Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Anime News: Asagao to Kase-san OVA Coming in 2018!

October 3rd, 2017

The news has come from on high – 2018 will see an Asagao to Kase-san OVA!

The official Asagao-Anime twitter feed and website made the announcement this week. According to the announcement, the OVA will be getting a limited-time theater release in Japan. Cast, staff and screenings will are all still to be announced.

Thank you to everyone who watched the Asagao to Kase-san animation clip on Youtube and who commented there and on Twitter that they enjoyed it. You clearly helped the production committee to make a case that there was an audience for this anime. 

In celebration, Comic Natalie is carrying some of the official Asagao to Kase-san merchandise in their store. (You can use a buying service like White Rabbit or Tenso to buy things from Japanese companies that can’t or won’t ship overseas.)

Now we’ll just have to convince Pony Canyon and the Asagao Anime Production Committee to screen the OVA a few locations in North America.  Chances are most likely that if it screens in North America it will be at an anime convention like Anime Expo (where Pony Canyon sold the animation clip DVD) or Anime NYC. I won’t expect or assume theater screenings near me. I’ll hope that a con I can get to has a screening. ^_^

More importantly, I hope that any OVA DVD/BD has subtitles in English. This seems more likely, as the production committee seems to have fluent English speakers on their social media accounts. Fingers crossed.

In the mean time, please feel free to comment on the Kase-san Twitter feed and let them know you’re looking forward to this OVA!

P.S. – Check out the RTs on the announcement – Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari‘s Twitter feed is still active and sent out a “congrats.” as well as Pony Canyon. ^_^ So cute.





Sailor Moon S Anime , Part 2, Disk 2 (English)

September 25th, 2017

For the first time ever, I’m going to say hands down, the Blu-Ray is better. Watching Sailor Moon S, Part 2, Disk 2 on BD was…fun. The colors are super-saturated, and the animation is as good as the animation ever was (which is to say, not really all that good.) It was good enough, however, that we commented that the Blu-Ray made a difference and we never do that. Sound quality was, again, really decent and overall, the technicals were solid enough that we never once had to think about them for being intrusive or annoying.

In Part 2, the story is getting both sillier and more serious at the same time. We lose Eudial and pick up the delusional Mimete, with her creepy cormorant Daimons. In Mimete’s world, pure hearts are only had by celebrities, so she’d get along famously in 2017.

The Outer Senshi have settled down into full-time brooding, as Sailor Moon herself is getting used to a powerup. I particularly like how they don’t sit down to have any sensible conversations about the situation. Chibi-Usa is the only one who can cross lines, and that’s only because no one takes her seriously. 

Hotaru gets a creepy power-up, then the pathos is laid on with a trowel. I don’t get Kaolinite treating Hotaru so shitty. You’d think…but, no. 

In one of the most eye-opening episodes we both saw something so Ikuhara we started to laugh. It’s funny to see a beloved director’s visual tic so obviously on display.

We’re about to get into the darkest moments of the series and I find I can’t wait to watch it. 25 years later and I’m still a huge fangirl…which is why I’m as excited as I am to say I’ll get to see the new Sailor Moon store in Harajuku! Yay! I’ll be in Tokyo for Comitia and will save my yen for all the Sailor Senshi goods. ^_^ 

Ratings:

Art – 8 
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri –  2 A bit muted this disk
Service – 3 

Overall – 8

I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for an interview that will interest you all at AnimeNYC. Say a little prayer.

Thanks very much to Viz for the review copy! I just love it to pieces.

 

 





LGBTQ: Steven Universe, Season 6

September 8th, 2017

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In Season 1 of Steven Universe we met and learned about the Crystal Gems, friendly alien invaders from space. In Season 2 we began to really understand their history. Season 3 deepened our understanding of all the series’ characters and Season 4 brought the first major plots to fruition…and expanded our cast. In Season 5, Steven and we begin to understand that Rose Quartz was not necessarily the beacon of Good that she had been held up to be. As we learn about her flaws, Rose becomes exponentially more interesting.

In Season 6, we begin, at last to put all the pieces we’ve been given into some kind of picture. And the picture we’re getting is nothing like the one we expected.

We’re introduced to Blue Diamond in person. With the chance to directly compare her and Yellow Diamond, we start to get a little bit of a picture of an imperious royal class that understands little and cares not at all about the beings it rules. We spend a lot of time in space this season since, realistically, having neutralized The Cluster, any further contact with the Diamonds would have to be in space or on Homeworld, or Earth would be at risk. Space it is, then.

Several really significant things happened this season – Greg was introduced to just how vast the story in which his son is embroiled actually is. Steven is now very visibly showing signs of super strength, and becoming more confident with his powers. We visit Homeworld and learn that in a strictly defined hierarchy, there’s still an outcast underclass. Amethyst meets her family and finds that she’s just one of the gems after all.  I learned about Holly Blue Agate , a stone I had never heard of before. (Fairly remarkable, as I’ve been collecting semi-precious stones for decades…) and Lars…well…no,that’s a spoiler, I will not spoil.

We get to see that both Yellow and Blue Diamond have genuine affection for Pink Diamond (and I can’t help but wonder what White Diamond, who has never once been mentioned, but whose symbol we’ve repeatedly seen, is like.) In fact, during “What’s the Use of Feeling Blue,” we get the distinct feeling that Yellow Diamond surprises herself when she speaks of missing Pink Diamond.

But once again, the climax of the series is unexpected in ways that we couldn’t even have predicted. Once again we learn that the truth isn’t what we we were told it is, and it isn’t what others think it is, either. So…what is it? The fan theories are flying, thick and fast. ^_^

The last significant thing that happened is that my wife is hooked. Hah. ^_^ Now I can obsess and she’s totally into it. Gotcha. Hee Hee. Hee.

