Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You Premium Box Set, Disk 1 (English)

December 10th, 2019

Welp, I’m convinced. For once in my entire life, I feel completely justified in buying a premium box set Blu-Ray edition of anything. Sentai Filmworks’ Bloom Into You Premium Box Set was totally worth the money I paid for it.

Bloom Into You is based on the manga of the same name by Nakatani Nio, which is available in English from Seven Seas. The story follows first-year highschooler Koito Yuu as she becomes involved in Student Council activities and involved in an intense, and sometimes confusing, relationship with the Student Council President, Nanami Touko.

Yuu becomes interested in Touko initially over a perceived shared inability/unwillingness/lack of desire in regards to romance, but almost immediately Touko confesses that she has fallen in love with Yuu. How Yuu feels about Touko is the main part of the story, but by no means is it the only thing going on.  Council Vice President Sayaka has her own feelings about Touko to deal with.

You may remember I spoke to the fine folks at Sentai Filmworks at AnimeNYC 2019. We had a terrific conversation and while I was there, I bought this for myself as a present. When Bloom Into You anime streamed on HIDIVE last winter, I subscribed just to be able to watch it. And generally, I found it to be worth it, with a few small exceptions. Those exceptions became relevant once again…as they have, very unusually, been addressed.

It was inexplicable to me that the animation for the scene in which Touko confesses to Yuu be so seriously lacking. This moment, which comes early on, is one of two key scenes of the entire first disk. For it to have been so flat and lifeless was intolerable. Imagine my surprise then, when that scene was done beautifully for this disk. I was beginning to think I had imagined it, but an episode or two later, when Yuu reminisces about the moment, the flashback was not corrected and it was, as I had remembered, cheaply done. It was gratifying to see both the scene fixed and that my memory in this regard was not wrong. ^_^

The higher definition visuals also mean the backgrounds look breathtakingly detailed and if the character animation had not been improved it would have made them look just that much worse. There are still scenes that distinctly look like the B-Team did the art, sometimes, merely an angle or a part of a scene, and it can be a little bit disconcerting. But overall the art is much improved. So that all gets a big thumbs up from me.

The second change of note was the eyes. We spend a *lot* of time in hyper close-up in anime these days, which is really just a waste, since eyes are rarely animated that well. In this anime in particular I remember bitching about the eyes being so oddly drawn. That too has been corrected for the Blu-ray. We still spend way too much time staring at eyeballs, but at least they look better.

Disk 1 contains episodes 1-9 of this 13 episode series, in dub and sub. I have not yet watched the dub, but plan on doing so for Disk 2. Disk 1 contains the episode where Miyako tags Sayaka, she confides in the older woman and we get insight into the VP of the Student Council. I wanted to watch that in original, before I gave the American VA a chance. ^_^

But what really makes this set stand out are the physical extras.

To begin with, the box the set comes in is nice enough, although I have always felt that on their own collector’s boxes are not worth a jacked up price. What sets this set apart is that it has a pleasant assortment of physical extras. The physical extras include a booklet of storyboards for the OP and ED, an attractive booklet of key animation scenes, character references, interviews with staff and cast. It’s a book I actually want to read. Extras include some double-sided art cards, the script for the Student Council Play and Yuu’s older sister’s cheesecake recipe, which I will be making this year for my wife’s family Christmas get-together, in the interest of a complete review. I’ll let you know how it goes. ^_^ Both the recipe and the DVD come in an inner box with series art.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Visibly better when its better!
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3 especially towards the end as Touko is more aggressive physically
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

A really nice variety of physical extras, sub and dub of an anime series that improves upon the manga in a number of ways and a better visual experience over the streaming version, all of which justify putting this set on your wish list!





Yuri Anime: Fragtime (English)

November 19th, 2019

The two most-hated posts here on Okazu are, to-date, my reviews for Candy Boy and Mariaholic. In both cases, my reviews say something like, “sexual harassment and assault against women is gross and if you find it entertaining, you are a terrible person.”

I am prepared for today’s review to join those ranks because sexual assault as entertainment is gross and if you enjoy it, you are a terrible person.

Fragtime, animated by Tear Studio, directed by Takuya Satō, produced by Terada Yusuke, is based on a manga by Sato that ran on Akita Shoten’s Manga Cross website from 2013-2014. The OVA premiered in North America by Pony Canyon at AnimeNYC 2019, with guest Producer Terada and voice actress Ito Miku, who played lead Moritani Mizusu.

The Fragtime OVA has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks and the manga has been licensed by Seven Seas.

Moritani Misuzu (played by Ito-san) is a high school student who has the ability to stop time for three minutes. She stops time in order to look at classmate Murakami Haruka’s (played by Miyamoto Yume) underwear, only to find that Murakami is not affected by the time stoppage. In response to learning that Moritani likes Murakami, Murakami agrees to go out with her…as long as Moritani does whatever she wants. By this, she means that Moritani will stop time only at her request.  As the film progresses, we learn that both girls have problems relating to people around them and, as they become closer, they work through those problems. Moritani gains confidence and stops running away from human contact, however, this causes her to lose her ability to stop time. But, as the end of the film approaches, it is clear that this is not a tragedy, and marks a new beginning for both Moritani and Murakami.

The overall plot of Fragtime is not bad, and both acting and animation are adequate. The overwhelming problem with Fragtime is the super-creepy male gaziness of it. (Learn about Male Gaze here and here.) Obsession with women’s underwear is centered as more important than the girls’ narratives. Moritani commits sexual assault because she “likes’ Murakami. Murakami is manipulative and exploitative, Moritani is manipulated and exploited. All of this – every last unhealthy, over-sexualized, underwear-obsessive thing in the story is presented to us as either an expression of “like” or as comedy. The sound of juicy male laughter as Moritani buys a pair of underwear just like Murakami’s made me so upset I stood and almost left.  And again, in response to Murakami threatening to break up after misunderstanding why Moritani stops time not by her command, (which Moritani had done to save a friend from mockery) Moritani does not tell her why she stopped time, but instead lifts up her skirt to show the matching underwear. As if that is, in any way, a meaningful act. Or something a woman might do. This time when there was laughter I came close to tears, as a woman’s humiliation is presented as a comedic beat.

The behavior of the lead characters makes no sense. Yes, they both have emotional issues, but nothing they do is sensible. Their behaviors do not fit their pathologies. Their behavior does fit the desire of men to endlessly stare up women’s skirts in the most grotesque way.

When the anime began, the crowd was slightly less big than for the Kase-san premier, occupying just over half the room. No one left at the first upskirt, as we mostly knew that that was inevitable. Apparently I was not the only one who hoped it would improve, because with every subsequent underwear scene, people got up and left. The audience was hovering around half-way filling the room when it ended.

Questions were…not good. It was clear that most people lined up to ask questions without a question in mind. When they got to the mic, it was apparent no real question had come to them. The translators struggled to make sense of the unformed ideas to which they were being subjected.

Most damning was the relative silence of the audience as they left the room. After Kase-san, there was a buzz of conversation as people stood around and talked about how good it was. After Fragtime, there was…nothing. People just left. Fragtime was especially disappointing as Pony Canyon attempted to sell this as another sweet love story, a worthy successor to Kase-san, when it is the opposite. Where Kase-san is a lovely female-gaze story about two nice kids, this is a creepy male gaze story about two broken kids.

Let me be clear – women do not upskirt other women as an expression of “like”. Every woman understands that it is a violation of her privacy and is a form of sexual assault. Women may upskirt themselves as a form of sex work. And, yes, abusive women act abusively. Moritani presumed Murakami could not consent and did it anyway. That is an assault. This was not cute, nor fun nor, gods help us, funny. It is not an expression of like. Almost every scene that involves the time-stoppage is a scene in which someone is humiliated, mostly (although not completely) without any consent.

Because I feel so strongly about the fact that Fragtime is not just an unpleasant depiction of two young women in love, but is actually objectionable, I am going to do something I have never done: No dissent will be tolerated. Do not attempt to defend upskirting or endless humiliating underwear shots (or otherwise whine that I was mean in this post.) Your input in that regard is not welcome. Should you feel that you can discuss Fragtime for other qualities (there were some brief decent moments) please feel free. Under no circumstances will I put up with any defense of upskirting. It is a repulsive act and ought to be subject to jail time.

To sum up, Fragtime is a really shitty premise wrapped around the dark kernel of a completely different story that the creator didn’t want to write.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 2
Characters – 4 but had they been treated with any respect they could have been better
Service – 10 all creepy service
Yuri – 6

Overall – 2 I was hoping it’d at least be a 5, but…nope.

There are two things that really upset me in this life. Exploitation of children and sexual harassment and assault of anyone. This series had both, but did not deal with either. It didn’t discuss anything important and presented the assault as comedy.

I am very sorry for Sentai and Seven Seas, but I cannot and will not endorse Fragtime, it will not go up on the Yuricon Store. It won’t affect their sales, but it I won’t be assisting anyone to buy it. I won’t be linking to it, or reviewing it further upon release.

Chika Anzai plays Kobayashi Yukari, the only other character with more than dialogue in passing and the Kase-san voice actresses have cameos. The best part of the entire premiere was the MC, whose name I missed, who was fabulous. When it came time for questions, she said of Ito-san, “No personal questions, please, I am her mother.” I think I’m the only one who laughed.





Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You, End of Season Review

January 28th, 2019

Bloom into You, streaming on HIDIVE, wrapped up and I wanted to to take a look back at it as an overall series and discuss what it did well. Because, I’ll admit, it did a number of things very well. 

To star with the weakest link, I do think we need to revisit the current trend of eyeball closeups in anime.  And live-action television and movies and every other visual media. I do not want to be that close to anyone except my wife. It is creepy. Please stop. And with the strangely animated eyes (eyes are hard, I know, but that is not how they look) I found it very distracting to have to view them so close, so often.  It was particularly vexing as the animation was otherwise quite pleasant. I really wish they’d just back up.

The story was a fair representation of the manga. It ended just before the play – I sincerely wish we had been able to see that because it is such an important moment, but the anime captured two of the other pivotal scenes and did an excellent job with them, so I accept the decision. (It would still make an awesome Blu-Ray extra.)

The thing the anime excelled at was bringing the characters to life. Voice actors gave the characters more depth where needed and less heaviness where it was not warranted. We were able to spend time with Maki and Sayaka, two side arcs that I found in and of themselves intriguing. And we herd the characters’ voiced in a way that really gave them more agency than I ever would have expected. Yuu is especially strong in this regard. 

Overall, I was deeply impressed by the anime; far more so than I would have expected. In fact, it was because of the anime I was able to “hear” Sayaka so clearly when I read the Light Novel about her.

Ratings:

Art – 6 The eyes were a genuine distraction
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5 + 1 for Sayaka, so 6
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 8

If you still haven’t taken a look, or you like or are on the fence about Bloom Into You, I hope you’ll watch the anime and let me know what you think in the comments!





Yuri Anime: Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3, Disk 2 (English)

December 21st, 2018

As I wrap up watching Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3, I find that there is indeed a lot to talk about in this final disk of Crystal so far.

First, let us speak of the actual story, in which a very few tweaks to the plot turn a messy confusion into a rather horrific arc.

The Outer Senshi tell us that when they are gathered together and their Talismans resonate with one another, Sailor Saturn appears with the sole mission to destroy everything.

Sestuna says that it was unlikely for them to all have been reborn at all, and for them to be born together is even odder. And we’re told by Haruka and Michiru that they were used to being alone on their planets. They imply that being along was by design to keep their Talismans from being together, and resonating.

We know that as the Senshi awaken in this world, they have imperfect recollection of their past lives. We saw it with all the Inners and Haruka and Michiru. (Not Setsuna, because she is a particularly strange case. PLUTO appears in ‘R’, but we know that to be the Pluto of the future, because for her to be reborn on Earth, the Pluto of the second season had to die and Meioh Setsuna had to be born as a human some years before Tsukino Usagi was born.)

All of this is why I want all anime with magical girls to have an adult, rather than a toy or animal, as a companion.

The story is told wrong because it’s told by people who don’t have all the information and no one told them any different

They believe that, when the Talismans all gather and resonate, Sailor Saturn is caused to be reborn, but it’s pretty obvious that the Talisman resonate because Sailor Saturn is being reborn. Ami really drops the ball on the whole genius thing here.

So what we have are three young woman who are practically unsocialized in their interaction with other Senshi, lacking a guide with the ability to say, “Kids, this is not on you. Saturn will appear when she appears and when she does, your Talismans resonate.”  And we have to assume that their memories of the past are imperfect when they say Saturn destroyed everything, because she explicitly does no such thing, even as we watch her attack Pharoah 90. It’s easy enough to imagine that she never destroyed the Silver Millenium.  Saturn’s use of the word”invader” reminds us that she, too, is an Outer Senshi, tasked with defending the Solar System from invaders. Duh, right?

