Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Stellvia of the Universe, Volume 2

January 10th, 2005


Remarkably, Stellvia, Volume 2 really *is* the good, the bad and the ugly all at once.

What with the utter dearth of anything interesting at all this new anime season, it’s a good thing that so many of last year’s best series are now available on DVD for decent viewing for the western yuri fan.

Before move into today’s review, let me just plug two things:

To purchase this DVD and other fine yuri anime series, please visit the Yuricon Shop where the new Yuri Anime page has opened! We’ve included some of the best yuri-related series available and more will be coming in the near future, including Stellvia. (In fact, I’ll make sure to add Stellvia tonight, in case this review makes you want to run out and buy the DVD! LOL)

Secondly, if you’ll notice in below this article, there is a single Google advertisment. Yuricon and ALC take a tremendous amount of time and money to run, and so, I am doing every possible thing I can to make a few cents to help get Yuri manga, events and community out there to you. If each one on you clicks the link in the ad, and futzes around at that site for a second or two, I’ll get a few cents that I can put into new Yuri manga or events. It will only take a second or two and trust me – I *really* appreciate it! So, if you enjoy this blog, click the Google Ad and help me out. To those who do, I give my heartfelt thanks.

All that having been said, let me get back to the good, the bad and the ugly of the second volume of Stellvia.

Let’s start with the good.

I had forgotten how much I actually enjoyed this series the first time around. As cynical as I am, I found myself getting into it all over again. Yes, I know the story, yes, I know all the (few) twists coming in the plot, but you know – the characters are really quite interesting and I found myself getting really into what was going on, despite myself. :-)

I realized that, at least here back at the beginning of the story, the lead character, Shima, is really more interesting than I remembered. Even though Shima is another idiot savant-type character who fails utterly every first time she tries a thing, but then, inexplicably, excels beyong everyone else, she’s still someone you can care about.

The Yayoi/Ayaka story is more compelling than I remembered, as well. I’m a sucker for a rich backstory – and of all the cast members, really, only these two have a life prior to Shima’s arrival. The fact that they are a Yuri couple notch them up in interest level for me. The fact that they are voiced by Orikasa Fumiko (Meia in Vandread, Ruki in Digimon Tamers) and Toyoguchi Megumi (Layla Ashley in Avenger, Satou Sei/Rosa Gigantea in Marimite, Meg in Bakuretsu Tenshi,) puts them right there up on the top ten for me.. The fact that their backstory isn’t a happy one makes it that much more interesting to me.

However, the absolute best thing was *exactly* as I remembered – the dialogue. For all that the characters do not look their ages – they definitely, definitely *sound* their ages. It was really refreshing…even though this was a re-watch.

Now for the bad – this DVD has three episodes, no extras and boring packaging. It looks like we’re getting the same exact nothing they got in Japan…and given the full price of the DVD, it hurts a little.

And the ugly – The CG art is way better than I remembered, but oh my god, is the regular animation…inconsistent. No, wait, it’s just plain terrible. I mean, the characters start out looking five years younger than they are, which I find annoying, but…but in episode 6, the art simply collapses into appallingly shoddy, unforgivably awful work. This was particularly distressing as the plot is really thickening just about then too. Shima’s neck was disturbingly long, the faces were frequently askew, Arisa almost never had a whole face at all and Yayoi looked like she spent the episode wearing a wig that kept sliding. Awful, awful, awful. The bad art was genuinely distracting, which is not a good thing.

Yuri-wise, this series is definitely still worth a look. In this volume, we are getting serious tension building between Yayoi and Ayaka, and I even have to admit that Arisa’s reactions to Shima and Kouta’s growing closenesss look awfully like resigned jealousy, something I missed completely the first time around.

Like I said way back when I reviewed it the first time, Stellvia is still a space opera, but still a really, genuinely enjoyable one.






Yuri Anime: Kannazuki no Miko, or The Girl Got The Girl, But….

January 8th, 2005

Well, Kannazuki no Miko ended, and Chikane and Himeko ended up together, but, really, it made NO sense at all.

Do we care?

Not really.

It doesn’t matter that “eternity” seemed to last no more than about 3 minutes, and that raping a person so that they will kill you is a stupid idea, and that the whole mecha thing was a giant waste, and the bad guy was a complete nothing….it doesn’t matter because Chikane confessed her love and her physical desire for Himeko, who basically told her that she wouldn’t kick her out of bed and kisses Chikane in a nice visual parallel to the kiss at the end of the first episode (which, by the way, proved me wrong, because in my first review of Kannazuki no Miko, I was pretty sure they would *not* get together. Wrong again. ^_^)

Because pictures are sometimes actually worth a thousand words, I will eschew a description of the insensible ending and simply offer a picture which not only succinctly summarizes the end of the series, but is also highly amusing. This magnificently succinct picture was drawn by Juji and is now used here with permission of the artist, for which I am immensely grateful! This was meant to summarize the first episode, but it seems to work for the last – and many of the middle episodes, as well. ^_^ Thanks Juji!

And there you have it. The end of Kannazuki no Miko, as interpreted by a genius among fans. We await sequels with bated breath. ^_^





Ikkitousen, DVD Vol. 2

December 13th, 2004

I’m getting used to the panties – what does that say about me?

Last night, about 2/3 way through Volume 2 of Ikkitousen I started to laugh uncontrollably at the complete and utter trashiness of this story. I blame my Dad, because he has such crap-tastic taste in porn. I guess some of it rubbed off – lucky me.

Like the first volume, Volume 2, comes with a lovely reversible cover – Ryofu on one side (above), Kanu on the other, and a two-sided pencil board which depict these two fantastically competent and combative women after they have had frontal lobotomies and are now completely submissive. It’s probably just me, but I think that they are *way* sexier when they look like they could kick my ass. The mini-poster inside the case is nice, but not exceptional.

I was all ready to bitch about the 3-episode volume, but you know, the Japanese version has 2 episodes per volume, so it’s a much worse deal. Do I care? No! Dammit – this series is 13 crappy episodes! Sell it as a 2-DVD set, with a box and all the pencil boards, for pity’s sake. It’ll cost you less to print, you can gouge us for the box and boards and we’ll all be happy. Plus we won’t have to wait obscene amounts of time for all the volumes to come out. Duh.

The translation was a little tighter this time, which was good. No honorifics at all, except for, get this…Mou-chan. I was so happy that they translated that the right way. And Oba-san was turned into “Aunt Goei” so I guess that was reasonably close. Interestingly, they did not bother to translated the Chinese title “Sho Haou” that is given to Hakufu. It means, roughtly, “Little King of Fighters” or something roughly equivalent. The fansubbers had called her the “Junior Lord of Lords”.

As for content, I wasn’t kidding when I said that this anime is trash. I mean, really – it’s trash. The Fighter’s Grand Tournament has begun, by Imperial Order from Enjutsu, who remains icognito (for good reason…). Hakufu, who is clearly unprepared wants to fight anyway, while Koukin annoyed the living daylights out of me by trying to micromanage Hakufu’s every action and word. By the end of the DVD, more than anything else, I wanted someone, preferably Ryomou, to pound the daylights out of Koukin – what a jerk that boy is. And a hypocritical prude. Get *over* it already – the girls have breasts and asses, yes. Now move on.

Speaking of Ryomou – we learn that she did indeed have a life previous to this DVD and was, indeed, wearing the eyepatch before then as well. Her sempai was paralyzed and blinded in a previous Tournament. So much for Ryomou’s rich backstory. She then toddles off to a dark wood where she meets, fights and is defeated by Ryofu. Ryomou is further humiliated as Ryfou, having paralyzed her, then rapes her. But it’s all in good fun, you see, because Ryofu is really just a dedicated and omnisexual follower of Toutou. Ryofu is also impossibly stacked. She must have those things crazy-glued into that jacket.

Anyway, up from the beating she’s given Ryoumou, Ryofu goes off to have sex with Saji – and for a change we get to see him give her a good time. ‘Bout time, too.

In the meantime Hakufu destroys an entire school’s Fighters because she goes all dragon-postal.

After finding her determination (mostly to get back at Ryofu), Ryomou beats a team of Fighters on her own, then goes on to have a serious kick-ass fight with Kanu Unchou, who complete outclasses my poor Mou-chan. Even after Ryomou breaks her arm (I’m pretty sure that the arm would have been dislocated at the shoulder before it broke, but I’m just being picky,) she’s outfought. Kanu could and does, kick her ass with, literally, one arm behind her back. Hakufu give Kanu a bit of a whooping, but Kanu retires, covered in sweat and glory, leaving Hakufu’s school up one in the ranking.

Which brings us to the leaast interesting character in the series – the guy in charge. We are supposed to see Toutou as some incredibly powerful, seriously heavy juju kinda guy? I don’t see it. He’s a bore. I support Ryofu’s determination to oust his lazy-ass ass. And his favorite pillow, Bunwa? Is she a threat? Why>? All she does is suck up to him – in several different ways. Wow – getting service, scary.

In the end, Ryofu confides in her loyal lackey Chinkyuu that she’s going to be the top dog and, as is always appropriate with Ryofu, they celebrate by having sex. Whee! Much better!

So, yuri-wise, this volume is about as good as it gets. Ryofu does Ryomou (and damn I wish they would have gotten together for real…) and then Chinkyuu. Go Ryofu!

Ratings:

Story – 6

Character – 8, except Koukin and Toutou, who are 1’s

Art – 6

Yuri – 9

Music – 2 (Let’s talk about the utter suckiness of the opening theme, shall we?)

Fanservice – 10

Overall – this is a 6 at best, but I kind of like it anyway.

Ultimately, this series is about three things: fanservice, fighting, and fanservice. If you’re not into these, don’t bother.





Yuri Anime: ROD The TV, DVD Volume 3

December 2nd, 2004

ROD The TV continues to amaze and thrill. If you haven’t yet seen this series, you *really* should.

First, the whining:

Note the fanservice-a-riffic picture above. How embarrassing is it that there are people who will find this to be sexy? Worse yet, the special pencil board in this volume has the least sexy picture that I have ever seen of Nenene. I swear, a picture of her snorting potato chips and picking her nose would have been sexier. Like the cover picture, the thought that there are people out there who find this pencil board a turn-on just makes me cringe. Nenene is so cool, could we have not found a less uncomfortable pose for her?

Also, in this volume, the formerly excellent translation appears to go away to be replaced by somewhat more slapdash work. I have this bizarre belief that it *is* possible to translate what was said, and how it was said, in some reasonable facsimile, rather than just glossing over everything to get the general meaning. I DO expect more from professional translators than I do from fans. This volume was lame, Geneon. Really. (Thanks J, for catching that is was Geneon, not ADV, who deserves the blame this time.)

Lastly, I found it to be the height of tacky that Geneon ended this volume at episode 12. For one thing, the season ended on a *brilliant* cliffhanger at episode 13. (In fact, it was at this point that I regularly began to scream while watching this series. Seriously. I’d be sitting on the sofa and then I’d be running around the house screaming. “Oh my god! Aaaahhh!” and the wife would know I was watching ROD.) They certainly could have put *one* more episode on this DVD. Episode 12 makes a decent enough cliffhanger, but 13 would have been so much better! And, more importantly, this means that the last 2 DVDs in this series will probabaly have 3 episodes each, which I think is just crap.

Let me digress for a second, to indulge in this week’s rant. It has come to my attention that DVDs in Japan will, on occasion only have 2 episodes per volume, and cost about the same as we’re paying, so in that way, we’re getting a better deal. In fact this is the case for Maria-sama ga Miteru,but…it still makes me cranky to know that this series is being released on 7 DVDs, when 6 would have simply worked better. (4 volumes of 4 each and 2 volumes of 5.) Then the last volume of each season would have had five episodes, and Vol.3 would have ended on episode 13…the actual *end* of that season. Duh, hello? Am I the only one thinking this way? I swear to you all that, should *ever* begin distroing DVDs, I will use common sense in designing them. I promise.

Okay…that’s it for the whining. Now, the praise:

On the other side of the equation, this volume has some of the best episodes in the first season. The writers’ skills really shine in these four episodes, as we continue the pattern of shoujo/shounen/ alternating stories. I never once felt manipulated, even when I was getting all misty during the obligatory Christmas episode. I mean really – could there be anything more saccharine? And yet, I found myself sniffing happily…much like Nenene herself. ^_^

In terms of Yuri, the series pretty much peaks in Episode 11 when Anita and Hisami have a tearful and emotionally wrought parting. It’s incredibly well done and you can easily make a case for this being something that they will both look back on as their first love, even if they aren’t quite old enough to see it themselves. Certainly they do love each other, but you could just as easily say that it isn’t, you know, *that* kind of love. But I’m a Yuri fan, so screw that. It’s love. ^_^ Clearly the writers thought so too – the body language in this episode is very evocative.

Ratings:
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Art – 7 (still inconsistent)
Music – 9
Yuri – 8

Overall – 9

I would never recommend ROD The TV as a gateway anime – there’s too much going on for the average newbie to follow, but for older fans, and veterans of many, many crappy series, this is a refreshingly well-crafted story.





Yuri Anime: Uta-Kata Revisited

December 1st, 2004

All of a sudden this anime developed both a personality and a yuri storyline, practically overnight. How interesting is that?

Let me begin from the beginning. In Episode 1 of Uta-Kata, we are introduced to average girl Ichika, who, in the course of cleaning a spooky mirror, sees a reflection that is not her own. In the mirror is magical girl-creature Manatsu who comes into the world to be Ichika’s companion through a little misinformation and alot of personal charm.

I reviewed Uta-Kata back on October 25, when it first came out and I was mightily unimpressed. And with good reason, I might add. I have, until this week, been watching the series raw. Well it turned out that I really was, despite my disclaimer last month, really missing *alot* of what was going on, at least in part because I was only half paying attention. But two things happened this week that makes it worth going back and re-reviewing this series.

First, the good news. In Episode 9, the slow crawl into grim that this series has been undergoing becomes a headlong dive into dark and creepy. Initially, I was annoyed by the lack of anything – character development, plot, action. The entire series seemed determined to bore me with triviality. But, during this week’s episode I realized that I had been watching the wrong things entirely. With that revelation came a realization that this series had actually become quite interesting. Because while I was waiting for the inevitable magical girl power up/action/crises escalation, I completely missed the slow deterioration of Ichika, and the plot, into one seriously bleak – and interesting – little tale.

Secondly, due to my lack of attention, I had only half-noticed Ichika’s friends, most especially, Satsuki, played sharply by Kawakami Tomoko, the voice actress for Utena. It seemed to me that we beat on her friends and acquaintances a bit, but while I was looking for the usual magical-girl stuff and trying to ignore the fanservice, I missed that the emotional beating they were all taking *was* the plot. So, when (to me) all of a sudden, the story took a yuri turn, I decided to rewatch the first epsiodes, this time subbed, and see what I had missed.

The bad news – the first seven episodes of this series are cleverly designed to suck, so only hard-core or pig-headed fans will remain to see the good stuff. In rewatching the first three episodes, I was reminded that the fanservice was yawn-a-riffic and the plot really WAS boring as hell. I wasn’t wrong about that when I wrote the first review.

Seriously, the first episodes are dire. No wonder I couldn’t see what was going on – the plot was completely cloaked by several layers of awfulness. Episode 2 is, especially incomprehensible – even with subtitles. I still have no bloody idea what the writers were getting at.

And I can’t say that it gets better, because it basically gets worse until Episode 8 or so, when they lose the fanservice and add in a plot. Basically, while I was waiting for marketable items to manifest and Ichika to use her powers to save the world (when in fact, she’s been using them to find lost watches and turn the lights off…) Ichika has really been overloading on these useless powers. As a result, they are making her very sick. It’s different, at least, watching a magical girl barf into a toilet. Not cute at *all*, which is kind of cool.

So, there I am, watching Episode 9, in which Satsuki (who has apparently been abused by her father as a small child) is acting the prince to Keiko, who is suffering from a broken heart (that being this episode’s “plot”,) when it dawns on me that Satsuki is also suffering from a broken heart – over Keiko. Apparently it dawns on Keiko at the same moment, and she stands up and kisses Satsuki. We later see them hand in hand on the ride home – and we fervently hope that this is not a fluke. Don’t we?

As a yuri bonus, Manatsu and Ichika are all touchy-feely this episode, too. It’s not lesbian, but I think we can make a clearer case for a fanon relationship there. Expect mediocre yuri fanfic art to flood the ‘net any day now. :-)

Episode 10 looks like a literal nail in the coffin as it appears to be about death. So there you go. NOT cute magical girl at all, but grim and unpleasant magical girl, and I for one am mightily relieved.

If you plan on watching this in subs, be prepared – the first seven episodes just suck. (At the time I am writing this, only the first three episodes have been subbed at all. Don’t be surprised when they are god-awful.) But if you can stand it, it looks like some interesting things are right on the horizon.

We’ll keep watching and keep our fingers crossed. :)

Revised Ratings:

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

Overall – A hopeful 7 (at least for Epsiode 9.)

If it goes the way it looks like it’s going, Uta-Kata might even be worth watching.