Art – 8
Story- 10
Characters – 10
Service – 1 on principle
Queerness – 7 Fluorite is a lovely nod to polyamory.

Overall – 10

Can’t wait for Season 7. Seriously.





MURCIÉLAGO Manga, Volume 3 (English)

September 7th, 2017

In Yoshimura Kana’s MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 3, we take a good, long, detailed look into the darkness of obsessive psychopathic murderers…and don’t really do much of anything with the information. ^_^

First, Kuroko deals with the Skin Collector, a man who skins his female victims and we learn, both in real time and from his exposition, that his daughter Ringo shares both his skills and his predilections for killing. In her case, her Daddy issues go rather deeper than usual. The author takes pains to show us how happy the families Ringo destroys are so, long after we’ve put the book down, we can feel crappy about enjoying it.

While Kuroko is finishing off Ringo’s father, the police are sharing a bit of exposition, to indicate to us what we must have surely recognized…Kuroko and Hinako are both not functioning within what society considers normal parameters. The specifics are, as yet, left hidden.

Which segues us nicely into the hidden realms of the Elder Gods, and the amusement park based on H.P Lovecraft’s Chthulu mythos. It’s sort of a given that among my friends, that everyone goes through a Lovecraft phase, at least in a sort of secondhand osmosis kind of way. Not all my friends have read the original or derivative works, but enough of them have that we just don’t really notice any inclusion of Lovecraft’s work as something notable. It’s more like…duh…of course it’s there. Which is part of why I forget to mention the inclusion of it in this series. It’s like…duh, of course the mascot at the amusement park would be Shoggoth. (Well, arguably, I would have chosen, Nyarlathotep, and no, not because of the Nyarko-san anime, but because of a bumper sticker on a car of a friend of mine from like 25 years ago.)

So, after we visit the hidden depths of the Elder Gods and the inside of Kuroko’s mind, we turn our attention to other, somewhat lower, places. One of Hinako’s old college friends shows up, worried about her sister, who has joined a religious cult. Faced with the idea that “Virginal Rose Academy” is an all-female cult, full of cute girls, run by a buxom young woman, Kuroko is all in.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Not likely to get better
Story – 7 Still horrible violence with some silly violence, but there sort of was a story, so that’s good
Characters – 8 Hinako fascinates me….
Service – 10 Creative, awful and pervasive
Yuri – …wait for it…. 

Overall – 8

This is an excellent volume of a really strange manga, with violence, amusingly deranged Edwardian fictitious mythologies, action, more violence and some other bits of violence for color. Next volume, there will be consensual lesbian sex, as well. Let’s look forward to Volume 4!

 





Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan), Volume 5 Manga (はやて×ブレード2 5)

September 5th, 2017

In Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan), Volume 5 Manga (はやて×ブレード2 5), the Ultimate Hoshitori continues moving inexorably towards a climax that will, in some ways, have to be forseeable, and others that cannot be.

While the various members of the white-uniformed Tenkuu dorm take on their counterparts of the black-clad Daichi dorm, and the various members of Hajime’s “Black Group,” among others, Hitsugi waits for any of the combatants to reach her – and make no mistake about it, she wants them to reach her and to face her and Shizuku in combat.

We get to see Jun and Yuho reaching a new peak of skill as they beat the loathsome Hideko and her sad little partner, Rosana. And we get to see Akira and Sae pair off in front of Hajime and Shingetsu, which really would be an amazing fight, if we’re allowed to see it.

But. Really, all our attention is turned to Nagi and Hayate, who face off alone. They battle their inner demons, their feelings about themselves and each other and neither can defeat the other…so Nagi decides to sit and wait for their shinyuu. Unfortunately, Kanae and Ayana are running late because they have been hijacked by the psychopath Thelma and her partner Rui. To defeat them, Kanae and Ayana are forced to dig deep. So deep, that Kanae carries an battered Ayana to the ground where they will be fighting one another. Props to Kanae, because she makes Ayana get up and enter the battleground on her own feet. At last, with minutes left in the round, the battle we all need to see is going to begin – Nagi and Kanae vs Hayate and Ayana.

The extra chapter follows the gang involved in a goofy- and extremely personal – trivia contest. It seems a bit rigged as Hitsugi declares them all losers.

We’re still at 34 main characters (32 fighters, Nagare and Taiyou, Nagi and Hayate’s parents,) for this volume, but it’s shockingly easy to follow who are what and where. As I’ve said before, one of the amazing things about the art in this series (not the most amazing…the most amazing thing is the the actions scenes are followable,) is that one never gets confused at who is who. The characters designs are that unique and identifiable. No mean feat for a book consisting of nearly 3 dozen identically-uniformed people fighting.

This volume was an edge-of-the-seat page turner for me. I’ve been waiting for Nagi and Hayate to fight (and, presumably, work through whatever baggage Nagi is carrying) for volumes. Kanae seemed just plain goofy at first, as we were seeing her through Nagi’s eyes, but we can see that she and Nagi have become a strong partnership in their own right and I feel positive about the four of them fighting now.

Another great volume, deeply embedded in the intense the blood, sweat and tears relationships of sisters-at-arms, with the physical comedy of a Three Stooges episode. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 0 Hayate picked up the Yuri ball, but Ayana spiked it at her head. Jun is left merely honestly admiring her “princess,” Yuho.
Service – 4 For me, the blood sweat and tears *is* service and this was a bloody, sweaty and teary volume.

Overall – 10