Yuri Anime: Crimson Climax

October 22nd, 2005

It’s not like Crimson Climax is *good* hentai, but as hentai goes, it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, either.

The sex is split between lesbian scenes, which are almost always cut short, and straight sex which is not entirely non-consensual. If you skip the non-con stuff, what’s left is a weirdly touching tale of a family curse and the devoted female servants who sacrifice all for their mistresses.

Did I mention that this anime is a horror hentai? Guess not. Well, it is. So that means there’s a lot of blood, and some pretty gruesome and pointlessly wasteful deaths, and the main character appears to be a cyborg doll thing with bits of humans holding her together. It’s all confusing and since I didn’t actually care, I have no idea how or why or, in fact, even what.

Did I mention the reasonably decent lesbian sex scenes? Yes? Well, then. There’s your review.

***

 Nov 22, 2010: Of interest,  this review was served today with a takedown order based on infringing copyrighted material. Since the *only* thing I had on this post was a picture of the cover of the anime, which was linked to a place where people could legitimately buy the thing if they wanted, I have removed it. I can see that this review got caught in a net of sites that stream the whole anime.

I actually *looked* at the takedown order. It was clear that this was an issue with an automated tool and/or a person who couldn’t tell the difference between a review and a stream. Instead of throwing a hissy fit or posting all over the planet, I contacted the copyright holder. It helps that I know they are not insane. ^_^ They grokked the situation immediately and are going to contact the copyright/takedown org to explain the issue.

The moral of the story is – don’t panic. Not every copyright holder is THE MAN.

Nov. 23, 2010: Everyone in the matter has been as pleasant and apologetic as possible. Not only has the copyright holder apologized, and sent a number of follow-up emails explaining what happened, the takedown company has also contacted me with apologies and assurance that my domain is on their whitelist and that they have informed Google that the takedown order has been retracted.

My gut feeling is that since I am in a small industry contacting the copyright holder was the way to go. Had I sent a counter-claim through Google’s DCMA counter-claim process it would be lost in a pile of thousands of other claims in *their* legal department. Still, for those of us who review anime and manga – it is a small industry. Don’t Panic. If you’re not distributing material you have no right to distribute, then you are not doing anything wrong. Don’t throw a hissy fit. Contact the copyright holder and LOOK at the takedown. Don’t be afraid to push back.

Once more for good measure- not every copyright holder is THE MAN. And in the end, there’s the picture back where it belongs.

Posted in Hentai, Yuri Anime | 9 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Transistor ni Venus, Volume 6

October 21st, 2005

Feeling down? A little depressed? Transistor ni Venus is just the ticket. This yuri spy series is so exceptionally goofy that it’d take more than a blue mood to hold out against Enus and her adventures. As always, my deepest thanks to Touko_no_doriru-san for insipring me to read this series!

Volume 6 is a paean to love.

On a planet that looks like a Mediterranean resort, Enus and Eriari encounter a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation. Po, a young aristocrat, and Kurani, are in love. But Kurani’s family and Po’s are not about to let them be happy together, for reasons that are no doubt idiotic. Po’s brother is engaged to Kurani, but she and Po (who is male, btw…straight couples are rare enough in this series that it’s noteworthy) are really, really in love.

Of *course* they end up together, duh. No one suffers in Transistor ni Venus. And they look quite tropical and exotic in their wedding gear. Even young spy in training Eriari finds himself a cute girl. Enus is saddened that she doesn’t have a nice girl, or guy in a pinch, to marry. Shiku, shiku.

The second half of the volume is taken up with a search for cannisters containing something or other of crucial importance. For this job, Enus is teamed up with Professor “Call me Iselin” Suiminkova. Iselin spends every second she is not busy communicating telepathically with her trained dolphins to seduce Enus…or, really, to begin seducing her, the blaming Enus for making her do weird things. Thankfully, Enus and Iselin are captured by the Lizard guys and their pet human Samaja. Samaja and Iselin immediately forget Enus even exists, freeing her to free them all and recover the cannister and get herself the hell out of there.

Enus goes running off to find Mariaana, her usual fallback lover and takes her immediately to bed. She says to Mariaana that she’s glad that they are friends, and Miariaana goes all pouty. Just friends? Lovers, Enus assures her. Just lovers? Enus asks what she’s getting at and Mariaana wonders if Enus would marry her. Hooray! Enus is glad to agree and is ready to take off to do the deed this second, when Mariaana starts coming up with delays. Oh well – at least Enus got Mariaana in bed, and that’s good enough for now.

The outcome? Enus and Mariaana are more of a couple than before, and Enus really, really comes to dislike dolphins.

Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

Now, if this series, and Hayate Cross Blade ever become anime, *then* I’ll be a happy Erica.

