Girly Comic, Volume 3 (English)

December 16th, 2011

girlyset-caseVolume 1 was getting Otra and Winter sorted out as a couple and Volume 2 was them dealing with being a couple…so what on earth could Volume 3 of Girly even be about?

That’s a darn good question and the book itself had a really hard time getting around to answering it.

Volume 3 starts with 4-color pages, that probably took a very, very long time to draw, and the art is actually quite decent. But you know, I don’t look at the art in a comic, except as an afterthought. (I know, I know, reading the words first, then looking at the pictures is a really strange way to read a comic, but it’s what I do. So sue me.) So the art is sort of wasted on me when the story is focused, basically, on there being no story. Or, no story as far as we, the readers are concerned. There *is* a story of course, and eventually we get around to being told it, then it ends and we all have a good laugh and move on.

Volume 3 has some of the best individual comics Josh drew for Girly. I probably laughed out loud while reading this volume more than I did for CuteWendy and the first two volumes combined. Otra and Winter’s relationship has settled down so, when Gelady shows up with a pretty intense crush on Otra, we’re never really worried for an instant, and neither is Winter.

I like the idea of HappyCo., as the bad guy. I know they’ll be back. Steak was a terrible idea and someone should have stopped Josh from bringing him back..surely he has friends who could have warned him?…but what was a terrible plot idea did genuinely create the best line of the entire volume, when the entire campus of Cutetown U. mobilizes to stop Otra and Winter from looking for a girlfriend for Steak. “We’ve been doing this for 10 minutes!” made me laugh for an hour.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 5

Overall – 8

So, while not the best start out of the gate, probably the best writing and art overall, both separately and together.

Posted in English Manga, Western Comic/Comix, Yuri Webcomics | 1 Comment »


Batwoman Comic, Issues 1-4 (English)

December 15th, 2011

As a present for being a good girl all year and working hard at my three jobs, I bought myself a tablet as a replacement travel computer. Objecting as I do to Apple’s content-censoring decisions, I chose a Samsung Galaxy Tablet, which is now named Tabibito.

I spend the first few days getting the hang of the interface, downloading a few apps and rearranging the screen the way I like it. You know, normal stuff. Once I got myself up and running, I loaded up with a bunch of books – first things first. (Over My Dead Body by Nero Wolfe and The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette, in case you care.) Then I decided that, if I had the chance, I’d try my hand at reading Batwoman as a digital download.

As I’ve said before, I never was a DC comic reader. And I’ve been out of American comics for a very long time now. This was as much a way to test out the tablet as to read the comic, but what the heck, while I went through all the steps, I might as well get a review out of it. ^_^

Comixology punted me to the DC app which was a no-brainer to download. In fact, all the downloading so far has been so painless, I kind of don’t really believe it’s working until I try it out. Obviously, I had to register to buy and download.

I found Batwoman, Issues 1-4 with a simple search and downloading was maybe two or three clicks. Overall, the app issue was simple, straightforward and painless.

Opening up Batwoman, Issue 1, I knew going into it, the art was very detailed, and the panel structure was crazy paving. The cover and those few pages that were laid out in regular panel format looked absolutely breathtaking. Most of the book, however, is 2-page layouts with irregularly shaped panels (including one pretentious Bat-logo shaped layout which made me stabby.) These presented no problem and gave me a chance to test out resizing, and layout on the Galaxy. Both get top marks from me – there was great sensitivity to touch, I rarely had to fix a resize and it was very intuitive. Layout on the tablet was instant, from landscape to portrait with no fuss.

Story-wise, this arc instantly held together better than that in Elegy, although there still are a few holes. Kate Kane, socialite and wastrel, is out training with Bette Kane, her cousin and sidekick, Flamebird. Kate’s manner is imperious, commanding Bette with little context. Bette is impetuous and the setup was foreshadowed pretty heavily. Worse, later on Batman comes around to warn Kate to keep Bette under wraps. Ow ow ow! Keep that foreshadowing stick off my head!

Kate is apparently seeing Detective Maggie Sawyer who, as a smart, competent cop, was the only other really big hole in the story so far. That Sawyer hasn’t even vaguely considered that Kate might possibly be Batwoman strikes me as strange. Their relationship is pretty decent and I have no qualms about them together, except for the one thing I really can’t get past. Kate’s hair is unnaturally red (which I approve of) but she has a really ugly hairdo. And her skin is unnaturally white. With that hair and that skin, I can’t help but think that making love to her would be like making love to Ronald McDonald. Ick.

