Want Manga For Free? Visit Your Local Library

October 30th, 2007

Some of you may know this already – by day I am an “Information Professional,” which is what we in the profession call the job that everyone else calls “Librarian.” :-)

I am a researcher for a consumer healthcare company and to be blunt, I love my job. I have the greatest job in the world. My job title is “Information Scientist” – if I was at a public library, I’d be called a “Reference Librarian.” I’m the person people come to to find out stuff they don’t know but want or need to know. Anything from a phone number to the kinds of products with certain ingredients on the market, to professional literature searches, to “we heard this thing about this company, can you find anything about it?” It’s a great job.

I am currently writing from a professional conference, at which lots of Information Professionals get together, network, train with other IPs and generally pretend to be extroverted. (And we’re definitely getting better at it. We’ve mostly learned to fake social skills to the point that most people who don’t know us well can’t tell that we’re not people people.) And, btw, Librarians are the *coolest* people in the world. We are so on top of the current technology, despite what some people assume, because of the mean, medieval Librarian they knew in middle school. Because we are geeks and can’t help ourselves :)

There are libraries who have Second Life presences, are active on Facebook, MySpace, etc, and a lot of Librarians run free chat services where you can ask a Librarian questions, and stuff like that.

If your local public library doesn’t have services like that, it’s most likely not because they don’t want to – even if you think that’s the reason. (For some reason we *always* erroneously attribute things like that to personal issues. E.g., “They hate manga.”) The real reason is that public libraries are run on public funds and they are probably horribly underfunded. Write your local council and tell them that you WANT more manga, chat reference and better services at your local library. It’s *your* tax dollars at work.

Want cheap manga? Don’t download – go to the library. It’s FREE. No strings, except that they ask you to bring it back when you’re done. It’s free, it’s legal and every book you take out shows them that there is interest in manga, so they get more.

My local library has a completely craptastic website…but they have an *awesome* manga section. It’s separated into YA and Adult and I browse there all the time. I wrote them and told them that they were doing a great job and they responded that they were doing their very best to do just that.

Your library doesn’t have manga? Ask. Trust me, the librarian *is* interested in what you want. Explain that it’s a fast-growing segment of the American book market, and that it appeals to and encourages young people to read. If the person behind the counter seems resistant, or confused – be patient. A lot of local libraries have mostly volunteers – many of whom are older and are probably not up on this stuff. Find the person who makes decisions (the “acquisitions manager” or person in charge of “collection development”,) and suggest that they read the “Graphic Novels” reviews in Library Journal (don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this…they have.) Get some local people to help you – friends, kids you know, your parents. Write up a proposal and get names from people in town. You *can* change things. If your local library is just too small to get the budget – go up a step to the county library.

(True story. About twenty years ago, I asked for a book at my county library. They InterLibrary Loaned (ILL) it for me. Then another and another. At some point I asked why this library didn’t have very much GLBT fiction and everything was coming in by loan. The Librarian, who was a very abrasive person, explained condescendingly that there wasn’t a big audience for it. I walked away, went into the reference room, looked up the county census – since it was a county library – and composed a letter to the head of Reader’s Services. I explained that at an estimate of 10% of the population of the county, XXX,000s of people were likely to be GLBT. I assumed that they might be interested, as well as straight people who might simply like one of those authors or stories, and concluded that there was, in fact, a sizeable potential audience that was not being served. A week later, three of the books I had ILLed appeared on the “New Books” shelf and they’ve been pretty good about picking up GLBT fiction and non-fiction since. The moral of this story is – no one messes with a Librarian, not even another Librarian. LOL. No, I’m joking, the moral is – this is YOUR library. You can make a difference.)

If you’re lucky enough to live in a well-off, cutting edge area, you might find your local library online, on LJ, on Second Life, etc., and you can probably access all their services right from your computer, even if they have a meh website. Chances are that they have their catalog and all sorts of databases for free – not to mention the professional expertise of people like myself, all to help you find what you need. Got a question? Call the library. Need an article/book/CD/DVD/podcast/manga/resource? Call the library. Don’t know where to start on the web to find something and Google is bringing up junk? Call the library. There are zillions of databases that have information that Google cannot find – but your local library can. (The wife wants me to tell you that she is on a first-name basis with the reference librarians at our library. Even with the web, and married to a librarian, she uses their expertise all the time.)

Every time I attend one of these conferences, I’m reminded how little time I have to really put Yuricon everywhere I want to be. As I’ve mentioned previously, I have accounts on LJ, MySpace, Mixi and I just opened up a Facebook account. I’ll always try to post news in these places, but there’s no way I have time to be active everywhere. If I had time, I would so have a SL account with a virtual 24/7 Yuricon event. How cool would that be? But I have that darn day job, so I can’t.

In the meantime, I will attempt to get the word about Yuri, Yuricon and ALC Publishing out there as widely as I can. I need your help – if you have an account on any of these networks, friend me and we can connect that way. Of course there’s always Okazu and the Yuricon Mailing List, which are the places I’m most likely to be found and that I always update first.

This morning’s keynote speech by Joe Janes was awesome. In it, he said that as reference librarians, we were *born* to answer people’s questions, to do research, to find out “stuff.” (And I am, absolutely.) He suggested that since we are already out there doing outreach, being present on a zillion sites, blogging, riding the leading edge – as Librarians always have – we ought to also be out there doing the reference we always do in these places. Joe called it “slamming the board” and mentioned Yahoo Answers as an example. I had to laugh – I’ve been answering questions there for some time. Sure I don’t answer every day, or every question, but when someone needs something that I can find or that I know, I do it. *Because I can’t help myself.* :-)

Which brings me to this: I am once again soliciting questions for my twice annual “Now This is Only My Opinion.” If you have questions about what I think – about anything, feel free to put them in a comment here. But this time, if you have a question that you’d like answered, something that might take a bit of work, I’ll see what I can do. No promises and please, don’t try to come up with something to stump me – I’m only doing this for fun! LOL

What was my point here? Oh yes – get thee to a library!!

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | 11 Comments »


New Season Autumn 2007 Yuri Anime: Blue Drop

October 29th, 2007

I am typing today from the airport, where from time to time the PA erupts in loud screams and ominous music. I can’t help but wonder if someone thought that was a funny idea for Halloween. Call me crazy, but I think it’s in extremely bad taste.

Yuri anime this season is very thin. There are several series with touching that can be willfully misinterpreted (Minami-ke, Shion-no-Ou) and there’s conjecture in both English-language and Japanese forums that two of the women in Dragonaut are a couple. I haven’t watched that, so I have no impression either way.

Of all the anime that I am watching this season, only one can really be thought of as being “Yuri.” I reviewed the first volume of the Blue Drop manga a while back. I never reviewed the second volume because it was fairly unpleasant. Yes, it was Yuri, in the sense that most of the relationships were between females, but since most of the relationships were non-consensual underage sex, I declined to review it…or even to own it.

Blue Drop: Tenshi-tachi no Gikyoku takes place a thousand years before the events of the Blue Drop manga.

New transfer student Mari, is introduced to class president, honor student and classic Japanese beauty Hagino, and all hell begins to break loose. Hagino strokes Mari’s face tenderly, then tries to strangle the life out of the newcomer. Clearly, something is up.

In subsequent brief touches, both Mari and Hagino are blasted with confused memories and images…that is, these are confused and disordered to Mari, but Hagino, who is not what she appears, seems to know exactly what they mean.

Hagino, as it turns out, is an alien commander of a big assTM spaceship. She appears to be content to have her ship hidden in the bay outside the school, until a bigger boss in a bigger ship pretty much demands her to appear front and center. Hagino leaves school to take her place at the helm of her ship and the plot begins.

Yuri for this series is of the infatuation/obsession sort between Hagino and Mari, an a priori tragic love, and Micchi, who is clearly writing a Mari x Hagino slashfic in her spare time. :-)

Since the moment of their initial encounter, both Hagino and Mari are obsessed by one another. Mari is, understandably, confused (and a little turned on, if you ask some fans) by Hagino’s murderous response to her handshake. The fact that she can see Hagino talking to a girl who is glowing, translucent and alien (and who calls her commander,) and giant ships is not clarifying matters much. In fine tsundere fashion, Mari claims to loathe Hagino, while always watching her. Hagino, obviously, at least knows *of* Mari and has some clue to her lost past. But she is no less obsessed by Mari, even going so far to transfer so she can be roommates with the new girl. Is it Yuri? Let’s see, a relationship built on guilt and denial? Sounds like lesbians to me. ^_^

In other news, we meet Azanael on the Major Commander’s ship, a woman who flashes back to her lover saying goodbye some time ago, assumably before the “event” of some years previous. Azanael’s lover never returns, we have already gleaned from Hagino’s guilt-ridden imagination. So, when she sees Hagino, Azanael leaps into her expected role as Psycho Lesbian. I like that we’ve skipped the relationship part of this relationship right to one lesbian dead, one psycho. Saves time in the long run, since we know that’s where we’d go anyway.

Hagino has already defied orders to save Mari, and they have touched once more – this time without complication, so most Yuri fans see this one as a done deal. I’m a bit more skeptical, as TV anime does tend to live in the realm of plausible deniability. Even with some mostly obvious Yuri in the original manga, I’m not sure how much we’re likely to get in this series. (I tend to begin watching anime with some skepticism, so that I can be pleasantly surprised, rather that beginning with expectations and being disappointed.)

I have no doubt that Hagino will go above and beyond (and probably against) her duty to be Mari’s savior. And I have no doubt that in the ensuing events, the two of them will bond and grow close. Will there be something like love? Probably. Will there be something like a lover’s relationship? That remains to be seen.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7, except for Micchi who is clearly us – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – a mercifully low 1

Overall – 7, with hope that it will get better.

Oh, and for special for me there’s Yanki girl Nakajima Akane, with classic banchou-style ever-present stick in her mouth. I so hope that that character type gets popular once more. ^_^

Posted in Yuri Anime | 26 Comments »


Yuri Anime: El Cazador, End of Season Review

October 24th, 2007

Reviews are going to be very anime-heavy for the next few weeks, as I have a huge backlog of anime that I haven’t had time to watch, while I’m busy watching new stuff that I will review eventually.

But today I wanted to do a long-overdue review of a series from the Spring season. I had watched it raw but, I wanted to refresh my memory on what happened before I reviewed it. I happily watched it all over again, and am now ready to go on the End of Season review for El Cazador de la Bruja. ^_^

You might want to read my initial review of El Cazador to compare and contrast (and also to see how, ironically, that review began in almost the exact same way that this one did. And I can assure you that it was not at *all* on purpose! I didn’t remember that I had written that until I just read it now.) Okay, so I just re-read it and, I have pretty much nothing to add, except, I think Bee Train came through for us Yuri fans on this pretty darn well.

There is a contingent of people who liked Noir best and therefore did not like El Cazador because it was too fluffy, too silly, not serious enough, not angsty enough. And there probably is a group of people who liked Madlax better, although I haven’t encountered any, yet. I just assume that there’s always someone who has a different opinion *somewhere.*

But I can’t say I liked any of them better than any of the others. They were three different takes on a theme – girls with guns on the run. I commented in my original review that El Cazador almost seemed a parody of itself and you know, I think that that was exactly what they were going for here. It’s much goofier than any of the previous Bee Train series. In-jokes abound, even within the context of the story. Tacos will never look the same to any of us again. :-) And the opening and closing theme animation had just about nothing at all to do with the story, which was nice and pointless. No guy in a mask, no sniper cat. Thank goodness. LOL

Ai Shimizu was fantastic as Ellis. Without ever once sounding less flaky or ethereal, she managed to mature her character in such a subtle, magnificent way that it almost came as an afterthought. Itou Shizuka was great as Nadie, remaining pretty clueless and not-subtle from beginning to end. :-) I found them quite charming and am glad to tell my past self that yes, I came to care about them, as I hoped I might.

Their relationship was total win for me. In the beginning, the idea of the two of them as a couple squicked me out the door. There was no one moment where it changed and became something else – it was a slow process. It was, in fact, the point of all that stuff that other people saw as fluff episodes – they were there entirely to allow the characters to develop a relationship naturally, leisurely. And it wasn’t an even process either. Ellis comes to like Nadie, later Nadie starts to care about Ellis as more than a job. Ellis starts to fall in love, Nadie starts to realize that Ellis mean more than just friend to her. And on and on. Ellis, surprisingly, becomes the seme, the agressor, here; making her case for them as a couple long before Nadie clues in. And it is Ellis who declares her love first, and last. She shoots straight from the hip, too, no implication or ambiguity.

None of the larger plot is particularly shocking or revelatory. The conspiracy is never developed as well as it might be – where in Noir we spend episode after episode poring over Soldats, in El Cazador we spend more time with the people who represent the witches and Project Leviathan, than with the details of the organizations themselves. Which is perfectly fine with me. Rosenberg, the bad guy, is loathsome and his death was way too late in the series. And he treated poor Melissa terribly, something I’m not prepared to forgive, since she was so nice. LA, this series’ crazy stalker character, was loathsome AND annoying and his death was also way too late in the series. But I will forever think of him in conjunction with Ellis setting his crotch on fire, so that sort of evens things out.

Jody “Blue Eyes” Heyward was awesomeness and not *just* cause she was voiced by Hisakawa Aya, who for once wasn’t the creepy stalker character. She was sort of a “good” stalker this time. lol Mitsuishi Kotono, who seems to be working more often these days, which makes me happy, was wonderful as the chief witch, even if she never got a name or a story. Echo and the Bunnymen were never explained, nor were Jody’s henchwomen. But that’s okay. Soldats and Enfant never really made any sense, either. :-) Just go with it.

Ricardo and Lilio. I’m still not at all sure what their roles were – acting as foils, I suppose. The four of them were a kind of oddly functional alternative family for a while there. Or would have been if Nadie had had a clue about Ellis’ feelings for her. Which she didn’t, yet.

And then there was the epilogue. It was pretty much as I expected, in fact, as I would have demanded, with two exceptions – the motivation for the confrontation that would catapult Ellis and Nadie back into their real personas was much stupider than I expected, so that was pretty funny.

In the end, as Ellis once again makes her declaration of love – with an audience this time – there is a HUGELY wooja-wooja beat-you-over-the-head love song playing in the background that is a *strong* indication that this is not meant to be seen as ambiguous or plausibly deniable. The fact that the last line of the song is “My immortal love” helps with that. And so does Pedro’s reaction. (Don’t worry if you don’t know who Pedro is – he’s there to be defeated by Ellis’ love. That’s all you need to know.)

Oh, wait – three exceptions. Jody’s ingenuous comment about her assistant being identical to Rosenberg by chance….yeah, sure. It was a off-beat note that I liked *because it has no explanation.* It just is. Go with it.

So, no, its not Noir with its intense film Noir-ness. And no, its not Madlax with its alternate existences and war-torn world. In the end, it is simply El Cazador, with Nadie and Ellis on the road. And for that, I liked it bunches.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Not good, no. But not “AAAHHH!” either
Story – 7 Sure it had huge holes. Who cares.
Characters – 9 They just grew on me
Yuri – 7 If you weren’t grinning at the end, love song and all, you fail.
Service – 5 – Almost as an afterthought – oh, yeah, we could do an ass shot here…

Overall – 8

Tacos, tacos tacos, oi-ishi-i tacosu. Iketeru tacos ha oi-i-shi ta-co-su. Tee Hee.

Posted in Bee Train, El Cazador | 19 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Simoun, Volume 1 (English)

October 22nd, 2007

So, last week, we were talking about managing expectations in order to enjoy anime more.

And there I was this weekend, staring at Volume 1 of Simoun and wondering – how on earth would I manage my expectations of *this*? ^_^

Here’s the dilemma – I loved Simoun. I named it the best Yuri series of 2006 and I meant it. It was one of the most interesting anime series I have ever watched, and full of so many wonderful points that we can mull over and over to endless annoyance/satisfaction, depending on who you are and what you like.

And I really, really love the folks at Media Blasters. I’m thrilled that they are so genuinely interested in Yuri and want to reach out to the Yuri audience.

But, traditionally, I have not loved MB adaptations. Not because they were bad, but because I thought they were okay, but could have been better. To set the stage, let me explain why it matters so much to me:

I watch an anime with no other expectations than my own, as I said previously. In most cases I can understand some, if not most or all, of what is being said when I watch a series raw. And by doing so, I establish my own understanding of the series. When/if I watch a series subbed, I use it to fill in holes I have, and also to compare my understanding to the subbers’ interpretation. When, after all that, I have loved a series, I want to be able to wholeheartedly suggest it to other people – not only other people who are also already fans, but to people who may not have ever seen the original. And for these last, I need the translations to be all that. Otherwise, what I see as awesome, may come off as being incomprehensible, or uninteresting. Most people who watch an anime are not me. I read fast, seeing the subtitles almost as a subliminal. If the words in the translation don’t match my understanding of what’s being said it jars me. But for a person who relies on that subtitle for the entire meaning of the story, if the words are lazily written, or difficult to follow – or plain wrong, then that person is getting a whole chunk of the story taken away from them. Like having a huge black line through the art – sure you can watch around it, but it’s hard to enjoy.

Okay, that all having been said, let me cut to the chase – overall, I think Media Blasters did a very good job with Simoun. Better than usual, and much better than I expected.

Phew.

It’s not perfect, by any stretch, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Okay, first things first. I need to thank the folks at Media Blasters with all my thanks. They didn’t just send me a copy of Simoun to review – they sent me the very first copy to be printed in the US. And the cover art is signed by everyone who worked on it. There aren’t any smilies that express the sort of thing I felt when I got that DVD. So, my thanks and hugs to everyone at MB. ^_^

I’m going to start with the nitpicky things, starting with the one thing that has GOT to be fixed, or I’ll go mad, and working my way down in urgency until we go into the good, so we can all have a happy end. :-)

The one thing that has GOT to be fixed, is Rodoreamon’s name. For some reason they’ve got it as Rotreamon, which is just wrong. I double-checked the Japanese official website and the Japanese credits – Rodoreamon. Definitely “do” there, not “to”. It looks wrong and everyone definitely says “Rodo”, so please fix that!!! It just looks bad and doesn’t match what they are saying.

Okay, that’s out of my system. So. The names. I appreciated the consistency in the way names were written. In every case, without exception, the final “u” was removed from names. So, Anubituf, Kaim, Aer. I have no trouble with the transliterations they chose, although I’d have been more literal with Alti, instead of Alty. But okay. However, for Aeru’s name, I’d have left the “u” in, because later on, this is going to be an issue. Her name is pronounced “Ah-eh-ru,” not “Ah-er.” However, as this is not a major thing and it matches well enough, as well as being consistent, I’ll drop it. All the long vowels are written with the somewhat old-fashioned symbols “ā” or “ō” so “Wapōrif” and “Māj”. This leads to one really unfortunate typo. The first time the characters discussed doing a Māj, the “a” is left out and what we see is M_j. Erk. (Later, in the extras, Rodoreamon’s name is misspelled, as “Rorteamon.” Two typos on one disk is really not so good. Guys – ask me to to a last disk check. I know the series, the names, the words. Seriously. I’ll be glad to look it over. I do editing on the side.)

The translation. Overall, I think this might be the best translation I’ve ever seen from MB. They left in the honorifics which, in this case, are primarily “-sama.” Can I just tell you how NICE it is to *see* Alty say “Para-sama” when she’s saying it? Later, in the extras, “-chan” is used as well. I’d have loved to see a screen still with an explanation of the honorifics for the potential viewers who don’t know what they mean, but I am so excited to have the honorifics at all, I can barely contain myself. lol

People’s titles are translated. High Priestess, Governor, Captain. No problem. Country names are not translated, but left as they sound. Personally – I liked that. Thumbs up.

Extra points for making everything they say totally comprehensible. If you were one of the people who saw the extremely incomprehensible fansubs of the first three episodes by a particular group, you’ll know why this is so important – the first three episodes are *crucial* to our understanding of WTF is going on. Making it all make sense is not easy and I think they did a really good job. In fact, until the last episode on the disk, I think the translation was very tight. At the end, there was a bit that I felt got lax and fell back into that “this is what they meant, so it’s close enough.” Or maybe it’s just something about the way Dominura speaks that made the Translator want to make her a bit more…casual. (She certainly comes off an an odd bird. If it was done on purpose, then fine. If it was laziness, then bzzt.)

Also, I’d really like to see a Romaji version of the opening and ending themes. It’s pretty usual for anime and fans like it, because we always end up trying to learn them anyway. Alternate bwtween English and Romaji, or run them at the same time as. Either way, I think it would add some value.

The technicals. Well, the usual thing from Media Blasters – no inserts, which made me sad, because I had asked to have inserts of the cover art that we lost as mini-posters or something. This disk contains episodes 1-6, which is *very* good, but since the Japanese DVDs were two-episode disks, we lost two pieces of cover art in the process. I love the cover art – it’s hugely service-y, provocative and sexy. I had really hoped we get them as inserts. But hey – 6 episodes to a disk is *nice*. The whole series in 5 disks would be awesome. Especially for the price – $20 at Amazon ($15 if you pre-order). That’s just over $3/episode. No complaints here. Especially as I’ll probably be buying some Simoun for holiday presents. ^_^ There’s no dub track (although I know that some people like the dubs, and some people felt that they wouldn’t watch it without a dub, the idea makes me shudder, personally) and only the one audio track. Again, I passed on the idea of a 5.1 audio track, so you can’t say they didn’t know fans wanted it. I wouldn’t mind it myself – makes the music, which is so wonderful, even better.

The disk itself is very pretty. Huh, how about that? It surprised me, because I don’t usually notice the disks. This has to be up there for one of the nicest looking DVDs I own. ^_^

And, the extras. As usual, MB has included the extras from the Japanese volumes, which I like a lot. The first is an excruciating interview with the VAs for Aer and Neviril. And the “MC”, who is a horrible lollipop with eyes stuck on and a computer-modulated voice makes it just that much more horrible. Seriously, just skip that extra. The second extra is much, much better. It’s a trivia and quiz game special, pairing up, well, Pairs. Hosted by Morinaga Rika, Mamina’s seiyuu (who is incredibly cute in a punk-y kind of way, with an unrealistically silly voice) each Pair vies for points on how well they match answers to questions, and know trivia from the anime. I was absolutely hysterical during this segment. I had already seen it raw, but I had missed a lot that went on in the background. It was darn funny. I hope we get more of this kind of thing. And bizarrely, when Toyoguchi Megumi is referred to as “Megu-‘nee” it was translated as that. (Well, “Meg-nee”, anyway.) So…erm, why was Alty’s “Kaim-‘neesan” translated as “Big Sister Kaim?” No clue.

Last up. The actual anime. I was so certain that I’d be disappointed watching Simoun this time around. Remember how we retrofit memories? I fully expected to find all sort of flaws with my memory that Simoun was teh awesome. You know what? I was wrong. God DAMN this is a good anime! Two minutes into it and I was glued to the TV and remained that way for all six episodes. Then I was sad that I didn’t have any more to watch. The music remains brilliant. The story remains fascinating. I love the art, the detailed CGI over not-at-all detailed watercolor. I love the ridiculous contrast between our beautiful peaceful sun-filled country and the enemy’s pollution-ridden world of darkness and filth. I love The Arcus Prima, the Simoun, the fact that Morinas is a tease and the fact that all the seiyuu are women. (The wife reminds me that I also still hate the character designs, especially Neviril’s sex-doll mouth. Which is true, but you can’t have everything.) After more than a year, I still love Simoun.

In terms of Yuri, there’s a lot of service. :-) Lots of kisses. And, while it was pretty subtle for an anime, girl-loving LFs of every gender got their RDA of panty and breast shots. But seriously, Yuri in this volume = Neviril x Amuria. The story revolves around what could have been, what happened and how Neviril can’t move on. She *must* be a lesbian, she’s unhealthily obsessing about her ex. :-) And surely we can’t ignore poor Kaim and her not at all unhealthy interest in Parietta. She gets points for trying *really* hard to make Parietta to look away from Neviril. And it’s not really her fault that she fails. And then there’s Morinas and her obvious, immediate, interest in Wapōrif. Can’t say that she’s just interested in him for his great personality…not yet, anyway. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 6

Overall – 8

Translation – 7
Adaptation – 7
Technicals – 7
Extras – 6

Should you get it? Hell yeah. Then email the folks at Media Blasters and let them know what they did right – and what they can improve. Let’s see if we can make Volume 2 even better.

Media Blasters responds: In regards to the artwork, we don’t always get the chance to use all of the artwork we receive, especially since we have a disproportionate number of release volumes to the Japanese version. It’s possible we can make an art gallery as an extra on one of the disks…. In terms of translations…the name translations were given to us by the licensor, so we didn’t have a lot of room for interpretation.

This is Erica again: I’m not surprised about the name thing. Thanks, Media Blaster representative, for commenting. It always helps to know what’s going on in the background, so we don’t feel like we’re out of the loop. ^_^

Posted in English Anime, Simoun, Yuri Anime | 8 Comments »


Yuri Anime: My Hime, Volume 6 (English)

October 18th, 2007

You wake up on the wrong side of the bed, stub your toe on the dresser and almost choke on your cereal. When you sit down to watch anime under circumstances like that, the *last* thing in the world you want is something happy and carefree. No, you want to wallow neck deep in someone’s life that sucks more than yours does.

Welcome to My HiME, Volume 6.

Despite the uptick on the misery quotient, this is my favorite of all of the volumes for this series. And my deepest thanks to Ted who provided it for review and the entertainment of all Yuri-kind.

Mai’s life isn’t getting any better and now, as Nagi predicted ever so snarkily, the HiME find themselves turning on one another. Nagi sort of misread the feminine mind there when he told them that the winner gets Highlander-esque powers. Because they didn’t really care about that. But once a whole bunch of manipulative assholes dig their fingers into a situation like this, and the natural inability of the human under pressure to think clearly, with the addition of hormones and outside stress levels, you just know someone is going down.

And down they go.

Despite the losses from our ranks in this volume, there are some really great moments.

One of the best has got to be when Mai and Mikoto accidentally witness Akira and Takumi in an embarrassingly tender moment. We know Akira is a girl, but they don’t, so it has a little gender-bendiness to add to the titillation and cringe-making cuteness.

Of course, for Yuri fans, this volume also offers the horribly over-used, abused and mused upon scenes where we learn, at last, what we already knew – that Shizuru is very gay for Natsuki. Really? We’re shocked. SHOCKED, I tell ya. We also get to see Shizuru jump all sorts of aquariums of sharks and go from competent and crushy to ragingly mad rapist and psychotic murderer. Hey, but she’s so cool – clearly Natsuki’s an idiot for passing that up.

(Which makes me wonder why there was never any hue, cry or outrage that Shizuru was the tedious psychotic lesbian stereotype? When Sharon Stone did it, everyone screamed in anger. Why did everyone continue to idolize Shizuru when she went batshit crazy? I know why *I* liked her. She has a polearm and I like psychotic women. But that’s me. Surely that can’t apply to every nutball in Yuri fandom? ^_^)

This is probably not a spoiler anymore (and all my posts are at least partial spoilers, and I will say some mildly spoilery stuff after this as well,) but I imagine that someone will get pissed at me for writing it (again). So if you do not want massive spoilers, stop reading here and pick up again after the second set of thre asterisks.

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Some extra spoiler space for the weak of constitution

As much as Shizuru’s descent into madness is interestingly animated, with nice background music, lots of purple lighting and a cool polearm. It is Yukino’s defeat and Haruka’s reaction that makes this volume purest win.

Shizuru defeats Yukino heartlessly (and somewhat pointlessly, as well. Yukino was never a threat to Natsuki in any way. But try reasoning with a madwoman….)

As we all knew, Yukino’s most important person is Haruka and immediately, she begins to disappear. Of course, she has no idea at all what’s going on, but she gets all the points in the world from for forging ahead and punching Shizuru up the conk as she fades.

If that was not your favorite moment, well, then, you’re not coming over for lunch anytime soon. That’s all I’m saying. ^_^

That moment was so win, that clearly the writers realized that they had made the wrong person in that pair a HiME. They corrected the oversight for Mai Otome. ^_^

Extra spoiler space on this side for symmetry.

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Other stuff happens too. We delve into mostly every HiME’s backstory and find that each one is essentially human, and therefore manipulable. And Miyu gets resurrected, because, we need Ayanami Rei clones in order for this to be a real anime. Also Mashiro turns out to be something other than what she seems.

The DVD extras are sort of interesting and sort of not. The first is a long, slow, lingering look at an inexplicably bound and hunkified Reito. No hollow-chested lad here – he’s so muscular he looks western. I imagine that this was service for the three gay guys who watched this series ’cause let’s face it, no one but me likes the hunky guys – everyone else seems to go gaga for the hollow-chested lads. Blecch. Next up is a retrospective by Natsuki about how much she treasures Shizuru’s friendship. She is clearly talking about friendship and nothing more, but that hasn’t stopped hordes of ShizNat fans from pointing out that she is also talking about Shizuru and not, say, her mother. The last extra is a bunch of words randomly spoken over pictures of Midori and Mai in bikinis.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 7

Overall – 7

So, sure, we all get beat over the head with the misery stick and sure our “best lesbian candidate goes nuts (along with mostly everyone else) and sure the rewards for lesbian love are death, destruction and despair.

But hey, it’s a great volume! ^_^;

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