Utter Nonsense

September 26th, 2008

No review today.Instead I want to do something unusual and post about a non-Yuri related thing that happened on the train this week, because it was *hilarious.*

On Tuesday morning, I was sitting on the train during my morning commute. A little girl got on with a backpack on her back and a pink plastic handbag on one arm. Very seriously, she started to rummage around the handbag, looking for something – obviously something important. After a moment, she pulled out…a pair of Groucho Marx glasses. Still totally serious she put them on.

I asked her if I could take her picture and she agreed. Here it is.

I hope it makes you giggle. I’ve been laughing about it all week.

Now that I ride the train all the time, I’ve begun to notice that NJ train advertising is no less bizarre than Tokyo train advertising. I’ll see what I can do about getting some pictures of the weirder ones and posting them for you from time to time. Like the Pom Chocolate Iced Coffee ad with the two eggs in a frying pan that are eyes…totally freakish.

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | No Comments »


Yuri Manga: Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen, Volume 1

September 25th, 2008

There’s not too many series that make me shriek with outraged sensibilities and hysterical laughter at the same time, and even less that are also very good. Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen is tops on that list. This collection of Yuri Hime chapters about a “normal” rain fairy, and her soujourn at an all-girl, all-youkai high school, is absolutely a must read for anyone who doesn’t mind having their brain hurt slightly.

Arare knows she’s a rain fairy – her mother is clearly not entirely human but on her first day of high school she definitely does not expect to enter the Otherworld. Nor does she expect her teacher to have a ridiculously long neck, or her classmates to be a variety of ogres, snow demons, cyclops, ghosts, mist, or the twin-tailed cat, Kiri, and long-tongued girl, Pero, who befriend her. Nor does she expect the veil between the worlds to close behind her, leaving her stranded in this school for girl monsters.

Arare decides to make the best of it. Her adventures range from meeting the cow-girl whose magic breast milk makes other girls’ breast large, to trying to beat the heat by sucking up to the snow demon, all while hiding her identity as a *human*. You see – she’s got a navel and a true youkai don’t.

More importantly, Arare has to deal with the decidedly inhuman way the other girls deal with sexuality. Not being human, they really don’t see the big deal with a little onna-doushi. It becomes even more of a crisis when Arare realizes that not only does she enjoy kissing Kiri, she’s fallen for her and gets jealous at the very thought of Kiri kissing – or worse, doing something more – with another girl.

Arare finally comes around to Kiri’s way of thinking and decides that she’s ready to go further, but Kiri reminds her of the warning she had given Arare when they met – if Arare makes love to a youkai….she’ll become a youkai! Oh Noes!

Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen is played for laughs, so even if you’re a scaredy cat, the ghosties and ghouls should not be a problem. However. If you like your vegetables to not have faces and are squicked at the idea of milking cow-girl demons…stay away. Things like Rokurokubi-sensei’s neck cramping are funny enough, but the double-mouthed girl and her kappa girl lover might flip you out. If that doesn’t faze you – hurry, go read it! This is a really funny book. And it’s Yuri.

Ratings:

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

Overall – 8

Tokimeki Mononoke Gakuen one of the stories from Yuri Hime I look forward to most every quarter. I’m very happy to have it as a collected volume. Can’t wait to see how Arare resolves her love for Kiri. ^_^

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Manga | 8 Comments »


My Zhime (My Otome) Anime, Volume 6 (English)

September 24th, 2008

It is entirely thanks to the kindness and generosity of Eric P that I am able to bring you today’s review, so everyone say “Thanks, Eric!”

Volume 6 of My Otome does something completely unheard of in the
Mai series to date…it begins to *answer* some of the questions asked in the earlier episodes.

Who is the true Queen of Windbloom?

What is the Harmonium’s power?

What really happened to Mai?

And more of your favorite hits in this volume of…

There’s a lot going on in Volume 6. The story is moving rapidly towards a climax that feels, at this point, as if it might *actually* climax, unlike other Mai series we could name.

The action comes fast and furious. Arika and Mashiro, having found themselves a haven, are ripped untimely from it and deposited safely in the bosom of the legendary
Black Valley, where they encounter a bunch of ridiculous legends which are all true.

Nina becomes the possessor of the Harmonium’s power through a gambit that I actually thought was incredibly clever and deserves the writers a pat on the kepi.

