Events: Last chance to pre-register for Onna!

September 26th, 2005


Onna!, a three-day festival of women’s roles in animation, comics and games, is coming to Newark, NJ. A joint venture between two NY/NJ area organizations dedicated to the promotion of women in comics and animation, Shoujo Arts Society and Yuricon, Onna! will be held in the Newark Gateway Hilton on October 8-10, 2005.

Onna! welcomes guests from the comics, animation and gaming industries:

  • Paige Braddock creator of Jane’s World

  • Tania Del Rio artist for “Sabrina, the Teenaged Witch

  • Euralis Weekes, animator and artist

  • Game designer Naomi Clark

  • Independent comic artists Sin Comix

  • Musical guest Gelatine

  • Scanlation/fansub group Lililicious

And guests from the anime, manga, comics, game and live action film industries will be joining us over the Columbus Day weekend.

Men, women and children of all ages are welcome to attend Onna!, enjoy video programming, panels, workshops and even games that celebrate the expanding role of women in these increasingly popular industries.

For information about Onna!,including costs, directions and programming, please visit our website at http://www.onnafest.com. Don’t miss your last chance to pre-register for this unique event!

For infomation about Shoujo Arts Society, please visit their website at: http://www.shoujoarts.org
For information on Yuricon, please visit their home page at:
http://www.yuricon.org

Posted in Events | No Comments »


Yuri Manga: Eve no Ringo/Eve’s Apple, Volume 3

September 22nd, 2005

You remember Kirika, don’t you? She was the high school student who wanted, above all else, to be a professional manga artist, in the goofball sex manga series Eve no Ringo, aka Eve’s Apple.. After several rejections, she was hired by the grumpiest, most miserable bastard of an editor ever, to draw S&M comics for a Lady’s Comic publication.

To understand the world she was drawing Kirika tried being a dominatrix, a man, tied up, spanked and learned about car sex and fetishes galore. All to become a better mangaka. Grudgingly, the editor from hell allowed a page or three of Kirika’s work into the magazine – but at the end of Volume 2, she had a long way to go before she could really consider herself a professional.

I found the first two volumes of this series in a used manga store, so I was pretty convinced I’d never ever see the rest of it. I am thrilled to report that I was wrong again. Bizarrely, this series has been *reprinted* and is available through Amazon JP. You can click the picture above to reach this particular volume.

So…what adventures will befall our delightfully, no longer naive young artist, you may ask?

Well…

In Volume 3, Kirika experiences a little remote control vibrator research, thanks to Yurika and the school doctor. During a test, of course. :-)

Kirika’s self-proclaimed beautiful rival Mio, in between sex with her editor and some “assisted studying” with Kirika’s friend and assistant Matsuda-kun, learns a little bit about the appeal of S&M comics. (Matsuda, btw, is filled with remorse immediately afterwards, which I personally find quite irritating – especially as he appears to be an excellent lover. How obnoxious would that be – the best sex of your life and then the guy runs off crying….)

We meet one of Mio’s sempai, another manga artist who is a cool, sexy, stylish woman named Kaoru. Kaoru meets and wows Kirika, (who is a bit swept off her feet by the older woman) but it’s Matsuda who really floats her boat. Matsuda is perfectly okay with this, until midway in the act he discovers that Kaoru is a sexy, stylish and incredibly beautiful *guy*. One more guilt-filled night for Matsuda, I guess….

Kirika decides to visit a fetish shop to play dress up. Of course she drags Matsuda along to get his opinion on her dressed as a dominatrix and a maid. The shop owner turns out to be the sexy sadist from a few volumes ago, who promptly ties her up and proceeds to make her learn a bit more about her needs – in front of Matsuda. Kirika is fascinated by the whole idea of being watched and runs home to incorporate her new knowledge into her art.

While Yurika and Kirika work on Yuri’s new soon-to-be published piece, Matsuda and Miyamae-sensei (the older mangaka who was seriously hardcore from the first few volumes) engage in some “study” for her work. He tries to draw some S&M and it rapidly becomes a Disney-esque fantasy with him and prince and Kikira as princess – as all his work is wont to.

Another kouhai is added to Kirika’s stable, as provincial gang girl Yano appears, with a thick accent and wackified antics, which involve her taking hers and the other girls’ shirt off alot.

Kirika gets yet another assistant when first year student Mai joins the chado club at school and asks if she can, you know, help Kirika in any way. She and Kirika get an intense session in and Kirika is motivated to draw, while Mai is motivated to get Kirika alone in a dark room again.

The final few chapters tell of a big party that the publishing house holds for all the mangaka and editors at an onsen, so we have the usual nudity and sex play – but because these are all people who draw and live S&M, it lack coyness or fanservice, really, and is refreshingly uncloying.

In a freak accident, the editor from hell is hurt and Kirika finds that she’s ALOT more upset about it than she would have thought. She overhears the editor and Miyamae talking about her. When she hears him say that she doesn’t need him, Kirika finds herself unexpectedly hysterical. Matsuda comforts her, but there’s definitely a sense that something deeper than just her need to succeed is going on.

Regardless of the trashiness of the subject, I *really* like this series. because the sex is part of the plot, there’s so little ingenuousness, or immaturity about it. And as Kirika and the others become more mature about human sexuality, so does the series.

It’s still goofy and fun, but if you’re not afraid of it, Eve’s Apple has the least objectification of women I’ve ever seen in any sex-heavy manga.

Ratings:
Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

This isn’t a Yuri story, not really, but its pleasantly omnisexual and has some Yuri service, no goggles needed.

Posted in Hentai, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Kannazuki no Miko, Volume 2

September 20th, 2005

Well, I know you were all waiting with bated breath to read my opinion on this final installment of the Kannzuki no Miko series.

As you may remember, I found the anime to be superficial, devoid of meaning and tedious, but marginally distracting. I reviewed it several times with increasing incredulousness – primarily because, while the series made absolutely NO sense at all, many people, mostly male, seem to feel that Kannzuki represents the height of yuri. This story was indubitably colorful, had lots of action and noise and sound and light, but it simply made no sense. That a senseless 13 episode miniseries that had no plausibility, not internal consistancy and utterly pointless rape should be seen by any minority of viewers as the *epitome* of the genre I have labored to promote is simply…exhausting.

Folks – there is good Yuri out there. With plots, and character development, etc. Drawn by women for women. This is real Yuri, not the parody of several genres tossed with a light dressing of Yuri so it sells.

Yamaji Ebine
Takashima Rica
Tadeno Eriko
Morishima Akiko
Hayahiya Shizuru

These women draw and write Yuri – with plots, characters, genuine expression of lesbian love and desire. Look for them – read them – learn what good Yuri is.

Okay, that rant having been concluded, let’s turn our eyes towards the work in question.

We left Himeko having just been raped by Chikane. This was used in the anime as well, where the explanation for the act was to make Himeko hate Chikane, as she’s becoming an orochi.

In the manga the act is complicated by the fact that it seeems to be tied into Chikane and Himeko’s existence as Miko of Moon and Sun, respectively.

In reality, it is fairly obvious that the people who comprise Kaishaku, like most people, have absolutely no understanding at all of the emotional damage rape does. In this expert text, Himeko wonders if it really happend, gets a twinge of pain in her abdomen, is horrified, but when Chikane seems like her usual self, is fine. Fine? Oooookkkkkkkaaaaaay…..

Then follows pretty much exactly the same nonsense that occurred in the anime. Lots of mecha fights, which *still* make no sense, since we are never really given any motivation for the Orochi respresentatives. In my mind, there should at least have been one flashback to explain the how/why of becomming a homicidal kubi, but that’s just me, always looking for, you know, plausibility, in a story.

BTW, kubi mean “neck” and the scanlators translate it that way, but in our language we’d probably call them a “hand” rather than a neck, as in hired hand, or ranch hand. After watching the anime and reading the manga, I am still entirely puzzled as to the kubi’s exstence at all. Why were they there? What were they hoping to do? Shoot things, okay…but why? I like the idea of shooting things too, but I can, at least, tell you *why* I’d like to pop you. Sister Miyako is hot, but the rest, *especially* Tsubasa, are a complete yawn. Tsubasa’s only reason to exist seems to be to pander to fans of long-silver-haired boys. Hmmm – I guess if we see the kubi as pandering to random fetishes, they make more sense. Okay. That works for me.

The climax of the manga and anime are similar, but not *quite* the same. Chikane explains that her behavior (violent rape, emotional torture and criminal passive-agressiveness) was meant to save Himeko from a fate worse than fate. In the anime, Chikane accepts an eternity that consists of a rather shorter period of time than eternities are wont to be, alone on the moon.

In the manga, Himeko comes with Chikane, rendering all of Chikane’s violence and abuse pointless, because apparently it would take MORE than that to make Himeko hate Chikane. One can only boggle.

In an epilogue which does not exist in the anime, Chikane and Himeko are born as incestuous twins who apparently live happily ever after.

Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 2
Characters – 6
Yuri – 9 (I cut off a point for the complete and utter lack of understanding of the dynamics of women in love/lust.)

Overall – 6

Honestly – this could, really, have been an excellent story. Given time, back story, character development and a modicum of internal consistency, it could have been decent. But it wasn’t. Not really.

Posted in Kannazuki no Miko, Yuri Manga | 12 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Stellvia. Volume 5

September 16th, 2005

The reason this review took so long to get to was simply that I had a really hard time finding this volume! Amazon had it on backorder and at Otakon, not a single vendor had a copy by the time I got to go shopping. It was really irksome. (Amusingly, at the Geneon booth, the sales guy tried to sell me Vol.6, but I kept saying I wouldn’t get it until after I had Volume 5. He was like, “But you’ll need it eventually.” ^_^)

Let’s get right to it, shall we? This volume has a lot of good things, but I’m about to start with the bad.

The art. Where do noses go when they aren’t on faces? Is there a graveyard of lost anime noses? The art is *so* inconsistant in this volume. The older characters are fairly treated, but the main characters…ecch. It definitely looks like we had more than one group doing the art – and one of them sucked. Specifically the group handling Shima and Arisa.

There’s a scene in the second episode (which otherwise has better art than the first) on the volume where the girls are teasing Shima about Kouta. Shima and Arisa are all over the room, while the background characters are all stock still for nearly the entire scene, with fixed faces. Obviously, they didn’t bother animating anyone who wasn’t absolutely necessary. And it looks it. Awful, awful, awful.

The other major bad thing is Kouta. He’s heading into major idiot savant mode and from this point on, I really don’t like him. He’s so…removed…about people, and about Shima in particular. So while she’s growing, and trying harder and harder to reach him, he’s just being a nothing. But he’s a main character, so we have to watch him being a nothing all the freakin’ time! It’s downright distressing.

But that’s about it for really, really bad.

On the good side, all the little relationships are starting to mature – there’s a fair amount of time given over to taciturn Akira and runty Jojo. The volume starts them off on a rough foot, but they really get to spend some quality time onscreen. And along the way, they have a couple of short, but quite meaningful and interesting, scenes. With really good dialogue and everything.

There are some moments in this volume that approach excellent – particularly the political fragmenting of the humans involved in the different aspects of this “war.” People who feel its necessary vs people who feel its a plot by the military, vs people who think its a hoax, vs people who think war would be fun. With our current situation here in the US, it reads as quite realistic.

The most well-executed scene is towards the very end, when the war becomes a reality for our young characters. Seeing a battle, in which “our” forces take a thorough and fatal beating, through Shima’s eyes is quite painful, even as it is exceptionally well-executed.

For our Yuri couple, Yayoi and Ayaka, there is only one scene towards the beginning – but it’s a good one. ;-) With a short, fanservicey, flashback to when they originally met, we get a tearful and emotional reunion between them. Otherwise they are never seen together…but later when Arisa teases Yayoi about Pierre (who has a openly-acknowledged crush on her) Yayoi basically says that he has no chance. Everyone laughs and moves on. They know he has no chance – they just think it’s cause he’s a doofus and Yayoi is a lady.

Ratings:
Art – yucky to not too bad
Story – fun, interesting, emo
Characters – real
Music – doo-doo-doo

Overall – just watch it

In general, this volume is good, solid space opera fare. The aliens are bugs, humans are torn over what to do, and the kids…are kids. All in all, a good story that stays good with ocassional moments of excellent and awful.

Posted in English Anime, Stellvia, Yuri Anime | No Comments »


Events: Cartoonist Alliance Meeting Notes

September 15th, 2005

All I can say is – wow. The people at the Cartoonist Alliance and MoCCA were just lovely. Thanks to Denise Ozker, Chari Peres and Angela Entzminger for setting up my talk and being so welcoming – and talented! I had so very much fun. (So much so that I was supposed to leave at 8, but we all got pried out at 10:30. lol)

I am not unaware of the irony of me, a person who cannot draw a straight line with a ruler, addressing a meeting of artists. But I did get to tell them a bit about publishing and call upon my store of knowledge of random artistic influences. It was so great – all the folks at CA have real talent and passion. I look forward to a future of cartoon artists with that sort of drive.

I hope one day to come back for another meeting. In the meantime, I feel like I’d better get back into doing some writing! LOL I feel like I ought at least work at my chosen oeuvre a little harder, after seeing how much effort they put into their work.

If you are in the NYC area and interested in comics, cartooning, manga or animation art:

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art – MoCCA is a work in progress, but it’s got lots of great events, speakers, exhibitions, etc.

Cartoonist Alliance – This is a special interest group of the Guild of Graphic Artists. They meet monthly and are a really cool group of people. Tell them I say “hi!”

Posted in Events | No Comments »