Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime: Strawberry Panic

April 11th, 2006

I’ll do my best to make today’s post simple and straightforward, so you have less room for cognitive dissonance, but I have little hope of you all following the logic. So, with a deep breath and a dash of desperation, I bring you the first of the Spring 2006 Yuri Anime Season reviews.

I first encountered Strawberry Panic as a series of short stories published in Dengeki G’s Magazine. (These have now been collected into a single volume, which is NOT the same as the first volume of the manga.)I reviewed these stories as a whole in January 2004. These stories were all short, plotless vignettes. Each one gave the briefest glimpse into a “Yuri coupling” (the phrase used on the original website which is now gone) between two girls who attended one of three schools – the same schools with untransliteratable names as those in the anime.

Because Dengeki G’s is a magazine for fanboys who play dating sims and h-games with characters that all look unpleasantly young (and who, I am sure, call out “oniiii-chaaaan” at every opportunity,) in every short story, we meet a horribly lolified girl who does something exciting like trip and scrape her knee, or fall inexplicably into a pond, or make lunch. In each of these vignettes, the older, admired/desired girl is cool only by comparison with her partner who looks 6 years old. At the end of every vignette, we read a breathless thought of love, or perhaps a scandalous confession of like or, in some case, even a quick peck on the cheek! Shock!

Now here’s the part where you have to work hard to follow me. *Based on the aforementioned stories*, the anime is not that bad.

Don’t get all hairball on me – I am not saying that the anime is not bad or – heaven forfend – good. I am saying, in what I hope is a clear and concise manner that given the utter craptasticness of the stories from which the idea came, the anime is less horrible than I expected.

The anime, while moe (duh) and distinctly derivative of Maria-sama ga Miteru, and school uniform fetishy, and just plain stupid, is still better than I imagined it would be, because for however bad the Strawberry Panic anime is – it is *still better than the original stories.* (And incidentally, better than the manga, as well, in which Nagisa is one of those horrible creatures who refers to herself in third-person.)

Okay. So, I’m the only person on this continent whose expectations for the Strawberry Panic anime weren’t disappointed. But I had an a priori understanding of how dire it was going to be.

Now, let’s get the actual review over with quickly. Strawberry Panic is written for the lowest common denominator, will have as many cliche’s as possible crammed into each episode and the Yuri equals fanservice. This is a classic use of Yuri as a sales tactic. Yuri is the fetish du jour here.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Characters – 4
Story –
Music – 6
Yuri – 8
Service – 8

Overall – 6

Will I watch it, since it’s such crap? Hell, yes! I find crap as amusing as the next person. But the first person who tries to, say compare Strawberry Panic with something decent like Strawberry Shake Sweet, which is Yuri by a woman for women (and men), will be shunned.





Yuri Manga: R.O.D – Read or Die, Volume 1

April 10th, 2006

In an effort to enrage more people with opinions that are not theirs, I *promise* to review some new season anime from tomorrow on. However, today, I thought it might be nice if I got a break and let guest reviewer Sean Gaffney enrage a few people instead. Thanks again to Sean for his opinions which are not yours (or, frequently, mine.) :-)


R.O.D. – Read Or Die, Volume 1

I’ll take ‘Die’ for 500 please, Alex.

The Read Or Die OAVs, when they first came out, were a favorite of mine. Yomiko was scatterbrained and likeable, Nancy was beautiful, appealing, and tragic, Joker was cool yet detached and mysterious, and Wendy fell over a lot. Also, the story worked well and made sense. And Yomiko was a very likeable superhero.

Then there was Read or Die the TV. This introduced a grumpy writer friend of Yomiko’s, Nenene, as well as three other Paper Masters. Yomiko was the missing bit around which the first half of the series revolved. I fell in love with Nenene from the start. The Paper Sisters were all emotional cripples and freaks, but were also
likeable and sympathetic. Joker and Wendy had changed the most, and were essentially the villains of the piece, but even so I didn’t really mind as much. And when Yomiko and Nancy returned, things got even more complex. Yomiko wasn’t as shiny this time around, and she was far more practical and realistic. But she was still, despite it all, a likeable and sympathetic superhero, who in this series played a support role for the Three Sisters who starred.

I haven’t read the novels, so don’t really know what they’re like. If they’re like most anime novels, though, I imagine they’re written first person from Yomiko’s point of view, so I can imagine that, while they draw from the same plotlines as the manga, Yomiko has to be sympathetic purely based on the popularity of the series and the POV.

Then there’s the manga. This first one is basically an adaptation of the first novel, and contains the first meeting of Yomiko and Nenene.

Let’s get the good out of the way first. It’s hard to ruin Nenene, and she’s clearly the highlight of this story. Grumpy yet still energetically teenage, she is easily recognizable to those who know her older self from the TV series. She’s a good likeable audience identification character in amongst all these superheroes and supervillains.

OK, that’s it for the good. Let’s talk Yomiko now. I notice that the artist seems to enjoy drawing faces that are laughing maniacally, sneering insipidly, or just otherwise insane. Which is good, as this Yomiko seems genuinely unbalanced. This is not necessarily a bad idea. The TV series carried its flawed heroines off wonderfully, and I include Yomiko in there. There’s nothing wrong with a tragic/messed up backstory driving you, nor is it wrong to emphasize Yomiko’s book obsession.

But you’ve got to make her REMOTELY likeable! Come on! The Yomiko of the manga (clearly less experienced than the anime versions we know), is a headcase. She reads like a person who is a Bookevangelist, and like Jerry Falwell, it comes out creepy. She’s at her best in this first volume, working well in the conversations with Nenene, and the bit about her not taking her glasses off was one of the few really good pieces of writing in the volume.

I think another big problem is subtleties. The anime were both rather oblique in the way they handled characterization, especially in their plot revelations. The manga is as subtle as a hammer to the head. Plot points are shouted at the top of their lungs. “Did you know I can do this! Because I can! Now watch!”

Any other good news? Yes. This is the best of the four volumes. It’s still readable, if not likeable. There are occasional good bits. The ending is rather sweet.

But man, if you want your Yomiko fix, stick to the TV screen. And I say this as a huge Nenene fan. Yomiko’s a freak here, but not a fun one.

–SG

This is Erica, once again wth a note for Sean, really. I have a few of the ROD novels and for the one I picked up and started to read, the beginning was from the point of view of a completely, hopelessly insane villainess. I loved her instantly. I don’t know if the rest of the novel was from her POV, but we can both keep our fingers crossed. LOL When I complete the Marimite novels, the ROD novels are next up.

Let me also remind you that if you *do* desire to picke up a copy of R.O.D. Volume 1, you can simply click the picture or the link above and you’ll be instantly transported to the Amazon page. This goes for almost all the manga and anime I review here that’s available through Amazon or Amazon JP.

Thank you once again, Sean, for giving me the night off!





Yuri Anime: Mai Otome

April 7th, 2006

moccThere were so many things wrong with Mai Otome (or Mai Zhime if you prefer,) that I had very low expectations of it from the first. And with the cataclysmically badly written reset ending that made the first 24 episodes of Mai Hime meaningless, I expected a train wreck at the end of this series.

I’m pleased to report that my low expectations were surpassed. ^_^

Don’t get me wrong – Mai Otome is not Haibane Renmei…or even Stellvia. It’s a fanservice-filled action romp through several tedious fetishes with a plot thrown in for good measure. But given that, the ending was pretty damn good. The key point, I think, is that unlike Mai Hime, which was very serious in all the moments outside the fanservice-based moments of “humor” (look, heh heh, her tits are big! Heh, look she has no underwear, heh), Mai Otome was actually fairly light hearted, (with copious amounts of fanservice-based “humor,” as well, duh.)

Things the end of Mai Otome *didn’t* have:

– Giant Shizuru x Natsuki lovefest reunion

– Nina getting a clue

– Mashiro comprehending that rebuilding the palace was *still* a bad idea for her subjects – even if it had her happy giant sunflower on it, instead of a giant laser.

– Spontaneous reincarnation of every person who had previously died. (They sort of brought back a few key people, but that was done with an actual tie-in to the plot. And it was nothing like the “our viewers are idiots” mass reincarnation from Mai Hime.) In fact, they so very did NOT bring some people back, that I can only assume that that was the major complaint they had heard on the first series.

Things the ending *did* have:

– The calvary thundering down the hill to the rescue about three dozen times. And as stupid as each one was, I enjoyed it every time. :-)

– A really amusing, if obvious, gag involving Miss Maria.

– Chie and Aoi lovefest reunion

– Haruka getting a moment of actual cool

– All the Otome getting a moment of actual cool

– An epilogue which not only made some sense, but gives the most obnoxious plot complication (Nina and Sergey) a chance to reset in a semi-organic manner.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (On a head-to-head comparison, the art for Mai Otome is SO much better than that for Mai Hime)
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Music – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 8

Overall – 7

Overall, I really think that this ending was as good as we could have hoped for from this series. This summer there are 4 Mai Otome movies slated for release…let’s see if they can manage to not ruin the TV series for us, shall we? ^_^





Yuri Anime: Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl

April 6th, 2006

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? I wanted to end the previous season before I took a look at the new season of yuri anime and I thought that Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl was a good place to start as it was a remarkable ending.

The Kashimashi anime moved in a totally different direction than the manga has taken. I can’t say that it was a bad thing. Without giving away any of what’s going on in the manga (I’ll wait for Volume 3 to come out for that) I can say that the anime had only one seriously weak plot complication, where the manga has that and at least one more and the chance that it may develop into two more.

More importantly, the anime ended. I mean – it *resolved*. Decisions were made, choices were finalized – it ended. For real.

No, really. I mean it.

Hazumu remains a girl and chooses one of the two girls who loves her. It was so…normal.

Think of all the dumb things that could have happened: Hazumu turning back into a boy was the one I was waiting for. But she didn’t. How weird is that?

In fact, then ending was so normal – so much like a thing that might have actually happened in real life (with the one exception of the silly plot complication, if you’ve seen it, you know what I mean) that it kind of just went under the radar. No outcry of “OMG! An anime actually ENDED! With a RESOLUTION!”

Instead there was a huge silence. So – after all these years of watching crappy unresolved restart endings we FINALLY get a real ending and it’s a yuri ending where the girl remains a girl and get the girl and…thud. Nothing.

Go out and watch the damn ending already! ^_^ We can call it Kashimashi Girl Gets Girl.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 7
Story – 7
Music – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Hazumu doesn’t turn back into a boy and still get the girls. ^_^





Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Sweet Blue Flowers Volume 1 (青い花)

March 31st, 2006

Aoi Hana, or Sweet Blue Flowers as it is translated on the cover, by Shimura Takako, is both cute and sweet – and I liked it quite a bit. Which is pretty surprising, as it is both genuinely cute and sweet.

In essence, this manga is the story of four schoolgirls: Fumi, Akira, Yasuko and Kyouko and their various loves and friendships. It is not loli uber-cute or gaggingly sweet, nor is it highly melodramatic. It’s actually more vaguely realistic, with an emphasis on the usual conventions and tropes of schoolgirl yuri – crushes on best friends, sempai, etc. The tone is quiet, the relationships realistic-ish.

Fumi comes back to the town she grew up in, for the first time since grammar school. She meets, without realizing it, her childhood friend Akira – a pleasantly energetic and cheerful girl. When they were much younger, Akira had been Fumi’s protector, keeping her out of harm of bullies and saving her from the unpleasant emotional consequences of common pre-school blunders like bathroom accidents. Fumi is now a tall, attractive young woman, but still shy and retired. Without realizing who each other is, they meet on a train when Akira saves Fumi from a pervert. (Although why Japanese women don’t simply break train pervert’s fingers at the bottom joint, I’ll never really understand…it’d be easy to ID the guy with the broken finger. But I once again digress.) Fumi and Akira are reunited as friends when their mothers get together and the light dawns upon them. This time around, they are going to separate girls’ schools.

Fumi learns that her cousin is getting married, but seems appalled rather than pleased…. We learn later that they were having a physical relationship and Fumi had no idea she was engaged.

Kyouko is Akira’s classmate at school. It’s club time and the two decide to join acting club together. Kyouko has a secret – she is in love with an upperclassman at Fumi’s school. Fumi, unbeknownst to anyone is also developing a massive crush on this upperclassman, Yasuko. Fumi joins the club Yasuko is in – not really caring that it’s theater, just to be near the older girl. When Fumi’s school theater club decides to visit Akira’s school – to take in the wonderful rarified air of this oh-so-glamorous place – Fumi happens to wander down a hall where Kyouko confesses her feelings to Yasuko….and is rejected.

Koyuko runs off, but as Yasuko leaves she sees Fumi crouching down trying to be invisible. Yasuko asks Fumi to go with her outside – and hits on her with subtlelty and charm. Fumi’s a goner. Yasuko asks her out and she agrees.

In the meantime Kyouko’s brother asks for help trying to set up an “aicon” – an arranged group date-thing. Akira wants to go, but her brother screws it up, causing mild emotional damage. Luckily Akira has pretty high hit points, so she survives.

In the meantime, Yasuko takes Fumi out on a date. Their relationship might actually have to win for one of the most real and normal I’ve seen in anime and manga. They do everything in the right order. Hold hands, kiss, etc. Not all at once and not after a gap of a gazillion years. Fumi is completely totally gaga over Yasuko and so far, at least, Yasuko hasn’t been a scuzzball. In fact, she’s been very sweet and romantic, which is good, ’cause Fumi’s fairly fragile. They share their first kiss in the library stacks – I approve. :-)

The *drama* of the latter part of the book is hardly even that. Yasuko asks Fumi if she can walk to school with her, but Fumi has already given that promise to Akira. An awkward meeting between the three makes Fumi feel that she has to tell Yasuko, quite overly-seriously, that she can’t walk with her. Yasuko laughs and wonders when she got involved in a grammar school conversation, but she’s fine with the whole thing. Fumi isn’t *quite* done, yet, and tells Akira about her relationship with Yasuko. Yasuko’s mightly impressed that Fumi came out to Akira, but still thinks the drama was a bit silly.

Akira isn’t upset, but she’s not really sure *what* to think. She asks Kyouko what she’d say, hypothetically speaking, if Akira told her that she was in love with a girl. Kyouko is still smarting from Yasuko’s rejection, but she smiles and responds with the same question. Akira thinks about it and decides she couldn’t care less who her friends are in love with, as long as they are happy.

Kyouko runs into Fumi and asks her if she’s in love with Yasuko. Fumi, blushing and stuttering admits she is. Kyouko tells her that Yasuko’s wonderful – and Akira’s a really nice girl, then wanders off mysteriously.

That night Yasuko calls Fumi. They share the usual sweet nothings, telling each other that they love one another (it was very “aww” inspiring). Before she gets off the phone Yasuko asks about Fumi’s first love. Fumi thinks briefly of the cousin she was playing around with at the beginning of the book, but realizes that her first true love was back in grammar school, when she fell in love with Akira.

To Be Continued, the end of Volume 1 says.

Really, this was just a very pleasant yuri manga. No fanservice, no fetish (except for the schoolgirl thing, but the uniforms are really dull and uninterestng and not at all unreasonably fetishy.) It’s just a nice, semi-realistic tale of first loves and friendship among girls. I imagine it will remain almost completely unknown as a result.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 1

Overall – 8

If you are looking for something that isn’t lowest common denominator Yuri – you’ve found it with Aoi Hana. I’m definitely looking forward to the next volume.