What Are We Watching, Western Cartoon Edition

March 5th, 2017

Several times in recent weeks, I have had occasion to comment that I am currently watching as many or more western cartoons than anime at the moment. In no way is this meant as a slam to anime. I still like it. I’m way behind on my watching, but that’s no one’s fault but my own. ^_^ 

I’ve written about Steve Universe several times already. It is, in my opinion, one of the finest cartoons I’ve ever watched, with moments of genuinely brilliant, Emmy-worthy writing.

Today I wanted to mention two cartoons that could not be more different if they tried.

First, if you are a fan of magical girl anime, you really must be watching Star vs the Forces of Evil. Star is a magical girl princess who has come from another dimension (As the OP says, “I ain’t from ’round here”) to live on Earth and the adventures she and her best bud Marco get into. It’s…well, it’s fantastic. ^_^ 

The story is smart, riffing on plenty of magical girl themes, but also just taking an intelligent tack on funny quirks of the genre, adding a dash of wacky and keeping the writing real for characters that are meant to be teens.

Star and Marco are often accompanied by a floating, glittery unicorn head and, of course, face evil bad guys, but the best episodes are often in the way every-day issues are blown out of proportion with magic. Shopping in “Quest Buy” with a gift card that if Marco doesn’t use, when it expires, will take them with it, for instance. A recent episode worth watching goes into the details of how Star’s magic wand has become corrupted and must be fixed.  (Click this link and watch it, at least for the OP, but the episode is a decent one, as well.)

The pacing is generally fast, the episodes are “wackiness ensues” with lots of screaming. 

The characters are likable. Marco and Star’s friendship is a friendship….and a good one. They have both had feelings for each other, but asymmetrically (which is the subject of a recent arc, in fact. This is the same arc which included same-sex kisses in a scene, a first for a Disney cartoon.) They make a great team, but are not perfect or one-dimensional. The bad guys do tend to be more for humor factor than any real threat. As handwaves go, it’s perfectly acceptable. It’s not that there isn’t a progression to the series, but most episodes can be viewed with no more information than that provided in the opening animation, but if you watch it regularly, you can see that there’s a definite change in Star and Marco’s relationship with each other and with their other friends (who do get caught up in their adventures, so yeah, they know Star’s a magic princess.) The writing assumes the audience is not a bunch of duds, which is refreshing. Things we’re thinking are things the characters say.

Ultimately, if magical girls without creepy service is a thing you’d enjoy, you’re probably going to enjoy Star vs the Forces of Evil. I certainly do.

Secondly, as far from the enjoyable teen antics of Star as possible, the other cartoon I’m consuming obsessively is:

Archer. No one who knows me well will be even remotely surprised that I like this cartoon. It’s vulgar and violent, but written for “mature audiences” as they warn you. This is not the immature tee-hee of fanservice. This is the hearty guffaw of “eat a bag of dicks” and nudity. 

A fairly brilliant parody of the super-spy narrative idealized by James Bond, Archer is really, really offensive. Remember, as Miss Meteyard said, ““Some people can be funny without being vulgar, and some can be both funny and vulgar. I should recommend you to be either the one or the other.” Archer is funny and vulgar. It also must be the most fun job to voice act in the world. Aisha Tyler as Lana Kane is the absolute epitome of voice-acting in America right now, but it is the bitter, rich, intolerant, alcoholic Mallory Archer who speaks deeply to my soul. I aspire to her glorious level of incendiary, incandescent loathing. ^_^ 

A good example of why I like the series is this line, in which Archer complains about an overcomplicated CIA plan, “all it needed was a sign that said, ‘free bird seed.’” Laughed for a good ten minutes at that.

There’s a lot of implied sex in the series. Lana is primarily straight, but Pam has had sex with all the other woman in the office and some of the men. Cheryl/Carol is…who the fuck knows what she is, and while Mallory is always looking for a sugar husband, we are led to believe that she has also had sex with Pam at least once.  One of the agents, Ray, is gay (and sometimes lacking the use of his legs or an arm) but he’s never gotten anything for it but a bunch of really insensitive jokes.

So, that’s what I’m watching right now. What are you watching these days? It’s an open thread in the comments! Let’s have those cartoon recommendations!

 

Posted in Miscellaneous | 18 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 4, 2017

March 4th, 2017

LGBTQ Manga Event

Don’t miss the Rainbow Manga Talk at Hunter College, in NYC on Friday, March 10th! Registration is free. It should be loads of fun, so do join myself and Anne Ishii for the talk.

