Safe and Sound in Seattle

March 23rd, 2006

Today has been long, but I wanted to at least drop in here and say that I’m in Seattle with some of the Archie McPhee, the best place to take care of your tiki, pirate, librarian action figure and bacon strip bandage needs. If you don’t know Archie McPhee – you need to learn. If you too have already purchased a fez o’fun and a quart of toys, you can visit anyway and smile and nod, ’cause you too are cool and hip and wacky.

Tomorrow we’re going to the SciFi Museum to geek out in a non-anime environment. I hope to have pictures, if I remember the camera. :-)

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »


Event: Yuricon at Sakuracon!

March 21st, 2006

Yuricon is on the road again! This week we’ll be visiting Seattle, Washington to attend Sakuracon.

Look for Yuricon and ALC Publishing at Table 147 in the marketplace, near the exit. You’ll be able to get yuri publications from ALC at *massive* discounts. We’re doing a special $5/$10 sale for Seattle.

And we’ll be holding Sakuracon’s first-ever yuri panel. Join us on Saturday, March 25 at 9PM in Panel Room 1 (Room 603 on the 6th floor).

I will be joined by several Yuricon friends and staffer for the weekend, so make sure you say hi to myself, the wife, staffers Donna and Serge and friends Bruce, Jen, Hillary and who knows who else? :-)

I’ll look forward to seeing you all – and don’t forget to check the Yuricon Events page regularly for an event or panel near you!

I’ve got a new laptop for travel and I *hope* to be connected during this trip, so check back for updates and pictures. But the rest of the Lamb’s Vacation synopsis will have to wait until I get some real time…

Posted in ALC Publishing, Events | 1 Comment »


Yuri Monogatari 3 and Shoujoai ni Bouken on Amazon

March 17th, 2006

It is incumbent upon all authors to, from time to time, mention that their book is really worth buying. ^_^ My friend, physics writer Jennifer Ouellette, whose book is very much worth buying, puts it this way on her own blog, Cocktail Party Physics, “I have no shame. Help keep my cat in the manner to which she would like to become accustomed. BUY THIS BOOK NOW!” I just love the subtle sales pitch.

In that spirit, I thought today would be a good day to let you all know that my book, Shoujoai ni Bouken: The Adventures of Yuriko is not only worth buying, you can now get it on Amazon! So if you don’t have Paypal, don’t want to send a money order, don’t trust the USPS (and who could blame you for that?) you can still get the first volume of out, lesbian pop idol Yuriko’s adventures as she returns to high school as part of a television reality show. The book has been wonderfully illustrated by Kelli Nicely – I really enjoy the pictures she did for this volume. As of yet no one has told me that it sucks, so I’m going to assume that it doesn’t. Help me keep my wife in the lifestyle to which she’d like to become accustomed! Buy my book! LOL

Your support of ALC Publishing not only provides you with fun, original yuri publications – it allows Yuricon and ALC Publishing to do more publishing, events, contests, etc. So, you’re making a difference when you buy our books – showing your support for Yuri in a concrete way, and getting something good in return.

(Let’s see – I’ve got 1) the hard, “buy it now!” sell; 2) the softer “It doesn’t suck!” sell; 3) the wussy, “it’s makes a great add-on to an Amazon order” sell, and; 4) the guilt-based “you’re doing a good thing” sell. Did I miss anything…?)

Oh, and remember this – if you enjoy the adventures of lesbian pop idol Tachibana Julia in Hayashiya Shizuru’s Strawberry Shake Sweet, Yuriko and SnB came first!!

Posted in ALC Publishing, English Manga, Shoujoai ni Bouken, Yuri Monogatari | No Comments »


Yuri Anime: Madlax, Volume 5

March 16th, 2006

Madlax 5 is absolutely, positively worth the wait.

I know that most anime fans have the attention spans of a gnat, so I wanted to say that quickly, before you stopped reading – or if you, perchance, have stopped watching Madlax because you saw Noir and think that it’s the same thing. It is the same thing – but better. Think of Noir as practice.

This volume is entitled “Convergence” and for once, the title actually fits. In this volume all the playing pieces gather together on one board.

