Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Spring 2004 season

May 24th, 2004

Yesterday, the new season of Maria-sama ga Miteru anime was announced. The good news is that it’s starting as soon as July 4th, the bad news is that they’ve buried it on Sunday morning at 7:30 AM. Apparently they feel that insomniac six-year-olds are the target audience.

Most importantly, now we, the western audience will get to officially meet Yumi’s potential souer candidates, affectionately known as “drill-hair” and “stalker.” Makes you really wanna meet ’em, doesn’t it?

Now, onto other business.

This season of anime is sort of only vaguely yuri-ish. There’s the usual Bee Train yuri implications in Madlax and some fanservice-y kind of stuff in Bakaretsu Tenshi, but nothing that set the yuri-o-meter off at a high level. However, if goofy, silly yuri that will never go anywhere is good for you, then I recommend you catch the fansubs of Sensei Ojikan: After School Doki Doki Hours.

Sensei Ojikan is reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh, but really, only in the sense that they are both very silly comedies set at a school. There is a little overlap in character type, but only a little. If I remember correctly, Sensei Ojikan came first as a manga, so it isn’t really any kind of rip-off at all. Speaking of which – you all know that Azumanga Daioh has been released on DVD here, right? Run out and get it, if you haven’t, because this is a *very* funny series.

Sensei Ojikan is nominally the story of a teacher, Mika-sensei, who looks like a 10-year old. She’s only marginally effective as a teacher, but her class feels very affectionately towards her. There’s a goofy selection of kids in the class: the hyper genki underachiever, the over achiever, the class leader who is a boy idol otaku, the mangaka otaku, the gay girl, the gay boy, the crossdresser, the old guy and the slacker. All together, they make a fun combination and some of the episodes had me laughing out loud.

The gay boy is very obviously in love with the slacker kid and everyone in class knows it but the slacker. The gay girl is Kitagawa Rio and she is even more openly in love with the teacher. She’s very open about her liking girls in general, cute girls more specifically and Mika-sensei in particular…and she plays that card a lot, especially when she’s trying to get a reaction out of poor Mika-sensei.

Again, this is all played for laughs, so don’t expect Kitagawa and Mika-sensei to ride off onto the sunset or anything, but it’s cute. And, in accordance with the Rules of Supporting Yuri Characters, Kitagawa is especially good-looking and smarter than nearly anyone else in class. ^_^ So, if you want a few laughs and aren’t looking for a permanent relationship, check out Sensei Ojikan.





Yuri Anime: Haibane Renmei

April 29th, 2004

Sometimes a series comes along that is so rare, so special, that it would be worth watching just for itself, without any of the usual hooks one expects in anime or manga. Haibane Renmei is one of those series. It is as worth watching for what doesn’t happen, as what does.

Right off the top, Haibane Renmei has the distinction of being the first anime to be based completely off a doujinshi. Yoshitoshi Abe, well-known for his character designs in Serial Experiments Lain and Niea Under 7 had a vision of a bunch of characters called “Haibane,” (which means “charcoal wings”) one day and collected a bunch of sketches of them into a book called Haibane Renmei, (“Charcoal Wings Federation,) which he published and sold at Comiket in Tokyo. The book became really popular, and people kept asking him who these Haibane were and what they were and so on – and so he drew a little doujinshi about the place they lived, called “Old Home – a sort of “slice of life” of the Haibane. The story had a lot of holes in it – there didn’t seem to be a clear beginning or end, and there were a lot of things that the author didn’t know about, by his own admission, like why they can only wear hand-me-downs, and the like.

These characteristics were, lock, stock and barrel, plopped into the anime of Haibane Renmei. The story doesn’t have a clear beginning, nor are many things explained – in fact, the whole world that the Haibane inhabit is left wide open to the imagination. Because of this, not despite it, Yoshitoshi has managed to design one of the most beautiful and intriguing anime I’ve ever seen. To be blunt, I bawled like a baby through the end, but I never felt manipulated or cheated.

