Archive for the Series Category


Watashi no Oshi ha Akujyaku Reijou., Volume 2 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。)

July 21st, 2021

Watashi no Oshi ha Akujyaku Reijou., Volume 2 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) gets into the first of my two favorite arcs in the first WataOshi novel – Rae and Claire are recruited to the Academy Knights.  One-on-one magic battles! Whee! I absolutely love this arc and the school festival (for obvious reasons when we get there.)

The tryouts for the Academy Knights are pretty much a forgone conclusion – at least two of the three Princes are a shoo-in, Claire, Misha and Rae are competing for the other positions with, sorry to be cold, but clearly its Thane.

But first Rae finds herself examining her own sexuality for real, out loud, at lunch with Claire, Misha and Lene. And when I say “for the first time,” I mean for the first time in both lives. By her own admission, Rae had fallen in love with women, but also mostly unobtainable women, women who did not return her feelings. Rae can see that her interest in Claire is true to her usual pattern, then. Of course we know that that will change, but at the moment, Rae has no idea.

When the students help with taking out magical monsters, Thane and Claire team up to beat a massive slime, but it doesn’t boost Thane’s confidence. It does bring Relaire into our household, so we have a brand new adorable slime monster of our very own.

Then, at last, we get the beginning of the Academy Knights battles! And…the volume comes to a close. Argh! So much good stuff, but we’re still a few chapters off from Rae and Claire facing off. /pouty face/

The art in this volume has settled in nicely and Aonoshita-sesnei’s art is super on point. We already know we love the story…and this volume has the eye-opening discussion about being a sexual minority that sets a tone for the rest of the series. Rae is openly lesbian, and she will stand at the top of a veritable army of queer characters by the time this story is done.

On a different topic, I bought this book from Melonbooks online, for the single reason that if I did, I got a color insert and a bonus comic. Here’s the insert I chose, tell me if you can guess why I picked it. ^_^

Overall, a very strong volume of a series that I fully expect to have nothing but very strong volumes for the forseeable future.

I believe I did not review the Japanese edition of Volume 1 as (due to the delay of material in the Suez Canal,) my volume arrived almost simultaneously with Volume 1 in English.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 9
Service –  1Very little for this series
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

I cannot wait to see the battle between Rae and Claire – and their cafe at the festival. ^_^





Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, Guest Review by Eric P.

July 14th, 2021

Happy Guest Review Wednesday! Today we welcome back one of our long-time friends and Guest Reviewers, Eric P., who is taking a look at the newest in the Battle Athletes franchise, Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, streaming now on Funimation. Please welcome Eric once again. The stage is yours, my friend!

Set in 5100, 100 years after Akari Kanzaki’s victory at the Cosmo Beauty competition, humanity has extended beyond Earth and even further into space, and a new generation of athletes gather to compete in the Divine Grand Games to be crowned Cosmo Beauty once again. Since winning said crown is not just a mere title but grants them Queen-level authority, each athlete has their own goal in making the universe or at least their home worlds a better place. From Venus is Shelley Wong, a physically disabled athlete with prosthetic limbs who wants to especially prove her capabilities. From Pluto is Paglia Raspighi, an aspiring genius doctor who wants to advance her home world’s medical technology. From Mars is Lydia Gurtland, whose father’s company is a supplier of weaponry that instigated a civil war on the moon. There is Yana Christopher, a Lunarian refugee from said civil war, and who gets suspected of plotting terrorist activities within the competition (drawing some rather on-the-nose parallels to Middle East conflicts). And there is also Kanata Akehoshi from Earth, an unassuming potato farm girl (who could easily be besties with Sasha from Attack on Titan) that enters the competition as a promise from the distant past to another athlete. Said athlete is a quiet, mysterious girl named Eva Gallenstein who does not even remember Kanata, but plays the role of a puppet for an evil behind-the-scenes organization called the Solar System Control Committee.

As one watches Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, it does not feel so quickly certain whether or not it is a direct follow-up to Battle Athletes Victory, or if it just takes inspiration from the original. Aside from the names of past Cosmo Beauty champions, the events of the original anime (such as the Nerilian invasion) are not alluded to in this new story. Almost all the new characters share the same last names as the original characters, which would imply that they are descendants (as well as imply what may have transpired with everyone in the 100-year gap), but it could just as easily be fan service for viewers who have seen the original. Kanata bears such an easy resemblance to Akari but still does not share the same last name. It really is not until the very end of the series that we finally get affirmed clarity that ReSTART! is indeed an in-universe sequel to Victory, with surprise cameos from both a certain person and song I will not directly spoil here.

My personal fan service was seeing what appeared to be Ichino Yanagida, only it turned out to be Tamami Yanagida who just bears an uncanny resemblance, both facially and in attitude. She works in coaching the athletes at University Satellite, something I imagine Ichino would have likely ended up doing if ReSTART! had taken place a mere decade after Victory. Two other characters that are interesting in a specific way are Shelley Wong, descendant of Chinese athlete Ling-Pha, and male police detective Jeff Natdhipytadd, descendant of African athlete Tanya. Ling-Pha and Tanya were both criticized as ignorant caricatures of their respective nations/continents. Granted I could be over-speculating, I could not shake the vibe that Shelley and Jeff were created as a kind of apology to make up for those past insensitivities. Where Ling-Pha was a conniver whose friendship was shaky at best, Shelley is both driven and loyal to a fault. Where Tanya was hyper-animalistic, Jeff’s only “eccentricity” is that he declares himself to be a warrior for justice with a gung-ho attitude—which is actually fine, since he is competent at his job and plays a key role in trying to protect the athletes and the games from outside evil activities he is investigating.

As far as Yuri goes, where Victory was not just overt with it but was even driven by it, ReSTART! comparably just dips its toes. In Episode 5, Kanata gives Shelley a motivational speech about taking pride in our imperfections (in light of Shelley’s physical disability), saying that perfect people can stay still while everyone else who is not perfect are able to keep running. It makes enough of an impact that Shelley responds with “I might be falling for you.” Despite the complications between Yana and Lydia due to their conflicting backgrounds, the two still form an unlikely friendship and even express their mutual affections. In the last episode,Shelley comments on Lydia appearing angry about seeing (a sleepy) Kanata clinging onto Yana, to which a blushing Lydia insists “Yana and I are just…” but does not get to finish her sentence. And in the closing shots we see Shelley cozying up with a girl back home, who may or may not be her girlfriend. What little we get adds to a bare amount compared to the first time around, but with just 12 episodes to work with, the story’s thematic focus seems to be more on friendship and determination anyways.

When all is said and done, Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART! has turned out to be the kind of follow-up that was made to exist but ultimately does not feel necessary to the original, or even all that remarkable for newbie viewers. At the same time it is still there, harmless, adding nothing to the first series but not taking anything away either. It has an intentional old-school feel to it which often happens with reboots/sequels/homages of older titles. The humor is not as over-the-top this time around, although Yana for whatever reason has a literal boxing kangaroo companion in contrast to Kris Christopher’s cow. This companion series to the original classic can still be a pleasant treat that just manages to have its own charm if given the chance, even if just for a one-time viewing.

Ratings:

Art—6.5 (Neither high or low quality, just serviceable, although some galaxy locations/ships get neat little 3D updates)

Story—6 (At 12 episodes, it does not even try reaching the epic heights of the original, but instead settles for something concise and simple that does the job, even if it is still a little uneven—while it deals with themes of politics interfering with sports, it never really goes deep below the simple, superficial plot)

Characters—7 (The characters and their dynamics/motivations are what really help make the story worthwhile, including Eva’s actual goal, and Kanata as a heroine could be seen as an improvement over Akari in some ways)

Service—3 (Most of it happens in the first episode, with convenient body shots of the athletes and an especially non-subtle one of Paglia being introduced on-camera boobs-first. It is like as if it was all dumped there for the purpose of getting them out of the way so viewers can focus on the story and the characters’ journeys for the remaining episodes)

Yuri—2 (Again, there is not much to go on beyond the little indications that would seem obvious enough, albeit mostly to old-school fans)

Overall—6.5 (Just on account of it not being quite as worthwhile as the original, even if I am speaking from nostalgic bias, it gets scored just a notch less)

Erica here: Thank you so much, Eric!  It’s always a pleasure to have you do a review for us and I really appreciated hearing your thoughts on this series, which I’m watching right now.  I look forward to discussing it with you when I’m done. ^_^





The Rose of Versailles, Volume 5

June 25th, 2021

Today we look at what was, until 2015, the final volume of the grand historical epic The Rose of Versailles, by Riyoko Ikeda.

After the death of Lord Oscar François de Jarjayes, one might expect a final volume of tears and recrimination as the republic she died for turns to wholesale slaughter and a new threat of empire…buuuuuut……..no.

The chapters that comprise The Rose of Versailles, Volume 5 were written a decade after the original story ended and involve Oscar and André as the comedic sidekicks to Oscar’s precocious niece Loulou de Laurencie. These 10th anniversary chapters are an epic unto themselves, known as “The Great Detective Loulou.”

Loulou (and her doll, which functions as something between a backpack and hammerspace) turns out to be incredibly perceptive. Significantly, Oscar recognizes this and after the first adventure, in which Loulou cracks a group of jewel thieves, she takes Loulou’s antics very seriously. Loulou’s influence continues to expand to André, then Rosalie and beyond. It’s a good thing, too, because Loulou proceeds to stop a human trafficking ring and an illicit drug ring.

A little side story here… translator Mari Morimoto and I had a days long conversation about exactly what drug it might have been. I think it was cocaine-laced laudanum based on the chronology and supposed effects. (Heroine wasn’t common for another few decades and opium created a lassitude that any reader of Sherlock Holmes will be acquainted with.) But it’s all speculation and we’ll never really know what Madame Heberra was selling. ^_^

Ironically, the was the first volume of the series I worked on. Mari asked to bring me on since we had been discussing the series already and she wanted someone she knew. It was a lot of fun working on these chapters with her too, as there were so many things that were really left way up in the air after those incredibly detailed, historically accurate earlier volumes.

You might ask at this point if this is where we are meant to leave it all. After all that emotion, all those tears, we’re just walking away on a bunch of stories about a child genius? No, actually. Because in 2015-18, for the 45th anniversary of the series, Ikeda-sensei drew another 4 volumes, all of which I have reviewed here, in fact. I will spoil nothing, except to say two things: 1) I had completely, totally forgotten the one thing at the end of the story and OMG, and; 2) Even as I edited these chapters for the final volume for UDON, I found myself tearing up at Rosalie. Hopefully you will, too.

I don’t know when the final volume will be released, but as soon as I know, I’ll be sure to tell you!

I want to thank all of you who have picked up these books and enjoyed them so much. And my heartfelt thanks to Udon, to Erik for trusting me with these, to Mari and Jocelyne for being awesome to work with and Jeannie Lee, for low-key killing it doing the lettering. Honest to god, she did an outstanding job, matching the s/fx to the shape and feel of the original, and you should notice this kind of artistry.

I’m going to leave you with one more anecdote. After I got the chance to work on this series, I was in Japan, at Mandarake in Nakano, as one does and I saw something I had never, ever before seen – three whole issues of Margaret magazine when Rose of Versailles was running! I was gobsmacked. I grabbed them all and gave Mari and Erik one each as thanks, and kept one for myself.  Here is why.

This is the moment when Oscar, having found and lost her true love, throws herself at the Bastille, to join him as soon as possible. So….yea. I have this volume. It lives on a set of shelves I cleared for the entirely of the Rose of Versailles kanzenban, reference materials, mooks, magazines and…this magnificent collection. It’s just so lovely, I can’t get over it.

Not gonna rate this one, just want to bask in the glow. ^_^

Tell me how much you love this set in the comments!

 





I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 3

June 8th, 2021

As I said of the Japanese edition of  I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 3, “We’ve already established that all norms are off the table in this series, so the plot here is a little bit of everything – school drama, romance, socio-political drama, and some other things and then the demons arrive. From this point on the book is spinning plates and juggling balls and then an axe or two on a high-wire.”

And indeed, we are handwaved into an idyll that will be shattered, trod upon, and sliced and diced and none of it – not one word – hit me as hard as the final scene in a throwaway side story. (T_T)

Former daughter of the nobility and school villainess, Claire Francois and her wife, the supernaturally powerful and gifted protagonist of the game Revolution, Rae Taylor, are living a reasonably comfortable life. Given that this life was built in the ruins of a revolution to take down a monarchy, it’s a very sweet life. Their adopted daughters are energetic and precocious. They have jobs. Why would anyone give up all that they have carved out for themselves?

The answer is of course that Claire believes in her upbringing – that, as a (former) noble, she has standards  and serving her country is the core of her beliefs. That her country is, maybe less worthy than she hoped, is a given. Instead of rethinking society into a more equal structure, all the government wants to do is create a new kind of second-class citizen of women and queer folks. That’s only just about 100% likely.

But instead of wrestling with rich men’s refusal to share power, we head off to the Nur Kingdom. At which point, I would like to digress and discuss my personal interpretation of the country names. As I see it, they are as follows: Bauer is kind of Germany; Alpes is Austria; Sousse is Switzerland. That’s kind of straightforward.

Okay let’s do Nur. In Japanese its written as ナー, so more like “Naa”

What country might that be? Hm, I wonder what aggressive militaristic country is threatening to Japan right now. It’s not hard to see that Nur is China, and Rusha (Russia) is “north” of that.

I want to note that Frieda, who affects a fake French accent here is from Melica, or, as I think of it, ‘Merika. Because ‘Xico and Nacada (or something like that) will get a mention next book and there will be reasons. So, while this is my interpretation and not at ALL a criticism of the translation, I think of Frieda as a really annoying American. For reasons.

As I thought of all this, I realized that, in the smallest and most tedious way possible, I’m kind of in Rae’s position. I know what’s coming, but I don’t know how it might turn out, only how it has turned out, when it’s over.  So gosh, how irritating for Rae. ^_^;

In any case, as with Volume 1, Volume 3 is mostly introduction and set up and I will also say that not every question posed here will be answered in V4. Which is why I stare with longing at GL Bunko’s listings waiting for a V5 to be listed.  inori-sensei has also posted all the final chapters of this arc and her story from Claire’s perspective on pixiv fanbox and I hope that will bring up the page count enough for the next volume soon.

Now I will return to reading the manga for my fix. And waiting for V5 in Japanese or V4 in English, neither of which have a date as of yet. In the meantime, we may enjoy the sweet scenes of domestic bliss, holidays and celebrations and what will pass (for now, eff you new government) as their wedding. And that’s still not the queerest part of the book.

I mentioned that the emotional impact here for me was, rather than the childrens’ trials, the final chapter where Claire experiences a Rae who does not love her and how bereft her life becomes. That one got me in the gut.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Service – Kind of, but I’m alright with any and all of it.
Yuri – 10
Queer – 10

Overall – 10

There are STILL questions I have even after Volume 4. In the meantime, I have one question for you – what did you think of Dorothea? I adored her, as you might imagine and need a lot of fanart of her. ^_^ Sadly she’s too cool and competent (and adult /eyeroll/) for most fan artists, who seem to prefer Lily or Philene. Sigh. Poor me.





Sailor Moon Eternal on Netflix

June 6th, 2021

2021 has been an “interesting” year in every meaning of the word, In the middle of so much wonderful and awful news, Netflix announced a Global (excluding Japan) release for Sailor Moon Eternal, Parts 1 & 2. The movie had been delayed in Japan, due to the pandemic, then pushed out in between two lockdown state of emergencies this past spring. Given that this, of all the arcs, is least likely to appeal to any adults not already fans of the series and being the one most likely to need a very young audience, it’s kind of obvious that it was being set up for failure as a theatrical release. Making it two movies didn’t help, as it forced people in Japan to make time *twice* to sit with other people in a small room for an hour in a pandemic. Frankly, the whole thing was so poorly handled, its a wonder we actually got the thing at all.

But we did, in the end, get the thing. And you know what? I think it was pretty darn good! Certainly better than I expected.

Sailor Moon Eternal, Part 1 is a re-introduction of the Inner Senshi without rehashing much of the history from the first three seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal. In rapid succession we meet Usagi, her daughter from the future, Chibi-Usa, and her boyfriend and eventual eternal consort, Mamoru. If you don’t understand their super weird dynamic when you begin the story, it is going to be super weird. This sentence was written for my mother who says she’s going to try to watch it. I’m just saying, that if you walked into this part cold, it would be befuddling.

