Archive for the Series Category


Bodacious Space Pirates Anime, Disk 1 (English)

January 22nd, 2013

“In a world where pirates are hired by collateral insurance companies….”

High school student Katou Marika learns that she is the only child of a Space Pirate Captain and, additionally, learns her mother was a famous pirate. Simultaneously showing natural talent at leadership and decision-making and working her ass off to learn how to be a space pirate, Marika makes it look like any of us might be able to do it, if we just apply ourselves. And who among us hasn’t wanted to be a space pirate?*

Joined by the experienced crew of her Father’s ship, the Bentenmaru,  and assisted by the members of the “Yacht Club” of her elite high school, Marika takes on any number of surprisingly fun adventures.

For anyone who has not yet watched this series, let me address the title issues: The word bodacious was probably a 19th century neologism formed from “bold” and “audacious.” Linguistic drift has added the usage of voluptuous, or even more crudely, large-breasted. The original definition certainly applies, but the latter definition is rather more inapplicable. Marika is indeed bold and audacious. This series has some, but not very much, and relatively mild fanservice. With a name like that you’d be sensible to think it was far worse than it is.

In short, this is a fun space opera that stars high school girls taking control of their circumstances, learning to make decisions, carrying out plans and building a future. All things that guarantee I will enjoy a series.

Several people have pointed out Sentai Filmworks’ salacious and irrelevant marketing copy in their reviews, but as this is the company that has always insisted on translating “Yuri” as “girl-on-girl” despite many protests, I feel that complaining that the copywriters and translators are Fanboys is redundant. Yes, they are, and that will not change because we find it annoying. As I said recently, being critical about translation choices is the least clever thing you be on the Internet. It’s Sentai, it’ll be skanky. If their ad copy makes you sad,  write them – again – and give them guidance on how to be better at their jobs. ^_^

I purchased the Blu-Ray for the series because it was a mere $4 more than the DVD. Clearly I am broken, because I genuinely do not see the difference. Well, occasionally the CGI looks worse than I remember it being when I watched it at lower resolution. ^_^

For fans of space opera, I strongly recommend this series. It’s just a whole lot of fun. ^_^ Available on DVD, Blu-Ray or legal online stream for free (region-blocking may apply.)

Ratings:

Art – 7
Character – 9
Story – 9
Yuri – 1…for now
Service – Despite every effort, a mere 3

Overall – 8

*Well, okay, actually I haven’t ever wanted to be a space pirate, because I’m pretty sure I’d get sick in zero-gravity. ^_^;





Light Novel: Oshaka-sama mo Miteru: Cho Nankai Mondaishuu (お釈迦様もみてる 超難解問題集)

January 6th, 2013

Reading O-Shaka-sama mo Miteru: Cho Nankai Mondaishuu (お釈迦様もみてる超難解問題集) it suddenly dawned on me why I simply do not enjoy this series as much as I might. And with that, I formulated a new rule of writing for myself:

If you create a really great ensemble of characters and then spend a lot of time with a really irritating character instead, people will not like your story.

In the Oshaka series we have Yuuki, Arisu, Kobayashi and Takada all of whom are fun to follow. And no matter how many of these books there are, Andre-sempai will never, ever be a fun character. He’s a self-important jerk at the best of times. So when you keep taking the focus off your fun characters to spend time with the jerk, it’s going to make readers grumpy.

This book deals with the end-of-term exams and the four first-years’ issues with them. Yuuki is, predictably, a good if not outstanding student. Arisu is in the top ten of their year. Takada barely passed last semester and Kobayashi failed just about everything that wasn’t math. Andre-sempai spends much of the first two thirds of the book importuning the younger students to “Study, already” to the point of obsession. He’s not wrong – members of the Student Council do need to keep their grades up, but his constant nagging was merely that – nagging.

In the end, everyone’s grades jumped but Arisu, who remained #7. So yay, but what an annoying story.

The final third of the book is what happened on the day after New Year’s Day and why Yuuki was at Sachiko’s house when Yumi arrived. Once again I adore Sayoko, Sachiko’s mother more than anyone. And once again we spend a few moments in Yuuki’s head wondering if Kashiwagi is gay…or, not really wondering, just sort of mentioning it, just in case we forgot that he might be. The more Yuuki wonders about it, the less I’m convinced. It seems too much like service.

