Archive for the Series Category


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. ^_^





Maria-sama ga Miteru News, Yuricon News

December 2nd, 2007

Many of you will have already read this, but for those of you who have not, Pizza Hut and the makers of Maria-sama ga Miteru have announced a co-promotional campaign. Fans can get Marimite themed pizza boxes with series-related goods, and enter a contest to win other items. For more details, you can read the Anime News Network article here.

Marimite is hardly the first to do a Pizza Hut campaign in Japan – the product was notably placed in Code Geass, but it does seem a really unlikely one at first thought, doesn’t it? It’s difficult to imagine the ladies of Lillian eating Pizza Hut, although not at all hard to imagine their hordes of fanboys doing so. lol

I also note that there will be a Winterket special DJCD which I’ll be darn sure to try and nab for myself while I’m there!

***

This is sort of anti-news, but I want to let everyone know that I’m pulling the RSS newsfeed from the Yuricon website. I haven’t had the time to keep it up to date at all, and I’m more likely to post here. So, as of today, Okazu is the official outlet for Yuri news for Yuricon.

While I’m on the topic of the Yuricon site, I also want to mention that we have a project that we’ve just started to translate chunks of the Yuricon site into Japanese. It’s in the very first stages now, but going forward into 2008, you can look for “Nihingo” links to the Japanese-language versions of the home page and inwards from there. :-)

I promise, an actual review will be forthcoming today as well. :-)





Yuri Manga: Strawberry Marshmallow, Volume 4

November 28th, 2007

Hi Hi! Miu Matsuoka here, the most adorable of all girls in the entire world! Yay!

I’m supposed to thank some guy named Ted for something. Beats me why, and what kind of name is “Ted” anyway? Let’s call him…Greenie, no, wait, Bellboy! Thanks, Bellboy, for whatever it was that I was supposed to thank you for!

I’m here to tell you what Strawberry Marsmallow, Volume 4, is about, and since it’s obviously about *me*, you ought to appreciate my personal appearance.

First, some weirdo pervy saleman harrasses me and the others, and I had to teach him a lesson about being a freak near cute, innocent girls like me. And I managed to score a really nice case of makeup, too.

Then I explored my creative side with some awesome manga that I drew. (Aside from being cute and athletic, I am also incredibly talented as an artist. It’s hard to find such a rare genius as I.) Of course, because I’m way ahead of the curve artistically, no one was mature enough to appreciate my work. Pfft.

Matsuri had a really disturbed dream about me as a dog. I really worry about that girl. And then Chika thought she was getting fat. I helped her work it off with some sage advice about exercise. Nobue ruined it all by pointing out that Chika had gotten taller. Really, she’s a total joykill.

Chika totally needs to be a little more vain, because every time I write on her face, hours go by before she notices. ^_^

Nobue worries me too. Seriously. She’s always hanging out with me and the younger kids and she never seems to go out. I came up with a genius plan to get her to dress all girly and get ready for a date, just in case a guy should ever, one day, want to. Like that will ever happen.

Oh, this was a good one! Matsuri, Ana and Nobue went back to school to get Mats’ recorder. Chika and I tried to scare them, but Nobue totally got us back. It was awesome.

Then there’s some school life stuff. I slept through most of it, so it’s kind of boring.

And then we were all stuck inside and I tried to come up with some excellent amusement for Nobue and myself. Chika didn’t appreciate it. Man, that girl can deliver a beatdown when’s she’s mad.

In between all the great stuff I did, there were these questions and answers that we had to do. I was brilliant as usual. And you know what, Ana’s a super bore. Nobue really needs to look for a domestic beauty, such as myself.

Ratings:

Art – This is *me* we’re talking about! 10, at least. 11, since, me.
Story – Not bad, although there was a little too much Matsuri – 8
Characters – Me – 10, Nobue – 10, Chika – 9, Matsuri – 3, Ana – 2
Yuri – mmmm….I like Nobue, and Chika’s sort of my soulmate, but I swing both ways, so – 4
Service – like that pervy salesman guy? Ewww. – 5

Overall – The bits with me, 8, definitely

I think you should get this book and send me fanmail. But there’s no way I’m giving you my email or anything. Just contact my agent and don’t bother me with your drivel. I’m much too important to deal with the likes of you.