The Valkyrie squad is deployed. Tomoe jumps at the opportunity to crush people
she thinks are beneath her like a bug, which is to say, everyone. Chie plays it more cautiously, and finds herself in a lose-lose situation. But we trust that she’ll come out on the right side of it because, after all, she has 1000x lesbian power. The forces of evil seem to have the upper hand, but the forces of good are beginning to set their playbook up in the background. Meister we don’t care
about die, while ones we do care about seem to be hanging in there, biding their time.

Yuri comes mostly in the form of Tomoe’s fixation on Shizuru. And her…interests. We also briefly get a glimpse of Chie reunited with a presumed-dead Aoi. She was only mostly dead, apparently.

But Yuri isn’t the point here. The point is war. That’s what we’re gearing up for and that’s what we have to be ready to deal with next volume. We’re ready, I say.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 4
Service – 6

Overall – 8

And let us not forget the hallucenogenic effects of Maki-maki-ing.

 

Posted in English Anime, Mai Otome | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Girl x Girl x Boy Otome no Inori

September 22nd, 2008

All too often, stories with love triangles are unsatisfying.

It’s natural for us to pick the pair we want to succeed and find any other form of resolution irritating. We often wish no one settled with anyone, rather than the “wrong” couple work out.

Girl x Girl x Boy is the story of a love triangle with a satisfactory ending.

Fuuka is in love with her best friend and classmate Riri, who protected her, when they were younger, from the bullying of the boys at school.

One of those boys, Itta, was the one of the worst bullies – Fuuka can still remember how cruel he was to her. So she is not pleased at all to have Itta transfer into her high school, be seated next to her – and worst of all, confess that he likes her!

Fuuka’s having a hard enough time with that, but when Riri admits that she likes Itta, it’s just intolerable.

The story follows the three of them as they try to maintain balance between their mutually exclusive likes and dislikes. As a result of that balance, they pull together as friends, but the specter of sexual attraction doesn’t ever truly go away. It comes to a head in an abortive attempt at a threesome in a hotel…something that splits them up as friends, and destroys the possibility of them becoming lovers in any combination.

Itta breaks the impasse by reminding the girls how much fun they had as a trio of friends. He asks Fuuka and Riri to recapture that feeling between them, because he’s transferring to another school. His announcement forces Riri to deal with her fears about Fuuka’s and her feelings, ultimately bringing the two girls together. When Itta returns, he admits defeat in love, but insists on reestablishing his place in the triangle. The end of the book sees the three of them as friends, but Riri and Fuuka as a couple.

There were some decent things about this book. Fuuka’s feelings for Riri start out as an extension of her gratefulness for the other girl’s protection. I was concerned that this was too fragile a feeling and it would be destroyed by Riri’s waffling, but ultimately, Fuuka’s feelings grow into a more mature love.

For her part, Riri is the one torn by her feelings of love for another girl. Reticence takes a hold of her as she watches a show on gay people who have had to give up all hope of family life in order to be with their lovers. She’s just not willing to do that. And so, she chooses Itta as a way to avoid dealing with it.

Itta starts off as a total jerk – not taking no for an answer, being obnoxiously persistent, the usual. But ultimately, he ends up being the most honest of the three. His feelings for Fuuka aren’t complicated by concerns about society’s approval, but he does fight a cool sempai off – going so far as to scold the sempai for almost outing Riri and Fuuka.

I can’t say I really *liked* this book. It wasn’t bad in every way – in fact, it wasn’t bad in any way. The art was okay, the story was okay, the relationship ended in the way Yuri fans might hope, but nothing really stood out, either. It was a pretty predictable tale from start to finish.

When I think about Girl x Girl x Boy I feel like I didn’t like it. But when I take a second to really consider it, there wasn’t anything objectionable. So, I guess it’s more that it had no oomph, and that all the tropes have been covered by stories I liked better.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 7
Service – 2

Overall – 7

As a fairly realistic expression of the feelings of two babydykes, it was totally satisfactory. As entertainment…it was totally bland.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Yuri News This Week – September 20, 2008

September 20th, 2008

A happy birthday to two of the most important men in my life, Ed. Ed and Dad. You all owe my father, btw. It’s from him that I get many of the interests that make me the reviewer that I am. He fostered my love of comics, action flicks, sports and soft-core crap. lol Thanks Dad, and happy birthday!

