Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Maria-sama ga Miteru OVA 2, Operation OK, For Short (Provisionally)

March 20th, 2007

I’ve linked the picture on the left to the Deluxe Edition of the 2nd Maria-sama ga Miteru OVA. Should you not want the collector’s edition, here is a link to the regular DVD on Amazon JP.

So, Ryakushite OK Taisakusen (Kari), or Operation OK, for Short (Provisionally), is abstracted from the novels Manatsu no Peeji and Satsusatsu Suzukaze, primarily those scenes focusing on getting Sachiko over her dislike of men enough to meet with the Hanadera Academy Student Council. I’ve linked to my notes from the pertinent novels, so you can go back and grab the basic plot from there, allowing me to gush without having to do tedious things like tell you what I’m talking about. ;-)

This is a wonderful OVA. It has lots of Sachiko-liciousness, with some yummy Yuminess. I find myself grinning, yet again, like a loon as I watch, because it’s just so damn fun.

For fans of the series, one of the most important factors has got to be how Yumi and Sachiko interact in this OVA, now that all the Rainy Blue misunderstanding is behind them. This Yumi (and even more so in the sports festival OVA to come) handles Sachiko softly, with a deft touch, but without having to compromise her own values – something that Sachiko comments on. For her part, Sachiko is able to accept that moving past her limitations is important not only for her, but for the rest of the Yamayurikai…and her frank discussion of her own temper was truly magnificent.

In short, this story is about Sachiko being magnificent, and about Yumi enjoying that magnificence, and polishing it to an even greater shine.

There’s more than enough funny for anyone’s taste, but the greatest scene has got to be Yumi calling Yuuki her brother “for the time being” (or “Pretty much, as Lililicious translates it) followed by Yoshino stealing the gag. A brilliant scene, and really well animated, because we can see the differences between boys and girls right there, in a nutshell, as they all laugh.

In terms of Yuri, the best moment has to be when, as Yumi and Yuuki wait for the bus home after meeting with the “unpalatable” Kashiwagi, Yuuki decribes his perfect type as someone who sounds awfully like Yumi, while Yumi’s description of her type, as Yuuki points out, sounds suspiciously like Sachiko. ^_^

But really, what this OVA is about is Sachiko being magnificent. If you are not a rabid Sachiko-hater (and you shouldn’t be, but the first season of the anime did make it hard to like her) you will also grin like a loon as you watch this. If you are already in love with Yumi and her onee-sama, you will find this time more than well spent.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 2
Service – 1

Overall – 8

This is such a terrific story. Just watch it and learn to love Sachiko and Yumi properly.





Yuri Anime/Lesbian Manga/Novels and AfterEllen

March 2nd, 2007

This week has been crack-ariffic, hasn’t it? Once more, no review today, instead news from all corners of the world that this blog touches.

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First up, just in from my deep throat contact at Media Blasters – the folks at MB have licensed the Kashimashi~ Girl Meets Girl anime. The anime is guaranteed yuri, with some transgenderism, unlike the manga which is still on-going and showing strong signs of turning Hazumu back into a boy. For reviews (and explanations, for new visitors) of the story, here is my first review of Kashimashi, and my end of season review. I have not really reviewed the special DVD-only 13th episode. Yet.

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Secondly, since the folks at Prism Comics were so awesome, here is their press release for the next place you can find them – Wondercon:

On the heels of its appearance at the New York Comic-Con, Prism Comics is now hitting San Francisco’s WonderCon from March 2-4! Prism’s booth (#619), will host a full slate of LGBT creators including Tommy Roddy (Pride High), Lynx Delirium (The Goth Queen Needs a Mate), and Tony Lawrence (Western Nightmares) along with an appearance by the creators of the gay superhero movie, Surge of Power! Prism will also announce its latest publication, Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics 2007!

Prism Comics: Your Guide to LGBT Comics 2007 is an all new publication edited by Jonathan Riggs, jam-packed with exclusive comics, articles and features from Paige Braddock, Justin Hall, Leane Franson, Terrance Griep, Lynx Delirium, Abby Denson, Mikhaela Reid and more, with an original cover by Joe Phillips!

