Yuri Anime: Sweet Blue Flowers / Aoi Hana Disk 2 (English)

May 24th, 2013

swb Where Disk 1 of Sweet Blue Flowers was full of nostalgia and longing, Disk 2 is a brutally beautiful look at all the different kinds of pain people can inflict upon one another without ever meaning to – or wanting to – do so.

With the backdrop of the school play (and Sugimoto being simply too cool as Heathcliff,) Fumi finds herself unsure of her sempai’s feelings. As the days pass, she is more and more sure that Sugimoto likes someone else. When she discovers the truth and confronts Sugimoto, she finds an uncomfortable truth waiting for her, as well.

If the entire series was just this one disk, it would still be one of my favorites. The life lessons in it are deep and abiding. It’s a love song to young love and to Kamakura and to the springtime of youth. Above all, it is a love song to young girls who find themselves in love with other girls. You are not alone, you are not wrong, you can love and lose and love again. That’s a hell of a chorus and I am glad this series is out there, singing those important words.

I’ll say this once again, because it cannot be said too many times – despite her own words to the contrary, Fumi is an incredibly strong character. As I watched this series over again, I felt honored to be allowed to share in Fumi’s story.

The world could use more Fumis.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (with some lapses toward the last two episodes)
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 8
Service – 8  Sugimoto as Heathcliff is pure service. ^_^

Overall – 9

I’m so on pins and needles about the end of the manga. I know what I want it to be, but what will it be? /worry worry/

Posted in Aoi Hana/ Sweet Blue Flowers, English Anime, Shimura Takako | 2 Comments »


Tamako Market Anime, Guest Review by Katherine H.

May 22nd, 2013

Tamako_MarketI watched the first episode of Tamako Market and decided I was done with it. Even Yuri was not enough to make me watch any more. And now that Sentai has licensed it, I’m no more moved to review it than before.

Thankfully YNN Correspondent and Okazu Superhero (and all-around fabulous person) Katherine H. has agreed to take a break from writing reviews at her own blog, Yuri no Boke, and step in to cover me in a weak moment. I’ve taken a lot for Team Yuri, but the bird was too repulsive for me to deal with. Anyway, it is with genuine appreciation (and relief) that I turn the floor over to Katherine!

Sometimes less is more. I have never watched a show for which that phrase is more apt than Tamako Market.

Sixteen year-old Kitashirakawa Tamako is a mochi shop owner’s daughter. She grew up with her kid sister Anko, her father, and her grandfather. Like her father and grandfather, her passion is making and selling mochi, even seeing Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to drum up business by making chocolate-filled, heart-shaped mochi.

Tamako loves her neighborhood, the close-knit Usagiyama shopping district, whose business owners treat her like family. She usually hangs out with Kanna and Midori, two girls whose families own businesses in the area. She is also close friends with Mochizou, the son of the owner of the mochi shop across the street. Tamako and Mochizou’s dads see each other as rivals, but this is played for comedy.

If Tamako’s family and the nice people in her neighborhood were all this show is about, it would be a solid slice-of-life show. However, someone involved in its production apparently watched Coming to America and thought, “This show needs something like that, but with a talking bird!”

In episode 1, Kaoru, the local flower shop owner, finds a huge talking cockatiel in a bouquet when Tamako visits her shop. The cockatiel insists on going home with Tamako and introduces himself as Dera Mochimazzui. Dera has flown from a made up country in the south Pacific to find a suitable bride for his prince. It’s Dera’s fault that Tamako Market feels like two shows mashed together- like a jalapeño puree added to a peach smoothie. “Well, Katherine, I liked the show fine. Dera’s subplot didn’t bother me.” That’s fine and dandy- I’m sure someone liked it, but I wanted to poison whoever came up with it.

In episode 7, Choi, a girl who serves the same prince Dera serves, comes to check up on Dera’s progress. She’s the best thing about this subplot because she’s like, “Stop being such an annoying little shit” to Dera. Alas, her arrival precipitated Tamako Market’s climax, in which the prince himself, with his bodyguards who look uncomfortably like racist caricature drawings of black people, arrives in Tamako’s hometown.

Everyone stupidly expects Tamako to leave to marry the prince even though it’s Choi who decided Tamako should marry him and Tamako’s reaction to that was pretty much, “Huh?” Tamako cares more about having enough shopping points to win a pendant than the proposal, until she gets saddened and upset that everyone expects her to leave—although, wtf Tamako, I know you’re dense, but why did you take so long to clarify that you don’t want to marry the prince, other than needing to fill out twelve episodes? The Dera subplot not only sucked in its own right, it made everyone conveniently stupid.

