Yuri Hime News and ALC Publishing News

January 12th, 2008

Two quick things of note:

I will be doing a book signing of 100% Yuri from ALC Publishing on Wednesday January 16th at 6:30 PM at Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan, as part of a Prism Comics night. I’ll be joined by authors JD Glass and Abby Denson.

JHU is located at 4 West 33rd St. on 5th Avenue, just across from the Empire State Building.

If you are in the NYC area or can get there for the event, I’d love to see you there!

***

Ichijinsha has announced that Comic Yuri Hime is being made an independent entity from Ichijinsha’s popular comic magazine Zero Sum. Akiba blog reports that to celebrate, the 11th volume, on sale on Jan. 18th, will include the Petit Yuri Hime extra, which is a collaboration of artists from Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S and Yuri Hime: Wildrose. (If you read the announcement on Comipress, they misreported YH as an add-on to Zero Sum – it wasn’t. It was financially dependent upon it and now it’s paying for itself. Also, since this isn’t their area, they didn’t realize that the “Petit” extra was the collaborative effort. FYI, in case you were going to write in ask why the discrepancies.)

This is excellent news, but I can’t help still being worried about the salaciousness of the magazine. More and more of the stories are moe/loli and the “Petit” extra has traditionally been pretty high on the service scale, based on the authors. (The first two volumes were offered as Comiket extras. I do not have either, but have seen Vol. 2.) I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and offer my congratulations to Ichijinsha for making “Yuri” a profitable category!

Posted in ALC Publishing, Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Candy Boy

January 11th, 2008

Note: I did not like Candy Boy. Not the short original episode, not the longer version, not the first “full-length” ONA – or any of the episodes that followed. If you liked, loved, zOMG! Candy Boy and will be made upset by someone who found it to be a total bore, please be aware that I found it to be a *total bore.* Stultifyingly dull – and ever more so with each episode. If you want to read further, by all means, but no matter how many people tell me it was good, it will not change *my* opinion. Thank you for understanding the concept of a “review.”

***

I had a hard time coming up with a first line for today’s review. So, here’s a few choices – pick the one you prefer.

1) Does it sound weird if I tell you that I want to sleep with my sister? It sounds weird to me.

2) Incest in Yuri and Yaoi – why is it so popular?

3) What is WRONG with you people?

These opening lines all lead to the same place – Candy Boy was a fabulous indicator of people with whom I will not agree on what constitutes “good” Yuri. The best thing about it was that it short, 8 minutes or so, so I didn’t waste much of my life on it.

The “story” – as we’ll refer to it for discussion’s sake – is that there are two sisters, Yukino and Kanade, who love each other very, very, *very* much. When one thinks that the other likes another (non-related) girl, she gets all upset, but tries to let her sister go. The other sister was actually hanging out with the third girl because that girl wanted to get close to the *other* sister. How ironic! How O. Henry! Oh, the humanity!

In the end, they run into each other’s arms and as the scene fades they are all love-love. Phew. That’s over. As with so many incestuous couples in anime, I like to think they stay together forever, thus removing them from the gene pool.

The story is a joke, the animation is shown through a Vaseline lens, the scenes choppy and the dialogue is disjointed. I kept waiting to learn that the anime was really a piecing together of animated scenes from some mediocre h-game. It’s sold as a “romantic school comedy” which completely befuddles me. And poor Nabatame Hitomi, who got stuck voicing Kanade in it. Meh, I guess it’s a paycheck.

Seriously, what is it with incest in Yuri and Yaoi? Am I alone in finding it to be a complete buzzkill? I already know I’m weird for liking my Yuri characters to be adult, competent women who actually like and desire one another. Am I to suppose that I am a complete freak for wanting them to not be related, too? (This is me rolling my eyes.)

I was hanging out at NYAF with the Drama Queen folks and picked up one of their BL books that looked pretty cool. Nice art with two men who looked almost like actual males…. Started to read it and was instantly hit by the massively abusive relationships – not just rape, but emotional and verbal abuse, too. Then Isabel said, “Oh that one’s great – they’re uncle and nephew” and I closed it right there and then. Yep – great. Abusive family relations, how sexy. Ugh.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 2
Characters – 3
Yuri – 6
Service – 8

Overall – 3

Can y’all do me a favor? I’d like every single person who wrote in to tell me how fabulous Candy Boy was, to go to the nearest mirror right now. Take a good look at the face you see there and slap yourself as hard as you can. Thanks. I appreciate that. I had already seen it by the time you all emailed me, so at least I had no expectations. Thank heavens.

Posted in Yuri Anime | 58 Comments »


Yuri Drama CD: Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Gyakushuu no Akazukin-chan

January 10th, 2008

There is a difference between people who read manga or watch anime and “fans” of anime and manga. Fans want more than just to read or watch – we want to interact with the work, to spend more time with the characters, to be more *involved.* In part, this is why fans create parody art, fiction, comics, games, etc., of their favorite series and characters.

In fact, Umberto Eco defines literature as works that have escaped the bounds of their original text and have taken on new lives and iterations. Think of a few of your favorite series, not just anime, but books, movies, any media. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind for me – a character that has been reborn and re-envisioned every generation since his actual conception. Or how about Jane Austen, a writer who not only has spawned any number of reinterpretations of her own work, but has inspired legions of Regency romance writers as well, and who has now been reimagined as a detective.

As a fan, I know that when I encounter characters I find appealing, I want to spend more time with them. This is why I write fanfic and it is why I listen to Drama CDs. The Drama CDs I enjoy most are not only a chance to spend more time with the characters, they are a chance to get more information, enjoy new adventures, get more detail about those characters. My favorite Drama CDs contain original stories that are not in manga or anime, like the Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo to and the El Cazador DCDs. There are also Drama CDs that add a layer of complexity and life to material that is already in the original text, like the second Hayate x Blade DCD. In the case of the Marimite DCDs, we get more of the text from the novels than is covered in either manga or anime and we get to enjoy the 3-dimensionalizing effect of the voice actors, giving actual life to mere words on a page.

All of this is to explain why I found the Drama CD of Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu: Gyakushuu no Akazukin-chan (Red Riding Hood’s Counterattack) to be a disappointment.

It’s true that the characters are brought to life by the seiyuu, but…. The mini-DCD that came with the manga covered the first chapters of the story in which Akiho and Haruka and Fuyuka and Natsuki meet and develop their relationships. As I have mentioned in my reviews of that mini DCD (which also lists the voice actresses involved) and the manga, these were the weakest and least pleasant chapters of the story, making the DCD of those chapters something I have no intention of listening to again.

I had hoped that the full DCD would include the “First Kiss” arc that dealt with the teachers Reiko and Ayano, but no luck. This DCD also does not include the final chapter where the four girls take an overnight trip to the beach. What we do get is a retelling of the chapters where the four meet, Fuyuka pursues Natsuki and is rebuffed, the crisis that Akiho engenders when she declares that she is in love with Fuyuka and Fuyuka and Natsuki’s reconciliation.

None of this is particularly awful, it’s just – we’ve been there already. It’s nothing new, no extra information, no extra detail. In fact, the DCD is pretty much word for word from the manga. Not even an extra non-manga scene to fill any of the characters out. Since I was not enamored of the story in the manga, I found it no more enchanting this time around. And I still maintain that, as much as I like her, Noto Mamiko was not the right choice for Fuyuka’s voice.

Given that the other Yuri Hime Drama CDs were different than the original texts (and especially as the MikoMajyo DCDs were *so* fabulous,) I had hoped for more than this. However. If you LOVED the original manga and can’t wait to hear it performed by well-known and talented actresses, then you will not be disappointed. In that aspect, it was very good.

