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Whisper Me A Love Song Anime Campaigns in Tokyo & Kyoto, Guest Post by Roxie

April 12th, 2024

Tomorrow, the anime for Whisper Me A Love Song / Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau (ささやくように恋を唄う) debuts on Japanese TV and streaming on HIDIVE. Our intrepid Correspondent Roxie is in Japan right now and has found any number of adorable promotional campaigns and items for sale. She’s graciously traipsed all over to grab us pictures of the largest Yuri anime marketing campaign I have ever seen. Settle in for the utter cuteness of Takeshima Eku’s charming first love story. Take it away, Roxie!

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We came to Japan for the cherry blossoms, and were rewarded with a big surprise campaign of Whisper Me A Love Song, or known as Sasakoi over here.

Our first surprise was reported by a friend who saw the trailer being advertised on the Yunika Vision screen in Shinjuku on the Alpen Tower. Sadly, we never caught it again after April 1st during our tight schedule…

The second surprise was at Animate HQ in Ikebukuro with an entire staircase wall level dedicated to Sasakoi. Lots of cute large panels for us to take in.

Large banner advertising Whisper Me A Love Song" Yuri anime at Ikebukuro Animate.

Participating Gratte Cafes, found at Animate stores across various cities, has included a Sasakoi drink and cookie campaign. You can pick any design for the drink, where they will print them onto the thick cream. They look rather stunning and sharp to our surprise.

A purchase of either allows you to add ¥500 for a coaster of 7 options! Because of luck being a factor for getting these gacha coasters, it took us roughly 10 tries to collect them all! The green tea lattes were the sweetest, with coffee being the least, and the milk tea as in-between. I’m sadly sick of green tea lattes now.

If you don’t want to drink your sugar, feel free to pick one of the cute cookies instead. Since I can’t eat cute faces, I cannot give any commentary on how it tastes.

Melonbooks did have a poster for the latest volume at various stores.

All three chain shops offered add-on goods to the manga volumes. Animate edition offered a cute illustration card for their 9th volume. Melonbooks went all out and offered a unique clear file for each specific volume purchased. Gamers are also offering individualized illustration cards for each volume as well.

Not to be outdone by Ikebukuro, Akihabara gave us the chance encounter of seeing the book and anime advertised on multiple pillars in a prime spot in front of Atre at the Electric town exit.

Our journey still continues to Kyoto where there is a special collab event with Eiden Railways and limited merch goods. The girls are dressed in cute train station hats and outfit as can badges and acrylic stands. The station master apologized that they were all sold out! Being in Kyoto, there is also a yukata edition for the main pair as a tapestry and clear file folders. Eiden even has a small image of the girls in front of the train!

Animate Kyoto also collaborated the event with some yukata acrylics, canvas, and pass holders. There was only the latter two left, but we got to admire the shikishi board at least.

Compared to other recent yuri animes of the last year, this has been an amazing push the higher ups have put into this campaign. We hope you’re excited for this series’ anime adaptation!

The Vexations Of A Shut-In Vampire Princess, Guest Review by Cryssoberyl

January 24th, 2024

There is a long-running video game series that I have been a fan of for going on two decades now. It’s called Disgaea, and the general theme is a zany, tongue-in-cheek netherworld of fractious demons who love to war with each other, but ultimately it’s all in good fun and although they are often selfish and pretend to be “bad”, most of them really have hearts of gold…if buried at varying depths.

No anime has ever felt more like “Disgaea: The Anime” than Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon, streaming on HIDIVE as The Vexations Of A Shut-In Vampire Princess.

This was actually an intimidating review for me to approach. I personally really enjoyed the show, but there is no doubt that, especially early on, the show relies on a lot of very “dead horse” off-color jokes and tropes. This is unfortunate, as I feel the early episodes are not good indicators of the show as a whole (something which is a truism for anime in general, but along with WataOshi and 16bit Sensation, was particularly the case for shows of this season). Yes, Villhaze oversteps boundaries, yes there is a persistent gag of everybody wanting Komari. Part of this stems from the fact that this is ultimately an example of the “battle harem” formula, and characters having an absurd preoccupation with the MC is how this song is danced.

For me, the elements that I know other people might find problematic were not dealbreakers. I don’t have a problem with service unless it’s egregiously coercive or humiliating – and I’ll admit, I will give a lot of things a pass if it happens between two women than I would not if a man were involved; rightly or wrongly the feeling of predation, power imbalance, and othering is just not the same for me. Nothing in Hikikomari crossed the line for me, although I certainly rolled my eyes sometimes. Despite these things, I found a lot to love in this show. Even my best friend, life partner, and love of my life Zefiris (LURB <3 n_n) who is much more sensitive to these issues was able to enjoy the show quite a lot on the whole.

Although the characters can be easily defined as “types”, they all had distinguishing qualities. Komari is not simply the hapless harem MC, she has a natural instinct for BSing her way through the messes she find herself in; I for one love characters who display unexpected competence when thrust into unfamiliar situations. Villhaze is no mere kuudere maid, she is also Komari’s spin doctor, tactician, and bodyguard. Sakana the “yandere little sister” type is a skilled assassin and 4D chessmistress when it comes to planning her gambits far in advance. Nelia the deposed princess fights for the future of her country with admirable bravery and conviction. And finally there is Millicent, who after chewing the scenery as a gloriously villainous antagonist, goes on to be that greatest of all characters, the former villainess who becomes an awesomely badass antiheroine.

As mentioned, this is undeniably a yuri “battle harem” franchise, and over the course of the show no less than three young ladies form varying degrees of attachment to Komari. (Four if you count Millicent.) On the one hand this is great, I for one love yurification of existing genre formulas. On the other hand, one cannot but feel sorry for Villhaze, the obviously designated main love interest, who feels like a neglected character after her early arc concludes and the show goes on to focus on other characters. Presumably the source material circles back around to her later, but speaking just for this adaptation, it was slightly unfortunate.

Finally, I must shout out the small cameo by legendary yuri seiyuu Yuuki Aoi. I won’t say who the character is; when the hotblooded screaming starts, you’ll know.

Ratings:

Art – 8/10, pleasantly competent and consistent considering the designs, although visible cracks in some action sequences.
Story – 7/10, sometimes wacky, sometimes unexpectedly serious, frequently bombastic.
Characters – 7/10, for me at least the characters defy their usual typing.
Service – early in the show 8/10, later on 5/10. It definitely drops off, though there are still occasional moments.
Yuri – 7/10, a yuri harem is definitely forming but Villhaze feels left behind after her arc.

Overall – 8/10, it was not art, but it was definitely entertainment.

Hikikomari Kyuuketsuki no Monmon is currently available for streaming, under the title The Vexations of a Shut-in Vampire Princess, on HIDIVE.

First Look at I’m In Love With The Villainess Anime

October 2nd, 2023

Today was the day we’ve been waiting for! I’m In Love With The Villainess anime has premiered on Crunchyroll. With an English dub, as well as the Japanese audio track.

As I said in a comment on the first episode, this is the Yuriest anime that has ever been made, since it is literally centered around the romantic relationship of two women right from the first moments. As those of us who have read the novels know, it also becomes progressively queerer as it unfolds. We should find out next episode how much of that is retained. For these things alone, I would love this anime.

The narrative – especially in these early scenes – are wholly character-driven, so it’s a pleasure to know that the voice cast really made it all work. I actually laughed out loud twice watching this first episode, even though I anticipated the gags. inori-sensei commented on her Pixiv Fanbox that at the live premier event in Japan, she was worried that people might not react to the jokes, but there was plenty of laughter. The funny bits were, genuinely, funny. I’m going to rewatch the episode later this week as a dub and see how the jokes land.

Serizawa Yuu as Rae and Nanami Karen as Claire have really dug deep on these characters and made them come to life. Of course the supporting cast is also terrific and it felt very comfortable to hear the three Princes, Pipi, Loretta and Misha all sound, well, like they sounded in my head, honestly. Kenn’s Rod Bauer was so full of bonhomie, I kinda sympathized with Rae’s dislike of him. ^_^

The one real weak spot of this anime is the animation. I have a number of thoughts about that. First, let’s just acknowledge that there’s a good chance that it simply was given a limited budget. That happens and I would not hold it against them any more than usual. I’d rather the animators get more time and money every time, but no one asks me. That said, we can do some justification …and projection…without too many mental calisthenics.

To begin with, this story begins in the world of an otome game, so the animation might be reflective of that. Otome games are, like other sims, usually pretty flatly animated in a puppet show kind of way. The backgrounds here are often ignored for sound effects and other gimmicks, which are, yes, money savers, but also give this early phase a gag manga feel. It would be kind of cool if, as the story developed, so did the animation. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I’d love to see it.

We can see a little bit of the initial arc of the story from the opening credits. At the very least we can see that the Commoner Movement arc will be included and, with the addition of Mizuki Nana to the cast as Manaria, it’s a good bet that it will go through the Scales of Love arc. That means we’re definitely getting into more serious territory before the season ends. And here, I am going to digress, but I will be back to conjecture further.