 

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LGBTQ Cartoon News

Did you catch the same-sex kisses in a recent episode of Star vs the Forces of Evil? The San Diego Gay and Lesbian News did. This is a first for Disney and, as it happens I *did* see that episode. ^_^ In fact, I’m planning on reviewing that cartoon tomorrow.

Not cartoon, but you may have seen news that Disney’s upcoming live-action version of Beauty and the Beast will include a gay character. There’s a lot of controversy about this, and not all from the anti-side. It’ll be very interesting to see how Le Fou is handled but, let’s face it, we’re still mostly pulling for Elsa to get a girlfriend in Frozen 2. ^_^

 

Yuri Visual Novel

Crunchyroll has a news item on the boobalicious “Yuri” VN, Alpha’s Adventures. I qualify “Yuri” only because of the stills that show Alpha abusing some poor woman’s breast like a 14 year-old boy might. It kinda icks me out that there’s anyone that thinks that looks sexy. Looks painful to me. ^_^;

 

Yuri Anime Goods

Sailor Moon Collectibles has the news of Premium Bandai’s earring and choker sets based on Sailor Uranus and Neptune’s Senshi uniforms.

Crunchyroll has news of an upcoming Tenjou Utena Figma figurine announced at GSC’s Wonder Festival. And while you’re setting up your doll, Crunchyroll wants you to dress in your Rose Crest shirt based on Revolutionary Girl Utena.

To celebrate the 4th Sailor Moon Musical DVD, Amour Eternal,  a mini-live event and talk show series is being held with 5 of the actresses in Tokyo, Osaka and Kanagawa this month.

 

Other News

This is utterly unrelated to anything, except that I think it’s cool. Check out ALI Project’s newest video, “Himiko Gaiden,” via Komatsu-san’s report on Crunchyroll. ^_^

If you have Turner Classic Movies tune in today at 2:15 AM for the psychedelic anime created by Tezuka and re-mastered last year, Belladonna of Sadness. ANN has the report.  This movie is beautiful, but Tezuka’s desire to complete it is, in part, responsible for the failure of his animation company.

The Japanese Maritime Defense Force has named Commander Ohtani Miho to be the first woman to skipper a destroyer in the MSDF’s history. 

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find.Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: MURCIÉLAGO 9 ( ムルシエラゴ 9)

March 2nd, 2017

By Volume 9 of MURCIÉLAGO (ムルシエラゴ), one might expect the schtick to be getting a little tired. I mean, murderous bad guy, extreme violence, blah blah blah. But..nope. ^_^

The arc with the war-era group of crazy nationalists comes to an end with a strange connection to Hinako. But it comes to an end. And, as the final battle is occurring in the sewers below the city, a new/old character is handing herself over to the police. Aiko returns to us from an earlier arc and with her -at last – there is someone who is not Kuroko to care for former serial killer Ringo. In fact, Ringo and Aiko make a great team, as we see later in the volume.

To celebrate wrapping up the case, Hinako demands a beach vacation, where she and Ringo fish and swim and *finally*, moved to action by the return of another character from a former arc, Chiyo admits she desires Kuroko. While the gang fishes with the-woman-formerly-known-as-Teresa, Narumi, Chiyo gets to enjoy Kuroko’s freakishly long forked tongue.

And then the robot lands in a ball of fire.

Mad scientist Saki is being tailed by another mad scientist and Hinako gets to be a pilot in a giant robot fight! It was awesome.

The whole volume was pretty great. Entire buildings are destroyed, but only a few people we didn’t like anyway die and Hinako gets to pilot a giant robot.

Ratings:

Art – Um…
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Service – 9
Yuri – 9, but really more for Chiyo cluing in than the sex which was um….

Overall – 9 Probably my favorite volume since the Virginal Rose arc and much less gruesome.

It wraps up with a oh-so-ironic story about incestuous sisters that I will now forget completely.

Posted in MURCIÉLAGO, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


LGBTQ Game: Ladykiller in a Bind

March 1st, 2017

It’s Guest Review Wednesday and it is my very sincere pleasure to welcome back Guest Reviewer and Okazu Superhero Ashley for a very exciting review!

You should remember the name Christine Love. She’s an indie game dev who has made a pretty big splash with her games,  Don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story (which has been reviewed here on Okazu), Digital: A Love Story and Analogue: A Hate Story, at Love Conquers All Games. Today we’re going to get a look at her newest game! You have the floor, Louis!