The badguy is a mythic watery temptress that allows for some very lovely visuals, although succubus-esque behavior of evil females is really tired.

In Volume 4, the foreshadowing stick lands hard and the thing that Kate was warned to not let happen happens. Which brings me to the only really major issue I had with the series. In Volume 4, there is a very beautifully drawn sex scene between Maggie and Kate. In black and white, it’s artistic, understated and erotic without being porn-y. Unfortunately, it floats above a very unappealingly rape-ish assault on Flamebird. The action isn’t rape-like at all, but the language is. I realize this was meant to be ironic, but it really just came off as a cheap shot.

Nonetheless, the sex scene itself was really nice. I liked Maggie more after volume 4 than I did when I first saw her in Volume 1, and seeing that she really cares for Kate made them completely work for me as a couple.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 (needs time to develop)
Characters – 7 (same, not sure if I can like them yet)
Lesbian – 10
Service – 7 (fair amount of T&A pandering)
Tablet reading experience – 6 not quite as natural as paper

Overall – 7 I’m willing to give it time.

I still am not a fan of the super-saturated colors of modern comics, and really am distressed by Kate’s skin tone, but other than that, I have to say that Batwoman, so far, is pretty good.

Posted in English Manga, LGBTQ, Western Comic/Comix | 12 Comments »


Revolutionary Girl Utena Anime Box Set – Volume 2, Disk 2 (English)

December 13th, 2011

Revolutionary Girl Utena, Volume 2, Disk 2.

This is where it gets really good.

Up to this point, the Black Rose arc has seemed superficially similar to the first arc. Kanae’s rage against Anthy seems overreacting, but we really don’t know much about Kanae or Anthy, and hey, we’re all creeped out by the portrayal of psychoanalysis in the form of Mikage’s Freudian elevator. And Kozue…we’ve written her off multiple times already. She’s not jealous of Anthy, just of her brother. Bro-con, ho hum.

But. Now. Shiori is here. Shiori, who sought to hurt Juri, to tarnish her shine, because she was too perfect, too shining. Oh yeah, fandom loves to hate Shiori.

But look at it from her side for a moment. Haven’t we all had a friend who is popular, talented, attractive and haven’t we all wanted, just once, to be better than them in something? Remember this particular moment of jealousy and pain. It will be back. In the meantime, we suffer as Juri tortures herself over feelings that one day won’t be so torturous. We all want desperately to be the one to tell her it’s okay.

Tsuwabuki’s episode is probably sadder than the others. Nanami is so very immature and yet, to Tsuwabuki, she is a mature, alluring adult. He’s right on that awkward cusp of maturity when at least some of the girls around him already “get” it, and there he is, flailing to figure out what “it” is. I was talking to a high school teacher just recently – we were discussing how at 14 or 15, you meet a teen and you just know, instantly, if they will ever fully mature. Some people don’t. Tsuwabuki will be 20, then 30, then 40, etc and he’ll always wonder what he’s not getting, until he convinces himself that everyone else around is just a snob, or a jerk or something. He’ll grow up attractive, have girlfriends and talk about he “doesn’t get women.” I always feel bad for Tsuwabuki.

And then we come to Wakaba. Remember Shiori’s jealousy? We don’t care about it. We don’t like her. We think she’s a petty jerk and can go to hell. Wakaba suffers from the exact same thing. But we like Wakaba. She was Utena’s first rescued princess. When we learn that her joy comes from something other than herself it’s hard, to learn that it comes from…him…is intolerable. When she stands before Utena on the dueling ground, undoubtedly we have the same stricken look on our faces as Utena does on hers. This isn’t an enemy, or some tangential person…this is Wakaba, a friend. It’s worth noting that this is the first time Anthy begs Utena to take the sword from her and this is the first time that Utena does not. She defeats Wakaba with the sword she wields…with his sword. And it is notable that Wakaba is the first of the Black Rose arc duelists to actually attack Anthy, despite their statements that they would kill the Rose Bride.

I love this duel more than any other duel in the series. Wakaba says everything we always wanted to say to that shining, perfect friend. How nice for you, we so desperately want to say, the way the world always gives a crap about you. But I’m not like that. I have to remain average and no matter what I do I will never be special. We may hate Shiori, but we can’t hate Wakaba.

And we hate that self-absorbed, moron Saionji. In the first episode he was presented as cool, popular and powerful. Now, he’s a fool, as Mikage says and we loathe him for it.

The hierarchy has changed, irreparably. Touga, supplanted by Akio, Nanami, Miki and Juri, half-heartedly holding the center, Saionji at the bottom of the pile. Where do Utena and Anthy fit on the grid? Keep watching to find out.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Character – 9
Yuri – 6
Service – 3

Overall – 9

I will insert a note here referencing Alan Harnum’s Flesh Eaters for Shiori page, because if I don’t, both Alan and Sean Gaffney will try to explain it in the comments and you’ll be confused and probably distressed. This has got to be the oldest still-living Utena injoke on the Internet.

Posted in English Anime, Ikuhara Kunihiko, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Saitou Chiho | 2 Comments »


Lesbian Short Stories: Hanagaran (花伽藍)

December 13th, 2011

Last up of everything I picked up in Tokyo in September was a short story collection called Hanagaran (花伽藍), by Nakayama Kaho. In the collection are at least two stories about lesbian or bisexual women, but they were so unsatisfying that I stopped after the second. The characters were broken, slightly sympathetic, but were making decisions I just couldn’t empathize with.

In the first story, a lesbian meets and sleeps with a married woman on a summer festival night. Although they promise to get together again, they don’t until a chance meeting brings them in contact with one another. They have an affair, but the lesbian wants more. She wants to be able to spend a long life with the other woman, and gets a tattoo of a crane to symbolize her wish. Probably terrified by her lover’s intensity (although we never see any reaction at all) the married woman returns to her life. The lesbian stalks her a bit, then walks away from the whole thing.

In the second story, two women breakup ugly over the lesbian’s lack of trust in her bisexual partner. While moping around, the bisexual woman meets up with an old classmate, male, now married. Although they do kiss, the bisexual woman can’t bring herself to hurt his wife – who he obviously cares for, and would feel like a jerk if he cheated on -, so she takes herself off.

And um, about that point I decided I didn’t really like this book, so I stopped reading.

The protagonists weren’t loathsome, but I couldn’t really like them, either. In the first story, the lesbian gets way weird and frankly, I thought that married woman stuck around way too long.

In the second, the bisexual was actually pretty decent, until she invited herself to her classmate’s place, as if to test them both. He was obviously happily married. I couldn’t get behind that decision at all. Since characters tend to drive a story for me, unsympathetic characters make for slow reading.

Ratings:

Story – 5
Characters – 5
Lesbian – 10

Overall – 5

As a couple of short stories, they weren’t bad, but nothing here was a page turner, either.

Posted in LGBTQ | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Renai Joshika (レンアイ女子課), Volume 2

December 11th, 2011

joshika2In Volume 1 of Renai Joshika (レンアイ 女子課) we were introduced to Arisu and Saki, two women who work at a bridal services company. Arisu and Saki fall in love, as one of the two major plots in the first volume.

In Volume 2, they are still going out, and things are looking very rosy for them both. Until Saki’s former girlfriend comes back into her life. Kimiko is a manga artist and, so overwhelmed was she by deadlines, she simply stopped communicating. Now that her project is done, she’s ready to pick up where she and Saki left off. Only Saki, after hearing nothing from Kimiko for so long, has moved on.

In the middle of the book, we turn to a side story about two other staff members – Ai and Sae. I really liked Ai, because she was the most genuinely grumpy, ill-tempered character I’d ever read in a manga. But then she falls in love with Hato-chan and got less grumpy and less interesting.

We then turn back to Saki and Arisu. Arisu offers Saki the option of seeing both of them, but Saki decides that the girl who is kind to her is better than the girl who forgets to call her for months at a time and decides that she wants Arisu after all.

The love stories were sweet, but the most interesting thing about the volume in my opinion, is the discussion about same-sex marriages, from the perspective of “How cool, we’d be able to design and sell two wedding dresses!” I thought that a pleasantly commercial perspective, rather than focusing on non-existent rights, let’s just talk money!

As with all of Morishima Akiko-sensei’s work, everyone is utterly adorable, even in their darkest moments. She captures the rosy-cheeked innocence beloved by so many of the Yuri audience right now, but, her characters are definitely adult. As a result, I’m kinda hoping that her work is on the table for an anime next. Yes, not schoolgirls, but look, so cute!

Anyway.

I love the discussion of same-sex marriage, sans political or social ramifications. I like the characters. I’m not personally moved to flights of fancy about weddings or wedding dresses, but I love that the story is out there for people who are.

Ratings:

Art – Cute! 8
Stories- Fun and Cute! 9
Characters – Adult and Cute! 9
Yuri – Sexy and Cute! 10
Service – Cute fanservice only! 2

This is how Yuri advances the cause of same-sex relationships, one hideously adorable chapter after another. Good job, Morishima-sensei!

Posted in Morishima Akiko, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »