A very Happy New Year to all you yuri and shoujoai fans!

I thought I’d start the new year off by posting some wrap-up comments on last years’s anime, mostly to kill some time while the new season takes shape. ;-) But also, there were very many good thing and bad from last year that deserve final wrap-up comments.

Let’s start with one of the most fun things that 2004 brought us, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the live-action Sailor Moon television series.

As you may remember from my July entries on this fabulous show, there was tons of yuri potential and implicit yuri – enough to start a wave of fan-created works for another ten years.

But to wrap up I really wanted to focus on one relationship…the one that subsumed all others by the end. Rei and Minako. The screen started to curl at the edges when they starred into each other’s eyes, and by 2/3 of the way through the series, I was not the only one screaming “Get a room!” everytme they interacted. But it was in the ridiculously predictable, completely implausible and really silly finale of this series that drove home the Rei x Minako thing.

Because, you see…Minako died. Our beloved pop idol and hearthrob to everyone in my household, succumbs to whatever mysterious disease she had, and dies. They did an entire epsiode where the Senshi deal with nothing else but this single fact. And boy did Rei grieve, just exactly like a woman who has lost her lover grieves. Not like a good friend (Ami and Makoto did that), but definitely as a lover.

And in the end, Rei goes postal. And damn she did it well. But when she returns to herself, and fights one last time to save the earth (and dies…of course, because the Senshi dying comes as regularly as Old Faithful) when she calls her weapon into her hand…there in her other hand, is Minako’s weapon.

(A quick aside – all of the Senshi get weapons in PGSM. Sailor Jupiter gets the long-handled weapon, so that fits nicely with her planet really being an Outer planet, not one of the little wimpy Inner ones….)

So, in the end, there’s Rei, fighting not only with her own power, but with Minako’s too, and there we are, two 40 year old women crying like babies because we’re complete losers. LOL Waaaah!!!!

Oh, of course everyone comes back to life, but you knew that. And we’re all reunited and live happily ever after, because this is Sailor Moon and that’s what we do.

But let me tell you – Rei and Minako were SO the item. It really made alot of the stupider parts of the end worth it. And I was really glad to see that the folks who brought us PGSM didn’t leave the yuri fans out in the cold. :-)

So, if you’ve been putting off watching PGSM because it looks cheesy and predictable, well…it is, but it’s also yuri-riffic, which is always a good reason to get recommended daily supply of Senshi. :-)

Final Ratings for PGSM:

Story – 8
Character – 10
S/fx – Hahaha
Costumes – 8
Yuri – 8

Overall – 9

If you didn’t watch PGSM before, really….do. It’s quite wonderful. Then put your hands together and repeat after me, “Please gods, let us get to the Outers”.

Part 4

Minako, Minako, Minako.

Aino Minako – We get to see Sailor V long before we saw any of the other Senshi, which was cool. And she’s a fine Venus and all, but it’s in her interactions with the Senshi – particularly Rei and Usagi – that really makes this Minako a yuri top-runner.

Usagi’s natural lovableness threatens to eat through Minako’s cool exterior almost immediately. Every time she’s with her Princess, this very competent and self-acknowledged leader of the Senshi is forced to remind herself, repeatedly, not to succumb to her charm.

But her interaction with Rei is completely different. Rivals right from the start, Minako and Rei shoot lightning bolts at each other for the first few times they have to interact. This changes to a kind of grudging mutual respect, as Minako quite evilly forces Rei to do things she might otherwise avoid in order to become stronger. It takes a strong person to do that – and to not care that the other person might hate you for it. As Rei gets stronger, Minako pushes the boundaries of their relationship. Rei’s reaction is to bind herself even closer to their enigmatic leader, coming to care about her as an actual person. Even as the climax approaches, Rei is carrying the heavy burden of the truth about Minako. Not that we’re worried, mind you – they won’t kill our darling golden girl off. But it’s fun to watch Rei suffer. ^_^

Komatsu Ayaka is, in my very personal opinion, breathtakingly lovely. She makes a faboo Sailor Venus, and an even better Aino Minako, all tragic and bearing up under the pressure. She seems less natural as Aino Minako the idol, but then, we hardly ever see her just being an idol. Still – every time we do see her “in concert” it seems a little forced. She is, otherwise, quite wonderful in the role.

Minako’s Yuri goggle rating is the highest of the bunch – 9 – just for her concerted torture of Rei. ^_^

In conclusion, there’s plenty of sweet-cute-snuggliness between the Senshi, with a specific statement that no boys will be ruining the sisterhood, so overall, the Senshi have a rating of ‘8’ in the ole Yuri goggles.

Please do join us on the Yuricon Mailing List and join us in our prayer for this particular version to do well, just long enough that we get those bastions of Yuri-ness, the Outer Senshi. ^_^

Part 3

So, we’ve done Ami and Usagi, so now we have to notch up the Yuri ratings with the advent of:

Hino Rei – Rei comes onto the screen like a scorching flame, no pun on her attributes intended. Kitagawa Keiko is playing Rei with an admirable sense of discomfort, distaste and annoyance, which makes her utterly charming and irresistable. She’s the kind of gal who will scare little kids in her aged years and make 20-something psychic wannabees pee their pants when she looks right throught them. One of the best things about Rei is how really uncomfortable she is in her own skin, and how that comes through with her being so unbending and uncompromising. Usagi softens her up, but it doesn’t make her any happier to be soft and woojawooja.

When Rei meets Minako, the sparks fly immediately – more than a few folks who watch them see a torrid, and probably self-destructive, love affair in the making. ^_^ And Minako returns Rei’s interest with, well, interest. She’s horribly mean to Rei – pushing her to perform in public and generally break out of her self-imposed box…all for Rei’s own good. Rock on, Minako!

After Rei’s little sleepover with Ami, her Yuri goggle rating has got to be a 9.

Kino Makoto – Yup, she’s boyish, tall, strong, athletic. We love her. Sure, she has this stupid old sempai thing, but they put that to rest almost immediately and, in her super-duper fun power-up episode, Makoto informs us that she, and all the rest of the Senshi are meant to be alone in this life – i.e., “Stop writing us to see if Makoto and Motoki will ever get together already! No! No, they won’t!” To which we all say, “Yay!”
Because, if they girls will never have a boyfriend in this existence, then they’ll just *have* to rely on each other, won’t they. ^_^

Azama Myuu is doing a bang-up job of making Makoto butchy, without losing her essential girl-ness, and giving extra time to her internal torment, without making her pathetic.

Yuri goggle rating of a 7, because while she perfect baby dyke material, we haven’t actually seen her staring at anyone since she met Rei (and has obviously lost Rei to Minako.)

Last, but definitely NOT least, I’ll linger lovingly over Minako…tomorrow. ^_^