Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime: Azumanga Daioh Vol. 4

October 1st, 2004

The short version: It’s a story about a bunch of loopy girls in school with a few loopy teachers. It’s funny as hell.

If you have heard of Azumanga Daioh but don’t know why Yuri fans should care, read my original review of the Yuri content first.

If you know about Azumanga Daioh and are just considering buying the US released DVDs, you might want to read my initial reviews of Azumanga Daioh Vols. 1,2, 3.

Which brings us, at last, to Volume 4. I picked this up in time to keep me company on the train back from a work-related conference in Washington, DC. It was the perfect anime to watch on the ride home, since it appears to be the funniest volume so far…or so I inferred from my continuing hysterics for well over an hour. In fact, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

To start, this is a 5-episode volume. I think that that should be the standard for a DVD, personally, with 6 from time to time as a bonus. Reversible cover seems to be the standard now – I approve. (Especially when one has gone and bought a box for the set – the reversible covers end up like little mini-posters that have some actual “keep and enjoy” value.)

Story-wise, Vol. 4 has alot to recommend it. It is, for one thing, insanely funny, and full of abundant cuteness provided by Chiyo-chan. On the down side, there’s a lot of Yomi-bashing, for some reason, which bothered me the first time around and isn’t any less irritating this time. I don’t really understand why fate keeps crapping on her, when Tomo is so wretched, but there you go, another mystery of life unsolved. But overall, this has been the best of all the volumes, with, perhaps (depending on who your favorite character is…) the very best yet to come.

The animation remains the same as the first volumes, of course. The DVD includes those amazingly detailed liner notes, but no toy surprise which was a bit of a bummer.

The sound quality kept fading in and out for me, but might have been any number of problems, including the earphones I was using, so I won’t hold that against the DVD itself.

And the translation is, at least, consistent. The honorific “-chan” is left as is, the others are ignored or translated according to some arcane alchemical formula which, assumably, is understood by the translators, (who feel that “Miss Yukari” can be an appropriate translation for “Yukari-chan”, “Yukari”, “Yukari-sensei” and “Sensei.” Do not ask me to explain – I do not know.)

So, I’m looking forward to the next DVD, as always, and have found that embarrassing one’s self by busting a gut in public is totally worth it when you are watching something as truly hysterical and wacky as Azumanga Daioh. ^_^

Ratings: Remain the same as previously. Overall 8, a must-have.

Oh, since *this* is the disk where Kaorin gets the rainbow jets and wedding bells (when she is recruited to do a 3-legged race with Sakaki-san,) maybe we’ll jump the Yuri rating to ‘8’ too. ^_^

Erratum: One of the liner notes in the first disk has a comment by a staffer that, after Chihiro’s first scene (she’s the classmate being helped by Chiyo-chan in the beginning,) she becomes background noise and kind of disappears into the story, never to be seen again, except maybe for one line. I am glad to report that he was wrong. I have been rooting for Chihiro since then, looking to see if she comes back and she does – repeatedly. She and Kaorin made the penguin costume Chiyo-chan wears, and she is also supposed to have been Kaorin’s 3-legged race partner. So, gambare Chihiro! Don’t disappear! ^_^





Stellvia Anime, Foundation 1 (English)

September 28th, 2004

I reviewed Stellvia almost a year ago. Well, now it has been released by Geneon, and so, I thought it deserved another look.

Geneon had a big-ass booth at Otakon this past year, and even sponsored a mini-concert by Angela, the singer for the opening and Ending themes for this anime. I hadn’t watched Stellvia since the very first time I saw it, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the music. It’s a strange OP, sort of yodel-y and it was appealing in an unusual way. When I watched the DVD, I found myself turning the volume way up on the opening credits.

So, Stellvia of the Universe, or Uchyuu no Stellvia, is, as I mentioned in my previous review, a space opera. Katase Shima has always wanted to see space “head on,” so she applies to “Foundation Stellvia,” a space station academy, to learn to become a pilot. The plot hasn’t changed much since my last review, so I’ll focus only on the actual DVD release.

Right off, I decided to purchase the plain DVD in a case version, eschewing the DVD in series box. I cannot imagine that whatever extras you get with the box is worth the $15 more in price. That’s practically a whole ‘nother DVD, for pity’s sake! And pencil boards go for around $3…, so…. You get 4 eps for your $20, which isn’t jump for joy great, but it’s not like I feel like I’m being taken to the cleaners, either.

The no-frills DVD is definitely that. You get nada with it. No liner notes, no anything. Just a notice of future release dates and a market research card. (Dear Geneon, Please license Maria-sama ga Miteru, I have lots of money to spend. Thanks so much. Love, Erica.). The cover of the DVD is the same as the Japanese version – a sort of lurid green with Shima-chan floating uncomfortably alone. The DVD itself is really lovely…the green sky theme repeated as a green DVD with cut-outs where the prismatic DVD is visible, like stars glowing in a green sky. Cle-ver…

The soundtrack was fubared on my DVD and I’m not really sure why. It would only play in monotrack on my TV, but worked fine on my computer. Other DVDs worked fine on the TV, so it had to be the disc. No clue what was going on there…and I didn’t lose much, just a few background noises.

The translation was, for the first episode, stunning. Absolutely fan-tastic. Shima-chan was appropriately translated as Shima-chan, the twice it was used. Honorifics in place, all’s well. And then the episode ended and aliens took over the translation for the next three episodes. Can we say, “wtf”?

Episodes 2-4 were dreadful. Translation was bland & colorless, and the honorifics were disappeared and carted off, never to be seen again – I cried when I realized that they were never coming back. I don’t know WHAT on earth happened to the translation, but clearly they need to find the folks who did the first episode and apologize for offending them and get them back on the job!

One last note – I had originally commented that the characters looked too young for my taste. I guess I had never noticed before, but the art looked about the same level as Digimon. The same faces and bodies on the characters, the same high-end CGI, but low-end character design…all very weird when put together.

I had also forgotten how GOOD the script was. For all my bitchin’, the story is still solid, the voice actors are still decent and Machida Ayaka, the hyper-competent, bitchy (and ultimately psycho lesbian, so you KNOW I like her) in the big 4 is voiced by Toyoguchi Megumi, who also voices Satou Sei in Maria-sama ga Miteru! (For the record, Kuzuhara Yayoi is voiced by Orikasa Fumiko.)

The DVD release is only a 6, but the story still gets an 8, for an overall 7.

This series is definitely worth a rent and, if you’re willing to wait for the payoff, a buy. I know I’ll look forward to the next volume, just because the story is really damn decent.





Maria-sama ga Miteru…JAV

September 25th, 2004

Since I was doing a round-up of all things Marimite this week, and since I’m going to be on the road for the next several days, I thought I’d end this week with a hoot and a holler. Or at least a big, juicy laugh.

One of the things floating around right now is a Japanese Adult Video (JAV) parody of Maria-sama ga Miteru called Maria-sama ga mite iru.

Right off the top, there are two versions of this parody. The “Main Angle” version is pretty straight forward. The scenes are directly taken from the first Marimite novel, with some changes for length, content and the fact that this is a cheeseball porn parody. The dialogue, as always with crappy low budget movies is awkward and slow and poorly paced. The characters are fine though, the main characters even look fit for the part and everything.

The “Multi Angle” version is so abstract that it kind of becomes artsy and girly feeling. Lingering shots of legs, shoulders, arms and feet (the cameraman has *such* a shoe fetish…) that in a lot of ways it was better than the Main Angle, at least for me. The Multi Angle is also out of context – there’s no dialogue scenes between the sex scenes, so in a way it was sort of sexier.

The sex is sex and not particularly interesting, in terms of review – type commentary. What *was* interesting was the way that the characters actually tried to play their characters straight, so the Sachiko character (referred to in conversation as “faux-Sachiko”) was particularly brilliant. She plays the character exactly as if she were a Sachiko who sexually desired Yumi. The faux-Yumi was equally well-chosen, if only for her embarrassed eye-lowering and face-hiding. Cute, yet wildly irritating after an hour. ^_^

Was it worth watching? Yeah, if you like that kind of thing. I was more interested in the parody aspect than the sex, but that was nice too.  Wait, let me be clear here…there were in fact four “sex” scenes. The first was a sloppy kiss fest which was kinda gross, unless you really like saliva. The second was a fantasy scene that was, IMHO, very hot. “Yuki’s” actress was clearly hired for her ability to fake an orgasm…. The third sex scene was sexy, but it looked really uncomfortable for the actresses, as they were on classroom chairs. And the last was, IMHO, too long and neither of them looked into it or convincing. (But I have heard differing opinions on all of these, so take it as my personal opinion and with the proverbial grain of salt.)

Ratings: You’ve *got* be kidding! ^_^





Maria-sama ga Miteru First Novel Notes (マリア様がみてる)

September 23rd, 2004

This is an exceptionally long entry and contains many spoilers for the first novel/anime arc/manga volume, so if you have not yet read/watched/seen the first part of the anime Maria-sama ga Miteru, you may not want to read this entry.

This entry *assumes* that you are familar with what occcured in the first Marimite story and that you want to know “what you missed.” Consider yourself warned.  ^_^

Recently, I have been spending my free time reading the first Marimite novel in Japanese, because I’m not fond of getting information second-hand, so I decided to go to the source and see what I missed. ^_^  It took me approximately a month to get through the thing. My main goal was to see how *much,* if anything, was removed or changed for the anime or manga.

My short opinion is – we didn’t miss *that* much.

I can *totally* understand how fans of the novels would find the anime rushed and lacking…that’s the nature of the beast. In the visual media the assumption is that you can show the audience something and not have to describe it. As I write this, I have finally figured out the fallacy to this argument:

The problem is, in a visual media, you can show us the school buildings, the statue, etc, etc, but you can’t call our attention to anything without making it an issue. So, if you want us to *notice* something, you have to use a camera angle, or focus, or something to MAKE us see it and even then, we might not notice it, really, because we’re busy looking at something else.

In a book, to draw our attention to something, you simply have to mention it. If a thing is never mentioned, we don’t know about it. Anytime you point out the gingko nuts, they are recalled to our mind. By the 15th time we’ve mentioned the gingko nuts, I can guess that they have a part to play here… ^_^

But more than anything, when you have established a particular pattern of description, thought, behaviors, etc, for characters, it does get annoying to have them portrayed out of context to a certain extent, by removing some of those factors.

As I enjoy books first, and all other types of media a distant second, I can really sympathize with fans of the novels, who would naturally feel that the anime was tepid in comparison. However, I am fortunate enough to enjoy the added layers each time I encounter the story, because I saw the anime first, then read the manga, then listened to the CD Drama and only read the novel last.

So, what was lost in the transition to anime and manga? Primarily description. Of the school, its buildings, the actions and reactions of the people. And thoughts. Less so in the manga than the anime, of course. Almost all of the thoughts that are cut out of the anime are left in the manga. Almost all. (Some scenes were moved around for the anime too, which peeved fans enormously.)

Last, but in this case, not at all least, what you lose from the anime is the *degree* to which everything happens. The emotions run much higher – the tension in each seen is greater and the reactions by the other, non-Yamayurikai, students is MUCH greater than we saw in the anime.

For instance, using the anime as the rule, we can see that Yumi is “normal girl” and we learn she admires Sachiko from afar. In the novel we learn that Yumi is really NOT normal – that she sees herself as unreasonably unexceptional, that she has significantly lower self-esteem than the anime makes clear…and that her admiration for Sachiko is really, REALLY, **REALLY** a lot. Not just a little – she’s a HHUUUUUUGGGE fan of Sachiko’s. Think stuttering, incoherent, fangirl.

More importantly, the thing we never see in the anime (or really in the manga) is just how alienated Sachiko’s attentions make Yumi feel.

Because Yumi isn’t Sachiko’s only fan in the student body.

And the other girls cannot, for the life of them, figure out how Yumi got so lucky. So, not surprisingly, they become jealous and resentful. They talk behind her back, they whisper about her as she walks the halls, they come to her classroom looking for her and point at her.

When Yumi sits in the music room and Sachiko finds her and plays a duet on the piano with her…Yumi has been there for *hours,* waiting for every last person at the school, including all the club members, to leave, so she doesn’t have to be the subject of more stares and whispers and maybe not-so-friendly questions. (Which explains why Yumi breaks down in tears when her friends are so persistent with their questions; and why Yumi wishes Sachiko had left her alone to admire her from afar, rather than drawing her into the limelight.)

One last note on this…when Yumi comes to dance practice for the first time and Sei pushes her forward and no one moves to dance with her- what is cut out there is that all the girls hear her name and freak out at her, because *she’s* the girl that the rumors were talking about. All the girls in the dance club have been practicing for months for this performance – they’ve never gotten to dance with Rosa Gigantea, but this newcomer does. ….And then, to make it worse, she’s paired up with Rose Foetida en bouton. Not surprisingly, the dance club members stare at her the entire time – and not in a nice way.

On the yuri side of things, we really don’t lose much, IMHO. When Sachiko slams into Yumi as she leaves the meeting room in the Rose Mansion, Yumi notices Sachiko’s body under the uniform…and immediately comments to herself that Sachiko’s chest is larger than her own.

Later, when Eriko asks Yumi is she likes the low neckline on Sachiko’s Cinderella costume, Sachiko comments that if Yumi likes it, then it’s fine, which makes Yumi really happy, until *she* has to try on the dress. (Yumi actually thinks, sure, we’re both girls, but I can appreciate a nice decolletage too, can’t I? OK, she doesn’t *quite* say it that way, but that’s the idea.) When Yumi realizes that Foetida is about to strip her down, she puts on the dress under her own power and is immediately dismayed by the gap between her body and the neckline. Sachiko snidely (and with great, if understated, relish) comments that Yumi thinks a little differently now that she has to wear it herself, huh? (All of this is actually captured in a small, one-shot manga story that comes with the Marimite “premium” fanbook, called “Before the Play.”)

Lastly, because the roles for the parts were not fixed until the day of the play, the costumers had to leave Yumi’s costume roomy enough for Sachiko to wear it if she had to. So Yumi has basically the same problem – too much space in the chest. Sachiko lends her a “gorgeous silk” bra and the costumers stuff it, so Yumi can wear the dress. (We get Sachiko’s exact bra size, btw…I have NO idea why.) There is a very funny moment while Yumi experiences mortification of several kinds as she contemplates wearing Sachiko’s bra.

Oh, and one last bra comment – at the veeerrrry end of the story, as Yumi watches the dancing from the grassy knoll, she thinks to herself that once she visit the Rose Mansion and returns the bra, all of this will be over. That was definitely *not* in the anime. ^_^

The final scene of the book is pretty much as you saw in the anime/manga…with one exception. I have to share this with you, because it was so wonderful.

Yumi has accepted Sachiko’s rosary at last and they stand in front of Maria-sama, listening to the music coming from the area of the bonfire. (We’ve had a variety of songs and instruments already for the entire scene, including a brass band and a medley of songs from “Oklahoma.”) The music switches into “Maria-sama no Kokoro,” the ubiquitous theme of the entire story. Sachiko listens to it and notes that it is in 8/6 time…a waltz! She takes Yumi’s hands and they dance together, watched only by Maria-sama and the moon…all very romantic. But…!

The song is being played on an accordion, harmonica and pianica (a reed instrument you blow into that has piano keys – Shimako plays one in the second season.) I had to laugh, because there probably aren’t three less sexy, less romantic instruments on the planet. ^_^

But seriously–waltzing to accordion, harmonica and pianica. How womantic.

And there you have it. My thoughts on the differences in the novel and the anime. I hope to read the second novel soon, so I can compare that, and the second anime arc, Kibara Kakumei: Yellow Rose Revolution.





Maria-sama ga Miteru Yuri Manga Update – Ibara no Mori

September 22nd, 2004

The first two volumes of the Marimite manga have been collected and released in Japanese. Each one is a complete story, the first and second novels in manga form.

Because the manga moves more slowly than the anime, there is more detail that we saw with the anime. In particular, internal monologues and thoughts were restored, and several scenes that were switched around in the anime (mostly because the third novel’s arc was moved to late in the season) have been put back in their rightful place. (For the record, the Drama CDs seem to have a smidgen more detail…and, obviously, the novels would contain the full story, something I’ll cover next entry.)

The character designs are not the same as the anime, but the characters don’t differ wildly from their animated counterparts. Of them, Sei looks the most unlike her anime avatar, and personally I’m inclined to think the anime version is better. But they are all recognizably themselves. The tankubon also have silly incidental art, like dress-up pictures of the various cracters, (Sei as a cowboy, Eriko as a waitress, etc,) that make the manga volumes a fun purchase.

Right now, Margaret magazine has just completed the first half of the Ibara no Mori: Forest of Thorns arc, in which a novel of the same name causes rumors to fly around Lillian Academy, that Sei, Rosa Gigantea, may have been the author. Yumi ultimately learns *why* the rumors exist at all, how accurate they were, who the real author is, and her little secret, all culminating on Christmas Eve.

When Yumi comes across the Yamayurikai, she learns that they are preparing a Christmas party. Notable in this scene is Youko, happily decorating a Christmas tree inappropriately with tanabata wishes, wearing a crown on her head. It’s utterably adorable. ^_^

In the final scene of this first half of the story, we get something completely left out of the anime. Sachiko gives Yumi one of her embroidered silk handkerchiefs as a Christmas present (you all remember that in Japan presents are usually exchanged between lovers, right?) Yumi is miserable, because she has nothing for Sachiko. Sachiko sees that Yumi looks like she’s about to cry, and makes her soeur a deal. In exchange, Sachiko will take one of Yumi’s hair ribbons for her present. She unties Yumi’s hair, takes the ribbon and ties it into her own hair, and they walk away hand in hand. It’s all very touching and romantic.

Things are different from the anime in the manga. The mood is more solemn, the pace slower, the emotions run higher. When Sei confesses to Yoshino and Yumi that the rumors aren’t that far from the truth, there’s more of sense of intensity in the scene…Yumi even comments that Sei is burning for her past love. Sei herself is more remote-seeming than the anime Sei…but that may be me having 20/20 hindsight. ^_^

The next half of the Ibara no Mori manga begins in October, and of course, I can’t wait. I’m *dying* to see how they portray Shiori (one of the things that was noticeable about her anime image was that she wasn’t *really* attractive – I liked that, and I wonder if it is intentional, part of the character description, or just a whim)…and the interaction between Sei and Youko, when they were en bouton. And I wait with bated breath to see what the manga image of the former Rosa Gigantea is. ^_^

The manga definitely has more of the “the pleats on our skirts shouldn’t be out of order, we should walk slowly” feel than the anime did. If I had read the novels first, I think that I too, would have been driven crazy by the rushed anime, and only marginally mollified by the manga. But, fortuitously, I’ve done it the other way around, so I can enjoy the story all over again, each time I encounter it, with more detail.

I won’t rate the Ibara no Mori manga yet, until I see the conclusion (an 80-page spectacular, or so they say) and I’ll report back on the tankubon and Drama CD, which go on sale in October as well! Banner month for Sei fans, huh? ^_^

Next up – notes on the first novel.