Live Action: Arch Angels

June 30th, 2008

After watching and reading fourteen million hours worth of Catholic schoolgirls getting into vary degrees of trouble, or not, I am the obviously not the only one who thought, “I wonder what would happen if these characters had superpowers and had to fight evil nuns?” Kawahara Izumi clearly had that same thought and so wrote the shoujo manga Warau Daitenshi Mikaeru, about three girls at St. Michael’s Academy, a private school for girls. I have not yet had a chance to read the manga, but after watching the Live Action adaptation of the story, which has come to America under the name Arch Angels, I absolutely will track it down.

The story follows Shijou Fumio, whose life radically alters when her mother dies. Although they lived in poverty, it turns out that Fumio’s father was unbelievably wealthy and her older brother, who had been kept by the grandmother who threw her pregnant mother out, now wants Fumio in his life.

Fumio transfers to St. Michael’s and instantly, due to her good grades, excellent athleticism and general down-to-earth qualities, is immediately escalated to the rank of star of the school, nicknamed “The Saviour.” She joins Saiki Kazune, known as “Oscar-sama,” and Sarashina Yuzuko called, hysterically, “the Colobockle.” Of course, there’s oodles of akogare/admiration involved in this new star status.

The three are bonded together over their love of average, everyday Japanese food and snacks, and further grow close because they suddenly manifest superpowers, which they will use to defeat the evil Sister Marlena who is kidnapping random delectably pure girls for some nefarious fate or other.

Okay, so that’s the plot. What makes this movie work is the utterly crackheaded use of special effects, and the insane plot complications, compounded by things like eyeball grenades, a CGI dog named “Damian” and a climax which had me *howling* with laughter. Everytime you thought it couldn’t get weirder and funnier…it went leaps past that.

So, now I have a submarine run by a St. Michael’s nun to add to my helicopters at Astrea Hill. If I keep this up, I’ll have a whole military division just based on Catholic school armaments! Awesome. Clearly I need to collect the whole set! And that doesn’t even include soulassassin’s fighter jets.

Oh, and for those of you who watched Ueno Juri in Last Friends and went gaga for her butchy Ruka – she plays Fumio. ^_^

Ratings:

Cinematography – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 2
Service – 2

Overall – 8

Anyway, if you, like myself, need to detox from Catholic schoolgirls and their keigo-speaking proper selves, by watching them slurp ramen before they take on evil with their superpowers, Arch Angels is exactly what you are waiting for. ^_^

Posted in Live Action | 18 Comments »


This Week in Yuri – June 27, 2008

June 28th, 2008

Obviously, while I was at AnimeNEXT last week, some stuff happened. :-)

Yuri Manga

Top story is that Media Blasters has licensed and is working on Maka Maka, in glorious full color, with the internal extras. (No dolls, though. I asked about the dolls and they didn’t know what I meant. Oh well, still no Jun and Nene dolls for me. Boo hoo. Unlike Right Stuf, Media Blasters folks don’t really get the fans’ (my) interest in physcal extras. Too expensive, no one cares, was the basic feedback I got. I think they are totally wrong about that, so if you happen to be talking to them at a con, tell them that you like the physical extras – postcards, dolls, phone straps, etc, too!)

In any case, look for Maka Maka one day soon. :-) In the meantime, if you don’t know why you should care, here’s links to my reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Here’s an interesting little fact, through Brigid Alverson’s Mangablog. Germany Tokyopop functions as a separate company from the American side, and they have announced that they *will* be publishing some of TP’s OEL titles, including lesbian-themed Steady Beat, by Rivkah.

And from Comipress, a translation of the Ichijinsha polls on the readership of their magazines. Yuri Hime holds steady at 70% female, 30% male, despite their attempt to make it more moe and less Yuri.

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Yuri Anime

Nozomi/Right Stuf formally announced the first season of Aria license. I maintain that it’s not really a Yuri series, but plenty of Yuri fans (including myself) feel comfortable enough making it all up in our heads. lol

Nozomi/Right Stuf will be at Anime Expo and they have said that they have two more licensing announcements – will they be Yuri-themed? Guess we’ll have to wait and see!

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Other News

I found this news on Japan Today – As you may know, The L Word was released recently in Japan, and they held an event to promote the series. Selected bloggers were invited and got to be photoed with and interview at least one of the series’ stars.

I’ve never watched a single moment of this series, but I know many Yuri fans in Japan are interested in it. It’ll be interesting to see what the predominantly male fanbase of Yuri takes away from it there. lol

Last up, for the three people out there who are consuming light novels and novels the way I am, lesbian writer Natsuko Mori has a new novel out, about lesbian shenanigans in college called Sempai to Watashi. Because this is Mori-san, I expect it to be brilliant and trashy. I’ll report back when I’ve read it. :-)
***

That’s it for this week, and last. As always, if you have any good Yuri-related news, please feel free to shoot it off to me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Gunjou, Chapter 7

June 27th, 2008

While everyone else in the mangaverse is talking about the July issue of Morning 2 magazine because of the wonderful new manga series by American artist Felipe Smith, *I* want to talk to you about Morning 2 because of the story that’s the main contender for best Yuri Manga of 2008, Gunjou.

This manga is so awesomely dysfunctional that it makes me want to dance around in joy every time I get a new chapter. :-D Chapter 7 was complete and total win. Here’s the quick background: A brunette, who is a straight, married woman – whom I refer to as BN – asks her close friend, a blonde lesbian (BL,) who is in love with her to murder her husband. BL does the murder, and BL and BN are now on the run from the police together. Before you read today’s review, go read my review of Chapter 6, so you can catch up on where we are.

BN is in her room, thinking miserably about how BL wishes she had killed her, rather than her husband. She is clearly missing BL, although she can’t admit that. There is a knock at the door. BN answers it to find BL telling her how lonely she is, and drawing her in for a kiss. They fall to the floor. BN apologizes, saying that she’s got her period, so BL says fine, we’ll do it in the bathroom.

They have raw, totally unsexy, yet completely sexy, sex. It’s nasty, emotionally and physically. It was awesome.

But never once does the emotional brutality these two inflict on one another let up. There is a fabulous scene where, after they had have sex, the blonde pulls out a towel and snaps it, then reaches out to put it around BN’s neck. She, not at all surprisingly, reacts like she’s about to be strangled. But, in one of those random moments of tenderness, BL just makes a big fluffy bow out of the towel. It was so incongruous and out of place, yet strangely fitting and sweet.

In the course of conversation, BN asks what BL looked like when she was killing her husband – what was the look on her face.

They go to bed and sleep a little, but BL gets up and pulls a razor out of BN’s handbag. BN wakes up and they decide to take a bath. BL comments on BN’s bruises. As BN replies, we see the bath from outside the curtain, and hear the scream.

In the final pages, we see the blood running down BN’s arm from the hand that stops the razor blade from cutting her throat. “You’re crying” she says. “Now you know,” BL says, “what I look like when I kill a person.”

Total wow. There is nothing like this manga – how I wish I could make you all read it. It is beyond wonderful. I mean, sure, its awful, but in a good way – “awe full” if you take my meaning.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 8
Service – 3

Overall – 10

So, let other have their “Saint Oniisan” and “Peepo Choo” – I’m the number one fan of Gunjou, and proud of it! This is the perfect Evil Psycho Lesbian story. Best evar, IMHO.

Posted in Gunjo, LGBTQ, Yuri Manga | 9 Comments »


Kurau Phantom Memory Anime, Volume 5 (English)

June 26th, 2008

In Volume 5 of Kurau Phantom Memory, not only do Kurau and Christmas have to face the secret behind their situation, but Ayaka is also confronted with the ugly truth about her own life and loss.

Despite the fact that all the characters are forced into sudden crises, there’s really nothing that surprising to us, the audience. Certainly nothing that we hadn’t guessed was at least a possibility.

Christmas and Kurau do their best to protect and nurture Yvonn, but he cannot survive in the world as he is. They have another few quiet moments, where they charge their own energy and emotions, but when Ayaka joins them, more layers are peeled back around the corrupt core of the GPO and their absurdly dangerous and utlimately idiotic experiments with Rynax energy.

(Dear all governments ever – any plan that includes phrases like, “human evolution,” “super humans” “advanced army of humans” and anything similar, is guaranteed to be a Bad Idea TM. I hope that helps.)

In any case, *just* as Kurau and Christmas think they might be able to relax, their existence is rediscovered. Two insane twin/cop/Human-Rynax hybrids are sent out to “retrieve” them, like yeah, that’ll work – you can totally see when they are carving swaths of destruction through helpless towns of mere humans, that they’re going to play well with others.

In terms of Yuri, the key takeaway for us is this – the bond between a pair of Rynax translates directly to power. The tighter the bond – the more powerful they are. Well, we already know that Christmas and Kurau love each other more than anyone…so we’re not eally worried, are we?

This is an excellent volume (much better than it sounds from this review) – good action and by constantly filtering human relations through the lens of Rynax, a fabulous grasp on what it means to be human. Most of all, we watch every episode on the edge of our seat, our fingers and toes crossed and a prayer on our lips that Kurau and Christmas, and their love for one another, will prevail.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Music – 7
Yuri – 2 (Because I still insist, even knowing the ending, that Ayaka and Kurau make a good couple)
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Next is the final volume…I wonder what I’ll think of the ending this time around!

Posted in English Anime | No Comments »


Yuri Manga: Kannazuki no Miko, Volume 1 (English)

June 25th, 2008

Just for fun, you might want to compare my review of the Japanese edition of Kannazuki no Miko from three years ago to this one. I bet at least some things have changed.

Today’s review is brought to you by Ted the Awesome and the word amai. :-)

Amai is an interesting word. It means “sweet” and is used, as one would expect, about pastries and other sweet things. In the same way that we describe someone as “sweet,” in Japanese a “sweet girl” will be amai just like a pastry might be. But amai has other meanings in Japanese as well. Where we would say “you’re too soft on her” or “you spoil him,” the word amai might be used. And there’s amai as in “naive,” which you find used in fight scenes in which the hero is confident about his/her giant robot piloting skills and the bad guy screams “Amai!” as they launch an underhanded, treacherous attack which inevitably fails to win.

So amai is more than just “sweet” as we understand it in English. It implies a kind of naivete which, in a mild case is simply indulging (another person) too much, and in its extremity is a sort of dangerous cluelessness.

This is all to preface this next sentence: In the first volume of Kannazuki no Miko, Himeko is amai.

She is sweet in the conventional sense, and kind and good – but she’s also dangerously naive and dotes on the people around her, giving into their whims without question, to the detriment of their well-being – and her own. As a result, she is forced into the role of victim by both the people she trusts.

Why, one has to ask, if both Souma and Chikane love Himeko so much, do they allow her to be bullied, outcast and victimized instead of stepping up and claiming their friendship publicly? Setting aside for the moment the fact that Kaishaku’s writing skills are total ass, lol, let’s look at this objectively.

If either Chikane or Souma *had* stepped forward and said – get your hands off her, she’s my important friend, okay, maybe the talking behind her back and bullying might not have disappeared, it would have at least been notched down. If BOTH of them had said “Get your hands off my Betty!” the rest of the school would have backed off, and watched the drama play out with immense satisfaction and titillation. But neither does. Although both Souma and Chikane profess to love Himeko, they let her dangle, unprotected, on the edge of a precipice every day – only showing their “true” emotions when they are alone with her.

It seems particularly nasty behavior in the light of their professed desire to “protect” Himeko…when they are the reason she needs protecting in the first place, right?

Basically, both Souma and Chikane are fail. ^_^;

Souma’s fail is slightly more forgivable, because he’s the basic stuttering non-verbal manga boy. Chikane’s fail is quite literally epic, because she *knows* the whole story and isn’t giving Himeko a single piece of information. Ultimately she brutalizes her physically and emotionally, because in her warped view, it’s to “protect” Himeko from knowledge of the situation.

Himeko’s fail is that she is completely, totally amai. She allows the whims of others to take control of her life, she indulges them by not having an opinion of her own, she naively forgives even the basest behavior, and she never once takes an interest in the truth of what is going on. Not really.

The truth is that the the myth cycle the Orochi and the Priestesses are playing out, is quite thin. The story, really, revolves around the love triangle and Himeko’s victimization by herself and the people who profess to love her.

Tokyopop’s team did as good a job with the material as they could. It’s not a good story, nor is it well-drawn, but they made it make as much sense as possible. I applaud them for that. It’s not as easy as they made it look. The original was actually quite nonsensical. ^_^

Whether you like Kannazuki no Miko will depend on a lot of factors, but if you are the kind of person who goes by the equation zOMG Yuri!=Good!, you’ll probably like it lots.  ^_^

Ratings:

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

Overall – 7

Of course, we’re all interested in finding out the fate of the second volume, which is slated for release in about a week or so. I expect that as it’s one of the licensed titles, it’ll see the light of day eventually, if not actually next week. Sadly, some members of the team who made soup out of this stone are no longer with the company, which is a genuine loss.

Posted in Kannazuki no Miko, Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »