Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Simoun, Volume 5 (English)

September 19th, 2008

Sometimes, the worst part of a choice is the time before the decision is made. The doubts, the waffling, the feeling of “what if?”

In Simoun Volume 5, all the choices are made, the cards are dealt and the fate of not only the Sibylla of Chor Tempest, but all the people whose lives touched theirs, is decided.

I don’t think I breathed once while watching this volume.

There are many people who did not enjoy Simoun. It was non-linear. There were giant holes in the construct of the world in which the Sibylla lived (although if you like your worlds tidy, I can’t *imagine* that there’s too much anime that suits you. Maddening inconsistency is about the only constant.) We never really learn the answers to a lot of our questions.

Honestly, I can’t imagine caring a damn about any of that. This series has beautiful art (with the exception of Nevril’s sex-doll mouth,) amazing characters, fantastic music, a terrific plot. And…above all…it made me realize exactly what I think makes a good story.

To me, a *good* story travels a considerable distance in character development from the moment we meet the character to the moment we last see him or her. If the characters grow, change, respond to circumstances and learn from their experiences and choices – that is a good story. If the character starts the story and ends it roughly the same, I might enjoy it, but I won’t consider it *good.*

So, Strawberry Panic (anime), for instance, isn’t *good* by my standard; Nagisa and Shizuma do change a little bit from the beginning of the series to the end, but not a lot. Neviril and Aeru travel astronomical units by comparison. They pretty much reverse roles completely from the beginning of the anime to the end.

Yun, who comes to Chor Tempest seeking absolution for not dying with her previous Chor finds her absolution in saving one woman. And the rest of the Sibylla face what they thought they wanted, and found out what was really important to them after all.

If Simoun was too hard to follow or just annoying to you, I won’t try and convince you to watch it. But there is *no* doubt in my mind, that this will be the best Yuri Anime once again this year for me. (With at least two Yuri couples and as many as four if you have no pride. ^_^)

The Director comments were particularly interesting this time. The director says that, at the beginning of the volume, when Aeru confronts Neviril about her feelings, he (the director) had ceased to think of them as two girls. Also the Animation Director commented that she felt that Yun was in love with Onashia, which I completely agree with. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 9

Technical – 9

Couldn’t ask for better.





Yuri Anime: Koihime Musou

September 1st, 2008

Admit it. You’re watching Ikkitousen:GG, but feel as if it’s missing something. What you really want in your anime reinterpetations the warriors of the Chinese classic The Romance of the Three Kingdoms as cute girls with large breasts, is something more…whimsical. All that doom and gloom and mind control and dragons that must not be released is too depressing. It would be so much cooler if the warriors in question wore colorful fantasy-inspired outfits, fought with polearms and, oh yeah, had some Yuri.

Well lucky you, because the fine folks at BaseSon had the same thought and helpfully created a PC game upon which this finely crafted anime was based.

Koihime Musou takes the large-breasted female reincarnations of ancient Chinese warriors to a whole new level of insipidity.

This very moe version of the Three Kingdoms is set in a fantastical China, where the clothes are unreal, women are rulers and warriors and no one wears a bra.

In this version of the Three Kingdoms story, Kanu wanders the world and in the course of her wanderings, picks up a number of other female warriors as companions and allies, as well as encountering other female warriors with whom they fight. There is a vague (reaalllly vague) attempt to kind of sort of, if you squint, maintain some of the relationships of the original story, but if you’re trying to make that work, then clearly you are *not* the intended audience for this anime.
Because the intended audience for this anime is delighted by the fact that, although all the characters have their Chinese names, they also have much “cuter”-sounding names that they use to refer to each other. So while “Kanu Unchou” is our lead, her companions refer to her (as they scream loudly while she’s almost-dead or almost falling off a cliff or almost sleeping with Sousou) as Aisha. Chouhi is likewise hideously named “Rin-Rin” and Chouun is named Sei, of course, because she is the resident lesbian perv.

Yes, there is Yuri. The aforementioned Sei is blatantly lesbian, and Aisha appears to be the gay-magnet for the series, because Sousou hits on her, then fakes a threat to one of her companions so Aisha will have to sleep with her. Of course, she doesn’t. Aisha will never actually be made to “do lesbian” – to quote Rica’s father in “More Rica ‘tte Kanji!?” – she will just be the Yuri-service we can all enjoy.

Ratings:

Art – troublesome
Story – a shadow of its former self
Characters – they sure are
Yuri – some of that, too
Service – not as bad as Ikkitousen

Overall – It’s not as bad as Ikkitousen, but it’s not as good, either. 7





Yuri Anime: Ikkitousen GG

August 31st, 2008

Erica is away on vacation this week. She will have sporadic computer access at best and frankly, isn’t really worried too much about checking in. So please be prepared for comment approval to be delayed, and for your thoughtful comments to go unanswered for some days, as Erica focuses on more important things like fish-shaped churches and orgone cannons.

When Ikkitousen: Great Guardians was announced I was cautiously hopeful that this series would contain the same kind of absurdly service-y Yuri that made the first series so entertaining. As of the time I am writing this review, it has been nearly everything I had hoped.

One of the significant problems with the original Ikkitousen series was that it attempted to have a plot. It is with great relief that that has been set aside form much of GG. Instead, we’re treated to Kanu’s sexual fantasies about Ryuubi – and watching Kanu follow in the footsteps of Kuga Natsuki as all her coolness is turned into nothing more than a wall of stoicism to be cracked repeatedly by stupid sexual gags.

More importantly Ryoufu is brought back from the dead, and set up in a situation that is one death away from being the perfect Yuri couple for this series. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who would like Saji/Ouin to die painfully and release Ryomou to find her true partner. Of course, Ryoufu being Ryoufu, there’s plenty of nasty Yuri-service to amuse us as well.

There’s a pretty good chance that the series will be over by the time this review posts, but as of the time I am writing, I expect Ryomou to throw the feelings that fetter her to Saji aside to save Ryofu, who will die nobly, yet again. Hopefully with at least one kiss between them. But I’m not holding my breath.

If you like Ikkitousen for the fighting or, god help you, the plot, (or if you insist on being deranged about the series and comparing it to previous series and expecting continuity and consistency) you may not like GG. If you’re more sensible and are watching it for the large breasts and service, then you’re welcome to join Serge and myself as we pronounce it the best of the Ikkitousen series. Especially if Saji dies. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Series – 10

Overall – 8

I find it highly amusing that Ryomou has somehow become the tragic heroine of the series.





Yuri Anime: Strawberry Panic, Volume 3 (English)

August 25th, 2008

If the Strawberry Panic anime had begin with what is now Volume 3, I think that I just might, maybe, have liked it a lot more than I originally did.

It’s true that if the series began at the beginning of Volume 3, we wouldn’t have been treated to 11 episodes of *absolutely nothing* in which Nagisa is ever so cute as she remains confused and out-of-place, and we probably wouldn’t have seen Hikari cry a couple of times. Certainly we wouldn’t have been treated to Amane riding up on her horse, saying practically nothing, then riding away. And of course, we would have missed all those almost-kisses that so delighted us through the first half of the series, as Shizuma teased Nagisa.

Episode 12 picks up with as significant an episode as we’re likely to find in this series, as Tamao symbolically ties a ribbon onto Nagisa’s arm “for protection.” Like Chekov’s gun on the wall, you just know that this has to play a part and so it does when, after Shizuma and Nagisa have admitted feeling lonely when the other isn’t around, they “fall” into the pool and kiss while the ribbon symbolically unties and floats free. Afterward, in Shizuma’s room, Shizuma begins to have her way with Nagisa, but a memory of Kaori brings her up short, allowing Nagisa to escape back to her own room.

Meanwhile, Kaname and Momomi step up their “seduce Hikari to break her up with Amane, and make Amane depressed so she won’t run for Etoile” campaign. This is the source of the infamous and utterly hilarious “Global Warming” scene, which is no less fabulously stupid than the first time I watched it. The entire series peaks at that moment, I think. Everything afterward is simply denouement. LOL (If you can stop laughing long enough to listen to the rest of Kaname’s monologue, it carries on, no less amusing than the beginning.)

