Archive for the Series Category


Puella Magi Madoka☆Magica Homura Revenge! Manga, Volume 1 (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ ほむらリベンジ!)

January 19th, 2014

Just when you begin to think there’s really not much more to say about Madoka and Homura, you pick this manga up and find that you were wrong. Puella Magi Madoka☆ Magica Homura Revenge!, Volume 1　(魔法少女まどか☆マギカ ほむらリベンジ!) had some interesting elements.

The story begins with Homura (as we are first introduced to her in the TV series) full of dread and hope at starting another cycle of the story. Only this time, something is very, very different. After Homura has introduced herself to the class, Madoka stands up, shouts her name and comes running up to her. Homura has no idea what to make of it – this has never happened before.

Madoka explains that she remembers everything – like everything everything. And this time, she too is determined to save everyone before tragedy overtakes them. She suggests that what they need to do is pinpoint the moments when things went wrong for Mami and Sayaka and if they change those  moments just enough they can ward off the seemingly inevitable end.

What they don’t account for is Kyuubey’s interference. He’s always pretended non-involvement, but realistically, he needs the conflict to continue. He’s not getting himself involved in the fight between the magical girls and the witches, but he is willing to fight Homura and Madoka to retain the status quo.

The reworking of this story actually added  a new edge to the plot. Is it enough that both Madoka and Homura are fighting against the pre-set script? Frankly, I’m not sure. Not with Kyuubey forcing rule changes. But I’m going to read the next volume and hope that the committee that is churning out Madoka-franchise stories had a decent ending in mind for this one.

Ratings:

Art – Same as all the Madoka art. Blobby heads, stylized violence, more details to the backgrounds than the characters. 6
Story – 7 Pretty good opening, but sort of slips into old patterns as it goes on.
Characters – Mami, Sayaka and Kyouko are already caricatures of themselves before the book starts. I’m not sure we’ll ever get them back.
Yuri – 1 Homura’s feelings take a back seat to the plot, we just have to assume she feels the same way about Madoka.
Service – 2 Not too bad. Even the guro is toned down.

Overall – a strong 7, but my opinion could change if the next volume bites.

Typically, Madoka and Homura are playing by rules that Kyuubey doesn’t honor. The original story was a logic problem. I wonder what this one will be?





Sailor Moon Anime News – The Good, the Bad, the Amibiguous

January 10th, 2014

sm20Okay, we finally have some news about the Sailor Moon anime.

First, the bad news: Yesterday, Comic Natalie reported that the upcoming Sailor Moon anime would be delayed again, this time pushed back until July 2014. Originally announced in spring 2013, this will be the second delay. I’m nether surprised nor upset by this. It was obvious that they were trying to squeeze in the thing for the 20th anniversary year and it wasn’t working.

Then came the good news: Umezawa Atsutoshi, the producer for the new series, went on record with news that the anime will not be a remake, but a reboot. (Like, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood.)

Here’s the ambiguous: We still haven’t heard anything about voice actresses. It is absolutely possible that the delay is to accommodate the schedule of actresses we’d like to see return to their roles, it’s equally as possible that with a reboot, they’ll just choose new voice actresses…especially as some of them have retired or semi-retired, while others were always working.

More importantly, those of us around in the late 1990’s remember Takeuchi-sensei saying that she was never really happy with the anime. The staff was mostly male, they rewrote a lot, and just generally dragged her story out into an even more formulaic kiddy series than it was in the manga. The one thing that bothered her most and, admittedly, a lot of fans as well, was the treatment of the Starlights. (Of course, most western fans will have only seen them if they have watched fansubs.) She insisted they were women cross-dressing and the anime shifted that to them being gender switching. Either way they choose for the news series, someone is bound to be upset.

Our initial gut feeling is that the reboot will be more faithful to the manga – which is, in itself, a double-edged sword. We spend less time with the bad guys in the manga, and are subsequently less like to know about Lead Crow and Aluminum Siren (and that magical moment when they saw the rose petals swirl around Haruka and Michiru.) The manga has some serious problems, including a very messy ending. And the anime has some good elements, so a stricter manga adaptation might not be what we expect or desire.

It’s probably safe to say that Okazu readers are also concerned that Haruka and Michiru might not be at least as couple-y as they were, much less the more we’d like to see. (Although, in interviews, Takeuchi-sensei did say they were a couple and things have changed for the better in regards to LGBTQ representation in anime, so there’s always a slim possibility that we’ll see them more overtly a couple.)

Here’s what I think. If you are already a fan of Sailor Moon, right now, take all your expectations and dreams and desires for the series, carefully tuck them away in a little box in your heart where they cannot be destroyed. Then, watch whatever it is we get, with no expectation or desires and enjoy it or not for what it is, rather than what it isn’t. Manage your expectations and you won’t be disappointed. ^_^

At the moment we know they are still working on an anime that is going to be a clean reboot of the story. Right now they are focusing on the launch of the 美少女戦士セーラームーン THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL TRIBUTE album, with a live event in February.

It’s good, it’s bad, it’s ambiguous and the rumor mill churns on. Here’s to July 2014.

 





Rose of Versailles Anime, Part 2, Disk 1 (English) and a Contest

December 27th, 2013

Rose-of-Versailles2Part 2, Disk 1 of Rose of Versailles begins with an extremely low point, from which everything will flow downhill until the very end. We are launched into the Affair of the Diamond Necklace which contributed strongly to the already bad feelings both the people and the nobility had for the Royal Family.

