Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


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. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Shattered Angels, Volume 1 (English)

July 23rd, 2008

Shattered Angels (originally known as Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora) is a story that takes place in the land of Academia – a small country with an abundance of schools, and therefore students (but no teachers, I can’t help but notice.)

In this world there is a girl, Kuu, whose name means “empty” and indeed, she appears to lack mostly everything except incredulity and a childhood dream of a Prince. When Ayanokoji Kyoshiro arrives at the school, dressed in the school uniform of the one school that has been destroyed completely Kuu, like everyone else, is wowed by his princely-ness. So when he grabs her shirt and rips it open, she’s pretty aghast. Of course this being a Kaishaku story, she forgets to stay upset – and all the other girls in the school likewise have no frontal lobes – so when Kyoshiro asks Kuu to come with him, she does.

Immediately she finds herself the center of a battle for…herself. Why, Kuu has no idea and no one really tells her, but that’s not really important because of every character in this series, Kuu is the least interesting. lol And the only characters we want to see are Kaon and Himiko.

So in episode two, Kuu is kidnapped by Kaon, who turns out to be an Absolute Angel, like Tarlotte, the cat girl who was after Kuu, and Setsuna who fights for Kyoshiro. The meeting with Kaon and Himiko is mostly so we can witness them kissing, and they can deny that they are in love, and Kuu can, in her own brainless way, tell us that they are lying and even she knows it.

Then we meet Mika, the evil ojou-sama who “owns” Kaon and Himiko and watch her torture them both a bit in an ill-conceived plan of domination.

Episode three was hysterical, as nearly every character spends time in either bath or shower – even the boys. If the idea of anime beef- and/or cheesecake appeals, this episode is great. For me, it was plain hysterical – especially watching Soujiro, Kyoshiro and Mika in a split frame showing them all in showers as they provide exposition about the end of the world and their Absolute Angels. Episode three also includes many gratuitous random kiss scenes.

The final episode provides us with insight into Kyoshiro’s obsession about his older brother Kazuya, and a lot of crazy talk.

Video extras include the first and second DVD specials. The first shows us just how much of a raw deal Setsuna has signed up for. (Is there anyone watching this who does not feel bad for Setsuna? I know I do. She’s loads better than Kuu.) And the second is a romantic vignette called “Lovers Reunion” that shows us, in no uncertain terms, what Kaon and Himiko feel for one another. No subtext here at all. It’s a sweet and touching extra. Their interactions with each other will continue to be tender and touching through the series, whatever amount of service is layered over them. And I still prefer them to Chikane and Himeko, regardless of the fact that they are not the main couple.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7, except for Mika, Kaon and Himiko, who are all 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

I know I’m in a minority when I say this but, I still think that Shattered Angels is a better Yuri story than Kannazuki, primarily because the Yuri relationship does not have violence or insanity built into it. This time the crazy and abusive is confined to the Ayanokojis, so Himiko and Kaon are left alone to have a deep, mostly functional love.





Yuri Anime: Simoun, Volume 4 (English)

July 15th, 2008

It’s not uncommon to run across this comment in anime forums in any language, referring to any anime – “It gets better in later episodes.” Whether it’s correct or not is entirely dependent upon whether you *like* whatever literary theme that particular anime is abusing, of course. lol

If you have been reading my reviews of Simoun here, you will know that I thought it was pretty breathtaking right out of the gate, but indeed, it also gets better in later episodes. I know that there are many fans of the series who consider Volume 4 to be the pinnacle of achievement.

However…I have a dilemma. In order to talk to you about this particular volume coherently, I will need to spoil it. I don’t want to do that, but there’s no way to get around it. I’ll do it as gently as I can.

In Volume 4, several major themes are coming together and landing directly on the heads of the priestesses of Chor Tempest:

One – their theocracy and the government based on it is weak, corrupt and foolish.

Secondly, the lies that government is seeking to hide might well have saved them all, if they had chosen to investigate rather than avoid it for fear of proving themselves wrong.

Thirdly, the ultimate sacrifice of one of the Tempest members not only is one of the most beautiful things about the series, but serves to highlight much of what is wrong with their society.

The result is that as a team, Chor Tempest slowly pulls together – not to fight the war for their country, but to survive – and transcend – it for themselves.

In the middle of everything going on, Aeru and Neviril start to bond in a natural and real way for the first time. It looks good on them.

And last, we see the result of an Emerald Rimaajon. Despite the fact that we are told what to expect – it’s still nothing we could *ever* have expected. lol

Oh, wait, no, this is last – if you haven’t yet started to think there’s a thing between Anubituf and Guragief, you will in this volume. :-)

Once again, I’m pleased to say that the Media Blasters team did a great job, so no technical issues marred my enjoyment of the volume. And the video extra, this time with the voice actresses for Roatreamon, Mamina and Yun was, by far and away, the most natural and enjoyable of the series to date. And thanks too, to the good folks at MB for this review copy of awesome.

A fabulous volume of a fabulous series.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 7 (a point off, because several of them are still wallowing in issues that we thought were, and should have been, previously resolved.)
Yuri – 4
Service – 5 (we spend an awful lot of time in the showers, don’t we?)

Overall – 8

I pretty much held my breath through this entire volume. It’s simply magnificent.





Yuri Anime: Kaleido Star, Volume 3 (English)

July 7th, 2008

Yuri fans hit paydirt with Volume 3 of Kaleido Star, in which Layla suddenly comes to the conclusion that Sora is her important partner. (Finally!) And we get to spend moments here and there noticing that Anna is acutally quite hunky and cool and that Mia is besotted, although more of that will come later. lol

We start the volume with a little time wallowing in Anna’s backstory, then we spend not nearly enough time as Layla and Sora bond over their “Amazingly Hot New Production” (the amusing title of the episode) – in which they star as pirates fighting in a storm, while the ship/swing bursts into flame below them. Seriously, if you do not want to see *that* you are clearly beyond help.

To cap off the volume, we get a painful episode where we learn that Carlos is in love with Sara, even though he treats her like crap (ah, beautiful Japanese-style heterosexual love.)

Nothing against the straights, but, I’m sticking with Sora and Layla fighting with swords on a swinging, burning pirate ship. Are you with me? Yar!

Rating:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service (oh yes, less Fool for a change, too) – 3

Overall – 8

This volume is one of those moments where you remember why you’re watching this stuff in the first place. ^_^ And it’s all due to the kindness and generosity of Ted the Awesome that I was once again able to wallow in the Yuri goodness that is Layla and Sora. Ted, you are indeed Awesome. ^_^