In March, I took a chance on a new manga on the off chance that it might not suck, and lo and behold! it totally was wonderful manga crack! Women with giant haunches and breasts fighting supernatural creepy things in provocative clothes to save the poor peasants of Hakodate against evil foreign influences in the early days after Perry forced Japan open to the west. I enjoyed the heck out of it.

And so we crack open the covers of Hakodate Youjin Buraijou Himegami Volume 2. The bad guys this time are a bunch of Civil War rejects that have become Youjin, who are seeking to encourage the assistance of a particular man by killing his son and threatening the rest of his family. His one child escapes and goes running straight into the arms of Cabaret dancer Himeka. Hime of course grabs Hyou and they head out to fight the evil foreigners.

Of course Hyou gets in a little trouble and of *course* Himeka transforms into Himegami and this time we get to watch. Whoo. So Himegami and Hyou fight the evil civil war soldier-monsters and just as things are getting a little hairy three more women who are dressed just like Himegami, but with different totem animals show up – the calvary has arrived. Hyou is a little “buh?” and so are we, but we just go with it and enjoy the action and the fishnet nijna costumes.

After the bad guys have been dealt with, Himeka comforts Hyou as she goes through the pangs of the leaf marks on her back disappearing. They have some genuinely tender moments together and Himeka hopes that maybe Hyou will lighten up, but, no. That’s about all the Yuri we get this volume, but it works for me. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Yuri – 3
Service – 6

Overall – 7

I’m actually looking forward to the next volume – I want to know who those chicks are and what the deal is with Himegami. Plus I keep hoping that she will get a kiss in soon. ^_^

I know, I know, you’ve been wondering how you can learn to curse like a Marine. And because you are also a creepy otaku, you would really like to be taught this by a series of characters that are that style of art so hideously moe-fied that I have come to call it “fetuses in frilly dresses.” (In this case, fetuses in frilly uniforms.) Well thank heavens for Maritan Focused Drills Marine 3rd Grade Edition! Thank heavens that Anastasia Moreno sent me this copy. I absolutely could not have lived another day without it. Thank you Ana, for making my life worth living! (If you’re reading her blog, Manga Gunkan, you know that Ana was the pronunciation consultant for the cursing. That has got to be the most awesome job in the entire known universe. That’s like, instant geek cred in three different ways.)

In this 3rd Grade Edition, we get the story of “Tinkle Alice,” a girl who wished to have magical powers and military might, followed immediately about the differences in the meanings of “tinkle” and “twinkle,” so you know *exactly* what level of sophistication and humor you’re getting into.

This chapter is followed by many others as we join Tinkle Alice, Maritan (short for Marine-tan), Navy-san, Jiei-tan and Army-kun as they blow each other up, train, drill, sing and curse in extremely unique ways, presented to you in glossy high color. And then…you can hear it all on the attached CD voiced by Japanese seiyuu!

…

There is no way to explain to you the sheer crackheadedness of this…thing. You must experience it, so you can hear Maritan say, “You climb mountain like old people fuck!” and Army-kun shout “Suck my Balls!” then laugh maniacally. Friday Monday needs to take laughing maniacally lessons from Army-kun.

Today I began to listen to the extra Drama CD and got to hear Maritan say, “Okay, which one of you communists just signed your death sentence” and Navy-chan say, “You’re not even fucking human beings.” and then go on to explain that the target of her wrath were merely “amphibian shit,” which made me laugh so hard I started to cry.

I cried a lot listening to the “Lessons”. “Goddamn! She went flying off with her ass on fire!” I was laughing so hard at one point that I had to stop at a stop sign, turn the CD off, wipe my eyes, breathe a few times, and then get back on the road. This series is – quite literally – breathtaking. It helps too that, while the actresses do a decent enough job with the pronunciation, they are speaking like four year olds and they get the emphasis on the words wrong, which makes for something that sounds practically Neptunian at times. With every lesson I asked the CD, “who on *earth* is this series for?” The answer is, of course, me. Which is really worrisome when you think about it. ^_^;

If you’re in or near Akiba tomorrow, some fans of Pixel Maritan are running a “Sergant Cafe.” Finally what I’ve been waiting for – a women in uniform cafe! How I wish I could be there…. Sigh.

Despite the fact that some of the lines are seriously anti-gay (well, DUH, this is Marine cursing, we’re talking here…) Navy-san is a blonde beauty of a type similar to Fate Testarossa of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. And, like Fate, I immediately pegged her as that cool, reserved, but underneath passionate and steel-cored type, with the even more inner core of girlyness (which explains that magic wand.) And, within seconds, I could totally see that she has a crush on Maritan.  Of course I made that part up in my head, but hey – it was *obvious*! All you had to do was overanalyze her body language and expressions and position in the room in relation to Maritan and it was totally obvious. ^_^So, when I popped in the first CD and found that Navy-chan is voiced by none other than Kawasumi Ayako, best known among Yuri fans as Chikane in Kannazuki no Miko I was like “SCORE!”

Boo-yah.

Ratings:

Art – High Moe. If you like that, then 7, for me….3
Story – 8, by which I mean 2, of course, but the sheer insane brilliance…!
Characters – 8 I find I like Army-kun the best, even though I can’t understand a thing she says, and Navy-san, obviously
Yuri – 0, but who needs reality when you have the 6 degrees of Yuri!
Service – I don’t think there’s a number high enough. Googleplex, Maybe?

Overall – 8 for pure entertainment that make your brain crash and burn painfully, but you say “Sir! Thank you Sir!” anyway

In case this sounds as wonderful to you as it was to me, here is the number for your local mental health clin…joking, joking. Here’s links the the 1st volume and 2nd volume too. Tell ’em Ana sent you!