Coming Soon! Now This Is Only My Opinion, Part 7!

March 22nd, 2009

It’s like a bad movie series, with more and more sequels, each becoming less and less relevant to anything, but with more buildup than ever before! Rar!

I am away today, but think of you all with my every waking breath. (Not true.) So while I am lunching on the beach today (true) I thought it would be fun for you all to come up with clever, funny, provocative questions for me, as we have done for a number of years now, This way, when I get back I’ll have the pleasure of seeing the kinds of things that are clever, funny and provocative in your opinion, and you can read reponses that I consider to be equally clever, funny and/or provocative.

Lay them on me, bay-beh. Favorite color? Sure. Or ask me for the 300th time if Sachiko and Yumi will ever be a couple. Or what I *really* think of (some series you really like but I don’t, so you can feel outrage at my dismissiveness.) Or ask me what I think of the recent Skittles marketing campaign or why I hate Continental Airlines. Go ahead, ask me anything. If it’s within reason and ability, I’ll do my best to answer.

And we’ll all have a good laugh.

See you in a few days! o/

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | 34 Comments »


Yuri News This Week – March 21, 2009

March 21st, 2009

Off we fly, into the wild Yuri yonder!

Yuri Anime

Sasamekikoto anime has been confirmed. I’m flabbergasted, gobsmacked and tickled. Hopefully, those of you who see Sumi and Ushio will be moved to buy the manga, which is absolutely delightful.

And speaking of delightful, there is a trailer up for Aoi Hana. No animation as of yet, but you can see the pretty watercolors from the manga and say “oooh.”

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Snatches of Yuri

Looks like a new web-based Mai HiME property is on the way: Mai HiME Rebundei Nekohime Blog. Based merely on a superficial glance at the web page, I already hate it. lol

George R points an enthusiastic finger at the novel Memories Off 2nd ~ Precious Hearts, which has unexpected and not entirely craptastic Yuri. He has provided a review which will surely be used at some time in the future. :-)

Otoshite Apri-gal is also something that, based just on first glance is nothing I want to read. But those of you who disagree with me on mostly everything will surely like it!

And last for today is yet another Mangatime Kirara (KR Comics) series called Manken which is in every single Yuri list, so I guess it has Yuri, huh? As it’s KR, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s probably a 4-koma, with a wacky girl, an average girl, a butchy-ish girl and the other girl. :-)

***

That’ll give you something to chew on while I take a few days off and go do other, completely non-anime/manga things that involve people who don’t read any of this crap. See you when I get back!

Posted in Aoi Hana/ Sweet Blue Flowers, Sasamekikoto, Shimura Takako, Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »


Yuri Anime: [ẻl] (English)

March 20th, 2009

Did you know that the tagline for Rare Flix is “The Films Everyone Else Forgot”? It is, really. And sometimes we have to take a moment and remember why exactly, they were forgotten. ^_^

The plot of EL, such as it is, involves a post-apocalyptic earth, the “good” guys, called the Snipers, and the “bad guys” who are all women, called the Black Widows. What the Black Widows are actually doing is a little fuzzy, and I find it hard to get behind the “good guys” who use gang rape as an interrogation tool.

Our heroine, El, is an elite Sniper, as witnessed by the fact that 1) she wears a microskirt and halter top. That’s always a dead giveaway. And 2) she is the heroine. Duh.

El is hired to be the bodyguard of one of the two top pop idols of the world, a girl named Parsley. Parsely immediately begins throwing herself at El, since El is clearly the only character in the entire series who doesn’t suck. Stuff happens and everyone dies. Seriously. Everyone but El is dead by the end of this DVD.

Let’s cut to the chase here. This story bit; it is full of non-consensual sex and torture. But the lesbian sex was entirely consensual, not too cliched and actually had genuine affection and even sincere protestations of love. So, those parts weren’t too bad. Unfortunately, everyone dies by the end, which sort of puts a downer on the whole story. Oh well, it’s not like we were waiting for the next installment, anyway.

Ratings:

Art – 4
Story – 4
Characters – 5
Yuri – 9
Service – 37.5

Overall – 5

This is is one of those anime that you think as you watch it, “Why the hell is hentai always made for the loseriest losers ever? If it were made for me, it really would have not sucked nearly so bad.” But, reality check, hentai is made for the loseriest losers ever, so joke’s on you. Hah.

My sincere, erm, thanks, to Rare Flix/Kitty Media/Media Blasters for this. Yes…thanks….

Posted in English Anime, Hentai | 3 Comments »


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 »