So I propose that Pluto, Uranus and Neptune remembered what happened the wrong way ’round. The Silver Millenium was attacked and invaded, but not from the outside, from within, so the Outers could do nothing until it was too late. When they arrived, they saw Saturn destroying what was left in order to keep the future safe, because she too has ties to Chronos, aka, Saturn.  Their Talismans resonated as they saw her, but when they were reborn it all got mixed up in their heads, because they are fricking’ children. Haruka and Michiru are 16 years old and this Setsuna is 20, she says she’s a first-year in college.

All of this is to say, I got very little work done today. ^_^

I think Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3 is brilliant, and if I wrote fanfic anymore, I’d write one, because there is a terrific story in there.

The music is good, the writing actually works better here than in the original anime (and the idiotic final confrontation of Outers and Sailor Moon that made no sense is disappeared appropriately.) Professor Tomoe comes off looking much worse, by having any desperation or desire to save his daughter stripped and, as a result, Hotaru’s story is darker and more moving.

Director Kon’s touches of visual homage to the original anime are on point. 

In conclusion, I liked Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3. It was good.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 0 really
Service – Not really…unless you are quite desperate

Overall – 10

I hope that the fourth season has been postponed until after the 25th anniversary celebrations are complete. Ideally, they have been working on it all this time, so as a theatrical release it will look amazing. Knowing Toei, they have done nothing and will cheap out and rush the whole thing if the project gets revived.  

 





Yuri Anime: Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3, Disk 1 (English)

December 20th, 2018

Why yes, I am finally getting around to watching Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3 just so I can put it on this year’s Top Yuri Anime list. Come at me, I don’t care. ^_^

There were many legit complaints about the animation in the first two seasons of Sailor Moon Crystal, but when Kon Chiaki took the helm, it was much less an issue of animation badly done, than personal opinion about the manga versus the original anime designs. It will probably be no surprise that I came to really like the Crystal iteration of the Senshi because I am whole-heartedly in love with them in every version and cannot be convinced that any version is better or worse than any other. In fact, it was an actual delight to see the manga brought to life in the exact way the creator had initially designed it.

I said in my review of the season when it initially aired, Minagawa Junko and Ohara Sayaka did a bang-up job as Haruka and Michiru and I grinned like a loon the first time through. Well, here it is during my second viewing and here I am grinning like a loon. I really loved this disk. 

We get to see a Haruka and Michiru who are way more confident than the emotionally tortured teens of the original anime, but equally as convinced that their way is the only right way for everyone. Haruka’s seductive behavior feels far more like manipulation; trying to keep Usagi off-balance so she doesn’t take charge. And her non-apology for “confusing” Usagi would be enraging if we had time to process it.  But we don’t, because our attention is split between so many things – Chibi-Usa and Usagi’s growths, Hotaru’s story, the appearance of the Outer Senshi and the many mysteries that lay obscured behind them – some few of which will be made plain in the next half of the series. And,of course, the main plot.

The one genuinely weak part of this series is, shockingly, the translation. Several times on this disk Chibi-Usa’s name is translated as “Small Usagi” which is questionable even if that was not being used as a name.  I was yet again disappointed to note that this translation team still doesn’t get the reference to Ribon no Kishi and hacked the bit about Haruka having the heart of a man and woman to death, then stomped on it. I was not happy at this shameless display of ignorance and crappy translation. Heart of a man and a woman, goddamn it. HEART OF. Get the fucking reference right.

/wipes spittle off mouth/

Other than that, I still cheered when Setsuna returned and saved us all with Dead Scream, I felt terrible for poor, tragic Hotaru, and thrilled at Sailor Moon’s transformation at the end of the disk into Super Sailor Moon. 

The whole thing actually looked excellent in Blu-Ray, so I don’t for a secon regret getting it.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 10
Yuri – 4, mostly Haruka and Usagi, but then that scene between Haruka and Michiru brings it to 7.
Service – 2 some slight moments with the Witches 5 costumes and camera work being a tad linger-y.

Overall – 10

I am actually hoping that we get the 4th season movie as planned, because the Inner Senshi have really lovely power-up story /sequence in the Dream arc. I’d really like to see that animated.