Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Birdie Wing, Continued

April 16th, 2023

The first “season” of Title Poster for Birdie Wing featuring an ensemble of high school girls playing golf, surrounded by adult men and women looking portentous and menacing. Birdie Wing was an absolute triumph that didn’t so much come to an end, as just stopped. ^_^ And now what was being called the second “season” is more or less a continuation of the first.

In the middle of what might have been a climactic arc in any high school sports story, for Birdie Wing, it was just another stepping stone from one plateau of unreality, to another. What began as a high-tension story about underground mafia golf and corruption morphed effortlessly into a high school sports drama, complete with a rival pair that Aoi and Eve would have to beat before moving on to re-address the cutthroat world of adult golfers and lingering threats. Only this is Birdie Wing, not any other story and when Eve and Aoi finally take on Himekawa Mizuho and Oikawa Kaede…..they are rendered instantly irrelevant by Eve’s orange bullet. Watching Himekawa crushed might have even been a moment of pathos in any other story, but here is a passing note of “yup.” We’ve seen the opening credits – there’s like another dozen people to get through. ^_^

Also, almost as an aside, it is confirmed that Eve and Aoi are half-sisters, but if this came as a surprise to you then wow, were you not paying attention. Why and how are also pretty irrelevant in this series and I don’t think it matters at all how they are related, when Aoi’s primary goal is to get a kiss from Eve and Eve’s primary goal is to eat lot of hamburgers. As this series has established, there are no rules which it will not cheerfully break.

I don’t think I have to exhort anyone reading Okazu to watch Birdie Wing, by now, but let me just remind you to definitely watch Birdie Wing. It is the perfect sports Yuri anime precisely because both sports and Yuri are entirely wack.

Ratings:

Art – 10 Loving shots of unreal golf
Story – 10  Everything is valid when nothing is real
Characters – 10 Delightful and nonsensical
Service – There are things that can be considered service, depending on how much on likes detailed animation of golf strikes
Yuri – Aoi’s desire for a kiss, not much else, but it doesn’t matter much

Overall – 10

This is still the greatest anime I have ever watched.





Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

October 10th, 2022

In space, capitalism still sucks. And, with the addition of weaponized armored robots, it looks a lot like war. In a world where different corporate concerns are literally fighting for control of market share, a family is torn apart, but not before a young child bonds with her mother’s mobile suit in a way that no one else can attain. Now, 14 years later, Suletta Mercury has come to Asticassia School of Technology to train as a pilot, only to find herself in a series that was brilliantly summarized by Kat Callahan as “Revolutionary Mobile Suitena.” ^_^

At Asticassia, Suletta functions both as a blithering idiot-type protagonist and a True Hero TM type protagonist. She finds herself in the middle of a duel to protect a girl she doesn’t know and, as a consequence of winning the duel, is “engaged” to the girl, one Miorine Rembran, who lives in a small greenhouse on campus. By now, you’ve probably cottoned on to the fact that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is honestly, in some key ways, Utena in Space.

There’s no doubt, from the credits to the character named Chu-Chu, (with a mouse-ear like hairstyle) and, of course, the duels for Miorine, this homage is deliberate and not especially subtle.

But this is not Utena, it is Gundam, which has plenty of its own references. Also, interestingly, it may be Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Suletta’s Gundam is named Aerial and the head of the Mercury-based Shin Sei Development Company, Lady Prospera is a pretty strong nod in that direction. Prospera is also this season’s Char Aznable-helmet wearing character, because if we don’t have one of those is it really a Gundam? ^_^

As many people have pointed out, Miorine is not at all a passive Anthy. She’s actively seeking to effect change and it seems likely that she’ll be a key piece to overturning her father’s influence. Suletta has a normal sense of what is right and wrong, and she can see that there’s a lot of wrong stuff going on. They may be very good for each other. One hopes so. Guel Jeturk is already our Saionji character and we can see hints of the rest of the student council, at least in part. I sincerely dislike the character designs, and the school uniform, but that’s fine, it’s unimportant.

So this season is carrying quite a heavy load of symbolism and imagery in the first few episodes.  But don’t be deceived, this is still a Gundam and is therefore full of politics and business that have a tenuous relationship to how those things work in real life. If it did, Miorine’s father, Delling Rembrand, would have been removed by the rest of the board long ago. Corporate extortion is one thing, but having to listen to the shouting is not. Those 30 other board members could just pool shares and bounce his ass. He’ll be a drag as a big boss.

And then there are the Gundam themselves. Aerial takes on the heroic white/red/blue and yellow “main Gundam of this series”* design, with unrealistic and very cool transforming weaponry. I am a huge sucker for transforming weaponry, apparently. Honestly, the Gundam battles are among the best parts of the series thus far. I’m glad, too, because they’ve had decades to get that right and it would have been depressing if they weren’t.

I have no idea how much of or how long, this series will be wearing Utena cosplay, plot-wise, but I’m hoping that it sheds it and movse on to a powerful story of its own. I’ve only seen a few Gundam series but one that makes strong anti-war and anti-capitalism statements would be welcome, although I wouldn’t bet on that this time. At least we have a female lead and a couple right from the beginning…let’s see what they do with that.

Ratings:

Art – Good on tech, less good on people, let’s give it a 6
Story – Well, since at the moment it’s 3 series trying to figure out who’s boss, also a 6
Characters – Other than Delling, who is stupidly unlikable, I’ll go 7 and hope some of them go up in score
Service – Erm, not really, but I don’t know if I should be reassured or not
Yuri – Again, erm. It’s Utena, but we’re at the beginning and who knows what will develop. Say….2 for the homage.

Overall – A strong 7, with loads of room to get amazing…or not. Guess we’ll find out!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is streaming on Crunchyroll.

* I know every Gundam is different and fans could tell me in great detail why. They mostly look the same to me, but I feel that way about cars and planes and other forms of transportation, too. Feel free to detail your feelings about Aerial in the comments. ^_^





Revue Starlight: The Movie

September 6th, 2022

In 2019, Revue Starlight hit the anime scene with a bang. It was shiny, with a setup of a Takarazuka-like school, the intensity of competition and performance and internal struggle embodied in duels referred to as “auditions.” These duels allowed characters to work through personal and relationship issues with their partner/rival, and were accompanied by character image songs that expressed deep emotions – what could not be said, could be sung. I reviewed the anime on Okazu, with a ranking of couples, rather than rating the anime itself. ^_^

Now, HIDIVE is streaming Revue Starlight: The Movie and so, I took an appropriate day off to watch it. It had some truly excellent moments.

For most fans, the immediate visual reference would be the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, what with musical duels and emotional purging. Clearly, the visuals were meant in many places to call Ikuhara Kunihiko’s work to mind….I’d say there’s as much Mawaru Penguindrum as there is Utena in this movie. But still, as with the TV show, I felt the shadow of Melody of Oblivion hovering in the corner of my mind the entire time. If Birdie Wing‘s mecha golf course came with epic music, it’s much the same feel, when the mechanics and music combine. Visually, this series was epic and surreal. It Ikuhara’ed. And in several cases, it worked.

There were only two things that did not work for me, personally. The first and most critical was the insertion of extended scenes of Hikari’s and Karen’s backstory. I am of the belief that few, if any, people were going to see this movie without having seen the TV series, so not only were these redundant, but they were also rather dull. As I said in my original review, Karen and Hikari were the least interesting pair in the series. Having to spend more time with them and their convoluted non-conflict was a chunk of time that added nothing. I’ll get to the second problem in a moment.

An initial fight scene is quite shocking, but when the pair duels actually arrive – they are excellent. The duel that ought to have been the best was, in fact, the best. The “staging” during that duel was animated like actual staging. Despite the leads being two other characters, it is impossible to take one’s eyes off Claudine and Maya. It was perfect. Junna and Nana’s duel was redemptive in a way that I felt really worked and I really dug everything about Futaba vs Kaoruko.  And then the end comes, and the final duel is HUGE and full of everything.

The second issue with this movie is that, despite this, the emotional stakes are low to non-existent. I didn’t care who won, or why, because I knew perfectly well that everyone was just going to grow up and move on. Yes, absolutely, high school is weird and a performing high school by it’s nature has to be extra weird. A high school of performing arts at which musical existential duels are performed on shapeshifting stages, presided over by a nihilistic giraffe is just too weird for me to ever develop any emotional buy-in. ^_^

Aside from that, it was a good movie if you’d like to see folks who work with the specific kinds of forced surrealism that Ikuhara favors, combined with a musical emotional journey (oh! Here’s another reference…Red Garden for similar musical therapy  sessions and inside voices.) I do enjoy such things and, as a result will quite probably watch this again…this time zapping forward through all the Karen x Hikari stuff. If you have HIDIVE or want an excuse to get a free trial, and also like such things, Revue Starlight: The Movie is definitely worth a watch.

Ratings:

10/10 for Maya v Claudine
9/10 for Nana v Junna
8/10 for Mahiru v <spoiler>
8/10 for Futaba v Kauruko
7/10 for Hikari v Karen

The epilogue in the end credits was quite nice, too. I’m a big fan of epilogues.





Project A-ko **Perfect Edition** Blu-ray, Guest Review by Matt Marcus

August 17th, 2022

Welcome back to another Okazu Guest Review Wednesday! Today we welcome back Matt Marcus once again. Matt is a cohost of various projects on the Pitch Drop Podcast Network, such as the JRPG games club podcast Lightning Strikes Thrice that is currently covering Final Fantasy VIII.

Back in March 2021, Discotek Media’s official Twitter account posted that they were canceling their planned digital restoration of the first Project A-ko film for their upcoming Blu-ray release. In its place, they announced that the Blu-ray would instead be based on an upscaling of an original 35mm master, all copies of which were once thought to be lost to time. It was both a stroke of good luck for classic anime fans and a cautionary tale about proper filing procedures (said copy of the film had been filed under the wrong name and had been hiding for years). Project A-ko **Perfect Edition** released in December of 2021.

It is hard to feel the need to introduce this film, given its historical significance and how Erica has previously covered it on the site, but here is a brief overview: Project A-ko is a 1986 theatrical film produced by APPP, the creators of the Cream Lemon series of adult OVAs. It is a wacky screwball action comedy that is lavishly animated and stuffed to the gills with parody and references to other media (including but not limited to Fist of the North Star, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, Creamy Mami, Harmadeggon, Captain Harlock, Starship Troopers, Megazone 23, The Flying Phantom Ship, Wheels on Meals, The Long Goodbye, and a couple of famous American comic book characters).

The premise is simple: head–and body–strong teenager A-ko and her childhood friend C-ko start their first year of high school in a posh girls school and run afoul of B-ko, the resident queen bee, who falls head-over-heels for C-ko. Oh and there is a crew of female aliens who are looking for their lost princess. Also B-ko is a mecha engineering genius? Look, the film opens with a “meteor” decimating a major city and then immediately cuts to sixteen years in the future where the city has been rebuilt inside the impact crater. Wild stuff all around.

Watching this film for the first time in 2022, I found a lot to like and a few things to side-eye. The mecha and spaceship design is gorgeous. The music is the perfectly aged flavor of ‘80s cheese. The detail put into the destruction of many, many bits of the environment is something to behold. Nevertheless, this is the Cream Lemon team, so even though the content is not R18 there are still a couple scenes of teen nudity and countless panty shots. A few other gripes: B-ko is a psycho lesbian trope (even though I love her); there is a surprising amount of murder happening being treated as slapstick; and I have no idea who finds C-ko’s wailing anything other than incredibly grating. I try to imagine an ‘80s salaryman watching this film in theaters, chuckling to himself as he thinks, “Oh ho ho, that C-ko is crying again! What mirth this bestows upon me!”

What really interested me the most with this release is the plethora of extra features, the standout being the 30 minute mini-documentary aptly titled The Music of Project A-ko. It is centered around interviews with the writing and composing duo of Richie Zito and Joey Carbone, as well as singers Annie Livingstone and Samantha Newark. (Sadly, Valerie Stevenson, who sang lead on C-ko’s theme song “Follow Your Dreams”, passed away in 2015.) As a music production nerd, it was very fun to hear the history of how the music made it to the film. I would also highlight the small featurette on the scrapped CD-ROM game, which is especially entertaining if you experienced PC gaming in the ‘90s.

It’s clear that Discotek had a lot of love for this film. As a newcomer to it, I appreciate it more than I like it. If you love Project A-ko, you’ve already bought this. For those who have yet to check it out, there is fun to be had if you allow it some grace for its vintage.

Art – 9 This is what you are here for, seeing lots of things crumble, shatter, tear, and explode
Story – 6 The story is just an excuse for gags and action, which it does well enough
Characters – 5 There’s some fun rapport but this is not a character-focused vehicle
Service – 7 Yes, definitely
Yuri – 5 / LGBTQ – 0 To quote one of the extra features, “B-ko’s obsession with C-ko seems to border on the homosexual”

Overall – 8 The currently best way to enjoy a classic

I would like to give a shoutout to my podcast cohost Sibyl (you can find her projects here). She and I covered this film in detail on a bonus episode of Boku No Stop, available only for Pitch Drop Patrons.

Erica here: Thanks for a great review Matt and a couple of guffaws! The key news about this release of Project A-ko was when Diskotek found the original 35mm masters literally in someone’s closet. The animation for this has never looked so good. Not even when it was originally animated. ^_^

 





The Executioner and Her Way of Life Anime, Guest Review by Megan

July 7th, 2022

Once again, I am extremely pleased to welcome Megan back for a Guest Review here on Okazu. This summer has been magnificently busy and I’m thrilled to welcome Megan back to have her thoughts on this anime!

The rise of isekai has been unstoppable over the past decade or so, and it’s no surprise we’ve seen isekai media branch out into different genres and demographics: from mature ‘slow-life’ stories, to BL and Otome. As regular readers of Okazu will know, as part of this trend we’ve been seeing some excellent Yuri isekai. Mato Sato’s light novel series, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, marks the milestone of the first Yuri isekai to receive an anime adaptation. 

Executioner begins with our titular character, Menou, being assigned the task of taking out a reincarnated Japanese girl, Akari. In this world, all ‘otherworlders’ are marked for death, thanks to the destructive powers they will develop if left unattended. Akari’s power presents a unique problem though: She has the ability to wind back time, meaning the usual tricks of the trade can’t finish her off. With an unassuming Akari in tow, Menou sets off on a journey to find a method capable of carrying out the execution – that is, if her growing feelings for the other girl don’t get in the way first. 

The plot is an interesting mix of some elements that feel familiar to many isekai anime, and others that subvert isekai expectations. There’s a medieval setting, there’s a magic system, and there’s Japanese people reincarnated into this world along with powerful skills. Even the detail of Japanese influence on this world’s culture, from architecture to language, has parallels in popular isekai like Re:Zero. The twist to the isekai formula here is that the Japanese transfers’ powers soon turn destructive: indeed, this anime’s world is something of a post-apocalyptic one, picking up the remnants of a once advanced civilisation destroyed a millennia previously by the four otherworlder “Human Errors”. Finding out the truth behind these Errors (just the names are evocative: the Sword of Salt; the Mechanical Society) turns into a major reason to keep watching. 

An isekai needs to nail more than the background lore in the transition to anime though, and Executioner offers a mostly engaging mix of fun scenes with the characters, action, and the occasional flash of horror. On the last point, this anime adaptation irons out some of the tonal inconsistencies the novel’s earlier volumes struggled with. The anime’s generally lighter tone, with the dark and horrific scenes presented as more of a contrast (at least until the B-movie turn of the final arc), also help make this series more accessible to a wider audience, which I think is, in this case, a beneficial move. 

As for the Yuri in this Yuri isekai, our main couple is Menou and Akari. From the start, their relationship has a couple of hooks. First, the girls are a classic case of “opposites attract”: Menou, closed-off and traumatised beyond her years, and Akari, bubbly but more than a little airheaded. Second, the entire structure of the narrative is a constant reminder of the tragic fate – of executioner and victim – we want the girls to somehow escape. Before long, a certain reveal suggests there may be more to Akari and her past than we think. There’s a good amount of screentime devoted to building up the girls’ bond, and while by the end of the anime Menou has barely taken a first step towards figuring out what Akari means to her, overall it’s easy to get invested in the girls over the course of the show. 

This anime may be a case of the side couple stealing the show from the main, since we also have Momo and Ashuna. Momo starts the show as Menou’s junior and sidekick, and honestly my initial impressions of her and her creepy clingyness with Menou were not good. That being said, the story soon makes the fantastic decision to split Momo from Menou and instead pair her with the violence-loving AWOL princess Ashuna. Every scene of their love-hate relationship is a blast to watch, and if anything I was left wanting to see even more of them (or with Akari and Momo pairing up like happens later in the novel). 

Another relationship that defines Executioner, though in this case for all the wrong reasons, is that between orphan Menou and her mentor in the execution profession, Flare. Personally, there’s something about the story of Flare taking this little girl and putting her on a path to becoming the same sort of monster she is that I find strikes a frighteningly real note. The anime’s OP also smartly suggests that Flare may be the truest villain of Menou’s story. The mysteries set up around Flare do reflect a weakness any 1-cour light novel adaptation like this almost inevitably struggles with: there’s a lot of intriguing questions, but only hints at answers by the time episode 12 ends. Still, this isn’t something I can hold against the show too much, especially since both the source novel and manga adaptation are available in English for anyone wanting to continue the story. 

Before Executioner’s anime aired, my expectations were tempered by the fact JC Staff were handling the animation. Seasoned anime viewers may know them from a string of disappointing adaptations, from One Punch Man’s season 2 to the recent and underwhelming Rose King. All this makes me happy to report that JC Staff did a solid job this time round, despite the typical decline in quality in the last few episodes . The characters are expressive, the magic is flashy, and the action scenes are suitably fluid. One point I have to particularly praise the anime staff for is significantly reducing the fanservice compared to the novel’s frequently questionable art. There’s still the occasional bath scene, but at least the framing usually avoids leering over the girls’ bodies more than the source text strictly requires. 

Executioner might not win over viewers put off altogether by isekai, but with its combo of likable Yuri romance and some smart twists on the usual tropes, it has potential to appeal to fans tired of the usual formula. It represents a confident step in a new direction for both the Yuri and isekai genres – one with room for improvement, but a step in the right direction all the same. 

 

Ratings: 

Story – 7, does just enough to stand out from the usual isekai anime
Characters – 8, it’s a lot of fun watching the characters’ personalities bounce off each other
Art – 7, nothing exceptional but attractive with good action
Yuri – 6, plenty of potential 
Service – 4, pleasantly turned down from the novel art 

Overall – a high 7 

PS –  in case you’re wondering about the anime’s seemingly unrelated alternate English title “Virgin Road”, I’d guess it’s an awkward case of Japanese to English translation from one possible abbreviation of the the series’ Japanese title 処刑少女の生きる道. Thankfully the official English novel and manga releases, as well as HiDive’s stream of the anime, have restored a better translation. 

Thank you for reading another of my reviews! I’m currently on break from my Twitter, but I might be returning soon-ish. In the meantime as always I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Erica here: Thank you so much Megan! To sum up my own thoughts, I think this anime was far better than the source LNs deserve, which was…unexpected. 

The official Japanese title is 『処刑少女の生きる道』(しょけいしょうじょのバージンロード),  Shoukei Shoujo no Virgin Road, so not a misreading. Ikiru michi is just supposed to be read “virgin road.” FWIW, “virgin road” is what Japanese versions of western-style weddings call the wedding aisle, so perhaps it’s meant as a comment on the “purity” of these pure priestesses. Or, maybe, it’s one more messy thing shoved in by a writer who care very little about keeping the story tidy. ^_^

Thank you again for your thoughts and we’ll look forward to your next review!