The Prism booth will feature the largest selection of LGBT comic books anywhere, including signed copies of Alison Bechdel’s landmark graphic memoir, Fun Home, and fan favorites such as Cavalcade of Boys (Tim Fish), Jane’s World (Paige Braddock), Tough Love (Abby Denson), The Desert Peach (Donna Barr), Chelsea Boys (Allan Neuwirth) and more!

WonderCon will be held at Moscone Center South, 747 Howard Street, San Francisco, California from Friday, March 2nd to Sunday, March 4th (www.comic-con.org/wc/index.shtml).

Prism Comics is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) creators, stories, and readers in the comics industry. Incorporated in 2003, Prism Comics publishes the annual resource guide, Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics. For more information, go to www.prismcomics.org.

Incidentally, Prism is also carrying 100% Yuri from ALC Publishing now, as well. :-)

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Thirdly. Today, Okazu made history. Okay, well, not *history* (or herstory, for those who insist.) But today Okazu was linked to by “Best.Lesbian.Week.Ever” on Afterellen.com. (Hello to anyone who is coming here from that link!) Here’s the funny story behind that.

This morning I noticed my visits were unusually high and saw that my post on the movie and manga for Yamaji Ebine’s Love My Life had been linked to by BLWE. The original link said something like “some blogger says”. So I posted to the Yuricon Mailing List that there was nothing like spending countless hours and hours promoting one’s self and one’s genre only to be called “some blogger.” LOL So I commanded my minions to write in and tell BLWE how awesome I was. LOL And when I checked back this evening, the link now says “Yuri Blogger Erica Friedman.” Isn’t that a scream? It’s not the “goddess of yuri and bringer of the genre to western shores” that I might have hoped, but still…

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And last, but not least, as soon as I am done writing this post, I will be sitting down with one of the coolest projects I’ve been asked to do in months. JD Glass, who I met just last Saturday at Comic Con, has sent me the manuscript of her new book, Red Light to read and review. I already have the first line written. ;-) I caught a single line of the book as I printed it out this afternoon and already love it. You’ll be seeing the review here soon, promise.

And that ends this acid trip of a week. Next week, I will endeavor to actually review Yuri Anime, Manga and Drama CDs. promise.





Yuri Anime: Project A-ko

February 14th, 2007

Here’s why, until recently, I had never seen Project A-ko. ^_^

In the dawn of time, MTV was carrying extremely late night anime, (they were dubbed, and mostly old-school. This was long enough ago now that the current anime/manga boom could not have even been predicted as a possibility,) and I was working three jobs: a full-time day job, teaching martial arts at night, and on the weekends, selling swords at a RenFaire. I’d get home Saturday night at about midnight and be completely fried. The wife was working two jobs (day job, and doing henna in Soho in NYC on the weekends) and while waiting for her to come home, I’d stare at TV.

I watched Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer, which was so screwed up it put me off the series for years, until I watched some of the TV series for review purposes years later, which put me off it forever.

And I saw one teeny, tiny, wee bit of Project A-ko. The dub voices sliced through my exhausted nerve endings, leaving me shaking. I turned off the TV and never again even tried to watch A-ko. I should have tried again, of course. I mean, history, and all that. But the dub left such an unpleasant impression, that I’ve just sort of skirted the issue all these years.

And that’s where it might have stayed, except for a recent barrage of cajoling and wheedling by members of the Yuricon Mailing List, which culminated in Jen hoisting me with a quote of my own, from my Kekkou Kamen anime review, praising the voice acting skills of Shinohara Emi. Well, Jen won. I caved. I watched.

It is an apparently well known fact that A-ko was originally supposed to be part of the Cream Lemon hentai series, but was not, in the end, included. It has much of the same kind of art, and a great deal of fanservice. It also has a strange edginess that I find hard to explain. It’s not desperation, it’s almost…like the voice actresses found the story so bizarre and laughable that they just decided to go ahead and do it as over-the-top as they could.

I’m kind of glad I watched it when I did, because I was sick and heavily medicated, which made it more enjoyable, I’m sure. ^_^ Seriously, it was…inexpressibly bad, in that totally kitschy funny way. The writers clearly knew what they were spoofing, and why, and did it in a way that *just* rode the line between being godawful and hysterically funny.

B-ko, voiced by Shinohara Emi is, as many people pointed out to me in their campaign to entice me to watch it, a very Evil, very Psychotic Lesbian. As EPLs go, B-ko provides an exquisite example for the young EPLs-in training of the world, like Miu from Ichigo Mashimaro – except for her execrable taste in women, as C-ko is quite possibly the most annoying creature to ever grace any anime ever.

A-ko, ironically, was voiced by a young Itou Miki. She and Shinohara Emi have recently been working together again as part of an anime you may have heard of – Maria-sama ga Miteru.  Is there a less likely pairing for Youko and Sachiko’s voices than B-ko and A-ko? It’s almost surreal to imagine.

Which leads me to this comment I made on the YCML, “My last thought was that the dub must have been pretty good, since the level of nerve shredding in the voice acting was consistent with what I remembered from that aborted late-night attempt at watching it.”  How’s *that* for a compliment? ^_^

The music is also quite excruciating, even surpassing the oh-so-80s music from the original Bubblegum Crisis for cringe making.

If you already are a fan and don’t already own it, the box set, pictured and linked above, is a genuinely good deal (2022 Update: The new link goes to the Diskotek Perfect Edition with remastered animation and extras. The edition I reviewed here is long out of print.).

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 4 realistically, but 7 for crackheadeness
Characters – B-ko – 8, everyone else – 6, C-ko owes me points
Yuri – 6
Service – 8

Overall – can you even do an overall for this kind of crap? Let’s say 6

You know, A-ko wrong in so many ways, that we had to show it at Yuricon’s 2007 “Yurisai” event. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Kannazuki no Miko, Volume 2

January 9th, 2007

I was torn today. Do I review some of the backlogged stuff I have to review, or review new stuff I have to review, or finally get around to a roundup of the anime season this winter?

After agonizing over it for a while (like twenty minutes on and off throughout the day) I’ve decided to get something old out of the way, because I’m sick of looking it on my list. :-) And because it makes a nice lead-in to a new anime.

So, here I am, at last reviewing the second volume of the Kannazuki no Miko anime. It practically seems like ancient history at this point, a thought which is funnier to me than it ought to be, but I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that my body thinks it’s 4AM right now. ^_^

So, in Volume 2 of Kannazuki no Miko, we are treated to the back histories of the two who are competing for Himeko’s love: Souma and Chikane. We learn, mostly through flashbacks, of Souma’s tragic and difficult past; and why the Orochi’s first neck, Tsubasa, has issues about Souma particularly. Chikane’s past and personality are fleshed out a bit through the admittedly biased eyes of her adoring maid Otoha. In both cases, we are meant to admire the strength and kindness of the character. Which works.

What each story also reveals is the true nature of the Orochi – obsession turned to mania, obsessions that use flawed logic to further the plot. And here is where the story simply is not good. I know no one cares. But I really watched this volume carefully to try and pinpoint the things that make this such a train wreck of a story. It had to be in *this* volume and no other, because the anime is so short.

Here is the first flawed logic that leads up to an inexplicable decision. Tsubasa: “I killed our abusive father to protect you, my brother. I then let you be taken from me to give you a chance at a happy life, while I resigned myself to a life of hardship. Now that I have the power of the Orochi, I want you to give up your happy life that I strived for, in order to be evil with me…or failing that I will kill you, or force you to kill me. If you kill me, you will still be taken over by the evil blood within us.”

I will grant that KnM is A) a fantasy; B) a short anime; C) crap, but even so, this simply makes no sense. And that is not even taking into consideration that no one we defeat stays defeated (or that the end of the story will negate any power the threat of “Orochi” has.)

That’s just the one story. The other is this: Sister Miyako forces Chikane to see her own feelings for Himeko for what they actually are – physical attraction, desire. It is sensible to me, having been in a similar situation, to see Chikane leap through hoops to deny this. It is also sensible that she will not just accept her feelings. It’s damned hard when you have no models or mores that make it “okay.” (One of the many reasons I live my life in the open and why being out is genuinely so important here in the real world. If Chikane had a pair of happy, openly gay aunts or cousins or something, then she’d have no cause to angst over her feelings half as much.)