Posted in Transistor ni Venus, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Yuri Anime: Noir, Volume 4

October 19th, 2005

Get Noir, Volume 4 on the Yuricon Shop!I rewatched Volume 4 of Noir in the post-Onna! “marathon of watching and reading things non-stop so I don’t have to talk to people” fest. It’s quite good. And remarkably bad.

Let’s get the plot complication stuff over quickly…the first two episodes are designed to make Mirielle and Kirika seem more human. I think. In the first episode of the volume Kirika befriends an ex-mercenary turned painter and takes up painting herself. Mirielle warns her away from befriending anyone, but Kirika persists, with tragic results. In the second episode, we learn yet another little piece about Mirielle’s past and, if we are not entirely clueless, will come to realize that this is not just “making Mirielle seem more human” but really a hint that her past is quite relevant to the story. Think about it – Kirika has no past and we never, not really, try and figure out who she is. But little by little Mirielle’s family, and their fate, keep popping up, over and over and over….

In any case, this attempt by Mirielle to recreate an old relationship fails in a slightly more tragic way than Kirika’s attempt to make friends. In Kirika’s case, the guy is killed more by circumstance than anything else; in Mirielle’s case, she actually pulls the trigger and kills her beloved uncle.

The second two episodes are ridiculous. I love them, but if they were disappeared the story as a whole would not suffer one iota. A Chinese Tong sends a irresistably goofy assassin to take out Noir, (she kills with poison nails…and wears a fashionable leather jacket, all at the same time!) with predictable results. This is the mini-arc in which we see Kirika’s magic bullet shield on full – she kills about 40 people and not one of them manages to so much as graze her with a scathing look.

But, let’s let that all go and talk about the Yuri. In Volume 4, where Kirika obsesses about a guy and Mirielle about her uncle? Why, yes, now that you mention it.

This one was easy – watch Mirielle react to Kirika’s new hobby. Neutral, a little amused. Then watch Mirielle react to the cause of the new hobby…open jealousy, baby. I never noticed it the first time, but Mirielle spends the entire rest of the episode *bristling* when she thinks about Kirika spending time with that guy. Great voice acting from Mitsuishi Kotono there – she sounds deeply irked and bitchy. ^_^

Then we have the other half of the equation – Mirielle returns with the news that her uncle is in town, yay! Kirika would, assumably, be annoyed, yes? Something to take away from the well-oiled machine that is Noir? Nope. She’s pleased as punch that Mirielle has regained this link to her past. Why – because she can see how happy this has made Mirielle.

Now add those two little things up. They equal a relationship. Not, perhaps one between lovers, but certainly one between people who care, a lot, for each other.

Now, Bee Train has already said about Noir that if you see Yuri, it’s there. I choose to see a relationship that is beginning to leak past professional into personal.

And because, for some reason I cannot fathom, some people like Chloe, I’ll also mention her stalking Kirika to Hong Kong as a sign of her obsession about the other girl. But I strongly feel that the vibe is one-way. While it’s clear that Chloe sees Kirika as her perfect future partner, I don’t get the sense that Kirika even sees Chloe as a an existence, really. Her mind is on her partner *now*. And from my perspective, it stays there…except in the bits where they brainwash her. But I’m getting ahead of myself. ^_^

Ratings:
Art – 6, it’s horribly inconsistent from scene to scene
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Music – 9
Yuri – 5

Overall – 7 and a great way to pass a gloomy Sunday afternoon. On par with a decent kungfu flick. ^_^ There was something terribly important I wanted to say here, but now I’ve forgotten what it was. Oh well.

Posted in Bee Train, Noir, Yuri Anime | 1 Comment »


Mahou Sensei Negima, Manga Volumes 6 and 7, Guest Review by Sean G. (English)

October 18th, 2005

Once again, we bring you a guest review of Negima! Magister Negi Magi by the redoubtable Sean Gaffney! Yaaaaaay! (Say this last bit in a Kermit the Frog from the Muppet Show voice.) Sean’s review is quite timely, because as you know, I loathe Akamatsu’s work and didn’t feel like writing anything today. :-)

Let me take this opportunity to thank Sean, also, for having been one of the most AMAZING staffers we had at Onna!. He was a whirlwind, handling not only the panels, worksops and demos, but also stepping in to handle many of the Programming events, which freed me to do important things like tell people where to find paper and pens and interview for 80 minutes with people who quoted me for less than 20 words. LOL Sean, you have my eternal thanks. No foolin’.

Without further ado, here is Sean’s review of Negima, Volumes 6 and Volume 7:

The manga and anime Rurouni Kenshin is known for its Kyoto arc, which is generally considered to be lightyears ahead of the other arcs. Likewise, Negima really steps up with its own Kyoto arc, dropping most of the comedy for a Volume to focus on action and drama, as Negi and the others are under attack from their rivals.

The action is fairly well drawn, with little of the confusion that mars series like Trigun. We get a few more girls finding out Negi is a wizard, though Mana and Ku Fei don’t seem very surprised. Negi’s secret is still one of the worst kept ever.

Then there’s the Yuri. Aside from the ‘grasping at straws’ couples (“Look! Kaede is holding Yue in her arms after rescuing her! It must be love!”), there’s still just Konoka and Setsuna. Luckily, that’s more than enough.

Setsuna in this volume reveals her other big secret – she’s half demon, and has big wings. Setsuna is convinced this will make everyone loathe and fear her. But these aren’t bat-like wings, they’re big, fluffy bird wings – everyone notes they look cool. So Setsuna races off to save Konoka, who notes that they make Setsuna look like an angel. OK, self-worth crisis over, mostly.

(In the Negima anime, they kiss. But the Negima anime is awful in so many other ways that I can’t recommend it even to the staunchest yuri fan unless they just get one episode, watch the kiss, then delete it.)

In Volume 7, there’s less of a focus on the two. However, we see Konoka being told that with training, she could be a very powerful mage. She chooses to begin the training, and wants Setsuna as her partner.

This is the best part of the volume. Konoka relates to Negi that Setsuna says that girls shouldn’t kiss, but she wants Setsuna to be her partner, so is there another way to make a pact? It’s very clear from Setsuna’s denials that what she meant was that when the two of them kiss, it shouldn’t be just for a simple magical pact, but for something deeper. Her expressions are very cute.

One last thing to note on the yuri front is Kazumi, the sly newspaper girl, who is clearly amused at Setsuna’s blushing denials, and notes that ‘It’s just a kiss. Girls our age experiement with that stuff all the time’. Which again is a nice bone to throw to those seeking more yuri in the series than Konoka and Setsuna. OK, it’s a tiny fragment of a bone.

Negima continues to be far more interesting than it should be, considering the artist and all the shounen fanservice. And indeed the 10-year-old hero. Despite all that, it’s still a page-turner, and more and more characters are gaining depth as they get focused on.

Oh yes, and in the Translation Notes, Del Rey will tell you what a paipan is.

Erica here: Once again – thank Sean! (Insert wild applause, again in Muppet Show style)

Posted in English Manga, Guest Review | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Aria, Volume 7

October 18th, 2005

Since the Aria anime has just started, there’s a fair amount of interest in this series now, so I thought a review of the manga was appropriate.

For refreshers, you can read my reviews of volumes 1,2 and 3, which are available in English and volumes 4,5 and 6 which you can get from Amazon Japan.

The first 6 volumes are sweet, pleasant and not particularly melodramatic slices-of-life about the adventures of Akari, a gondolier in training on Neo-Venezia. If there’s any weakness in this series it is that we don’t go very deep into any of the character’s, well…character.

Volume 7 remedies this.

Our journey this time begins with a story about vanity. Aika, Akari’s fellow trainee and rich girl heiress, has always prided herself on her beautiful long hair, so when it is accidentally burned and has to be cut, she has to face her own self-image – and her dreams about what she wants to be when she grows up. To bring her to the realization that she has to strive to be herself, her mentor Akira has to resort to some tough love.

The rest of the book follows this lead – spending more time on the trainees (Akari, Aika and Alice of the Aria, Hime and Orange companies, respectively) and their relationships with their sempai; Alicia, Akira and Athena. It’s a nice glimpse a little further beneath the surface of the trainees’ endless admiration for the older women. It’s especially nice to get some extended time seeing Alice grow into more of a person. (To her benefit, she is considerably younger than Akari and Aika and we are apt to forget that in the face of her extraordinary skill as an undine. This time we can see Alice the young woman, instead of Alice the trainee. Trust me – it works.)

Alice and Aika spend some quality time together, as well – yet another angle on the kids. We’re so used to Akari’s outlook, that it’s refreshing to see Akari from the outside, and learn a little bit more about all three in the process.

The final chapter does something new yet again – we get a chapter from inside Aika’s head. And her point of view is significantly different from Akari’s. In fact, for once we get to see Akari through her eyes, which is rather amusing. We end as we began – with Aika’s hair. Only this time, it’s all complicated by love. Because although the other women think her new hairdo is spiffy….there’s Al, who hasn’t seen it yet. Of course, he loves it. ^_^ (But then, he thinks the cat looks spiffy too in her clothes…)

We finsh up with a side story about Akatsuki which shows him at 6 – all very funny if I though kids, or cats, were cute. Which I don’t.

In any case, this volume is, by far and away, the *strongest* volume so far for this enjoyable series. It gives me hope that we’ll get the same treatment for the older undines – more exploration of their pasts, their hopes, dreams and the relationships they have with each other.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Characters – 9
Story – 8
Yuri – 3 (Aika still has that lingering akogare for Alicia, and the way Akira talks about her….I got give it a few points!)

Overall – 8

A really fine story in the tradition of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Great characters, fun times that make you smile. A win all the way around.

Posted in Aria, Yuri Manga | No Comments »