Today on Twitter, the official wataoshi account announced that Blu-Ray Box pre-orders are available at various Japanese anime outlets. (That link will take you direct to King Records to pre-order.) Different stores have different extras, as usual, and folks who pre-order will get a special copy of “Rae’s doujinshi” story that she wrote for Revolution, of course, written by inori.-sensei herself. The BD box is slated for a February 2024 release, so that’s an extremely early pre-order period. inori.-sensei commented on Twitter that expectations for success were very high so the BD Box was arranged even though the anime had not yet aired.

So, back to conjecture. I think that pre-orders for the box set may well be used to determine if a second season will bring it to the end of the Revolution arc. Sales for that could determine whether we ever see a Nur or DQ arc – highly unlikely, but not wholly impossible. Sure, the anime also may exist in part to bump up sales of the ongoing manga and the print volumes of the novel and I hope they do! There’s nothing wrong with that. Ichijinsha’s done a decent job extending the life of several series that way.

Definitely give the series a watch. It’s fun and goofy and deep and serious and very queer and we’ve never seen an anime like this before, really. As we discussed on the Okazu Discord as I typed, if you want to get someone into Yuri, this would be a good place to start! Like isekai? We have series for you! How about high fantasy? We got you covered. Looking for LGBTQ+ anime – it’s here. Oh…you like Sci-fi….well, sit down and let me tell you…. Looking for something with social consciousness? This is what you’re looking for !

So grab your friends and get them aboard the Yuri train with I’m in Love With the Villainess, streaming now on Crunchyroll.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 9
Characters – 100
Yuri – 8
Service – This is a complicated question… Let’s take a look at it again later

Overall – 9

A fun start to what I hope will be a story that takes audiences to very gay places they have never been before. ^_^

Next up for us, would be to pressure Crunchyroll to provide us with premium BD box sets so we can get that doujinshi, too! I mean, I can see myself pre-ordering the JP set just for that….please don’t make me do that, Crunchyroll.

Volicia of Pluto, (忘星のヴァリシア) Guest Review by Cryssoberyl

July 19th, 2023

Two girls reach for one another’s hands across a void, in front of a giant robot.

Yuri and mecha have a long history together. The recent Gundam: Witch From Mercury will no doubt be top-of-mind for many people when I say that, but there are many other examples; prominent among them was Kannazuki no Miko, from 2004, which mixed a centrally-focused yuri romance with mecha action and a heavy flavoring of shintoism and classical Japanese iconography. Despite its flaws, that show was considered a watershed moment in yuri anime history for we who were there at the time. Now, in 2023, from the independent writer/animator AsH comes a work that in many ways could be called a spiritual successor to that formula, and one that isn’t shy about letting you know it.

Premiering on Youtube, Volicia of Pluto , Episode 1 (忘星のヴァリシア) is 35 minutes of yuri/mecha rollercoaster. What begins as a focus on the relationship of two former track runners, Akio and Ayano, quickly expands into a battle over the apparent fate of the source of all life – conducted through the medium of giant robots, naturally – and the sacrifices the chosen couple must make to see it through. A great deal happens in a short time, a great deal is left as yet unexplained. The true nature of the conflict, the relationships of the characters, the many puzzling moments are all yet but seeds. This is, it must be strongly pointed out, only the beginning of the story AsH is clearly hoping to tell.

Always keeping that limitation in mind, I must say I enjoyed this thoroughly. The pacing might seem breakneck to modern viewers, but it reminds me with pleasant nostalgia of the classic OVA format of the 80s and 90s: a fast-paced, attention-grabbing, interest-piquing showpiece. It’s right that it should feel like that, as this is essentially the same strategy. Put something out there to grab people’s interest, and hope that they will invest in it well enough to continue and finish what was begun. Many such gambits never paid off; anime history is littered with unfinished OVAs that never got more than an episode or two. That’s why I’m pleased to report that on Japanese crowdfunding website Campfire, the second episode is fully funded as of date of publication. It seems likely more of this intriguing work will be releasing at some point in the future.

Ratings:

Art – 7/10, rough until you remind yourself that one person made this.

Story – 8/10, a lot of interesting things happening, basically none of it explained yet.

Characters – 8/10, standard types but the MC’s coolness and resolve carries the piece.

Service – 3/10, there are a few sensual moments but they are tastefully depicted.

Yuri – 8/10, undeniable although there’s a lot else going on.

Overall – 8/10, a cool and interesting foundation laid for what may follow.

Volicia of Pluto is freely available to watch on Youtube, until August 31st, English subtitles included. If you have even the slightest interest, there is zero reason not to check out it.