Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Houkago no Pleiades Anime

February 1st, 2011

When I first started writing about anime, I can absolutely guarantee that I never expected to be writing about an anime created by the company Subaru. But here I am, doing that very thing.

Subaru (the car company, yes) has teamed up with Gainax to create a short 4-part anime called Houkago no Pleiades (放課後のプレアデス). All four episodes are available on Youtube. The channel design is cute and astronomical in theme, which fits the anime and the sponsor. Subaru is Japanese for what we call the Pleiades.

The story is a simple one – a schoolgirl named Subaru uses a key to get into a rooftop garden where she meets Minato, a boyish girl. The run-down garden has been magically transformed into a paradise.

The same magic accompanies Subaru when she finds her best friend Aoi with a number of other girls, all in “magical” attire, in a sumptuous club room – with an alien creature as club president.

Subaru joins the club, has her magical transformation, but flubs her first mission and gives up the star they gathered to the baddy…who is clearly Minato. Subaru and Aoi have an argument about Subaru’s membership in the group, but they make up with confessions of like.

In a final confrontation, Subaru defeats Minato, but promises to look for her. Minato bequeaths her ugly grey cardigan (c.p., Panic, Strawberry; Shizuma’s ugly grey cardigan) to Subaru who we later see wearing it.

The final credits include still art from a variety of artists that really drive the point home that the club is composed of one of each “type” required by moe fans these days. ^_^ And Subaru is color-coded pink so the girls watching will naturally like it, as we all know girls react on a cellular level to pink.

I want to thank 16_nikki on Twitter for the heads up about this series. I was told that it is 60% Yuri in order to motivate me to watch it – I think that might be a fair estimate. It’s short, but there’s still plenty of space to fill in a relationship between Subaru and Minato and a best-friend-y thing with Aoi. I’m sure at least *one* doujinshi circle will pair them all up, since we all know that twin-tail tsunderes and Nadesico beauties can’t resist the competent leader and the genki forward.

As a magical girl series, Houkago no Pleiades hits all the typical notes. The costume and accouterments designs by Gainax are cute, familiar and ever so slightly innovative. There’s nothing in the series a little kid couldn’t watch, but the lingering looks at thighs reminds one that Gainax is still a male gaze kind of shop. Aside from the shot of the Pleiades at the beginning of each episode and the car key Subaru uses to unlock the garden, the company has kept themselves out of the way of the story.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Service  – 1

Overall – 7

This anime isn’t going to ring chimes all over the world, but I’m betting you’re gonna see more of this kind of thing as time goes on. If two of Japan’s major exports – anime and cars – team up, we could see a whole new “soft power” wave headed at us in the days ahead.





Top Ten Yuri Anime of 2010

December 12th, 2010

Making this list this year was hard. Really hard. Not a lot of good Yuri anime was released this year, heck, not a lot of good anime was released this year. As a result, I am drawing on Fandom interests for a number of these…so don’t be surprised to see stuff on here where the Yuri primarily exists in Fans’ heads.

I’m combining Japanese and English titles once again, because this is me flailing to put together ten titles at all.

Honorable Mention)  K-ON! (Japanese) – I almost wish this series actually had some Yuri in the anime other than fan obsession, because it was, honestly, one of the two best anime I watched all year and I cannot wait to get it in 2011. So, let it be known that if this had genuinely had Yuri, this would be my #2 choice for the year.

10) So Ra No Wo To/Strike Witches 2nd Season (Japanese/English) – Again, most of the Yuri in these series is in fans’ heads, with a teeny weeny little bit of “hint” here and there through the animes. Neither of these held any appeal to me, but the folks that liked them liked the *lots.* Fans are still popping out work based on these two series which combine military and moe fetishes for a successful campaign to gain fans’ discretionary income.

9) Shattered Angels (English) – Kaishaku’s a lame-ass, but Kaon and Himiko get the ending Chikane and Himeko don’t. QED. I still wish we had the extras, though.

8) Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne (English) – I loved this series, despite (or perhaps because of) the ridiculously intense levels of violence and ill-conceived plot. I just loved everything about it. From the BDSM motif, to the forays into the metaphysical and religious imagery and being able to watch Rin com back from death over and over again, I just loved it.

7) Hidamari Sketch 365 (English)  – I still would have been happier if Hiro and Sae were presented as an actual couple, so poor Hiro didn’t have to suffer in silence at Sae’s cluelessness, but oh well. In every other way, this is another cute, moe series.

6) Ikkitousen Dragon Destiny/Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan (English) – Both these series do something idiotic – they turn the great heroes of the Chinese epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms into buxom women, then basically wallow in service with occasional nods to the original. In a lot of ways, I prefer Ikkitousen to Otome Tairan. Although Otome Tairan had more actual straightforward Yuri, Ikkitousen has more actual straightforward people beating the crap out of one another, which I prefer. But they both had some Yuri and both had busty Kanu Unchous, and so for that reason I’ve lumped them together.

5) Maria Watches Over Us, Season 4 (English) – Again, low on Yuri, except in Fan’s heads, but because I love Yumi and Yumi loves Touko, I love Touko. And I love Touko and Yumi as soeur. So, #5.

4) Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie the 1st (Japanese and English) –  I haven’t even seen it yet, but Fate x Nanoha = win. Even if that ‘x’ stands for “colorful fights where they beat the crap out of each other.”

3) CANAAN (English) – Maria and Canaan love each other, but they aren’t going to live happily ever after in an action story like this. Nonetheless, totally worth any Yuri fan’s time, unless all you like is romance.

2) Blue Drop (English) –  Oh, look, a series with actual Yuri on this list! Sentai Filmworks put this out in a season set just so we could get a single freaking kiss on this list, I swear. ^_^; This series of lesbian aliens and Japanese schoolgirls scratches a whole lotta itches, from CGI spaceship fetishes to us fanfic writers. It’s a great story in what was probably the last good series Yoshitomo Akihito will ever do.

How well do you know me? Do you know what I’m going to name the best Yuri Anime of 2010? Can you guess?

If you’ve talked to me any time in the last 40+ weeks, you’ll know the answer.

My vote for the best anime overall this year is….

1) Heartcatch PreCure (Japanese) –  Yes, the Yuri is mostly in fans’ heads. I am one of those fans and in my head Tsubomi still has a crush on Itsuki and Tsukikage Yuri is seeing Erika’s sister Momoko during the day and had a torrid affair with Dark Cure as Cure Moonlight. And there is nothing you can say to make me think otherwise. :-) Aside from that, this delightful magical girl series has girls that punch and kick the bad guys and are not any less feminine for doing so. Yuri (the character) is cool and competent, the team has no one leader – they all have their strengths and weaknesses – and in general, this has been an amazingly fun series, with great characters, sticky music and all the things I look for in a magical girl series.

So there we are – once again, no matter how much the boys’ series load up on Yuri, it’s the series for girls’ that capture my heart. ^_^





Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st Blu-Ray (English) Guest Review by Richard B.

December 8th, 2010

 Today is Wednesday and you know what that means – a special guest review treat! Richard B. has been a commenter here several times and, as I will not get to see this BD until the new year, I thought I’d let him give us his two Canadian cents before I have a go at it. Take it away, Miwa!

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 1st is a retelling of the events of the first Nanoha TV series. While this may not seem like a good thing, it does pay to remember that back in 2004 the first Nanoha TV season was a scattered mess. As a spinoff from the Triangle Hearts adult game series the first few episodes were nothing more than a bad Card Captor Sakura clone. With a few unsavoury elements left over from its source material.

It wasn’t until later on in the series when Fate was introduced, that the things became interesting. She was a dark, mysterious magical girl with a troubled past, fighting our main character. So the first thing fandom did was pair them together as a couple. Add in the fact the battles in the final few episodes were done in more of a shounen giant robot style (complete with giant beam attacks) and the series took a complete 180-degree turn.

With all that and seeing how the later series were more popular and sold better in Japan, you could see why the makers wanted to redo the original material. And, for the most part, Nanoha the Movie is a superior retelling of the 1st chapter in the Nanoha universe.

The movie creators know what the fans in the series want – action and Nanoha/Fate. Luckily we get both fairly quickly into the movie. Fate is introduced much sooner in this version, and set up as the central conflict of the movie (with the Jewel seeds relegated to being a plot McGuffin). The movie handles the two becoming friends through fighting better than the TV series, both with better action scenes and better introspection. The pacing is tighter than original season, which dragged on at the beginning until pace picked up in the last 4 episodes.

