Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Transistor ni Venus, Volume 7

February 16th, 2006

This last volume of Transistor ni Venus is certainly full of kisses for our intrepid heroine Enus, but dammit!, I wanted to have a big Yuri bang for an ending. No go – and Takemoto Izumi knows it, so there’s a luv luv omake to make up for it.  ^_^ But I get ahead of myself.

Enus is contracted to accompany Princess Asatsuyu and her companion Pera – and their guardian Sena, across a snowy country to somewhere. Asatsuyu and Pera are maybe 12 and Sena is most definitely all grown up. All three greet Enus with, “Your reputation precedes you.” Enus is like, “what?”

The girls want very much to experience some of Enus’ goddess power, but Sena menaces Enus anytime she catches them in any even remotely suggestive position. Of course Enus has no interest in the girls, but they are definitely interested in her, and are constantly working out ways to be close to her in intimate situations.

Everytime the girls steal a kiss, Sena pops up and reminds Enus that she knows about the rumors (what rumors are those?, Enus always replies,) and Sena kisses her, as if she’s throwing herself as a sacrifice instead of the the princess.

After baths, and sharing beds, and falling into a snowy crevasse forcing us to huddle together semi-clothed, and after foiling an attempt by the enemy to something by Enus dressing up as a barmaid, she finally gets the girls to their destination, where she learns that they are not who they aid they are. The real Asayuki was masquerading as Pera and vice versa. Ahahahah.

Enus discovers, at last!, the markings on Asayuki’s back that she’s been undressing girls to find since the beginning of the series. I have no idea why, sorry. These are not easy books to translate. But I’m sure its important. :-D

In the end, Enus manages to get Sena back for all the kisses by REALLY kissing her, but good.

Enus’ last mission involves adorable little Miss Yabumusu, who has to go to a desert-type area to find some guy. Enus gets her kisses from Miss Y, but Miss Y ends up wandering off with Winslow, the cat. Enus goes to find the guy and find him she does, surrounded by two attractive women. Ririn finds herself unable to control herself and gives in to Enus’ charms, but Rinirinia finds it all a bit distasteful.

Meanwhile Miss Y finds the capsule we’re all looking for, still with Winslow. She returns, is kissed by Enus (much to her annoyance, because she’s hot and exhausted) and throws Ririn into a tizzy, because now she’s kinda embarrassed by it all. Miss Y leads them all to the capsule where tey are attacked by enemy lizards and Enus gets to be cool and spy-y. They all get to the capsule, find the aliens inside and help them get back to space. Yay us.

Enus and Ririn go to a dinner party – where “Miss Contro” (who had been mentioned by Ririn earlier in the story) approaches them, induces Enus to kiss her. You know – she stands in front of her. Miss C bites Enus on the lip in response. In the meantime, Miss Y snags Ririn and leads her off, leaving our poor overworked Enus alone. Boo hoo. End of story? Enus goes home and snags herself some Mariaana time.

This was not a bang-up ending, as I said, so to soothe us frazzled readers, the artists adds a “Omake Love Love Mariaana” picture, so our last image of Enus is of her and her honey kissing. Yay. :-)

I still would have preferred a big bad bed scene, and pages and pages of Yuri love, but without fail, Transistor ni Venus always makes me smile.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Not the strongest volume in the series, but good, clean, Yuri fun.





Yuri Anime: Stellvia, Volume 6

February 14th, 2006

Let’s jump right into Stellvia, Volume 6, shall we? In this volume, we get one of the best bit of character interaction I’ve ever seen in any anime. All the girls argue. At once. And with a level of snarky bitchiness that I’d actually expect from a group of four women arguing.

For that, and that alone, this volume is worth watching. As I do go on endlessly, the strength of this series is the humanity. The plot is really pretty meh. The aliens are bugs, literally, and they are horrible and violent and we can feel righteous about destroying them in the classic space opera fashion. The time spent with clueless Kouta (and his inability to ASK what is bothering Shima when she spends six hours crying in his presence….I mean really, could he be anymore of an annoying clod?) is just marking time in between the great moments as all the four main female characters crash and burn in their own ways.

Ayaka seems to have gotten herself together, but Yayoi starts to lose it. Akira, who is suffering a completely normal crisis of identity and confidence – and a bout of plain old jealousy – turns out to be quite perceptive. She not only pins Arisu to the wall on running away from being a pilot, but implies that Arisu’s crush on Shima isn’t as secret as she might think. AND she gets the snarky award for telling Yayoi that her subtlety is no beard for her real interest.

Arisu tries to be the good guy and gets stabbed in the back by an entirely self-absorbed and petty Shima, who is so entirely caught up in herself that she can’t even see that she’s being a jerk. I bet none of us have ever been there, huh? ^_^

The girls all make up in the time-honored anime fashion of having a good cry, which I object to, but the fight *was* stellar.

The art wasn’t as bad as usual for some reason. I can’t imagine why. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention.

For the rest of this series, the plot is fairly inconsequential, even tiresome, but the characters reign supreme. This anime, like Patlabor, is about the people. The rest is just window dressing.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 8
Music – 8
Yuri – 5 (mostly from Akira’s bitchy implications, but still there’s shades of Ayaka and Yayoi on their own)
Service – 6 (any spacesuits that have separate colors for the secondary sexual characteristics are *entirely* servicey seriously)

Overall – 7

If you don’t like it, you don’t like. I like it. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Kaleido Star Legend of Phoenix

February 10th, 2006

I mentioned Kaleido Star: Legend of Phoenix (aka Layla Hamilton Monogatari) on my Top Ten Yuri Anime of 2005. And despite the fact that it’s just an OVA for the longer series, it definitely deserved a spot in the top ten.

One of my problems with the TV series for Kaleido Star was that the growth and challenge plot was mostly confined to Sora. And I saw Carlos’ nonverbal tactics as being enraging and abusive. But really, when I stood back from the series, and thought about it again, I was really very wrong. Yes, the male characters are still fairly loathsome for most of the series (of course Sora wins them all over to her ideas, but…).

…I can’t explain it exactly, but it felt like I was watching a show that might be aired on the “Violence Against Women Network”, aka Lifetime. You know – one hour and forty-five minutes of outrageous physical and emotional violence against women, follwed by fifteen minutes of inadequate legal retribution.) But I digress.

But, because of a post on Gin Sweater, I realize that I have been horribly misinterpreting the entire series. I felt enlightened after reading that post. And now I know why Kaleido Star: Legend of Phoenix was the episode I was waiting for. This series is a classic challenge myth; Hercules’ Labors translated to a fanciful acrobatic circus venue.

Yes, Sora has to endure pain and suffering on both emotional and physical levels, but no pain, no gain, as the masochistic say. The thing is – it’s not just Sora who has to change and grow and what I was seeing, but not noticing, is how *much* we see the surrounding characters change and grow into themselves, as well. In fact, this show shares many of the qualities that I enjoy about Stellvia, but I was unable to see it. Now I do.

Legend of Phoenix is an OVA filled entirely with Layla Hamilton having the same revelation. How nice is that? ;-)

Layla and Sora are about to launch different interpretations of the same show “Legend of Phoenix” on opposite coasts. Layla wants to find her Phoenix in a way unique to her, but also to the audience. In a desperate attempt to be reborn, she runs off on a solo bicycle trip to upstate New York. Meanwhile, Sora is also attempting to find her own Phoenix, but when she learns of Layla’s disappearance she, Ken and May run off to New York to find Layla.

Layla’s trip hooked me on a few points. For one thing, as I mentioned in my end-of-year review, her trip takes her to Rt. 17 in New York – a road upon which I had many surreal experiences myself. So it hit the “nostalgia” button solidly for me there. And Layla, for all that she’s trying to find herself, spends her entire time alone obsessing about Sora. Until she, and we, come to realize just how MUCH Sora has been a muse to her, Sora fills her thoughts. And once she accepts that, she is reborn.

Could I have asked for a better OVA than one filled with Layla thinking about Sora and her importance in her life? Nope.

During the end credits, we get to see the two different Phoenixes – really lovely, as all the Kaleido staging consistently is throughout series and OVAs.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Music – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Yuri – 6
Service – 4, some obligatory Fool perviness and, for this series, subtle fanservice

Overall – 8

This was, as I said, the Kaleido Star I’d been waiting for all along. I’ll take a dozen of the same, please!  ^_^





Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime, Volume 3 (Part 1)

February 7th, 2006

It’s that time again! Time for me to sing the praises of the newest issue of Yuri Hime. And in this case there’s not only alot to praise, but some things to smirk and choke at, as well.

Starting, as I am wont to do, with the cover – for the first time in a really, really long time, it depicts Chika and Haruna from the serial Hatsukoi Shimai together. With the Drama CD for that series coming out later this month, and the end of the first part of their story later in the magazine, it was a fitting choice. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get Akiho and Touko for the next cover. I pray that it is so.

The first comic in this issue is the new serial, “Simoun”, which is slated for an anime later this year. The story of Simoun is a “speculative fiction” (what I’ve always called sci-fantasy, but I am, I have been informed, well behind the times in my labeling.) In the world where “Simoun” takes place, everyone is born female, and at their fifteenth birthday chose whether to remain female or become male. We begin the manga with a moody, pouty “Princess” Neviriru confronted by newcomer Aeru. Aeru asks Neviriru why she doesn’t fly, at which a cool, older butchy type scolds Aeru and walks her Princess away. We get some overview of the world, and the reasons that these girls must fight in fantasy mecha aircraft thingies, etc, etc. Ultimately Aeru finds Neviriru, and they fly. Happy, happy.

I was not overwhelmed by this story so far, but at least in part, it’s me. I’ve gone waaaaaayyyy off fantasy and I am never 100% in love with yuri stories where the protagonist may or may not be a woman. In this case, as the manga is running in Yuri Hime, I think we can be at least mostly certain that Aeru will (she hasn’t chosen yet, but she wants to fight and to do so must remain female.) I also found everyone’s clothes distressing, but the color page art is pleasant and watercolor-y. But I will withhold any real judgement until I’ve seen a few chapters, to know where its going and how it gets there.

The second story was a three-page preview for a new series starting in the next issue, “Tokimeki Mononoke Jogakuen”. From these three pages, I really am looking forward to it. It adds an extra measure of silly to the usual girls school story…all the students are non-human. Our heroine, who looks perfectly human, is actually a rain fairy. That’s all we can see from these three pages, but it looks like fun.

Morinaga Milk’s newest entry is once again following Hitomi and Nana. “Chocolate Kiss Kiss” brings us to Valentine’s Day at this particular all-girl school. Nana is surprised to find that all her classmates are unashamedly giving chocolates to female sempai (and girlfriends, unbeknownst to her…). She considers making chocolate for Hitomi, but fails at the hand-made part. In a discusion with Hitomi, Nana learns that , unintentionally, she hurt Hitomi last year by not realizing that the chocolates Hitomi was making were really for her. Nana feels terrible, and makes it up to Hitomi by, Hitomi suggests, giving her something sweeter than chocolate.

I like these two in general – and I’d like to see “next steps” manga for some of the other couples we’ve been shown as well. Nana’s unintentionally causing Hitomi emotional wounds reads as fairly accurate to me (even if Hitomi has to be a bit too patient and understanding.) And of course, the art is both cute and sexy in turn.

“One Room” by Mucchiri Muunii is very much the kind of story I don’t care for. In a nutshell, it’s a story in which one girl’s desire for the other must be forced out of her by a confrontation/forced kiss. This is exactly the same mentality that gives us the kind of yaoi stories in which the uke has to be raped to “understand” his feelings. But don’t let my rant fool you – this story is not nearly that extreme. Seme girl, Tsubaki, invites herself over to uke Umi’s room to stay over because she knows that Umi lives alone. Tsubaki forces a confrontation, but when Umi runs away, prepares to leave – at which Umi asks her to stay and admits she’s right, she does like Tsubaki. Gosh I just love passive-agressive manga…. Anyway, the art is not to my taste, but I’ve seen worse.

At last, we get to seen the final chapter of “First Kiss” by Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki. Ryouko gets an email message from Ayano on the evening that she is to meet her fiancee’s parents. She kisses him goodbye and runs back home, to find Ayano on her doorstep. Ayano screams at Ryouko that she’s loved her all along, and Ryokou screams back, her too. It was actually kind of a funny scene. Anyway, they fall into bed, and assumably live happily ever after. Cut back to school, where Takashima, the student from the first scene (and from the story “Female Wolf” before that)is about to leave the Doctor’s office. Ryouko tells her, in short, that what’s she’s feeling is love – and to go for it. Look for *that* story to continue next volume.

More color pages – this time for the climax of “Hatsukoi Shimai.” Haruna suddenly develops a personality and defends Chika publically against the charge of cheating. Unlike the Koi Shimai Drama CD, in which it was the teacher who accused her, and Chika had to take a make-up exam, in this case its just a jealous Teshigawara whose made the accusation. Teshigawara gets dissed by the other students, and of all people Akiho has to tell her that she understands how she feels. Trust me – Akiho isn’t any happier about it than we are. To celebrate, Chika and Haruna go out to a cafe for souffle’. In a scene also not in the original Drama CD Haruna admits to Chika that in the past, she also had a much admired sempai, but was basically told that, as cute as she was, she could hope for nothing more. It broke her poor little heart, which is why she was so cold to Chika. Whatever. But the completely out-of-character end of the story is the same, as Haruna, in public, leans over and licks souffle’ from Chika’s face, causing the younger woman to explode. This will also continue next issue – and keep your fingers crossed that it’s the much better arc where Touko-sensei arrives.

This takes us roughly half-way, and I’m home sick today with fever, etc., so I think I’ll stop here.

As always, you can get Yuri Hime 3 from Amazon Japan through the Yuricon Shop – and your support is greatly appreciated, believe me! Feel free to come over to the Yuricon Mailing List to chat about the series in Yuri Hime or other fun Yuri anime and manga!





New Hana no Asuka-gumi Manga, Volume 1

February 1st, 2006

Kuraku Asuka is back. And the Zenchuu Ura isn’t happy about it.

Welcome to Shin Hana no Asuka-gumi.

Asuka has returned from America, eighteen years in real time, and about 3 months later manga time. And immediately weird stuff begins to happen. Strange markings are being drawn upon people, things and buildings around Tokyo. The Area Masters, the leaders of the gangs in each section of Tokyo, are hearing strange whisperings about Hibari’s new favorite, and about a possible takeover of power among themselves. And in the middle of all this, Asuka strolls in, with her studied nonchalance, and hyper-mad gang fightin’ skillz, and basically turns everyone on their heads.

There’s lots of girls fighting, and gang leaders waxing philisophic and world-weary, and a lots and lots of…cell phones.

Yes, in the three months and two decades Asuka has been gone, cell phones have taken over the lives of the girls of Tokyo – including the girl gangs. In fact, my clearest memory of Volume 1 is Miko screaming at Asuka because she never remembers to take her cell phone with her. :-)

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I adore the girl gang manga series of the 80’s. And I, along with a multitude of middle-aged women, adore the fact that Asuka is back on the streets of Shinjuku, moving the Area Masters and their gangs around like pieces on a chessboard.

That’s all the good. The bad is that this manga had a rocky start, and took a while to find a magazine to call home (it ended up in Feel Young, the same magazine that carries Yamaji Ebine’s work,) so the first volume is a bit inconsistent, and a little unfocused. The art is actually not quite as tight as the original manga – I’m sure it’s because Takaguchi has all new assistants these days, and after all, she hasn’t drawn Asuka for nearly twenty years. And lastly…and this is the real killer for me…Hibari has gone off uniforms and is into Goth-Loli now. Isn’t that dreadful??? I mean – Kasuga in a uniform was one of the highlights of the original manga!

Anyway – this is one of those manga in which the *main* cast numbers in the dozens, so I won’t even really bother trying to explain who is who and what is what. I will say that the standard tropes of Asuka remain consistant – damsel in distress that Asuka saves only to draw her into a tangled web of internecine gang warfare and politics within the Zenchuu Ura headquarters, and possible threats from the HQ enforcers, and Miko yelling at Asuka, and Hime being *way* too cool and together for a 13-year old. Okay, maybe 14 now.

There is one more thing that is not so good about this volume, but there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Yohko is still dead. In fact, Yohko isn’t even mentioned, which bums me right out the door. But in the current chapters, the plot is a-thickening and I hold out hopes that something yuri-ish this way comes. For now – its a bust.

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 8
Yuri – 1 (but only because of Asuka’s natural animal magnetism)
Loser MiddleAgedFanWomen – 8

Overall – 6, unless you’re one of the LMAFW above then 8, dammit.

Girl gangs fighting in the streets of Tokyo – now that’s the Japan I wanna see!