The art is seriously unconventional in many ways, the story line defies description, since it seems to begin sort of in the middle of a thing and go on until it stops. The piece we’re party to are examples of truly fine writing – sweet, whimsical, serious and mature by turn and compelling all the way through. There is a great deal left to know about the world of the Haibane – what comes before, what comes after, where do the come from and where do they go? But I’m inclined, like the people that inhabit the space, to simply accept it for what it is and just enjoy the beauty and poetry of the story.

I can hear you asking, “yeah, but is there Yuri?” My answer has got to be that that depends on how you define “Yuri.” If you mean sex between women, then no, definitely not…. What you can say is that Haibane Renmei is about an incredibly intense emotional bond between two women, one that significantly alters their lives, or at least what we see of their lives. For die-hard Yuri-seekers, I think there is *definitely* a case for calling Reki woman-identified, if not women-loving. Her former intense relationship is also with a woman, and that one is portrayed as being awfully close to love. I’m of the opinion that Reki and Rakka have as close to a love relationship as is possible in the Haibane’s world.

So, despite the fact that it’s not about anything, and nothing really *happens*, and there being no overtly Yuri relationship, Haibane Renmei wins, in my opinion, as one of the hands-down finest anime I’ve ever watched.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Music – 8
Story – 10 The story is breathtakingly well-written
Characters – 8

Overall – 9

This is a must watch for anyone who loves good storytelling.

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And now, for something completely different – here is *my* interpretation of the events of Haibane Renmei. I don’t claim to be right, or even close – this is just what feel was going on:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS WARNING

Rakka was in love with someone…let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it was another girl. She and the other girl decided to kill themselves so they could be together eternally. The crow symbolizes Rakka’s lover – she “freed” her in a sense, but is also the reason she crashes, and ultimately, she needs to let go of that attachment to her previous life before she can move on.

The world we see is a kind of Purgatory, which is why the Haibane stay there for inconsistent and erratic periods of time – because you’re going to be there as long as it takes to do whatever it is you have to do. Life isn’t bad, it’s not Hell, but it’s not great, either, because its not Heaven. And the people who live there and sort of take care of the Haibane are other people who have not committed a “sin” so much as simply died with their souls in a limbo state…so they expiate their crimes wth service and another lifetime.

What are the Haibane, then? I think that they are children who died under extreme circumstances. The older ones might have killed themselves, or been killed, the younger ones may have died through accident or injury, but whatever the circumstance was, it was a violent death and therefore a “sin.” Perhaps the little kids died without being baptized.

In any case, these children die with what *they* feel is a spot on their souls and end up here. Like they feel partially responsible for their own deaths. If they felt completely filthy, they’d likely end up in some sort of mutually created Hell, so in this case they feel ambiguous about their nature. As they do their “work,” they expiate those sins, cleanse their spirits and eventually have to move on.

So, that would explain why Reki and Rakka bond so closely…perhaps in life they had similar stories, dying on account of the oh-so-popular “forbidden love” and intuiting that they could feel safe with one another. Or maybe they were just falling for each other, who knows? But there they were in Purgatory, where relationships have to be non-sexual, and temporary, because of the nature of the thing.

We can always fantasize about what happens when Rakka goes ober the wall herself, right? Maybe she enters her version of Heaven. meets up wih Reki and they fall in real love and live in eternal happiness. Sounds nice, right? Maybe someone will write a fanfic.

Anyway, so there you have it…*my* interpretation of Haibane Renmei.





Kekkou Kamen Anime, Manga and Live-Action

April 8th, 2004

My face is masked, but I bare my body for justice!

Kekkou Kamen, misspelled as Kekko Kamen for the anime release, is one more utterly bizarre story brought to you from the warped mind of Go Nagai, the creative genius behind Cutey Honey, Devilman, Mazinger G, Devilman Lady and more. But of all these, Kekkou Kamen wins on several levels – it’s the least plausible (and that’s saying something, if you’ve ever seen or read any of the others!), has the most naked women and is just the most utterly, indescribably *strange* anime and manga I’ve ever encountered. I absolutely love it.

The story takes place at Toenail of Satan’s Sparta Academy, an incredibly strict private high school, where physical and emotional torture are use to motivate the student body to excel. “Toenail of Satan” is the Principal’s actual name, btw. We follow the travails of hapless student Takahashi Mayumi, whose inferior grades and hot body make her a prime target of all the “punshiment specialist”s hijinks. To protect Mayumi, and the other students, a mysterious naked woman has appeared on the scene – she bares her body for justice, she says, but keeps her face covered because she’s embarrassed.

Kekkou Kamen-oneesama, as Mayumi calls her, always comes in the nick of time and uses her Spread Legs Attack to defeat the foe. The foe usually being some drooling pervert of a teacher who is just on the edge of sexually abusing Mayumi or one of the other female stdents. (The boy students appear to be only beaten, not sexually abused.)

And yet, (she says, knowing that after the prevous paragraphs everyone’s lips are curling in disgust,) despite all this, Kekkou Kamen is really incredibly funny. Mostly because it’s so amazingly awful and offensive that to take offense is impossible.

The anime is actually laugh-out-loud hysterical right from the beginning, when the first punishment specialist is “Gestaopoko” a S&M Nazi-themed dom with a whip and questionable fashion sense. Kekkou Kamen defeats her by remembering something she heard – that S&M Queens *really* want to be whipped themselves…. There is tons and tons of Yuri implication and overt Yuriness in the anime, which makes it worth buying. There’s also a terrific moment when the characters blast the fourth wall to hell by telling us that there’ll be more anime if this volume sells well. ^_^ It didn’t and there wasn’t.

The manga is a little more horrible and abusive, but so eyebrow-raisingly weird, that again, its hard to be offended. In the manga, we finally learn who Kekkou Kamen really is…and there is no way you’d ever be able to get it from the anime, so don’t bother…she doesn’t even show up as a character in the anime. Basically, by the end of the manga, every girl in the school is naked and masked and all are claiming to be Kekkou Kamen, but eventually, when she does show up, she does manage to save the day *and* Mayumi, once again. Yuri-wise there’s mostly akogare-type adoration and hero worship on Mayumi’s part, but I don’t really get any strong Yuri sense from that. There’s one totally butchy teacher, with a cross-dressing (and passing) younger sister, but again, the lesbo vibes are low-level at best. A shame too…I think this manga *needs* at least one openly lesbian character. If Go Nagai ever re-does the KK manga for the new century, I hope he adds one. ^_^

That takes us to the original Live-Action movies, of which there are three. These live-action movies were all unremittingly low-budget and poorly acted, with awkward scripts and BAD staging. So, of course, I adore them. The first movie is pretty close the the basic plot of the manga and the guy who plays Toenail of Satan is magnificently bad in the role. He’s perfect. The woman who plays Kekkou Kamen was some JAV star and pin-up, so her playing naked was fine. Her acting is …adequate, but really, who cares? The end of the movie is hysterically bad, and there is some Yuri subtext.

The second movie is the strongest in Yuri…there’s even a little actual girl/girl (not too much, don’t get your hopes up) thing going on, but with lots of subtext and one cool, butchy teacher. The same acting/script/low-budget thing applies to all three movies, so don’t think that they got better as time got on, either. ^_^

The third movie is actually kind of sad and funny, with lots of Go Nagai in-jokes, as Toenail of Satan’s family shows up to visit. Most of them are spoofs of other Go Nagai characters. And Kekkou Kamen falls in love, sadly with a guy, but whatever. There’s a funny scene at an amusement park, as KK tries to eat ice cream through her mask, and the ending, during and after the credits is absolutely insanely funny, as the girls of the school persuade a beaten and defeated Toenail of Satan to come back to the school and start playing soccer with him. As they run down the train platform, T of S’s last act is to plummet off the platform, then reappear, abashed, then he and the girls all share a good laugh. The End. No, really.

And, now, at last, there is a new KK Live-Action movie release to the theaters, which premiered this past week in Tokyo! The trailer makes it look hopelessly artless and fun, even if it has no obvious Yuri.

Ah…the trailer reminded me – I have to mention the *song.* The song that you hear in the trailer, and as the theme to the anime (sung by Kekkou Kamen’s voice actress Shinohara Emi, aka the voice of Sailor Jupiter/Kino Makoto in Sailor Moon, and Rosa Chinensis/Youko in Maria-sama ga Miteru) is amazingly funny. And in the manga, *Kekkou Kamen* herself sings the song as she fights, which makes it just that much better. I’m so very glad that they kept it for this movie, because it’s wonderful and camp and just about defines this whole series in a nutshell.

