Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Madlax DVD Volume 4

December 1st, 2005

Every time I watch the fourth DVD of Madlax, I think, “This is probably the best work Bee Train will ever do.”

The story doesn’t yet make sense (and doesn’t ever make *complete* sense, but that’s okay) and the characters aren’t resolved (nor do they ever fully resolve) or even developed, but the sense of hanging tension and anticipation is what I think they are trying to do – the later development and resolution of characters and plot is almost anticlimactic. The questions are the point, not the answers. But, where in Noir the questions never get anything like real answers, in Madlax they do – even if they are a bit fantastic. Which is why I say that this volume is pretty much the pinnacle of Bee Train’s work, as I understand it.

What *does* happen in this volume? Well, the link between Margaret and Madlax is drummed into our head in three refrains: hot drinks; red shoes; pasta.

Madlax stares into the eye of Enfant and find her brain leaking out her ears from the mystical words of the book Firstari. Twice. And twice Vanessa saves her sorry possessed ass.

Vanessa and Madlax get all touchy-feely.

Carlossur Dawn realizes that he’s going to have to choose soon, between the truth and his job.

Vanessa gets to play the prince to Madlax’s lost princess, but is way glad when Madlax takes the role back.

Margaret doesn’t have enough brains left to be affected by her own book, Secondary.

Eleanor is still a really strange maid. ^_^

Rimelda is on the cusp of realizing that her life is meaningless without Madlax in it.

Vanessa and Madlax visit the place where it all began, and Margaret knows it, somehow.

Naharu walks around looking mysterious and cool, but adds nothing appreciably to plot or character.

Did I mention Vanessa and Madlax snuggling?

The music in this particular set of episodes is pretty much the same three songs you keep hearing over and over, but at this point they become symbolic, as well as decorative. In fact, Madlax’s own theme becomes so crucial to the plot, Japanese fans apparently joked that the word “Yamaani” which is the repeated opening word of her song, gave Madlax superhuman powers. ^_^

Sometimes a story takes too long to get to the point. To be honest, I don’t really care if there ever is a point in this anime – it’s a fun ride, full of gunfire and other people’s misery and deeply mystical, occult symbolism that means nothing to me. ^_^

My only complaints? Friday Monday is STILL the worst name EVER for a bad guy…and…Firstari? Oh, come *on*! Primary. The word is P-r-i-m-a-ry.

When they use Thirdari, I just start to cry.

There’s no overt Yuri. Vanessa and Madlax snuggle in a comfy, friendly way, but I’m not opposed to the idea that it went further somewhere along the line. Nonetheless, I hold in my heart Madlax x Rimelda and Vanessa x Eleanor.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7.5

A strong action story, with a little light magic thrown in.





Yuri: Anime: Mai Otome

November 24th, 2005

Mai Otome is not so much a sequel to Mai Hime as it is a fanfic written by the folks who originated the thing in the first place.

Right off the top, Mai Otome is pleasantly free of the “tears and misery” theme of the original. Instead it’s a fantasy world alternate universe, in which all the same characters show up, more or less, but in some cases, completely altered in personality and almost always altered in role.

The story focuses primarily on three girls:

Arika, a familyless, countryless girl who only knows that her mother was an “Otome” (this world’s Valkyrie-esque female warrior-types) and that the blue stone around her neck is from her mother. Arika, by not having any country or family allegiance is refreshingly free of formal manners, without being a bumpkin.

Nina, The adopted, over-achieving, emotionally crippled star of the school who is Arika’s immediate rival.

Mashiro, the spoiled and willful Queen of Windbloom. In Mai Hime, Mashiro was a gentle, kind and tortured girl who ran the school. In this series she’s a raving brat who runs a country. Nice, huh?

Arika is accepted to Garderobe, an exclusive academy in which Otome hopefuls train. Countries send their fair youth in hopes that they will become Otome, and give the country parity in military might to those who do have Otome. (Otome are super-powerful and excessively cool, despite having silly costumes.)

There’s lots of hints about the past and about connections of all three girls to big secrets and yadda yadda, but I don’t care much. (Partially because Mai Hime‘s ending sucked so badly that I refuse to care about this until it proves that it doesn’t suck.) But I do care about the Yuri. So let’s talk about that. ^_^

Right off, Natsuki tells Arika that Otome can’t have sex with men, because PSA and testosterone destroy the nanowhatever that gives a girl her Otome powers. Oh, really? So…hmmm…guess they have to learn to love the women they serve. And speaking of serving…

Shizuru is still cool. Certainly more mysterious, and definitely kick-ass. She is the Otome for Shinzo, the heart of Gaderobe Academy, one Kuga Natsuki. As one of the Five Pillars Shizuru has to stay close to her Master. This means she has to stick pretty close to Natsuki. How close we aren’t yet sure, but they certainly seem comfortable in each other’s company this time around.

Chie’s yuri playboy cool rating was upped by about 2000x. And her one wink at Aoi is enough hint for most fanfic authors. Aoi is Mashiro’s maidservant this time around.

Haruka and Yukino both did well in transition to the new series. Haruka is a quite excellent Otome serving the President of whatever country…yup, you guessed it. Yukino’s organizational skills and detante finally aren’t played for laughs. Haruka’s no less nutsy than she was originally, but in a fun, powerful, and really competent way. (A very sexy quality in a woman, I always think.)

Yuri fanservice is plentiful – the older “Pearl Class” Otome in training are assigned younger “Coral Class” students as attendants. Chie isn’t above making them blush cutely. Nor is Shizuru avoiding physical contact with the girls either. She must grab one often enough to cause Natsuki to roll her eyes when she does it to Arika.

When an invisible tentacle eel-monster-thing invades the pool, she thinks (bizarrely) that Nina is copping a feel. (Nina’s reaction is, btw, perfect – she tests Erstin’s head for a fever…) Erstin tells Nina, quite unnecessarily, that they are both girls – but she qualifies this by saying that if it’s Nina, it’s okay. Later she gives Nina a form of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation that is definitely NOT approved by the Red Cross.

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 8
Character – 8
Music – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – 8

Overall – 7

In short, pretty, shiny fun with a 40% chance of “good.”

 





Yuri Anime: Blood+

November 21st, 2005

I never reviewed the original Blood manga? What was I thinking? I’ll add it to the list…

In any case, the fall ’05 anime season offers us yet another version of this chick with sword vampire series. I could be wrong about this, because I’m not checking or anything, but I believe the original Blood was a game, that spawned a much-too short animated movie, followed by an exceptionally grim manga, which I will review at some point. Now there’s a new manga and a shiny new anime…which the subject of today’s review.

The Saya of the new Blood is a really likeabale gal, quite the opposite of cold, heartless Saya from the movie and the first manga. This Saya has a father and two brothers, all adopted, but very normal and affectionate in an entirely appropriate way. She also comes with a best friend, Kaori, to snuggle with, pictured above. Unfortunately Kaori’s participation in this series is short lived, as Saya has to become the semi-vampiric killer of giant mutant bats.

I pretty much assumed that this was the end of Yuri goggle goodness in this series, but previews of episode seven offer us glimpses of Min, Saya’s new roommate who will be completely gaga blushy over her. So, yay for yuri fans – a reason to keep watching. Which is good, because the plot kind of stalled out over the last few episodes while we killed Saya’s father a few times.

I don’t even want to conjecture about whether this is a good anime, because damned little has actually happened, but I’m still watching, for what that’s worth to ya. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Studio IG
Characters – Schoolgirl with Sword, Vampires, Mutant Bats and Ordinary People Wearing Red Shirts
Story – Not So Far
Music – Pretty
Yuri – Goggles

Overall – Catch me again at the end and I’ll let you know.





Yuri Anime: Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s

November 17th, 2005

Every time I watch an anime like Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s, I’m torn.

On the one hand, it is a reasonably enjoyable boy’s version of a magical girl anime, but on the other hand it’s the kind of things that loli fetishists like. It’s not really cute or sweet – in fact it’s a bit grim and dark, which I quite like – and the fight scenes are okay. But if I were a bottom feeder who couldn’t admit that I’d never sleep with an actual adult female…I’d probably say the same things.

Which is why I’m torn. I feel dirty even enjoying this series marginally. The yuckiest thing is the girls’ new henshin. While I don’t mind nude transformation scenes, I *do* mind these. They are not as utterly repusive as the Ultimate Girl henshin, but they are definitely squicky.

Other than that, A’s is actually better than the original Lyrical Nanoha series. For one thing, there’s a plot.

In a nutshell:

An evil book, which creates fake guardian soldiers to protect it and gather power for it, tries to find a new master who will supply it with power, so it can destroy things. Once it has destroyed everything, it moves through space and time and does it all over again. The guardians this time are a tough chick, a smart chick and a goth kid….and the new master-to-be is a likeable disabled girl Hayate, who happens to befriend Nanoha’s friend Suzuka. So you *know* we’re going to have to “believe in” all of them at the end, so the book can either be destroyed or turned good, or something. Let’s face it – we’ll have to all be friends at the end. I’ve got money down that the fake guardians don’t totally disappear, even, because you just *know* Hayate will use the book’s power to give them real life.