Madlax and Vanessa have been framed so that the entire country believes that they have murdered a member of the royal family – which they have not. Rimelda (the official translation is Limelda, but I prefer the R to the L, so I’m sticking with my version, even though it is wrong) has been assigned Madlax as a target, but when she confronts Madlax and Vanessa, they give her the data they stole from Enfant.

This entire volume is the death and rebirth of Rimelda and it utterly, totally, completely rocks.

Rimelda dies as an elite sniper of the Royalist army and is reborn as an insane, obsessed killer. Think about that sentence for a while…eventually you’ll realize that there is, of course, no difference at all. Rimelda hasn’t *quite* gotten there by the end of the volume, but she’s on her way.

Vanessa learns to shoot so she can take care of herself, which ups her cool factor a few notches. When Margaret and Eleanor (another name for which I refuse to use the official version) show up, she’s not unhappy at all to have them join her.

They all *converge* upon Quanzitta’s village, where Naharu (a third name I use my own version of) wonders why she can’t get Madlax out of her head. Carlossea Doon shows up too, but he’s such a non-entity in this series, even if he is one of the main three characters. (I’m being generous here… his name is pronounced Carlossur Dawn. But because I don’t care about him, I’ll use his official spelling. Which the dub actors pronounce “Dune.” argh)

So we’re all together and the three mystical books are gathered. Finally Quanzitta has something to do other than take baths.The plot is pulling together and they are all getting closer, as Laetitia points out. The tension runs high, and the end, while not far away, is not really at all in sight. Something else, I like – when it’s carried off decently. Plotwise, this is the beginning of the end.

But the strength of this volume is in Hisakawa Aya’s portrayal of Rimelda, as she loses her life, her dreams, her status and her mind and replaces them all with an obsession. She falls in love with her idea of Madlax – and that supremely unhealthy love is only strengthened by every encounter with her prey. Rimelda nails their relationship after an aborted hand to hand fight with Madlax – if only Vanessa hadn’t interfered, they could have continued the dance.

I love Rimelda and Madlax together, so I was a little peeved at Vanessa too. And in myYyuri goggles, now that Eleanor is there, she and Vanessa can play family with Margaret, leaving the fightin’ chicks to each other. ^_^

My first thought – and one that resounded over and over as I watched this volume – Rimelda is Chloe, but done *right.* Not just because she has the same voice actress – but because they are the same lost little girl characters who are living a lie. Only where Chloe always seemed like a refugee from a different story in Noir, Rimelda is a crucial part of Gazth-Sonika. In many ways, she is more part of the world than Madlax herself – both as a character and as part of the larger mystical plot.

The song “I’m here,” which plays before every scene in which Madlax gets all bad-ass, becomes, in this volume an actual, active part of the plot. The final use of it in the volume – it is as much part of the story as the action going on around it. If you haven’t read the lyrics, do. It’s absolutely the story talking to the audience. I was left quite breathless by it. Good song, too.

The liner notes are, as always, worth the read. There’s a wacky little note about Rimelda written by Hisakawa Aya, which is very funny as it censures Rimmy about sleeping with Doon, but never even mentions falling in love with Madlax.  And I don’t know why I missed these, but the extras on the DVD include “Conversations with SSS,” which are completely insane dubbed scenes that are totally stupid, go on too long and are really funny. I’ll have to go back and watch the back volumes now. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 7 (good, until it gets wonky)
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Music – 9
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 9

This was *such* a good watch. I was really into it. I’ve heard from alot of people that they couldn’t get into Madlax, or they felt it was just a Noir clone. I love Noir, but of the two, I really have to say that Madlax is the far superior story. As I said in the beginning, this volume is absolutely worth the wait.