There was one random thing that completely puzzled me. In the cast comments at the end, Kawakami Tomoko, who played Reiko-sensei, comments that this was her first time playing a Girls Love role. Really??? Has she looked at her credits recently? In case you don’t remember, like she apparently doesn’t, she played Utena in Shoujo Kakumei Utena and Kris Kristopher in Battle Athletes and Battle Athletes Victory. I know all the arguments for Utena not being a Yuri character, but you will never ever convince me that Kris is not. (Or Sayuri, from Kanon, or Satsuki from Uta-Kata, etc….) Or maybe I was half listening and it was someone else who said that, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Ratings:

Story – 5
Characters – 5, except for Akiho, who is a 7
Yuri – 9
Service – 7

Overall – 5

Better than the mini DCD, because we’ve left the heavy-duty sexual harrassment behind, but without the “First Kiss” arc and the final manga chapter, kind of weak. If you love the story and the seiyuu, then go for it. Otherwise stick to the manga and save your money for a better DCD.

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Drama CDs & Audiobooks | 4 Comments »


Lesbian Novel: Another Kind of Love

January 9th, 2008

Last summer, I picked up a copy of Lesbian Pulp Fiction: The Sexually Intrepid World of Lesbian Paperback Novels 1950-1965, edited by Katherine V. Forrest, who herself is the author of many lesbian novels, notably the Kate Delafield detective series. (Looking back at a list of her works, I got a glimpse of my own youth during the years I read lesbian novels voraciously. It’s a bit cringe-making, really. Blessedly I have forgotten much of what I read. lol)

The book was a lot of fun, with excerpts from dozens of lesbian pulp fiction books. Forrest did a brilliant job of editing, so we could enjoy the “good bits” without the rest of the dreck.

BTW, “pulp” novels were so-called because of the cheap paper they were printed on. They were the mid 20th-century equivalent of turn of the century “penny dreadfuls” and anything printed by Ace in the late 60’s-70’s. ^_^ Because I don’t feel like going on at length about the history, here’s the wikipedia reference on Lesbian Pulp Fiction. I strongly recommend you read this entry. It says anything I might say better than I could say it.

After reading the above book of excerpts, I decided to buy a whole pile of pulp to take with me to Mexico. The trashier, the better. I wanted to be sitting on the beach drinking colorful drinks and reading mid-20th century smut, much of which has been reprinted by Kensington. These books were the voracious reading of the previous generation of lesbians. Reading these books allowed me to experience the fascinating feeling of reaching back in time to touch not only the lives of the women in the books, but also the women you know furtively bought and read these when they were young and trying to figure out who they were.

Another Kind of Love, is a collection of two novels by Paula Christian, Another Kind of Love and Love is Where You Find It.

There’s a fair amount of self-loathing and homosexuality bashing in pulp novels because of course being gay is unnatural and a disease. But despite the supposedly “moral” endings of pulp novels, there seemed to be a whole lot of hope for these women. At least one book ended with the girl getting another girl that did not suck at all. Oh, sure, they smile bitterly at one another and guess that they’ll be together for a while, then probably want to kill each other, or worse, share their unnatural lives together forever, but it’s all a matter of perspective. I can see Laura and Madeline growing old, watching the world change around them, until these days when they’re stepping out of their midtown apartment to walk down to a LGBTQ rights rally, holding hands, their gray-haired heads held high.

Paula Christian’s characters are often working women, in a world where it was still a little strange for women have a career. (These two novels were originally published in 1961.) Dee is a photographer, Laura a journalist. They work with men, and sometimes for them, but are not wrapped up in the world of men. Sure, both Dee and Laura have crappy taste in women, at least at first but, duh, who doesn’t? Girlfriends are like tattoos – you almost never like your first one. ^_^ (That doesn’t apply to you, honey.)

The one thing that really, truly impressed me about all of the novels by Christian was her use of “voice.” None of the protagonists sounded like one another from novel to novel, and the characters within any given novel all had unique voices. It’s my single favorite quality in a writer. Her characters have depth; they are not perfect – often they are really annoying, but they are always human and real. Laura is wishy-washy and becomes an alcoholic (but gets herself together before the end.) Dee starts off in an abusive situation, then hurts a nice kid out of self-protection and heads into the next relationship with a sense of futility. All the experiences Christian describes are entirely truthful, even if they are fiction. This is the kind of fiction that authors get letters about that read, “You must have lived through this, because no one who hasn’t could know how it feels.” Even when they haven’t.