There is good in the show, when it focuses on Tamako and her friends and family and minimizes Dera. Tamako is a likeable lead, despite how dense she is. (I was amused that being dense is a family trait, and her dad and grandpa are the same way, though.)

I don’t find Anko herself particularly compelling, but her episodes were sweet—the first one focusing on her relationship with her deceased mother, and the second one giving us a look at how her and Tamako’s parents got together.

Midori, our yuri character, got three episodes: episode 2, the Valentine’s Day episode; episode 5, the class trip to the beach episode; and episode 10, the school cultural festival episode.

In episode 2, Midori comes to terms with her feelings for Tamako. The most surprising thing about this episode is Kanna telling Midori, out of the blue, that “Anyone can love anyone they want.” I like to think Kanna said that because she caught on to Midori’s feelings :-)

In episode 5, Mochizou decides to confess his feelings for Tamako, but Midori finds out what he plans to do and prevents him. Btw, anyone who thought Midori was being “mean” by running interference—what the hell is the alternative? Sitting idly by and risk letting the person she loves being taken? I’m glad she had the cojones to do what she did.

Midori tells Tamako she loves her, but Tamako earnestly says that she loves Midori back in a way clearly meant platonically. Nonetheless, again, I’m glad Midori did something, while still acting the way a teenaged girl in love might act instead of being like “Hern, TAMAKOOOOOO, LEMME GROPE YOUR BOOBS.” By the end of episode 5, Midori and Mochizou recognize each other’s feelings for Tamako, and come to a mutual understanding over them. Mochizou makes his feelings apparent in front of Tamako—and unlike Midori, in front of other people—also, but Tamako doesn’t recognize them for what they are either.

Episode 10 focuses on Midori’s role as President of her school’s Baton Club (which Tamako and Kanna are part of) rather than her love life. She takes it on herself to design their costumes and choreograph their dance for the school cultural festival, and finds that she’s in over her head in doing the latter. She’s afraid of disappointing the other club members, but when they find out, they offer to help. Things turn out fine and they give a good performance.

As a one-sided crush, Midori’s storyline doesn’t do much for me as a Yuri fan, but she’s a good character and her crush is handled well for what it is. Episode 2’s message, delivered by Kanna, pleasantly surprised me, even if it was handled a bit awkwardly by being given no context by the show, my assumptions aside. Add that to Kaoru being trans without anyone caring or it being treated like something wacky (which is inconsistent with Midori keeping her feelings under wraps in front of other people more than Mochizou, but still nice), and you have a pretty LGBTQ-friendly show.

In short, again, this would be a solid, enjoyable slice-of-life story if you stripped away certain additions to it.

Art: 8 for everything except the prince’s bodyguards, who get a -10

Story: 7 for the non-Dera aspects, 3 for Dera’s subplot

Characters: All over the place. 7 for the overall cast excluding Dera, 2 for Dera

Yuri: 4

Service: There’s that one comedic butt shot in the bath, and the girls wear swimsuits at some point, and I assume someone somewhere will get off on that. There are also a couple times Dera peeks at the girls in the public bath. The girls themselves aren’t shown from his perspective, so it’s a mild example of that gag, but I can understand how it might be a deal-breaker for someone jaded by the creepy commonality of peeping gags in anime and manga. 3

Overall: 5

Once again, I say thank you, thank you! and sob a little at your ankles, Katherine for the fabulous review. I hope you know you’re welcome as a guest anytime. ^_^

Posted in Miscellaneous | 10 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Mangatime Kirara Miracle (まんがタイムきららミラク)

May 21st, 2013

Today’s post is less of a “review” and more of a heads-up. ^_^ Along with Ichijinsha’s Comic Yuri Hime, and Shinshokan’s Pure Yuri Anthology Hiirari and Hobunsha’s Tsubomi magazine, there is a secret repository of Yuri on Japanese manga magazine shelves. ^_^

Where is this secret repository of Yuri? It lives in the pages of Hobunsha’s Mangatime Kirara family of magazines  – or, as I like to refer to them, Mangatime Kirara and all its little wizards. You already are familiar with some of the MTK titles – Hidamari Sketch, K-ON! and Yuyushiki all come from the pages of the various MTK magazines.

Today I’m looking at Mangatime Kirara Miracle (まんがタイムきららミラク). It has several Yuri-ish series that I have, thus, far, mostly ignored. ^_^ All (or almost all) of the MTK stories are 4-panel comic strips. They share format and layout – and a pattern of joke-telling known as Kishoutenketsu – and therefore have the same “flavor” as K-ON! or Sunshine Sketch. As I’ve said in reviews of 4-koma books in the past, they are best read a few pages at a time, or the pacing starts to feel repetitive.