Yuri Anime

By now many of you will have heard the big news…The 4th anime season of Maria-sama ga Miteru has been announced. Last Monday was the Autumn Lillian Festival where it was announced that the new season will begin in *January*. I have already been asked if I’m anticipating it – of course the answer is yes, but probably not as much as the rest of you. I now have to contend with the issue I feared all along – I’ve read the novels. I know what’s going to happen and have my own ideas about things. But, provided we get Shouko, and you get to see some of Touko’s true self, I’ll be happy.

Fans of Lucky Star will be want to view the online streamed “promotional video” (in the real world we call that a “commercial”) for the upcoming OVA. This OVA is rumored to be Konata x Kagami friendly – I note that the promotional art accompanying the above article has whichever one of them it is holding leeks, a popular Japanese Yuri meme. Before you write and express that you were right and I was wrong, let me remind you that I have never watched the series and have no opinion about it whatsoever. I do not see an overt K x K pairing in the OVA as validation of your interests, but as a catering to it in order to separate you from your money. Just wanted to be clear on that. Should it be true that they are paired in the OVA, my opinion will be that I am pleased that the collective whim of fandom has once again triumphed to put another Yuri couple on the map. :-)

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Yuri Events

Next Saturday, September 27, I will be at *two* events. In the early afternoon, I will be attending the Morris County Author’s Day at the Morris County Library, one of the best county libraries evar. I invite you all to come, get your books signed by the authors, ask us for advice, get advice which will not be of help to you, and check out the really excellent graphic novels section in the library (which is rather heavy in Yuri, due to yours truly. Whenever I review an English-language manga that I do not need to keep by my side, I donate it to the library. Everything but the crap. I encourage you to do the same. Libraries need and want your help.)

Immediately after the library event, I will wing my way over to Manhattan and the New York Anime Festival. I and Sean Gaffney will be running the Yuri Panel at 8PM on Saturday. It says in the program book that it is an 18+ event, but that is wrong. I’ve asked for and gotten permission to make it more open. The bottom line is, I don’t want to talk about sex – and especially not with you people. Anime and manga, yes, absolutely. We’ll talk about that till we’re hoarse. :-) Sex? No.

Also Maiden’s Garden, the Yuri doujinshi event, is coming up in Kyoto. As always, you can find all the latest Yuri Events on…the Yuri Events page on Yuricon!

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Yuri Manga

Friend of Yuri Eric P wrote in to let us know that he’s seen a preview of Hayate x Blade in his newest issue of Anime Insider magazine. He says it looks pretty funny. It is funny – and I can promise you that the second volume is even funnier. ^_^ (Off-topic, Eric also wrote an Evangelion review that has recently been posted on Anime News Network, so congrats, Eric!)

Yuri Hime S is once again out, this time accompanied by two collections, Hanjuku Onna by Akiko Morishima, and Gokujou Drops, by Mitsukuni Hachime. (Late breaking news. Erin tells us that these collections have been delayed and are now slated for *next month*. Thanks for the heads up!)

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Snatches of Yuri

Ririi no Kago (Basket of Lily,) looks to be a collection of stories about Girls’ Love. It is not a “lesbian” collection, a reviewer tells us, but it’s a good collection. This is a book, not a manga, fyi.

And one more book for the pile of novels that I will never get to, Yoshiya Nobuko’s Kuro Shoubi (thanks for the correction, Komatsu-san,) (Black Rose) tells the story of a young woman who goes to teach at an all-girl’s school and a student who falls in love with her. For what it’s worth, I am once again tackling Yaneura no Nishoujo, but Akiko is such a mopey girl. In the last scene she actually sat there for like 20 pages whining to herself. Ugh.

Hakamada Mera’s manga series Akatsuki-iro Senpuku Majyo (The Hidden Witch of the Dawn, I guess I’d translated it as) is much like the more well-known Last Uniform series, only this series takes place at a school of magic. Stories of friendship, love and Yuri, so pretty much the same old-same old in a different series.

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That’s it for this week. More already on the horizon, so come back next week for more Yuri News!

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Hayate x Blade, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Yuri Network News | 7 Comments »