Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Assault Lily Bouquet, Guest Review by Kristin

October 14th, 2020

Welcome to Guest Review Wednesday! It’s always such a pleasure to have a Guest Review and even more exciting, today we have a brand new Guest Reviewer. I’d like you to all give a warm welcome to Kristin, who is doing me a huge favor today by taking a look at Assault Lily Bouquet which is streaming on Funimation.com!

Well hello! I don’t think I’ve ever been here before! Years ago I used to be the manga and anime reviewer for ComicAttack.net, but these days I just shit talk on Twitter with my former peers. Anyway, I’m Kristin. You can find those old reviews here. Today I am lending Erica a hand and giving her eyeballs (and blood pressure) a break. She really didn’t need to watch this one.

Assault Lily: Bouquet is a new anime based on a mixed-media franchise, the primary mode being toy figurines. The doll line was created by Azone International and Acus in 2013. A light novel was published by Micro Magazine/GC Novels in 2015, and a manga is currently running in Monthly Bushiroad. Monthly Bushiroad’s parent company, Bushiroad Media, primarily concerns itself with trading card games and associated media. Azone International makes fashion dolls. Now, this mixture of media is very common. I don’t know why the Assault Lily series is particularly popular at present, but then America made a movie about the game Battleship in 2012, so time frames aren’t really an issue. To be honest, the dolls are kind of cute, and the “girls with guns” (or random weapons bigger than they are) genre is perennial. Not my style or interest, personally, but they look well made.

That’s the main thing that can also be said about the anime. It’s well made.

Assault Lily (and in conjunction Assault Lily: Bouquet, of course) tells the story of a group of teenage girls (the show specifically says 16-17) who attend a prestigious academy. Not just any academy, of course, but one that teaches these girls how to fight large, mechanical monsters called Huge. Yes, the Huge are huge. To fight these monsters, the girls sync up with their Charms through a ring they wear. Yes, their Charms are charms. Charms are the weapons the girls use to fight the monsters, and teenage girls have the greatest ability to synchronize with this technology. Hitotsuyanagi Riri is the newest Lily, arriving in episode one at the academy in order to follow her idol, Shirai Yuyu, who saved her from a Huge two years ago. Right away, Riri is thrust into combat as she joins Yuyu and another student, Kaede, in tracking down a Huge that escaped the school’s research facility. Unfortunately, while Riri’s combat experience and ability are fairly suspect, the main problem is that she has not yet synced up with her Charm. This is quickly remedied, and Riri and the snobbish, Yuyu-obsessed Kaede finish the Huge off. Riri saves Kaede from the explosive aftermath, making Kaede abandon Yuyu for her new savior. Since the girls do tend to pair up with combat partners (called “Schutzengel,” or “Guardian Angel”), it seems Riri may be on track to form such a relationship on day one.

Well. There’s a plot there, somewhere. In between all of the zettai ryouiki, the “absolute territory” of thigh skin revealed between a girl’s skirt and (usually over-the-knee, mid-thigh) socks. Because the series pays very close attention to this little patch of skin. You’ll note the, ah, generic lore. Which is probably fine for a collection of dolls, but isn’t very interesting or impacting in an anime series. Nothing is really unique here – girls with guns/large weapons, teenagers fighting monsters, large and nasty robots. There’s hardly anything to talk about. It’s just sort of…dull. There’s a couple quick fight scenes, and they’re pretty, but not much else. Really, the whole show is pretty. SHAFT is the animation studio, and they’ve done some beautiful work in the past. They’re also no stranger to “magical girl” series, which would be the closest genre Assault Lily: Bouquet could fit. Nor are they stranger to overly sexualized teen girls. They’ve even done strong friendships with girls. This, though, is some kind of…light Yuri fan service for middle-aged men. The show airs in a past-midnight time slot on a Thursday night/Friday morning, so it’s certainly not directed at young girls. Which really makes it sort of uncomfortable. There are just so many thigh shots and boob shots, and the uniforms are designed to make this extra effective.

Ratings:

Art – 9, it’s beautiful! SHAFT knows how to animate, no question.

Story – 
.4? For the first episode. It’s just so generic, honestly. I’ve seen this many times, even if the technical aspects of the magic and technology are new. Look, it’s based on a toy line. Which is fine, but it’s designed to sell more dolls.

Characters – 6, I suppose. If the designs weren’t so…zettai ryouki focused, they might be cute. There’s also a lot of characters. Maybe too many, as far as who seems to be featured.

Service – Depends on what kind of service you want. Are you really into the thigh skin of 16-year-old girls?

Yuri – It’s a trap. If you’re drawn to the not-so-subtle Yuri undertones, it’s a trap, run away. They’re gonna lean into it for its audience, but I highly doubt it will be worth it unless you’re really into the skin and bouncing boobs of teenage girls.

Overall – Seven highly deliberate shots of the “absolute territory” on teenage girls.

Erica here:  Thank you so much Kristin. I did try, but as you say, it was not good for my blood pressure. In my opinion, Assault Lily Bouquet is a magical girl version of Ikkitousen with about as much respect for its female characters, only starring fetuses in frilly dresses. ^_^ Thank you again and we hope to have you back soon!





KIRA KIRA☆Pretty Cure A la Mode

October 8th, 2020

Ichika is a normal 2nd-year in middle school, who loves to make desserts, when she becomes a legendary pĂątissier/guardian, Pretty Cure, Cure Whip. In the normal way of such things, Ichika gathers around her a number of other teammates and friends, science-minded Himari, rock singer Aoi, older girls cool, boyish Akira and stylish Yukari and, eventually a famous pĂątissier from France, Ciel…and that’s not all, in KIRA KIRA☆Pretty Cure A la Mode, now streaming on Crunchyroll.

It’s my habit of many years to at least give the first few episodes of every PreCure series a watch. That’s fallen by the wayside in recent years, so KIRA KIRA☆PreCure is the last one I actually gave a few weeks to. I liked it well enough and was very pleased when Crunchyroll picked this series up. I’m still hoping we get Heartcatch, as so far, I consider it the best season to date. But Kira Kira is pretty solid.

This time the PreCure fight Noir-sama who steals the color and sparkle – the “kira kira” of the title – from sweets. As legendary pĂątissiers, it is PreCure’s job to protect sweets from losing their kira kira and making sure everyone in the world gets to be happy through sweets. The co-branding possibilities with candy and pastries are endless and I’m sure dentists were happy, too.

There are a few narrative beats here that were actually interesting. Our first nemesis is Rio, a boy who obviously knows a lot about sweets, but won’t cook. His true identity was kind of fun and it set the tone for the various redemptions, back-stabbing, evolutions and other crisscrossing of the characters’ various stories. I also quite like evil little Bibli. I won’t spoil, because frankly, it’s a cartoon for little children with a good 10 minutes of repeated footage for every 20-minute episode and there’s little else to draw your attention, so you might as well wait for it. ^_^ This season the PreCure are both sweets and animal related, so you’re gonna have plenty of time to get up and get a drink while they transform, especially towards the end. ^_^

One other draw is the aforementioned cool, boyish Akira and stylish and elegant Yukari who make a nice couple. I think it goes a little far to say they are an established couple, but as far as they can carry that without overt expressions of mutual love, they get pretty far. Akira does have the chance to tell Yukari she likes her and they are partnered in attacks and other ways that makes it plain to those who want to see what they see.

Most telling to me is that Akira’s transformation to Cure Chocolat places her clearly on Takarazuka-like stairs as an otokoyaku. Later she will be Prince to Yukari’s Queen at the school festival. There are any number of moments when their voice actresses play the roles like its an obvious pairing. Akira’s voice actress, Mori Nanako played coffee-shop owner and adult lesbian in a stable relationship, Miyako in Bloom Into You, and Yukari’s VA, Fujita Saki has graced such Yuri anime as Sakura Trick and Yuri Yuri, and she’s Attack on Titan‘s Ymir, so we have solid Yuri cred from both, as well.

As PreCure goes, the music was not bad, although so far nothing has touched the end theme to Heartcatch PreCure in my completely biased opinion.

A pretty solid, if super sweet, season of PreCure.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Coloful, rather than good, but totally acceptable
Story – 6 It had some elements of interest.
Characters – 8
Service – well, I guess constant shots of potential toys are a kind of corporate service
Yuri – Hrmmm, well give Akira and Yukari a 7. You can see if you want to, and also kind of ignore it if you don’t

Overall – 7

Kudos to the translator who nailed Jaba’s “Nan ja to?” by translating it as “What the ja?” Outstanding.





Where to Watch Yuri in English Online, Free and Legally – 2020

July 21st, 2020

So you want to know where and how to watch Yuri anime free and legally. That’s not a bad thing, but we’re in 2020, a year that has been outrageously written by crazed Albanian monks. The last time we did this round up, in 2017, there were a number of new services and a lot of companies were getting in on anime. Quite a number of previously free services have gone out of business, others have been simply absorbed by not-free services.  That 2017 post remains one of the most popular I’ve ever done, and it’s long past time it gets an update. ^_^

Before we begin, let’s set some ground rules:

My focus is on US-based or accessible services, because while I am dedicated to bringing you good information, my dedication still does not extend to working with proxies or VPNs in every major market to see if these services work in your hometown. Assume there are regional restrictions in place for some or all of these services. But feel free to use proxies or VPNs on your own. ^_^ If you use a regionally legal, free streaming site in a non-US country, by all means, please let folks know in comments!

Today we’re focusing on services that are legitimate and free. To be very honest, there are far fewer of them than there used to be. I will also touch upon a few that are not free, because they allow for extended trial periods and, if you and your friends pitch in, you can enjoy them for a very reasonable amount. And because without them, you’ll miss a lot of Yuri. I will not suggest illicit services and all comments suggesting them will be removed instantly. This is for legal services only.

 All streaming services have shifting catalogs. Video licensing contracts go in and out of use and every single IP holder is always on the lookout for a better deal and major ones are launching their own god-forsaken channels.  In fact, between 2017 and now, Funimation pulled all of it’s IP from other services and went on their own.  Another good reason to update this list periodically. I am checking to make sure things I mention are actually on the service where I mention them. Some of these channels can be accessed on channel-aggregation services like VRV or Hulu or Amazon Prime. I’m not touching any of those. Netflix also has a lot of anime and is both licensing and making more, so if you have a subscription to that, or any of the above, yes, there’s more stuff you can watch legally.

Region-blocks are still an issue, but less than it used to be. Streaming has had an impact on this stupid relic of the 20th century, but it still does exist, and licensing companies do usually not have much say on the issue. With all that in mind, here we go.

 

Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll is pretty much the industry standard now,  with a good chunk of anime from multiple companies, which is it’s main appeal. Crunchyroll is my go-to, because their catalog is one of the most comprehensive, from Aoi Hana/Sweet Blue Flowers to to Yuru Yuri. (There wasn’t a good ‘Z’ title, but come on A to Y isn’t bad! ^_^) They often have simulcasts for subscribers and they are still honest-to-goodness free on a delay. They are partnering with Japanese anime companies directly to create their own content these days, which just means your money goes back into the greater anime ecosystem, which is exactly where you want it.

There’s no “Yuri” tag in search, nor is it listed as a genre (and I sympathize with that and agree as long as BL is likewise not included.)

Rating: A- It’s not an all-in-one place for everything anymore, especially as Sentai and Funimation have chosen other options, but they still have the largest and most varied catalog.

 

Tubi TV

Tubi has – to my genuine surprise – survived a few years now. They’ve still got a mostly random smattering of anime and a lot of it isn’t new or, sometimes, good. They have Valkyrie Drive, but they also have Vampire Princess Miyu.  They’ve also got a few other notable series, like Bubblegum Crisis and .hack/Sign. (This was a decade pre-Sword Art Online massive media franchise about a MMOPRG that didn’t exist.) Their catalog is worth a look, if you’ve got some time to kill and want to watch older, maybe less well-known stuff from before Yuri was its own genre. ^_^

Rating: B It’s worth looking at, but I probably wouldn’t subscribe. Their catalog still seems random, They have Bubblegum Crisis, and AD Police, but not Bubblegum Crash. No idea why.

There is no Yuri tag in search. Their search isn’t really good, generally.

 

RetroCrushTV

RetroCrushTV is new since the last update and I haven’t watched it at all. But is it is genuinely free, ad-supported anime and RetroCrushTV has Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash, as well as Project A-ko, which is nuts and you should watch it.  It has Devil Lady dubbed, which I should point out is a thing you ought to note – some of the series are dubbed, others subbed; they do seem to be labeled appropriately.

RetroCrushTV specializes in older stuff, obviously and it has a “random” button which will give you some random title. I found it charming as heck and I will totally use this!

There’s no “Yuri” tag in search. Their search is meh generally.

Rating: A-  I really like the “love for classic everything” that shows through here. For free, it’s an absolute delight.

 

Viz

Viz doesn’t have much Yuri anime, but you can still watch all of Sailor Moon here, for free. While you are there, you can watch all the big Shonen Jump series and read sample chapters of manga for free, or get new chapters as simulpub – this includes Yuri titles like How Do We .Relationship and Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow.

There’s no “Yuri” tag in search. Their search is meh generally.

Rating: B Obviously, they only carry their own titles, but those are some of the biggest titles in the world and they make it pretty damn easy for you to watch and read for free and even get simulpubbed new manga chapters for free.

 

Funimation 

Funimation has Funimation anime exclusively – overwhelmingly I think that is for the birds. But, then, my antipathy towards Funimation’s attempts at streaming go back a decade and at least their website works, even if I think it gets in its own way all the time. Which is actually a huge improvement over previous years of barely functioning nonsense. I will never forgive them for their mobile app zippering open. Gawd.

Funimation offers a free trial and most series have the first few and most recent episodes streaming free so you can watch a whole series as it comes out with, predictably, ads suggesting you subscribe to Funimation’s service. They’ve got recent favorites like If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die and they’ve got Revolutionary Girl Utena, which surprised the heck out of me.

There’s no “Yuri” tag in search.

Ratings: B+ No complaints, honestly. You don’t even have to register anymore to watch stuff for free. And if Funimation’s titles are your jam, it’s competitively priced.

 

HIDIVE

HIDIVE is Sentai Filmworks’ and Section23’s streaming service. Since Sentai historically licenses a lot of Yuri, you’ll be able to see Bloom Into You and Kase-san and Morning Glories here, along with older titles like Flip Flappers and the amazing fantabulous live-action movie Arch Angels (!!! You should all go watch this immediately!!!). They’ve got a pretty amazing selection of queer-friendly and queer-adjacent stuff. I do like that their trial is 30 days long, not a week. They offer subs and dubs pretty clearly labeled.

I don’t much care for the fact that they don’t make at least some of their episodes free, especially as some of their titles are also available on Crunchyroll (just not the ones we want.) It seems a wasted opportunity. (Update, they have pulled their titles from Crunchyroll, so that’s that.)

There’s no “Yuri” tag in search.

Rating: B I hated their fullscreen mode when I was watching anime on their site. Why should I have to exit fullscreen to increase/decrease the volume?!? I remember bitching about it every time. Their search is sort of organized by topic, but I still cannot find what I want easily.

 

2020 Takeaways:

1) Overall, the sites where you can stream Yuri anime are good, they are simple to use and, if you know what you’re looking for, it’s easy enough to find stuff.

2) The search on these sites are crap.  If you’re looking for “Yuri” welcome to 2000, because none of these sites know what you’re talking about. All these services have bleh search, which focus mostly on searching by title. A few attempt genre or topic, but tags are inadequately and inconsistently applied. For instance Crunchyroll has shojo, shonen and seinen, but not josei. Go figure. Hire a librarian, folks. Your taxonomy is terrible, series aren’t tagged appropriately and there are a lot of catalogers out of work right now. Quick, someone build a decent anime search engine taxonomy and sell it to all the streaming sites.  Or, heck, let viewers suggest tags and just have someone clean up the messiness. User-generated taxonomy would at least give viewers a chance.

3) Fullscreen mode is crap. I want a fullscreen mode with a disappearing toolbar that comes back up with mouse movement that includes volume, etc, and a click-start click-stop. It’s shocking how few of these sites have this.

4) Episodes should be free to watch on your site, especially if they are free to watch elsewhere…Sentai. Go ahead, pound us over the head with “subscribe now” ads and make some money on my eyeballs with other advertising.

5) There is no reasonable excuse for fansubs or scanlations at this point and should you encounter anyone who is arguing that the companies in the industry are damaging the industry, quick, block and report them because that is – at best – nonsensical.

6) There is an industry-wide problem of poor pay for folks doing translation, subtitles and all production work. This needs to stop. Fans, pay for services you use and companies…pay people who do the work.

Last, we’re in such an amazing place regarding streaming anime so my last thought for this update is this…

Look how much free stuff you can try out! Watch a different episode 1 every night, hit that “random” button and watch Twilight of the Cockroaches. Sit down and crank through Haikyuu!, finish that series you meant to get to. Find out why I rant endless about how amazing Devilman Lady is.

What are you waiting for?  Go watch a lot of anime!

 

 





My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

July 10th, 2020

Sometimes you start a thing for one reason and end up finishing it for a completely different reason. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, streaming on Crunchyroll, is just such a thing.

2020 has been the worst-written disaster film of all time, with one crisis messily folding directly into another, and no neat resolution on the horizon. So, when my wife suggested I watch a wholesome feel-good anime I tentatively began watching this series, unsure what I might find. What I found was an an Alice-in-Wonderland story, flipped on it’s head, spun around a few time while blindfolded, and let go to comedically stumble it’s way through a plot line to a charming resolution.

An otaku destined for a lifetime of mediocrity is killed one day and wakes up inside the world of the game she was playing. Not as the lead character, but as the villain – a villain who comes to a bad end in every possible route. To ward off the many possible bad ends, she uses her knowledge of the game to change the scenario.

As you might guess, otome and bishoujo games are well outside my interest. Any story that makes me work at it in order to get to the end of a plot is not terribly appealing to me. That’s the author’s job, IMHO. ^_^  So the idea that this series takes places in an “other world” trope was moderately amusing, but no more than that. Immediately, howver, Uchida Maya’s loopily sincere Catarina Claes sucked me in. So why did this ridiculous story work for me when others of it’s kind have left me cold? I believe it’s a combination of several things.

Catarina’s guilessness is played as a charm point, which generally annoys the daylights out of me, but while she is a doofus, she’s not an idiot. Instead of her bumbling her way through the plot, she’s energetically striding through it, engaged in her own improvement and actively seeking ways to sideline the dangers. The only thing she’s oblivious to is her own charm. This works extraordinarily well. Like the characters in the story, we can see her earnest friendship, her steadfastness and caring as well as her genuine hard work, and allow that her silliness is really only in regards to herself. Catarina spends her energy on uplifting those around her, rather than being carried by them. This small change in focus keeps you coming back over and over.

Secondly, the creator marked out an incredibly intelligent path by having Catarina usurp not only all the love interests’ lines, but also by having her become the protagonist at the same time. There I was, actually enjoying a harem anime for the first time, with no reservations.

Yuri being part of the plot definitely helped. No matter who your “type” is, you’re going to have someone to love and root for. By mid-series, both my wife and I were firmly on Team Mary. ^_^  And, in this too, the voice acting went far above and beyond, as Okasaki Miho really sold Mary’s feelings for Catarina. I didn’t dislike any of the characters, which is always a plus for me.

This is a truly wholesome series, as well. I didn’t have to watch it around tiresome service, or ignore a creepy character’s unwholesome behavior. This is a series I could happily suggest to just about anyone without warnings or even too many explanations.

It was a really fun watch that happens to feature sincere Yuri.

Ratings:

Animation – 8 Not world shaking, but enjoyable
Characters – 10
Story – 9
Yuri – 6
Service – 0

Overall – 9

And, in the end, I found myself thrilled at the announcement of a second season, and started to read the Light Novels, so the anime did it’s job and created a fan…who is is still rooting for Mary. ^_^





If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die

April 2nd, 2020

And so, If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die, streaming on Funimation, has wrapped up and I thought I ought to share a few thoughts about it.

This story, of the life of an idol group fan; a fan of the least popular girl in a small, not well-known, provincial idol group was, in turns frustrating and hopeful. The anime had the advantage of being short, and extremely well-voiced. So folks who watch the anime were able to skip some of the more prolonged agony of the manga. I’m pleased for you. ^_^

I’ve written in my manga reviews about how miserable this series has made me feel about the exploitation of the idol industry on all sides. I always felt that the idols were exploited, but I never understood how exploited the fans were, as well. I find it hard to enjoy any real -life group, when I read about the sentimentality porn of “graduations” and the endless number of young women and men leaving for health reasons. There’s no other conclusion to draw but that the entire industry is a “family friendly”  form of human trafficking. And this series made me question it even further, when it uncovers the kind of obsessive indentured servitude fans are presupposed to engage in.

Surely I *cannot* be the only one in the world who thinks not being allowed to like (or let your fave know you like) more than one person or group is bat shit crazy? Fans, like whomever the fuck you want! Your oshi does not own you! You do not own them! This is not a life, it isn’t even a virtual life…it’s a job and fans are paying for the pleasure of working. That’s not healthy. The whole thing is a shared delusion and no one but their production companies win.

And, so, most of you will have watched this series with hearts in your eyes, hoping that Eri will finally be able to communicate with Maina, and that Maki and Yumeri will be happy together. I can’t tell you if they will, only that 6 volumes into this series, they haven’t yet… As the entire series is about lives in suspended animation, that seems fitting.

At least the anime left us with hope, with tears, with gambaru, and with teamwork. Because that’s what it is (supposed to be ) all about, right? We’ll keep trying hard and someday…!!!

And so we’ll keep following our faves and hoping that they make it to the Budokan. Rawr!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – Shockingly positive 7
Character – Likeable 8
Yuri – 10 and 0 as only Hirao-sensei can manage it.
Service – Overall, 5 tiresome more than offensive

Overall – I still don’t know, really. If I watched the anime with no knowledge of the manga, 7, 8, maybe?

Ai Farouz deserves a fucking trophy for her portrayal of Eripyo. She was the reason I kept watching.