Archive for the Series Category


Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Haru Update

September 21st, 2004

As promised, today is a review of the second season of the Marimite anime. There is only one episode left to air, and yet I have chosen to write an update now. Why? Because many important things have happened in this second season, things that will be overshadowed by the fact that the season is ending this coming week, and I wanted to be able to touch on them (somewhat) objectively.

Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Haru takes place, as the title suggests, in spring. It begins with a flashback to New Year’s Day, and moves, quite slowly through the graduation of the old Rosas, and the coming of a new first-year class.

As I watched this season, there were two things that I felt very strongly. One, at least in terms of the anime, they upped the yuri factor by a few notches. The end credits, the lingering soft-focus shots, the blatant akogare (admiration/desire,) all would have moved this series up to “Yuri classic,” if it hadn’t been there already. This season, arguably, may have put it at the head of the list. Several people have commented on the Yuricon Mailing List that this season was a stark change from the coy way the “Ibara no Mori” arc was moved to the end of the first season. Basically, you get wapped hard with the Yuri stick this time around. ^_^

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for the story, this season reminded me strongly of a scene in one of Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter mysteries, in which Harriet Vane (who is a mystery author) and Lord Peter are discussing the problem with writing crappy best-sellers. There comes a point, they agree, at which you either have to make the characters real, or confine yourself to writing crap and being miserable with it. (I’m paraphrasing here, obviously. )

It is in this season when most of the characters stop being 2-dimensional, and the story itself changes from a romantic comedy to a drama. The novel that takes up the second half of the season, Rainy Blue, is clearly the crux of that switch.

Early in the season, we learn that nearly everything we thought we knew about Satou Sei/Rosa Gigantea, was *completely* wrong. We also learn more about Eriko, which is interesting, but she turns out to be even more of a flake than we thought. ^_^ And during the graduation itself, we get the Rosas’ memories and impressions of each other – which not only serves to understand their relationships better, but in general to make them more real.

This is all followed quickly by an arc where we learn a little bit more about Shimako, then neatly pair her with an unlikely partner, Noriko. Again, on the Yuricon Mailing List, several people were of the opinion that the scenes with Shimako and Noriko were the hottest things they’d ever seen where the next thing the characters did wasn’t to fall into each other’s arms and kiss passionately. (To me, it was reminiscent of the sexual tension in the live-action Peony Pavilion, which I reviewed a few weeks ago.)

We watch Yoshino deal with the consequences of her own wish that Rei become stronger and, for the final several episodes, we are now watching Yumi, finally, grow up. As I watched the end of episode 12, I was remined, not only of my own teen years (which always creeps me out) but of Nietzsche’s overused concept that what doesn’t kill you makes you grow stronger. Sad, but true – “maturity” pretty much only comes through responsibility, experience…and emotional blunt force trauma.

Where the yuri stick is lithe and thin in ~Haru, quickly and repeatedly wapping us across the head and shoulders, the trauma stick is a bludgeon, which comes down on our head with the subtlety of a bus falling from the sky. This is partially because the three stories (one for each second-year student…or didn’t you notice?) of Rainy Blue are parsed into separate arcs, and also partially because the final story had to be rough to force the characters to grow. Sadly, this does the Yoshino and Yumi arcs a disservice, but nothing we can’t handle as good fans. ^_^

The high point of ~Haru was, for me, the introduction of some new characters, without completely cutting the ties to the old characters (in the novels themselves, we see the old Rosas from time to time…something I appreciate in a story. Cameos can be very effective.)

I like the way time has moved on in Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Haru, and I definitely look forward to any new seasons of anime, manga, drama CDs and novels that come out. This series has surpassed my inital reservations and left me hopelessly fangirly. ^_^ By and large, ~Haru has been better than the first season, and I expect that, as the anime or manga moves on into later novels, it will only get better.

Ratings:

Character – 10.
Story – 8
Music – 9 (Ali Project. ’nuff said)
Art – 6. This vacillates *a lot* from good to terrible with some “wtf?” in between. The second season has been very inconsistent.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9. I’m a character-driven fan, and these characters are really great.

I’ll hope fervently that we get more. and in the meantime, there’s always the manga, CDs and Novels! ^_^

Tomorrow – the manga.





Maria-sama ga Miteru Overview

September 20th, 2004

Part 1 

Well, the second season of the anime is drawing to a close, the manga is in the middle of the highly discussed “Ibara no Mori” arc, the new novel and Drama CDs are due out on October first, I’m translating a one-shot story from Cobalt Shueisha and I just finished reading the first novel, so…

…it’s time for a week-long, in-depth review of the hottest new yuri series out there, everyone’s darling, Maria-sama ga Miteru, i.e., The Virgin Mary Watches, or something similar. (I’m personally partial to “The Virgin Mary Watches Over You,” which isn’t correct at all, but feels less creepy. ^_^

(Note: If you are already familiar with Marimite, skip this whole entry and tune back in tomorrow. This one is for newbies.) ^_^

Let’s start from the beginning. This series is family safe, sweet, and perfectly lovely. The quick synopsis is, (for those of you joing us late) a tale of affection and admiration between girls who attend a private Catholic school. That *is* the plot, btw. Nothing happens. Average girl, Fukuzawa Yumi, meets extraordinary girl Ogasawara Sachiko and is drawn into the lives of the members of the Yamayurikai, the school’s student council. There is much romance, much angst, some tears and a fair amount of laughs.

The story started off (and continues to be) serialized in Cobalt Shueisha monthly magazine. The novels are collections of the monthly stories and illustrations. These are not manga – they are novels, by author Konna Oyuki, and they started out as comedy. They became popular with a cult following of doujinshi artists in Japan, who enjoyed pairing up the obvious (and implicit) couples.

In late 2003, Marimite, as it is called among fans, premiered as a 13-episode anime, which told the stories covered in the first several novels.

Just shortly before the anime was premiered, in Fall 2003, the manga began to be serialized in Margaret, a monthly manga magazine for young women. (Margaret also ran the old classic written by Riyoko Ikeda, Oniisama E (Brother, Dear Brother) and Berusaiyu no bara (Rose of Versailles).

In the meantime, the 18th novel was released earlier in the year and the 19th novel is slated to be out on October 1. So the series is still going strong. But whether we will get a third season is still up in the air. We can keep our fingers crossed and hope that we will get more glimpses into the lives of Yumi and the rest of the Yamayurikai. ^_^

Tomorrow, I will post my thoughts on the second season of the anime.





Ribon no Kishi/Princess Knight

September 15th, 2004

Ribon no Kishi or, Princess Knight as it is known in English, is something I have wanted to write about for a very, very long time. I just kept getting distracted by something shiny.

Ribon no Kishi is not a Yuri manga. It is, however, the first instance of a cross-dressing girl-prince ever, in manga and, ultimately, anime. Long before Utena, Lady Oscar and Erminia, the “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka, gave us Safire, the heroine of Ribon no Kishi.

Think Snow White with a sword and an attitude. ^_^

Safire’s character design is a direct nod (a polite way of saying it was ripped off) to Disney’s Snow White. Only Safire isn’t mooning around – she’s been raised to be a Prince for political reasons, and as a result, she takes great pleasure in riding out on her white charger to rescue damsels in distress.

Safire’s true desire is to be herself, but that includes both wearing a froofy dress to a ball and riding out with sword, so she’s not a total bore. She fights off evil Dukes and witches and rescues a handsome Prince, with whom she falls in love and of course, ultimately, lives happily ever after. It’s all too cute and fuzzy for words.

The art is *very* early Disney, the story too, even the cute little critters look right out of a Disney movie. Remember, this man *created* all the conventions of manga you’re used to seeing – big eyes, western faces and talking animal sidekicks – all Osamu Tezuka’s fault. But he was just using Disney conventions. So, the next time someone asks you “Why do anime characters have such big eyes?” the short answer is, “Because Disney drew them that way.”

But, let us not forget the Japanese tradition of Takarazuka, the all-female musical review that regularly has women acting the roles of Princes and Knights and rescuing damsels…Osamu Tezuka was drawing on that as well, for his Safire. She may be tough on the outside, but she’s all girl underneath – just like the otokoyaku of the Takarazuka.

While it is true that Ribon no Kishi has *zero* yuri, except in the briefest and most superficial moments, as rescued damsels are momentarily fluttery and one evil sorceress seems a teeny little possesive, it’s still totally worth taking a look at, just for the sheer history of the thing. And the story, and Safire herself, are so damn *cute.*

Ratings:

Art – 6. Primitive by our standards
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 1
Music (for the anime) – 2. It’s plinky and saccharine.

Overall – 6. Not brilliant Yuri must have, but if you care at *all* about the history of manga, you’ll want to take a look at it.

Now – here’s the hard part. I know for a fact that I’ve seen it in an English translation as Princess Knight. A quick run through most of the big manga sellers shows nothing with that title. I did find this bilingual version for sale online. And the original format has been re-released in Japanese. Not surprisingly, I totally recommend getting it that way. As for the anime, a very long time ago, I found the first three episodes raw, but have never found more.

In any case, it’s worth a look.





Yuri Anime: Azumanga Daioh Vols. 1,2, 3 (English)

September 13th, 2004

It’s always touch and go when an anime series that relies as heavily on puns and humor as Azumanga Daioh does is translated into English. ADV Manga tried to be too clever when they translated the manga, and as a result the first volume really lost some of the funnier bits…but I’ve been told that the problems were rectified in the later volumes.

Nonetheless, it was with some trepidation that I purchased the first volume of the DVD. In general I was pleasantly surprised.

Let me start off with the good – the liner notes. I have never seen such excellent liner notes *ever,* in any release. Not only do they explain the puns (and how they developed the English-language equivalents) they have fun comments from the designers and directors and other Japanese staff. Because a lot of these comments are silly and irrelevant, they fit with the general tone of the anime well. The liner notes also include character sketches, which I personally don’t care for much, but I’m sure some people would be thrilled with. (The killer for me on these was that for Sakaki-san’s character sketches, they completely don’t show her in the uber-cool gakuran she wears at the second Physical Fitness Festival. I mean – if we can’t see that, who *cares*? ^_^)

There wasn’t any “get” until the third volume – a pretty decently made cloisonne’ pin of nekokoneko. I wouldn’t mind a few more pins. (I’m betting the Otousan cat wil be one of them, though…sigh.) The DVDs come with reversible covers, which seems to be the norm now – I quite like that.

Of course, I wasn’t happy with the use of honorifics, or lack thereof, but at least they are consistent and explicable. Essentially, they left “-chan” the way it was, since they couldn’t translate it in any meaningful way, but translated “-san” as “Miss” or “Mr.” and “-sensei” the same way…mostly. It gets a bit uncomfortable when Tomo calls Yukari-sensei “Yukari-chan” and they don’t really translate that….

Again, I remain a purist on honorifics, because there is no English equivalent to the hierarchies implied by their use. PLEASE translators, leave them alone!

Because so much of Osaka’s dialogue is horrible puns, I have to admit they really went out of their way to figure out reasonable English equivalents, which was good, but…I was disappointed that they use the English-language script as the subtitle script. So we don’t get those complex puns as she says them – we get the made-up equivalents. The liner notes cover the puns, so you can learn what Osaka really says…but they could have just translated them directly for the subtitles. Oh well.

Lastly, in terms of number of episodes, this series is wildly inconsistent, running from 6 episodes to 4, depending on the volume. Which isn’t heinous. And getting 5 or 6 eps. on a DVD always makes me feel pretty good about the purchase.

In terms of story: this series still cracks me up every time I watch it. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, all while being pretty mild and goofy. I smile a lot at the characters involuntarily.

Kaorin is *still* hugely and openly gay. Her crush on Sakaki goes well beyond akogare/admiration. You can tell because of the rainbow colored jets and church bells and lily imagery that they shove down your throat whenever she has a Sakaki moment. ^_^ This is a comedy – she’ll graduate never having told Sakaki a thing, but you can be sure that Kaori will be wearing rainbow accessories in her future. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 8
Character – 9
Yuri – 7, since Kaorin is just a side character.
Music – 7
Service – 3
Overall – 8

This is laugh out loud funny and a nice change of pace from angsty Yuri. A definite must-have. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Ikkitousen DVD, Vol. 1 (English)

September 9th, 2004

The most amazing thing about this DVD is that it was a birthday present from my parents. It marks the first time *ever* that I got exactly what I wanted for my birthday – and it only took 39 years. ^_^

Despite the original threat to title this series “Battle Vixens” (and after Tokyopop actually released the manga of said series with this name) the name seem to have survived semi-intact. A step forward for fans everywhere. ^_^ Amazon lists the titles as Ikki Tosen but the DVD itself appears to be spelled correctly, sans space and with “u” – i.e, Ikkitousen

In any case, the packaging is really quite decent. No changes from the Japanese packaging – same reversible cover, Hakufu on one side,  Ryomou on the other. Inserts included a 2-sided mini pencil board, again Hakufu on one side, Ryomou on the other, both artistically naked – *and* a mini-poster of Hakufu and Ryomou. So, honestly, can’t complain there…it was all pretty good get. Four episodes always seems like a bit of a rip-off to me, but given the price and the decent freebies, it’s not *that* bad a deal – I still remember the days when the same price would have netted me two dubbed episodes on a VHS tape, with nothing inside but a market-research card. ^_^

I felt that the translators were a little prudish for this series – after all, its a pretty pervy series and there’s a fair bit of semi-explicit or downright explicit language, cursing, etc. For instance, when we first see Ryomou fight, she shouts, “I’m climaxing!” which is a bit silly. No one says that… And once or twice they miss a really good line by translating it a bit conservatively. I was all ready to trash the use of honorifics again, but by the end of the DVD I realize that basically no one in the beginning really *uses* honorifics much, so they just dropped them altogether for the few uses here and there, which worked fine. It’s sort of a shame, IMHO, because the few uses of honorifics are really quite wonderful, especially Hakufu calling Ryomou, “Mou-chan.” That name alone is worth using the damn honorifics, but…whatever.

Story wise, Ikkitousen remains one of the lamest-ass anime series ever. ^_^ The basic plot is that ancient Chinese fighters from the famous Chinese epic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms have been reborn as Japanese high school students. Go figure. The episodes are filled with such excessive fanservice that only pervs would really enjoy that part. But at the end of every episode, they give you a crumb of a plot, that makes you actually *care* for a second, until the waves of tedious and awkward panty shots wears you down again.

The fights are brutal, but not well choreographed. It’s a lot of “ki” use – so we don’t see much technique, but lots of coughing up blood. Only Ryomou appears to have *any* technique of any kind. (She does what it called “submission fighting,” i.e., she relies on joint locks and choke holds. I’ve done a fair bit of that myself – although in a *completely* different style than hers! No maid outfits. ^_^ I can honestly say that I sympathize with Ryomou quite a bit. Take that as you will.)

There’s no Yuri in the first volume – but I know that we’ll get some later, from the most unlikely character in the series. mind you….

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 2, with flashes of 7
Character – 8. They are the only reason to watch this piece of crap. ^_^
Yuri – 0 here, but later volumes it’ll shoot up to 10
Service – 9
Overall – 5

This is a pervy shounen series with little to no redeeming value, but I like it anyway, mostly for Ryomou and later, Ryofu and Chinkyuu. ^_^