Yuri Anime: Kaleido Star, Volume 3 (English)

July 7th, 2008

Yuri fans hit paydirt with Volume 3 of Kaleido Star, in which Layla suddenly comes to the conclusion that Sora is her important partner. (Finally!) And we get to spend moments here and there noticing that Anna is acutally quite hunky and cool and that Mia is besotted, although more of that will come later. lol

We start the volume with a little time wallowing in Anna’s backstory, then we spend not nearly enough time as Layla and Sora bond over their “Amazingly Hot New Production” (the amusing title of the episode) – in which they star as pirates fighting in a storm, while the ship/swing bursts into flame below them. Seriously, if you do not want to see *that* you are clearly beyond help.

To cap off the volume, we get a painful episode where we learn that Carlos is in love with Sara, even though he treats her like crap (ah, beautiful Japanese-style heterosexual love.)

Nothing against the straights, but, I’m sticking with Sora and Layla fighting with swords on a swinging, burning pirate ship. Are you with me? Yar!

Rating:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service (oh yes, less Fool for a change, too) – 3

Overall – 8

This volume is one of those moments where you remember why you’re watching this stuff in the first place. ^_^ And it’s all due to the kindness and generosity of Ted the Awesome that I was once again able to wallow in the Yuri goodness that is Layla and Sora. Ted, you are indeed Awesome. ^_^

Posted in English Anime, Kaleido Star, Yuri Anime | 4 Comments »


Yuri News This Week – July 5, 2008

July 5th, 2008

This news report is 100% complete as of the time I typed it, but there are still plenty of Industry panels to come at Anime Expo, so expect more updates later on.

Yuri Anime

A second Ichigo Mashimaro OVA has been announced, so members of the “Cult of Miu” rejoice! (And look – I made us a badge. lol It’s crappy. I don’t care and I don’t see you making one, so shush, you.)

Funimation announced that they have picked up distribution rights for many Geneon and ADV anime properties including Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Murder Princess, and Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, which was licensed (and already suspended) by ADV as Shattered Angels. Kyoshiro first volume was technically released and Volume 2 suspended, but I haven’t actually seen Volume 1 anywhere, so basically, we’re waiting for it from the beginning.

Nozomi/Right Stuf announced Gakuen Alice at their Expo Panel last night.

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Yuri Manga

Big news this week is that Kodansha is launching a Kodansha US office to release manga on their own. While everyone else is musing over how this will effect their Del Rey and other licenses, I have a completely different take on it. I think that Kodansha is about to run into the the uncomfortable truth that is the reality of the manga market here in the US. From various dealings in the industry, I think that a lot of the Japanese companies are under the impression that they can *sell* a lot more manga than they actually can. Here’s why.

In Japan, manga and anime are easily accessible by a large portion of the population on a weekly/monthly basis. Along with free TV release and weekly cheap manga mags, they are bombarded by a never-ending stream of advertising for product. When the tankoubon, the collections, come out, there is little advertising in them, because the stream of distribution *ends* at the tankoubon. In America, the distribution begins and ends at the tankoubon. There are very few anime that are easily accessible on free TV. Most of them are Shounen Jump titles, and not coincidentally, SJ is one of the few magazines that comes out regularly here. So those titles do really well in sales. But most of the other titles are printed, stuck on a shelf and have exactly zero advertising, promotion (other than licensing announcements) or recognition. Without an anime to beat the title into people’s heads, the actual number of people who will ever care about a non-anime title is going to remain low. And without weekly or monthly chapter of a manga to keep interest high, all you have is tankoboun on the shelves.

Here’s what I imagine happens. J Company thinks – we sell 30K tankoubon here of x title. If we assume a 2% audience in the US, we can assume 6000 books will sell. Which seems fair. Only…the amount they will actually sell might be 1500 – 2000. Because the American audience doesn’t have the constant stream of promotion and availability, so Joe Blow finds it easier – and cheaper – to grab a scan, or read a book in the bookstore. And another 25% of the potential audience has no clue about the title’s existence or availability at all.

I think that when Kodansha realizes that without a lot more advertising and a TV anime, their books really won’t do well no matter how popular they are, they will be surprised – and sad. In the meantime, let’s bombard them with letters asking for a translated version of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. We’ll only get two volumes before they pull it for lack of sales, but hey – that’s two volumes we didn’t have, right?

