Princess Knight Anime, Part 1 – Disk 5 (English) and Contest Winners

November 10th, 2013

As we reach the final disk of the first half of Osamu Tezuka’s  Princess Knight, things heat up significantly for Knight.

After Knight has many adventures (and again meet Satan and his daughter, who is now falling for Knight,) the King sets aside the crown in order to allow Knight to take the throne, but finally, Duralamin’s schemes pay off and Knight is publicly unveiled as a…gasp!…girl. Duralamin throws Knight into jail with her mother and puts his own son on the throne. (One is left to presume that he has paid off all the other nobles of the Kingdom, or surely they’d all be angling to rule.)

Knight finds a way to escape the jail and uses it to fight for her people, who are being cruelly used by Duralamin, as Phantom Knight. The disk leaves us wondering how, not if, she will manage to free Silverland.

And, actually, that was my only “complaint”…if you will. Had I been organizing the disks, I would have ended Disk 5 as Knight and her mother were dragged off to jail. It’s a pretty tense moment and would have made for a compelling cliffhanger. But no one asked me. ^_^

Now that Knight has been outed, I’m actually looking forward to the second half more than this half. Knight can be herself as a whole person as opposed to hiding and having Duralamin and Nylon being creepy about her.  From now on, Knight is a powerful, fearless Princess and just exactly the person who can save Silverland.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Characters – 8
Story – 8 While technically, the low point in the story, it’s a relief to be past the whole “she’s really a girl” nonsense.

Overall – 7

And now, the Princess Knight, Part 1 Box Set Contest Winners!

Joel Keralis
Emily Orr

Please contact me at yuricon at gmail dot com with your shipping addresses and I’ll get you set out to you asap!

Thank you everyone who entered and RightStuf for their generosity in providing these box sets for review and contest.

Posted in Contests, English Anime, Ribon no Kishi / Princess Knight | 3 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – November 9, 2013

November 9th, 2013

YNN_LissaI was up very late last night listening to the Hawaiian House debate same-sex marriage, so forgive me, but today will be super terse. /yawn/

Yuri/Lesbian/Other Related Movie News

Swedish Cinemas are adding a Bechdel Rating to movies. The Bechdel Test does not indicate that a movie is feminist or has strong women or is good, just that two women have a conversation about something other than a man. It’s a really low bar that a lot of movies do not reach.

 

I’ve been reading about an intriguing new piece of lesbian cinema sans controversy: Margarita, available from Video on Demand through Curve, a lesbian culture magazine. Several critics of Blue is the Warmest Color said this was a better movie, FWIW.

The Japanese Blu-ray release of Noir, will include the English dub. That is really interesting, don’t you think?

The Madoka Magica: Rebellion movie has made more than 1 Billion Yen in the first 2 weeks.  I had wanted to see that when it was in the theaters, but missed by a few weeks.

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Yuri Drama CD

Here’s an original (non-manga/anime source) Yuri CD series  – Lily Kuru – LIly LYric cyCLE. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 are all available on Amazon JP. I make absolutely no guarantees that it won’t be cringe-worthy. ^_^

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Manga News

Fantagraphics has had a hard time recently with the passing of one of the co-founders, Kim Thompson. YNN Correspondent David M. points out that they are doing a Kickstarter to “rescue” their spring season of 39 books, including Wandering Son, Volume 7. With almost a month to go they are at 80% or so. Kim would be pleased.

Psycho-Pass manga that focuses on Inspector Tsunemori Akane has 38,000 copies in print (this is the metric du jour).

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Other News

Voice Actress Shimizu Ai (Mikoto in Mai HiME, Tamao in Strawberry Panic! and many others) is making her pro-wrestling debut. O_o

ANN has a photo feature from the Lyon Yaoi Yuri Con event that was held last weekend in Lyon, France.

A new Card Captor Sakura figurine is being offered for sale. Is that the sound of a re-mastered release I hear?

I would totally wear these – 2PM is creating women’s boots inspired by Anthy and Utena’s footwear from Revolutionary Girl Utena.

Speaking of fashion, to congratulate us and Animesols for making the Dear Brother funding deadline, ANN has chosen a few designs so we can dress like Nanako, Mari, Rei, Kaoru or Fukiko. I LOVE this idea! Yay Lynzee of ANN for such a charming idea. I’ll end here, because this was just too cute!

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That’s a wrap for this week! 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 | 9 Comments »


Why We Tell Stories About Stories, at Harvard

November 8th, 2013

wtitle1Sorry for being away for so long. Obviously, I had to spend some days with my family. But in the midst of death life goes on.

Wednesday I had the chance to present my lecture on LGBTQ Audience Interpretation of Comics and Manga to a Gender Studies class at Harvard, thanks to the generosity of Prof. Kerey Luis, a good friend of ours at Yuricon. (And thanks to her wife and another good friend, Jude, for coming and getting us at the airport and chauffeuring us. Thanks so very much to both of you for dinner and fantastic conversation!)

This is the lecture I did at Montclair University’s Chibi-con this past summer and a similar lecture to the one I did in Kanagawa University last month. (Here is the the full-text of the lecture and companion slides to the Kanagawa University lecture. I hope to get the videos up soonish)

The basic idea is that we, as an audience, always reinterpret media as we consume it, through filters we create to fill our own needs. You can most easily see this in fanfic and fanart.. We recreate characters and situations to suit ourselves and tell the stories we want to hear. The first half of the lecture is me introducing myself, my writing and Yuricon, “Worldshaking” Fanfic and Okazu, and the second, more infinitely interesting half is comic pages presented without context, that the audience has to discuss and tell me what they think is going on.

The lecture went well, and the students were very receptive, and then we got to listen to them present and discuss issues of fandom. It was exhilarating, honestly.

Now that the lecture is done for the year, I’ve put the whole thing up, with my notes from Kanagawa on Slideshare. But since the good stuff is the class talking to me about how each panel makes them feel, you’ll have to do the work yourself to make the lecture interesting. ^_^

I am now taking applications for 2014, if you’d like to have me speak for your class, organization or event. Feel free to contact me!

Posted in Events, Now This Is Only My Opinion | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – November 2, 2013

November 2nd, 2013

YNN_MariK It’s going to be a datadump kind of day.

Yet another new Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha project has been announced. That makes something like 4 concurrent projects.

YNN Correspondent Danny D reminds you that Seven Seas’ release of A Centaur’s Life comes out next Tuesday.

Here’s a couple of interesting article/reviews to entertain yourself with:

A discussion of the end of Shimura Takako’s Aoi Hana by Kyosuke.

Anne Lee’s got an interesting take on the new Sailor Moon Musical, La Reconquista.

Jared Axelord’s excellent debunking of myths associated with sexual harassment at conventions and other public events. I recommend this to all geek guys everywhere. It addresses things like what behavior you can really expect of yourself and why you don’t “see” harassment.

Once you’re read all the serious things, take a look at J Gray’s Yuri webcomic, Mysteries of the Arcana for some fun reading.

In Memoriam: I’d appreciate it if you’d all take a moment to read the one review my father, who just passed away, did for Okazu on Shin Megami Tensei Kahn. Thanks Dad, you were always game.

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That’s a wrap for this week! 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 | 18 Comments »


Marine Corps Yumi Contest Results

November 1st, 2013

Here are the winners of the Marine Corps Yumi contest.

None of the winners have contacted me as of yet. If I don’t hear from any of you in the next 48 hours, I’ll pick new winners. (I *did* ask you to make sure you were logged in with an email so I could write you.)

These people, write me at yuricon at gmail dot com

Chris Driggers

Elizabeth

Miakoda Wolfsen

 

 

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »