of the brilliant Professor Kisaragi. Like the original CH manga, Honey is a schoolgirl and her best friend and roommate at the White Rose School (Shirobara Gakuen) is Aki Natsuko. In this incarnation Na-chan is sadly reduced to a cringing dweeb – a far cry from the hyper-competent, muscular, gun-toting public peace officer I loved in Cutey Honey a-GoGo.

After the initial story of Honey’s existence and the death of her father, this Live-Action TV series deviates from the previous incarnations. Hayami Seiji is a homeless doofus who fancies himself a suave guy and crack private investigator. He’s really just an amusingly jerky guy. The kind of role a young Bruce Campbell might have played.

Honey this time is a bit bubble-headed, but likeable. She has no ego or pride, which makes it virtually impossible for the school bully and her henchchicks to make fun of Honey – something that they keep trying to do and at which they fail amusingly every time. I prefer Honey to be a bit more on the ball, but I have to give this actress some real credit – she’s got some actual stunt skills and does not at all suck in the role.

Panther Claw seems to be run by four leaders (who in my head I call Black Claw, Silver Claw, Scarlet Claw and the to be named, but probably Cobalt or Gold Claw.) Black Claw is a super-suave, bilingual metrosexual and Silver Claw is a schizoid personality. They are both good fighters and play a variety of freakish games that utilize society’s most pathetic people, to make money. (And while I wouldn’t swear to it, I believe that the old guy who keeps winning the games is Go Nagai himself.)

Scarlet Claw just showed up a few episodes ago and with her, the first real sign of Yuri. (I knew we’d get some eventually. Along with the panty shots and dress-up and other fetishy stuff, Yuri’s a good bet in CH.) By day, she’s a teacher at a high-end school and she’s clearly seduced several of her female students (and, just as clearly has no time for her male ones.) She also has a really disgusting egg fetish thing which I found quite nasty, but she made up for it by having an aesthetically pleasing costume as Scarlet Claw. :-) (The two guys just wear suits. Boring.) Scarlet Claw is totally an EPL. Thumbs up.

Now, here’s where the story starts to get good. In this incarnation, Honey is not the only AI-system android. Early on, we encounter the world’s most miserable girl, Miki. Where Honey lives happily, going to school, playing with Seiji and his homeless friends and generally being hopelessly cheerful, Miki’s existence is full of misery and grim, with a side of despair. We first encounter her in a girl’s juvenile detention center – and no one likes her there. Poor Miki. Only, she’s not helpless and when the Panther Claw start killing girls mysteriously at juvie, Miki takes matters into her own hands. Where Honey wears a red heart pendant, Miki wears a blue spade and also becomes a “Cutie”-type android…although I blank from calling her Cutie Miki, ’cause she such a miserable soul. ^_^;

Miki transfers to Honey’s school, but rebuffs Honey’s attempts at being friends. Miki learns that Honey is also an android, but manages to keep her own existence as one secret. Miki’s awesome – and kinda hot too. Scarlet Claw has some fun groping her, but of course she and Honey escape the evil clutches, etc, etc. Miki’s actress also has some decent physical skills, but not as much as Honey’s actress.

And that, I thought, was going to be that. Only, I was totally wrong. Yay!

In one episode, the school bully and her henchchicks recruit Miki to destroy Honey’s reputation. Cleverly they come up with a plan to make Miki do bad stuff and blame Honey, so it will sound like Honey’s doing the bad things herself. The first thing they try is to steal money from a sweet, naive rich girl. But she’s so eager to help them that she gladly hands over a lot of money and the bully and her henchchicks freak. “Put that away!” they yell. “Someone’s going to steal that!!” Trust me – it was funny. The rich girl walks off bemused, but concerned for the person she thinks is Kisaragi Honey. Several episodes later, the same rich girl, Yuki, is kidnapped. Because she’s charmingly loopy, she tries to help the kidnapper, eventually meeting the real Honey and engaging her assistance. Together, they save the day – and the life of the kidnapper.

In episode 10 Yuki, once again in the story, eventually confesses to Hayami (well, threatens him, really) that she’s in love with Honey. So, they go on a date. Unfortunately Hayami comes along and you know this isn’t going anywhere, but yay! Yuki’s in love with Honey! And that’s not even the best part. Silver Claw and Black Claw double-team Honey and beat her unconscious. Yuki runs up, demanding to know what they are doing. When they send their Panther Claws mooks after her, Yuki presses the white diamond pendant she wears and – lo and behold! – we’re up to three AI-system androids. Yuki leaps another notch up in yayness. Yuki’s actress is clearly a dancer and has pretty much no “fighting” skills – her moves are very PGSM-style “fighting.”

All of this leads me to believe that we are one Claw and one android short on the series, because it defies logic to think that we have a heart, a spade and a diamond, but won’t be getting a club. And here’s where I *just* had a brilliant thought. ^_^Wouldn’t it be the coolest thing evar if Na-chan was the fourth android? Just thinking out loud, but…cool, huh?

Once again, do *not* be watching this show if panty shots, breasts, maids, nurses and other staples of the fanboy fetish closet bother you. This series is not subtle or classy. But if you can either deal with those things and like me, watch around them or if, heaven forfend, you actually enjoy them, and you like Yuri, Cutie Honey the Live is another notch in Go Nagai’s headboard.

Ratings:

Characters – 7
Story – 5, with moments of 8
Live-Action Adaptation of Manga/Anime – 8
Yuri – 6
Service – 827

Overall – 7

I find the ending sequences rather charming, too. For the most part, we see Honey fighting the masked Panther Claw dudes in a fountain – and she looks like she’s having a blast. The song totally fits her. When Miki arrived, we saw her fighting the PC in the same fountain, looking considerably less cheerful. Again, the song fits her. Now that Yuki has arrived, this week we got *her* fighting the PC, same fountain, and a song for her. It’s kind of cute, actually. Here’s keeping my fingers crossed for Na-chan being the fourth.





Drama CD: Hayate x Blade, Volume 2

December 5th, 2007

By request, today we are discussing the Hayate x Blade Drama CD, Volume 2.

It’s a beautiful, clear day at Tenchi Gakuen. The sky is blue, the clouds are white, and the cheerful sounds of the student body move across the grounds, as they gear up for the excitement of their school festival.

Wait, sorry…that’s some other series. THIS story begins in a secret room somewhere on the school grounds, where a gathering of black-uniformed, glasses-wearing students is under way. Their target – Kurogane Hayate. The crime – getting too close to Akira-sama, possibly touching her butt. The butt part was due to Kirikawa’s unfortunate use of the word “tail” in conjunction with how close Hayate was to Akira.

1) How does one even reach a conclusion like this? Discuss.

THEN the day is beautiful and clear and full of maids. Chairman Hitsugi is unrepentant, even as Shizuku scolds her for making everyone wear maid costumes. She even goes so far as to comment gleefully that it looks like an Akihabara festival. Jun and Hayate admire the figure Ayana cuts in a maid outfit, and Jun supplements that with admiring the figure Yuho cuts in her winter coat.

2) Jun is totally gay. Discuss.

The story that follows is exactly the same as that in Volume 6, of the “A-Team’s” plot to get rid of Hayate for her trespassing upon the personal space of their beloved Akira-sama, of their underhanded trick of kidnapping Miki from Hayate’s beloved Tanpopo Gakuen and their complete underestimation of Hayate, her friends, Miki and Akira.

Hitsugi orders them to fight an 8 against 80 Hoshotori melee with the following handicaps to account for the low rank of the A-Team members: If any of Hayate’s friends lose, the entire team loses. Hayate’s 8 must all use ladles as their weapons. They must defeat all 80 of the A-Team.

3) These are unfair odds. The A-Team never had a chance. Discuss.

And in the end, when Akira *finally* clues in to what’s going on, she arrives in the last seconds, just as the final members of the A-Team collapse and she pulls of her cool long coat to reveal that she had completely forgotten that she was wearing a maid outfit underneath.

4) Akira-sama looks cool, even in a maid costume. Discuss.

For Extra Credit: Agree with me that maid costumes and the assumed submissive servitude implied is really not at *all* sexy, in fact, it’s just kind of pathetic.

Along the way, we meet Jun’s father and find out that he’s a pretty nice guy.

5) Hayate is gay for Ayana. Discuss.

After the festival are two original tracks in which we hear Akira’s piano playing prowess and listen to Jun making most of the dorm help her in wishing Yuho goodnight.

The extras include a spiffy mini-book of character info and a mini-manga full of chaos, and the bonus track sounds like everyone was very punchy. ^_^ The topic was “Your favorite words.” I agree with Akira’s actress, Minagawa Junko, when she said that “Dinner’s Ready” are top of her list. Satsuki Rino, Ayana’s seiyuu, said that “love” is her favorite word and that she wanted to hear it from Yukari. (The VAs were speaking half in character during the bonus track.) Oh, and Hitsugi to Shizuku – “My favorite word is “shinyuu.” Awww

6) What is your favorite word? Discuss.

Ratings:

Art – 8, mmm, color
Story – 8 and kudos for trying to make a ladle vs sword fight make sense with no visuals
Characters – 9
Sound Effects – 9
Yuri – 5
Servic e- 5

Overall – 8

I did a quick survey of everyone in my house – my favorite word right now is “Pudding” and the wife’s is “boulevard.” Just in case you wanted to know.

This concludes today’s discussion. ^_^