Jean Valois, her husband Nicholas de la Motte and Cardinal Rohan are all real people involved in the affair, as were the  prostitute Nicole Lequay d’Oliva and forger Rétaux de Villette. Jean did have a sister, but her name was not Rosalie. And, while rumors were supposedly to have been circulated of lesbianism between the Queen and her favorites, those were later, some even after the revolution began. She was accused of the double crime of lesbianism, in fact, with a notorious British lesbian – as if the French ones might not have been good enough. But, then, she was also accused of sleeping with every man in France, including her own sons. Marie Antoinette was not well liked. But this anime works very hard to make sure we find her sympathetic, Rohan is a letch, Jean and Nichiolas are sociopaths, Marie just wants time with her family, she’s not a bad person, just tone-deaf to…well, everything.

In the context of the anime, it is of course, sensible that Oscar be painted with this same broad brush of accusation and, of course, for her to be unmoved by it.

The pit of effluvia that is the Affair of the Necklace does not come to a neat end, it comes to a worn, frayed, painful end, at last. Rosalie leaves for the worst reason ever and we are catapulted back to time spent with Oscar and Andre, after wallowing in Jean Valois’ admirably sociopathic schemes.

Fersen returns and Oscar admits she could love him…we all squirm with discomfort in a way that is remarkable when you think how stoically we viewed the idea that she slept with the Queen. But the look on her face when she sees Fersen hurts, somehow.

The trajectory is inevitable…we are on the downwards curve of the parabola and we know what waits at the end. As not-cheerful as this all is, I have never been more interested in French history as I am while watching this series, so that has to count for something! ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters 9
Yuri – 1
Service – 1

Overall – 8

I have 2 Rose of Versailles Part 2 Box Sets to give away, courtesy of RightStuf! Tell me in the comments your favorite moment in French History and your age and country. I will announce winners when I review the next Disk.

Today’s review was brought to you by Brigid Alverson’s article on Robot 6, A writer writes! But it’s not that easy… because although I was feeling all lazy today, I really should have been writing this. ^_^





Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan) Manga はやて×ブレード2（ニャーン）

December 24th, 2013

HxBnyan It’s official, Hayate x Blade 2 (Nyan) はやて×ブレード2（ニャーン） is out of the starting blocks and gaining speed!

The students of Tenchi academy have made their choice to be part of the Tenkuu or Daichi dorms, representing the Amachi group and the Black Group, respectively. For a brief moment, we turn our eyes toward Nagi, Hayate’s sister, and we are kind of surprised to see how bitter she’s become. But, then, we have to recognize that her sister was supposed to take and hold her place at Tenchi and instead went and became a rising star. Okay…yeah…that makes sense. Because Nagi’s and Hayate’s father (adopted) is Hajime’s master, Hajime attempts to recruit Nagi to the Black Group side. Nagi, contrary about everything, refuses, but then is scooped up by her shinyuu Kanai and forced to be a Tenkuu. Where Hayate was boke enough to break Ayana down, Kanai will clearly play that role for Nagi.

We also learn how Nagare encountered Hayate and Nagi. Not surprisingly, it was both absurd and poignant. In a train station, high school student Nagare finds herself accosted by twin infants who have been left in a row of lockers.

In the first few chapters of the new series, everyone is settling in – even Yagyuu Makoto has a new follower. But now that we’re all moved in and everything is ready to go…the First Tenchi Academy Ultimate Hoshidori (a portmanteau of Hoshitori and Randori, I believe) is ON!

Students have been given new stars, this time worn around their wrists, which makes them much harder to protect and the format of the randori has shifted considerably. The first round will consist of several fight cycles. Survivors move to the second round, the rules of which have not been announced. There’s gonna be a lot of fighting coming up. And in the middle of it, I bet Nagi and Hayate are going to have to have it out once more. Nagi has a wound that only Hayate can lance.

Ratings will be forthcoming when the actual volume is released.

There is no other manga I read where I exclaim “cool!” so often as this one.

Why “Nyan”, you ask? Look at the image above. ^_^





Princess Knight Anime, Part 1 – Disk 5 (English) and Contest Winners

November 10th, 2013

As we reach the final disk of the first half of Osamu Tezuka’s  Princess Knight, things heat up significantly for Knight.

After Knight has many adventures (and again meet Satan and his daughter, who is now falling for Knight,) the King sets aside the crown in order to allow Knight to take the throne, but finally, Duralamin’s schemes pay off and Knight is publicly unveiled as a…gasp!…girl. Duralamin throws Knight into jail with her mother and puts his own son on the throne. (One is left to presume that he has paid off all the other nobles of the Kingdom, or surely they’d all be angling to rule.)

Knight finds a way to escape the jail and uses it to fight for her people, who are being cruelly used by Duralamin, as Phantom Knight. The disk leaves us wondering how, not if, she will manage to free Silverland.

And, actually, that was my only “complaint”…if you will. Had I been organizing the disks, I would have ended Disk 5 as Knight and her mother were dragged off to jail. It’s a pretty tense moment and would have made for a compelling cliffhanger. But no one asked me. ^_^

Now that Knight has been outed, I’m actually looking forward to the second half more than this half. Knight can be herself as a whole person as opposed to hiding and having Duralamin and Nylon being creepy about her.  From now on, Knight is a powerful, fearless Princess and just exactly the person who can save Silverland.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Characters – 8
Story – 8 While technically, the low point in the story, it’s a relief to be past the whole “she’s really a girl” nonsense.

Overall – 7

And now, the Princess Knight, Part 1 Box Set Contest Winners!

Joel Keralis
Emily Orr

Please contact me at yuricon at gmail dot com with your shipping addresses and I’ll get you set out to you asap!

Thank you everyone who entered and RightStuf for their generosity in providing these box sets for review and contest.