Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl, Volume 5 (English)

June 14th, 2018

Volume 5 of Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl, is predicted upon the idea that a promise made at 5 years old is still valid a decade later. Let me assure you that they are not. ^_^

Nishikawa Itsuki keep glaring at Itou Sawa and Sawa doesn’t know why. When Itsuki turns out to be  long-lost childhood friend, the penny still doesn’t drop. Of course, eventually they manage to  figure out how they can face the future together. Phew.

We spend some time with Shirahime and Kurosawa, and finally get insight on what actually drives Ayaka to be so competitive. It’s an emotional and frustrating moment for her and us, but for Kurosawa, it’s a moment of of clarity and she steps up and is just the pillar of strength that Ayaka needs.

I will never be the audience for the lost-childhood dream, but for Ayaka’s arc is very poignant. It also provides the the missing piece to her personality and for that, it’s an important volume.  And if you like poignant, emotional stories, Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl is a series that’s worth reading. 

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 7

No, seriously. Any promises made in in kindergarten are no longer valid. ^_^





Sailor Moon Musical ~Le Mouvement Final at AnimeNEXT 2018

June 7th, 2018

AnimeNEXT badge holders! Join me tonight at 8PM at the Showboat Casino Bourbon Room, for a screening of the Live Action Sailor Moon Musical Le Mouvement Finale.

I’ll be presenting a very short intro and settling in for another watch of what has been my favorite musical to date.





Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 6 (English)

June 1st, 2018

Volume 6 of MURCIÉLAGO, by Yoshimurakana, is a particularly nasty volume. Oddly, I found it easier to take in English than in Japanese. I do not know whether that is a function of the translation or simply because I read through the nastiest bits more quickly in my native tongue. 

A bomber is threatening a school and Kuroko and the team have been called in to investigate. What she finds is that a ring of kids have been bullying a girl practically to the point of a psychotic break. The keyword is “practically”. Although Minako is sure that her lover is responsible for her abuse, she’s not all that angry because she’s a “get even” kind of gal. By the end of the series, Kuroko has left Minako with a penchant for domination, a slave and a desire to commit controlled violence. 

The bomber, it turns out, is also looking for revenge for a one-sided same-sex crush gone toxic. All in all, a school full of terrible people. 

Kuroko gets to kill a few inconsequential children, Hinako gets her kunoichi on, and everyone lives happily ever after, except for the people dead, beaten, abused, raped, and otherwise emotionally and physically traumatized. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6 
Story – 5 I still prefer adults beating the crap out of one another
Characters – 8 Violently insane, so thumbs up from me
Service – 10 
Yuri – 8  Extra Psycho Lesbians for your money! ^_^

Overall – 8

My review yesterday of Cutie Honey Universe seems to have surprised some new readers. Let me assure you that while I find tiresome service tiresome, I am wholly fine with horrific violence and psychotic lesbians. ^_^





Cutie Honey Universe Anime (English)

May 31st, 2018

Cutie Honey Universe is the most perfect version of the original Cutie Honey manga ever made and it is a treasure that should be instantly enshrined in whatever Halls of Fame anime may have.

In 2005, I reviewed the 1985 collection of the original 1970s Cutie Honey manga, which I described as “…one of the grimmest, most violent and depressing stories I’ve ever read!” and “On the whole, I really liked it, except when…oh, hell, I’ll admit it. I thought it was brilliant. Brilliant, disturbing, weirder than anything I could come up with on acid, Cutey Honey was, and is, a lesbian manga icon.” 

Ans since then, there have been dozens of anime, manga and live-action (both movie and TV) reinterpretations, some of which have been good, like Cutie Honey-a-gogo and the live-action TV series, and others which have been brutally awful, like Cutie Honey Seed. 

But we’ve never before see anything like the story in the original manga in anime format. And so I tuned into to the newest iteration of this series, Cutie Honey Universe, currently streaming on the HiDive platform, with no particular expectations. Imagine my delight, then, when we meet Kisaragi Honey, a student at St. Chapel girl’s school, with the most horrific, ugly, sadistic teachers.

