Battle Club Manga, Volume 2 (English)

May 12th, 2008

I feel as if I’ve been flattened by a truck, so I’m going with a “brain need not apply” type manga today, courtesy of Dan P. Battle Club, by Shiozaki Yuji, has all the service of Shiozaki’s other, more well-known series Ikkitousen, without any of the complicating factors, like a plot, character development or sanity.

In Volume 1, we met the cast of characters whose crotches we would be looking at. Welcome to Volume 2, in which several of the untranslated things in the story suddenly and quite unneccesarily, become translated. Why do I say it was unneccesary? Because NOTHING is going to make this story better – not translation, not touch up, nothing. It’s Grade Q crap and I dare you to tell me that you’re reading it for the plot. I know I’m not. I’m reading it for the absurdity, and the occasional flash of Yuri.

Let me just get this out of the way. Dear moron who wrote the front page copy; Lesbian is not the same as bi-curious, and Higuchi is not a lipstick lesbian, no matter how much you think your clever copy is alliteratively alluring.

I’m done. Thank you for your patience.

For the rest of the story, we’re basically watching Tamako get molested as she trains and Mokichi being a loser. With service. In fact there’s so much service here, I’m surprised the book doesn’t get a 4-star AAA rating. (Probably that joke just fell really flat for most of you, but I don’t care. It wasn’t for you.)

Tamako gets her ass kicked by a rival school’s Mukouda, and by Taki in a panda suit and then there’s some service as the women (and Taki) take a bath, then some bits about Mokcihi, but no one cares. Whole hunks of the book are related while coach takes a piss, sometimes accompanied by Mokichi or Taki, because apparently that’s funny.

Yuri is…well, not much. Higuchi remains gay in theory, but we’re not seeing much practice. When she gets defeated by Mukouda, her lesbian cool points take a hit, too and the guys begin to harrass her – because lesbians are only cool when they are invincible. Thank heavens *I’m* still invincible! Shiba shows up primarily to be turned on by Taki and Tamako wrestling naked in the onsen. Well, duh.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 1
Characters – 3
Yuri – 2
Service – Infinity

Overall – 5

How low can you make your expectations go? If you approach Battle Club with expectations like “the word balloons will have words” and “I will see ass shots” you ought to be okay.

Posted in English Manga | 1 Comment »


Vampire Princess Miyu, Anime OVA 1 and 2

May 11th, 2008

What better way to start a new week than with a new word! Nioi-kei is a word coined by fujyoshi – the Japanese term for what you probably call Yaoi FanGirl. Fujyoshi are as delusional about Boys Love as you are about Yuri, and as a result come up with all sorts of neat words to describe stuff you didn’t realize needed to be described.

Nioi-kei (pronounced “nee-oy-ke”) means something that “smells of BL.” For instance, Ouran High School which has no actual BL, but because of the preponderance of bishounen and the twin’s playing with an incestuous BL relationship as part of their persona, “smells” like a BL series. In the case of Yuri, it would be something like Kiddy Grade, or Venus Versus Virus. They smell strongly of Yuri, but really, they aren’t.

Today’s review is totally nioi-ke, because although Vampire Princess Miyu OAV Volume 1 and Volume 2 *smell* like Yuri…etc, etc. :-)

The OAV is outside the framework of the TV series (which I am also rewatching). It begins with a girl possessed, an occultist named Himeko, and rumors of a vampire haunting the town.

Himeko learns of, meets, then begins to obssess about Miyu, sure that Miyu is an evil influence, here to destroy lives – and basically nothing Miyu does convinces her that she’s wrong. For her part, Miyu is determined to remain disinterested in human existence, so while in some ways she’s helping people, in some ways she really isn’t. It’s all comes back to the basic concept of existence as a human equaling dealing with stuff, both good and bad, that life brings. Miyu brings forgetfulness to some, but is she really helping? Himeko unconditionally thinks not.

Himeko continues to track Miyu, as their lives become intertwined in a tragic story of a family betrayed – and true to her inhumanity, Miyu involves Himeko in a way that could very well become deadly.

The end remains as ambiguous as the beginning, with Himeko still convinced that Miyu brings nothing good into the world, even if she doesn’t exactly bring evil.

The thing that stood out the most for me was that, at the very beginning, Himeko arrives at the airport with no money in her purse to get a cab or make a phone call. I just started to grin, thinking that these past 20 years have changed things a lot. Nowadays, you’d hop to an ATM, get some money and call your friend on your cell. But Himeko was basically stranded. Also, Himeko was animated in those days, a generation ago now, when adult women looked like adults, and women. It was very nostalgic.