Both bad and good, we spend almost no time with the Amazon Trio. On the positive side, we don’t get endless rapey chest mirror scenes, but on the bad side, the gender queerness of Hawkseye and Fisheye ends up reinforcing negative tropes. Of all the characters in the entire series, Fisheye is my  #1 vote for why this series desperately needs a full rewrite to bring it up to date with  modern understanding of gender and sexuality. I want a Sailor Moon in which she gets a chance to tell Hawkseye and Tigerseye that she was Assigned Male at Human Transformation.

Thankfully, we also got a brief moment with each of the Senshi in a relatively pure form. Character tells us her dream, powers up, defeats baddie. I love when the spirits of their planet castle come to help them power up, so swoon on that for me. It’s basically the only part of this manga arc I really like.

Voice acting (I watched the sub, as I am wont to) was great, I want to shout out to Watanabe Naomi for absolutely doing a Zirconia that was actually creepy.

Sailor Moon Eternal, Part 2 is begins with the Outer Senshi and again, this was the strongest portion of the movie. It was outstanding to see Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna recognize their vows to be a family and raise Hotaru, their happy home life together, and this scene in particular:


If the whole thing had stopped here, that would have been fine. ^_^ Along with I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 3, this has definitely been the year of the Yuri family. ^_^ When I log into Patreon, the thing that is written in this space is something like, “Why are you creating today?” or “What have you worked on today?” or something like that… Well…this image right here is why I am still writing Okazu. THIS is why I am creating today, So that someone looks at this and says, “That there is my ideal world I want to create.”

I consider the Amazoness Quartet a whole wasted opportunity every time. They deserve better than just being sent back to sleep. Can someone give them a decent comic arc, please? Saturn stepping up as Chibi-Usa’s companion was nice, but the Asteroid Senshi still deserve their own story.

I very much liked seeing the Senshi in their Princess (i.e. dressed-up) forms and the final powerup scene was beautifully done.

Most importantly, I want to give props to the animators for killing the transformation sequences. I could watch just them and the attacks and be happy. And, finally Saturn has an official henshin, yay! For once, the extra time Toei got from the delays went to taking better care with the animation. Kon Chiaki’s direction was on point and the whole package is that, as a theatrical experience, Sailor Moon Eternal was not going to let us down, as earlier seasons of Crystal had.

I’ve been thinking about this specific issue a lot. There’s something to be said for making sure people assigned to the creation of a beloved series give a shit about that series. Viz was doing really well on that score, until this release, when they and Netflix allowed a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault of an industry colleague to be involved with the production. Lynzee Loveridge has written poignant and heartfelt coverage of this and I have to say I really feel her.  Almost 30 years of upskirts and down shirts (Part 2 was especially obnoxious in this regard) and sex pests infesting every aspect of this series – for little girls – sends a clear message that we will never ever be free of the creeps as long as all those “nice” guys let them have power and influence.

Just as impactful for those of us who rely on translations and adaptations – localization companies who put any old translator or actor on a series that is, in the original language, a breakthrough of representation for a marginalized audience,  is going to come off looking like they intentionally insulted that audience. It’s not 1995 and it’s not okay to put a vocally anti-trans person in a role that is trans or trans-adjacent, for instance. It’s not acceptable to put someone who doesn’t *care* about language used by a queer writer to tell a queer story to translate that story. When you pick some guy to direct the world’s most famous series for little girls, he’d better LOVE that series to death, or get him the fuck off the project. Sailor Moon Crystal Season 1 looked like crap. There has yet to be an edition of the manga into English that I think is better than okay. It’s been more than a quarter of a century. This stuff is important.  It’s time for a power up.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – YMMV on every last one of them, but we voted 9
Service – Yes, sadly – 4
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

So, overall, the movies themselves are very well done, men who are sex pests suck and this series needs an overhaul. If I had the time, I would definitely be inclined to rewrite the whole thing. ^_^

No we sit back and wait for for news of the last season. Again.