Right now, Mangatime Kirara Miracle is running several “Yuri” series:

Sakura Trick (桜Trick)  is a school life comedy-drama. Two volumes are out in Japanese. Volume 1 | Volume 2

Lily (リリイ) is a school life comedy drama that recently started in the magazine.

Loveliest Treasoner (ラブリストリズナー) *just* started running in the April volume. And, yes, it’s a school life comedy-drama.

Do you sense a pattern? ^_^ All three of these series have some actual Yuri. In the rest of the series running in the magazine, like many other mostly-female cast-4-koma series, it often feels like every female character in any given series can be paired up with another without any actual visible emotion, affection or, really, any reason to think that they belong together. /coughLuckyStarcough/ (I know Lucky Star is not an MTK series. ^_^;)

I’m going to sit here and make myself read this magazine/these series today. I’ll let you know at a later date whether you’ll ever be hearing about them again…or not. ^_^

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari (ピュア百合アンソロジーひらり) Volume 10

May 20th, 2013

I note that I have five markers in the pages of Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari  Volume 10 (ピュア百合アンソロジーひらり), which is a very good sign. ^_^ Also note the very “Yuri classic” stylish cover by Konno  Kita.

In “Ichigo Drops to Kase-sen” Kase-san and Yamada-san take their relationship to a new level, finding a moment for some gentle intimacy on the class trip. One of the things I very much like about this series is how slowly it is progressing. This not the typical rushing from “we like one another” to “we’re together” to “have sex,” one so often sees. It’s perfectly plausible – and sweet – to see a relationship at this age develop at a more leisurely pace. This series continues to be the benchmark of the anthology, IMHO.

In Morishima-sensei’s “Seijun Shoujo Paradigm” Aoi and Lily find themselves on something that’s awfully like a date without meaning to be. I’ve wondered for years if this is a universal lesbian thing – apparently, it is. ^_^

“Majyou and Hikikomori” was just silly. As in Scape-God, sometimes a shut-in just needs a powerful magical creature of her own. In this case, to cook and clean for her lazy ass.

Mitsuki has a chance to fall in love with her lover Ayumu all over again in “Chandelier Stardust.”

But, the story that really did it for me this volume is a little princess and her knight ditty that was relatively standard until the final panel that was evidently meant to look like a piece of medieval artwork. Bing! Bing! We have a winner. ^_^

Ratings –

Variable, of course, it’s an anthology

Overall – 7

Hirari has settled into a very solid Yuri anthology and I am starting to anticipate getting each new volume, a far cry from my original apathy.

Posted in Hirari, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Yuri Manga: Cirque Arachne (サーク・アラクニ)

May 19th, 2013

Do you remember Kaleido Star? I do. I remember I had a very contentious relationship with the series. I disliked some of it to distraction and loved some of it to tears. The series was constantly made worth watching for the intense relationship between the star of the show Layla and the energetic newcomer, Sora – a relationship that was almost, but not quite, what we hoped it would become.

I am, it seems, not the only one who felt the story needed to be “fixed.” ^_^ Yuri manga artist Saida Nika clearly felt that if there was less “break your self-esteem into shreds to force it to grow” and more “Sora and Layla sitting on a trapeze” it would be better all around, as well. And so, we find ourselves reading Cirque Arachne (サーク・アラクニ). smiling, because even the Amazon JP description say what we can all see – this is the version of Kaleido Star we always wanted.^_^

Thetis, called Teti, is a newcomer to Cirque Arachne and is paired instantly with the show’s current star, the emotionally distant Charlotte. Lotte finds her gaze returning again and again to Teti, finds herself remembering and confronting her painful past, her self-imposed loneliness and, at last, her feelings of attraction for the new girl.

Teti is everything Lotte is not – she’s openly passionate about her love for acrobatics, for her enjoyment of…everything, from high places to delicious kebabs. And Lotte.

While they train together – as Circus Mistress Leni planned all along – they grow closer until, inevitably, they open their hearts to one another. Cirque Arachne will now have two stars, who will face the audience with hands and hearts entwined. Awww.

An extra chapter of Saida’s earlier work “Berry Girl” closes the book.

Because Cirque Arachne was very obviously written for those of us who had seen Kaleido Star and wanted to see it re-created in our own image, the story has little padding. It gets right down to the meat, without much digression. Both Teti and Lotte get just enough backstory to render them individual and apart from their earlier influences. In a sense the story moves too fast,  but because we all knew the rest of the story, it’s just the right length. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9 Fixed, at last
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 8
Now that’s she’s gotten this out of her system (for which I thank her immensely!) I look forward to more from Saida-sensei. Let’s see what else she can do. ^_^

Posted in Kaleido Star, Yuri Manga | 12 Comments »