Archive for the Series Category


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.





Yuri Anime: Madlax, Volume 5

March 16th, 2006

Madlax 5 is absolutely, positively worth the wait.

I know that most anime fans have the attention spans of a gnat, so I wanted to say that quickly, before you stopped reading – or if you, perchance, have stopped watching Madlax because you saw Noir and think that it’s the same thing. It is the same thing – but better. Think of Noir as practice.

This volume is entitled “Convergence” and for once, the title actually fits. In this volume all the playing pieces gather together on one board.

Madlax and Vanessa have been framed so that the entire country believes that they have murdered a member of the royal family – which they have not. Rimelda (the official translation is Limelda, but I prefer the R to the L, so I’m sticking with my version, even though it is wrong) has been assigned Madlax as a target, but when she confronts Madlax and Vanessa, they give her the data they stole from Enfant.

This entire volume is the death and rebirth of Rimelda and it utterly, totally, completely rocks.

Rimelda dies as an elite sniper of the Royalist army and is reborn as an insane, obsessed killer. Think about that sentence for a while…eventually you’ll realize that there is, of course, no difference at all. Rimelda hasn’t *quite* gotten there by the end of the volume, but she’s on her way.

Vanessa learns to shoot so she can take care of herself, which ups her cool factor a few notches. When Margaret and Eleanor (another name for which I refuse to use the official version) show up, she’s not unhappy at all to have them join her.

They all *converge* upon Quanzitta’s village, where Naharu (a third name I use my own version of) wonders why she can’t get Madlax out of her head. Carlossea Doon shows up too, but he’s such a non-entity in this series, even if he is one of the main three characters. (I’m being generous here… his name is pronounced Carlossur Dawn. But because I don’t care about him, I’ll use his official spelling. Which the dub actors pronounce “Dune.” argh)

So we’re all together and the three mystical books are gathered. Finally Quanzitta has something to do other than take baths.The plot is pulling together and they are all getting closer, as Laetitia points out. The tension runs high, and the end, while not far away, is not really at all in sight. Something else, I like – when it’s carried off decently. Plotwise, this is the beginning of the end.

But the strength of this volume is in Hisakawa Aya’s portrayal of Rimelda, as she loses her life, her dreams, her status and her mind and replaces them all with an obsession. She falls in love with her idea of Madlax – and that supremely unhealthy love is only strengthened by every encounter with her prey. Rimelda nails their relationship after an aborted hand to hand fight with Madlax – if only Vanessa hadn’t interfered, they could have continued the dance.

I love Rimelda and Madlax together, so I was a little peeved at Vanessa too. And in myYyuri goggles, now that Eleanor is there, she and Vanessa can play family with Margaret, leaving the fightin’ chicks to each other. ^_^

My first thought – and one that resounded over and over as I watched this volume – Rimelda is Chloe, but done *right.* Not just because she has the same voice actress – but because they are the same lost little girl characters who are living a lie. Only where Chloe always seemed like a refugee from a different story in Noir, Rimelda is a crucial part of Gazth-Sonika. In many ways, she is more part of the world than Madlax herself – both as a character and as part of the larger mystical plot.

The song “I’m here,” which plays before every scene in which Madlax gets all bad-ass, becomes, in this volume an actual, active part of the plot. The final use of it in the volume – it is as much part of the story as the action going on around it. If you haven’t read the lyrics, do. It’s absolutely the story talking to the audience. I was left quite breathless by it. Good song, too.

The liner notes are, as always, worth the read. There’s a wacky little note about Rimelda written by Hisakawa Aya, which is very funny as it censures Rimmy about sleeping with Doon, but never even mentions falling in love with Madlax.  And I don’t know why I missed these, but the extras on the DVD include “Conversations with SSS,” which are completely insane dubbed scenes that are totally stupid, go on too long and are really funny. I’ll have to go back and watch the back volumes now. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 7 (good, until it gets wonky)
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Music – 9
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 9

This was *such* a good watch. I was really into it. I’ve heard from alot of people that they couldn’t get into Madlax, or they felt it was just a Noir clone. I love Noir, but of the two, I really have to say that Madlax is the far superior story. As I said in the beginning, this volume is absolutely worth the wait.





Drama CD: Hatsukoi Shimai, Volume 1

March 13th, 2006

Whee! I am so happy to be able to review the first Hatsukoi Shimai Drama CD, Tenshi no Present!

There’s more positives than negatives, so let me get the negatives out of the way quickly. For one thing, it’s too short. I don’t know how long it is, exactly, because there’s no total on the disk, liner notes or product info, and I never bothered totaling up the tracks, but even it had been three hours long, it would have been too short. There wasn’t enough Touko/Akiho and Haruna *still* hasn’t said she loves Chika – at least to her face.

04/14/06 Note – upon relistening to the earlier Koi Shimai Drama CDs, I realize I have been a bit harsh on Haruna. She’s more expressive than I originally gave her credit for, calling Chika her “important person” in the first CD. And, in the second CD when Chika said it would be nice to be Haruna’s sister and be with her always, Haruna replied that she cared for Chika alot, but NOT like a sister – more than that. Chalk it up to my insufficient Japanese comprehension the first time. That having been said…Haruna still does not say she loves Chika directly to her face.)

That about covers the negatives.

Right from the beginning, the language used on this particular CD, like that of the original Koi Shimai CDs, is basic. If I were fluent, this would be a negative. As I am not – and am thrilled to be able to follow much more of the story than usual – this is a definite positive. If you’re learning Japanese and want a fun and Yuri-ful way to practice your listening skills – this is just what you are looking for!

Let’s start with the cast:

Matstusato Chika: Nakahara Mai (Mai from Mai Hime/Mai Otome)
Kanzaki Haruna: Chiba Saeko (Natsuki from Mai Hime/Mai Otome)

Hiiragi Touko: Park Romi (Maki from Air Master)
Kanzaki Akiho: Nonaka Ai (Konoka from Negima!)

Kirika: Satou Rina (Tsutako from Maria-sama ga Miteru)
Miyu: Ohara Sayaka (Alicia from Aria/Layla Hamilton from Kaleido Star/Ezra from Vandread)

Not too shoddy, huh?

Okay, so let me back up two steps. If you recall from my four million times explaining this, the characters all originated as character designs from the covers of Yuri Shimai, Volumes 1,2 and 3. The couples above are listed in order of their appearance. The character designs are by Hibiki Reine, the artist for the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels.

The stories of how Chika met Haruna and Akiho, and how Touko-sensei interfered with them and ultimately ended up with Akiho, are all told in the Koi Shimai Drama CDs, and the first bit will be Volume 1 of the upcoming Hatsukoi Shimai manga.

(I always feel a little breathless discussing this series, because of its fractured history.)

Miyu and Kirika, the third couple have only appeared on the cover of Yuri Shimai 3, and in the little story inside the cover. Until now.

So, here’s the story of this CD:

Haruna and Chika are living in blissful oblivion. We get a whole scene of them enjoying cookies together. Whee! We also get a really nice scene between Akiho and Touko, where they meet at a cafe, ostensibly so Touko can check Akiho’s English homework. Touko spends a little time flirting with the waitress, and getting Akiho jealous – and she is quite surprised when Akiho really *does* want her to check her homework!

Miyu asks Kirika to please, please come to her birthday party. Kirika agrees, but is mortified that she has no present for Miyu. Miyu insists that Kirika coming is all the present she wants.

One day, Chika, on her way to meet Haruna, accidentally runs into another student, who drops the doll she is holding. It’s a glass (probably porcelain?) angel and it smashes as it hits the ground. The student, Kirika, tells Chika to fix it – to put it back the way it was. This is, of course, impossible. So Chika decides to make a beaded kimono as a replacement. Haruna helps her – more bliss. But Kirika rejects that as well – Chika was the one to break the doll, she has to replace it by herself. Kirika insists that Chika find an actual replacement – and do it herself. And as a penalty, she can’t spend time with Haruna until she does.

After Chika says she’ll do it and leaves, Haruna asks Kirika if the angel had been a present. Kirika says yes, for the person she loves. And she asks Haruna if she loves Chika. Haruna says she does, totally.

Miyu finds Chika and asks what’s up. Chika has no clue who she is, but Miyu tells her about the birthday party, and how she and Kirika have been together forever – and she goes off more than a little annoyed at her lover’s behavior.

Chika heads out to the shops, but has no luck – which is not surprising, since Kirika bought it off the TV. As she wanders looking for the angel, Touko roars up on her bike and offers Chika a lift. Touko also says she has an idea where to find the angel.

Haruna comes home, depressed and missing Chika, and wanders into Akiho’s room, where she finds her little sister online. Akiho has hunted down the glass angel and sent Touko off to find Chika and get her to it.

Chika and Haruna go off to locate Kirika to give her the angel, and finds Miyu giving Kirika what for, because she (quite rightfully) feels that Kirika was a jackass about the whole thing. Chika is totally honest and tells her that Touko helped. Kirika accepts the doll – shocked that Chika was able to find it at all. Haruna prompts Kirika to give it to Miyu, who is quite overwhelmed. And to boot, Chika gives her the beaded thing she and Haruna made too.

Epilogue:

Haruna and Chika, are making beaded phone straps for each other. (Haruna, btw, is a total maroon about this, and keeps dropping beads). Little by little, Chika tells us, like beads being added on to the strap, she and Haruna grow closer.

Akiho is on the phone with Touko, who tells her several times how much she likes Akiho. Akiho plays, to my dismay, hard to get, but does ask if they can talk a little more.

And we all live happily ever after.

There is a bonus track, in which the seiyuu all discuss gift failures, which was funny, as was to be expected.

Along with the original voice cast and art by Hibiki Reine, the other thing that migrated whole from the original CDs is the musical theme. It’s so silly a thing, but I was kind of glad when I turned on the new CD to hear the same piano theme in the background.

The cover of the CD is reversible – a new picture of Haruna and Chika, and the cover of Yuri Hime 2 with Chika and Miyu. And a postcard.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

The *best* thing (other than Touko’s sexy voice) was how NOT stick-up-the-butt Haruna is in this new incarnation. I totally approve, even if it has made my fanfic for the series obsolete.  ^_^