Yuri Shimai Suspended

February 25th, 2005

The unofficial word is that Yuri Shimai is “on hiatus”. According to the report from a Japanese source sales were fine but, for various reasons, it has been suspended for the time being.

We will fervently hope that this is a restructuring, redesign, printing or distribution issue, and that it will be resolved and the magazine will be brought back soon!

This means that, once again, Yuri Monogatari is the only all-yuri anthology currently in print. (And we also fervently hope that, one day, it will be more than an annual publication.)

You can still order the existing issues of Yuri Shimai through Amazon Japan on the Yuricon Shop. If you do that it will show the powers that be there *is* an interested audience, which is never a bad thing.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to imagine how Ran and Julia get together….sigh.

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Xenosaga Anime

February 24th, 2005

I had *heard* of Xenosaga, and seen the above picture (and other Shion x KOS-MOS Yuri fan art) around for years. So I thought I’d give it a try.

If you haven’t guessed it already, let me make this plain – I am not a gamer. I do not enjoy games. Sorry folks, but doing something that feels very, very *good* for 80 hours doesn’t appeal, much less pushing a button for that long. ^_^ So, it was with little interest that I started to watch the new season of anime, since it’s almost all based on, or destined to become, games.

Xenosaga is only up to Episode 8 right now, but even without Yuri goggles you can see that KOS-MOS has a deep well of feeling, or something similar, for Shion…but overall the vibe has been a little disappointing.

With all those doujinshi out there I would have expected alot more Shion KOS-MOS together time. Instead, the anime has a real plot, with a fairly complex socio-political structure and warring factions that take all my time and concentration. Irritating, isn’t it? ^_^

Seriously though, for an anime based on a game, Xenosaga is quite decent. I like the overwrought opening theme, the underlying Qabalistic symbolism and the realism of the characters, even the annoying ones – and there are many of those. We don’t even really *have* bad guys yet, just sort of threatening agencies and political conspiracies and some hints of bigger baddies to come.

But back to the important bits – Shion and KOS-MOS. Someone on the Yuricon Mailing List commented that any woman who makes a robot that looks like an attractive woman, complete with sexy outfit and garters, is immediately suspect. But, from Shion’s reactions to the little-girl Realians and her relationship with KOS-MOS, I get more of a mother-daughter vibe off them. Nonetheless, when Shion meets the “real” KOS-MOS, maybe things will change.

In the meantime, turn up the Yuri goggles and enjoy uber-hunky Valyrie KOS-MOS blasting through walls to save her Shion, which goes a long way to making this anime good Yuri fun! ^_^

Posted in Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Mai HiME Update

February 23rd, 2005

I have very little time today, so I will be as brief as possible – Mai HiME is gay, and its good. Go watch it.

Pairs to watch out for:
Yukino’s not-quite-unrequited love for Haruka

Shizuru’s quiet obsession with Natsuki (please, gods, don’t let them be sisters or anything naff like that!)

Mikoto’s desire to protect Mai (does this make Mai her “most important thing”? If so…)

Excellent series – worth watching raw, worth watching any way you can get it. 6 episodes to the end and I’m absolutely hooked.

The manga has significantly less dignity, more nasty-feeling fansevice and the schlub Tate is the protagonist. Everyone I know is rooting for cool, hunky Reito-sama to get Mai. He won’t, but we can always hope. I’m also rooting for Yukino to get some courage and plant a big one on Haruka, while Shizuru takes Natsuki someplace quiet and…

Forget reading reviews – just go watch it! ^_^

Posted in Mai Hime, Yuri Anime | 2 Comments »


Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 Anime

February 16th, 2005

So, about 15 years after a generation of bottom-feeding otaku who wear t-shirts a size or three too small grew up on fantasizing about big-hair Priss and her sexy Pat Benatar-like tunes, a whole new iteration of the Knights Saber was thrown at us…and thank god for that!I just had to do this, and make you all face the horribleness of the old-school hair. ^_^ I defy anyone who says the OVA’s music was better, too. But more on that later.

In this TV series version, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, all of the Knights Sabers have significantly less 80’s hair and some of them have even have real jobs. Sylia still lounges around alot in slinky clothes, but Nene is no longer 12 and Linna has shed her idiotic non-job as an aerobics instructor. Priss is still a bad-ass angsty loner rock star, but this time she sings actual rock! Whee!

(The album of Akira Sudou as Priss for this anime was the very first anime music I ever bought and I don’t regret it, even now. I think Akira Sudou rocks. ROCKS. Every damn song on the album kicks butt. For the music alone, this anime beats the old OVA flat.)

In the beginning of the TV series, there’s a definite Linna x Priss vibe, but it really can’t go anywhere. Leon, who has been significantly de-Chelsea-ed for the 2040 series, and Priss, end up together. I’d like to be pissed off, but it actually makes more sense than Priss and Linna…I mean really. Linna does grow a pair from watching Priss, so there’s something to be said for grown-up akogare/admiration/desire.