A game about a suave and cool lady who gets pulled into over the top intrigue on a high class cruise, and it is written by Christine Love! This ticks all of the boxes in this list I just wrote! What is its name?

‘My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress as Him and Now I Have to Deal with a Geeky Stalker and a Domme Beauty Who Want Me in a Bind!’

Or Ladykiller in a Bind for short.

Our ‘Ladykiller’ in this case is The Beast… or the Hero or really whatever you want. Everyone is referred to by nicknames that you can pick or make up yourself. But to keep things simple here we will use the names on the game’s website.

The Beast, as we shall call her, is a fantastic protagonist, cool, sexy, but still dorky and genre blind enough for it to be understandable when she is caught off guard by things the player will see coming long before she does. It is also hard to get a full grasp of her right away as we really are dumped into events running but, luckily she shares narration duties with her brother who is her equal in backtalk. You learn a lot about both of them from how they jostle to get their views in.

The Beast has volunteered to take the place of her twin brother, known as The Prince, at his graduation celebration. In return, The Prince will take The Beast’s place at summer school and pass her failed classes for her. Because of the cruel actions of their farther, The Prince goes to a different school, one that holds its graduation celebration over a week on a giant cruise ship. Not only that, but, a mysterious third party announces a simple and way too easily accepted social game where the students trade votes between each other. The student with the most votes at the end of the cruse gets five million dollars. However as everyone only has one vote it very quickly becomes a contest amongst the most popular movers and shakers in the school. Who just so happen to be The Prince’s classmates.

Said classmates are what you get when you blend equal parts ‘Dallas’ with ‘Gintama’. Over-wealthy, sharp-tongued socialites who are also an endearing, goofy and fun to learn about.  The Beast talks to them and slowly gains and understanding of what is going on, as The Prince did not care to tell her much, The Beast must be careful to not arouse suspicion that she is, in fact, not her brother. If The Beast breaks character too many times, the game just ends, perhaps too abruptly, and you must load a save. The trouble is that The Prince has a public persona of being selfish and blunt so almost always if you want to do nearly anything benevolent or exciting it will draw suspicion.

Cue the first of the games two ‘heroines’; The Beauty (get it?). The Beauty is the only person amongst the students who knows The Beast’s true identity. At night The Beast can visit The Beauty who will offer to use her standing to explain away all of The Beast’s suspicious actions. In return The Beast will help The Beauty act out her fantasies of tying up and dominating a handsome woman like The Beast. The Beast herself, after pretending to be someone else and lying to people for an entire day, finds incredible catharsis in allowing The Beauty to take complete control for the time they are together.

While the narration does to a fantastic job of showing The Beast’s headspace in these scenes, very useful if you are a neophyte to this kind of play, I was even more impressed with what we learn about The Beauty in these scenes. There are moments such as when she stops and consults her phone to make sure she has tied a knot correctly or when she makes sure The Beast takes an anti-inflammatory after their session that show the care and planning she has taken to enact her fantasy bleeding through for us to notice. This might be all very new to The Beast but this is a rare and important time for The Beauty too.

The Stalker (just a nickname!), however, has a completely different dynamic with The Beast. While The Beauty knows what she likes and has a list, mood music and a timer, The Stalker is really only sure that she likes The Beast. The Beast then ends up being a partner who can guide her though exploring what she likes – making sure she never feels overwhelmed, until she wants to feel overwhelmed. But it is not just incredibly adorable sex, there is also incredibly adorable dossing around and talking about frivolous things like The Stalker’s bad taste in music or her absolutely huge family. The Stalker and The Beast have some of the best chemistry I have seen in two leads for a long time.

But, if you want to see all of The Stalker’s events you had better be good at pretending to be The Prince during the day as you will need to keep your suspicion low the whole week and this can force you to make some tough choices. Conversely, sticking to The Beauty’s events means you can rack up the amount of suspicion you would need to save over the week in a day and everything will be fine tomorrow provided you crawl back to the Beauty.

This is what makes Ladykiller in a Bind more interesting than your usual erotic visual novel.  The main game element of visual novels, that is making dialogue and event choices, becomes tied to the romantic and erotic encounters with the two main heroines.

Don’t go thinking this is a binary choice, either. Choose your events right and there is even a third route involving The Beauty, The Beast and The Stalker all together in easily the best multi partner route I have ever read. This genuinely caught me off guard, as events change way ahead of time to account for these actions. Never, in my experience, has a game changed the ending to a scene so that one character can compliment another on that cool love bite she gave another. It is great to have a main character in a visual novel whose endless flirty charm is a strength that adds positivity to the story, rather than something used for a cheap bad ending.

Normally after I have read all the endings to a visual novel I shelve it, but with Ladykiller in a Bind I find myself eager to go back and read scene variations the moment I have finished with this review something that has not happened in a long time.

Ratings:

Art – 9 (Everyone gets a different outfit every day)
Story – 7
Characters – 10
Yuri – 10
Service – 10

Overall – 9

I highly recommend also checking out Christine Love giving a talk about narrative design techniques she and her team learned during the process of developing Ladykiller in a Bind.

Erica here: Thank you Louis! When I saw the announcement of Ladykiller, I have to admit, I was really glad to see an adult game for mature adults, as opposed to most of the adult games which seem to favor a immature and inexperienced audience.

Ladykiller is also available on Steam, as well as from Humblebundle.

So thank you for this review. If I enjoyed games at all, I would definitely give this one a try!

Posted in Ashley P, Guest Review, Yuri Game, Yuri Visual Novel | 10 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Hana to Hina ha Houkago, Volume 3 ( ハナとヒナは放課後 )

February 27th, 2017

In Volume 1, we met Hana and Hina, schoolmates who share a (against school rules) job working at a character goods store. Hina has a second part-time job modeling. In Volume 2, Hana learns something world-changing – Hina also previously had a girlfriend. Fighting with herself about nascent feelings for the younger woman, this changes her own perspective radically.

In Volume 3 of Hana to Hina ha Houkago ( ハナとヒナは放課後 ), Hana screws up her courage to bring up Hina’s former relationship, only to have the idea shot down by Hina, who blames Maiko for making it all awkward. She assures Hana that she’s “normal.” Now Hana is thrown into a real tizzy. She still likes Hina – having found the courage to admit that, she is devastated that her feelings won’t be returned. Things become very tense between them. Will they get together? I’m not going to spoil this book, as you too will be reading it in English (Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3) soon enough! But…seriously…what are the chances that they don’t get together? Pretty much nil, since it’s a series by Morinaga Milk. ^_^

The what, though, isn’t really that important. The how is. 

If there is any criticism I have of Morinaga-sensei’s work, it is the fantasy of it all. Stress exists only as an internal struggle – the character(s) wrestling with their own feelings. There’s almost no interaction with external difficulties. No disapproving parents, no prejudiced school administrations. It’s a handwave I’m glad to accept, as it allows the story to exist as it’s own thing, in the fantasy of a lily-scented landscape. This may be changing

(In the following notes, there may be some small spoilers. I’ve done my best to minimize them, but be warned.)

In Kisses, Sighs and Cherry Blossoms Pink, Hitomi merely fantasizes about a future in which she and Nana are adults and can be together. In GIRL FRIENDS (Volume 1 and Volume 2) Morinaga-sensei took a step outside the isolation of a “couple in love” and gave Akiko and Mari friends…friends who accepted them and their relationship. In the very end, Mari even gave some thought to the issues of coming out to parents and what school and work might think…in the future. 

In Hana to Hina ha Houkago, it is through the existence of a previous relationship that Hana learns about Hina’s  sexuality. This is not unknown as a plot complication in manga, and often is denied, as Hina does. But it’s also addressed later on when Hina speaks more honestly.

Hana still has the benefit of a friendship outside Hina and it is in that friendship that she finds the strength to speak to Hina, when the tension between them is becoming oppressive.

The ending touches briefly upon two new issues for a Morinaga-sensei work, marriage and coming out. They are both presented with a creative flourish, without connection to the “real” world, but both in unique and positive ways. In a sense, it’s Morinaga-sensei herself taking tentative steps with her hyper cute romance narratives towards something with more depth. With Otouto no Otto running in the same magazine, maybe Morinaga-sensei’s feeling more confident about her narratives “coming out.” I’d like to think that she is. In her next series, we’ll hope to get the characters navigating dating or living together. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 8
Service – 6 Sex is a thing that happens
Yuri – 8 See above

Overall – 9 for sexuality, coming out and marriage actually being addressed. ^_^

Morinaga-sensei shows us again that she’s strongest in a character-driven plot when she’s given the time to tell the whole story. At 3 volumes, I think Hana to Hina ha Houkago is her strongest work to date.

Posted in Morinaga Milk, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »