Archive for the Series Category


Four Quick Anime Yuri Updates

February 1st, 2004

Mezzo:
I’ve been seeing some noise on the Japanese Yuri sites about this anime that follows the OVA Mezzo Forte. At episode 4 I can’t say I’ve seen it, but there’s still the possibility of Yuri. Mikura is certainly admired strongly by Asami, the girl she rescues in the first episode, but I think any real anything will come from the rival she hasn’t yet met and will next episode. Cute girls with guns. Possible Yuri. Keep your eyes peeled.

 

 

Tokyo Underground:
I can only assume that the Yuri mentioned in this series exists in the manga, ’cause it sure ain’t in the anime. The second episode for this series was the single most predictable thing I’ve ever watched, ever. Chelsea Rorec is cool…but if she’s in love with Ruri-sama, then she hides it well. It reads more like a “devoted servant to her master” kind of relationship than anything else.

 

 

Kaleido Star
What a challenge, watching a raw episode of anime…with no sound. But I just did it. Very intruiging…what were they talking about? Who can tell!

I was watching the most recent episode of this series because its silly and kind of fun, not because it has any great merit. I was also thinkng that, now that Layla’s not performing, there’s not a whole lot o’ yuri…since the second 13 episodes was more about her and Sora than anything.

Well, at the climax of Ep. 43, there is a sweet romantic scene between Mr. Policeman and his girlfriend, Kate. It’s cute, and goofy and anyone who’s ever been in love will be smiling, just because. Ken, the boy who’se gaga over Sora turns and looks at her longingly as she watches Police-san and Kate, but more importantly, behind Sora are Anna and Mia, staring into each other’s eyes and smiling. Awwwww…. we’ve always known they’re a pair, we just don’t get to see it often, so that was kinda nice.

It’s not that Anna and Mia are hidden as a couple, it’s just that they aren’t really major characters. We’ve seen ’em sleeping together, and now this, but we’re never going, I’m sorry to say, see them kiss or probably even touch…it’s just not that kind of show. Nonetheless, it was one more Anna/Mia moment to add to the yuri pile.

Avenger:
I guess some people probably thought that the relationship between Layla and Nei was yuri-ish, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say two things here: 1) The Russians will win gold in Olympic figure skating and; 2) What Layla and Nei had was really a mother/daughter thing, not a love affair. Of course, we’ll never *really* know about Layla and Nei, since Bee Train once again didn’t really explain anything of importance by the time Avenger ended. How Nei and Layla met, why Layla cared, what will happen afterwards, how they will all avoid death as the moon crashes into Mars…nah, we’ll never know about any of that. Check back in a few weeks, though, to find out about the figure skating results.





Yuri Anime/Manga: Sailor Moon

January 29th, 2004


Things I’m Not Going To Write About
Part 3

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Sailor Moon)

What is there to say about the series that launched a thousand yuri fans, that hasn’t already been said? Well, lots really. But I won’t say it all here – I’ll just focus on the yuri. :-)

In Season 3, Sailor Moon S, the adorable Inner Senshi (and let’s face, they’re yuri subtext-y enough for any fan!) are joined by Sailors Uranus and Neptune, arguably one of the greatest lesbian couples in anime, manga and related media, ever. Directed by Ikuhara Kunihiko, (director of and creative genius behind Utena,) Sailor Moon gave the world the first anime lesbian couple to ever be portrayed *as such* on Japanese television. In doing so, Ikuhara set the bar pretty high with Haruka and Michiru, instructing the voice actresses to act as if they were married.* In fact, the next time the bar was raised was by this very same man almost ten years later, with Anthy, Utena and Juri in Utena.

It’s more than five years later and we’re *still* using these five characters as poster children for yuri anime and manga, which says a lot, IMHO.

Bottom line, Haruka and Michiru are one of the most romantic, funny, and fun yuri couples, ever. Every year sees new fanfic and doujinshi and even official Sailormoon World art about these two, and now, with the advent of the Live Action Sailor Moon, a whole new generation of kids might one day get to scream “Kakko-ii!” in the general direction of yuri fandom’s reigning queens. :-)

This anime is horrifically magical girl-y, so if repeated transformation footage, girly attack names and goofy monsters bore you, then yeah, it’ll be hard to get into the story. However, if that kind of thing doesn’t put you off, and you want to see where it so much of western yuri fandom began, you might want to get a hold of this season, which is available on DVD. The Sailor Moon manga is available on the Yuricon Shop. A new edition is available in Japan, in honor of the new Live Action series, with spiffy new cover art.

(The SM manga was one of the first titles Tokyo Pop ever translated, and boy was it a learning curve for them! Originally, they changed the names of all the Senshi, only to be met with huge fan resistance. It was too late for the Inner Senshi, but ultimately, the Outers’ Japanese names were retained. I actually have the old Mixx magazine issues with the Outers’ westernized names, before Tokyo Pop got inundated with fan mail begging them not to change Haruka’s name!)

Ratings: Yuri – 8, Art – 8, Story – 7, Music – 9, Characters – 10, Overall – 9

*It’s fairly well-known that it was was Ogata Megumi’s portrayal of Haruka that catapulted me into anime fandom in the beginning, and to be honest, she’s still my favorite. While it will be very cool to see a Live-Action Sailor Uranus, it won’t be MO, boo hoo. :-(

***

This week’s brainstorm

After much thought on the subject, I have now developed a working definition for “porn” versus “erotica” that I’d like to share with you all. There’s quite a few people who think that there is no difference, but I believe there is:

Porn is any representation of sexual conduct with the implicit acknowledgement of a third party who is watching – and for whose pleasure the sexual act is being conducted.

Erotica is an honest representation of sexual conduct between people for their own pleasure.

I came to this conclusion while reading several yuri doujinshi I own. If you agree with it, please feel free to use it. If you disagree, feel free to come up with one of your own. :-)





Yuri Manga/Anime: Rose of Versailles

January 27th, 2004

Things I’m Not Going To Write About
Part 1

This week, I’m going to give voice to my opinions about alot of anime and manga series that are so well-known and/or so popular, that it’s hardly worth it for me to even mention them…only they are pretty cool and you might *not* have heard of them before, so here they are.

These are really short review/opinions about the yuri content and overall worthiness of these series – feel free to agree or disagree on the Yuricon Mailing List. After this, we’ll go back to our regularly scheduled reviews of stuff you’ve never heard about. ;-)

All ratings are done on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.

Berusayu no Bara (Rose of Versailles) –

This is *still* one of the great classics of shoujoai manga. Rose of Versailles tells the gorgeous, but ultimately tragic, story of Lady Oscar Francois De Jarjeyes, a woman of the French nobility who was raised as a man. She becomes the Captain of the Guard at Versailles serving Maria Antionette. The story covers the rise and fall of Antionette and the causes and repercussions of the French Revolution, using many well-known historical figures and occurrences. It’s a really human look at the Revolution and a rattlin’ good yarn to boot. (And a decent bit of historical research – almost all the characters with the exception of Oscar and her family, are real.)

Despite its age or, perhaps, because of it, RoV still stands out as a ground-breaking work in shoujo. The anime, sadly, has lost all but the barest vestiges of love between poor, but kind and beautiful Rosalie, and scion of the noble class, Oscar, but in the manga (released last year in a new Japanese edition for its 25th anniversary) there is more than enough Yuri for even me. Both anime and manga are so soap-opera and melodramatic that they are more enjoyable taken in small chunks.

In the manga, Rosalie and Oscar both acknowledge what they feel for each other in a very touching scene. In another time, if Oscar had been a man, if, if, if, they might have become lovers. But they don’t. Nonetheless, if you can get past the uniforms with bell-bottom pants, the art and drama of this soapy story is timeless.

The anime is digitally fansubbed, and frankly, I cannot imagine why it’s never been picked up by any distro company here. The manga has not been scanlated or released her and possibly never will be, so you’ll just have to learn Japanese to enjoy it. :-)

In my opinion, RoV also makes a great introduction to one of the great Japanese cultural icons – Takarazuka – as well. Imagine watching a woman who plays male roles, playing a woman who acts like a man, but falls in love with a man (also played by a women)…all with spiffariffic uniforms and over-the-top acting. It really just doesn’t get any more gender-bendy than this. And Aran Kei as Fersen is unbelievably hot…! LOL

Ratings: Yuri – 3 for the anime, 5 for the manga. Art – very 70s, give it a 8, since it set alot of standards for shoujo that came after it. Overall – 7





Yuri Manga: Yuri Tengoku (and Strawberry Panic)

January 22nd, 2004

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Part 3

When one person has a good idea, it is inevitable that there will be a rush of copycats, trying to get their two cents in, too. Anime and manga are no different. It appears that the yaoi market has matured, so many manga publishers are rushing to get new yuri products to market as fast as they can. The second half of 2003 gave us more anime and manga with yuri elements than I’d ever seen before at one time, and 2004 is shaping up to be even more chock-full of lilies.

Today, I’ll briefly cover two publications that have been released that are *clearly* something borrowed. This past August, the first yuri manga magazine since Mist* went out of print, was released (not counting lesbian publications, Phryne, Anise and Carmilla, which aren’t specifically manga magazines – they cater(ed) to a more general lesbian population.) I’ll talk about Yuri Shimai later, in more detail. But almost immediately upon Yuri Shimai’s tail feathers came yet *another* Yuri magazine, this one cleverly and subtlely called Yuri Tengoku(Lily Heaven).

This is more of a slick, widely distributed doujinshi than a true magazine. It may be a one-shot, certainly there’s no advertisement inside for a second volume. The cover and the first few pages are nicely done color art of schoolgirl couples, but nothing suggestive in sight. The stories inside range from (IMHO) utterly mediocre fairly decent – but I am very not into moe art, of which there was a preponderance. Of the dozen or so stories, there were only about three or four where the characters actually looked to be the age they were supposed to be, and of those, only one that went beyond a confession followed by nothing much.

Call me unreasonable, but by the end, I *longed* for a story about a bored housewife and lesbian trucker. And I *am* being unreasonable, since Yuri Tengoku says right on the cover that it’s an anthology of stories of love connections between girls. So one shouldn’t expect more than a few kisses here and there. And that’s about what one gets. The stories are very sweet, I can’t fault that – and most of them end with at least the possibility of some further developments between the girls in the future (at least one hopes so!)

I will say this in favor of YT, it did not suffer from an overabundance of fanservice – just erred on the ootsey-cutesy side. Only one story really wandered into that particular field and, as it was played for laughs, it was actually pretty funny.

Interestingly, Yuri Tengoku suffers from a layout issue that plagued ALC Publishing’s first Yuri Monogatari. There’s no spacer art or splash pages between stories, so the transition from one to another is abrupt. Hopefully, if Daito Comics does another issue, they’ll be able to resolve that issue.

Is it Yuri? Indubitably. Is it worth it? That depends on whether you like sweet stories about girls in school uniforms. If that’s your thing, then it’s worth it.

I can’t really rate it, since, as an anthology it has a wide array of art style and story.

***

Another brand new “me-too” entry into the Yuri manga market is another loli-art-style entry,
Strawberry Panic, brought to us by Dengeki Comics, who also brought us the manga for Battle Athletes, Stellvia of the Universe (which I will review later on) and Azumanga Daioh…as you can see, Dengeki is our friend. ^_^

(Please look at the Strawberry Panic category for all my later reviews of the anime, the light novels and manga.)

Strawberry Panic is not only *another* Yuri story, but is strongly “me-too”ing the schoolgirl theme Marimite; i.e., girls’ relationships forming at private schools, only this time with a slightly more sexual twist. From what I can tell, the story revolves around three schools, all of whom draw their “little sisters” from among the younger students (ala the soeur system of Lillian.) When a girl is chosen, she is initiated into her school by an older student who “lilys” her. (I swear they used the word “lily” as a verb.) The relationship is defined in the write-up as being more than friendship and the word lily is sprinkled liberally throughout. As I haven’t seen any more than this website, I can only imagine what it all means. B

*Mist magazine was the coolest Yuri manga magazine ever. It was Yuri from beginning to end; mostly manga, some short stories and usually a “photo” story, which was really silly The stories were for a mature female audience, so they were essentially Yuri porn. I have two copies gifted to me by a friend and they are my prize possessions. If I ever find any more, you can be sure I’ll scoff those babies up!

If you’re looking for good Yuri manga and doujinshi, don’t forget to stop by the English and Japanese-language manga and doujinshi at the Yuricon Shop, where the girl always gets the girl and the Yuri is really decent stuff written by lesbians for a adult audience.





Yuri Anime: Aim for the Ace! / Ace wo Nerae!

January 20th, 2004

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Part 1

This week, I’ll be running over a few Yuri titles which are, as I say above, old, new, borrowed and blue. Call it a “theme week.”

First up, today, something old. And now I’m torn, which of the many, many old series that I’ve grown to love, do I review?

Let’s start with this one:
Ace wo Nerae!, (Aim for the Ace!), from 1973. This is probably one of the oldest truly *shoujo* anime out there.

Ace wo Nerae, adapted from the popular manga of the same name (another Margaret magazine Yuri classic!) is the story of Oka Hiromi, a first year student at Nishi High School. Hiromi, like many other girls in the school, deeply admires Ryuzaki Reika, known as “Ochoufujin,” the shining star of the girl’s tennis team. Ochoufujin, along wth the other upperclassmen, make up an unbeatable women’s tennis team which has attracted over 100 first-year newbies – including Hiromi and her friend Maki. Hiromi is happy as a clam to be near to her idol, Ochoufujin, and even get the occasional kind word from her, but everything changes the day the new coach shows up.

For some reason the new coach sees potential in Hiromi that no one, not even Hiromi herself, can fathom. He singles Hiromi out and begins working her mercilessly, even replacing one of the ace upperclassmen with a terrified and, subsequently, harrassed, Hiromi.

Ace wo Nerae will immediately remind viewers of another Margaret manga classic Oniisama E (Brother, Dear Brother) since the character designs and direction for the anime were done by the same people; and the plot is the usual shoujo fare of the seemingly average girl being catapulted into the rarified world of the great ones in her school. The biggest difference is that in Ace, Hiromi finds herself not only capable of handling the stress, but grows to be a very strong person and a very strong tennis player, as opposed to just growing up a little as a result of her experiences. We actually get to see her game improve over time and, as she matures and becomes the player the coach knew she could be, she steps into a position as one of the team aces.

In terms of Yuri, Ace definitely straddles the line between adoration and romance Because this manga and anime are from 1973, the Yuri is encoded in small, subtle things. You won’t see tearful confessions of love, much less a kiss or anything, but watch Hiromi carefully, as she dresses to bring flowers to Ochoufujin…or if you can find it, there’s a wonderful screencap from the Ace wo Nerae movie, as Hiromi and Ochoufujin head off to America together (a code in itself, really, as America is always seen in lesbian fiction as the place to escape to to be together.) Hiromi is wearing a three-piece white suit and tie, her hair has gone completely masculine. She looks about as butchy as someone could possibly have drawn a girl in the early 70’s.

As a representative of early Yuri, Ace wo Nerae is a spectacular example, but expect a fair dollop of cheesy-ness, as the character designs, music, art, etc are all over 30 years old. The op art graphics and laughable opening theme are delightfully retro now.The most important thing is that the characters are genuinely likeable and their motivations fathomable. I give this one a strong recommendation, if you want to see where many of the conventions of Yuri come from.

Ratings:

Art – tough to call, because it’s so dated. For its time, 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Character Design – 8
Music – Makes me giggle every time I hear it, 6
Yuri – 2 Negligible, but not not there.

Overall – 8

As always, for updates on Ace wo Nerae and other classic anime and manga, join us at the Yuricon Mailing List.