Archive for the Series Category


Yuri Manga: Shortcake to Kase-san. ( ショートケーキと加瀬さん。)

January 4th, 2016

StKastH-275x389I’d like to give a copy of Takasaki Hiromi’s Shortcake to Kase-san. ( ショートケーキと加瀬さん。) to every Yuri fan in the world as an example of schoolgirl Yuri that presses all the buttons and almost completely manages to not be a skankfest of creepy.

Kase-san and Yamada-san, (who we met in Asagao to Kase-san and have followed through Obentou to Kase-san) enter their final summer of high school and together they enjoy the living fuck out of it. Pool, cake and a little heavy petting is pretty much the standard menu for every senior high school experience.

Of course, weighing on Yamada’s mind is their inevitable upcoming split as Kase-san will head off to Tokyo. Yamada has no particular plans, but was vaguely thinking about sticking around and going to the local university. In an emotional, yet strangely silly ending, they resolve this big problem and, we assume, live happily ever after.

There are a few panels that I, as an editor, would have redrawn, but it is apparent to me that there is no manga being published completely free of the burden of serving the imagination of the imagination-less. But with those few exceptions, this is a sweet, silly, and realistic look at young love.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Character – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 3

Overall – 8
For my first review of 2016, I wanted something pretty damn good. This, as schoolgirl Yuri goes, is pretty damn good. ^_^





Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan), Volume 3 Manga (はやて×ブレード2 3)

December 16th, 2015

HxB23-275x394Since 2004, I have been raving about this series and since about 2007 or so, I have taken to commenting that, statistically speaking, we are overdue for a less awesome volume. So far, statistics have been on our side, as Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan), Volume 3 (はやて×ブレード2 3) is just as ridiculous and magnificent as every other volume of this series to date.

Histugi’s Summer Festival is in full swing, and her unique ideas for an obstacle course are…unique. Regular students take up the sword to defeat Heaven fighters, all interestingly restrained, while their Earth partners make their way through the sports clubs as obstacles to find the buzzers that release the restraints.

In the middle of the chaos Hayate and Nagi face off. But this, we can see, is not the final chapter in this tale. Nagi is the stronger…but she shouldn’t be.  What is really eating at Nagi and why Hayate can no longer stand toe to toe with her twin remains to be explored. And we have to wonder if it’s tied into the reason that their adoptive mother Nagare takes off after their adoptive father, Taiyou, with a knife when she sees him. ^_^

School is back in session and we all know what that means! The Hoshitori is about to commence. New rules, new matchups and more sword-fighting madness is on the horizon. I can’t wait!

The extra chapter was so funny that my wife commented that even not being able to read the Japanese, she laughed at it. You remember back at the winter semester break, Otoha found herself joining a Native American tribe on a buffalo hunt, and meeting a doppelganger for Hitsugi? No? How on earth could you forget that? I mean, it was a buffalo hunt. Anyway, the doppelganger’s name was Sanba, she told Kiji to call her “Sunny.” In the extra chapter here in Volume 3, Sunny and Hitsugi meet and, as you might expect, something amazing happens. In this case, they take off like a rocket ship and fly away together, returning three days later after having raided Tokyo Disneyland, Otome Road and Skytree.

Ratings:

Art – 10 There are more then 40 main characters and I can tell them apart.
Story – 10 Sublime, especially when Hitsugi and Shizuku are going to be shot out of barrels.
Characters – 10 Did I mention that Hitsugi and Shizuku are going to be shot out of barrels?
Yuri – 1 for Jun on principle
Service – 1 for Jun on principle

Overall – 10

Always, always, always Hayate x Blade is a ridiculously silly, ridiculously violent, and ridiculously satisfying read.

 





Sailor Moon Anime, Season 2 Part 1 Disk 3 (English)

December 9th, 2015

SMR21It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! For the first time ever in the US on legal media, Sailor Moon Season 2 Part 1 Disk 3 brings us the two most amazing episodes of Sailor Moon R, in which Chibi-Usa is saved by dinosaurs and in which Chibi-USA wets the bed.

Oh, and the plot officially starts in the last episode of the disk, too.

I wish I was kidding, but I’m not.

What is there to say about this disk? We spend a lot of time feeling bad for Chibi-Usa, but she’s really hard to feel bad for. It’s obvious she’s terrified, lonely and miserable, but she compensates for it by being a jerk – which is totally human, but no less annoying when she does it than when anyone else does. Like Mamoru, who is also being a jerk for the same reasons. It is at least a little more understandable when a 5 year old is a jerk because she’s scared than when the jerk is an adult. It’s still not all that fun.

Technically, any previous issues with the BD/DVD appear to have been resolved, and although the translation sometimes slips into odd slang – “you must find her, stat” (who knew Luna was on a doctor drama!)  – it’s all pretty smooth sailing technically.

The original animation has sunk low again, compensating for poor art with hypersaturated colors. And poor Mamoru continues to have appalling taste in workout gear.

But…as I sat working to the sounds of Ai no Senshi playing too loudly from the TV in the climactic fight of the series while eating Sicilian lemon pocky (it’s pronounced poe-kee, not pah-kee, btw,) I enjoyed a moment of pure, heavenly otaku nerdliness…and all was right in the world. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4, until the last episode
Characters – 6, because it is mostly Chibi-Usa
Yuri – 0
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 6, until the last episode, then 8

Thanks again to Viz Media for a review copy and a chance to remember how annoying Chibi-Usa is…even though I know I’m going to cry at the and of this season. (T_T)





Sailor Stars to debut in North America on December 14

December 4th, 2015

Sailor-Moon-Viz-MediaThere will be no YNN report this weekend, as I will be busy with, among other things, visiting Derpycon, a little local general con and seeing what they’ve got going on. Instead, I’m rounding out this week with some major news from Viz Media:

SAILOR MOON CRYSTAL has captivated anime fans and the series continues this month with the English dubbed premiere of Episodes 4-7 of the Dark Kingdom Arc with one new episode added every Friday. New dubbed episodes from the classic SAILOR MOON anime series will continue to debut every Monday throughout December. The classic anime also continues with SAILOR MOON SUPER S (Season 4) Episodes 164-166 set to premiere ahead of the start of the streaming premiere of the never before seen in North America SAILOR MOON SAILOR STARS (Season 5) on Monday, December 14th with Episode 167.

Something to look forward to!





Sailor Moon Anime, Season 2 Part 1 Disk 2 (English)

November 27th, 2015

In SMR21Disk 2 of Sailor Moon Season 2 (known as Sailor Moon R), the interminable intro arc with Ail and Ann wraps up and a new, more critical, interminable arc begins.

Before I get into that arc and just what it means, I need to point an unfortunate bit of quality control failure. So far, Viz’s Sailor Moon release has been pretty top notch, especially given the age and quality of the original. The single episode that defines the second season is episode 54, during which Usagi and Mamoru are kissing romantically and a small child falls out of the sky onto their heads. For whatever reason(s) episode 54’s subtitles are riddled with errors including, but not limited to, spelling Tokyo as Tokio. If this kind of thing had happened in just about any previous episode, it wouldn’t have been as a big a deal, but in the single most iconic episode of the series? I spent the rest of the disk scanning the subtitles obsessively for errors, instead of just watching the story. Not really good, considering the story was finally actually happening.

At last Chibi-Usa has arrived and we can’t stand her. Of course, we are not meant to. She is violent, she lies, she is manipulative, and worst of all, she’s mean to Usagi. And yet, we might forgive her some of this but she becomes intolerable not because of her own behavior but because Mamoru plays along with her. Could he be an bigger asshole to Usagi than he is in “R”? I do not think so. While I’ve never liked him all that much, he basically spends all of R being a jerk after that one romantic moment.

As I’ve said several times, Sailor Moon Crystal was kind to Chibi-Usa, removing almost all of the endless monsters of the day that will wear us down to our last nerve, and emphasizing her emotional trauma, her fear and hopelessness. Here, we’re just going to have to buckle down and wait it all out while she and Usagi become increasingly strident and Mamoru is an asshat. Whee.

So, that having been said, the first thing we do, in the time-honored tradition of new arcs, is run through a series of “Senshi go through a crisis, then power up” episodes! First up, Ami, in she which gets one of her two best attacks, Shine Aqua Illusion.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 5
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 6

Disk 2 is infuriating in a dozen different ways, both in regards to content and technical quality, but we’ve still got many disks to go before we see the end. Onward!