Which leads me to the next thing I wanted to mention – Seven Seas has put several of their Yuri series on hold, First Love Sisters among them. The stated reason is that sales were well below expectations and they didn’t break even. I could have told them that if they had asked. The Yuri audience is small, cheap and sales of 2000 are exceptional, not average or low. Personally, I can see Hayate x Blade failing in the exact same way because the ONLY promotion that title will get is me talking about it. Neither Seven Seas nor Tor is going to spend a cent telling people it exists, and it has no anime. Which is a damn shame, because it’s an awesome series which *could* be popular. But if your marketing plan is to print too many copies, send them anonymously to chain bookstores to disappear them among crowded, unlabeled shelves of manga…expect it to fail. You want people to buy it? You have to invest in promotion. Contests, ads, bookstore displays, more ads, ads in things other than your own books, like gaming magazines, and Giant Robot (an awesome Asian pop culture mag) and on websites. Did I mention promoting the effing hell out of it? Because otherwise, it’ll sell 1000 copies and once again you’ll wonder why. Jason, Adam – I mean you.

And as for you, Yuri audience. Buy the books, buy the anime. These companies spend $$$$ on *you*. Stop being a bunch of cheap bastards – and *still* complaining that there is no Yuri out there. Buy Yuri. From Infinity, from Seven Seas, from Tokyopop, from Yen Press, from Media Blasters, from ADV, from ALC Publishing. Stop complaining that there is none. There are many series at this point and you aren’t buying them. For god’s sake – stop whining and put your money where your whinging is. Please. Thank you.

(And if you *do* buy the anime and manga – thank you. Very, very much. Not just for myself, but for the artists and writers, directors, voice actors and publishers. Thank you.)

I found this news item to be kind of interesting in a “huh?” way – Aurora, the US imprint for Oozora Publishing, will be putting out a manga version of Hitohira. Since Aurora’s stuff is usually Ladies Comics and more adult stories, Hitohira seems an odd series for them. Guess we’ll see, huh?

And DMP has announced the license for the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga. I reviewed the first volume a while back. It was fun. Not particularly Yuri, but fun.

***

Other Yuri News

I’ve been very good about not talking about this, since I was told about it. lol

Nozomi/RightStuf is going to be launching the full Maria-sama ga Miteru website soon and when they do, it will include a submission form to *ask Konno Oyuki-sensei questions*! How cool is that? You’ll have a chance to ask her good questions like “Will we see Yumi as Rosa Chinensis?” and fandumb questions like “Will Sachiko and Yumi ever kiss?” and thank her for providing us with hours of entertainment. I am so going to be putting questions up for her.

bystrouka tells us that both Blue Drop and Mnemosyne will be shown at the Paris Japan Expo this weekend. This is tantalizing, because we haven’t heard any licensing for these titles, but what is being shown is supposedly already licensed. Interesting, huh? bystrouka promises to report back!

And Polish anime/manga portal Tanuki now sports a Polish-language interview with Erica Friedman, thanks to Grisznak! Some of the questions were the usual, but some were pretty funny, so in case you are not a Polish reader, here is a link to the English-language version.

***

That’s it so far for the weekend, but expect more as more industry panel feeds come in. Media Blasters has said they they are holding their big announcements for Otakon, so I’ll see if I can get a preview of those to see of there’s anything relevant to our interests. :-)

Posted in Hatsukoi Shimai, Ichigo Mashimaro, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Nanoha, Yuri Network News | 27 Comments »


Happy Independence Day

July 4th, 2008

Today is the day Americans celebrate the choice, more than 200 years ago, to break with England and become an independent nation. Most people really don’t think about that decision too much, but if you take a look at it objectively, it took some serious balls. No country had ever done that before. Ever.

I sometimes wonder how different history might have been if our founding fathers hadn’t made that decision. How long might it have been for any other country to take that leap, if ever? The French people revolted in part because they had a precedent – the Americans had successfully destroyed the mutually agreed-upon illusion that Kings were akin to Gods.

I remember in 1976 when this country was celebrating that decision all year long as part of the Bicentennial, and every freaking class, club and organization I was in did *something* related to 1776. During that year I visited Philadelphia (site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence,) Washington, D.C, (where I saw the actual document, along with the Constitution – another outrageously ballsy document,) and a host of colonial and Revolutionary-period sites. I live in a town whose nickname is “The Crossroads of the Revolution” and which has several houses where George Washington slept, his headquarters for two years during the war, and many a battlefield.

In 1976, I was also given the opportunity to watch what I still consider to be one of the best movies ever made. 1776 is a musical based on a Broadway play. It recounts the days leading up to the creation, passage and signing of the Declaration of Independence and if you have never seen it, I really recommend you run out and do so *immediately*. Of course its fictitious, but much of the dialogue and situations are taken directly from letters written by the members of that Congress. So for a fiction, it’s pretty factual. And most of the songs are pretty great, too. :-)

If you have ever wondered about the whole American Revolution thing, or if you’re not American and really don’t get the big deal, definitely watch 1776. Every year I watch it on July 4, and every year I’m reminded that despite our current administration trying so hard to destroy everything we’ve worked for for 200 years, being American is actually quite wonderful.

Happy Independence Day!

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | 6 Comments »


Yuri Light Novel: Vanilla, A Sweet Partner

July 4th, 2008

You may have gotten the mistaken impression from reading these reviews, that I enjoy making a complete fool of myself in public, by laughing out loud and snorting in amusement while on public transportation, airplanes, waiting rooms, etc. This is not true – it’s just that, given the average quality of what I read and watch, I can’t help myself.

Which brings us to today’s review of a high quality lesbian schoolgirl killers Light Novel, Vanilla, A Sweet Partner, by Asaura. And special thanks to Anastasia Moreno for pointing me in the general direction of this work of “literature!” ^_^

Vanilla follows the lives of the totally deranged schoolgirls Kei and Nao and their guns. And the guns of everyone around them. And random gun information, because, you know – guns! Yes, the author is a gun otaku and since I am not particularly enamored of guns in my native tongue, other than the fact that Kei used a Beretta 90 TWO and Nao a Takami rifle, I can’t tell you a single thing about any of the weapons so lovingly described.

On the other hand, I can tell you all about Kei – she’s *crazy*. When we first meet her, she’s recounting how she bit a piece of her stepmother’s ear off, because the woman redecorated her real mother’s room. Kei basically spirals downhill from there – from selfish, spoiled and slightly volent to selfish, spoiled and insanely violent. At first I kind of assumed that she and Nao were professional killers who killed people they don’t like for fun, but no…they just killed people they don’t like because they don’t like them. Sure, the three guys who assualted them in the alleyway…but uh, hello, you were two defenseless girls in the alleyway late at night. Set-up much?

We have less info on Nao, but enough to know that her violent tendencies stem from chronic sexual abuse.

So, Nao and Kei love each other very much. Very, very much, they reassure each other a zillion times. They don’t like other people, but they love each other. This is good, because when Kei shoots her father and stepmother in the face in a public place, at least they have each other to rely on as they escape from the police.

Still very much in love, they hide out at their school, where a classmate offers to assist them, because he kind of likes them. But, ultimately, the police track them down and what follows is a long, drawn-out siege which ends with a shootout, but no deaths. Unless I misunderstood the end bit – which might have been the case, because I was a little fried when I read it.

So for Yuri, we get repeated protestations of eternal love and a bunch of kisses, and one implication of maybe some heavy petting – in front of a camera for maximum service. These two are in no way lesbian – but they are definitely Yuri.

Guns, insane, violent schoolgirls and Yuri – what’s not to like?

Ratings:

Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 6
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Oh and yes – it made me snort on the train. ^_^

Posted in Light Novel | 3 Comments »


Goshujin ni Amai Ringo no Okashi Manga

July 2nd, 2008

After having seen an essay on the manga Goshujin ni Amai Ringo no Okashi in Yuri Hime, I kind of expected something more than there was. -_-; I mean, for the little enough in there – it was awfully long essay.

The title story follows a girl who takes the position of maid for a wealthy household and who, through force of will and positive disposition, changes the outlook of the sulky master of the house. This is followed by a Yaoi/BL story of a prisoner and warden, that was the best, certainly the most engaging, story in the book.

Last up is the one Yuri story, “Greenhouse Dancing Club,” which is so mildly Yuri that I’m still not sure that it was worth reading, unless what you like to read most is endless variations of barely crushes among two-dimensional high school girls at, you guessed it, an all-girls school. Honestly, it was so nothing that it’s not worth summing up.

Nothing in any of the stories was particularly stand out. Every story went over well-traveled territory, with nothing particularly new to offer a reader. This is the first volume in a two-volume series. I definitely won’t be getting the second one.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 4
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 4

I can definitely think of better books to write an essay on….

Posted in Miscellaneous | 4 Comments »