I could, if I cared, see this Sylia with Priss more than the old one – there’s something blatantly sensual about new Sylia, but of course, she’s completely cracked and I wouldn’t wish her on an enemy.

Which leaves us with Nene and Sylia’s “cute” little brother, Mackey. He’s so “cute” as he accidentally sees the girls in various states of undress 182,298 times. Ha. Ha. Adorable.

There were a couple of things (other than the hair and music) that are significantly better than the original OVA. There were more men who were not bad guys or boomers, for one thing. And pretty much every character was openly dysfunctional, which fits the dystopian setting and tone of the story. The exception to this is Linna, who basically serves as the protagonist, so we can see it all through her eyes, from a relatively “normal” perspective. It makes everything in the Knights Sabers’ cyberpunk world look that much darker and skewed…something that really worked for me.

Downsides to 2040? The utterly dreadful non-ending. I wanted to slap the writers for creating yet another self-fulfilling prophecy which did nothing and went nowhere. And the bad guy, who had had 15 years to get a clue, was worse than ever. I just don’t see the appeal in world domination. I mean, think of the paperwork!

Despite the lower yuri level and the lame-ass ending, 2040 was good – if only for the hair and music. Probably only for the hair and music. It’s an interesting study in what 15 years does to audience expectations, anway.

While you’re digging out the old OVAs…get a hold of this series, too, and listen to some decent music for a change. ^_^

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Yuri Anime: Bubblegum Crisis/Bugglegum Crash

February 15th, 2005

Funny how I never seemed to get around to this series….

Way back, in the dawn of time, I was writing anime reviews for a newsletter that no longer exists, called Metro Druid News (It’s now transmogrified into News From the Other Grove, for which I no longer write, but it’s still pretty fun.) I was writing, specifically, reviews of anime with pagan/magical/spiritual content. So, of course, the companies kept sending me shounen action stories with guns. I suppose it made sense to someone. More likely, it was all they had.

In the middle of the piles of samurai and scifi, was a series called Bubblegum Crisis. I had *heard* of BGC – one could hardly avoid it since, along with Dirty Pair and Project A-ko, it was one of the earliest anime to make it to western shores. This is one of those anime series the old-timers talk about when they talk about huddling over Nth generation videos with mimeographed copies of hand-typed translations, well before fansubs existed. (My personal experience with this was 9th generation copy of a volume of raw Sailor Moon.)

BGC, for the three of you who have never heard of it, is a cyberpunk action story, about four women battling corporate corruption and mutating androids. A very Akira-period anime without the nuclear fallout feel. There was the inevitable yuri implications between the four female leads: Motorcycle-riding, tough, dark, angsty Priss; loli computer genius Nene; bland Lina and; slick, sexy rich-girl Sylia. For the women, there was an effeminate gay cop who flirts valiantly with straight male lead Leon. Even as I think back to my first watching of BGC,I can remember just how *much* this series had something for everybody. And, of course, a lot of mutating androids, guns and explosions. Not surprisingly, it’s still a fan favorite after all this time.

But, even as I watched and suffered through the soundtrack, (a comment for which I *know* I will recieve hate mail) I thought, well, you know Priss is butchy as hell…but ‘m just not seeing the Sylia x Priss thing everyone else is seeing. I tried, I really did! ^_^

But then Episode 5 rolled around and Sylvie – a motorcycle-ridin’ sexaroid with a noir storyline shows up and I simply took the yuri goggles off, because there was plenty to be seen without ’em. This was my first experience with rampant shounen yuri implication, so it sidelined me a bit.

Here’s a piece of obscure trivia – Priss was voted best overall anime lesbian in the first Yuricon Poll, which ran back in 2000. It caused a huge Usenet stink, because a bunch of people were offended that she was even considered to be a lesbian. I say, if it wears leather like a duck, and rides a motorcycle like a duck and hangs out with sexy lesbian sexaroids like a duck….

Don’t get me wrong – there is no happy ending here, but it’s still a pretty damn good story. Just enough dark and grim to give it atmosphere, lots of action, the requisite sexy chicks (at least, what passed for sexy anime chicks in the 1980s…bad hair alert!) and poor Priss’s excruciating Pat Benatar-like music, which were pretty much the perfect beat for walking on a treadmill. The old VHS tapes I had also included music videos made from clips of the arcs and the songs Priss sung in them…whether this was a “bonus” will directly depend on whether you *liked* the music or not. ^_^

If you haven’t watched BGC – especially if you’re a relatively recent Yuri fan – I strongly recommend that you do. It’s good to know where we’ve been to see where we’re going – and how far we have yet to go….

Posted in English Anime, Yuri Anime | 6 Comments »