The action is more like the later episode of the series, and here is where the movie shows off its big animation budget. The final battle between Fate and Nanoha in particular is well done and I had a big smile on my face while watching it.

There are some new original scenes, including some nice bits showing Fate’s past and training. But the character most benefiting from the new material is Precia, whose motivations are  given more detail as is the accident she had her in past. It fleshes her out greatly and makes for a much better character over all.

Most of the more unsavoury stuff from the original is gone, too. Except for the transformation scenes which were pretty ick. Thankfully, they only appear once for each of the leads.

The Blu-Ray version of the movie comes with an English subtitle track that is fairly well done. Except for a few nits (Arf is called Alf and the TSAB is called the DAB) it’s well written and easy to understand. The subtitle font is middle of the road, readable but I would have rather had either a bigger black outline or a non-white font color. The picture and sound quality is amazing though, as colors stand out and the animation quality never dips for the battle scenes, showing what BluRay can do for animation.

Nanoha the Movie fixes a lot of the problems I had with the first season, keeps the elements I liked and adds even more of what I wanted. It reminded me why Nanoha/Fate became the first Yuri couple I really liked. I hope we see the same budget and care given to StrikerS when it gets a movie. Highly recommended to Nanoha fans.

Art – 8
Story – 7 (Better than the TV but still the weaker of the 3 series)
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7 (Alot more than the first TV series)
Service – 8 –

Overall – 8

I’m told that the 2nd movie has been greenlit (presumably because this movie is doing well in DVD/BD sales, so good!) Next up is As, where we’ll be treated to the reimagined Knights and Hayate. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it’s as good a reboot as this appears to be!





Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan Anime (English)

June 13th, 2010

Koihime Musou, and Shin Koihime Musou were evidently popular enough to spawn another sequel, Shin Koihime Musou Otome Tairan.

In this third season, the main players of Ryuubi’s camp take to the roads once more, traveling around, taking lots of baths, fighting, eating, performing in plays, meeting random challenges and misunderstanding basic bodily functions in ways that give rise to seedy, embarrassing innuendo. Just like the other two seasons.
It’s almost amazing when the story bothers to actually take on a chapter of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms because it so much prefers to be doing something else. Anything else. However, where the second season and the OVA pretty much threw out the original formula of a mix of service and Romance for all service and little story, this third season has recaptured three of the qualities that made the original not intolerable.
1) The sense of humor. In many senses there are two senses of humor on display during this season – the sophomoric, isn’t it *hi-larious* when girls trip and we see their underwear kind and the “god, this is so dumb that I might as well throw myself into it and make it work” kind. The former is on display with every episode, and the latter shows through every once in a while and usually makes me laugh out loud.
2) Fighting. It’s hard to remember, in the middle of all those baths and breast jokes that these characters are meant to be the great military heroes of the age. (I weep for Zhang Fe every time Rin-Rin talks.) We’re getting a bit more fighting in this series than I remember in the last one and I, for one, approve.
3) Yuri. You knew that had to be here, or why would I bother writing this review, right? In Season 1, Chou’un/Sei was very gay and Sousou/Karin had a thing for Kan’u/Aisha. In Season 2, I think there was a teeny bit of Sousou and not much of of anything else.
This season we had a nice episode of Sonken x Ryomou (approved) and also a very silly reason for Gien having feelings for Ryuubi. Chou’un seems to care more about bamboo shoots than girls this season, but there’s always time. And Koukin and Sonsaku are an item, which is less awful than it sounds. :-)

What amuses me most about this season is that it pretty obviously has been altered for a broadcast, non-DVD release. Bathing suits are drawn on, as are fog, steam, bright lights and other clever but obvious ploys to cover the nekkid women. This amuses me and annoys.  It reminded me of the last Tenchi series showed on Cartoon Network, where they sat in a bath and drank, like orange juice, with painted on clothes. It was so lame and obvious.

Because this is Koihime Musou, for every scene in which there is a fight, there are three where they bathe and two where they sing or dance or play dress up; you have to watch this with pretty low expectations. Do that, and you’ll find that this anime is basically ice cream sundae level of bad for you – not so bad every once in a while, but you wouldn’t want too much at once.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – as high as 7 from time to time
Service – 9

Overall – 6

What actually galls me about this kind of series is not that the girls get naked all the time, but that it’s always played so coyly. If we’re going to look at breasts and crotches fine, but does it *have* to be so peeping tom-ish? Can’t we just looks at breasts and crotches and have done with it?




Yuri Anime: Heartcatch PreCure

May 3rd, 2010

Okay, okay, calling Heartcatch PreCure “Yuri” is just wishful thinking at this point, but 13 weeks into it, this classic magical girl anime leads the pack for this season.

First of all, I must give a shout out to Komatsu-san, who has been gently trying to get me to love PreCure as much as he does for some time now. I watched the original PreCure (free on Crunchyroll!) which was fine, and liked what I read of Splash Star, but Max Heart and GoGo 5! were unwatchable in my opinion, and Fresh PreCure was…okay. Nothing really hooked me. Because of Komatsu-san, I checked out the website for the new series, but wasn’t very impressed with the art. But when he gave me a few of the episodes to watch, I found myself humming the opening theme for about a week. That’s *usually* a good sign that I enjoy an anime series.

And then Yuri popped on the screen and I was officially hooked. I mean that literally and figuratively, by the way. One half of the Yuri couple is cleverly named Yuri. The naming sense in this series is a nailbat of obviousness, as you will see.

The stars of Heartcatch are Hanasaki Tsubomi, whose parents run a flower shop and who becomes Cure Blossom. (Ow!) Her next door neighbor, best friend and partner in Precure, is Kurumi Erika, whose mother designs clothes and whose father is a famous photographer and whose sister, Momoka, is a famous fashion model. Erika becomes Cure Marine.

They are opposed by monkey-like mooks, tools of the Desert something-somethings. No one watches PreCure for the bad guys. They are totally forgettable…until Dark Cure, with her gothy one tattered batwing and one laser-beam eye and angst enough for a gaggle o’preteens shows up.

By herself Dark Cure is moderately amusing. So end-of-the-world and all that. But the screen heats up when, while facing down Cure Blossom and Cure Marine, Dark catches sight of…a girl. This girl is slightly older than the current PreCure, totally untransformed – and the two of them stare fixedly over PreCure’s head for a long time. The girl is Tsukikage Yuri (Ow! Watch that name bat, will you?!) voiced by Hisakawa Aya, which I think is a knowing nod to the adult portion of the audience for this series. (Dark is voiced by Takayama Minami, who you might remember as the former Rosa Gigantea, Sei’s onee-sama, in Marimite.)

So, okay, I was watching this scene thinking, “yeah, I can get into this.” But it was really icing on the cake.

There were a number of things that set this series apart from other PreCure and from other magical girl series. Firstly, Tsubomi’s grandmother had formerly been a Cure, which I think is a great touch. It gives Tsubomi a mentor and a source of info that isn’t passing for a stuffed animal during school hours. And both Erika and Tsubomi have dreams of the epic battle between Dark and a previous guardian, Cure Moonlight. Because I am not 4, it was instantly obvious that Yuri is/was Moonlight and that there’s a whole arc in whatever lay between her and Dark. I am tempted to write a fanfic of what *I* think that story is, before the series goes and ruins it for all of us. lol

Did I mention that Dark carries around half of Moonlight’s gem that broke during their epic battle? Well she does. Yuri carries the other half, of course, which means we’ll get a double redemption at some point.

Oh, and I completely forgot, the Student Council President is a cross-dressing girl. This is covered early on and it was pretty obvious that she was a girl (well, obvious to me, but I am not 4).

Yuri is also, just to make sure the doujinshi artists have a multitude of choices, best friends with Momoka, Erika’s sister.

Taken as a whole, I’m still making up about 97% of the Yuri in my head, but for a kiddy show, there’s enough to keep me watching for the rest of the season.

Ratings:

Art – 7 It took me a while to get used to it, but when you get into the right headspace, Yuri is attractive enough.
Story – Monster of the Day, blah blah.
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5 as long as there’s ambiguity
Service – 1

Overall – 7

I’ll never love PreCure as much as I do Sailor Moon, but Heartcatch is at least in the same folder in my head now.