Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Nanoha StrikerS – End of Season Report

September 17th, 2007

Yahoo! Whoo-ee! Yeeha!

Those are bascially my reactions to the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS anime, as the season draws to a close.

I’m so happy to have a totally formulaic, predictable magical/fighting/fantasy/scifi series with every single freakin’ cliche’ possible, that doesn’t suck.

With the understanding that I am usually in the minority about Nanoha, since the things I like are not the things everyone else likes, I’m going to say that this anime was pure win, from beginning to end.

I love that Nanoha, Fate and Hayate are now grownups (well, almost, from my perspective,) that they all have totally alternative families that are, nonetheless, very loving and caring, and that they all kick royal ass in every direction. Let’s take a moment to point out that, for all the cliches, Fate, Nanoha, Hayate, Subaru, Teana, or any of the leads are definitely not the typical idiot savant hero/ine that I have come to loathe in anime. All of them are competent because – as we see – they practice until they collapse. Every day. This is refreshing, no matter how many times it’s used.

I appreciate that the gloating freak Scaglietti was doing his duty as the “gloating crazy bad guy” and I even approved of the giant red herring in uniform, General Regius. But I wanted there to be more stabbings and a few kickings of the corpses…oh well. I like my revenge hot, what can I say?

The Numbers were good “bad guy’s forces” and Zest was an excellent tragic noble knight (and allowed Signum to dramatically let her hair down.) Quattro was absolutely teeth-grindingly annoying and her long-anticipated “befriending” was worth the long anticipation.

Nanoha and Fate are a couple. There is nothing that will convince me that they are not, despite the utter caginess of the writers. Because ambiguity sells, I know. But my gaydar is exceptional and I trust it. And I have the advantage of actually living with another woman for almost a quarter of a century and you know – it looks a lot like that. Without the magical kid or the uniforms.

Giant doomsday weapon? Check? Massive “zOMG!” powerups? Check. Final confrontations with loved ones? Check. Tears and sacrifice and epic music? Check.

This has all the bells and whistles and the *only* thing that could possibly make it better – and no, I don’t expect, or even hope we’d ever get it – would be a kissful reunion between Fate and Nanoha at the end. Because that would make it perfect – and you just know how the anime industry hates the thought of that.

There was one negative thing and it did make me a bit stabby. When Quattro revealed the reason the Numbers were all female, yes, it pissed me off. Because you know women are really only good for service and babies. Obviously.

Here’s my response:

Dear Men of Japan,

Every year for like 30 years you have been voted the worst lovers in the world. Have you ever wondered why?

No one else has.

Sincerely,

***

I’m just saying…

Anyway, other than that one thing, StrikerS for the win.

Oh, and Tea should get some serious promotion for taking on 4 Numbers at once and prevailing.

In fact, the writers did do a good job of giving everyone screen time. Even Erio and let’s face it, how many of the pervs fans of this series are shota fans? Like 2? But there was something for everyone, really. Varying degrees of moe from the young to the old (19…old…cough).

This is me sobbing from relief. Adult females, in uniform. Who are competent and kick ass. It’s heaven, I tell you. One episode from the end of the season and I wish StrikerS never ends. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – sometimes better than others, but overall – 7
Story – nary a cliche missed – 8
Characters – there were a LOT of them, surely there was *something* you liked – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 8 in the earlier episodes, settling to 5 in the later

Overall – 9

MVP for the series has to be Eisen, Vita’s device. He’s like “Yay! Let’s go smash and kill things!” He’s a German warhammer, what else would you expect?





Yuri Anime: Doki Doki School Hours, Volume 5 (English)

September 13th, 2007

It’s not like Doki Doki School Hours had much of a plot to begin with. It was much more an animation of 4-panel comics than anything else. You know…characters with one, maybe two dimensions to their personality, set up situation, rimshot for the punchline.

And what little plot the series had was thrown to the wind in Volume 4, when the writers ceased to write anything remotely having to do with what plot there was.

So you can hardly call it jumping the shark, when Volume 5 starts of with a parody of every shounen anime ever, inexplicably called “Beast Buster Katarina Nagare.” It’s especially inexplicable because it’s not like we’ve ever seen Iinchou interested in this kind of adventure anime/manga/game at all, and because, once again, the character gags remain the same (except for Iinchou inexplicably becoming a rogue warrior schoolgirl thingy.)

But what’s REALLY weird about Volume 5 is how, after apparently getting all the fanfic they could think of out of their system, the writers suddenly, for no apparent reason, return the the original school-year plot. It’s quite boggling. Unfortunately Doki Doki School Hours comes with no liner notes (or any extras…in fact, its *so* sparse I kind of think we’re lucky to get a case with the DVD,) so there’s no way to learn whether their madness had any method at all. Since there is no proof to the contrary, I’ll project…. No. ;-)

It also makes me a little sad to think that there are so many series I enjoyed more than this and would have loved to have a 26-episode run, and instead, this ridiculous piece of fluff got to go on waaaaaayyyyyy past the time the joke was dead, buried and forgotten.

That having been said, there’s nothing to make this particular volume any less amusing than any of the others. Nothing has changed, in fact. Rio and Kudo are still gay for Mika and Suetake, respectively, and everyone else is pretty much the same as they were when they first showed up in the series. Tominaga seems to have taken a hit on screen time (did she offend the producer?) which I feel bad about, because I think she’s my favorite character. Hang on, let me check:

Minako Tominaga

A brutally honest student who belongs to the cooking club. She is often shown moaning about being surrounded by the “idiots (etc…)” in her class, or telling people off. She loves slasher films.

Yup. She’s my favorite. :-D

Stuff happens in Volume 5. Some of it is school-type stuff, like the school festival, and some of it isn’t. The final episode is my second least favorite tedious plot complication (after the physical exam). Mika-sensei is having an Omiai (arranged formal matchmaking meeting) so of *course* she’s positively 1) getting married and 2) leaving school. The students stress, they get over it, and surprise! when the next semester comes, nothing’s any different.

While I hated the SPCD in this episode, I did love Kitagawa’s quite real issues at the thought of losing Mika-sensei – and how the other students pretty much acknowledged that. One more for the animated lesbians are better looking, smarter and more talented list; now they are more gracious and emotionally stable, too. ^_^

Ratings –

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 4
Service – 3

Overall – 6

I keep waiting to get utterly sick of this series. So far it hasn’t happened. If I marathoned it you can be sure I’d be very very done with it, but as an occasional piece of brain candy, it’s plenty fine.





Yuri Anime: Aria OAV Arietta

September 4th, 2007

Even as I watched Arietta, the Aria OAV, I boggled at the sharp upswing in Alicia x Akari coupledom it provided. By the end, one can’t call it subtext at all.

As I am a diehard Alicia x Akira fan, I was less thrilled than some, I imagine.

Nonetheless.

The OAV begins as Akari dreams of herself as the Prima of Aria Company. She should be happy, but then she remembers that Alicia is gone and won’t be coming back. She wakes to find that Alicia is safely still there and she’s a lot more relieved than she expected. When Akari asks Alicia about when she became Prima, Alicia bares her soul to Akari just long enough to express how sad and lonely she was when Grandma left Aria Company.

We learn a little more about Alicia’s past, and get to spend some time with the three fairies of the water as young trainees, as they bond and plan for the future. My favorite scene of the anime, as Akira drags Alicia out on an obvious date, even if it ends up with the three of them together at the end. Young Athena was especially adorable, I thought. To recreate that moment of joy with Akari and bond a little closer with her trainee, Alicia leads the girl up to the tower above St. Mark’s Square to view the city at night. It’s an undeniably romantic scene – and Akari reacts as one might expect, charmed and attracted by her charming and attractive senior. When she expresses a wish that her time with this woman, her important person and the person she loves, will continue for some time, we’re all nodding. Of course.

Several times through this OAV, we get full-on “scenery porn” as Sean Gaffney puts it so accurately. The entire OAV has excellent animation, with a softer, more gentle focus that fits the general tone of the story perfectly.

Yuri aside, this is a lovely example of why I enjoy this anime. Every episode is a slow ride along the canals of Neo-Venezia, with no destination in mind. It really doesn’t matter whether we’ve been past this same square ten times, we’re just glad to see it again in this light, in this season, as opposed to some other. (I’m reading a book right now that basically says that that’s what Venice does to some people – just captivates them and makes them obsess, in a relaxed way, about the quality of the light and the view. So it all works for me.)

As for the Yuri, well, I’m happy for the Akari x Alica fans, but I’m sulking here in the corner for my own fave couple, thanks. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8 (I like when we get glimpses of the Primas as youth.)
Character – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Aria is still not Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, but it edged just a little closer during this OAV.





Yuri Anime: My Zhime (Mai Otome), Volume 1 (English

August 31st, 2007

How many fanfics have we seen where the main characters are transplanted to a different location, time or situation than the original source material? The Senshi at an agricultural college, the girls of Marimite visiting (or attending school in) some North American location that just *happens* to be the same place the author lives or attends. There are many series that do that kind of thing within the context of the actual series.

Star Trek:Next Generation used their omnipresent Holodeck to allow a sort of time and space travel (mostly so we could see that characters play dress up) and Xena:Warrior Princess had a few stories which fans called “Uber-Xena” stories, in which Gabrielle and Xena were portrayed as more modern, but equally as silly, characters. (Which led to a whole genre of “Uber-Xena” stories, many of which were better than the actual series. I wrote one Uber-Xena story myself, In the Hall of the Mountain Queen, a title which came to me in a very memorable dream.)

And so we find ourselves regarding the series, My Zhime, aka Mai Otome, in which the characters of Fuuka Academy from My HiME are now suddenly on a planet much like our earth, but more feudal. The HiME are now become Otome – the human nuclear arsenal of each country. The school at which young women are trained to become Otome candidates, Garderobe, is the center of the new conflict. And while all the characters from HiME are moved to the new time/place/location/ their roles, ages and, in some cases personalities, have been altered to fit the new storyline.

I had planned of holding off reviewing this series at all until I finished reviewing all of the My HiME DVDs, but last weekend I decided that I wanted to watch Volume 1. Then, as I watched it, I remembered all over again why I thought it was a vastly superior series to the original. Mostly because it starts off as stupid fun with a hint of plot, continues to be stupid fun with an actual plot, and ends as stupid fun and who cares about the plot, which short side trips to wallow into meaningless angst. The difference is that, IMHO, HiME primarily wallowed in angst with pretensions of having a Serious Plot ™, when in reality, it was all meaningless angst and plot was a self-fulfilling prophecy with reset.

My Zhime, Volume 1, starts off with the arrival of a strange girl from out of the wastelands, at the sophisticated and cosmopolitan city of Windbloom. Yumemiya Arika is strange in the she is a stranger, and that she is clearly an uncultured bumpkin……and she’s just kind of strange, too. But in a good-hearted, honest bumpkiny kind of way. She’s convinced that her mother was, or maybe is, an Otome, so after her guardian dies, she’s come to Garderobe to find her mother. After she witnesses the coolness that is Meister Shizuru Violeta, the Graceful Amethyst, Arika decides to become an Otome, as well.

This plunges her directly into intrigue and politics on both the micro- and macro-cosmic levels, as the great rulers decide her fate and in school as the new student is assessed for her level of threat to the status quo. Because not everyone at Garderobe will become an Otome – only the most talented few. Arika’s immediate rival, Nina, can’t stand the girl, so of course they are assigned to be roommates, along with sweet, blonde, starlet-like Erstin. And this is when I remembered how much I liked this series.

As Arika runs around Garderobe trying to find the council and defend herself (and Chie gets her first lesbian cred powerup) she’s the butt (pun intentional) of many stupid physical, servicey gags. But as she runs around, and later, as she meets her new classmates, I found myself happy to see every familiar face, from Yukino and her pet Haruka, to Ers, or Irina. In fact, as Irina introduced herself I felt something almost nostalgic blossom within me.

This is your basic shounen heroine action series. There will be many battles of one kind or another; an outclassed, apparently idiot savant heroine who will battle her way to the top; magical/mecha creatures; did I mention battles?; conspiracies, politics, intrigue on the grand scale and bullying, teasing and misunderstanding on the small scale; and service.

Yuri in Volume 1 is limited to a single knowing look shot at Natsuki by Shizuru, as she teases Arika in a decidedly sexual way, and Chie’s instant high reading on the Yuri-ometer. Yuri in Zhime is a popular fetish, so we’ll be seeing more as the story progresses.

Art – 8
Characters – 8
Story – 7
Music – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 6

Overall – 7

All the characters I like are older, cooler and gayer. Is it any wonder I like this series better? ^_^





Yuri Anime: Doki Doki School Hours, Volume 4 (English)

July 29th, 2007

Today’s review is Doki Doki School Hours Volume 4, or “How you know an anime (that had a pretty thin plot in the first place) has jumped the shark.” ^_^ Many, many thanks to Ted for sponsoring today’s review – your support is greatly appreciated! (And note to Ted: no space settings, but it does have chicks in suits, so good/bad.)

School life in Japan. Classwork, school festivals, exams. How many anime cover these things and the joys of summer vacation, the class trip, transfer students, etc, etc? Many, I’m sure. But how many anime also cover dystopian realities in which manga is outlawed, or hotel stays that end up being survival exercises with visits to the hot springs people,or alt-universe versions of their own plot in which all the characters are suddenly brothers and sisters?

Few, I wager.

Yes, in the fourth volume of Doki Doki, the writers of Mika-sensei and her second-year students at Okitsu High suddenly get sick and tired of their own plots, and start randomly adding silly alternative universe stories starring their own characters. There is no rhyme or reason for these stories, half of them have no particular tie-in to the story at hand. But because they are entertaining, who, really, cares? ^_^

The volume begins with a trip to the beach which ends up in an exclusive hotel which, for no good reason, has a jungle ride through an extensive in-hotel onsen. This leads to the students getting lost, braving monsters and onsen-people and waterfalls. In the hotel. Yes.

Okitsu gets a transfer student – from America! He’s the usual Aryan type (because all Americans are blond/e and blue-eyed. all of us) but this time, he is also – an otaku! The students boggle as his Japanese, which is fluent, is also incomprehensibly filled with otaku terms like “moe.” His appearance leads to the dystopia scenario, where manga is illegal and Kitagawa looks good in a suit. ^_^

Back in “reality” the sports festival is approaching. Cross-dressing Seki is dissed by the girls when he suggests that he wears a cheerleading costume, but they flock to Kitagawa when she appears in Japanese traditional boy’s uniform, the gakuran. ^_^ This was my favorite moment of the volume, easily.

The last episode is a totally bizarre alternate universe story in which Mika and all the students are suddenly siblings (which in no way lessens Kitagawa’s feeling for “big sister Mika”) whose mother runs a ramen shop. It’s just….wtf. As if the writers decided to write a fanfic for the series, because no one stopped them from doing so.

With the exception of the the shenanigans in the hotel, I liked this volume a lot. It was totally random, it made no sense, but it’s not like this anime was super intelligent or deep to begin with. Yes, it jumped the shark. As I said earlier, who, really, cares?

I’m not sure I’d recommend this series for a beginner in anime – too many of the jokes are parodies of Japanese culture and life to be easy to understand for the newbie, but if you’ve seen/read more than a dozen school-type anime or manga, you ought to get most of it.

Ratings –

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 4
Service – 3

Overall – 6

Kitagawa remains totally lesbian, Seki is still a cross-dresser, Kudo is still gay.