Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Otherside Picnic Anime

February 14th, 2021

Miyazawa Iori has rather quickly entered the landscape of Yuri creators in recent years. With a lead story in the Yuri issue of SF Magazine in 2019, followed by the J-Novel licensing Side by Side Dreamers, and then the outstanding science fiction novel series, Otherside Picnic, Miyazawa has set a whole new sets of benchmarks for Yuri in a very short time.

The Otherside Picnic novel series has been fascinating. With an overt mix of Japanese netlore, science fiction, action and horror tropes and a big scoop of Yuri on top, I’ve enjoyed all of the novels so far. My reviews and others’ are all on Okazu in the Otherside Picnic category. Sorawo and Toriko are unusual as characters, compared with my usual fare. The post-apocalyptic unpredictability of the Otherside/UBL and its interactions with this world, give the series a Jorge Luis Borges-ish sensibility that I genuinely appreciate.

Otherside Picnic follows the adventures of college student Sorawo, as she find herself in an alternate reality that is embedded within locations in and around Japan. In this “Otherside,” Sorawo meets attractive Toriko, and finds herself traveling back and forth to the Otherside to gather artifacts for money, and help Toriko find a person who has gone missing on the Otherside…a person who clearly is more than just a friend.

It was with some trepidation that I saw the first key visuals of the Otherside Picnic anime. What was a darkish story about two young adults had already been given much-too moe illustrations in the books, and now it was the moe that was getting the focus, not the dark, not the deep, not the Russian science fiction, not the action, not the creative thinking around the creatures of the UBL. I won’t lie. I was deeply disappointed. Now that I have managed to watch the anime, which is streaming on Funimation.com, I’m still a little disappointed.

The first reactions I read of the anime seemed to focus on the translation, which chose “wiggle-waggle” for kune-kune. That didn’t bother me, as くねくね means wavy, or wriggling. I think the distaste there was the typical otakuish preference for the exotic other. I can see both sides and frankly glad they didn’t go with something like “The Wriggler”.  That is not the problem. ^_^; The problem is that they completely punted on animating the kune-kune, which are, based on the original description, very similar to the monsters of Side-by-Side Dreamers – a sort of familiarly shaped thing, but made of streamer-y parts. Something between those flappy advertising tube men, and the A-jin. The Otherside Picnic manga from Square Enix is way closer to my idea of what they ought to look like than the anime, which just…didn’t bother. The detailed burned-out buildings in the background look great. I wish they had given the same care to anything in the foreground.

Instead of a pleasantly befuddlingly creeping psychological horror, the anime is a comedy-action series, in which running and screaming takes up all the space the “what the ever-loving fuck reference is that?!?” of the novels. The pacing makes it impossible to appreciate the well-crafted horrible unrealness, before the screaming starts. For anyone who has come to the anime from the novels, it’s bound to be a little disappointing.  Even more importantly, if you are enjoying the anime, and decide to try out the novels, be prepared to be be actually creeped the fuck out. The anime makes everything so silly and cute, but the books do no such thing.

It’s not that this anime is unlikable. Actually, it’s very enjoyable, and the voice acting has been superb. As Sean Gaffney noted in conversation, Hanamori Yumiri as Sorawo is particular good, as her lack of affect when explaining her not-at-all-usual family life, actually increases the emotional impact. And if you’re not sure whether you might like this story, I’d definitely say give the animation a try….

…with “try” being the operative word. I know I have been banging on this for years, but Funimation is terrible at streaming. Streams cut out, commercials get stuck on loops, subtitles don’t work at all, or work wrong. I want so much for them to do this well, but they don’t. The first time I tried to watch the first episode, it took me 4 *days* to be able to get the whole thing watched and I ended up watching it with no subtitles at all, because the option never appeared. (Not a crisis, as I knew the story and can sort of understand, but that is not the point.) Funimation still gets a ‘D’ on streaming. I fear that a merger between Funimation and Crunchyroll will mean CR loses all of it’s decent streaming to Funimation’s vastly inferior system instead of the other way around.

Ratings:

Animation – 6 Unsatisfying. This COULD have been amazing and it’s just not
Story – 7 – Not as compelling as everything is crunched for time
Characters – 7 Sorawo comes off as more compelling, Toriko less, Kozakura feels even more like an afterthought
Service – 4 The key visual art was creeperish, and the moeification of the characters is itself a distracting bit of pointless service
Yuri – 5 Implicit and explicit in places and part of the overarching plot.

Overall – 7

So far at least, the anime feels like a children’s version of the novels. Goofy funhouse screaming rather than creeping psychological horror. Not bad in any way, just not good in the way the novels are good.





Battle Athletes OVA/TV Anime Complete Blu-Ray set, Guest Review by Eric P.

February 3rd, 2021

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu! Today we welcome back our long-time friend and Guest Reviewer, Eric P. It’s always a pleasure to have him here and today he’s going to take a look at the new release of Battle Athletes Complete TV Series & OVA Blu-Ray! As always, please give him a warm welcome back. Take it away Eric!

Set in the far-off future of 4999, Battle Athletes centers on young Akari Kanzaki who follows in her legendary mother’s footsteps.To do this, she attends University Satellite to compete in various sports tournaments for the top title of Cosmic Beauty, meeting different people along the way and growing up as both an athlete and person. That is the basic story  for the 6-episode OVA, while the TV version, Battle Athletes Victory, included far more elements in order to fill out its 26-episode length. In the TV-length series, Akari’s journey starts with her training to be a contender for University Satellite, followed by the actual Cosmic Beauty competition.  Everything culminates with—Akari and the other athletes fighting to protect Earth from an alien invasion. Turns out Cosmic Beauty was a front in searching for the best athletes to help decide Earth’s fate by tournaments, like a bloodless version of Mortal Kombat.

If that last part sounded goofy, it is, but it still works in its strange way. The TV version is sillier in nature than the OVA, with the humor driving much of the plot (the big revelation of Akari’s mother in the third act still makes me chuckle—it is something neither the characters or the viewers could ever see coming). Some viewers may better appreciate the more focused storytelling of the OVA with its minimal episode count, along with its more solid characterization. Akari herself develops at the right pace for the protagonist she is supposed to be, whereas in the TV version she is more likely to test viewers’ patience. As a consequence of having multiple episodes to pad the time out with, Akari struggles that much longer to come into her own. The real reason she is deemed special by everyone around her is due to her mother’s blood, and it takes quite a lot in drawing out that greatness like she is some kind of prophesied hero—which, she actually is by the end.

At the beginning of Victory, the one most responsible in driving Akari to be her best is her tomboy friend/fellow athlete from Osaka named Ichino. There are indications of something stirring between them as we follow them, but it never fully blooms due to their mutual denial. By act two they are forced to part ways, and the University Satellite is where Akari meets her new teammate in both the OVA and TV, Lunar-Priestess-in-training Kris Christopher. In the OVA, Akari gradually develops feelings for her that she later finds impossible to deny. Kris however remains a sexually ambiguous enigma since everything she does, including her kiss with Akari in the end, all get explained away by her religious customs.Victory is different in that regard, for there is no subtext in Kris’s love-at-first-sight attraction toward Akari. Her relentlessly obsessive pursuit drives Akari to maintain a distance much of the time for comedic purposes, although later on Akari does come around to embracing her teammate; if not so far as reciprocate her feelings quite yet. Once all the athletes gather to fight for Earth, as you might guess, we get the Yuri love triangle/rivalry that seems inevitable—the inhibited Ichino and uninhibited Kris have it out, with Akari helplessly stuck in between. Just as inevitable, the triangle ends unresolved, since leaving it up to the viewers to decide who Akari would choose was apparently meant to be part of the appeal.

This Sci-Fi Sports Yuri Comedy series was one of my gateway titles into Anime while growing up in the 1990’s. Like most Anime fans, I have watched several others as the years went by with only so much time to revisit old favorites now and then—then Discotek came along to license-rescue and re-release the complete collection in one Blu-ray set to be discovered anew. Originally standard-format, this is not an HD transfer so the picture quality remains the same as the original Pioneer DVD’s. Regardless, we get to have everything on one single disc including the special features. There is one other highlight that Discotek deserves kudos on—always missing from the Pioneer release but now restored, is the epilogue montage through the final TV closing credits, showing where all the characters wind up after the story’s end.

Having watched this series for the first time in so long, much of it still holds up well enough entertainment-wise—while some of the elements did not hold up as much as I would have liked. When I was younger, I thought it was neat how Victory was made up of a diverse cast of multicultural characters, with one athlete representing a major nation. Now I can finally recognize the outdated culturally ignorant stereotypes attributed to these characters. Some stick out like sore thumbs more so than others, especially with the conniving Chinese athlete Ling-Pha and African athlete Tanya, whose hyper-animalist nature will no doubt rub plenty of viewers the wrong way (she is more sensitively depicted in the OVA). Also, even though this series takes place in the far future when humanity is at its most advanced, a clear sign of the 1990’s is when the surrounding characters still react to homosexuality like it is something strange and stunning (and use dated language like “swing that way”), although Kris never views her feelings as such.

Despite the warts that mark it as a product of its time, my appreciation for Battle Athletes has not lessened, now that we have a new version. It is still a classic with charm one can only find from the 1990’s—one has to take it for the light, fun entertainment it was meant to be without taking it too seriously. Especially for those wishing for a newer sports-themed Yuri story to happen in the near future, there exists the original such title as an option until then.

 

Ratings:

 

Art—OVA:7, TV: 6 (The OVA being Original Video Anime, of course the animation would have more to it than the more limited TV series with the latter’s still/recycled shots. Either one is very ‘90’s, but not in a bad way)

Story—OVA:6, TV: 7 (The OVA and TV versions both have their strengths and weaknesses the other does not have, making it a matter of preference. I just happen to get more out of Victory, with the additional character stories and its inclusion of Ichino)

Characters—7 (The characterization may be more solid in the OVA, but we get far more characters and get more time well spent with them in the TV version, so it rounds out either way)

Service—OVA:7, TV: 3 (Both versions have it, yet the OVA is comparably more voyeuristic. Even without the scenes of nskedness, the camera takes plenty of convenient shots of the female athletes in their uniforms and body positions—it helps even less that the OVA version’s headmaster character is depicted as a stereotypical “loveable”[??] lech toward the athletes)

Yuri—7 (I would be remiss not to give a quick mention to two other athletes, Lahrri and Mylandah, in which at least one of them closely fulfills the traditional EPL role. Victory reveals tidbits of their complicated rivalry/friendship, but you will not find the same thing in the OVA)

Discotek’s Release—9 (If I had just one complaint—both inside and outside the slipcase the cover features almost each major character, yet it somehow misses Kris everywhere, while Ling-Pha somehow always appears twice. What’s the dealio, Discotek?)

Overall—lucky number 7

 

Erica here: Thank you very much Eric for taking a look at this now-classic Yuri series for us! I’m glad you didn’t forget Mylandah and Lahrri. They will always be the reason I love this series. ^_^

 





Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady, Disk 2

January 17th, 2021

Things fall apart rapidly in the second half of Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady.The center was never meant to hold.

Jun advocates for the humanity of those people who show signs of the Devilbeast Progress, while the humans that are creating the afflicted – then dehumanizing them and hurting them – become less and less human themselves.

Having saved and lost Kazumi several times and only for one brief night allowed to acknowledge their love – Jun becomes despondent, then ultimately enraged, as society crumbles. As Asuka pushes Jun to her limits, Jun finds some strength at last.

In a deeply dark and violent ending, Asuka, who is intersex, rapes Jun, then forces her into a hell of Asuka’s making. There Kazumi is able to speak with Jun one last time and Jun sheds the very last of her inhibitions to become the Devilman Lady that defeats Asuka’s distorted form of godhead, saving what is left of humanity.

Through the final arc, as Asuka’s past comes to light, I was reminded so very much of Apos in Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne. Also portrayed as a evil “hermaphrodite” (a word that has had a long road, from tragic Greek figure to slur,) Apos and Asuka also share megalomania and disinterest in humanity other than as tool for their own ambitions. I now wonder how much Apos was influenced by Asuka…and how much Rin: Daughters of Menmosyne was influenced by Go Nagai Devilman franchise. The Devilman himself, Akira, makes a cameo appearance here, and where the rest of this series is very 1990’s, he is purest 1980s.

This series remains a dark, violent and often depressing look at humanity’s inability to treat others well, very similar to Devilman Crybaby. Sure the monsters are scary, but armed men with guns threatening innocent children is far more terrifying  because it is something we all actually see on a daily basis. But. Unlike Devilman Crybaby, it has hope. It is true that Jun does not have a happy ending with Kazumi, but because of her, Jun is finally able to accept herself. The world is not destroyed. Children play, humans evolve after all, despite themselves. There is hope for the future, for Jun…and for us.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9 Horror in every form.
Characters – 9
Service – 8 Yes, very. This is Go Nagai we are talking about.
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

As I have said elsewhere, “All of the Devilman franchise seem to be about humanity’s complicity in its own destruction. By that standards, Devilman Lady has a happy ending as Jun only loses everyone she’s ever met, and both arms, but Tokyo/Earth survives.”





Okazu Top Yuri Anime of 2020

December 27th, 2020

Traditionally, this is the hardest list of the year for me to write. I do try to make time to at least sample whatever fandom thinks of as Yuri anime that has come out in a year, even if I don’t particularly think of it as Yuri. Some years are harder than others if there just hasn’t been much that came out. This was not one of those years. ^_^

This year it was a hard list because of the typical shifting and juggling of spots up at the top. I won’t take that for granted, because it’s a lovely problem to have. It still makes it a hard list to write! ^_^

I’ve included links to legal streaming sites and complete sets on disk, whichever are available at time of writing. Which brings me to an interesting point. With Retrocrush, Tubi.Yv, Funimation and Crunchyroll all  – at the moment – offering free streaming, Sentai’s HIDIVE stands out a bit, as the only non-free option streaming service. I wonder how that might change in 2021.

As usual, this is all *my opinion* and it reflects my priorities and interests. I invite you all to add your top anime of the year in the comments!

 

 
Assault Lily Bouquet

This isn’t Yuri, per se, so much as a derivative dolls-killing-giant monsters series, wrapped in a Yuri uniform. Which was interesting as an exercise: What if you stripped any human romance, love, from the modern moe-fied remnants of Class S relationships and used it as a series of markers without meaning? It becomes lion’s skin of Yuri draped over the shoulders of a moe Hercules. (How is that for an image? ^_^)

It wasn’t to my taste, in almost the exactly way Semelparous was not, though for opposite reasons. I wouldn’t mind a giant monster-killing story with a great Yuri plot, but neither this, nor Semelparous is it. Nonetheless, its gets a spot here for killing a wild Yuri and wearing it’s skin. ^_^

Streaming on Funimation

 

 

Tamayomi

You all know my endless plaintive cries for a good sports Yuri story. This was not what I’m looking for, but it was a pleasant little sports story with a light frisson of Yuri.

As a technically-minded sports anime I thought it pretty interesting. As a story about teamwork and friendship, it was a solid enough entry. Having any girl’s sport series that takes the sports aspect seriously is always a pleasure. And for that, we’ll give a spot in the line up to Tamayomi, (admittedly,  pretty far down the roster.^_^)

Streaming on Funimation

 

 

 

Battle Athletes

Again, this isn’t the sports Yuri I want, even though it is spectacularly Yuri and – theoretically – about sports. ^_^ As an idea, Battle Athletes is great! As a reality, it’s goofy and zOMG full of service. Long before it was the “Naruto run” Akari did that crane style run. As a relic of a period where anime liked its heroines to be clumsy, useless, until they are suddenly ridiculously overpowered, and full of the stupidest possible nonsense, its really hard to take seriously. As a lesbian love triangle it’s a little more worthy. Personally I’ll always be craning my head around Akari, Ichino and Kris (and her cow,) ignoring the service and the stereotypes which were always totally UGH, even back when this was made, to watch Mylandah and Lahrri’s steamy relationship melting the edge of the film. ^_^

Thanks to Diskotek for reminding me what was good and bad about this classic Yuri anime.

Available on Blu-ray from Diskotek

 

 

Kira Kira PreCure a la Mode

Like a few other series on this list, Kira Kira PreCure Ala Mode isn’t from 2020, but this year we got this as a release on Crunchyroll.

Pretty much every year I watch an episode or two of the new PreCureseries, then forget to keep watching. I’ve made it through about a half dozen of the seasons. This is one of a few I genuinely enjoyed all the way through, along with Heartcatch, Suite and, surprisingly Healin’ Good.

Kira Kira PreCure ala Mode had all the things that hook me into a season of PreCure – characters with agency, and personality, a lovely Yuri couple with a good chunk of Yuri voice acting cred, good bad guys who evolve, loads of references to other cultural relics. But, honestly, even if Akira and Yukari weren’t obviously a couple, the fact that Akira’s transformation into Cure Chocolat included the Takarazuka stairs at least deserves an Honorable Mention. ^_^

Streaming on Crunchyroll

 

 

Vlad Love

I really, truly, did not believe we’d be talking about this here on Okazu. In fact, I actively tried to avoid it. ^_^ But, here we are. Vlad Love has Oshii’s high-def backgrounds and a kind of a 90s vibe animation in the foreground.

In the end, Oshii’s girl-meets-girl vampire story made it on to this list. How? By being pretty fun, actually, with some overt acknowledgement that they are, kind of, and might be for real, later, a couple. In the meantime, this is a silly premise and we’ll have to wait to see where it leads us.

Episode 1 streaming on Youtube

 

 

My Next Life As a Villainess

I stand firm that this series is the sweetest, most lovable queer baiting I have ever seen. Yes, Mary is really into Katarina. That is not fake. And I think, honestly, the same could be said for Maria. As we know it is also, for every other character, because that’s the point. Furthermore, in the novels, Katarina’s feeling for Maria are interestingly complex. But the story is not about Katarina and her “waifu” Maria or her wannabee gf, Mary. So while I’m firm on “this is Yuri” I am also pretty darn firm on “this is Yuri-bait.”

The fact that the series is mega-delightfully loopy is just a big cherry on this cupcake of silly, yet adorable Yuri frippery. I loved watching, I’m still enjoying reading it and while I know Mary will never get a kiss, while Jeord does, it’s still a wonderfully wholesome Yuri series. ^_^

Streaming on Crunchyroll

 

 

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

I’ve never pulled punches about this manga series – it makes me crazy, not in a good way. I frequently end a volume with an hour-long internal rant about the legal form of human trafficking that is the Japanese idol industry. I didn’t know if the anime would make it better or worse, honestly. But the anime fixed a few of the worst relics of the manga, cut out the absolute worst parts, switched some of the stuff around and did a pretty amazing job of turning what is a frustrating read into a hopeful watch.

The animation was very well done, and Ai Farouz was absolutely outstanding as Eri-pyo. This anime, regardless of my personal feelings about the story, deserves to be on this list.

Streaming on Funimation

 

 

Adachi and Shimamura

I honestly had no expectation of this series being good, either. The light novels when I read them back in the day, moved at a glacial pace, were filled with irrelevancies, and focused their energy on the wrong things.

Many things have changed and the writing has improved over time, I am told. Certainly both the animation and the voice acting added positive dimensions to this story. Despite the truckload of crotch and chest-staring which makes it really hard for me to just relax and enjoy this series, the fact that fandom loves it and the positives were enough to give the series a place on this year’s list.

Streaming on Funimation

 

 

 

Devilman Lady

I know have talked this series up a lot. In the early 2000s, it just slid under the radar, which was a damn shame as it was queerer than just about any other series at the time or for many years afterwards. Rewatching it now, I’m reminded how visually fascinating, musically oppressive and emotionally gut-wrenching it is.

This is not an easy watch. The horror here isn’t just violence and blood…it’s the endless existential horrors humans inflict on each other. The Yuri isn’t subtext. It is pervasive and a major plot point.

This is Go Nagai at his best, when you can’t just look away. The technology is a bit dated, but overall, this remains a strong – and relevant – story about humanity at its worst, and its best.

Streaming on Retrocrush

Available on Blu-Ray from Diskotek

 

 

Happy Go Lucky Days

Due to timing and circumstances, this anime movie flew under most people’s radar, but in my opinion it was absolutely the very best portrayal of lesbians we had in anime this year. Based on the manga Dounika Naru Hibi (どうにかなる日々)by Shimura Takako, this movie is a mix of vignettes about various characters that feel very much rooted in reality.  In the first scenario, Ecchan and Aya meet and find they share several things in common…including an ex-girlfriend.  We get to watch them as their relationship develops and becomes something more serious.

Brought to us by the team at Pony Canyon that created the Kase-san and Morning Glories OVA, the animation was smart and realistic, with enough of Shimura’s stylistic flourishes that you’d never doubt it was her work being animated. While the movie didn’t get the theatrical release planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was able to be shared to film festivals, and is available on HIDIVE. The trailer is free, and you can get a free week trial to watch the whole movie, but it does not stream legally for free.

It is my opinion, though, that this is worth getting that free trial, because Happy Go Lucky Days was the best Yuri anime of 2020.^_^

Streaming on HIDIVE





Go Nagai’s DevilMan Lady, Disk 1

December 13th, 2020

Fans of Go Nagai’s work are probably pretty familiar with his Devilman franchise, which has spawned a number of anime and manga series over the decades. More recently fans may have encountered his work in Devilman Crybaby, which streams on Netflix. I personally found that iteration to be one of the best anime I’d ever seen.  Yuasa Masaaki’s directorial touch meshed perfectly with Go Nagai’s conceptual framework for a truly epic series.

Devilman Lady has always been a less-known sideshow of the Devilman franchise, but it has also always been one of my absolute favorite anime, for many reasons – among them, top voice actors, Go Nagai’s vision, the soundtrack and that the story is profoundly and overtly Yuri. Now, almost 20 years after the anime was first released in the US by ADV, here we are thanks to Diskotek who has reissued the complete series in a 2-disk Blu-Ray set. Honestly…I still think it’s fantastic.

The story follow Fudou Jun, a professional model. It’s almost hard to understand what people see in her, as Jun is painfully awkward and nervous but, when she gets in front of the camera, something seems to come over her. One day she is kidnapped and forced into a warehouse with a beast-monster, and learns that she is, in actual fact, a Devil Beast. Unlike many of the transformations happening around town, she retains her humanity when she transforms, making it that much more awful when she has to kill beasts she knows were once- and maybe could still be – human.

The Yuri in this series is so constant that it’s almost diminishing to lay it out. Jun encounters an old classmate who was in love with her, and a new rival model who desires her on this disk, in two fantastically gay episodes. Asuka openly desires Jun when she is a Devil Beast. It is not subtext to say that the entire story is constantly reminding us that Jun is closeted about several things, not just being a Devil Beast.

Diskotek has done a stellar job with this anime. The animation screams 1990s, but the visuals look fresh and crisp and the sound is excellent. Diskotek used ADV’s English track which was good for its time, but very much has that feel of early voice acting when anime was just taking off here.

The soundtrack deserves a mention, too. The theme for this anime is fantastically gothic. I actually bought the soundtrack album for it, and it’s basically the same one theme remixed a couple of times. ^_^ The fight scenes though, have music that sound like the opening theme of a night-time crime-solving couple series from ’90’s American TV. Cracks me up every episode. Giant horrific Devil Beast monsters fighting over Tokyo and the BGM is like Hart & Hart. ^_^

I know horror is not for everyone. Go Nagai is not for everyone. This series is definitely Nagai’s specific brand of sexualized demonic monsters, with both physical and psychological horror elements and dustings of dread and misery and pathos as needed. It will occasionally make you very sad and possibly quite angry. It’s a shockingly good Yuri anime that has an ending that is good and bad, hopeful and miserable all at once.

Ratings:

Art – 9 for 1990s
Story –  9 Depressing, scary and creepy, sometimes emotionally crushing. But fascinating, even compelling.
Characters – 8 No one is what they initially seem, especially not Jun.
Service – 8 Yes, very. The is Go Nagai we are talking about.
Yuri – 8, but wait, there’s more!

Overall – 9

If you don’t want to commit to buying this set, you can watch DevilMan Lady as the dubbed version The Devil Lady free and legally on RetrocrushTV.

In my opinion DevilMan Lady is an absolute classic of Yuri and should not be ignored. I’m thrilled we can experience it once again.

Many, many thanks to Okazu Superhero Eric P for his sponsorship of today’s review!