The Yuri is, as I said, totally nioi-kei. You can just about smell the scent in Himeko’s unreasonable obsession with Miyu, but it’s not developed any more than that, not even as service. The mangaka who created Miyu, Kakinouchi Narumi, has bathed more than a few of her works with that eau de Yuri, and has even added a few actual crystals to the Miyu TV series and to her obscure, one-shot manga Utahime Fight.

For a 20+ year old anime, this OAV holds up pretty darn good, I think. The animation is old-school hand-drawn art and yet, pretty cool, the story is tight, dramatic, full of foxes and other supernatural creatures, action-packed and in some way, all very much about people and what makes a human life.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 1
Service – 1

Overall – 8

Thanks be to Ted the Awesome for his contribution to today’s review and also to my wife who bought me the first OAV of the series a really, really, long time ago. :-)

Also thanks to Bangin-san, for his Japanese Words of Anime Fans blog, where we got today’s shiny new term!

Posted in English Anime | 5 Comments »


Yuri News this Week – May 10, 2008

May 10th, 2008

We’ve got so much news these days that, like any other news magazine, I’m separating them into Topics.

Yuri Anime News

We start this week off with news that the Candy Boy ONA (Online Animation) was launched on Nicovideo. The first “full” 14-minute episode of two sisters in love, and another girl who admires one of them, was received with positive reviews by Yuri fandom at large.

And while we’re talking about the bulk of Yuri fandom, they’ll be happy to know that the upcoming Shoujo Sect OVA is up for preorder on Amazon Japan. Because of the “adult” nature of the anime, it appears to be unavailable for shipping overseas (gee, why fellas?) but if you *really* want it, you can use a buyer and get it that way. (Not that the bulk on Yuri fandom would be moved to buy it. I meant that kind of sarcastically.) In any case, here are links to the DVD preorder and the Box set preorder.

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Yuri Manga News

The official press release went out this week, announcing that popular lesbian novelist J.D. Glass and ALC Publishing are working together on a story for Yuri Monogatari 6! Feel free to disseminate the news!

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Yuri at the Library!

A couple of weeks ago was “Library Week” and I recommended the people check their local libraries for manga – rather than downloading them – and also consider donating lightly used manga *to* their local libraries. This week, we have some payoff to our efforts. Not only does the Morris County Library have a *fantastic* Graphic Novels section, with manga for kids and adults, Indie comics, American comics GNs and other types of graphic art, it now inclues a wide variety of Yuri, including Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and Yuri Monogatari 5.

Also, from Ellen K., news of Quatrefoil, a well-respected and well-established GLBT lending library in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Ellen reports that she’s working on a display of manga and anime there, and is steadily incresing their manga and anime collection. Personally, I think that’s utterly awesome.

Send me more stories about Yuri manga in the library – and even better, stories about how *you* put Yuri manga in your library. I really want to hear those. ;-)

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Snatches of Yuri
(feel free to laugh, I did it on purpose)

A newly named segment, in which loyal readers and Yuri fans at large report sightings of Yuri in anime, manga and manhwa you might not have heard about. This week’s contributions are:

sui reports that the manhwa Ciel has two characters, Eliche and Judith, who give off strong Yuri vibes. She says the series is up to 4 volumes in Germany and nothing definite, but, strong vibes.

And from my own reading, in Osamu Tezuka’s MW, (which is an extremely interesting, complex story about a young man who is a pyschotic murderer and the priest who loves him) the only truly emotionally stable and happy character in the entire book is the lesbian editor of a publication. She’s in the story in only one chapter and remains nameless, but she pretty much made my day.

Yuricon News

Updates on the Yuricon wesbite: The above mentioned Press Release on the Press page; and new Yuriko art on the Yuriko Art Gallery! More new stuff coming soon, as always.

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Lastly, on a personal note, if you all would send me some good energy on Monday, I’d appreciate it. If it works out, I’ll tell you why. :-)

That’s it for this week’s report – looking forward to another Yuri-filled week!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 13 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Gunjou, Chapters 3 and 6

May 9th, 2008

Back in March, I reviewed a new non-moe Yuri manga series by Nakamura Ching, Gunjou. After I posted my review, Nakamura-san offered to send me a back issue of Morning 2 – the magazine in which Gunjou runs – which I of course accepted with great joy. And just yesterday, I received my copy of the current issue of Morning 2, to get the next chapter.

I love this manga with all my love.

It is not cute. It is not adorable. It it not moe. It *is* stunning. So, with my apologies to Nakamura-san for the hideous nicknames, I’d like to tell you all about the new bits.

Chapter 3 covers a tale from BL and BN’s high school days. The brunette, BN, is a champion runner, but wears a crappy pair of beat up cleats. The blonde, BL, is hanging around, and the track club is creeped out by her because she’s, you know, *lesbian,* but BN tells them that she’s just a nice person and to stfu, thanks awfully. When the team captain tells BN to get new cleats or else, BN and BL go to a store where BN attempts to steal a nice shiny new pair. To stop her from being arrested, BL offers to pay for them (she’s a rich ojou-sama,) but BN tells her to take the cleats and shove them.

BL visits BN’s house and learns that she lives in a crappy shack with a drunken and abusive father. At the end of the chapter, BL offers to *lend* BN the money, so she’ll stay in school and keep running. We see them 5 years later, as BN – now sleek, happy enough (we think) and married – pays back every yen. BL leaves, putting down exactly half the bill for their coffee – a beautiful and subtle touch. We go back to the present, with the two of them on the run, and we learn that BN still has that 550 yen in her wallet.

In stark contrast to Chapter 3’s happy ending, chapter 6 is BRUTAL. They take a hotel for the night, but BN gets weird about sleeping in the same bed as BL, so they get separate rooms. We learn from the news that the police know BL did the murder and that the two fugitives are being sought. BL can’t sleep, so she goes out. We see BN looking in the mirror at her body, which is covered in bruises. Since they have been on the run for a month – at least some of those bruises are probably not from the dead husband…. BL grabs a taxi to go back to the hotel. The taxi driver solicts a hand job, which BL does, flashing back and forth the whole time to the murder. She leaves the cab and when a fortune teller approaches her and tells her that she’ll get married, she goes postal on the lady, who asks for forgiveness as she reaches for a stone to bash the crazy, violent woman on top of her.

BN notices BL’s not back and eventually finds her, trying to kill herself by hanging herself from the bathroom door. BN takes her back to her bed, while BL flashes back to the murder and to their school days where she first met BN and they became friends . BL has a complete emotional breakdown to match her physical beating. As the chapter comes to a close, BL tells BN that instead of killing her husband, it would have been better if she had killed BN. BN goes out into the hall and cries.

There is just nothing about this series that is Akihabara. But, in between the severe mental unbalance, the extreme violence and the raw, unsexy sex, there are moments of such intense tenderness that they quite take one’s breath away.

The Yuri actually identifies as lesbian, so perhaps this is a lesbian manga, rather than a Yuri one. BL is quite obviously hopelessly, dangerously in love with BN…and BN is suffering from all kind of mixed emotions, compounded by the fact that they are both just so very broken that a normal relationship seems impossible for either of them. And, despite the fact that this manga perpetuates the murderous lesbian trope, I think it completely transcends the stereotype.

Gunjou is not a “good” manga – it is a “brilliant” manga.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 2

Overall – 10

I recently learned that gunjou, which translates to the color Ultramarine, is considered to be the most highly revered blue hue in the Japanese artist’s palette.

Once again, thank you Nakamura-san, for the issue of Morning 2 and for creating such a magnficient manga.

 

Posted in Gunjo, LGBTQ, Nakamura Ching, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Pretty Face Manga, Volume 1 (English)

May 8th, 2008

After wallowing in the tragedies of Confidential Confessions I felt the need to read COMEDY! Unfortunately, all I had was Pretty Face, Volume 1. ^_^;

No, it really is a comedy and if I had any humor in me at all, I would surely be doubled up in laughter at the endlessly amusing plight of a bad-ass punk guy who was severely injured in an accident and awakes to find that a helpful plastic surgeon reconstructed his face and upper body to resemble that of the girl whose picture he carried in his pocket. (The wife says, “Because I always carry a picture of myself, just like Paris Hilton.”)

I will give props to the author because at this point, he comes up with one of the most utterly absurd plot devices *ever* to get the punk dude to be able to go back to school – the girl he likes had a twin sister who disappeared some time ago, and now everyone thinks *he* is the sister, returned at long last. Shades of The Return of Martin Guerre…not.

So in Pretty Face, Volume 1, everyone thinks Rando is really Yuna, including and especially Yuna’s sister Rina, who is so excited to have her sister back she wants to sleep with her and bathe with her and rub her naked body all over her, and other sisterly things. Yuri in this volume is by implication and incest-flavored, like Rando imagining himself with Yuna’s face and Rina kissing.

It’s been a long time since I read this series in Japanese, but I vaguely remember that another female character falls for “Yuna” in later volumes, and there’s more fake Yuri there.

Technically, this may be the best reproduction I’ve ever seen out of Viz. (Does that make you think, “Oh, what a shame”?” It does me, lol) The tones are clean, the art is clear and it’s very easy to follow the crazy action scenes.

Pretty Face is not intellectual comedy. It’s physical gags and face faults and the thrill of watching a cute girl kicking ass mightily, with a frisson of Yuri-ish sort of romance. And lots of penis jokes.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 5 They are pretty much one-trick ponies in this volume
Yuri – 3
Service – 7

Overall – 7

My deepest thanks to Ziggr for sponsoring today’s review~!

Posted in English Manga | No Comments »