Archive for the Series Category


LGBTQ: Steven Universe, Season 3 (English)

September 12th, 2016

sulogo-300x194Season Three of Steven Universe is some of the most amazing animation I’ve ever sat though.

With one exception, every episode of Season 3 is strong…and they build on each other to an amazing extent. Which is why the first episode of the season is so damn annoying.

In Season 1, we’re introduced to the characters, and start to get a feel for their personalities and back stories. In Season 2, even as we start to truly understand the alien nature of the Crystal Gems and the war for Earth’s independence which isolated them from the Gem Homeworld, we come to appreciate their essential “humanity.”

The first episode, however was a misguided attempt by Cartoon Network to promote the unwatchable Uncle Grandpa. To salve our annoyance a genuine plot point is added, which moves the entire story forward in a leap.

From that point on, this season is two steps forward and one look back. We learn key backstories and by doing so, we can see just how much the Crystal Gems have changed from their days with Rose Quartz, in which they were far more alien than they are now.

Which makes it that much more poignant as the story forces every single one of them to confront their own fears, relationships and bonds. And just as they seem to come out the other side, Peridot joins the crew, which really highlights the changes they’ve gone through.

We now can say with complete confidence that Garnet is a fusion of two gems who are in love, that Pearl’s feelings for Rose go beyond a mere crush and that Amethyst is, at heart, a surprisingly fragile Gem. In the center is Steven, who is more like his mother than anyone has yet admitted – inspiring cooperation and fierce loyalty in others.

The humans in Beach City are not immune to this, either. Steven brings a little humanity to several of the town’s bored teens and we get to see a side of Greg we hadn’t really recognized – his ability to weather crises with a calm perspective. Maybe, we think, he was a good match for Rose, after all.

Let me once again wind up with Connie. Two of my favorite episodes in the series are in this season and both focus on Connie. In “Sworn to the Sword,” in Connie decides to train to be Steven’s knight. Steven’s affection for Connie brings about a shockingly raw admission from Pearl and in the resolution, we can see all three of them maturing as a result of the conrontation.

This is followed by “Nightmare Hospital,” in which Connie is forced to use her newfound strength to face the greatest monster of all – parental disapproval. Again, the resolution is satisfying on all levels.

At this point, I should probably note that the music for Steven Universe is as catchy as can be. I’m really hoping they just put together a soundtrack album, because I’d love to have all the music in one place. In the meantime, Season 2 has a “best of” songs episode, episode 101, “Steven’s Greatest Hits.”

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story- 10
Characters – 10
Service – Not visually
Yuri – 7 (“That’s my Laffy Saffy”)

Overall – 10

I’ve posted this here before, but it’s worth mentioning again, because once I start singing it, it takes a week to get it out of my head. Here’s “Do It For Her/Do It For Him” from “Sworn to the Sword.”





LGBTQ: Steven Universe, Season 2 (English)

September 9th, 2016

As much as I talk about Steven Universe, I’ve been remiss with reviews. With that in mind, I’m taking some time this month to get caught up on reviewing this amazing cartoon, so we can talk about things like representation and diversity in American cartoons, something I started in my review of Adventure Time.

In Season 1 of Steven Universe, we meet and instantly dislike Steven Universe, the half-magical son of carwash owner Greg Universe. Steven, his father and his guardians, the Crystal Gems, live in a small seaside town, based loosely but lovingly on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. (A town, not at all coincidentally, which is popular with gays and lesbians. It’s a bit like a mid-Atlantic Provincetown.)  Steven appears and acts about 8 or 9 years old. He’s whiny and annoying, but about halfway through the first season, you start to get a better sense of him and his obviously not-at-all-human guardians.

In Season 2, Steven and the Crystal Gems develop as characters. We spend a lot of time watching the Gems not really comprehending humanity, interacting with them awkwardly – but loving them for Rose Quartz’s sake – and watching Steven struggle with nascent and unpredictable powers. Bits of their backstory starts to filter through the noise, and we get a better sense of the Gems’ feelings of obligation for Steven’s well-being, but also watch them deal with his need to be independent of their protection.

While this tug-of-war is going on, Steven is, little by little, introduced to his mother’s legacy. But more importantly, he starts to develop himself outside the heir to his mother’s legend the Gems require him to be. And when we meet his friend Connie, Steven suddenly becomes much, much more human.

I’m going to go on record that I adore Steven and Connie’s relationship and would have watched this cartoon if this was the only relationship in the series. They are terrific together. Connie’s overprotective, overachieving parents have raised a fine young woman. Almost immediately we can see that Steven and Connie genuinely care about each other and really enjoy each other’s company. They make a great partnership even this early on in the series.

One of the things I very much like about the series is the extremely diverse voice cast and characterization. Even before the cartoon gets into sexuality (which it will in a big way,) it’s diverse in other ways, including ethnicity and body type. But my perspective is that of a white woman, so any visible diversity seems, on the face of it, as a good thing. While Garnet, voiced by singer Estelle, reads to me as a woman of color, there’s some really terrific writing about Pearl as a PoC character, and why SU still doesn’t do black characters right. It’s all worth reading. I’m not the only one watching SU carefully for representation. That there is so much to parse is part of why I like the series.

We can summarize Season 2 as being about the humanizing of the characters – all of them, really. Greg gets fleshed out, the Gems start thinking of Steven as a separate entity from his mother, their leader, and Steven and Connie push each other to be better as people and friends. The people of Beach City start to develop as more than just background images, and suddenly you find yourself joining Ronaldo in his quest to to keep Beach City Weird. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story- 10
Characters – 10
Service – Not visually
Yuri – 5 Pearl’s idolization of Rose is most definitely a crush

Overall – 10

By the end of Season 2, I’d forgotten how whiny Steven was in Season 1. And by the end of Season 2, I was fully hooked, lined and sinkered. ^_^





Steven Universe ~ The Answer (English)

September 6th, 2016

AnswerSUWell, how fortuitous! Just this morning, I was reading and sharing an article on PBS.org, Rebecca Sugar, Cartoon Network’s first female creator, on writing LGBTQ stories for kids, and lo and behold! my copy of The Answer, arrived. ^_^

The Answer is a hardcover children’s storybook, based on episode 22 of the second season of the Cartoon Network breakout hit, Steven Universe. The episode deals with the origin of Garnet, in which a powerful Sapphire and a common Ruby change fate to be together.

In the episode and the book, we are introduced to the Gems of Homeworld who are bent upon taking over Earth, opposed only by the Crystal Gems led by Rose Quartz. A Sapphire with foresight knows everything that will happen, including her own fate, but the rash behavior of one of her Ruby guards changes…everything.

The cartoon episode is absolutely grin-making, with a catchy little ditty sung by the two gems as they ponder their combined fate. I wondered how they would adapt that into a book?

They did a teriffic job. The illustations by Tiffany Ford and Elle Michalka, are swell, without trying to be the same as in the cartoon. But what really makes the book work is the border in which Ruby and Sapphire carry on a meta-textual conversation.

Artwork from "The Answer" by Rebecca Sugar, author, Tiffany Ford, illustrator, and Elle Michalka, illustrator. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Sugar

The story, written by and adapted for this book by Rebecca Sugar, is everything good and right with Steven Universe. Ruby and Sapphire confront being different, acknowledge what and who they are and learn to accept it with Rose Quartz’s help. This is an epic, colorful coming out story about two queer characters in brightly colored pictures with loving and accepting language, drawn and written especially for queer kids.

I hope I don’t have to tell you what to do now, do I? Get this book for yourself and a second copy for your local library. Tell the library this is a children’s book from a very popular TV cartoon. Tell friends with kids about it and lend your copy to them. Give it as gifts to child relatives and friends. Suggest this thing until people roll their eyes, because this book is a game-changer.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters 10
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 10

I cannot imagine what my life might have been like if Steven Universe was in existence when I was young, but I like to think it wouldn’t be all that much different than it is now.  The important thing is for the next geeky, queer kid who comes down the pike will have a book like this to read. How awesome for them. ^_^

Also, I think I want a poster of the cover. (*_*)





Light Novel: Miniskirt Pirates, Volume 6 Crimson Pirate Ship ( ミニスカ宇宙海賊6　真紅の海賊船)

September 1st, 2016

MPCPR7Volume 5 of Miniskirt Pirates added a level of complexity to the “Three Ships” arc without resolving it. Jackie Kelvin, aka Jackie Celsius, aka Jackie Fahrenheight, who had been trying to obtain Hakuoh High School Yacht Club’s training ship, the Odette 2 (which has originally been known as the Whitebird and was, in fact, one of the original seven pirate ships from the Galactic war) turns out to have been hired by the Pirate Guild.

In Miniskirt Pirates, Crimson Pirate Ship, Volume 6 ( ミニスカ宇宙海賊6　真紅の海賊船) having fought Jackie to a standstill, the Pirate Guild’s representative, the cuthroat Captain Miura Grant of the Chimera of Scylla, appears and the fight continues. Grant grabs control of the Odette (and it’s star-killing weapon) and runs into hyperspace. The Bentenmaru and Barbarossa give chase, and are joined by several other ships.

The key point of this entire novel is this scene, in which Marika finds herself in command of not only her own two crews (the Bentenmaru’s professional crew and the Odette’s (now under Ririka’s direct command) amateurs, but also being encouraged to lead by Kenjo Kurihara (Chiaki’s father and captain of the Barbarossa) and in indirect control of several other ships, who have joined to help her. Kenjo cheerfully points out to her that Captain Kato Marika is now in control of her own fleet.

Bam.

At that moment, you can feel the shadow of her father, Gozaemon, looming up behind her.

Something else happens at that moment. Gozaemon starts to be mentioned. By name. Not as Marika’s father, or the former captain, but just here and there by name. If you’ve watched the anime, you’ve seen the utterly unsubtle foreshadowing that this echoes.

With the help of the Koukuchou, the Glamorous Ridis, the Death Shadow, and other ships, the Bentenmaru and Barbarossa free the Odette from the clutches of the Pirate Guild. Jackie bails, and Grant retreats.

Back in Volume 5, I said that if this arc doesn’t end in Volume 6, I might not read the next one. But realistically, there’s no chance now that I won’t. I can guess some of what is going to happen and I want to see where it goes.

As I did with Volume 5, I read this novel on Bookwalker Global. Now that I’ve adjusted the type on my Surface to suit my tired eyes, I find reading a page or two digitally every night not insurmountable. As a result, I think I’m moving more quickly though the book than I did in print.

I’m into Volume 7 now and the arc is still ongoing. I already know the climax, but the arc isn’t what’s driving me forward, it is and always has been, the characters. And I really want to know what’s going to happen to them.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Still a lot of technobabble and space fighting, with a soupçon of electronic warfare and good ole’ reconnaissance and subterfuge. It’s a damn good military/pirate adventure and I can feel the end already.

Ahoy, Volume 7, here I come!





Drama CD: Kindred Spirits, Rain Kick (English)

August 28th, 2016

Drama3_BG1Let’s talk about representation. Let’s talk about canon and subtext and identity.

Years ago, I threw out a definition for recognizing “Yuri,” as opposed to “lesbian” content. Yuri could be seen as lesbian content without lesbian identity. I said this because if a character identifies as lesbian, there’s a higher chance that the story is LGBTQ, rather than Yuri. This is not a hard or fast rule, but an observational guideline. A predatory character identifying herself as a lesbian in a shounen manga hardly shifts the narrative to LGBTQ, but in most of the kind of things we watch and read here, identity is a key factor in the narrative being seen as lesbian or Yuri.

We’ve seen a lot of melding of the two labels over time, as artists like Takemiya Jin and Nakamura Kiyo poke and prod and overlap at the boundaries. And we just talked about how a cartoon can provide a lesbian narrative that is canon…but still subtext.

Today we’re going to talk about a series that has pushed “Yuri” as far as it can go by providing identity and overt text…without ever identifying as lesbian. Kindred Spirits on the Roof Drama CD Vol.3, Rain Kick (屋上の百合霊さんドラマCD第3弾「夕立キック」) manages this.

The story follows two of the popular Yuri Visual Novel’s couples – Maki and Seina and Matsuri and Miyu on a short summer vacation. Maki begins with an expository discussion with Yuna, the game’s protagonist, setting up the fact that Yuna is likely to take over president of the council next year. Maki confides in Yuna that a shop employee recently thought that she and Seina were sisters and that really bothered her. This refrain repeats several times during this CD.

Matsuri and Miyu have already graduated and are now living together. They set up a few days at a resort bungalow for the 4 of them. During the first few tracks I was delighted as the four spoke of the most banal things like who would cook what and their personal schedules (training for the runners, studying for almost third-year Seina.) It was so normal and human and a conversation that might actually happen it took me by surprise. But I should really stop being surprised at Kindred Spirits by now. It does “real” and “human” better than any other series ever.

The story has little drama, but is pretty chock full of identity.  We spend time with Matsuri and Miyu, discussing Maki’s concern about being seen as sisters. Miyu logically suggests that “sisters” is a guess by a stranger to make the close relationship of Maki and Seina make sense. Matsuri wants the two of them to be seen to “fit” together naturally in that way, they they belong together. Matsuri mentions her concerns when she confessed to Miyu, and says that by then, she had pretty much become comfortable with the fact that she was always going to be attracted to girls. (Aki also had a similar admission during the game.) They have  touching moment and a sneaked kiss.

Maki and Seina also discuss Maki’s concern. Ultimately she admits that she wants them to be seen as “lovers.” Seina is moved by this, and they discuss their lives in the future, together.

So, when we look at these relationships, they are canon AND overt text and, although the word “lesbian” is never used, there is awareness of identity in Matsuri and awareness of the way their relationships appear to others. And I find myself marveling at how sneakily this adorable Yuri series gets to talking some real shit to an audience that, in part, probably never thinks about this stuff at all. Damn.

As with Kindred Spirits Drama CD 1, Playing Girlfriend and Drama CD 2, Friendship Plans,  Rain Kick is available by download from Mangagamer’s website in 2 digital downloads, one with the full Drama CD, subtitled as a video file – so no Japanese comprehension needed-  and one with the CD insert images, extra voice tracks, original raw voice CD track, and translated credits and notes.

An excellent way to develop the characters. I’m absolutely looking forward to the 4th Drama CD, Kyuusei Radio!

Ratings:

Overall – 10

Unrelated to the issue of representation and identity, I fell in love with this series all over again when Seina was given a conversation about how she could tell the beams in the ceilings were for decoration only. I grinned my way through the “contractor’s daughter” talking about the way the building was constructed. The conversation is meaningless, unless the writers really gave a rat’s ass about character consistency. Which they did. And I love them for it!

I may bring back the Stargazer Award and award it to Okujou no Yurirei-san writers for exceptional writing in the face of industry tropes.

As we’re rounding the corner into the final quarter of the year, I’m looking at this series for my best of and thinking it’s going to be hard to beat it.