…

No, wait, forget I ever wrote that sentence.

Imagine my delight when we meet Jill-sama, a sadistic, lesbian psychotic and her alter ego, Inspector Genet who is everything awful and wonderful about 1980s anime, from her blue eye shadow to her seductive creepiness. 

  … 

Okay, forget everything I just said. Once more from the top.

Cutie Honey is pervy in a wholly tiresome way, with dissolving clothes and T&A and creepy gropey guys as “comedy” and an evil psycho lesbian bad guy and a very likely love affair between Honey and Na-chan and horrible lesbian teachers and extraordinary violence. It’s awful in a dozen ways , as we must surely expect from Go Nagai’s vision. 

I love it so much I can barely express it.

This is the Cutie Honey the world has been waiting for. Well, it’s the Cutie Honey I’ve been waiting for and clearly my love and admiration is more important than anyone else’s.  

Ratings:

Art – 10 
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 10
Yuri  – ? TBD, but I have my eyes on 10

Overall – 10

It’s perfect. 





Steven Universe: The Complete First Season (English)

May 18th, 2018

At last! The entire first season of Steven Universe on DVD. 52 episodes of what I sincerely consider to be some of the very best cartooning I have seen in decades. I’m so ecstatic to be able to be writing about cartoons and comics during what is an absolute Renaissance of cartooning and comic making. ^_^

Steven Universe: The Complete First Season on DVD covers the series sequentially from “Gem Glow” through “Joy Ride”, what Amazon Prime considers Season 1 and Season 2. The set consists of three disks, each one decorated to reflect Amethyst’s, Pearl’s and Garnet’s gems. 

In this first season, we meet Steven Quartz Universe, a “magical boy” whose late mom was an alien from the Gem Home Planet. His guardians, Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst, don’t quite understand what being a human is like, but they do their best to make Steven happy, and train him at the same time in what we imagine to be the powers he will inherit from his mother’s gem. Steven can be – and frequently is – annoying and whiny, but as the story plays out, he not only matures as a person and a fighter, but we get a glimpse of the person he will become in future seasons. 

The story begins with what appears to be a standard formula of fighting monsters of the day. This morphs quickly into a layered and nuanced story about love, and betrayal, and war and peace. All the characters, not just Steven, do a lot of changing in this first season. The characters as we we see them in Joy Ride are not the same one’s we met in the beginning. 

Anime fans will recognize references from some popular shoujo series and, for the Okazu audience specifically, the homages to Revolutionary Girl Utena will please. Garnet’s story is also sure to put a smile on your face. 

The quality of the video is good, certainly better than watching it on television or the low-definition version on Amazon Prime. I wonder if the animation would hold up to w Blu-ray release, I’d be interested to find out. 

There are a number of extras on the final disk, including Rebecca Sugar doing demos of some of the songs, and an interview with her about the process for a few key ones (some of which may be spoilers for future season.) It’s very interesting to hear her demos and compare them with the final versions. Videos are interspersed with San Diego Comic Con 2017 footage. I warn you, the music is sticky. I’ll sing a song for a week at a time. Recently I’m stuck on “Working Dead” from the last season and my wife is looping “Stronger Than You” from Season 1 in her head.

I’ve encouraged any number of folks to watch this cartoon, and in doing so, I always caution them about this first season -Steven can be hard to take, especially in the first handful of episodes. But if you haven’t already taken the plunge, this is definitely the right time to grab this collection, get your snack of choice and let Steven, the Crystal Gems and the denizens of Beach City drive their van into your heart.

Ratings:

Art – Starts at 7, but rapidly firms up to 9. The backgrounds are especially brilliant
Characters – 10
Story – 10
Yuri – 10
Service – 0 There’s nothing salacious here.

Overall – 100

I’m going to come down on the side of this is must-watch animation for Yuri fans and one of the best cartoons I’ve ever seen.