Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime: Mai HiME Update

February 23rd, 2005

I have very little time today, so I will be as brief as possible – Mai HiME is gay, and its good. Go watch it.

Pairs to watch out for:
Yukino’s not-quite-unrequited love for Haruka

Shizuru’s quiet obsession with Natsuki (please, gods, don’t let them be sisters or anything naff like that!)

Mikoto’s desire to protect Mai (does this make Mai her “most important thing”? If so…)

Excellent series – worth watching raw, worth watching any way you can get it. 6 episodes to the end and I’m absolutely hooked.

The manga has significantly less dignity, more nasty-feeling fansevice and the schlub Tate is the protagonist. Everyone I know is rooting for cool, hunky Reito-sama to get Mai. He won’t, but we can always hope. I’m also rooting for Yukino to get some courage and plant a big one on Haruka, while Shizuru takes Natsuki someplace quiet and…

Forget reading reviews – just go watch it! ^_^





Yuri Manga: Aria, Volumes 1,2 and 3 (English)

February 8th, 2005

Today is a first for Okazu. Never before have I reviewed a manga from the translated English version that I haven’t read in the original Japanese at least once. What is this world coming to?

I’d been meaning to get around to Aria for a long time. I’d run into the title a few times on some of the Japanese yuri weblogs I scan, and a few people, notably Mr. Sean Gaffney, had pointed me in its general direction. But until very recently, I simply hadn’t gotten around to it. By the time I did, the first three volumes were translated by ADV Manga (here are links to Volumes 1, 2 and 3 on Amazon), so I just picked it up in English. I know it’s completely snobby-pretentious of me, but I feel like I’m cheating. ^_^

In any case, Aria is, like Yokohama Shopping Log, an “ahhh” story. The little slice-of-life scenes are pretty much all about enjoying the moment. The overall setup of the story works well to help foster this feeling.

The main character of Aria is a gondolier (undine) in training in the town of Neo Venezia. Akari is a sweet girl who appears to enjoy all seasons, and nearly anything life throws at her. She is accompanied for most of her adventures by another trainee, Aika, who in any other series would probably be her rival. Akari’s mentor is an older undine, Alicia, who Aika is crushing on pretty heavily.

In Volume 3, we are introduced to another undine-in-training, a prodigy neophyte named Alice, and she takes up the rival position…for about three seconds, until Akari’s “my pace” personality sucks the will to resist out of her. LOL

In general, the yuri is very low-key, as befits the entire series, with Aika’s schoolgirl crush on Alicia flaring every now and again into a severe case of akogare/desire. And, if we turn the yuri goggles waaaay up, (but keep those rose-colored lenses in place) you can easily see something between Alice and Akari developing. Maybe. One day. ^_^

What really makes Aria work, though, is the sense of whimsy that fills the pages. As Akari takes us on a tour of the canals of Neo Venezia, we see wonderful things and have lovely experiences – moments of magic pop up again and again as we travel along with her. From a fox’s wedding (which was bizarrely appropriate around my house right now, as “we” have acquired a sudden kitsune obsession) to a lone sakura tree illuminated with electricity in a field, every chapter is filled with some moment of life that was totally worth having been there for.

The art is easy on the eyes, the characters are all likeable…which is really creepy. Even the cats don’t bother me. The *only* problem with the book that I can think of is that all the main female characters’ names start with “A” which was moderately confusing, since I started the series with Vol. 3 and it took me sometime to sort everyone out. (Akari, Alice, Aika, Alicia, Akira….I mean really…) To make things a tad more awkward, the character designs are all similar, so Alicia and Akari look kind of alike while Aika is a sort of younger Akira. It all hurt my head, for about ten minutes until they all fell in place.

But I’m really, really stretching. For normal people who are reading these volumes in order, this won’t be a problem. ^_^

The usual rants about translating honorifics…they don’t. “-sama” becomes “Miss” and all the others disappear, which makes me sad. Most of the sound effects are added in near the original Japanese, and some of the asides as well. If it was too hard to cover over, ADV took the easy way out and just put the English close by. Cheaters. Actually, this doesn’t bother me at all, I’m just thinking of the 64,247,897 hours I spent redoing complex backgrounds on Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and I get jealous. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 4
Overall – 8

Nice art, lovely relaxing story, cute chracters, great historical atmosphere and a little light yuri, Aria gets the gold star for English manga this week.

In fact, I liked it so much, I’ll add it to the Yuricon Shop Manga page this week!

And, if you’ve read Aria and want to chat about it (which I would LOVE to do!) don’t forget to join us on the Yuricon Mailing List!





YajiKita Gakuen Dochuuki Anime OVA Part 1 and 2

February 8th, 2005

The way I figure it is, if I can watch or read something ten years after I watched or read it the first time and it doesn’t make me squirm, it’s quality. Based on its renewed popularity, YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki is quality.

Way back in 1989, and again in 1991, Akita Shoten video put out two one-episode OVAs of YajiKita, which featured the top voice actresses of the day as our intrepid pair. Sadly, I don’t think the casting was as great as they did, but, I can’t blame them for their choices.

The two episodes are unrelated, which gives one a good feel for how random the typical YajiKita arcs are. The two eps are filled with random ninjas, lots of fighting, mysterious beautiful women and other chestnuts of the genre. My personal favorite, Kotestsu the shadow, is *far* manlier than he is in manga form. Yukiya was perfect – he looked utterly girly, and made all his hench-gang blush with muted desire, but was actually quite the dashing boy with a male voice. This pleased me no end.

But what about Yaji and Kita, you ask? (You had better ask….)

Yajima Junko’s seiyuu, Yamamoto Yuriko (also the voice of Yuri-licicious Iczer-1,)is, in my completely personal opinion, a little too flightly and goofy. We do see a more serious side of Yaji, but because there’s so little time in the two stand-alone episodes, its not very developed.

Shinokita Reiko, played by Yamada Eiko (Anne in Anne of Green Gables and the righteous Midorikawa Ranko in Ace wo nerae!) is nearly perfect as Kita. The body language for Kita is pretty special too. Watching her stand and sit is like bird-watching – she’s got distinctive body language that communicates her emotions very effectively, and the animation really captures that.

But you guys don’t care about that. You only care about Yuri. I know you. So…is there Yuri?

Duh, this is Kita-san we’re talking about! Of *course* there is!

In the first episode, Yaji and Kita arrive at school and have just about enough time to be fed a pack of lies by the Principal and the Student Council President, when Reiko is served with papers. A love letter, that is. We get to smile at her usual reaction, because the only people watching this obscure video are clearly obsessive fans….

Now, this is pretty mild Yuri, I admit that.

What makes it a tad more amusing and a notch higher on the Yuri goggles scale is this:

The student who gives Kita the love letter is voiced by none other than that Yuri darling, Mitsuishi Kotono in what has *got* to be one of her earliest roles. (A quick survey of her resume on Anime News Network turns up nothing older, but that’s hardly definitive.)

It’s a small thing, but I love that the “6 Degrees of Yuri” hold true for no less than three of the voice actresses in this series – two of them the leads. ^_^

So, no hot steamy sex here, but for a quickie, this OVA neatly encapsulates the silliness of YajiKita perfectly.

And, sadly, no Kita in a tux either, but we do get her to see her casual boyish after-school look! ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – Nostalgia-gasm





Yuri: Manga: YajiKita Gakuen Dochuuki, Vol. 25

February 4th, 2005

It always gives me great pleasure to be able to discuss one of my favorite series, but in this case, not only does YajiKita Gakuen Douchuuki (YajiKita’s School Diary) have Yuri, this time its not just classic…it’s now.

I have reviewed this series before, once on January 13, 2004 and it even made my 2004 Top 10 of Yuri manga, and yet, hardly anyone knows about it, which is a crying shame, since it is truly a wonderful, wacky and Yuri-filled, girl-gang shoujo manga.

YajiKita originally went for 22 volumes, from 1984 to 1992. The plot was, basically, that two second-year high school students – blonde, cool Shinokita Reiko (Kita) and fiery tempered brunette Yajima Junko (Yaji) – move from school to school fighting corruption, Yakuza, bad gangs (as opposed to the good gangs which, yes, do exist in the story) and running into more ninjas and black-suited, sunglass-wearing men than you could ever have imagined.

Both Yaji and Kita have extraordinary hand-to-hand fighting skills, which they actually work on improving. Yaji’s family runs a dojo, so no surprise there, and Kita’s father is a police captain. They nominally work for the head of the eastern area gang association (Kantou Banchou Rengo no Souchou, for those of you who care) an exceptionally pretty rich boy named Yukiya, who looks like – but does not act or talk like – a girl. (One of the things you can absolutely guarantee in YajiKita is that the boys will often be as pretty as the girls.) Yuikya is served by an even prettier ninja boy named Kotetsu, who is always running around saving an even *prettier* ninja named Sagiri, whom I loathe. (Sagiri whines. Alot.)

In the beginning Yaji and Kita can’t stand each other, but after a dozen or so volumes that disappears. Sometime around the time Kita gets shot, Yaji realizes that she quite likes her partner…and Kita begins to act a little more possessive of Yaji, as well, often acting like her boyfriend. (Kita out of school uniform and without her glasses is seriously bishounen. People constantly think she’s a guy at first.)

There are about 877,636,345 other characters who linger in this series, so it would be hopeless to enumerate them all.

However, on to the Yuri. I’ve already pointed out in my earlier review that Kita is a girl magnet. Sometime towards the end of the original series, the mangaka threw caution to the wind and had Kita get a part-time job at a host bar. As “Rei” she danced with many a woman, and looked damn fine in a tux. Yaji even brought Misuzu, a girl that had honest-to-god fallen in love with Kita earlier in the series, just to watch her drool. Poor Misuzu was *dying* as “Rei” danced with the other women…and when one of them, a rich girl named Ruriko, goes so far as to *kiss* Kita, Misuzu is out of her seat and punching Ruriko faster than you can say “Hey! Get your hand off my Reiko!” :-)

Anyway, that was back in Volume 21 or so. About 12 years ago.

Last year YajiKita picked where they had left off 13 years before. With no interruption, no aging – no change at all, the next collected volume came out…as Vol. 23. In which not a single moment of time had passed. It was really charming and wacky. Not a single change had been made – unlike the New Hana no Asuka-gumi whioch had at least updated to include cell phones.

In Vol. 24, Ruriko, having had her desire for “Rei” thwarted for a decade and a half, (metaphorically speaking,) seemed even more determined to possess poor Kita. She concocted a variety of methods by which she tries to maneuver Kita out of her clothes and into a tux. Of course, I approve.

Which brings us to Vol. 25. Yaji and Kita are rushing around looking for a kidnapped (and escaped, yet still missing) Yukiya, and come across Ruriko and Tamehiko (another one of the many resurrected characters) at a pleasant little cottage in the country. Ruriko locks Kita in a room with her and slinks up to her “Rei” asking her to stay. Kita draws back and apologizes, telling Ruriko that she can’t work for her. At which Ruruiko is appalled. “Employee?” she keeps asking. “What are you saying? I want you to be my lover!”

I have to admit – I applaud Ruriko’s frankness.

Kita excuses herself…she’s not interested in women, at which Ruriko trots out the old chestnut that she doesn’t like girls either…she just likes “Rei.” Kita bails, but Ruriko is unfazed. I’m looking forward to the next plan she comes up with – all the others have been so wonderfully stupid. :-) And maybe we might just get Reiko back in that tuxedo!

In the meantime, however, Kita has been noticeably *there* every time Yaji faces unwanted attentions from men. Maybe Kita isn’t interested in women, but she might just be interested in Yaji. :-)

Okay, not. But I like thinking about it. ^_^

Anyway, despite the fact that you actually *do* have to read this series from the beginning to get what’s going on – Volume 25 offers yet *more* women who desire Kita-san, which keeps it in my top ten, even after 20 years.





Yuri:Anime ROD The TV, DVD Volume 4 (English)

January 25th, 2005

What can I say about ROD The TV, Volume 4 other than, “Omigodomigodomigodomigod!!”

Watching *this* volume of *this* anime is as close to having sex as you can get without doing anything even remotely like having sex.

Episode 13 of ROD the TV is quite possibly one of the best episodes of anime *ever.* Certainly right up in the top three for me. This whole volume had me on the edge of my seat, and I already know what’s going to happen – I mean really, how amazing is that? In fact, although I just watched these epsiodes, I kind of want to watch them all over again right now.

In the original TV broadcast, episodes 15 and 16 had serious art degradation, but Geneon announced that this would be corrected in the DVD release – and it was. The art seems a bit over-kill on the shading department now, but it is a big improvement over the original…and damn straight too, because this is THE volume, kids, THE one! Nenene’s big scene was, in the original version scarred by seriously crappy art. Scarred no more, we can sniffle along with Nenene, as she learns just exactly what’s been going on for the last five years. (And boy is this volume creepy as hell, as we realize just how nuts Joker and Wendy are.)

The translation seemed a little inconsistent, as the translators occasionally slip into telling us something like what the characters said, as opposed to what they actually said; but there are also a few spots where this translation was significantly better than the fansubbers’ – especially in Wendy’s exposition of what the real deal is. This mix of science, history, medicine and fantasy is not easy material to be translating. Clearly. And I, for one, applaud the translators for their fine effort.

Best scene ever in any anime ever, for my money, is when Nenene hauls off and belts Joker. I watched it three times, just because it feels so damn good. ^_^

The only downside to Volume 4? The pencil board. This one isn’t just yucky or offensive – it’s downright getting towards illegal. I was NOT happy with this pencil board. If I haven’t made it clear, then let me be plain. Lolicon grosses me out the door. And folks who find it sexy gross me out too. I’m sorry, but…you’re wrong in the head if you think kids are sex material. I include the folks who decided that this pencil board was a good idea. Hey guys – you were wrong. It wasn’t. This was in plain-old bad taste.

Ratings? 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10 ad infinitum ad nauseum