Posted in Bee Train, Madlax, Noir, Yuri Anime | 3 Comments »


Utter Nonsense Today

March 15th, 2006

You may have noticed that I’ve added a profile to this blog. I never really wanted to do that because I’m not particularly photogenic, and I thought that certain things would be obvious…

1) I am a woman. I thought that that was always fairly obvious, as my name – Erica – ends with a final “a”, which usually denotes a female version of a male name. I.e., Patricia, to Patrick, Edwina to Edwin…Erica to Eric. For some reason, my obviously female name does not indicate *enough* that I am not a man. Nor do my comments in this blog that mention that I am a lesbian. Therefore, to make it easy, let me be blunt. I am a woman and a lesbian. Not a guy. No matter HOW many action/porn/shounen things I review, I am still not a guy.

2) I have NOT, in any way shape or form, mastered Japanese. I am not fluent. I am not incorruptibly, unequivocally correct in my translations. I’m barely limping along, ekeing meaning out of this wonderful language with hours of effort a day. I am always glad to be told when I got something wrong by someone who is fluent.

3) I have taught myself Japanese. I have not taken any classes (unless you count the year I did my wife’s Japanese class homework along with her, because I thought it would be fun. And I sucked as badly as anyone else in the class. LOL But it was fun.) I am still teaching myself Japanese, which is probably a bad idea, but all I have time for. As a result my reading skills are fair, my listening skills are uneven and erratic, my writing skills are poor and my speaking skills are appalling.

So, frankly, when people write me and whine that they cannot read Japanese, I don’t really think that’s a valid complaint, because it takes no more than desire and time to learn. It’s not a particularly difficult language, especially as compared with English. It IS difficult to master, like any language. If you want to learn – shut up and learn. There is no Matrix chip. Just time and effort. I’ve given myself a timeline of about 20 years before I expect to be reasonably fluent, at least in reading. Get back to me in 15 years and I’ll let you know how it’s going. (Think about it – when you are born, you’re practicing you language skills EVERY WAKING MINUTE. And it still takes you 7 years to be able to speak with any skill – 14 to write with any and 20 for you to have anything interesting to say. So get a real timeline – not two classes. Not two years. 20 years.)

4) I do not take any of my opinions seriously. If I offend you, it’s you. (Read my rules of life in my profile for clarification.)

5) I buy my manga and anime in a variety of places. I am asked often where I get things. Here’s the list of places I use to get anime and manga:

Anime: Amazon (clicking through the Yuricon Shop, if it’s not listed)

Manga: Amazon; Amazon JP, Sanseido Bookstore; more rarely Kinokuniya or Asahiya for Japanese-language.

I am VERY lucky to have a Sanseido not 40 minutes from my house, and a Kinokuniya and Asahiya in NYC which is just over an hour away. But if I’m in a rush, or it’s not a generally popular title – or is a novel, like all the new Marimite novels, I get them from Amazon JP.

6) I am old and curmudgeonly. I get alot of puppies emailing me, using “u r” for “you are” and it irritates me. If you’d like to email me with a question, I would be much less rude if you used common, casual language. I just want you to be coherent, avoid stage directions like “tilts head” and “bounces up and down” or stuttering in text, “so, like, uh, yeah,”. I’m not asking you to be over formal, either. Just be normal, please. If you are not a native English-speaker, you absolved from having to write normally, but frankly, most of the non-native English speakers who write me have excellent grammar comparitively. I am not 20ish – it was a long time ago that I was. If you are asking me how old I am, I am old enough to be your mother – in many cases your grandmother. How do I know this? Because only people under 20 or so ever ask my age. So write to me as if you are addressing an elder. Which you are. ^_^

7) Last but not least – I am not Japanese.  Friedman is a German word that means “Free man” and was taken by many serfs and slaves when they were able to purchase their freedom. I am not German, but for some reason, my family has a German name. I imagine there was some German influence waaaaaaay back. My first name is Old Norse and means “leader” if you care. I am not Norwegian either. Neither am I Japanese. For the record.

Actually, this is the last thing – remember, you can be mean back to me, but you have to be FUNNY too. If you’re already a friend of mine, I know you are mean and funny. The rest of you can feel to practice in the comments section. Being mean and unfunny is just dull and stupid-sounding. Don’t try to be clever when you reply to this entry…you’ll sound like you’re trying too hard and we’ll all be embarrassed. ^_^

 

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | 12 Comments »