Yuri Manga: Junsui Adolescence, Volume 1

March 19th, 2009

In Kowo Kazuma’s Junsui Adolescence (純水アドレッセンス,) Volume 1, we meet Nanao, a high school student. She doesn’t seem to be particularly special in any way. Decent student, head of the club that assists with the Infimary. But secretly, she’s fallen in love with the school doctor, Matsumoto. In traditional tsundere fashion, she responds to these confusing feelings by being mean to Matsumoto.

Soon her feelings overflow her ability to hide them, and Nanao and Matsumoto find themselves in a relationship that must be hidden, even if they do a darn bad job of it.

The handling of this student/teacher relationship is a little pat. Of course. We don’t want our love story being interrupted by charges of statutory rape or professionally unethical behavior or other annoying real-life complications. No, we really don’t. We *know* it’s a bad idea for a student and the school doctor to fall in love. They know it too. That’s the whole point.

So, Matsumoto, despite every logical thought she has, find herself involved with a student. And Nanao flounders while trying to establish a real and lasting place in her lover’s life. It’s a harder journey than either expect. And to be honest, I didn’t see a happy ending at the end of this story. But luckily for all of us, I was wrong. :-)

Because this is a story of internal battles and small victories, I really don’t want to spoil too much. Let me leave it this way – if you don’t mind the problematic nature of the relationship, then you are likely to find yourself *dying* to see what the future holds for these two at the end of this book. (Sadly, I don’t think we get past the “happily ever after” but hey, at least we get “happily ever after.”)

Ratings:

Art – 6, but it grew on me
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 8
Service – 2

Overall – 8

This was a series that I kept forgetting was a series while it ran in Yuri Hime and when I finally clued in was thrilled that it was ongoing. As a collection it’s just that much better.

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Burst Angel, Volme 2 (English)

March 18th, 2009

Burst Angel, Volume 2 is a classic case of “be careful what you wish for.”

When I first read this volume in Japanese, I was touched by the tender and genuine relationship between Jo and Meg, and enjoyed Meg’s obvious desire for Jo – something the anime had set aside in favor of extended giant robot fight scenes.

And then Tokyopop licensed the series. I was very excited, because I knew who was working on it, and was reasonably assured it would not suck. Then reality hit. Take a look at the long list of people who worked on this book on the front page and you will see a story of lay-offs and process malfesance. And, in the end, the best volume of the Bakuretsu Tenshi manga has become the not-terribly great second volume of Burst Angel. It’s not crisis-level “OMG, this sucks massively!”, but I’m not singing paeans of joy accompanied by heavenly choir, either.

The good news is that the manga itself is nice. Sweet, a little funny, with a light-hearted beginning that darkens as the series goes on to a more ominous tone. Much like the anime. The Yuri-est bits are not handled well. The translation is a bit silly – in one key moment, completely utterly incorrect and it has the overall effect of diminishing the reason I am reading this otherwise merely okay series.

But what really pushes this particular volume into “fail” territory for me is the craptastic reproduction. Tokyopop is, hands down, the most inconsistent of the large manga publishers. One series will be handled beautifully, the next like they did it on their lunch break. I realize that a lot of that has to do with timing, staff and money resources, etc. What you see with this volume is what happens when a book is rushed through as the staff is being fired from underneath it. The lettering is unacceptably bad in several spots – clearly no one was left to check it. I am *very* tolerant of margin and lettering errors, because I know just how hard it is to get that kind of thing right. But this is really abysmal.

The reproduction of the art (which was terrible in Volume 1) is much improved here. And to be fair, the art is not clean, draftsman-quality lines. (This was the artist’s first professional manga.) If the translation and lettering were at least at the level of the reproduction, the book would be perfectly fine.

All that having been said, if you are a Burst Angel fan, a fan of Jo and Meg, or just like a little light-hearted Yuri and can look past the technical issues, this volume is still worth getting.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 7

It is once again my pleasure to thank Okazu Superhero Eric P. for being the sponsor of today’s review!