From this point on, the entire series takes a turn. Amane and Hikari go on a romantic date, only to have Hikari return home to find Yaya crazed with desire, the result of which is that she is the object of a sexual attack for the second time in one day. Rough day for Hikari. This is followed by an episode in which Hikari and Yaya make up. Good thing for Yaya that Hikari is another Himeko.

And then suddenly, it’s time for the school festival and the play, a time-honored subject of pretty much every anime ever. And yet, these final episodes of the volume are probably the best in the entire series. They have a good plot – actual grasp of and use of character and a pretty good climax, if you ignore the utter absurdity of our resident EPL duo’s “plot” to take Amane down. Since absurdity is practically the raison d’etre of this series, by now we’d better be sucking this series down with handfuls of salt – preferably adorning the rim of colorful glasses holding margaritas. :)

And just in case we don’t yet really get that this is a Yuri series, with Yuri, we are treated to several bath scenes involving nekkid Kaname and Momomi doing Yuri things.

Last note – I was warned by the folks at Media Blasters (who I once again have to thank for this review copy) that this volume was full of typos but, if there were any, I missed them. In fact, the quality of the DVD was so consistent and decent, that I just barely remembered to even mention it – which for this kind of thing is the highest praise. In a nutshell, the technical aspects of this DVD were so good that I never noticed them. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 7 (towards the end, 8)
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 9

I’m going to pretend that I used the above French terms in honor of the “Nagisa studies French” episode, but in reality, it was just coincidence. ;-)





Yuri Anime: Shoujo Sect OAV 1

August 2nd, 2008

The original Shoujo Sect manga was a series of very loosely connected “Plot, What Plot”-type Yuri porn chapters set in an ubiquitous girls school. While the couples depicted in each chapter may or may not have had any relationship to each other, the larger story – what there was of it – revolved around the promiscuous playgirl Honda Shinobu and schoolmate Naitou Momoko. Momoko moved through many of the early chapters as a catalyst or voyuer, while many of the stories directly involved Shinobu or members of her harem.

The stories were, in most ways, completely meritless porn, (which of course means that many people think they are awesome) but at the end of the second novel, several surprising things happened. A plot complication arises that separates Momoko and Shinobu and ultimately, they meet each other once again and finally become lovers. The end of the book ties up their story in a wildly amusing epilogue that was so charming in it’s own cracked way that it quite made the whole work for me. (For slightly more detail, feel free to read my reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2.)

The anime is…odd. I expected it to follow the same PWP format of the books, basically following one primary couple per OAV, with an extended sex scene. Instead, it rewrites, cuts and pastes pieces of the stories into a slightly new whole and, even more bizarrely – adds details where there were none previously. Like, they were *trying* to make a real story out of it. Sadly, it doesn’t really work.

When we join the anime, Shinobu has a reputation as the school “bad girl” and she flashes her underwear to prove it. Momoko remains the catalyst/voyeur for the first couple, whom many Yuri fans will be pleased to know are sisters. There were two things that made it hard for me to find their sex scene appealing – 1) the noises they were making sounded rather like they were chewing their own arms off, as opposed to having what was supposed to have been enjoyable sex and; 2) in at least one moment I couldn’t help but notice that their hair and nipples were color coordinated. ^_^; This was so distracting that I was simply unable to stop laughing throughout.

In fact, I laughed through a great deal of this anime. I guess that’s pretty normal for porn, since it’s quite often laughably bad, but since I don’t watch it, I’ll have to take other people’s word for it. (No, I actually don’t. Live-action porn bores me to tears. I’d rather spend an hour at the dentist’s. Really. Anime porn usually makes me laugh, so there you go, I guess.)

The upshot of all this is – the Shoujo Sect anime had a lot of talking, some really choppy story-telling and howlingly funny sex. If you actually liked the manga, then you may really want to avoid this as being vastly inferior to what is hardly a work of literature. If, “zOMG Yuri hentai – all girls, no penor!” then by all means, please enjoy.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 6 as a comedy, 4 as a drama
Characters – 7
Yuri – 10
Service – 8

I was marginally irked that my favorite couple was turned into a school legend and their roles were switched, but it’s not like I’m going to lose sleep over it. ^_^