So, there you have it – Yuri in the anime, a little in two of the movies and not really any in the manga. Enjoy, but probably not. ^_^





Yuri Anime: Cream Lemon

March 22nd, 2004

clemonescSince I promised, and since you’ll get no more out of me for a while, I thought I’d end “hentai week” with a intermittently detailed and biased review of the entire Cream Lemon series.

Cream Lemon is a 35-episode hentai series comprised of several mini-series. As far as I know, there are no legitimate subtitled versions…possibly no subtitled versions at all for most of it. All I know is that I watched ’em raw and pixellated.. Like I said in my first hentai week post, since it hardly matters what they are saying, it’s no big deal.

A quick overview of Cream Lemon: The art is VERY retro. At times it was a little hard to watch because, even for such early animation, it wasn’t good, or detailed or anything. The stories have actual plots – some are better than others, but there’s probably something for everyone somewhere in the whole. The first half of CL has way more Yuri than the second half, I don’t think it’s on purpose, though.

To start with, Episodes 2,6 and 16 are called, collectively, “Escalation.” This mini-series begins at a Catholic School, where a cool sempai, Naomi, and her twisted lover, Midori, seduce a sweet innocent, Rie. In the second of the three episodes, Naomi-sempai goes all evil S&M ojousama on Rie, Midori and Rie’s roommmate Mari. (And some boy, who disappears somewhere halfway along, and Naomi’s father who serves only to drug Midori, as far as I can tell.) It’s one big old BDSM Yuri fest at Naomi’s mansion. The final of the three episodes is back at school, where new freshman Arisa has got a crush on our heroine Rie. Rie starts to initiate Arisa into her sapphic sisterhood, when roommate Mari shows up and throws a hissy fit. Of course, Mari and Rie make up in the time-honored fashion. Later, Rie visits her old sempai and is rewarded with Arisa as a graduation present. This okazu is followed by a night with Naomi-sempai, while Midori gets sloppy seconds with Arisa. As Rie goes off into the sunset in Naomi’s limo, we can feel confident that Arisa will continue the pattern of high school lesbianism into the future.

Cream Lemon Escalataion gets an “A”.

Episode 4 of CL is a silly scifi/western fusion called “Pop Chaser.” The first half is strictly, predictably Yuri, while the second half is rather amusingly straight. It’s utterly without merit, but I liked it anyway. This one gets a “B+”.

Episode 8 was about a very strange and creepy lesbian sempai with psychic powers who hates guys, and ends with a extended straight sex scene as the hero and heroine’s love power redeem the campus. It pretty much sucked. “C”.

Episode 9 is a a Dirty Pair parody, but the characters are lovers. It was exactly the way it sounds – a Dirty Pair parody, where the characters are lovers. ^_^; It gets a “B”.

Episode 12 was one installation of a horrible mini-series called “Ikenai Mako-chan.” It seems to be about white trash Mako-chan, and her non-adventures in sex. Snooze. This particular episode has a creepy girl, and an inexplicable Yuri seduction. It was okay, no more. “C”.

Episode 14 was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen anywhere, with a two-minute filler Yuri scene. “D”. Even the wildly inappropriate use of Nazi symbolism failed to make an impact.

Episode 17 – Well, this one was weirder and funnier than any of the others, IMHO. Our heroine doesn’t like sex. The school doctor, (who is, predictably, gorgeous and inappropriately dressed) calls her in for counseling. The heroine tells her why she dislikes sex:

Her father left to sell things (from a pushcart) and her mother took a lover. Dad came home and found the two of them in bed and had a heart attack. Mom, the heroine and her brother moved into their grandfather’s house, with the lover. One day, when her mother wasn’t home, the lover raped her, the heroine, on the dining room table. Her brother witnessed it, got angry and drove off and got into a car accident, ending up in traction. The grandfather attempted to rape the mother, but died in the attempt. While the heroine was left at home, her mother’s lover raped her again, and this time, her brother joined, raping her with his crutch.

Maybe it’s just me, but I was absolutely hysterical at this explanation.

Anyway, to cure the heroine, the doctor makes her undress and masturbate in front of the art class…ultimately, she also blows one of her classmates, has sex with him and the whole class ends up in one gigantic orgy. Notably, though, all the girls are having sex with each other, while the guys fight for the doctor.

It wasn’t good, but it was interesting. For that, Episode 17 gets a “B+”.

Episode 25 – some Yuri action while a classmate gets gang raped. Uh-huh. Obviously, they end up in a threesome. Duh. “C”.

Episode 32 – A bad first-time experience forces our heroine to seek assistance from a classmate and her sempai. Threesome, followed by better straight sex the second try. “B”.

Episode 35 – some incidental maid action. I was pretty fried, so I think I missed one – this particular mini-series, Kuroneko something or other, had an earlier episode with more incidental maid and young girl stuff. I think I wiped it from my memory.

So, there you go – look for the Escalation series and Pop Chaser for something you can show your friends, the rest, watch alone when you’re overtired and easily amused. LOL

***

And now, I’m outta here for a while – have a great month!





Weather Woman Anime and Manga

March 22nd, 2004

wwHow Low Can You Go?

Today I want to tell you about one of my all-time favorite series. Let me warn you first – this series is not for the faint of heart…it starts low and just keeps getting lower and lower and lower. In fact, that’s one of its great appeals; no matter how repulsive it gets, you just have to keep reading to see if it can get any *more* repulsive…and it always does. ^_^

Weather Woman/Weather Report Girl/Tenki Oneesama – Tetsu Adachi

The reason for so many titles is that each version of this, manga, anime, and live-action film have a different name. Isn’t that helpful?

The anime is cute – I’ve traumatized many a person by making them watch it. It’s a two-episode OVA that follows the manga pretty closely, so I’ll just talk about that. The live-action film is similar, but not the same – also not nearly as fun.

The first chapter of Tenki Oneesama introduces anti-heroine Nakadai Keiko. Never has manga seen a more sadistic, power-mad, conniving, shameless, scheming bitch on wheels. I love her. ^_^

Keiko’s dream is to be the star weather woman on television and she will do anything to accomplish that dream. She starts by putting super-strong laxative in the current weather woman’s lunch, causing her to, erm, have an accident, on television. Keiko steps in as the fill-in and immediately shakes up the station by flashing her underwear to the TV audience. Instantly, she’s a hit. Keiko makes the former weather reporter her personal slave, forcing Michiko to lick her underwear clean, and use her tongue to wipe the shaving cream from her body, among other, more evil, things.

When a new, very prim news announcer, Kaori, shows up, she thinks she can tame Keiko’s mad power trip. Their rivalry is hysterical – a bathing suit pulling fight in a public pool turns into a perfect synchronized swimming routine, for example – but after Keiko uses the recording devices in her own apartment to tape Michiko and Kaori having sex, Kaori becomes a reluctant ally.

To say that this story is insane is understating the case. A wrestling deathmatch between Keiko and policewoman “Hentai Hunter” Natsumi, becomes an evening of sex at a gentlemen’s club owned by….who else but everyone’s favorite weather woman! This arc also includes some serious Yuri goings on between Natsumi and her assistant Ritsuko. About time, too.

Sadly, the manga kind of just…ends. Keiko turns to us and says its been fun, but she’s got to go. Worst of all, she gets married to the yutzy guy in the story. But between the repulsive beginning and the inadequate ending, there’s a ton of Yuri and Yuri innuendo and just wacky and head-shakingly freaky chapters. I strongly recommend this manga if you like the horrible and unremittingly tacky, or you’re a bottom-feeding perv. Either way, you’ll love Weather Woman. If you like romance and sweetness, and things like scat, panties, sexual perversion, and emotional sadism bother you – stay as far away as possible from this series. ^_^;

The first volume of the manga is available in English, and the anime and live-action film, both have licensed subtitled versions. Links to these can be found at the top of this entry.

But if you read Japanese, or like looking at pervy Yuri pictures, Vol. 7 of the manga is the one you want.