I can make it work that Orochi infiltrates Chikane’s brain through this crack. I can do that, because I’m an imaginative, creative person. If I had written the story, I would have done that visibly, so the viewers could actually see it happening. Instead, we suddenly go from a Chikane who desires Himeko but denies it, to a Chikane apparently mad with Orochi and obsession. Sure – we can make it work. But I resent being asked to do so. You wrote the damn story – you make it work.

Here’s my understanding of Chikane’s logic: I desire you, but that’s disgusting. Therefore I am disgusting. Therefore I am evil. Therefore I am Orochi, since Orochi is the embodiment of evil and perversion of all that is good and light, i.e. you. I have remembered our true history, and can see that you do not. Under the pretext of trying to bring back your memory, I will do something horrible to you so that you will hate me (and the Orochi I claim to be part of) and will want to defeat it (and me) thus saving yourself. If I save you in that way, the ends justify the means, and I condemn myself to the eternal punishment I deserve anyway for being so vile.

If you follow that, you are probably certifiable. Or 15.

When Chikane’s resolve to be punished fails, her logic, which is already flawed, gets more complex and inexplicable, but I’ll save that for next volume.

So, in my attempt to understand Volume 2 as a real story, I come up with these two conclusions: 1) Obsessions are bad and 2) Obsessed people make bad decisions.

Now, if you ignore the fact that much of the story makes no sense, it’s a pretty good volume. LOL Lots of giant robot fighting, bickering among the female Orochi which is marginally amusing, and lots of Himeko service. We pretty much get to see Himeko in every possible kind of dishabille, for both good and ill. Souma takes the lead in the “Get Himeko” contest, but if it weren’t for Chikane’s insanity, she might have pulled even. Instead, she forces the issue in the infamous lesbian rape scene, making yet another bad rap for us Yurizoku.

More interesting to me was the scene involving Sister Miyako’s mental rape of Chikane, using a mirror image of Himeko. It’s pretty much the key moment in Chikane’s snapping. I liked the mindfuck going on – and Sister Miyako, who doesn’t look like any nun, anywhere, ever, was worth it. ^_^;

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 5 (Let’s face it, without the lesbian element, hardly anyone would have watched this)
Characters – 6
Yuri – A very nasty 7
Service – 7

Overall – 6

Remember evil Chikane. You’ll be meeting her again soon.





Top Ten Yuri Anime of 2006

December 21st, 2006

It seems to be that time of year again, when “Top Ten” Lists of everything from manga to Bollywood Babes pop up and, as I am leaving next week right after Xmas for Tokyo and Comiket, I thought I’d better start working on this now. ^_^

As always, this list is going to be a mix of old and new, licensed series and as-yet unreleased in the west, because otherwise the list would be darn short. ;-) It’s also all in *my* opinion, so go ahead and comment that I’m wrong, but it’s not like you’re gonna change my mind.  In any case – here we go!

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10. Aria the Natural – This anime is making this year’s top 10 list, not because of its brilliant overt yuriness, but because part of the fun of watching it was looking for every teeny weeny little thing that could be vaguely run through the Yuri goggles and pointed at with a successful “Aha!” I and many others, remain convinced that Akira and Alicia are an item.

9. My HiME – What might have been a HUGE release for this anime in the US seems to have fizzled, largely in part to the DVDs for Volume 1 having issues. But the love of ShizNat, and other smexy Yuri couples, with or without any basis for existence, made this series a Yuri fandom fave in 2006. I personally think a strong push as a “Yuri” series would have bumped sales considerably.

8. Ichigo Mashimaro/Strawberry Marshmallow – I know, we’ve been beating this series to death this week, but when I bought the first volume of the anime I remembered all over again just how snortingly funny it is. And how much Miu is all about getting a little sugar from Nobue. Because, despite myself – every freakin’ time – I watch this, I laugh, and because there’s more than enough Yuri in it to make a case for just about anyone and anyone, this series makes number eight this year.

7. Coyote Ragtime Show – Sometimes a show just gets it right. The women are cool and sexy without making you feel yucky for thinking that, they look voluptuous, but not absurd, and they make you laugh, even as they are capping some redshirt. When neither the men nor the women are weak or incompetent and there’s a sense of something, you know, between the women. Throw in some space opera and friendly ruffian-type action, and you got yourself a winner. To paraphrase a very bad movie, give me a bottle of redeye, a crazy straw and Coyote Ragtime Show, and I’ll be one happy Erica. ^_^

6. Tied for sixth place are Kannazuki no Miko and Ninja Nonsense – Kannazuki no Miko was undoubtedly one of the most popular yuri releases of 2006. I’ve talked alot about KnM and why it’s popular but not good and, every time, people prove my point by writing incoherent comments filled with righteous indignation at me. But re-watching it, I was able to divorce the anime from the fandumb and remember why I thought it fun in the first place. The same is true for what is being released here as Ninja Nonsense. It’s openly tacky and ridiculous and, unlike KnM, is not going to have armies of insane fans, but *like* KnM it has a really cute Yuri couple, and some fun moments. Fun train-wreck Yuri anime. Number 6.

5. Mai Otome – It ended in spring 2006 without the enormous thud that tarnished Mai Hime. It was not nearly as good a story, and the plot holes were, well large and plentiful. But it had about 1/100th the angst and the whole setup read like an alternate-universe fanfic for the original anyway, so anyone who expected “good” clearly lacked critical thinking skills in the first place. What it was, was a fun, stupid take on the characters of the HiME-verse and it remained, from beginning to end a coherent, consistent, fun stupid take on the HiME-verse. And once again in the minority, I liked the ending. ^_^

4. Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl -I haven’t reviewed the thirteenth episode yet, but it hasn’t changed my opinion overall of the anime. This is another series I was prepared to dislike, but never really needed to. Sure, it was light, fluffy, full of incredibly convenient plot complications….but hello, anime? This is not Ghibli. So, for the anime, at least, once Hazumu became a girl, she stayed that way and it became a Yuri story by sheer force of the fact that it was girls in love with a girl. When the end came, which I saw as “the right choice for the wrong reason” I wasn’t surprised. When the *real* end came, which I saw as “the wrong choice for the right reason” I still wasn’t surprised. I was surprised at the outrage among viewers at the fluffiness of the end. Did they not notice that the plot was about a boy who was turned into a girl because he was killed by an alien spaceship? In any case, although it will never be something I recommend as a representative “Yuri” anime, it was still fun to watch.

Now for the big three. ^_^

3. I am SO glad the Maria-sama ga Miteru OAV 1: Kyuuka no Hitsuji/Vacation of the Lambs made it in for this year’s list! I think the OAV did a great job of capturing Yumi’s feelings of akogare/admiration/desire for Sachiko, while significantly cutting down on the self-loathing. It’s romantic and sweet and win. Once again, my akogare for Konno Oyuki grows by leaps and bounds. ^_^

2. Strawberry Panic was undoubtedly, the hottest Yuri anime this year. What began as cheesy, blatant rip-offs of every other Yuri anime and manga ended as a cheesy blatant rip-offs with a decent story, characters that didn’t blow and a fun, if predictable, ending. The Yuri was as blatant as the rip-offs, and all the plots and characters were recognizable and therefore easy to comprehend. Fandumb rooted for all the wrong characters, for the wrong reasons, and delighted in the gouts of fanservice and pandering. This series will be a benchmark series for me going forward. If a person likes Strawberry Panic more than Marimite, they won’t be coming over my house for lunch, ever. And they probably won’t ever understand why. ^_^ But in the end, the characters proved us wrong and they all went ahead and became three-dimensional anyway, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

1. Simoun and Strawberry Panic were opposites in nearly every way, but they both undoubtedly shaped this year’s Yuri anime scene. Simoun was an eclectic mix of Yuri fanservice, war story, character story, gender issues, politics and religion. Not everyone who saw it liked it, but those who liked it, loved it. And rightfully so. This was not an anime for the lowest common denominator – it presupposed some genuine intelligence in the viewing audience. For that alone, it stands on top of the pile. No blatant rip-offs here – this series took actual work, because the world it was set in was original and unique…and they never filled in all the details. And yet, because the characters were strong, and the reactions real, the holes in the world weren’t a problem. After all- who knows everything about why people do what they do in this world, either? I wouldn’t recommend Simoun to a beginner, but if I were doing an academic course and wanted to use an anime to engender discussion, Simoun would be the one I would choose.

By far and away, the most outstanding Yuri anime of 2006, Simoun.