Posted in Bakuretsu Tenshi, English Manga, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Two Totally un-Yuri Things (Maybe Three)

March 16th, 2009

So, I really should review something today, but I’m not going to. Instead, here is my non-Yuri news report:

I am pleased, proud and amused to announce that I was able to write a Guest Review for Ain’t It Cool News for the beautiful graphic novel, My Mommy is in America (and she met Buffalo Bill). I hope you will take a moment and read the review. Also, do take a moment to read the comments. They are so incoherently hilarious that I have come to a new appreciation of the haters here, for at least being *on topic* in their rants. :-) My sincere thanks to AICN for giving me to the opportunity to confuse a whole new audience with literary references in my comic review.

Secondly, tonight I am doing my second and final talk on Graphic Novels at the Morris County Free Library. The talk on Saturday was honestly a lot of fun. I hope tonight’s talk will be equally as interesting. The talk will start at 7PM, and I’d love to see you there!

I might as well add in item three. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook these days so, if you are on either, do consider following me on Twitter and/or becoming a fan of Yuricon & ALC on Facebook! You’re just about guaranteed to get the Yuri news hot and fresh that way! Or check the right hand sidebar for other social media site links, like Yuricon on Livejournal, My Space, etc. It’s all about number creating a artificially inflated sense of importance, you know. (That was a joke, in case my sarcasm didn’t carry over text.)

That’s it for today. I’ll probably not get anything out tomorrow, either, but I’ll be back asap with more Yuri anime and manga reviews!

Posted in Miscellaneous | 6 Comments »


Yuri News This Week – March 14, 2009

March 14th, 2009

Happy Π Day!

Yuri Events

You are invited to join Rica Takashima, J.D. Glass, Althea Keaton, Jessie B. and the cast and crew for a Yuri Mongatari 6 for a Launch Party on April 18th, 2009 at the Rare Flix store in Secaucus, NJ. This event is co-hosted by Yuricon and Media Blasters, and will include the premiere of our “Yuri Monogatari 6” video trailer, and plenty of Yuri anime on the TVs! We’ll be there from 7PM til will throw you out, so stop by! Bring friends! Buy Yuri!

Sakuracon announces Serial Experiments Lain‘s Yoshitoshi Abe as a guest. Ask him whether Lain and Alice were a couple – I’m sure he’s never been asked that, before. :-)

***

Yuri Manga

y_y let me know that the doujinshi circle Sakuraike will be publishing a mass market collection of their adorable Yuri series, Tact. It’ll be available in July. This is honestly very, very cool news for them. As soon as there’s info for purchasing the book, you can be sure I’ll make it available to you.

You’ve probably heard of this already, and I think I even mentioned it before, but – Moonphase says that there may be Sasamekikoto anime, and 2chan is all over it, endlessly. Will it be reality? Who knows.

Comic Yell, the “Shoujo magazine for Boys” from Hobunsha (publisher of Tsubomi,) is ending, leaving no competetition is Comic Hai (home of Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends.) I wonder if Tsubomi is meant to take up that slack….

Here’s some Yuri Manga you want to pick up this month!

Rakka Ryuusui 4

Sasamekikoto 4

Ichigo Mashimaro 6

Yuri Hime S, Volume 8

Of course all of these have been added to the Yuricon Shop, as well.

***

Other News

I attended the KRAZY! exhibit at Japan Society a couple od days ago. The exhibit is very small and, because of the lack of context for it, it appeared to me to be the zOMG! moments of a person’s anime/manga interest. As it turns out, there was a huge western component to it that had to be cut out for space. The original exhibit was much larger and talked more about the evolution and convergence of visual culture and zeitgeist to make an explosion of concepts that defy cultural hegemony to create a kind of translocal modernism. (Words from Ueno-sensei one of the lecturers the night I attended.) It might seem a tad pretentious, but if you take a moment to parse it – so exactly right. :-) I want to thank translator Mari Morimoto for asking me to accompany her.

I got to meet Roland Kelts of Japanamerica, who did a very very good job of speaking to an audience that was half Japan Society members with no understanding of anime or manga and half anime and manga fans with no understanding of Japanese art.

Lastly for today, Riyoko Ikeda has been awarded the French Legion of Honor for her efforts promoting French history through Rose of Versailles. Hopefully that will inspire everyone involved to get that movie completed already!

***

It’s also Einstein’s birthday today and White Day, so take a moment today to celebrate art and science, math and language and the power of the human mind.

See you next week. :-)

Posted in Ichigo Mashimaro, Sasamekikoto, Yuri Monogatari, Yuri Network News | 6 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Maria Watches Over Us ~ Printemps, Volumes 3 & 4

March 8th, 2009

The entire season of Maria Watches Over Us ~ Printemps is, at its core, about endings and beginnings. The end of each school year comes, respected and beloved elders move on to start a new phase of their lives, presumably to not look back upon their high school days except as fond memories. New students arrive who become equally beloved underclassmen and little sisters, and the whole cycle begins again.

In Volume 3, we spend some serious time investigating the somewhat bewildering relationship between Sei and Shimako, and follow Shimako through loss and gain until she completes the cycle, this time taking her position as older sister to Noriko. This volume was simply amazing as I rewatched it, knowing what I know now about Shimako, about her family and her issues. But the hero of the volume is, and forever will be Noriko, with her grounded outsider mentality and her ability to not be weighed down by the tradition of the rosary.

The final volume of the season plows through Yoshino and Rei’s relationship problems. Yoshino finds herself relying on old patterns of behavior, but Rei is not playing along. Again, in retrospect, the fact that Rei could and would fight this battle at all speaks volumes about how much improved she considers Yoshino’s health. Rei is often perceived to be the weak member of this couple, but it is she who forces the new phase for their relationship – and it is Rei who turns out to be the one who can face the truth of their dynamic head-on.

And finally in Volume 4, we reach the arc in which we watch Yumi as every happiness she thought she had is stripped from her. But, knowing that it is all crucial to her development – and her relationship with Sachiko – allows us to watch it with a measure of complacency.

In many ways, these two volumes are more about love and about the way love is both a burden and blessing, than any other episodes of the series. And they are about the fact that, as perfect and inviolable as we want our love to remain, if we are talking about being in love with other humans, things will inevitably change. Changing the way we love a person is not an admission of weakness – it’s an acknowledgement of strength and of the reality of the other person. (This is a theme that pops up over and over in the 3rd and 4th seasons, as well – and is the source of much confusion to fans world over, because fans, unlike the characters themselves, just *hate* to see things change. “What the hell happened to Sachiko?” was the single most common question I received when the third season came out. “She was a total bitch and now she’s so nice to Yumi.” Fans get confused easily by the growth and maturation of the characters. Now I see more “What the hell happened to Yoshino?” or “What the hell is up with Yumi and Touko?” because, of course early identification of a character as “a bitch” means that the fan has to jump through increasingly complex hoops to keep their worldview intact as the character and circumstances of their relationships change. When everyone in the series cares about Touko, its harder for you to hate her, so you hate her harder to compensate. ^_^;)

In short – what you think you saw in “Rainy Blue,” in “Yellow Rose Weather Advisory” and in “Tears of the Rosary” is not actually what you saw. Like Yumi, if you are looking too fixedly at the series and cannot see it for itself, you’re destined to be confused by it all. Whether you want it to or not, the series is about to radically alter. As it moves into the summer, then autumn, the characters will have changed. A lot.

It’s up to you whether your love for the characters can change along with them. Otherwise, you might as well pack it in. The series as you knew it, has ended. ^_^ If you’re willing to move on, join me next time for new beginnings, with the third season OVAs!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4
Service – 1

Marimite Fan – 100

Overall – 9

The more I watch this series, the more I’m amazed at how *much* they managed to squeeze into the anime, and less annoyed at what they had to cut out. Although, I still hope we get an OVA for Shouko and Tsutako’s story.

Posted in Anime, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Yuri Anime | 8 Comments »