Paula Christian is a good writer, and this is a fascinating piece of American lesbian history. If you’re looking for brainless reading that’s actually quite intelligent, this collection is a good choice.

Ratings – Another Kind of Love:

Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 10
Service (because pulp novels were ostensibly for the underground, the creeps and the like) – 8

Overall – 7

Ratings – Love is Where You Find It:

Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 10
Service – 7

Overall – 6

“Laura” was the “Natsuki” or “Yuriko” of its time. It seems that every third lesbian pulp protagonist was named Laura or Beth. (Or both, if you’ve read Ann Bannon’s stuff.)

Posted in LGBTQ, Novel, Queer Fiction | 2 Comments »


Best Student Council Anime, Volume 6 (English)

January 8th, 2008

Best Student Council, aka Gokujou Seitokai, was never a Yuri series. It is, however, a series about love. And much love to Ted, the sponsor or today’s review! (And thanks, too, for Volume 5, which I did not review here, because there really was just nothing relevant to our interests…)

One of the things we’ve talked about on and off, here and on the Yuricon Mailing List, is the obsessive propensity for Fans of both genders to eroticize practically every relationship they see. The commonly held assumption is that this is because Fans tend not to have erotic entanglements of their own, even though that is not true. So why do we insist on seeing couples every where we look? I’ll leave the answer to the philosophers and psychologists among you. I just wanted to note that there really aren’t any couples in this anime. Just in our imagination.

Volume 6, the last of the series, is more about love than any of it’s predecessors. But the love here is the love of family, of friends, and the family you make with your friends – something that I’m sure a lot of GLBT people can relate to.

In Volume 6, we finally hit the wall we always knew was coming – Kanade is required to leave school and become the new Jinguji clan leader. This is apparently paramount to becoming Emperor, so that in order to function as leader, she needs to be locked in a box and “protected” by scads of black suits from ever leaving. Of course, the girls of the Gokujou Seitokai reject this idea. Individually, they leave the school to see Kanade, discover that they all had the same idea, and finally band together. They aren’t trying to rescue her – they just want to see her, they rationalize. Rino is, of course, the most vociferous in her wish to do so. But all the others, drawn by the common love of their leader, are glad to join her in her quest.

Because this is an incredibly silly comedy anime, need I say that their quest is successful? Probably not, but I do want to mention that in order to succeed every single loose end and tertiary character that ever appeared in the anime, reappears to help the Seitokai gain access to the Jinguji enclave. So Rein meets her father at last, and Sayuri’s rival appears randomly to help her fight, etc, etc.

Ultimately, it’s Rino who makes the difference, as her Jinguji power – the ability to transmit her voice and feelings vocally and telepathically – manifests fully. Thus dooming her to life as a member of this ridiculously elite family against her mother’s wishes. Pfft. And of course, because this series is what it is, they all get to bask in Kanade’s wonderfulness again.

The epilogue to the story is well summed up, by someone, Ayu, Rino, Puu-chan, I don’t remember. As Kanade “graduates,” then immediately installs herself as the chairman of the school, and Nanaho becomes the new Seitokaichou, and Rei and Sayuri run in screaming about an emergency, someone comments that it all looks exactly the same as before. Bwah bwah bwaaaah~ It’s meant to be funny, but I bet every viewer was vaguely relieved, because we don’t *want* anything to change. Then it wouldn’t be funny anymore.

This series showed wonderful examples of filial affection, maternal affection, family bonds, best friends to the point of being sisters, rivals who respect one another, sisterly devotion, peers who work together, adult female relationships, and respect and admiration for a beloved leader. And other than Kaori’s thing for Kanade, why do we insist that they are all couples?  Haha at us.

Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 2
Service – 4

Overall – 7

Two final notes. Despite all the above, I still see Nanaho and Kuon as a couple. Just wanted to say that. Secondly, I forgot to add Kanade to the list of Nabatome Hitomi characters that all hang out in the “fun idea, but actually a bad story” thing from a few days ago – so, Eriko, Nobue, Shizuma, Letti and Kanade,

Posted in English Anime, Gokujou Seitokai | 2 Comments »