I don’t hate these novels – and we know that Andre-sempai isn’t in the Hanadera Council next year – so I’m sticking with the series to see what happens. I expect the next one deals with the Student Council elections and, maybe, Valentine’s Day.

Ratings:

Overall – 7

It was nice to see Sei again…. ^_^





R.O.D Rehabilitation Manga

January 4th, 2013

Books are dead. The last book has been printed, the presses shuttered. Everything has moved to electronic media.

But in a town of bibliophiles, the British Library has gathered a covert force of bibliomaniacs to gather and “kill” the remaining books in the world. Among them is Yomiko Readman, a girl who will go to any lengths to find, read and “kill” every last book in the world.

Welcome to R.O.D. Rehabilitation. As part of the lineup of Shueisha’s Super Dash & Go magazine, this seemed like it would be sure-fire win. After all, the previous incarnations of Yomiko made it into an 11-volume Light Novel series, two 4-volume manga series and three different anime versions.

This new iteration of Yomiko takes some getting used to. The creators have labeled her “dark” but you know, I always saw the old Yomiko as pretty much nuts, with a dark streak of delusion. Apparently what the creators meant is “she kills people for books.” Oh, okay then, she’s dark. It’s not the old Yomiko, in fact, her name is spelled with different kanji (the original was 読子and the new one is 読魅子,) so it’s probably a good idea to think of her as a completely different character, rather than the return of any Yomiko we know. The difference between the two names is interesting, but I’ll hold off on that for now.

Not surprisingly, I am not a fan of the new character design, which feels like they dug through Peach-Pit’s dumpsters for design ideas.

I’ve only read two chapters of the 3 chapters of the new series, so there isn’t a lot for me to work with in terms of character, plot etc. When the first volume comes out, I’ll have a better idea if I think it’s worth continuing. (Chapter 4 comes out next month, so we should see a late spring/early summer release for the volume.)

If you want a chance to taste the new series for yourself, SD&G magazine has the first chapter up online on the R.O.D. Rehabilitation Page. Click here to read the first chapter. (This is in Japanese. It seems obvious to me, but I thought I’d better say it just in case.)Ratings:

Art – 7 Moe girl in gritty Speed Grapher-esque world
Story – ? Don’t know yet
Character – Nuts
Yuri – N/A No Nenene, No Life and it looks like her partner for this series might be a guy.

Overall – Withholding score until I have a better grasp of the thing

At the moment, I’m not overwhelmed, but I’m going to give it a chance.





Top Ten Yuri Manga of 2012

December 28th, 2012

In addition to my normal disclaimers, I want to make the point that I do not consider digital to be a separate thing. From this day forward, digital will be part of this list. It’s just another means of distribution. However you buy it – local comic store, online shopping, book store, digital – it’s all manga.

And with that, away we go!

10) Tokyo Love  – Rica ‘tte Kanji!? – Modesty prevents me from putting this higher, but this year ALC released a 20-year retrospective edition of Rica Takashima’s Yuri Manga and we put it online for free. As I worked on the book, I was reminded of why I liked it in the first place. Rica and Miho feel “real” in a way that so few manga characters do. It’s funny and charming and snarky. It’s still online for free – so give a gay kid a smile for the holidays and share it around. ^_^

9) Poor Poor Lips – whether you’re reading it in Japanese or on JManga in English, you have the chance to read a rare item – a comedy that tells a serious story in a way that has some meaning. Poor Poor Lips is not a masterwork, but it transcended its 4-panel comic strip format and its Yuri genre to become an object lesson in a changing world. Quite probably, the story will be meaningless and obsolete in a few years, I certainly hope so at any rate!  ^_^ I’m glad it had the ending it did. I’m glad JManga has made it available to you. It deserves a place on this list.

8) Candy/Prism – These two series were, again, surprisingly realistic explorations of first love. In a sense they are groundbreaking, simply for getting the story and the emotions right. It’s been a long time that we’ve been reading stories that don’t really resonate with reality, it’s so refreshing that Tsubomi has published these.

7) Sailor Moon – Do I even have to tell you why this is on this list? As the series approaches a 20 year anniversary, can we just say it’s timeless and call it quits? ^_^ Haruka and Michiru will forever be the Queens of Yuri in my mind, and here they are…helicopters and all!

6) Girl Friends – Speaking of “reality,” this extended look at the evolution of a relationship is notable for itself and even more so for making it to English this year. Digitally on JManga or in print from Seven Seas (Volume 1 | Volume 2), it’s a sweet, cute look at what happens when an introvert and an extrovert fall in love. ^_^

5) Renai Joshi File – I said that this was Morishima-sensei’s best work to date and I stand by that. Another few moments of realism injected into the world of Yuri manga, not only about falling in love, but this time, about falling out of it, as well, and a nice dose of a couple who has been together for a long time, sets this book apart. Call me crazy, but I think we need more of this.

4) Sasamekikoto – This story floored me. It began as something silly and ended as something remarkable and memorable, The ending was nowhere near what I expected, but it was so far beyond expectations I almost have no words to express my feelings. Relief? Well, yes, but no. Celebration? That’s it! So here I am celebrating the way this series ended by putting it on my Top Ten List. ^_^

I sat here looking at this list for a long time and there is just no way I can decide between the next two, so I’m calling it a tie for 2nd Place this year between two of the differentest series I’ve ever read:

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2) GUNJO and Sweet Blue Flowers – GUNJO ended in a way that I had hoped, but also feared. Sweet Blue Flowers continues in a way that also leads to hope and fear. Both stories are, in their own way, sublime. These two series practically define the continuum of “best of Yuri” for me. Sweet Blue Flowers is currently available on JManga in English.

The most amazing things about both these series for me, are the way that the writers delve into the psychological lives of the characters. Neither narrative feels forced, awkward or full of that exhausting exposition so often seen in manga, in which characters “explain” what is happening through tortured dialogue. (This is seen most painfully in shounen action series, where attack combinations are explored in mind-numbing detail while the characters simply stand there, listening patiently to their enemy.) In both these series, the characters act and speak consistently with their age and life experience.

Fumi, for all that she’s a very mature teen, with a calm temperament, will have outbursts and rants (mostly internal, as befits a “good girl.”) Akira speaks without thinking (or perhaps, thinks out loud).

The brunette in GUNJO is broken before we ever meet her, pounded into bitter resignation by a life that didn’t have to be as hard as it was. The blonde’s idealism is shattered, rebuilt, re-shattered, rebuilt, until she finds an inner strength she had no idea she would ever need. Each of these characters is unique, three-dimensional and real in a way that I long for, but never really expected to see in manga.

And, as I have been saying repeatedly for months, so it really shouldn’t come as any surprise, my number one pick Yuri Manga for this year is…

1) Collectors – I’ve said this before and I hope to say it more often in coming days – THIS is the book I’ve been waiting for.

It’s got all the qualities I have been hoping for in Yuri Manga:

It’s about two adult women who are in love with one another and have been together for a long time.

It’s about the after happily-ever-after that is actually happily.

It’s about the moments of domestic bliss, the bullshitting, the teasing, the small conflicts and romantic moments of a relationship that has matured, but is not in danger of failing.

And it has art by one of the best artists in manga today. Not moe in the least, Nishi Uko’s art is adult and beautiful, just like her story.

I’m so very pleased to be able to say that Collectors is my number one Yuri manga of 2012.

Here’s to many more years of fantastic Yuri Manga!





Sailor Moon Manga, Volume 8 (English)

December 25th, 2012

In Volume 8 of Sailor Moon, three things of importance happen and I don’t want to spoil any of them. Instead, let me randomly discuss the concept of “destruction”.

If you are reading this, the Mayan calendar clicked over to a new cycle and the world did not end. Some of you are celebrating the birth of what you consider to be the Messiah. Others are celebrating the shifting of a small cycle of time, in which the big glowing ball of hydrogen in the sky does not disappear completely, but actually comes back to warm the planet for a teeny bit longer than it did the day before in the Northern Hemisphere (or less than it did the day before, if you’re in the Southern.)

This planet, the chosen land as Sailor Saturn calls it, faces destruction every day. And yet – here we are. Still. Reading manga, enjoying the company of family and friends on the road or at home. Every day we face some kind of Pharaoh 90, some person or persons who want to take our lives or our way of life and change it to their idea of what it “should” be.

As we face the new ba’aktun, the new year, the winter, tomorrow, consider this – Sailor Moon and the Senshi are written as ordinary people, selfish and silly, just like us. And, just like us, they fight every single day to realize their dreams. As should we.

Krampuslauf is past, Pharaoh 90 has been defeated. It’s time to enjoy the light that comes from the dark – dark will come again soon enough.

Have a great day. ^_^