Yuri fans will like the fact that Fate and Nanoha are not only reunited in this series, but get to live together – they even have some touching huggy scenes. Personally, I’m watching Signum, because I find practically non-verbal fightin’ adult women with swords more appealing than kids. ^_^

There’s alot more weapons and fighters in this series. Less monsters, more people = good story, in this case.

Ratings –

Art – 8
Character – 7
Story – 6
Yuri – 3
Music – 5

Overall – 6

The best characters this time around, IMHO, are Fate’s and Nanoha’s weapons themselves. Bardiche and Raising Heart have developed strong personalities – and I quite like them. They seem so eager to beat the crap out of the bad guys. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Kaleido Star "New Wings Extra Stage"

November 15th, 2005

I have a total love-hate relationship with Kaleido Star. I hate about 90% of it, but the other 10% I honestly adore.

I had begun watching the original animation when it came out on TV, but quickly began to loathe it. Anyway, I did a few reviews of the first series back in January 2004. Once when I said there wasn’t any yuri, really…and the next entry when I slapped myself silly for saying that.

I found the men oddly horrible. Like there was a coded message that girls need to lose them all if they want to be happy. Maybe it wasn’t so coded, I don’t know. All I know is that Carlos and Yuri and that goopy-eyed Ken made we want to spit. And I am *so* not a man-hating kind of gal. I hate people based on their individual idiocies, never on the basis of sex, color, creed, etc. However, I don’t like circuses much, and cannot abide Cirque du Soleil, so this series wasn’t really my cup of tea, but…

…gods, were the relationships between the women dynamic! Sora and Layla were electric together, and Mia and Anna made a cute couple – even Sora and Rosetta had vibe which didn’t bug me too much.

I never even bothered writing up the second season, because I felt that it committed all the same exact sins over again – same horrible male characters, the same unecessary emotional torture…and not nearly enough tricks, which were the best bit of the show.

The thing that made the first season bearable, and in the end wonderful, was the energy between Sora and Layla. Animated as it was, it was breathtaking. The tricks they did were absurd, sublime and brought tears to my eyes. So I skipped the middle of each season, watched the last half dozen episodes and forgot I hated the series.

Some while went by before I could bring myself to watch the OVA New Wings Extra Stage. I went back and watched the last episode of the second season, to get back into the swing of things, and found myself with a handful of tissues pressed against my face, as the Sora’s Tenshi no Waza started. I had forgotten how beautiful it was. A great big kiss to whoever came up with the idea. I wish you’d do a real circus.

So, I *finally* checked out what is referred to as Episode 52. And it was actually not bad at all….

Rosetta is pegged by the Fool of the Stage to be the next star. True to her belief in a stage without conflict, Sora encourages Rosetta to step up as the Princess, while she herself steps back to play the Prince. Leon, another one of the vile male characters, pulls the stick out of his butt to be the fool who will win the princess. But the real Fool and Rosetta are confronted with a memory – this might be their real story! Okay, whatever. It’s only an OVA, we really don’t go anywhere with this.

The predictable Yuri does show up – this time in the couple of May and Rosetta. I’d forgotten that it was May who forced Rosetta to take part in Swan Lake – and now she’s the caretaker whose pushing Rosetta to become a star. It’s kind of sweet in a weird way.

What was totally different in this OVA was the unsubtlety of the fanservice. Of course the original two season had fanservice – but it was all done with at least some subtlety. Not so the OVA. In this we watch crotches and breasts for about 1/3 of the screen time. It was a little startling, since the series is targeted (at least in the US) to a younger female audience. I guess they know they won’t be bring this episode over here. Or not…I don’t know and really don’t care. :-)

The animation on all Kaleido Star episodes are pretty good – this one has maybe slightly better than usual animation. And the music is much the same as any other j-popish OP/EP theme. “Tattoo Kiss” is a nice enough song.

A new Kaleido Star OVA is in production, btw – this one is called Layla Hamilton Monogatari, so I’m already stoked. Layla was my favorite character. But I bet we end up following a young Layla, when I’d much prefer the older sexy one, myself.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4
Music – 6

Overall – 7

If you are a huge Kaleido Star fan, its a must-see. Otherwise, its a fun, fanservicey, colorful killer of time. :-)