Sweet Valerian

December 9th, 2004

Sweet Valerian is suspended somewhere between “how adorable!” and “wtf?”. :-)

I can see the scene clearly:

The ladies of CLAMP are sitting around after work one night, drinking, maybe sharing a few hallucenogenics between friends, relaxing and having a few laughs.

Tsubaki asks, “What haven’t we done yet?”

And Mokona answers, “Well, we haven’t done a magical girl series in a while.”

Everyone boos Mokona down, but about then the acid kicks in and they start to brainstorm.

Satsuki has another sake and posits, “Hey, let’s do it! But instead of a magical girl thing, we’ll make them turn into bunnies.”

“Yeah!” agrees Ageha, who is now leaning at an alarming angle. “And when the papers report that the bunnies have saved the world, the girls can be all annoyed.”

At which point in the conversation Tsubaki wakes up and adds, “Yes, and the art can be all Peter Max on bad mushrooms…”

There’s a pause in the conversation as they all ponder adding mushrooms to their happy-time menu….

Interrupting the silence, Mokona stands up and says, “I got it! We’ll make it a short, like, 3 or 4 minute thing, so there doesn’t really have to be a plot – in fact it doesn’t even have to make sense!”

Tsubaki joins Mokona on her feet and raises a glass to the merchandisable, yet inexplicable, new series from CLAMP. “Now all we need is a title,” Tsubaki says.

She looks at her fellow CLAMPers, but Satsuki is looking sick, “My head is pounding. Anyone got aspirin?” she asks miserably.

Ageha shuffles in her purse. “No – but I have some valerian pills. They’re pretty good for relieving stress…” And they all stare at each other, as the chill of the inevitable settles over them and a new series is born.

(The above is, of course, fiction and completely NOT meant to imply that the members of CLAMP in any way indulge in illicit drugs. Really…)

So, anyway, we meet rich-girl Kanoko, game company representative Pop and model Kate, as they go to apply for a scooter license, but instead are tricked into becoming a team of magical girl bunnies,”Relaxation Squad Valerian,” that save the world from the evils of the Stress Boys, in 3-minute chunks of surreal weirdness.

I love this anime, but I’m glad it’s short. If it went on too long, like Super Milk-chan it would begin to grate on my nerves. And like Kogepan, the super-short format adds considerable surrealism to the otherwise bare storyline.

Let’s cut to the chase – is there yuri?

If you turn your yuri goggles up and remember that fanon goes a *long* way to filling the holes, then…yes. ;-)

Take a look at this picture from their origin episode.

Note how cute Kate and Kanoko look together. Remember that there is virtually no character development in this goofy thing. Now close your eyes and write a little story…. There! There’s your yuri! LOL

Just to up the yuri potential through the “6 degrees of yuri” game, Pop’s voice is done by Asakawa Yu, who we know and love for doing Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh and Jura from Vandread.

As an added bonus, Kate, the monotonal model, also has a yuri voice credit to her name. Her seiyuu played Subaru from .hack/sign. Feel free to write fanfic, draw fan art, connect the dots, fill in the blanks and otherwise make this series a yuri-fest. :)

Ratings:

Story – What there is, is a silly 7

Characters – 8

Art – Intentionally simplistic and surreal, 8

Yuri – 4

Overall – 7

I mean, come *on!* Magical *bunnies*! And, erm, some yuri fanon potential. Just watch it already.

P.S. – A visit to CLAMP’s official website has just netted me the info that Sweet Valerian manga will be begin running in February’s Nakayoshi magazine. I’ll definitely be looking for it!

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Yuri Manga: ROD – Read or Dream, Manga Volume 3

December 8th, 2004

Goofy, sexy, weird and fun, all in turn. Who’s your Paper Master, baby?

Read or Dream, Volume 3 continues with something for everyone (except, perhaps obsesseive Yomiko and/or Nenene fans….)

The inside cover has a fun surprise. Instead of the usual two-sided color poster, we get a color picture on the front of the three sisters and on the back, three book covers drawn by the artist for this manga. What makes these book covers interesting is that the author is Nishizono Haruhi.

I’ll wait while you try to remember who that is. (The sound you hear is my foot tapping)

I’ll give you a clue. The first title is Hatsukoi Hajimatta, in English – First Love Has Begun.

I’ll give you a second clue. In the TV series, the presence that fills the empty spaces is Yomiko. In the manga series, it’s Nenene whose presence hovers in the background, just beyond reach….

If you really can’t remember, look at the end of this review…* ^_^

Onto the actual stories:

The first chapter hits weird, fun and sexy at the same time – Maggie visits a strange bookstore and is given a book called, (loosely) “The 24 Faces of Maggie Mui.” (You all know the famous story, “The Three Faces of Eve,**” right? I don’t have to explain Dissociative Identity Disorder, do I?) Anyway, Michelle and Anita come home to find Maggie in a maid outfit, which then switches to a gang member’s gakuran, then a Vampire S&M ensemble and ending with a goofy fairy tale prince get-up. The story is silly and strictly a vehicle for the fanservice. It all ends with Michelle being given a book called “The 7600 Faces of Michelle Chan.” And we all laugh and shudder, since Michelle is already pretty schizoid. ^_^

The next chapter begins (as at least one story each volume does!) with the three sisters having had no income for some time. Michelle and Maggie fantasize about running a high-class restaurant, but for books instead of food. Instead, the three of them end up doing a comedy routine. Oooooookkkkaaaayy. Goofy and weird.

In the third story, they are all doing really well and, as a result of so much work, are eating regularly. Michelle has therefore gained a lot of weight. Ahahahah, we laugh as she tries and fails miserably to lose the extra pounds. Goofy and I guess someone will think its fun.

The volume gets a little more interesting and weird beginning with the next chapter, in which Anita gets a fever. She has a dream which ties into her memory from ROD The TV of the church in which she met Maggie and Michelle for the first time. (The subsequent refutal of this memory by Joker is ignored, or perhaps is merely irrelevant…) She wakes to find that Maggie has returned to be with her, and she discovers that not only is she *not* alone in the world, she has her sisters, but also that friends have sent get-well gifts and cards…including one from Lilth and Orion, from Vol.2. Although Anita has not told her sisters about Lilith, this is about to change. Echoes of the TV series start to build more and more with each chapter.

The next story is another Anita dream which is weird, goofy and fun. The inevitable cross-over to Alice in Wonderland, with a hefty dose of Wizard of Oz (Tin Man and Scarecrow played, respectively, by Maggie and Michelle) and Journey to the West (The Monkey King, Sun Wu Kung, part played by Chi-Hon, the boy Anita has befriended in previous volumes) ends with the Queen of Hearts being played by Hisa-chan!

Now, let’s back up…in this continuity, Anita has never *met* Hisa-chan. Even stranger, when, at the end of the dream, Anita wakes up and we see the pile of novels that the dream referenced, one of them is Anne of Green Gables. You may remember from ROD The TV that that novel is the one that Anita and Hisami read together and bonded over, identifying themselves with Anne and Diana. But, in this continuity they have never met, so, why would that book be there, and why would Hisa-chan appear as the Queen? Well, it gets more confusing in the next and final, several-part story, which is fun, sexy, weird and goofy all at once. ^_^

Hold onto your hat, it’s going to be a bumpy manga.**

The three sisters are contacted by a publishing company. They are asked to be the bodyguards to a Japanese writer who is coming over to do a book signing in Hong Kong. The author has received threatening letters and the publishing company is concerned with her well-being. The Three Paper Sisters Detective Agency takes on the job and heads to the airport to meet the author.

Sound familiar? Hmmm….gee, this is exactly the same way ROD The TV began, isn’t it? You think you know what’s coming, right? Well, hah on you.

The three sisters are greeted by a snazzy young blonde, who turns out to be the author’s manager. The author steps forward and she is…Hishiishi Hisami, 13, from Japan. Hisa-chan promptly throws up all over Anita, and thus a friendship is born. ^_^

At the book signing, the culprit shows and lo and behold! it’s Hisa-chan’s manager! Only it’s not, it’s Lilith in disguise and this time she doesn’t want a book – she wants the author! (It is during this section that we can be convinced that the lovely Lilith has a full-blown loli fetish, by the way.) She and her pet panther Orion take on the Paper Sisters. Anita has, of course, already encountered Lilith, so she isn’t tricked by the thief-turned-kidnapper’s wily ways. In the middle of the battle Anita has a revelation – she may loathe books herself, but she resolves to be the protector of authors who bring joy to so many *other* people. Of course, she rescues Hisa-chan and they become instant best friends. Is there implication of more? There’s  plenty of room for believing that in this series that seems to be very Yuri-friendly.

In the end, the publishing company and Hisa-chan are so pleased with the sisters’ performance, that they are asked to come to Japan to do more bodyguard work. Michelle turns to us and tells us that their Japan arc is beginning and we should make sure to come back for the next chapter…! Well, duh. *Now* I’m hooked.

Where before it was mostly fluff, the story has actually evolved to a parallel universe to the ROD The TV and now I wanna know where it will go!

Ratings:
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Art – 8
Yuri – 4

Overall – 8

If the manga series is crafted *half* as well as the TV series, it’ll be great. If not, it’s goofy fun, weird, sometimes sexy fluff with some Yuri implication and space for plenty o’fanfic. ^_^

* – Nishizono Haruhi is the older sister of Anita and Hisa’s classmate, and the author that debuted after Nenene, that we meet several times in the TV series. Remember?

** – I wonder if it means anything that I have *two* Betty Davis references in this review….

Posted in R.O.D., Read or Dream, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: ROD – Read or Dream, Manga Volume 2

December 7th, 2004

Welcome to another unique, unresolvable timeline brought to you by the ROD team!

Once upon a time, there was a manga called Read or Die, aka ROD. It told the story of clumsy, slightly psychotic, paper master Yomiko Readman. In the manga, Yomiko encountered young prodigy and author, Sumiregawa Nenene. The manga told of their adventures, and gave us glimpses into Yomiko’s other existence as an agent for the British Library, where she was known as “The Paper.”

At the same time, there was (and still is) a separate continuity, contained in the ROD novels, about Yomiko, Nancy Makihara – aka Miss Deep, Yomiko’s predecessor Donny, occasionally Nenene, and a host of other characters. (I have looked at several of these novels, and to be honest, they look about as wretched as the original ROD manga.)

Then came ROD the anime. This three-episode OVA was a third continuity, one with Miss Deep, and a completely different Yomiko – who was now utterly competent and not very clumsy at all. The OVA detailed Yomiko’s adventures as “The Paper” and included none of the character baggage she had picked up in the manga or novels. No Nenene, no Donny, no emotional attachments, until Nancy shows up and steal her heart.

Then came ROD The TV anime, which somehow mangaed to pull all of the above into a pretty amazingly tight whole, AND introduce the Three Paper Sisters Detective Agency members, Michelle, Maggie and Anita.

Well, don’t get too comfortable with this unified theory of ROD because the Read or Dream manga, which is the story of the three sisters, exists in yet *another* continuity. Trust me – there’s no WAY they’re gonna be able to integrate this timeline. You just have to take it as it comes.

In the Read or Dream manga, as opposed to the Read or Die manga, we are entertained with the amusing antics of the three paper sisters, as they bumble their way through various adventures and jobs, being barely competent until that crucial last moment when they go all cool and paper master-y on us. To avoid repetition, you can re-read my review of Volume 1 here.

Volume 2 of Read or Dream is amusing, but not deep. Maggie and Michelle go overseas, leaving Anita home alone. Anita takes a job – against her sisters’ advice, of course, and heads out to assist a young woman with locating a family treasure. Lo and behold! the woman is not who or what she appeared to be. In fact, she is Lilith, an infamous book thief. To “thank” Anita for helping her locate and obtain the book, she kisses Anita and heads out. (Lilith will later prove that this is a genuine loli fetish, as you will see when I review the next volume.)

In a second story, Anita heads out to recover the book from Lilith. She tracks the woman down to her apartment. Anita learns that Lilith has a companion in crime – a black panther named Orion. Anita manages to get the book back, but not before a fight and, in the end, Lilith and Orion are last seen leaping out of the window to escape.

In the rest of the chapters, we re-encounter a young boy, Chi-Hon, who befriended the sisters in the first volume. Chi-Hon and Anita spend the night on a line, waiting to get books signed by a famous author. As you can imagine, Anita is thrilled.

Later, that same author. Yun-Fa, hires the three sisters to track down an author that used to inspire him, but who has not published lately. This story was quite good, actually. We learn that the older author is actually a woman, who stopped writing about the time the Yun-Fa debuted. It’s a goopy story, but quite sweet.

Volume 2, like Volume 1, comes with a two-sided color mini-poster inside. Three sisters fanservice on one side, cool and business like on the other. This seems to be par for the series.

There’s less overt Yuri in Volume 2 than in Vol. 1, but there’s Lilith, who will be back, with her “thing” for girls.

Ratings:

Story – 8
Characters – 8
Art – 8
Yuri – 5

Overall – 8

This manga takes place in Hong Kong, and focuses completely on Maggie, Michelle and Anita. No Nenene, no Yomiko and no sign of either. This series has its own timeline, and own continuity. Characters from earlier volumes will keep returning – and some suprise characters make an appearance in future volumes – but not in the way that you would expect. Approach the Read or Dream manga as if it is a completely separate series (which it is,) and you’ll be fine!

Posted in R.O.D., Read or Dream | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Pure Marionation, Volume 1

December 6th, 2004

A story about a lesbian android – isn’t *that* original?

Pure Marionation is an exceptionally cute story brought to us by our friends at Dengeki Comics and Mediaworks, your source for irritatingly cute and lolified yuri. Dengeki didn’t used to be so grossly cute – they did Battle Atheletes once upon a time when, apparently, men wanted to look at women, not children, kissing. Gah.

In any case, Pure Marionation is an older manga about Anon, an android, who is sent to school to “test” her AI. She is charged with making friends, and fitting in. As usual, her creators have given her everything she needs to survive, except all the basic information that a fifteen-year old girl might potentially have. So, when asked for her birthday, or blood type, Anon is completely unable to answer. Well, duh.

Anon promptly begins making friends by being adorable, lovable, sweet, kind, generous and affectionate, which just goes to prove that this is a fiction. If a kid like her showed up at *my* high school, she would have been dead meat in mere days. Her first friend, and most likely eventual love interest, is Miamo, a “cool” girl, insofar as this series has them. By the end of volume 1, Miamo learns about Anon’s special circumstances and vows to cover for her, making the promise to the only adult woman in the entire series, Anon’s creator, Madoka. Madoka is quite enamored of her creation, but I’m not really sure what this “test” would prove about Anon. Am I just being a hard ass? Probably.

There doesn’t seem to be any plot complication in this series, and the only antagonist thaws when Anon’s computer brain helps the two of them win a contest together. (There’s a teeny-weeny little jealousy between rival girl and Anon, but only because rival girl thinks that Anon is trying to steal her onee-sama. Quite unreasonably…I’m sure that, in her innocence, Anon doesn’t even know what stealing someone’s affections *is.*)

Each chapter has mild conflict like, erm, Anon overloads in the tub, and what *is* her birthday…? But don’t expect anything angsty here, this is fluffy cuteness in its purest form, with lots of bathing for ballast.

Will Anon and Miamo get together? I am sure that they do, but I imagine that it’s in a Shinobuden happy hugs all around way, rather than a passionate grand-scale Stellvia kind of way. Did I like it? No older woman, no eyepatches, no weapons,…it was okay. ;-)

Ratings:
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Art – 6
Service – 9
Yuri – 4

Overall – 6

Did I mention that this series is by the artist of Kokoro Library? Obviously, another guy obsessed with cute, happy girls who bathe alot. I always wonder if any of these guys ever get laid by real women…

 

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


I Know You’re Jealous…

December 3rd, 2004

No review today, just some random yuri-ish comments and gloating. :-)

Firstly, loyal yuri fan Clarissa sent the Yuricon Mailing List this link to an interview of a Japanese fan of Maria-sama ga Miteru, in English. Not only is it fascinating in its own right, it has interesting links to many Marimite objet d’fandom.

The above interview also refers to a “realistic” manga series about student life at an all-girl school called Joshi Kousei, which, oddly, I just found last week at Book Off. I expect to be reviewing it some day soon. It looks, upon first glance to be terrifying and wacky. I’ve seen Joshi Kousei listed on more than a few Japanese site yuri manga lists, so it’ll be interesting to read, even thought the actual yuri content is low.

Also, when I get home, there are a few new items awaiting for me today, so look forward to some reviews in the future of:

Pure Marionation – a girl-meets-robot girl love story.

Sokyu no Megami – It looks space opera-y, y’know girls with weapons and/or mecha. It’ll probably be awful. :-)

Himitsu Anjerisu – I don’t even *know* what this was about, but it looked interesting and Yuri Kokoro gave it a reasonable rating, so…

Yuri Shimai 5 – Whee! More Strawberry Shake!

Carmilla – When Japanese lesbian magazine Anise stopped publishing, Carmilla filled the gap. I have one issue and its, erm…interesting. I thought that, since it’s been a few volumes, I’d see how it is now.

And the beginning of the next Marimite manga arc, the fourth novel, Rosa Canina. Let’s see how Shizuka fares in manga form, shall we?

So, that’ll keep me busy for a while, I guess. I’ll let you know how it goes! :-)

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