Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime: Cutie Honey Universe (English)

October 22nd, 2018

I finally had a chance to sit down and finish up the Cutie Honey Universe anime, streaming on HIDIVE (where apparently all the Sentai Films series stream, finally!) And, well, honestly, I think it was a darn near perfect iteration of this classic magical-girl adventure. The main story echoes the original manga pretty closely through the first half. Honey’s father is killed, Saint Jogakuen is attacked by Panther Claw, many people die. But in the second half, the series takes a new tack…and I really like it.

For one thing, in this version we get the very gay Aki Nastuko we’ve always deserved. Seduced by Inspector Genet, in love with Honey, this Na-chan is the right one. It was with no surprise, therefore, that we couldn’t keep her. :-(

Inspector Genet / Sister Jill was perfect. Perfect. Obsessed, evil, manipulative…absolutely perfect.

I’ve been watching Cutie Honey for a couple of decades and I’m gonna have to say – this was exceedingly close to what I would call the “ultimate” Cutie Honey. It doesn’t even end with the school in smoking ruins and dead bodies everywhere, so that has to count for something. 

Ratings:

Art – 10 
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 10
Yuri  – 9

Overall – 10

While I still have dreams of butchy Na-chan of Cutie Honey-a-Gogo! and Honey getting together, Cutie Honey Universe runs a close second.





Rose of Versailles Manga, Volume 14 (ベルサイユのばら)

October 21st, 2018

Begun in 1972, in the pages of Margaret magazine, Riyoko Ikeda’s historical epic of the French Revolution has finally come to an end. The final chapters of Rose of Versailles, Volume 14 (ベルサイユのばら), follows the last of the players on the stage of this drama.

The volume follows Rosalie, the commoner rescued from poverty and death by Oscar Francois de Jarjayes, and given entré into French noble society, adopted by a lady of Marie Antionette’s court and, finally, happily married to former thief, now revolutionary Bernard Chatelet. As the final days of the revolution wear on, the revolutionaries turn on one other and Bernard is caught and killed.  Rosalie and her son escape Paris with the the help of Girodel and eventually find their way to Sweden, where Hans Axel von Fersen’s star has ascended. Given shelter in Fersen’s home, his sister Sophie is not overjoyed to have them there, but is kind enough.

Rosalie’s son Francois (named after Oscar) enters university, where he is befriended by Fabian Nobel and is kept closely informed of revolutionary thinking in their adopted country. When the young king of Sweden falls from his horse, rumors say it was an assassination attempt – and that Fersen was involved. 

Tensions rise as the Swedish people demand an end to royal rule, Fabian and Francois are caught up in the riots. Francois saves Fabian, but Fersen is pulled from his carriage and beaten to death by a lynch mob. A few months after his death, his name was cleared and Fersen was given a state burial.

The book ends with the succession of Swedish King Oscar 1 in the mid-19th century. Rosalie, now an old woman, reminisces about the people she loved and lost, including her beloved Oscar. That’s the only Yuri in this book – her eternal affection for the woman who changed her life and for whom she fell, very hard.

She dies peacefully and is reunited once again with her husband, Bernard. 

With that, the last person involved in the narrative of Rose of Versailles passes out of even the fictitious realm of existence. 

It helped – as it always does- to have Wikipedia open as I read this volume. Today’s review is brought to you by the entry on Hans Axel von Fersen. And, in the way the universe has of giggling at me, one of Marie Antoinette’s necklaces was unveiled just yesterday for the first time, (this video is in French) before it was auctioned off. Here’s another article (in English) about the jewelry that will be auctioned.  I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to imagine just how many people these jewels might have fed when you look at what they go for now. 

As we look back at 40+ years of Rose of Versailles, I think it’s safe to say that was exactly the story – we were never supposed to sympathize with Marie Anthoinette. The nobles could have, at any time, simply eased up on the commoners and would have almost immediately averted a revolution, but they never even considered it. As we sit precariously balanced in between rapacious capitalism and oligarchy, we’re looking at a mirror, however darkly tinted, not all that much distorted. It’s not a fun place to be, when we are reminded that even the heroes of this story died ugly.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 Strikingly historical when it can be
Characters – 8 I always liked Rosalie

Overall – 8

Rose of Versailles is over, but history moves on. And there are so, so many tears in both.

 





Yuri Manga: Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 6 (やがて君になる)

October 18th, 2018

In Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 6 (やがて君になる), the story comes to a climactic moment, with an expected twist.

It is, at last, time for the school festival and with it, Touko’s Student Council is putting on an original play, finally fulfilling her late sister’s unrealized dream. Unusually, we are allowed to see the entire play, including the scene where Sayaka plays amnesiac Touko’s now-forgotten lover. Immediately rumors begin to spread, but they move though the scene to the conclusion of the play; in which the protagonist decides against choosing any of her former lives, instead preferring to create a new self into which she can grow. The play is a rousing success. Touko’s parent’s reaction to it all is very interesting, and I hope we’ll be privy to a conversation between Touko and her family discussing that reaction.

But, as far as the main story goes, there’s only one reaction Touko cares about. When she and Yuu finally have a moment alone, Yuu makes heartfelt confession – she can no longer remain the same as she was, as she had promised. And, more devastatingly, she has realized that she is in love with Touko.

Touko, who had resigned herself to keeping their relationship in stasis, is thrown into a high state of confusion. Where they will end we cannot say (well, okay, obviously we can. It was abundantly clear from the first page of this series it was meant to be a romance. As I noted in my review of the first volume back in 2016, “The first [criticism I had of V1] is that it is presented as a romance. The story is apparently that we’ll side with Touko as her sincere feelings for Yuu are eventually returned.” So, yeah, obviously it has been heading in this direction from the very beginning. Which I’m still kind of sad about. I would really have preferred to have Yuu as a rare aromantic manga protagonist. Oh well.

Setting that aside, as a romance goes, this story is taking time to alleviate my concern that Yuu would be swayed merely by the force of Touko’s affection for her. That, at least, has not manifested. 

Now Yuu and Touko will have to see if their feelings can match one another’s, and then see if they can build a relationship on those feelings.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 8

The play was actually quite good – as well as terrifyingly accurate.

In the meantime, I’m still watching Sayaka, whose role in the play has effectively outed her to the whole school. I hope she will find her way through all this. (I am currently reading another novel by Iruma Hitoma, I’m ever more concerned for her novel, I hope they are up to conveying her as fully developed character.)





Live-Action: Shoujo Kakumei Utena ~Shirokibara no Tsubomi Musical (少女革命ウテナ ～白き薔薇のつぼみ～)

October 10th, 2018

In Spring 2018, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Shoujo Kakumei Utena franchise, a stage play musical was performed in Tokyo. Now the Shoujo Kakumei Utena ~Shirokibara no Tsubomi Musical (少女革命ウテナ ～白き薔薇のつぼみ～) is available  on DVD, Blu-ray and streaming on Amazon for folks in JP.

Now, if you have been a Utena fan for a long time, you may remember that in the early 2000s, there had been a Utena Musical stage play. And, should you remember that musical, you will remember that it was, in a word, excruciating. The word “unwatchable” also comes to mind. ^_^;

We set the memory of that earlier musical aside to watch the new musical and found that we generally enjoyed it. 

There were a few glaring weaknesses, primarily that the boys couldn’t sing. This is a pretty major problem in a musical. And, in comparison to all the female leads, especially Anthy and Utena’s actresses, Yamauchi Yuka and Nouji Ami, it was a pretty stark failing. 

But that aside, there were a number of elements that made the play move along well. In Utena”s first duel with Saionji at the climactic moment, they switch swords. It was a low-tech way to communicate a moment of intense magic. Instead of focusing on drawing the sword from Anthy’s chest, which was handled with little subtlety, the focus of this musical is the actual relationships of the characters. Time is given to everyone’s back stories. In the first act we clearly see the delusions that make up Miki’s and Juri’s pasts. And Tatemichi Riona as Juri did a convincing flinch away from B-ko when she got too close.

The second act was much tighter than the first, with a number of highlights. Yokoi Shojiro, who plays Saionji, has a brilliant moment when, defeated by Utena a second time, he creates his own Shadowgirl scenario and enters it himself. It was both a funny and profound moment. It was, my wife points out, very self-aware of the play. As one of the few wholly original moments, it worked beautifully.

The final scenes are extraordinary and moving, as Nouji does an excellent job of communicating Utena’s despair at having been defeated by Touga. Takeuchi Yume is brilliant as Wakaba, motivating Utena to take control of herself.  Nouji notches up the acting with a very emotional climax, where her need to get through to Anthy is pretty darn convincing. (My wife had stepped out of the room and returned as the play wrapped up. She noted immediately that it looked like Nouji had been crying. And she had been, fairly realistically.)

For staging, dueling concepts and acting, it was worth watching. For fans of the Utena story, this was a pretty decent re-telling of the first 13 episodes of the anime.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

 If the boys had been able to carry a tune, it would have definitely been a 9.





LGBTQ Comic: Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Part 3

September 16th, 2018

The final volume of Legend of Korra: Turf Wars has dropped! 

In Part 1 and Part 2, Korra and Asami were rudely interrupted on their vacation in the spirit world by the intrusion of a greedy real estate developer on the spirits’ domain, a humanitarian aid crisis being mishandled  by the Republic City government and a violent gang turf war. All of which had it been written in 2014, might have seemed absurd happening all at once but, in 2018, feels a bit on the nose.

Because this is a 3-part American YA comic that was meant to be a sequel to a popular cartoon, the plots and any and all emotional complications were wrapped up relatively quickly and neatly. Any discomfort family and friends had with the idea of Korra and Asami as partners is wiped away in a panel or two per complication, long traditions of homophobia are declared “need to be changed.” The greedy real estate developer – after having been saved more than once by Korra – comes around to the only actual sensible idea. Asami asserts her corporate power, Zhu Li takes over the Republic City government (and I weep with joy at the idea of a world in which police, military, corporate and political power are all held by women with a sense of responsibility, wrested from the grasping hands of selfish and greedy men.)

Art is once again handled beautifully by Irene Koh, who has reported on her Tumblr that a sequel series is in the works, although she won’t be working on it.

It would all be perfect, except for one nagging thing. Several times this volume Korra and Asami agree that they “should talk.” I understand that thin page count means that neither plot nor development get the time they deserve in this comic, but the thing that annoys me most is that they never have that talk. A panel or two where they agree that they work better as a team isn’t really the talk they need, and while I deeply appreciate that the final pages are focused on their love for one another, I really wish we had seen them have that talk. ^_^; On the one hand, I think it’s that I’m just more used to manga, where longer page counts means that talk takes two chapters, and on the other, I’m old and that talk is really an important tool in terms of healthy relationships. ^_^

On a lot of levels, though, I’m not unhappy that we get the end we wanted from the cartoon here in the comic, with Sato Asami and Avatar Korra saying “I love you” to one another, as they celebrate the victory of peace and progress in the city they love. There’s a bunch of young readers out there, for whom this will be a life-changing comic.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 10

Overall – A very solid 9

Thank you very, very much to Okazu Superhero Eric P. for his sponsorship of this series! 

If we do indeed get a sequel, I’ll be really interested to read it. (And I look forward to whatever Koh has planned, as well. She’s definitely someone to follow.)

What did you think? Let me know in the comments!