Yuri Anime: Ninja Nonsense, Volume 1

April 1st, 2007

First off, today’s review is brought to you by Sergio Aviles, who sent me this as part of my holiday beg-a-thon. (And, once again, should *you* desire to sponsor a review, feel free to pick something from my Amazon Wishlist. It will be greatly appreciated and you will be thanked!)

It’s standard operating wackiness (S.O.W.) in Ninja Nonsense, Volume 1. As I commented in my original review of Ninin ga Shinobuden, the entire plot of this series can be summed up as “wackiness ensues.”

It all begins when high school student Shiranui Kaede is sitting around not studying for her finale exam when female ninja-in-training Shinobu enters her room, and her life. Shinobu is on a quest for schoolgirls’ underwear in order to pass her ninja exam. And that’s about the way the whole series goes. ^_^ Something normal (flower viewing) is complicated by something silly (monsoon) and then something inexplicable happens (crocodile eats Onsokomaru.)

The whole series is a parody of just about everything you can imagine, from the expected ninja tropes to pervy otaku behavior. Shinobu’s master, Onsokomaru, is a yellow sphere with major “Id” control issues, and her partners in training are a pleasant pack of pathetic ninjas who are all called Sasuke, for ease of identification.

Despite the constant threat of severe pervification, there’s really only a little bit of nudity, butt jokes and related potty humor in the series. Onsokomaru and the ninjas are representative of a 15-year old’s worldview. So the humor is crude. Very.

In the Yuri department we have Shinobu, who early on develops a raging crush on Kaede. In her own incompetent way she pursues Kaede – on the one hand, it won’t come to much, on the other, she gets further than most boys do in non-hentai anime, so…take your pick. ^_^ This is typical one-sided “comedy” yuri.

What makes this series worth watching is how darn silly it is. I was re-watching this volume with the above-mentioned Serge and his lovely wife, and we were all giggling like crazy. It’s S.O.W. but it’s *funny* S.O.W. With some Yuri, too.

Ratings:

Art – 7, but irrelevant, as it’s a goofball series
Story – 7 – ditto
Characters – 7
Yuri – 6
Service – 6

Overall – 7

As a ninja story, it fails utterly. As a series to take your brain off-line with, fine and dandy.

Posted in English Anime, Shinobuden, Yuri Anime | 8 Comments »


Maria-sama ga Miteru Manga, Volume 7

March 29th, 2007

I am usually quite happy to call Maria-sama ga Miteru a “Yuri” series, knowing full well that there is only one character who can really be called lesbian. But there’s just no way to call this particular volume “Yuri” without being an outright liar. LOL

Maria-sama ga Miteru, Volume 7 tells the incredibly straight story of Torii Eriko, Rosa Foetida’s mysterious dates with multiple men. Is it Enjou Kousai, as Yoshino suggests? Or is it love, as Mizuno Youko, Rosa Chinensis insists? Yumi isn’t sure and the thought weighs heavily on her.

Despite it’s unremittingly straight plot (joke, joke) this is an absolutely hysterical volume. Eriko’s flaky personality really works to highlight the slightly off-beat, just barely off-color humor here. And the manga, which typically changes the script here and there from the novels, does a superlative job of inflating the mystery, so that it becomes much more like Eriko is doing something questionable, if not downright immoral or illegal. If you haven’t seen the anime or read my notes on the relevant bits of the seventh novel, this volume, of all of the manga so far, holds up best as a stand-alone story.

I have not really cared for the manga art very much since the beginning and this volume is not changing my opinion for the better. I prefer the character designs from the anime and novels much more than these. I swear Eriko was youthening as the volume went on…. Also absent from this volume was fun incidental art. There was one picture of Eriko with a teddy bear, I seem to recall, and the rest of the blank spaces had the title of the series. I was sort of bummed – those little incidental pieces have been one of my favorite things about the manga. But, as the story is so amusing – and I adored the manga version of Minako’s fiction “The Yellow Rose” (in which, oddly, they didn’t do the name pun thing that Minako used…) – I can overlook that.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Yuri – not much
Service – ditto

Overall – 8

Did I ever mention that the manga has been moved to The Margaret magazine? It’s back on a just about monthly schedule, so collected manga volumes *ought* to come out on a more regular basis going forward. I hope. I imagine the closer deadlines had some impact on the lack of incidental art, as well.

Posted in Manga, Maria-sama ga Miteru | 1 Comment »


Yuri Live-Action: Late Bloomers

March 28th, 2007

When this cynical, jaded reviewer finds herself grinning at something, it always makes an impression. Especially when I had no particular expectations for whatever it was that I was watching/reading.

Late Bloomers is a silly, awkward and surprisingly sweet look at two women who fall in love with one another.

Dinah Groshardt is a middle-aged math teacher in a middle-America high school. She’s pretty much the standard “teacher/coach” type, without the intense hatred of high school students one so commonly finds in real high schools. Carly Lumpkin is the school secretary, and married to the history teacher, who is pretty good friends with Dinah. Carly doesn’t like Dinah much, because her husband seems to have more to talk about with Dinah than with her. Dinah tries to be nice to Carly, but is rebuffed cooly.

When Dinah begins to teach Carly how to play basketball, it becomes apparent to us long before it does to them, that they are starting to be attracted to one another. It’s not long before their attraction reaches scorching point.

Once they become lovers, it’s not too far to wanting to move in and live happily ever after – which they attempt to do. When their relationship is discovered, it polarizes the town. Dinah loses her job and Carly apparently returns to her husband…but not for long. In the end, they force the town to deal with them and their relationship by having a very public wedding.

The end was incredibly stupid and pat – everyone who was against the relationship shows up anyway and kids, husband and co-workers all suddenly are okay with it all. But, you know – fine. It’s a romantic comedy, not a realistic slice-of-life or a drama or anything. It’s just a goofy movie about two not particularly sexy people falling in love. (I have to say, though, one of the characters reminded me strongly of a friend, which probably made her cuter to me than maybe to other viewers.)

What absolutely makes the move work – and far exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations – was how horribly sincere and awkward the characters of Dinah and Carly are. Dinah’s marginal social skills are so cringe-making at the beginning of the movie that she feels *real* instantly. Later, as they find themselves attracted to one another, there is another realistically awkward scene, as each in their own home, they appraise their very middle-aged bodies in their bathroom mirrors. Again, so real, that I didn’t have to suspend disbelief at all.

The emphasis here is on romance and self-discovery, but the bed scenes were just about right for this movie. No punches pulled, but nothing explicit.

If this was a movie about two teenagers, it would have been just another coming out flick. And really, it *is* just another coming out flick, because there are plenty of one woman in straight relationship x one lesbian falling in love movies out there. But a harmless and entertaining example of the breed.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 8
Characters – so painful they were good – 7
Story – 5
Yuri – 10
Service – not lesbian porn by any stretch of the imagination – 1

Late Bloomers was the goopy, soppy sentimental kind of cute. Not really a movie to have a bunch of people over to watch, I don’t think. This is a home alone, curled up on the couch with ice cream, type movie. Perfect for days when you’re under the weather.

Posted in LGBTQ, Live Action | 1 Comment »


Yuri Webcomics: Girly, Volume 2

March 27th, 2007

“Otra and Winter have that thing I look for in Yuri – that inexplicable electricity that make a couple work for me.” So I said, in my review of Girly, Volume 1.

Imagine my surpise, then, to find that quote printed on the back cover of Girly, Volume 2! O_O

Okay, so we left Otra and Winter just past the cusp of them becoming a couple at the end of Volume 1 – a pretty darn satisfying place to end the book. Volume 2 picks up with them in the thrall of post-coital bliss, oogling at each other and other general besotted behaviors that thrill couples, but make their friends gag. ^_^

But, of course, this would not be Girly – or indeed, any of Josh’s work – if it were merely two happy campers camping happily. So, into Otra and Winter’s new bliss please insert a mysterious woman who appears to be stalking Winter – and who has a shocking (shock!) secret – a creative deadline Otra must face, men obsessed with their penises, women who scream, Captain Fist, Chupacabra the irresistibly attractive criminal and, of course – elephants.

My wife had guests over when I read this volume and my chortling, not to mention the occasional burst of hysterical laughter, really freaked them out. ^_^ (One of the guests made a very interesting point. I was explaining something amusing in some Marimite scene or other to the wife when Guest commented “You talk about these characters as if they were friends.” Which I suppose is true. And probably one of the key things that defines “fan” in its most basic sense, as in “fanatic.” I know plenty of people who act like the way a sports figure plays affects them, personally. I know people who obsess over television characters, parsing their every move and word…so, yeah. BTW, Guest had a obsession with “My Little Ponies” so hey, pot, kettle, black, lady. ^_^)

Girly is brain candy in the largest sense – it’s silly, probably not very good for you and enjoyable as hell. There is very little profundity here, but Josh’s shameless use of every concept he can come up with, in ways that often invalidate his story and make your head hurt, is great entertainment.

There’s a teeny little dip in energy in this book from the last that I attribute more to things the author was dealing with as he put it together, rather than to any lack in the comic itself. There’s less “oomph” somehow in the incidental art. But I may just be reading into it.

Ratings:

Art – Variable and random
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – Impossible to judge accurately, I think. Let’s say 3, just to account for nudity and some other stuff.

Overall – 8

As I’m sitting here typing, the strip with the “movie about guns” just popped into my head and I started laughing. ^_^ “Oh no, it’s a ray gun!”

Posted in Yuri Webcomics | 1 Comment »


My HiME Anime, Volume 2

March 26th, 2007

This review has been brought to you by the generosity of Okau Hero Brent A, I believe – there was no name on the shipping label.  In any case, my sincere thanks for his generosity and kindness. This is another of the items off my Amazon Wish List, which I am exceedingly glad to review for you all, as promised. :-) If you would like to sponsor a review, just go ahead and choose something off my wish list – I’ll be sure to acknowledge you with genuine thanks and warm, fuzzy feelings.

So, in Volume 2 of My HiME, we continue filling in the ranks of HiME, get some backstory on a few of the characters and commit the first of what will be a series of heinous crimes against the viewers. The things that were good about this volume were also the things that were bad, so it was an interesting watch from my perspective.

Let’s talk technicals first. The subtitle issue was not resolved for Volume 2, so unless you have state of the art DVD players or computers, you will not be able to see the subtitles. Luckily, since I reviewed Volume 1 I did indeed get both a new DVD drive and new software. Not, you understand, so that I can watch this disk, but because my previous DVD burner began to melt. So, I was able to see the subtitles. And boy oh boy, I understand why they want them to be hard to see! Bandai…appears to be using the teeniest, most pixelated yellow subtitles they can find. I’m not asking for fancy text effects (Ogma knows they’re wasted on me) but I’d like to be able to *see* the subtitles. My laptop screen is 15″. I’m old. They were small and hard to read. And pixelated! That’s all I’m saying.

Once again., let me stress that the animation for My HiME, despite your faulty recollection, is *significantly* worse than that for Mai Otome. Really. If you think I’m lying, you just don’t remember. Because the animation for this volume is *awful*.

Volume 2 deals primarily with two things – the addition of two HiME who function for a *very* short time as foils for one another, and Mai’s personal backstory. The backdrop to all this is rain, so you know it’s dramatic. In fact, the first episode is called “Rain and Tears” in case you miss the point of just how dramatic it is.

But as fast as we gain HiME, we lose at least one in this volume and, in the process, we learn the true risk of being a HiME…that the person (not yourself) that is most important to you will disappear if you’re defeated. On the one hand, we gain a HiME who thinks of her role as a superheroine – and revels in it, much as she revels in her obvious lies about herself and, on the other hand, we lose a HiME who probably wouldn’t have hurt a fly otherwise.

The Monsters of the Day turn up the conflict a notch, Nagi continues to be irritating and wow – is it freakish watching this volume after having been so thoroughly brainwashed by Otome. The level of angst is SOOOOOOO high, that it was hard to take seriously, since I know that all the pain and suffering will…well, I won’t rant about it again. It just seems more like *this* is the fanfic now, where someone took all these happy-go-lucky Garderobe characters, made ’em kids, stuck ’em in a school and upped the angst.

Let me digress a bit and talk about angst. In my Fanfic Writing Workshop, which you can find on “Worldshaking” Fanfic (or at a con near you that is also near me), I discuss the concept of “hand of god” writing. Many people – especially young people, like very angst-heavy stories. There’s a lot of reasons for that that I won’t get into, but I will say this – from the author’s side angst is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to write. You know the saying, “Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard”? This comes from the stand-up comic circuit and it is absolutely true for writing, as well. That’s why so much fanfic sounds like this “Person X is forced to react when Person Y is killed doing something or other.” That’s hand of god writing. To me, the very best writing of all is the kind that plays out in small details. So a lot of anime fails in terms of writing, for me, but some are better than others. I was all for My HiME’s hand of god until the end, where the entire series was invalidated. (Dammit, I promised not to rant again… oh well.)

I had completely forgotten that Nao was Mikoto’s age in HiME, that was really weird. LOL In any case, I found it a tad depressing to watch this volume this time, but if I treat it like a fanfic of Otome, it’s not so bad. ^_^

No Yuri, really, even if you squint and turn up the Yuri goggles, unless you’re counting Mikoto and Mai. Which I’m not.

Last up, the DVD extras. They were universally disgusting. Oh, wait, no, the last one wasn’t disgusting, just pathetic. I know that they are just service for the fanboys, but gawd…how do you guys stand it? I was gagging trying to get through them. (Just another good example of how what lesbians think is sexy and what guys think is sexy is nothing like the same thing…)

Ratings:

Art – 5
Character – 6
Story – 6
Yuri – 2
Service – 9
Angst – 8 and going up quickly from here on in.

Overall – 6

Posted in English Anime, Mai Hime | 4 Comments »