Yuri no Boke 百合のボケ〜百合が好きだ〜

A look at volume 1 of the Psycho-Pass manga, some Yayoi x Shion goodness, and some rambling on doujinshi

2013-05-16T22:29:00.000-04:00

This post started as one thing and ended entirely another. I decided to add some fan art and a link to a good fanfic about Psycho-Pass's yuri couple below this review, and hey, an artist who does fan art I really like of said couple is releasing a doujinshi of them at GLFes (a yuri doujinshi event in Tokyo on May 26) and here's a translation of its preview pages, and here's some more info about GLFes.

The Psycho-Pass manga adaptation, re-titled Kanshikan Tsunemori Akane (Inspector Tsunemori Akane), is currently running in Jump Square, a magazine aimed at the oldest subset of the shounen demographic, late teens. As someone whose first exposure to Psycho-Pass was through the anime that premiered last fall, like most people who've tried at least one iteration of Psycho-Pass' story, it's hard for me not to compare Miyoshi Hikaru's manga adaptation to the anime.

As in the anime, the manga's story takes place in Tokyo in 2112. The government has implemented the Sibyl System, which monitors every citizen's psychological state (or psycho-pass) to deduce whether they will commit a crime. If one's psycho-pass becomes too "clouded", one is judged a latent criminal. In theory, latent criminals with low enough crime coefficients can be rehabilitated through therapy. In practice, they're fucked, and have next to no chance of returning to normal society. The Sibyl System, unsurprisingly, has very flawed criteria for judging people. (Btw, I love the people who criticize this story on the grounds that a society enabling such an obviously flawed government institution is implausible enough to constitute a plot hole. Yup, that never happens.)

It's disappointing that the most extreme example of Sibyl screwing up isn't included here- Kagari Shuusei telling Psycho-Pass's protagonist Tsunemori Akane, a non-latent criminal, that he has been a latent criminal since Sibyl judged him one at five years old. That information not only illustrates how much the Sibyl System can mess with people's lives, it's Kagari's only background information and gives more context to his resentment of the amount of choice Akane has had.

At least in the manga we still get Karanomori Shion mentioning that she had a medical license before she became a latent criminal and Sibyl figured she'd be most useful as a physician/lab and data analyst for the Public Safety Bureau's Crime Investigation Division; see Kunizuka Yayoi reading a guitar magazine (which alludes to her past as a guitarist in a band, as the anime later shows in a flashback illustrating what Unit 1 of the PSBCID was like when she joined them); hear Masaoka Tomomi's explanation of his past as a detective who became too good at what he did; and see hints of what made Kougami Shinya into a latent criminal, which fuels his vendetta against the story's main villain.

Akane, just out of school, joins the PSBCID as an Inspector. Inspectors go after latent criminals and plain old criminals on Sibyl's behalf. They work with Enforcers, latent criminals Sibyl judged as having the aptitude to catch latent criminals and criminals. Enforcers aren't able to leave the PSBCID unaccompanied by an Inspector. The other Inspector in Akane's unit, Ginoza Nobuchika, sees latent criminals as subhuman while Akane wants to work with them as equals. This becomes a source of tension between them.

Chapter one covers Akane's first day on the job, in which she and her co-workers deal with a hostage situation that escalates- thankfully, not as badly as it would have if Akane weren't willing to make up her own mind rather than follow whatever Sibyl says.

Chapter two covers the anime's episode two, in which Akane deals with her guilt over having hurt Kougami to save the hostage's life. As in episode 2, she and Masaoka arrest a latent criminal at the mall. In a weird story change from the anime, Kou, who should be recovering his ability to move in a hospital bed, having been hit with a heavy duty stun gun, decides Akane and Masaoka arresting a run-of-the-mill latent criminal is enough reason to break out of the Public Safety Bureau (something he took elaborate measures to do in the anime, for a much more crucial reason) and run to the mall so he can help. This scene is supposed to make him look like a badass, but just makes him seem like kind of a drama queen. The low amount of danger Akane and Masaoka are in aside, the idea of instantly recovering from being temporarily disabled because of sheer willpower is stupid- that's not how being disabled works- but again, I guess the editor or someone thought it would seem cool.

Chapter three brings us halfway through the story covered by episode three, in which Akane and the other members of Unit One investigate a series of suspicious deaths at a drone factory. Not being able to connect to Sibyl or any outside communication within the factory puts them at a disadvantage.

I've only mentioned the changes I don't like. ^^; Better changes: seeing the day Akane found out what Sibyl considers her viable career options, and seeing her break the news of her choice to her parents, who weren't pleased but stopped opposing after she told them why she wanted it. (Her parents' opposition was only alluded to in the anime. Also, now I wonder what would happen if someone said they wanted to do a job outside the range of what Sibyl deemed appropriate for them. That was kind of sort of answered with Rina. She sang anyway and- assuming she isn't a special psycho-pass snowflake like Akane- I guess stayed free by dodging getting her hue measured by staying in the underground scene of a less regulated area of Tokyo?) We also briefly see Akane's training at the Academy and her meeting her boss before being sent to her first day on the job.

That said, time to bitch about another change! Yayoi and Shion, who are lovers in the anime? The first scene indicating that they're together in the anime is toned down here. So you better understand, here's a visual comparison.

I shouldn't need to explain the difference, but there are people who missed the point of that scene in the anime even though it was as clear as the sun is bright for most viewers. In the manga, Yayoi isn't putting the last touch on getting dressed while leaving Shion's office and Shion isn't lying on her office's couch while pulling her pantyhose back on. The fact that she's pulling on thigh highs instead of regular pantyhose also makes a difference, and it's impossible to contrast these scenes without sounding like a perv isn't it. Ah well. I've already translated the first part of a smutty doujinshi (that I'm buying) below, so I suppose I'm past the point of no return already.

Tl;dr, there are many good things about the anime and some of those good things are still here- but going from this volume, this is still the beta version. I didn't read this volume looking for a carbon copy of the anime. I wanted some changes, since I might as well re-watch the anime for the exact same take on P-P's story, but I wanted the changes to more consistently not make me go : \

But whatever, I still really like the anime. (Reader: "What the hell was the point of this review, Katherine?")

This review also gives me another ~~excuse~~ opportunity to post fan art, as well as a fanfic rec. I found a really good fic on how Yayoi and Shion got together, "In Darkest Red" by Jen.

And some of the fan art is nsfw-ish, so I'm placing it all under the cut below.

Source: Himegawa Ayami's Pixiv.

Source: Marisa Beautoy's Tumblr.

Shion: Hi! ♡
Kagari: Hello!
Shion: Doumo.
("Doumo" = literally "thanks", but in this context, more of an acknowledgement of Kagari's greeting.)

Kagari: Kunicchi, what do you want to eat for lunch?
Yayoi: Udon.
Akane: I want udon too!

Source: Junmei's Pixiv.

Source: Rosso's Pixiv.

Source: Randou's Pixiv.

Source: Komachi's Pixiv.

Definitely no moe.

Source: Kiriko's Pixiv.

Source: Arima@Tsuita's Pixiv.

Source: possumomo's Pixiv.

Source: 808's Pixiv.

Source: Kurage's Pixiv.

Source: BW's Pixiv.

Source: Maru's Tumblr.

Source: Rin Real's Pixiv.

Yayoi: Shion.

Shion: Yayoi kawaii!!

Shion's thoughts: This work is never going to end! I want to play! With Yayoi!

Yayoi's thoughts: This udon is delicious. I want to have Shion too. She's the best...

Shion: Yayoi.

Yayoi: Yes.

Shion: Train.

(As in the railroad kind that gives off puffs of steam.)

Yayoi: ?!

Shion: Breathing cigarette smoke up the nose.

Yayoi: *COUGH COUGH!! HACK*

(Congratulations Shion, you've discovered the ultimate mood-killer.)

The picture above was drawn for Hanami time.

Source: Timadeath's Pixiv and Twitter. Many thanks to @Ichigo_69 for pointing her work out! ^^

And GVFRTYULVDXKYL, Timadeath's doujinshi.

For anyone curious about what it's about (I know there are other people interested in it), I've translated the preview pages Timadeath released of it.

Shion: I'm sorry Yayoi, it'll be a little difficult to have dinner together this evening.
(Text next to Shion's head: Sorry. ♡)

I hate to ask this, but could you go home ahead of me?

I'll get home as soon as I can, so hang in there.

Text in box: After work... ✩

Yayoi: Pafun~ (This noise is too cute to translate.)

Even though she promised we would eat dinner together...

*grumble*

Yayoi: I know she's busy and it can't be helped, but...

I want to see Shion. *mope mope*

I can smell Shion's scent. *sniff...*

The remaining preview images don't have text.

Yeah, I know, that bunny censor. It won't be in the final doujinshi. A few more NSFW pages can be found here and here.

Needless to say I want this. I had a good experience ordering some doujinshi and a calendar from last winter's Comiket through Doujin Press and they're able to make it to this month's GLFes, so I've arranged for them to pick this up for me, fyi anyone else planning to get it. Even though the price of this book hasn't been released yet, DP estimated its price at 500 to 700 yen on Twitter, so I'd mention that when sending your request for this book if you decide to do so. The circle name is ちまちま, and in this event's case, you don't need to give a location beyond the event's name.

Amano Shuninta is also going to sell some books at GLFes under the circle name TETRA. She'll bring her philosophia series, her アラサーOLが、プールで。 book, and a new as yet untitled book, as written on her blog. You can see the covers and prices for her philosophia and アラサーOLが、プールで。 books in her blog post for last winter's Comiket. (Looks like she doesn't charge any more than 500 yen a book.)

For more info on GLFes/its circles, you can visit GLFes' website. You can browse art by different circles attending GLFes through the GirlsLoveFestival9 tag on Pixiv (Thanks to @NetBrianT for pointing it out!), as well as the GLF9 tag.

If you have further questions about doujinshi event-shopping, feel free to ask!

Morinaga Milk's newest: Gakuen Polizi volume 1

2013-05-05T14:13:00.000-04:00

Morinaga Milk's current Comic High! series is pretty different from her previous Comic High! titles, the lovely Girl Friends and Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo. Rather than a romantic drama, Gakuen Polizi (I'm going with Okazu's romanization of this series' title because I agree that it does sound kind of snazzy) is meant to be a romantic comedy. Unlike Morinaga's other romantic comedy, Himitsu no Recipe, Gakuen Polizi's leads are both likeable, so it's already ahead of Himitsu no Recipe even though its romance hasn't really started yet.

If you're familiar with Morinaga Milk's doujinshi output (*cough*), you'll know that she's a fan of the magical girl genre and police dramas. (I have never watched Odoru Daisousasen, but I love the doujinshi Morinaga drew slashing two police women from it. Between her fangirling over that show and one of its two directors having acted as Psycho-Pass's Chief Director- not to mention it being a mega-popular example of its genre- I really ought to watch it already. Ahem, anyway...) What a coincidence that Gakuen Polizi's protagonist, Aoba Sasami, opens this volume narrating that she loved magical girl shows, sentai shows, and police dramas growing up, so she wants to uphold justice herself.

In Gakuen Polizi, the police are rumored to send undercover officers to work as teachers and staff at schools. Sasami is one of the school police, but she's a student. She has just been assigned to Hanasaki Girls' School, where she is friends with two girls named Tokiwa and Minauchi (a.k.a. "Minmin.") There doesn't seem to be much to do, since Hanasaki is a peaceful school with no corruption, crime, or bullying.

One day, however, Sasami thinks she's caught someone stealing books from the school library. Not only is it a misunderstanding, the "culprit" is Sakuraba Midori, the other officer assigned to Hanasaki. Midori assumes Sasami can't be her new partner because Sasami screwed up so badly when she arrested her in the library, but nope.

Midori tells Sasami that she'll be transferred to a new school soon enough when there's a vacancy at a place that needs school police. Midori will always stay at Hanasaki because of what happened at the school she was previously assigned to. It resulted in Midori's partner being injured badly, and she would have been kicked out of the police entirely if it weren't for her father being the Chief of Police. Instead, her father had her permanently assigned to a school where she would never have anything to do as an officer.

When Sasami loses her badge (which is disguised as a notebook), she says that it means more to her than her life, causing Midori to tell her to never say that again. And when a dog seems to be attacking Midori, Sasami jumps in front of Midori and tells the dog to stay away: "Kanojo ha watashi no daiji na partner dakara!" ("Because she is my important partner!" or "Because she is my precious partner!") This painfully reminds Midori of how her previous partner once said "Midori ha itsumademo zutto zutto watashi no daiji na partner da yo." ("You will always, forever and ever, be my important/precious partner.")

Sasami's friend Tokiwa is nearby during the dog incident, and she's a member of the Hanasaki newspaper club, camera always on hand, so she does a front page story on the dog incident, painting it as a dramatic love confession. The student body squeals over it, and Midori's like, "God damn it, we're supposed to keep a low profile here."

Midori and Sasami deal with a bunch of minor incidents, and Midori, as expected, starts warming up to Sasami and respecting her as an officer. There are a few little moments hinting at the more romantic turn we know Sasami and Midori's relationship is going to take.

Tokiwa tells Sasami and Midori about a groper who has been targeting high school girls without being identified, so they get to work catching the perp. The groper's in for a bit a surprise when he tries to resist. :-)

Minauchi catches a glimpse of Sasami's badge during the groper incident, so she goes to Sasami for help with her own problem.

Her sister's being stalked and the police are being shitty about helping her, as police often are in such cases. The stalker's still free to do what he wants, and she's still terrified. As Erica explained perfectly, this arc is a great commentary on the failings of how stalking cases are handled, and in a manga magazine aimed at an audience that could especially use that message, in addition to its general anti-creepines message. I also liked how the stalker was portrayed insofar as showing that there's no way to eliminate the possibility of someone being a stalker (or guilty of other creepiness/behavior that goes beyond creepiness) based solely on how they seem in their public day-to-day life. Victims' accusations are often trivialized (or outright dismissed as lies) at least in part because the person victimizing them is well-liked/is an upstanding student or employee/has a girlfriend/etc.

Needless to say, things turn out well. :-) And of course, this volume's ending dangles a new cliffhanger in front of us- a message Midori receives from her old partner.

I wouldn't normally write about the bonus illustrations in a tankoubon, but the one between chapters one and two of Gakuen Polizi is of a chibi Midori posing with a yo-yo weapon, clearly referencing Sukeban Deka, a long-running 70's-80's shoujo series about a teenaged girl who infiltrates different high schools as an undercover police officer to compensate for her past as a delinquent. All of the bonus illustrations are of chibi Sasami and Midori doing crime drama-esque poses, and I'm sure there are other visual references I missed. Speaking of references, a load of police dramas are name-dropped in this volume, and there's a Madoka Magica sight gag.

So far, Gakuen Polizi is one part much-needed social commentary and one part love letter to a genre its author loves, with some romance seeds being planted. I'm looking forward to volume 2. ^_^

Story: B+

Art: B+

Overall: B+

Manga Review: Golondrina volume 1

2013-05-01T19:01:00.003-04:00

est em became well-known known for her BL manga. She seems to have an affinity for stories set around the world, particularly Spain, so it follows that the series she has running in Ikki (the offbeat seinen magazine that ran Nakamura Ching's Gunjo and Onozucca Kahori's Aido), starring a lesbian lead, takes place in Seville. When I first heard about Golondrina, I wasn't sure how much I would like it since its protagonist aims to become a matador and bullfighting disgusts me, but I found it compelling and want to see what happens next.

Chica (a nickname, not her real name) decides to commit suicide after her girlfriend Maria dumps her in a horrible way. Maria breaks the news that she's pregnant, not even acknowledging how much she's hurting Chica by bringing it up it as if she were confiding in a friend. Chica was abandoned by her parents, so what Maria did, wretched as it is, isn't the only thing causing her major pain- it's the straw that broke the camel's back.

Chica can't bring herself to take a blade to her wrist in the bathroom, with her roommate Seche asking if she's okay outside it, so she decides to run into traffic. The car she runs in front of misses her, and its driver, an old man named Antonio, asks what the hell she's doing. When she tells him she's trying to die, he talks her out of at least using that method ("You'd make innocent people into murderers.") and drives her to his home. She wakes up there the next morning.

Antonio turns out to be a matador coach. When Chica learns that he considered making her into a matador until he realized she's female from changing her out of her rain-drenched clothes, she insists that he take her on as a pupil. Because pro bullfighting deaths still get publicity, Chica wants to die in the bullring, counting on Maria seeing the coverage of it.

Seche finds Chica and Antonio outside Seville's bullfighting stadium, worried sick over Chica. Naturally, he worries even more when he finds out what Chica wants to do and why.

Seche does some research on Antonio and finds out that the last matador Antonio coached, a star of bullfighting whose death rocked the country ten years ago when Chica was five, died because Antonio sent him back into the ring after a bull badly injured him.

We see that the matador, Francisco, begged to be allowed to finish the fight, and Antonio let him do so because he believes in "following the will of the matador." Even though Antonio says he doesn't regret letting Francisco make his fatal decision, he is clearly still haunted by it. Chica finds out the truth about Francisco, but would have been fine with Antonio being her coach regardless. (Antonio's professed feelings about what happened with Francisco aren't the only glaring example of self-deception in this volume. When Chica dated Maria, Maria scoffed at women who date men for being "fake" to impress them while imposing her own style onto Chica, who did/wore whatever she could to make Maria love her.)

Seche decides to become Chica's matador assistant so he can keep an eye on Antonio because he still doesn't trust him.

After months of training, Antonio takes Chica to a bull ranch, where she meets Vicente, the son of a famous matador who expects to be a bullfighting star himself. He doesn't endear himself much to Chica by assuming Seche is Antonio's new trainee instead of her. Chica faces off against her first bull, a smaller one than normal... and fails.

Like I said, this is a compelling series so far. Not only is its art top-notch, it's very well-written. I want to see how Chica and Antonio resolve their issues. (And crikey, I really want to give poor Chica a hug.) Chica herself is a spirited protagonist- as in her response to Antonio when he accuses her of being unable to stomach the sight of blood. (She sticks her hand down her pants, shows Antonio her bloody fingertips and is like, "I'm more than used to seeing blood, idiot.")

Like many a fictional trainee and coach, Chica and Antonio fall into the "hotheaded greenhorn/hard-assed instructor" dynamic, but are fleshed out beyond that enough to feel like people you might know.

Seche is realistic also- and I felt for him when Chica said she was sure he would threw her away at some point, even though they're like siblings. His approach to how Chica should resolve her issues (telling her she's selfish and should just forget Maria), while well-meaning, really misses the mark, but I got the impression that we aren't meant to see Chica's issues as something she can just snap out of through sheer strength of will- she isn't "weak", just in a lot of pain without seeing an end to it. (Fyi, Gar Gar Stegosaurus' Day wrote an excellent review of Sand Chronicles volume 1, better explaining the importance of suicidal feelings not being portrayed as a symptom of weakness.) If my impression is off the mark (I'm open to critique), or turns out to be, I am willing to revise it, of course.

In short, this series is worth reading for its characters, with est em's eye-popping artwork as icing on the cake. Golondrina certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm looking forward to volume 2.

Story: Surprisingly excellent.
Art: A
Overall: A-

"Golondrina" is Spanish for "swallow", as in the bird. I'm not sure what its significance as this series' title is. I suppose est em may have just thought it rolls off the tongue nicely, but I like to think she put at least a little more thought into it than that.

What I've Watched From the Current Season

2013-04-20T02:24:00.002-04:00

Sorry about the long lack of posting here- blame it mostly on getting sick. Now that I've caught up on the new season, I'll comment on what I stuck with from the winter anime season and what I've seen from this season.

From the winter season, I stuck with Tamako Market and Doki Doki! Precure. I'm close to finishing Tamako Market and wish I liked it more than I do. But I'll see how it ends.

I went from hating Doki Doki! Precure to liking it to cursing whoever decided it needs a magic baby (I knew the magic baby was coming, but didn't think much about it until she was introduced. Guess Japanese parents are going to start being bugged into buying Precure baby dolls, in addition to Precure lunch boxes, coloring books, plushies, backpacks, bed sets, action figures, compacts, etc), to liking it again (although I would love to sit down with Mana and tell her that the explosive device set to go off inside her if she says no to doing anything anyone asks of her doesn't really exist), and then being like, "...Do I want to watch this for three more cours?"

I'm not a fan of Precure as a franchise. I really liked Heartcatch and have given the other seasons a shot. To Doki Doki's credit, at least, this is the farthest I've gotten in a Precure season after Heartcatch.

HJHGTYUGCLKHYUIFVK Shion and Yayoi's hands.

(Thanks to @angelx03 for pointing out this splendiferous example of official art.)

I continued to follow Psycho-Pass each week, and am happy with how it ended. (That said, if it ever gets a second season, I will watch the hell out of it.) I think it's very much worth watching, although I know that it isn't for everyone. Not just because some people will disagree with me about its quality, but because, as Erica noted, certain difficult-to-watch scenes may be triggering for some people. Again, I thought it was a great story all-around, and I got a canon lesbian couple I like* out of two of its side characters.

*Bit of an understatement. Anyone following my tweets on this show knows that I set on Yayoi and Shion like a pack of wolves on a deer carcass.

Translation:

Otsukaresama deshita. (Phrase used to laud someone for their hard work.)

Thank you very much ❀

Source: Hana's Pixiv.

*resisting the urge to dump more fan art*

I have also put Zetsuen no Tempest on my to watch list since a number of the people I follow on Twitter really got into it, and word is that it ended strongly.

As for what I've tried from the new season:

Aiura (2 episodes watched):
Aiura is, like this season's Yuyushiki, an adaptation of a 4-koma manga about three high school girls who are friends. In episode 1, Ayuko runs into Kanaka and Saki after buying an ice cream cone the day before her first day of high school. In episode 2, they meet each other again at school and become friends. Kanaka is the boke to Saki's tsukkomi, and the usual 4-koma pun-based humor ensues. This didn't leave any impression on me. I didn't particularly like its first two episodes or find them funny, but didn't really dislike them either. Since they're 2-3 minutes each (not counting their surprisingly long opening and ending themes), they didn't grate on me like episode 1 of Yuyushiki did.

Aiura is streaming on Crunchyroll. Available everywhere except in Japan for premium members, and everywhere except "East Asia, Southeast Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Iran & Afghanistan, and Southern Pacific" for free members.

I know Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil) is the big controversy of the season because of its rotoscoping, but it's a moot argument to me because I tried the first volume of the Aku no Hana manga and didn't like it. Don't see the point of trying it to opine on its visuals when I know its story isn't my cup of tea.

Arata Kangatari (Arata The Legend; 2 episodes watched):
My friends and I got hooked on the Fushigi Yuugi anime (and Ayashi no Ceres, to a lesser extent) in ye olde days of middle school. (The one friend I'm still close to from that group still owns the second half of Fushigi Yuugi while I own its first half, even though neither of us is into it anymore.) This is the first animated adaptation of a Watase Yuu series since Ceres in 2000. Watase became a shoujo juggernaut after Fushigi Yuugi, and Arata is her first shounen series, 17 volumes and still running in Weekly Shounen Sunday.

Arata is a high school boy whose former friend bullies him at school. Another friend throws him under the bus when some boys (including Arata's former friend) threaten to bully him for being friends with Arata. This series' depiction of bullying interests me because some other people and I had a discussion on Twitter a while ago about how rarely shounen deals with bullying- let alone realistically- compared to shoujo.

Apparently this animated adaptation abridges a LOT, including the bullying that informs how Arata reacts to much of what happens later. I plan on reading at least volume 1 of the manga, to see how different it is. Never gave it a chance before because I read a review some time ago ripping Arata as worse than Fushigi Yuugi's protagonist. Going from the anime, I don't see what's so bad about him. Unlike Miaka, he is an introvert and has some trust issues because of his two former friends, but he isn't whiny or immature or bumblingly incompetent or anything.

Arata's wish to disappear is granted when he switches places with a boy from another world, also named Arata. They each take on the other's appearance to the people around them- confusing for all involved because the two boys have very different personalities.

Protagonist-Arata finds that he is not only in a magic fantasy world, the boy he switched places with has been falsely accused of trying to kill that world's ruler, Princess Kikuri, by her twelve guardians. Watase being Watase, the Twelve Guardians are bishounen and probably have tragic backstories. It is one of the guardians, Kannagi, who attacked Kikuri while the other guardians looked on, before her magical defenses went up and she went into a self-preserving comatose state.

In episode 2, protagonist-Arata turns out to be capable of wielding a Hayagami (a relic weapon inhabited by a god) that was being kept by the clan the other Arata comes from. The Twelve Guardians are the only other people shown capable of using Hayagami. Protagonist-Arata (I'll just follow the other Arata's lead by calling him Hinohara from now on) manages to communicate with Arata because... it's a long story, but they get on the same page about what happened. Hinohara is put on trial for what happened to Kikuri. Kannagi has him sentenced to exile to some horrible place instead of execution because he wants to learn more about why Hinohara can use a Hayagami.

It's a solid show so far. Again, I'm curious about how much was left out by the manga, and how much of a difference that makes. It's easy to see the similarities to Fushigi Yuugi: the feudal China-influenced alternate world (although unlike in FY, Arata's alternate world isn't directly modeled on feudal China), the teen being spirited there, the betrayal of friendship, the magical fighting bishounen, and the communication between worlds using personal objects. This show isn't too much of a Fushigi Yuugi clone to stand on its own- Watase has tweaked the elements she's re-using enough to avoid that, and it helps that none of Arata's personalities have equivalents in Fushigi Yuugi so far- but watching it did feel like a blast from the past.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US and Canada.

Glass no Kamen desu ga (It's Glass Mask, but; 2 episodes watched):

A series of shorts parodying the characters of Glass Mask. The first episode reimagines Maya and Ayumi as "yankee" girls, Tsukikage-sensei as the leader of the Scarlet Angel gang, and Hayami as a cop. The second episode features the characters in an office setting, adding Hayami's fiancee to the mix.

This series kind of works as a one-time inside joke. Its first episode was weird more than anything, and made me want to try the next episode just to see how far the writers could take this series as a parody. While its first episode is no masterpiece, its second episode made me cry a little on the inside at how bad it was. Just watch or read Glass Mask.

Glass Mask is about a working class teenaged girl named Maya working her way towards being an actress worthy of the ultimate role- the Scarlet Angel. (Or Crimson Goddess, depending on the translation.) She meets a retired actress, Tsukikage-sensei, who sees the potential in her and helps her train. Hayami, a rich guy with a tragic past who initially gives Maya the impression of being a complete dick, secretly supports her as a fan, sending her roses and messages of encouragement.

Maya's biggest competition for the role of the Scarlet Angel is Ayumi, a girl of the same age whose parents are a famous actress and director. Ayumi wants to prove her worth outside her parents' shadow and is often, ironically, one of Maya's few pillars of support because she sees Maya as the only person who understands her, as the only person whose acting skills rival her own. In short, Glass Mask is excellent and you should watch or read it if you can- especially if you're looking for shoujo that isn't romance-centric, for a change of pace.

The 2005 Glass Mask anime adaptation (a.k.a. the good Glass Mask anime adaptation) is completely available on Crunchyroll. Can't find information on region restrictions, sorry. : \

Devil Survivor 2 the Animation (1 episode watched):

I had to consciously try to remember what happened in this one.

A website that can show how other people would look dying gruesomely becomes popular. Devil Survivor 2's protagonist and his best friend sign up for it and see pictures of each other being crushed by a train. Specifically, the train that's about the arrive where they are. This makes them nervous, but they aren't able to leave before the train arrives. As they lie on the brink of dying, the mascot from that website asks if they're willing to make a contract to survive. They agree and download a demon-summoning app, surviving unscathed. The only other survivor is a girl from their class. The demon summoned by the app she downloaded saves them from the other demons that appeared there. Somehow, they make it outside the train station, where people are panicking about what happened. Everyone's cellphone reception goes dead and aliens attack. The protagonist fights the aliens off with the magic tiger his app summons, and the government people watching are amazed that he summoned it because it's an extra-special demon.

Eh. A lot happened- it just didn't leave much of an impression.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Hataraku Maou-sama! (The Devil is a Part-Timer!; 2 episodes watched):
The only funny comedy this season.

In a fantasy world where demons and humans are at war, the human side overtakes the demons, causing the demon king Satan and his henchman Alciel to retreat to our world. They wind up in Japan, where they have human bodies. A couple police officers mistake them as cosplayers. Satan and Alciel (now going by Maou Sadao and Ashiya Shirou, respectively) register as Japanese residents and settle into an apartment. Satan takes a part-time job at "MgRonald's" to help them get by, and they start acting like a bickering old married couple. At the end of this episode, Satan realizes that the woman he gave his umbrella to on the way to work is Emilia, the knight who led the human side of the war and drove him out of his world.

In episode 2, Emilia threatens to stab Satan but doesn't because, as he notes, she only has a flimsy one hundred yen knife. She stalks him for an opportunity to kill him, and instead realizes he's completely domesticated. She lives in a nicer apartment, but alone, and doesn't seem to be eating much better than Satan and Alciel. She works in customer service at Docodemo, a company modeled on Docomo, and goes by the name Yusa Emi. Just as Satan's Japanese surname plays off the Japanese word for "demon king", Emilia's plays off the word for "hero."

Emilia visits Satan at his workplace to challenge him to meet her after his shift, which he responds to by treating her like any other customer ordering a burger (which she ends up buying.) Satan's co-worker Chi gets jealous of Emilia, but he doesn't get it. (Thankfully, this plot point is miniscule, at least for now.) When Satan meets Emilia after work, an unseen assassin shoots magic bullets at them. Emilia winds up crashing at Satan and Alciel's apartment because she dropped her wallet running from the assassin. (Small handwave- she had to spend the night because she lost her wallet- presumably because she couldn't take the train without it- so if Satan could lend her a thousand yen to take the first bus home in the morning, couldn't he have just lent her the money to take the train home before it stopped for the night?)

Fun show so far. If you want a comedy that doesn't suck, you should check it out. I also find it refreshing that, fantasy trappings aside, it's about working young adults instead of, I don't know, more high schoolers. I'm not sure how seriously to take the assassination plot point right now. How will it affect this show's direction? Guess we'll see in the next episode.

Streaming on Funimation. US and Canada. Episode 3, which should have come out yesterday, is being delayed until Wednesday. Episode 4 is still scheduled to stream next Friday.

Kakumei Valvrave (Valvrave the Liberator; 1 episode watched):
The best show about mech-piloting this season- meaning that while it isn't good, it didn't bore and annoy me the way Majestic Prince did. (And unlike Majestic Prince, it doesn't have horrible character designs.) Valvrave is bad in a cheesy way- complete with a "wtf" moment after its ending credits. Valrave takes place in the far future, with humanity living in space. Some terrorists who fail at reading as threatening, despite this series' best efforts, attack Haruto's school. Haruto's crush is like, "Wait! I see someone knocked out in that car. I'll save them, nothing bad will happen to me!" right before being killed. Haruto winds up piloting a mech, causing Valvrave's equivalent of Twitter to explode (best part of the entire episode), and saves everyone.

So yup, pretty stupid, but entertaining in its own way. Not sticking with it, though.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, and Ireland.

Ketsuekigata-kun! (Blood type-kun!; 2 episodes watched):
As a lot of you know, blood types in Japan are associated with certain personality traits, like horoscopes.

This series, which runs at two to three minutes an episode, anthropomorphizes the different blood types to poke fun at their stereotypical behaviors- how they date in episode 1, and how they respond to societal expectations in episode 2. It is kind of interesting from the point of view of learning more about what the blood types are associated with- more specifically, since I'm narcissistic, seeing what my own blood type's supposed to be like, even though I know blood type personality traits don't hold any more water than horoscope personality traits.

I am amused that whoever's producing this show felt the need to include disclaimers telling viewers not to make fun of other people based on the blood type stereotypes riffed on in this show, and that the blood types' personalities are incidental and don't actually have anything to do with their blood types, even though that's the point of this show? I guess I fail at having type A blood, since I'm not shy about asking someone out, don't see social norms as a gospel of the only right way to live, and like trying new things. lol

Majestic Prince (1 episode watched):

Some teenagers are chosen to pilot ships in a special mission for a space war. I don't remember much else, except that there was a slickly animated space fight and the girl on the far right in the screencap above was really annoying. I think the lead was like, "No, I won't give up!" at some point. I can't say the same about continuing this series.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Otona Joshi no Anime Time (Adult Women's Anime Time; 4 episodes watched):
In January 2011, NHK aired a one episode adaptation of a prize-winning work of fiction by a female author, under the name Otona Joshi no Anime Time. That episode is about a woman named Noriko who returns to her hometown five years after marrying and living abroad, now with a four year-old son and intending to divorce her husband.

She doesn't tell her family what she wants to do as far as we see because she doesn't want to spoil the enjoyment of being with them for the first time in years. She remembers Hisao, the man she fell in love with before she met her husband, and meets him to get closure on what happened between them. I thought this was an excellent character study of someone dealing with how her life played out versus how she wanted it to play out- and still taking action to move forward. (i.e. Divorcing her husband instead of stewing in misery "for the sake of the kid"- like kids can't pick up on their parents being unhappy- or some other reason.)

I've watched all three episodes of the Otona Joshi no Anime Time continuation that aired this past March, each based on a different prize-winning work of fiction by a woman. Each OJnAT episode was animated by a different studio- the 2011 one by The Answer Studio, the first 2013 one by Production Reed, the second 2013 one by BONES, and the third 2013 one by Wao World.

OJnAT's second episode is the most wish fulfillment-y of the bunch. It is also the one that anyone who reads this blog would have the easiest time predicting my response to.

This episode is about a woman named Mimi who leaves her cold, unappreciative husband for a man who has actual affection her and appreciates her cooking- albeit in a way that made me want to elbow him in the gut at points. I would side-eye any guy who calls any single woman who is younger than him an "onna no ko" ("girl"), and his analogy comparing Mimi to a pet was icky even though, I know, it was meant to parallel her feeling like the abandoned kittens he saved from dying. I couldn't get as irritated as I might have by Mimi having no life at all beyond cooking for, cleaning for, and having sex with her boyfriend because she had such a god-awful life before meeting him. Her boyfriend telling her that she's good at cooking is the first time anyone has told her she's good at anything, so, in a way, I can understand where she's coming from in making cooking for him her life's purpose. Kind of hard to begrudge someone starved almost to the point of dying being overjoyed at getting something to eat, you know.

In short, I can't say I liked this episode, even though it was well-executed. I did like how it combined live action footage and animation.

Otona Joshi no Anime Time's third episode is about Hatoko, an office worker approaching her fortieth birthday who has some interesting choices on her list of top ten life moments. lol She is single and spends a lot of nights with her good friend whiskey, thinking over her life's top ten. Even she recognizes that this is a sad way to spend time.

A lot of older folks, I imagine, would sympathize with Hatoko being like "Holy shit, I'm almost forty? It doesn't feel like I'm almost forty. My life really hasn't gone the way I wanted it to." I was amused by her flashback to she and her middle school best friend predicting with dead certainty what their lives would be like at twenty, thirty, forty and when they're in their twilight years. (Like I'm completely beyond doing that. >_>; )

Her life not only did not go as planned because she is single and never married, she has a job with a snotty kouhai and friends who don't listen to her when she brings up non-trivial topics.

She decides to attend her high school class reunion because her first boyfriend Yuusaku, who she dated for three weeks in middle school before he dumped her for an older girl, is attending. She counts her time dating Yuusaku as the high point of her life's top ten. (To give you a better idea of her standards for that list, her grandma's funeral is on it too.) She expects Yuusaku to be a handsome adult, and hopes sparks fly when they run into each other.

Hatoko's batshit plan aside, I liked the part of this episode taking place at her class reunion because, even only about five years out of high school, I've been surprised at finding out what has become of some old high school classmates.

Hatoko runs into Yuusaku at the reunion. Rather than go to the reunion's after party, they get drinks and go to a love hotel. She later finds out that he wasn't Yuusaku, and laughs it off. Good for her being able to laugh it off, but I don't know if I would count something like that as my top moment in life. lol Although, yeah, we've established that she has some unusual criteria for that list. She learns to cook using the insanely expensive cooking ware he scammed her into buying and enjoyed the time she spent with him in the hotel, so I guess she got something out of it.

My impression of this episode is mixed- it is one part amusingly relatable, one part stupid and one part unintentionally funny. It also has my favorite art style of the OJnAT episodes.

OJnAT's fourth episode made me want to call home and apologize for taking so much for granted. It's a heartbreaking look at Maho, a woman who works as a cashier at night to support her family after her husband loses his job. Her husband, college-aged son, and high school-aged daughter don't care about how much she's doing for them, and her elderly mother only wants her to listen to her complaints, never listening to Maho.

Maho emotionally hits rock bottom before essentially telling everyone to go fuck themselves and deciding that she will live for herself more. The make-up drawn on her from that point on is a nice touch. I like that this episode focuses on family instead of romance, for a change of pace in this series. It's a rather bleak portrait of a family, but it's an involving one and also very much worth watching as a character study of Maho.

Railgun season 2 (1 episode watched):
I feel confident saying that the people writing the Railgun anime adaptations write Railgun better than its original creator. I lost interest in the Railgun manga, but still look forward to seeing how this season plays out.

While season one of the Railgun anime followed the Level Upper arc by resolving Kiyama-sensei's quest to save the children Academy City used as guinea pigs, in the manga, she gets carted off to jail after Mikoto defeats her and we never see or hear of her again.

The second season's first episode nicely bridges the two seasons, as Mikoto, Kuroko, Saten, Uiharu, and Uiharu's roommate Harue visit Banri (one of the kids Mikoto and the others saved at the end of season 1, and best friends with Harue) in the hospital to give her a present. A criminal recovering in that hospital makes a break to escape with help from his friends, taking Harue hostage in the process. Of course, things turn out fine, with Mikoto, Kuroko, Uiharu and Saten all getting chances to be awesome. Early on, we also meet Misaki, a Queen Bee at Mikoto and Kuroko's school who uses her mind-control ability to warn Mikoto from challenging her status in their school.

In short, fun episode. It highlighted the characters who made the first season great (the Sisters Arc's biggest weakness in the manga is its dearth of Kuroko, Saten and Uiharu (well, that and Touma lol; couldn't care less about him or the Index series); here's hoping they appear at least a little more in the animated adaptation of it), and I'm looking forward to watching episode 2 this Sunday. My only complaint about Funimation's treatment of this series is their translating Kuroko's "Oneesama" as "Sissy." That one stupid translation choice isn't a deal breaker for me, but, well, it is stupid.

Like Railgun season 1, Railgun season 2 is streaming on Funimation. US and Canada.

Red Data Girl (1 episode watched):
15 year-old Izumi lives at the Tamakura shrine, where she was raised. One day, she gives herself a haircut before going to school because she wants to be different. Because her hair is tied to her powers, which influence electronic devices, her haircut affects how her abilities manifest.

Her absent father wants her to go to school in Tokyo, but she tells him that she will stay in her hometown and he has no right to make decisions for her since he's never around. Unfortunately, this is the only spirit we see from her the entire episode.

Her guardian, a man named Sagara who looks like he could be her brother even though he has a son her age, picks her up early from school. He takes her to a hospital to have her abilities tested. When he brings her home, we meet Sagara's son Miyuki, who is Izumi's destined guardian and an asshole. Going from the next episode preview, he will become Izumi's love interest. Blech.

I don't see any reason to watch more based on this episode- especially because I found so little to like about Izumi and so much to dislike about Miyuki.

Red Data Girl is streaming on Funimation. US and Canada.

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan; 2 episodes watched):
In a Medieval Europe-like setting, Eren and his adopted sister Mikasa live in a city bordered with fifty meter walls meant to keep out the man-eating giants, called Titans, that roam outside. The walls have held out the Titans for a hundred years. Eren doesn't want to spend his entire life inside the walls, and thinks that doing so is living like livestock. He plans to join the Recon Forces that venture outside the walls to attempt to reduce the Titans' numbers and learn more about them.

The day his parents find out what he wants to do, Eren's father leaves on a trip, telling Eren he'll show him what is in their basement after returning. A sixty foot Titan then breaks down the outermost wall, Wall Maria. A lot of townspeople are either crushed by rubble or eaten. The latter fate befalls Eren and Mikasa's mother as a friend of hers forcibly carries them to safety on her request. Her legs being incapacited, she couldn't run away herself.

In episode 2, Eren, Mikasa and their friend Armin make it out of the breached territory, into the safety of the land surrounded by Wall Rose. Because the refugees put a strain on Wall Rose's food supply, the citizens of Wall Rose send the adult refugees on a doomed "campaign" to reclaim Wall Maria's territory. A few years later, Eren, Mikasa and Armin join the youths being trained to kill Titans in the event of future attacks.

I like this show (it's in my top 3 of the season, with Gargantia and Railgun), but you might loathe it. Why might you loathe it?

The brutality of its premise. Too stupid to converse and driven to eat humans for the sake of eating humans- not for nourishment- the Titans are kind of like zombies, except that they aren't dead and can swallow you whole if they feel like it. I've taken a look at the manga, and the anime isn't as violently graphic, but there's still no shortage of blood spraying and horrific implications here. I am a horror fan and am completely fine watching something like The Walking Dead, so, although I am not a gorehound, my tolerance for that kind of thing is higher than most people's. (Although I still can't stand torture porn.)
Araki Tetsuro, who directed Death Note, Kurozuka, Guilty Crown, and High School of the Dead, is directing this series. His vision is not subtle. As with this show's premise, I can understand some people being repelled by it. Even though there are a couple points in these first two episodes at which the direction feels overwrought to the point of being cartoonish (like when the leader of the Recon Forces snaps and rants that they haven't gained anything, for all the soldiers they've lost, after the mother of a fallen soldier asks him if her son's death helped the human cause), it mostly doesn't bother me and fits the mood the story's going for.

My biggest knock against this series is the question of how the huge walls meant to keep out the Titans were built after the Titans appeared. It would be an easy enough plot point to address- say, by making it that the walls existed before the Titans showed up and the surviving people in the area retreated behind them after things went to hell. For now, I'll stay hopeful that this plot point will be addressed satisfactorily.

Attack on Titan isn't high art, but I like it as popcorn entertainment/effective horror/a shounen series that will end, and want to see where it goes. Adding icing to the cake, Okazu reported that this series will have a yuri character named Ymir, who looks to be one of the teens training to fight the Titans.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, and Ireland.

Sparrow's Hotel (1 episode watched):

Easily the worst-looking show this season, Sparrow's Hotel is another series composed of shorts.

Sparrow's Hotel follows the staff at a hotel. Most of the gags revolve around busty, none-too-bright, physically formidable Sayori, pictured above- Sayori fishing a hotel key out of her cleavage because she wanted to keep it warm for a (pretty startled) customer, her disappointing a customer who thought she was asking him out by being like "Do you have any plans after your stay in this hotel? Do you want to make an extended reservation?", mistaking a customer's love confession as his saying he loves the hotel, and making apple juice for a drunk customer by smashing an apple with one hand.

Hopefully next time someone adapts a 4-koma manga about grown-ups, it will be one that is good.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll didn't list their region restrictions for this show when they announced it, but said they would later. I can't find any further news from them on that.

Suisei no Gargantia (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet; 2 episodes watched):

Urobuchi Gen's first one cour series since Madoka Magica, Gargantia is very good so far.

Urobuchi isn't doing as much work on this series as he did on Madoka and Psycho-Pass, but he is still in charge of its series composition. For anyone not sure, being in charge of a show's series composition = being the head writer, who directly writes at least one episode and plans out the rest of the series, supervising any other writers involved to make sure they write in keeping with how s/he wants the show to come out. Urobuchi scripted the first episode of Gargantia. The person who scripted episode 2, Tanimura Daishiro, has worked on several projects- including the screenplay for Wasurenagumo, which is an unsettling gem of a short horror movie. (Utterly different from Titan's brand of horror, for those of you who don't like Titan.)

As loads of other people have noted, Gargantia is a change of pace for an Urobuchi show- lighter in tone than Madoka, F/Z, and P-P.

Gargantia's protagonist Ledo is a soldier living in the distant future, in which mankind has moved into space and created a territory called Avalon for its most privileged. The computer running the battle mech that Ledo pilots tells him he has spent enough time on duty to earn four weeks of eating, sleeping, and reproducing as he pleases in Avalon after he finishes his current tour, to which Ledo has a pretty lukewarm reaction.

When Ledo and his fellow soldiers retreat from a battle against their alien enemy, the Hideauze, a Hideauze intercepts Ledo and he gets knocked off course. Ledo's mech wakes him up months later on what turns out to be Earth, which he thought had been rendered uninhabitable long ago.

Apparently global warming happened, so the people of Earth live on floating communities. The Earth people aren't nearly as technologically advanced as Ledo and, despite the obvious technical superiority of Ledo's mech over anything they have and their old legends about how some people left Earth to go to space when the Earth underwent major changes, are skeptical when he says he comes from space.

A teenaged girl named Amy believes Ledo and befriends him, and is the only one on his side when the leaders of her community discuss what they should do about him. They only agree not to do anything to Ledo because they fear he has companions out there who might want revenge. Unlike the grown-ups, Amy's kid brother thinks Ledo sounds awesome, and her two best friends are benignly curious about him.

When pirates attack in episode 2 (for all the warmth in the Earth scenes up to this point, mostly because of Amy, this series is blunt about the fact that pirates can really fuck you up if they target you), Amy asks Ledo to use his mech to help. He agrees, figuring that it will make a good bargaining chip. He kills all of the pirates with such quick, literally laser-focused precision that the Earth folks must realize by now that trying to do anything to him would have been suicidal.

Despite Gargantia's warmth- especially for an Urobuchi show- I fear for what might happen to the Earth characters if/when Ledo's people find him because of the distress signal he sent out. ^_^;

Gargantia's first episode did a great job establishing the differences between Ledo's society (which a friend and I jokingly called "Psycho-Pass in space") and Earth's society- it imparted a lot by showing instead of telling. (And I'll admit I laughed at Ledo's mech's over-literal translation of Amy's cursing. I like how the language difference between Ledo and the Earth characters is being handled in general- more realistically than that kind of thing normally is in entertainment.) Episode 2 further established the characters, and... well, I'm excited to see how it'll play out. It's a well-written sci-fi adventure, and its visuals are sharp to boot.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, and Portugal.

Yuyushiki (1 episode watched):
Three best friends start high school. One of them is the sensible tsukkomi and the other two act as boke. There's some yuri-flavored humor that isn't going to lead anywhere. (Mostly the pink-haired one intentionally flustering the blonde by being like, "Let me kiss you on the cheek! Let me grab your boobs! Can you lick this ice cream off my face?") There are a lot of unfunny puns also. I don't expect anything ambitious from a show like Yuyushiki, but I don't think it's too much to expect to not be bored.

Yuyushiki is streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Manga Review: Asagao to Kase-san volume 1

2013-03-24T02:39:00.000-04:00

Takashima Hiromi's Asagao to Kase-san (Morning Glories and Kase-san) hails from Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, a relative fledgling in the admittedly not very big world of yuri magazines. (You've basically got Yuri Hime and Hirari. Tsubomi recently stopped being printed, but its publisher has continued its unfinished series online.) Asagao to Kase-san doesn't travel any ground that hasn't been tread many a time, but it's a sweet, sincere falling-in-love-in-high-school series that I look forward to seeing develop beyond the point it reaches in this volume.

Yamada is the plant appointee at her school. She loves gardening, so this duty suits her to a tee. Every morning, she comes to school to water the plants. One morning she sees popular, attractive Kase, the star member of her school's track and field team, taking care of the morning glories she planted. After their conversation that morning, Yamada can't get Kase out of her head. It's made apparent to us that Kase likes Yamada back. They start hanging out, neither quite realizing that their interest is mutual.

When Yamada's best friend notices that she's spending an awful lot of time with Kase, she tells her that rumor has it Kase is gay and her ex is on the track and field team also. (But oh, don't worry, Kase's standards are probably too high for your level, Yamada, she half-jokingly adds.) Yamada gets jealous of Kase's rumored ex and can't bring herself to mention it to Kase. I would like to see the gossip about Kase being gay addressed further in this series.

Kase, tipped off by Yamada's worried best friend, saves Yamada from a karaoke outing with some of the other girls in her class, who don't make any bones about how much of a loser they think she is and make fun of her singing. As someone who sucks at singing but enjoys doing it anyway, I sympathize with Yamada. lol This chapter's resolution is really cute.

Later, Kase helps Yamada buy sneakers and train for the race at their school's athletic festival so she won't lag behind too badly. (My favorite moment in this volume, btw, is the semi-hand holding scene after they go shopping.)

Yamada gets injured in the race. Kase panics when she sees her all bloodied and bandaged up in the infirmary window and forgets the race to run to Yamada. As a result, they finally become a couple. ^_^

So yup, this is a cute series so far. :-) Yamada and Kase are both pleasant, likeable people, and their tentative, none-too-complicated steps towards coupledom make for some enjoyable reading. Although this series is a good example of solid character writing making well-trodden territory still entertaining, I count the expressiveness of Takashima Hiromi's character renderings (which come close to being precious, but manage not to cross that line, imho) as this series' biggest asset so far- particularly how she draws Yamada's reactions.

This volume isn't going for anything ambitious- a feel-good look at two people who like each other- but it does what it is trying to do well. I look forward to seeing where this series goes in its next volume's worth of content, which will focus on the much less-covered territory of two girls who are already going out moving forward.

Story: B
Art: B+
Overall: A smile-inducing B

Some takeaways from the news about ALC Publishing

2013-03-20T19:05:00.000-04:00

You surely are familiar with this news. (Sorry for the slowness in posting this. Was under the weather earlier this week, and the original draft of this thing was kind of messy and all over the place, so I decided to wait and come back to it.)

In the comments of my previous post, on JManga, I commented on how, even though I like and appreciate JManga, I would have liked it more if their titles had been available as download to own- even knowing that licensing manga is a complicated process that I know little about, having never worked in it, and there's only so much a licensor has control over when negotiating with the (not necessarily forward-thinking or reasonable) company that holds the rights it wants. I know, even typing this, that I'm just an armchair quarterback commenting on the pros.

ALC did with the excellent yuri manga Rica'tte Kanji!? what I (and many others) consider the ideal means of selling manga digitally- making it available as a downloadable, DRM-free ebook. The digital Rica omnibus (with more story material than the original print version) was priced lower than the original print version at $4.99 and $5.99, the $5.99 version coming with more nifty extras than the $4.99 version. With enough digital copies of the Rica omnibus sold, ALC could put out a print version of it, which is what a lot of people held off buying the digital version for. It's a catch-22 that didn't translate into good sales. (Btw, the Rica omnibus is still purchasable electronically, and one can still read it online for free.)

I'm focusing on the low sales for the digital release of Rica in my reaction to the news about ALC here because I- apparently naïvely- expected its sales to be better than they were, and saw it as a model for how manga (and books, period!) should be sold digitally. That is, as close as possible to what it is like to buy a print book, with your purchase not dependent on whether whoever you bought it from remains in business.

Anywho, thanks to ALC, I got to read some great yuri by mangaka who would not be sought out by other manga publishers, being josei and independent. I also saw Poor Poor Lips and a bunch of Yuri Hime titles licensed thanks to ALC's partnership with JManga. Yeah, it didn't work out, but better to try and not succeed than not try at all- something that a lot of people fail to grasp.

In short, I am thankful for what ALC has done during its years in business, appreciate the effort Yuricon has put into events in the past (a lot of people talk about wanting a yuri panel or event where they live, but few take action to make it happen; if you really want one and there isn't one in your area, stop talking and walk the walk, unless you live in an area where holding an event focusing on fictional lesbian relationships wouldn't fly), and look forward to continuing to read Okazu.

News: JManga Shutting Down

2013-03-14T18:10:00.001-04:00

Wow, didn't expect to see this announcement today. I'm definitely sorry to see JManga go, especially since they have been friendly and open to responding to customer feedback (like pushing to make their titles available worldwide), and their partnership with ALC Publishing has given us a number of yuri manga licenses- including a bunch of titles I like.

It does suck to see them go, but they don't deserve our getting angry at them, and they aren't "betraying" us. If a restaurant that serves food you like goes out of business, are you going to walk up to the owner and rant at them for closing down? I hope not, because that would be assholish. Same deal here. I'm not happy about seeing JManga go either, but am not going to act like a baby about it. That rant concluded (btw, feel free to disagree with me, but arguing with me about this won't change my mind, and likely won't change yours if you still feel that way this point), I am, again, sorry to see JManga go. I appreciate how much they promoted their yuri titles and got some good entertainment out of their releases.

Manga Review: A Transparent Orange in the Lip

2013-03-13T03:03:00.002-04:00

I've been slow to try this collection. Tried some of Rokuroichi's other work, didn't like it, and her(?) art's kind of ugly. But I gave this collection a shot, and... didn't like it either.

This series' protagonist, Chizuru, is a girl who used to be part of a trio of unpopular girls. Kae, a stylish girl from Tokyo, transferred into her class and gave her two friends makeovers, making them popular. Chizuru effectively became the odd man out, quietly tagging along with Kae and her two "friends" as they proceeded to pal around, mostly ignoring her. Without ever speaking to Kae, Chizuru built up a godly image of her in her head and proceeded to get a crush on it.

One day Kae- gasp- talks to Chizuru (and to her credit, is more pleasant than Chizuru's friends are when they do address her), so Chizuru celebrates by buying the same orange lipstick she sees Kae buy at a make-up store. (Hence this collection's strange title, originally Kuchibiru ni Saketa Orange.) This isn't the first time Chizuru has bought something just because Kae did. Chizuru also buys a wig that looks like Kae's hair and secretly wears it and the orange lipstick in her room while imagining Kae having sex with her.

One day Kae's two friends need to stay at school extra-late, so Kae and Chizuru hang out. They don't have any chemistry, but we are meant to believe that Kae thinks Chizuru's something special. The next day, Kae visits Chizuru's house and sees the wig and they have sex and are supposed to be in love.

Then there are two bonus one-shots. "Close to Your Heart, Okay?" is about two cousins who are being raised together, in case you wanted some eau de incest on top of the boring and awful that already is this book. They have sex, one is afraid the other is going to dump her, and that doesn't happen. "Don't Know If This Is Love" is about two best friends who get together and have sex.

The only thing I can't complain about is the translation of this book's JManga release. ALC has done another quality translation, however lousy the story it's telling in this case is. It is possible to make a premise that has been done many a time (like popular girl x unpopular girl, or best friends who get together) good, or even excellent, through strong writing and characterization. This book doesn't do that. Every character is flat, every coupling contrived and devoid of chemistry, and I found my mind wandering off more than once. We have gotten a bunch of worthwhile yuri manga titles licensed in English lately- A Transparent Orange in the Lip isn't one of them.

Art: D
Story: F
Overall: F

Manga Review: Ameiro Kochakan Kandan volume 1

2013-03-05T02:58:00.001-05:00

It's hard to resist food metaphors for Fujieda Miyabi's Ameiro Kochakan Kandan (Chatting at the Amber Teahouse)- warming and relaxing as a cup of chammomile tea? Sweet as a pastry? A lot of people were happy when this series was licensed by ALC and JManga, and for good reason.

Sarasa, a serious, responsible honor student, works part-time at the Amber Teahouse because she is in love with its kind owner, Seriho. Inept as she is at managing things on her own, Seriho should be a character who annoys me mightily, but by some alchemy of writing, I like her. She and Sarasa go together like, well, a tea cozy and teapot, as Seriho notes in a really cute visual metaphor.

When Sarasa leaves on a school trip, she unwittingly gives her two best friends (and Amber Teahouse regulars) Haru and Hinoka endless opportunities to rib her for her "Seriho-withdrawal." For her part (thanks to an older lesbian couple who patronize the Teahouse), Seriho realizes that she cares about Sarasa much more than she expected to. ... Like, "stay with me for the next fifty years" caring.

Sarasa decides to attend a culinary school where she will learn restaurant management and become a pâtissière. She tells Seriho her hope to remain by her side at the Amber Teahouse, and she and Seriho look forward to a future working together. They haven't quite come to the understanding that they want to spend their lives together in a different sense by the end of this volume. Here's looking forward to that. ^^

This volume also includes a bonus chapter showing how Sarasa and Seriho met, the chapter in which Sarasa, Seriho, Haru and Hinoka hold a Tanabata event at the Teahouse to save it from shutting down, and a short in which Sarasa and Seriho take a look at some possible new work uniforms designed by the characters from Alice Quartet (a fun, yuri-ish series about four fashion designers by Ameiro Kochakan Kandan's author).

As I said above, this is a sweet series. For now, it's pretty much a slice-of-life focusing on the gentle, romantic atmosphere Sarasa and Seriho have whenever they're together. Despite Sarasa not knowing that her feelings are returned, there isn't much angst. It helps that Seriho mentions gender not being a factor in who she falls in love with, giving Sarasa some hope that she has a fighting chance.

Like many a romance, this series runs a heavy risk of inciting cynicism at points- arguably, more than most romance fiction. When I first read through this volume, I was in college and angsting over what I wanted to do, and thought it was really foolhardy of Sarasa to just know where she should attend school/what career to choose based on who she is in love with. Which it is. (Although, I know, easier not to project a future with more idealism than one normally might when one isn't besotted with someone. I'm reminded of one of the bits of advice that is given to the first-years at my old college dorm: "House booty is bad booty. Everyone thinks they're the exception.") But this is a fictional romance- as much a fantasy, in its own way, as Fujieda's Kotonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo to (I mean, this is also a story in which one of the leads becomes a two time lottery winner, right when she needs it most)- and it's executed well enough that I can roll with it here, like I do for the handwaves in other romances I like. Maybe it's just because I'm not at the point in my life I described above, but I felt less cynical reading this volume this time around even though I know the handwavey aspects are there.

Anyway, if you want to read a feel-good yuri romance with an unusual premise (have to give Fujieda credit for always coming up with premises that haven't been done before in yuri, and doing them well), this is a strong choice. It will get better in the second, final volume, which made me tear up at one point when I previously read through it.

As usual for ALC's releases, the translation is strong. I appreciated the extra note explaining the history behind the bonus chapters, since the average person reading this release is less likely to know that history than the average person who bought this series in Japanese.

Story: B+
Art: B+
Overall: B+

Manga Review: Aoi Hana volume 7

2013-02-22T19:29:00.000-05:00

Ow, my heart. Ow ow ow, this volume.

A new school year begins, as Fumi, Akira, Kyouko, Mogii, Pon-chan and Yassan enter their senior year and Haruka and Ryouko become second-years.

Orie and Hinako get married, as Orie's little sister Haruka notes. ^_^ Orie comes out to her family, but her parents aren't exactly thrilled. Haruka is still ambivalent about her sister being gay, but towards the end of this volume, we get a lovely, subtle bit of development showing that, when it comes down to it, her big sister is the same big sister she has always loved and she knows it.

Kyouko and Kou fulfill the pattern for childhood friends in this series and become a couple, but not without obstacle- the baggage resulting from Kyouko's family situation. We get the full story on Kyouko's family here, after having only seen hints of it in previous volumes. Shimura handles the issues unique to Kyouko's back story as realistically and sensitively as she has handled everything else in this series- most poignantly, when Kyouko discusses her situation with her mother with Ryouko and admits she'd never spoken to anyone about her family before.

I've said so elsewhere that I don't envy Shimura writing her characters from the point they've brought her to in this volume. Fumi and Akira both love each other deeply, but while the nature of Fumi's feelings is as clear as day for her, Akira isn't so sure about her own. Akira is being incredibly (arguably overly) accommodating in trying to make things work, while Fumi worries about how much Akira actually wants what she says she does.

The best thing for Akira to do, imo, is be completely honest about how she feels and let things go from there- but I understand her hesitation up to this point. Responding to someone whose feelings you don't return can be hard, and the person in love with her- who she wants to make things as painless for as possible- is her best friend, so I very much sympathize with her actions, even though they aren't what's best for her or for Fumi.

Most people have their hearts broken. Most people experience unrequited love and failed relationships. Such experiences may make one feel like one's heart is slowly being fed through a meat grinder, but most people learn to pick themselves up and recover. (I know, easier said than done. See: Kyouko's mother.)

I like that this volume affirms that Fumi can and will recover if things don't work out with Akira, however much it may hurt. Fumi isn't who she was when she first met Akira, right after Chizu dumped her, or who she was after Sugimoto broke up with her.

The way Akira is being written so far, either outcome could be written believably. I would like to see things work out between them, because Fumi loves Akira so much and it would certainly take her longer to recover from her than from Sugimoto and Chizu. Not just because she loves Akira more than she loved Sugimoto or Chizu, but because Akira was her best friend before becoming her girlfriend. Hell, Akira was her pillar of support when she recovered from her experiences with Chizu and Sugimoto.

If I had to bet, I would wager that they will ultimately wind up together, although there may be a break-up and/or other rocky patches along the way. The "a girl-meets-girl love story that will set your heart aflutter" tagline that comes with each new chapter of this series certainly helps. But most of all, Fumi and Akira's relationship has been developed for so long that I would be surprised if Shimura had another girl in the cards for Fumi.

If I'm wrong (I very well could be; there are astute people who disagree with me), Fumi winding up with another girl could work, if it's developed well enough. But right now, I'm rooting for Fumi to end up with Akira.

In short- I trust Shimura to continue to handle both Fumi and Akira's development with sensitivity and realism, and trust her to give Fumi an (organically) happy ending, whether it's Akira who winds up loving Fumi back as much as she deserves or not.

Story: A

Art: A-

Overall: A

This volume's bonus short, "Kawakubo-san's Loves", gives us insight into one of the Fujigaya students who has graduated- and her feelings for different girls and women, ever since her first crush on her pretty kindergarten teacher. It reinforces this volume's theme of learning to recover after heartbreak- multiple times, if need be- in order to find love.

ARRRR, yuri pirates: Love Flag Girls!! manga review

2013-02-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

Takahashi Itsumi's Love Flag Girls!! is, truly, trashy romance manga at its goofiest. For something silly and smutty, this series is a fun pick. ^_^

Queen Beatrice spends all of her time crying over the cross that the dreaded pirate Maria stole from her years ago. This cross is apparently valuable enough to buy a small country. Upon learning that Maria's ship is right in the harbor, within walking distance of Beatrice's castle, Beatrice's daughter Princess Lucia decides to infiltrate Maria's crew and get her mother's cross back.

Turns out Maria disappeared without telling anyone where she was headed, and her ship is now being captained by her daughter Eliana. Contrary to what she'd always been told about pirates, Lucia finds that Eliana's (all-female, very gay) crew is quite welcoming and laid-back (aside from Eliana's rather serious first mate Isabella, who is in love with Maria), and Eliana herself is a goofy flirt.

You'll be shocked to know that Lucia reciprocates Eliana's attraction, and she and Eliana fall in love. As I mentioned before- because this is not only a Yuri Hime series, but a YH series that was serialized as a cellphone comic instead of in Yuri Hime magazine- there's some pretty explicit sex.

Just as Lucia starts getting acclimated to pirate life, Beatrice sends out the navy to attack Eliana's ship. Lucia returns to the palace to reason with Beatrice, but Beatrice sees it as a betrayal and has her jailed.

Eliana saves Lucia and slaps Beatrice, telling her off for letting her obsession with the cross warp her view as much as it has. But Beatrice's real obsession isn't with the cross- it's with Maria. Maria and Beatrice were a couple once, but Maria left Beatrice because, as a princess and a pirate, how could they be together?

Lucia and Eliana escape back to Eliana's ship, but Beatrice's troops quickly corner them again.

Won't spoil how (although it shouldn't really be surprising), but we get a happy ending. =)

I enjoyed the heck out of this series, but I don't want to make you think it's more sweeping and epic than it is. It's a humorous, anachronistic, alternate world take on the historical pirate adventure genre with lots and lots of yuri. ^_^ Even the battles aren't taken that seriously- mostly thanks to Eliana. Eliana and Lucia's involvement with each other is initially contrived (and, briefly- to the point that I admittedly forgot it until someone else mentioned it- has some questionable consent interaction early on), but they grew on me and I came to like them as a couple (e.g. their argument about which one of them is cuter) and found it easy to root for them. (Not that there was ever a question that this story would end happily.) I also enjoy the fact that, even living in a late 17th century Spain (best as I can tell)-influenced setting, the characters live in a world where being in a gay relationship isn't an issue at all- and like that, however cheerfully stupid it is, LFG has a setting and plot that's different from most yuri.

In short, recommended if you're looking for a frothy, bawdy, smile-inducing yuri romance.

Art: B-
Story: Fun trash.
Overall: B

Speaking of yuri manga, for anyone who hasn't seen it, here's a fake pulp magazine cover Erica from Okazu made that I thought was funny/painfully true.

And if you want a good lesbian romance novel with a pirate adventure theme, I recommend The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin by Colette Moody. It's about a pirate captain's daughter and the seamstress who sticks with her after helping tend to her wounded crew after an attack on her ship. It isn't as light as Love Flag Girls!!, but it's a lot of fun also.

Anime Review: Mouretsu Pirates

2013-02-11T01:00:00.001-05:00

Before I first watched this show (writing this review after re-watching it), I didn't have high hopes for it- it was, after all, adapted from a light novel series called Mini-Skirt Pirates. I tried the first episode and found it free of service, starring well-written female characters. I felt like the sky had opened, a haze of golden light surrounding me as angel choruses sang. It was so... utterly unlike what I expected. I really prefer to re-watch two cour shows before reviewing them, if I liked them enough- but another purpose for re-watching this show was to see if I would feel any differently about it, already knowing what it's like going into it.

Anyway, the actual show takes place well into the future, when mankind has colonized space. Our protagonist, a high schooler named Katou Marika, lives on a planet that is part of the frontier alliance that gained independence from the Galactic Empire a hundred years prior. Key to the frontier alliance's independence was the help of "pirates"- really licensed privateers- who fought on its behalf. Since the war of independence, the frontier alliance's pirates have been able to continue operating legally by renewing their letters of marquee.

Marika, told that her dad died years ago, has always lived with her mom. One day she learns that her father was a pirate captain who only recently died, leaving his space ship, the Bentenmaru, to her. It also turns out Marika's mom Ririka used to be a famous space pirate in her own right. (Btw, if Mouretsu Pirates ever gets a spin-off series focusing on Ririka's days pirating as Blaster Ririka, I will absolutely watch it. Even as a non-pirate, she's awesome.)

Refreshingly, Marika isn't pressured into inheriting her father's position as captain of the Bentenmaru. (You know how it usually is in anime. "Teenager! You must take on this new responsibility, or ______!") She can do it if she wants to, and if she doesn't, it's fine. But she decides that she does want to, so she starts easing into her duties as captain with help from the Bentenmaru's crew members. Even though pirating, in Mouretsu's setting, is a field traditionally dominated by men, no trouble is made because of Marika's gender- it's her age and her need to juggle high school with her captain duties that causes most of her stumbling blocks. (She could drop out of high school to work full-time sooner but, understandably, doesn't want to.) But she's a good learner and proves to be a capable thinker and leader, so she ends up owning her new role.

Marika does part of her training alongside someone who's in a similar position- Chiaki, the daughter of another pirate captain. Chiaki is prickly, but does warm up to and develop a soft spot for Marika. Guess who I ship Marika with? ^_^

In addition to Chiaki and the Bentenmaru's crew, you have Marika's friends from school- mostly other girls who belong to her school's Yacht Club, which is basically the best club ever. (Its members learn how to pilot spacecraft.) The Yacht Club members play a major role when Marika's crew is required to be quarantined for a month after falling ill and she needs to carry out at least one pirating mission during that time to keep her letter of marquee from expiring. During that span of episodes, we get our two episode yuri arc, which I hyperventilated over when the first part of it aired. Jenny and Lynn ftw. ^__^

The first arc of this series after the first two introductory episodes, the three episode cyber warfare arc, is slow. Things pick up with Marika's first real pirating mission, which introduces would-be Yacht Club member Princess Gruier Serenity, whose character design is a neat homage to Sailor Moon's Usagi.

The pirating missions continue, interspersed with Marika's school life, in a fairly easygoing manner that I know won't appeal to everyone. And I get it- I initially expected the show to develop at a more breakneck pace after Marika started pirating, and did feel that, after the cyber warfare arc, it got a little slow between Marika's missions (exempting the Nebula Cup storyline, which was great)- but for what Mouretsu Pirates is actually going for (feel-good fun), it works for me, especially since this series has such a charming cast.

Conversely, some people who were fine with the pacing of most of the show didn't care for the slight change of mood- and more noticeable quickening of pace- in the final arc. Which I understand, although I enjoyed the final arc- and really enjoyed its resolution. In the final arc, Marika and the other pirates have to deal with a Galactic Empire ship that's taking them out ship by ship. This series resolves the pirate-hunting storyline well enough to not make the wait for the upcoming Mouretsu Pirates movie painful, but leaves enough dangling (like the reveal about Marika's father) to make me look forward to the movie. It also, quite wonderfully, affirms that Jenny and Lynn will still be together in college, after Lynn graduates.

In short, this is a fun show with a strong cast, including a very likeable female lead, some smartly written sci-fi (I like that the characters rely on strategy as much as- if not more than- sheer firepower to achieve what they want), and a lack of male gazey-ness. And yuri! Highly recommended.

Story: B+
Art: B
Overall: B+

Mouretsu Pirates is available streaming on Crunchyroll.

Shows I've Tried From the Current Season, and a Load of Psycho-Pass Yuri Fan Art

2013-02-02T23:07:00.000-05:00

A month into the new season, I've tried five of the newly airing shows, not counting the shorts I reviewed in my season preview. I've reviewed each of them below.

Kotoura-san (4 episodes watched):
The surprise of the season. Kotoura-san looked like it would be a light as air 4-koma adaptation about a girl with ESP and her friends in her school's ESP club. But its first ten minutes, showing Kotoura-san's background, felt like the equivalent of being repeatedly punched in the gut. When she was a little kid, Kotoura's tendency to talk about what she heard other people thinking out loud (like her friends' crushes and her parents' affairs) caused her friends to avoid her and her parents to abandon her with her grandfather.

On top of that, she found an abandoned kitten that she fed outside (Not sure why she couldn't just keep it?), but a neighbor decided it was a pest and had it taken to a shelter. The part about her parents and friends made her effectively sympathetic, but the kitten part was overkill. Like we wouldn't get why she entered high school afraid that everyone she loves will leave her without the kitten being taken away? Manipulative though those first ten minutes were, they worked on me, and I wanted to see Kotoura make friends with her classmate Manabe and the members of the ESP club, Yuriko and Daichi. (Manabe, Yuriko and Daichi aren't espers, but they embrace Kotoura's ability instead of being like, "Eek! Monster!")

The primary antagonist in these episodes is some girl who likes Manabe and resents the feelings that crop up between him and Kotoura. She has Kotoura bullied, and when that doesn't work, she has some guys who train at her family's dojo beat up Manabe because... I'm not sure what she hoped to achieve from that.

Anyway, after Manabe is hospitalized, Kotoura transfers out of their school, rationalizing that knowing her has caused everyone she loves pain. So Manabe, Yuriko and Daichi decide to find her and get her to come back.

Like I said, this show surprised me by making me want to see what would happen to Kotoura, however ham-handed it was at points in handling its themes. (Like the crab scene in episode 4.)

Unfortunately, in episode 4, the show introduced one of the most disgusting gags I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. Kotoura's grandfather, the one family member who didn't abandon her, is incestuously obsessed with her and has no compunction about telling her so. Kotoura-san plays this for comedy. Vomit. Episode 4 settles the show's conflicts and Kotoura's issues to the point that it feels like the final episode. Disgusting grandfather aside, that's fine by me since I was starting to get tired of the show anyway. But- eww, vomit, the grandfather. For a show that seemed to have its heart in the right place regarding Kotoura (the "being alienated and bullied for having ESP" aspect could read as an allegory for being alienated and bullied for being different in other ways, which is what I liked about it), the grandfather thing was a complete whiplash. Ugh.

Love Live! School Idol Project (1 episode watched):
Honoka, seen above, finds out her school is going to close after its current first-year class graduates because its enrollment has dwindled. She finds out that another school in the area's enrollment has shot up because some of its students have become hit idols. Honoka decides to become an idol to save her school, and gets her best friends Umi and Kotori to join her.

I won't lie... This episode bored me. I liked that it doesn't have any fan service, but I didn't feel anything while watching it, except when Honoka danced into traffic during her musical number, blissfully unaware of the cars missing her by mere centimeters. That amused me.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha (3 episodes watched):
In a medieval-influenced fantasy world, our Hero breaks into the Demon King's castle to slay him, and finds that he's actually a queen- and one who wants to end the war between demons and humans. It turns out that a lot of powerful people on the human side have an interest in prolonging the war. The Demon King (no, these characters never get names) and the Hero team up to realize the Demon King's dream. First step, introducing the agricultural revolution to change the rules of human side's economy. ...Well, the Demon King introduces it anyway. She just sort of brings the Hero along because she is infatuated with him, for some reason I can't fathom.

I tried the first few chapters of the Maoyuu manga after trying the anime, and liked what I read of it more. The Demon King has a stronger personality in it (e.g. she emphasizes her intelligence and skill at handling finances, rather than her chastity, when she proposes to the Hero) and the Hero... well, he isn't the utter sop he is in the anime, making them feel more believable and less otaku wishfulfillment-y as a couple than their anime counterparts. The manga isn't high art- it still has its problems and obvious wish fulfillment elements (and the Head Maid still deserves a punch in the gut), but the ratio of them to what I liked was good enough that I still found it what I read of it entertaining. I'm not sure I'll stick with it, given everything else I'm reading and watching, but I'd definitely recommend it over the Maoyuu anime if you're curious about the franchise.

Tamako Market (4 episodes watched):
A mixed bag so far. Mainly because of Dera, the show's talking bird character. I didn't like the peeping gag in the first episode, but it wasn't a dealbreaker for me- although I understand how it could be for someone. That aside, I didn't think Dera was that funny (although he had a couple amusing interactions with the other characters), but didn't mind his presence to the point of quitting the show either. He just seemed like a gimmick to set Tamako Market apart from the gajillion other slice-of-life shows starring high schoolers out there, and I hoped that, once the "OMG wackiness" of his introduction was past, the show would focus more on the other characters, who are all likeable.

The second episode focuses more on Tamako and her friends Midori and Kanna as they celebrate Valentine's Day. Amusingly, Tamako just sees the holiday as a marketing opportunity for her family's mochi shop, and Kanna (whose family does carpentry) wants to make a chocolate house, just because she likes building things. The most romantic aspect of this episode turns out to be Midori, who is in love with Tamako. Tamako is, of course, oblivious, and just as unrecognizing of the feelings her friend Mochizou has for her. (His feelings are played more for comedy, and he, realistically, doesn't hide them as well as Midori does.)

Neither Midori nor Mochizou are aware of the other's feelings for Tamako, and... well, given how Tamako is being written, I don't see her getting romantically involved with anyone during this series' run. What surprised me about this episode was its blatantly gay-supportive message. I knew that it was there before watching, but was still surprised by its execution. Kanna tells Midori, "Anyone can love whoever they want," even though Midori never told her about her feelings for Tamako. Makes me wonder if Kanna knows. lol If I were Midori, I certainly would. If Kanna doesn't, then as great as the episode's message is, its execution of that message wouldn't make much sense (Who says something like that to a friend completely out of the blue?) and be kind of after school special-y.

The third episode focuses on Shiori, a shy girl who wants to befriend Tamako. This episode is easily the worst. Dera spends a LOT of time narrating to us and talking to Shiori. It feels more like his episode than hers.

The fourth episode focuses on Tamako's little sister Anko, as she tries to skip the annual festival her family's mochi shop participates in to visit a museum with the boy she likes and some other kids. She isn't able to make it because Kaoru, the local flower shop lady (who is trans, without anyone else seeming to care or it being treated like something wacky), asks her for help with getting some of the local kids ready to walk in the festival's procession. One of the kids wants Anko to stay to watch the procession, so Anko winds up doing for a little girl what her now-deceased mother did for her when she was little. Luckily for Anko, the boy she likes visits her after the festival finishes- but really, the point is Anko's relationship with her mother, and it's very sweet. Annnd then Dera tells us some aphorism I don't remember. He's keeps talking about love and spring in this show in (I think intentionally) generic terms, and I just tune him out when he does.

Again, I do like most of the characters- but Dera is wearing on me more and more, especially after episode 3. Here's hoping he doesn't take over any more episodes, because this is a charming show otherwise.

Vivired Operation (1 episode watched):
I tried this just to give an opinion on it, since a lot of people are being like "OMG yuri" about it.

In keeping with its being helmed by the same guy who directed Strike Witches, Vivired Operation shows us its protagonist's butt before showing us her face. That isn't alienating at all.

This show's first episode does its darndest to remind folks of Strike Witches, from its plucky protagonist rescuing a cat from a tree at school (that's the point when I stopped watching episode 1 of Strike Witches) to the aliens who makes quick work of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Cue Vivired's protagonist finding out from her mad scientist grandfather (who transfers his consciousness into a ferret's body so this show has its talking animal mascot) that she can transform into a magical girl-esque fighter. She saves her blue-haired friend from dying, and her grandpa tells her that she and her friend need to dock in order to save the world. Take away the icky service elements (i.e. make it more like Girls Und Panzer in that respect- Girls Und Panzer didn't have Strike Witches' director, but its premise and the character designers working on it helped it benefit from SW's popularity, and what I saw of it wasn't servicey, and it was still a hit right off the bat when it aired), and I might think this is an okay show. As it is, this episode made me feel like I needed a shower.

Also, I've finished season one of AKB0048. I really enjoyed it, but now knowing what AKB48's management requires the actual AKB48 idols to do to keep their jobs (more on that here and here), I'm feeling uncomfortable about supporting this series. I'm not going to support the AKB48 brand by watching the second season's legal stream on Crunchyroll. I'm just dropping it.

On a more upbeat note, I found a really sweet (pun intended) example of coming out online this past week- click here and here for it. Also, I backed a coming out-themed animated short film called "Arrival" on Kickstarter. It looks great and I would love to see it made, so... well, click here if you want to learn more about it.

Finally, have some Psycho-Pass fan art! I'm still hooked, and champing at the bit to see what will happen. It looks like the next episode will bring us to Shinya and Makishima's confrontation, where episode 1 started. I wonder what the remaining episodes will consist of, but am optimistic that the writers have a solid game plan.

Anyway, fan art!

I like how they're kind of shaped like a heart together. ^^ (Going by the pic's tags, that was done intentionally.)
Source: Anh's Tumblr, ☆ミperfect day

The pic below isn't a slash pic, but I thought it was amusing. (Alas, I'm more of a Kagari than an Akane when I drink.)

Source: Hanifah's Tumblr, (screams externally)

Back to the delicious Yayoi x Shion- or KuKara, as Japanese fans have dubbed them by combining their surnames. ^^

Source: うめの's Pixiv.

Shion: *fondle* Whooo am I?
Yayoi: Shion.
Shion: *grope grope* Correct. ♡
Kagari: Kunicchi and Sensei sure are having fun. How nice...

Kagari: Gino-san! Whooo am I? ♡ *squeeze!!* *grope*
Gino: Ka... Kagari... *tremble*
Kagari: Fantastic! Correc...
Gino: *whack*

Source for the comic and the pic above it: Yumemizawa's Pixiv.

Source: 和哉's Pixiv.

The following batch of pics isn't as worksafe, so I'm putting it under the cut below.

Shion's saying, "Yayoi." "ふふ” ("fufu") and "くっくっ" ("kuku") are just her giggling.

Translation of the text paragraph: They're covered in bubbles, so they must have been playing around in the bath, well, no, but anyway, this is that thing I retweeted the other day. They must've been covered in bubbles afterward.

Credit and thanks for the paragraph translation goes to Erin S! I had trouble with parts of it and asked her for help.

Source for the four pics above: 青野くらげ's Pixiv.

Shion: Your hand is warm. ♡

Yayoi: *mura* (ムラ or "mura" is the onomatopoeia for being turned on. Who says you don't learn valuable things from this blog?)

Shion: Yayoi-chan chuu~ (Chuu = the onomatopoeia for kissing)

Yayoi: *mura mura*

Yayoi: Shion kawaiiii. (Everyone knows what kawaii means.)

The little emoticon in the corner is saying, "Ho \(＾▽＾)/ Yay KuKara~"

Source for the four pics above: なまあし's Pixiv

Manga Review: Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu

2013-01-25T15:36:00.000-05:00

Taishi Zaou and Eiki Eiki's Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu is a miracle of a series. I say so because its first two chapters are fucking awful, but it's still a long-time favorite of mine- a collection I've re-read a number of times. Admittedly, it holds some sentimental value as one of the earliest yuri collections I enjoyed, but its first two chapters (which I normally skip) aside, I do think it's a great collection.

Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu is about three couples at an all-girls' school- two student couples, and the school doctor and one of the teachers.

The first chapter, "Expressions of Love," is about how new student Akiho and her popular classmate Haruka get together.

The second chapter, "She-Wolf," focuses on how new student Fuyuka and her popular classmate Natsuki... well, they don't get together at this point, thankfully, but they do strike up a tenuous friendship. These two chapters, especially "She-Wolf," are riddled with tropes that make ~~this book arguably the most problematic thing I love~~ me want to light them on fire. It's some kind of miracle of writing that I like these characters as couples in the later chapters focusing on them.

The next arc, "First Kiss" (which ran in three parts in Yuri Hime magazine), shifts focus to the school doctor Reiko and a teacher named Ayano. Reiko and Ayano are best friends and alumnae of the school they work at. They fell in love as classmates and shared their first kiss, but thought, in keeping with the heterosexist assumptions they were ingrained with, that their feelings were a phase. After graduating high school, they swept their feelings under the rug and dated men, each oblivious that the other still carries a torch for her.

Things come to a head when Ayano mentions the possibility of marrying her boyfriend to Reiko, making Reiko despair and accept her boyfriend's proposal. I don't want to spoil too much, but if this story's resolution doesn't turn you into a quivering lump of jello, you have no soul.

At the end of "First Kiss", Reiko gives Fuyuka advice about her feelings for Natsuki- preventing Fuyuka from making the same mistake she and Ayano made.

Taking Reiko's advice to heart in "Little Red Riding Hood Strikes Back" (which ran in two parts in Yuri Hime), Fuyuka pursues Natsuki, showing that she doesn't do anything by halves. Ironically, now that she is interested in Natsuki and being really obvious about it, Fuyuka finds that Natsuki isn't as assertive about her feelings as she assumed.

Natsuki and Haruka (and their respective groupies- remember, this is still an all-girls' school story) can't stand each other, but Fuyuka and Akiho become friends and get along beautifully. Some misunderstandings later, Fuyuka makes it clear to Natsuki that she fully returns her feelings (unlike the sort of-girlfriend Natsuki once had), while Akiho and Haruka remain happily in love. Ayano and Reiko also get one last, nice cameo, giving the two younger couples a subtle helping hand to sort out their drama. In an extra-smile inducing touch, Fuyuka and Natsuki react to their first kiss the same way Ayano and Reiko did theirs. And naturally, Fuyuka has no intention of letting her painstaking research into what it takes to have great lesbian sex (courtesy of some advice books) go to waste.

In "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter", Fuyuka, Natsuki, Akiho and Haruka go on an overnight trip to the beach together. It's a sweet conclusion to this series.

Again, this series holds sentimental value for me, but it became a favorite of mine for good reason. It has two of my hooks- multiple yuri couples (who know about each other), and queer women helping younger queer women have an easier time being who they are. "First Kiss" is emotionally wringing but more than delivers in pay-off, and the more humorous "Little Red Riding Hood Strikes Back" and "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter" chapters are a lot of fun and quite funny. (And admittedly, when I first read them, had the bonus appeal that the better examples of such stories would hold for a lesbian high schooler who doesn't knowingly know any other girls who like girls.)

This collection also has an amusing bonus, unrelated one-shot titled "Her," about two best friends who have feelings for each other, and are clearly going to learn that their feelings are mutual very soon.

This collection is one of the earliest series serialized in Yuri Hime magazine, but, like Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo, it holds up as one of the most moving, enjoyable collections put out by YH.

I'm reviewing the English-language release of this book on JManga. As usual for ALC's releases there, strong translation, no complaints.

Story: B+ overall.
Art: B+
Overall: A-

My Top 11 Yuri Manga Highlights of 2012

2013-01-17T14:54:00.001-05:00

Sorry about the neglect here as of late- I moved from my hometown in Florida to New York City last Thursday. Now that things have settled down, this blog will revert back to regular posting. Sorry again about the dry spell, and thank you for your patience!

The Top 11 titles below all came out in tankoubon format in Japan in 2012. Following them, I've listed a few series I really look forward to seeing as tankoubon and, last but not least, a summary of the goodies English-speaking yuri fans saw published in 2012. (In that respect, we have a lot more than we did after 2011 and 2010.)

Aoi Hana by Shimura Takako (7 volumes, ongoing):
Because like many of you, I love Fumi and Akira and am waiting with bated breath to see what becomes of them. I have more to say about their current relationship and its possible final outcomes, but will save that for my review of volume 7. Also- not in volume 7, but I love the increased focus Hinako and Orie got in recent chapters.

Collectors by Nishi Uko (1 volume, ongoing):
Collectors is that rarest of yuri delights- a series about two women who are already in love and well past "Does she like me back?" Takako's hobby is collecting fashionable clothes while Shinobu's is collecting books. Despite their very different interests, they clearly belong together. Nishi Uko has been drawing realistic yuri doujinshi as one half of a circle called UKOZ for years (some of which I own; you can read some of her earlier work in English in the Yuri Monogatari 5 and 6 anthologies), so it's great to see her going pro with this series, which is running in the josei magazine Rakuen Le Paradis.

Girl's Ride by Isomoto Tsuyoshi (1 volume, complete):
Wow, does this series make me grin. Simple premise- Sei is a new student at Nan's school, Nan befriends Sei, Nan picks up motorcycle riding because of Sei, and Sei and Nan go riding to different places- often out of town- together. This series has a bit of an old school seinen vibe, it isn't servicey (not even the beach chapter), and its characters are incredibly charming. And, well, it's part of a yuri imprint, so... ^^

Gunjo by Nakamura Ching (3 volumes, complete):

Volume 2 of this series was, as noted in my Yuri Manga Highlights of 2011 list, an emotionally gut-punching book. Volume three's resolution is... haha, I wont tell you. I'm not just being an asshole here- you really should read it without being spoiled. If someone had spoiled it for me prior to my reading it, I would feel like punching them in the face. On that heartwarming note, if you're following this series but haven't read its ending, I hope you get to asap. By far the most likely licensor for this title is Viz (because of its Sig Ikki line; Gunjo ran in Ikki magazine), but I could also see it fitting in, say, Vertical or Dark Horse's catalogues. (Basically, publishers that have shown interest in dark, offbeat seinen titles.)

Hatsukoi Kouzoushiki by Amano Shuninta (1 volume, complete):

I've become such a big Amano Shuninta fangirl. This collection is a goodie bag of everything she does well- goofiness, sweetness, realism, weirdness, and, yes, sexiness. (She is one of the special few mangaka whose PWP work I find hot. See why this list is so subjective?) My favorite in this collection is one of the non-PWP stories, though- the one about a woman who decides to counter how boring and stuck-in-a-rut she's becoming by ordering a mega-spicy bowl of ramen and eating the entire thing before, eyes watering and lips swollen as an unintended side effect of the ramen, confessing to the co-worker she's in love with. It's utterly adorable, and I love its message.

Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo by Morinaga Milk (2 volumes, complete):

Specifically, the Kuchibiru reboot, for giving Nana and Hitomi a more conclusive Happily Ever After, and their own place! ^_^ Morinaga has wanted to finish Nana and Hitomi's story for a long time, and Futabasha finally gave her the chance to do so. She did a wonderful job, and while I would be thrilled to see more of Nana and Hitomi, I'm happy with where they are at the end of this series.

Pie wo Agemasho, Anata ni Pie wo ne by Sakamoto Mano (1 volume):
For, quite simply, excellent execution of a variety of premises, featuring characters who feel like people I could know and make me want to see what will happen to them. My favorite in this collection is the one about an actress (a lesbian, happily in love with her girlfriend) moving on from how the idol duo she was once a part of broke up. I don't want to spoil too much, but it's a really lovely, poignant story. As with Nishi UKO, Nakamura Ching, Amano Shuninta, Goto Hayako and Morishima Akiko's work on this list, this collection's focus on adult characters is refreshing.

Poor Poor Lips by Goto Hayako (4 volumes, complete):

Ahhhhhhh! I don't want to spoil how this series resolves either. I will let you know that volume 4 ends happily, and that there is a completely unexpected plot twist in it. I'm so, so happy to see Ren and Nako get a happy ending, though. Those two had me rocking in a fetal position in a corner, hyperventilating, after the events of volume 3.

Renai Joshi File by Morishima Akiko (1 volume, sort of complete):

As long as Morishima Akiko continues putting out at least one yuri tankoubon a year, she'll always have a spot on these "Top Yuri Manga of Such-and-Such Year" lists. This entire collection was great, but it included two things I especially like- seeing a character who lost in a love triangle in another series find her own love, and a long-term, adult lesbian couple acting as role models for a younger lesbian couple finding their footing. I hope it's a long, long, long, long time before Morishima Akiko retires.

Sasameki Koto by Ikeda Takashi (9 volumes, complete):

Sasameki Koto's final chapter came out late in 2011, but its final tankoubon came out in early 2012. As you can see from volume 9's cover, our two lovebirds Sumi and Ushio finally graduate high school. The ending they got made me tear up, in a good way- particularly when I read the chalkboard message from their classmates.

Series That Haven't Been Published as Tankoubon Yet:

Cirque Arachne by Saida Nika:
This series' last chapter ran in the last issue of Yuri Hime to come out in 2012, but its tankoubon hasn't been published yet. It's due to (finally!) come out on February 18. Anyway, want to read something different- as in a yuri manga with an unusual setting? Check, this series is about two women who perform in a Cirque du Soleil-like troupe called Cirque Arachne. What's that, you want to know if the actual story is good? Yes, it's very sweet. And have I seen Kaliedo Star? Yes, I enjoyed it quite a bit. If you liked it, you should like this series.

Kazuma Kowo's one-shots in Yuri Hime:
Count me as a Kazuma Kowo fangirl also. I've enjoyed Junsui Adolescence and Sayonara Folklore, her two other Yuri Hime collections (and Dear Tear, her het romance from Rakuen Le Paradis), but her one-shots are my favorite part of her body of work so far. I'm also glad she continued the couple from "Recalculation"'s story, since I liked them (especially Kisaragi) quite a bit in their original one-shot. Oh, but all of them are squee-worthy. ^.^

Hayashiya Shizuru's one-shots in Rakuen Le Paradis:
It's no secret that Hayashiya Shizuru's Strawberry Shake Sweet is one of my all-time most beloved series. As great as Hayate x Blade might be as a yuri-flavored action-comedy, I'm very glad to see Hayashiya also doing more romance-centric work in Rakuen Le Paradis. ^^

Under One Roof by Fujio:
I will probably die of old age before this series comes out in a collected volume (it being only 6 or so pages in each issue of Hirari), but man, this is such a delightful little series. Miho, a recent college graduate, decides to move out of her parents' house, so she tours a sharehouse where the only resident is a woman around her age named Fuuka. Fuuka and Miho get along swimmingly, and Fuuka tells Miho right off the bat that she's gay, just to be sure Miho's cool with it. Miho is, and they become housemates. What happens when Miho and Fuuka fall for each other? ^^ (Hint: Squeeee!)

Goodies English-speaking yuri fans got last year:

Cardcaptor Sakura omnibi 3 and 4 by CLAMP (release by Dark Horse):
Yeah, sucks for Tomoyo that she didn't get the girl, but she's still one of yuri's most iconic classic characters, and CCS is a great story all-around.

Girl Friends omnibus 1 by Morinaga Milk (release by Seven Seas): And omnibus 2, now that it's out. Want a realistic coming-of-age yuri romance? Girl Friends is just the ticket. Not only was having this series published in English an utterly delightful surprise, so was its selling well enough to make the New York Times best-selling graphic novel list, AND Seven Seas licensing Morinaga's Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo, which they will publish this summer.

Rica'tte Kanji!?: Tokyo Love by Takashima Rica:
This wonderful yuri classic about a lesbian college student named Rica- her moving from her hometown to Tokyo to attend a college and finally meet other women in the lesbian community, before getting together with her girlfriend, Miho- is now in electronic format, with the addition of Takashima's Rica chapters from the Yuri Monogatari anthologies, a cracktastic original doujinshi by Takashima, and some snazzy all-new content. This 2.0 version of Rica'tte Kanji!? is going to come out (hurr) in print at some point- but for now, it's available as a DRM-free downloadable e-book and can be read for free on ALC's website, which I think is quite neat.

Sailor Moon volumes 6 through 8 by Takeuchi Naoko (release by Kodansha): Haruka and Michiru. Enough said.

Lots of yuri on JManga, most of it published in partnership with ALC Publishing:
Thanks to the influx of yuri on JManga, I got to see some favorites licensed and released this past year (like Sweet Blue Flowers a.k.a. Aoi Hana, Hanjuku Joshi, Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu, and Poor Poor Lips) and check out titles I hadn't read (for the love of god, if you haven't read Tears of Thorn, READ IT). I'm glad Ameiro Kouchakan Kandan is on there as of today, and look forward to seeing what else comes next. ^_^

The Winter 2013 Anime Season

2013-01-03T23:49:00.000-05:00

Hmm, not terribly excited about this season. I am looking forward to watching AKB0048's second season after finishing its first, and I'm hopeful that Tamako Market will be nice for something light. Otherwise... eh. I would normally be like, "Maybe there will be a pleasant surprise!" but... well, you'll see below. For now, I'm predicting that my definite shows for this season will be the second half of Psycho-Pass and AKB0048 season 2, and a very possible maybe is Tamako Market. But, different strokes for different folks. Maybe you'll find something else here that appeals.

12/21

Boku no Imouto ha Osaka Okan:
An adaptation of Chukei Shuppan's Osaka Okan Rule and Osaka Rule books, which are tongue-in-cheek guides to interacting with Osakans. In this series, Kyousuke reunites with his little sister Nanika, who he hasn't seen in ten years, and finds she isn't anything like he remembers. Each episode will be a few minutes long.

Well... Its first episode is on Crunchyroll now. I don't trust anything with "imouto" in its title at this point, so I'll pass. ^^;

Seiyuu:
Asumi Kana (Hidamari Sketch's Yuno)
Shiraishi Ryoko (Saki's Mako)
Iguchi Yuka (Symphogear's Miku)

01/01

Puchimas! Petite Idol Master:
A series of shorts airing online, featuring chibi versions of the Idolm@ster characters.

Tried Idolm@ster after hearing it wasn't awful. It actually wasn't, but wasn't good either, so I dropped it. So... yup. Pass on this.

Seiyuu:
Kugimiya Rie (Marimite's Touko, a million tsunderes)
Hirata Hiromi (R.O.D. the TV's Maggie)

01/02

Yama no Susume:
Another series composed of shorts. Aoi, a cheerful loner with a fear of heights, and her friend Hinata, who loves mountains, meet for the first time since grade school on their first day of high school and decide to climb a mountain to see the sunrise from its peak, like they did when they were kids.

Crunchyroll's streaming this one too. The first episode is cute. No service, pleasant enough. It covers the story's set-up- Aoi and Hinata meeting again, Hinata convincing Aoi to climb with her, and a couple flashbacks to why Aoi has a fear of heights and what her and Hinata's friendship was like when they were younger. That's actually quite a bit for three and a half minutes, but it doesn't feel rushed. I'll probably forget about this series by the time the next episode airs, but it's fine if you're looking for something light and low-key.

Seiyuu:
Asumi Kana (Hidamari Sketch's Yuno)
Iguchi Yuka (Symphogear's Miku)
Hikasa Youko (K-ON!'s Mio)

Mangirl!:
Another series composed of episodes that are a few minutes each. This one follows "Japan's cutest manga editors" as they try to create the #1 bestselling manga magazine even though they have no experience editing manga.

Crunchyroll has the first episode of this one up too. I like the idea of a series that takes one behind the scenes of manga publishing (not counting doujinshi publishing here), but our options for that in anime that I know of are... well, Bakuman (which is dripping with contempt for women), Sekaiichi Hatsukoi (a romantic comedy starring a lead couple with consent issues), and this (a comedy that isn't offensive, just... not funny). If you want a good yuri example of a manga with a manga publishing theme, you should check out Kodama Naoko's Renai Manga, which is about a stylish shoujo editor who gets assigned to her favorite mangaka- who she always envisioned being a chic person living a romantic, exciting life like the characters in her manga, but turns out to be a shy recluse who doesn't care about fashion.

Seiyuu:
Yuuki Aoi (Madoka Magica's Madoka)
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Taketatsu Ayana (K-ON!'s Azusa)
Kitamura Eri (Madoka Magica's Sayaka)

01/03

Ai Mai Mi:
Yet another mini-episode series. Ai, Mai, Mi and Ponoka-sempai, members of their school's manga club, fight alien invaders, face rivals in tournaments and do other random things.

Crunchyroll has the first episode of this one up too. It was better than I expected- the fanfiction gag was funny. And I liked the visual reference to Morita-san ha Mukuchi. And it isn't servicey. But that one gag aside, its jokes didn't do much for me.

Seiyuu:
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Ootsubo Yuuka (Yuru Yuri's Kyouko)

01/04

Cuticle Tantei Inaba:
An adaption of a manga running in GFantasy. Inaba Hiroshi is a private detective who was genetically engineered to be part wolf. He solves cases with his cross-dressing secretary Yuuta and a teenager named Kei. Inaba, Yuuta and Kei try to arrest Don Valentino, an evil anthropomorphic goat who likes eating money. PV streaming here.

Well... umm... okay. Batshit though the evil anthropomorphic money-eating goat being arrested by a half-wolf detective thing sounds, I think I'll pass.

Seiyuu:
Suwabe Junichi (Fate/stay night's Archer)
Ookawa Tohru (Shiki's Ozaki)
Asami Seto (Hourou Musuko's Takatsuki)
Saiga Mitsuki (Mai Hime and Mai Otome's Chie)
Sugita Tomokazu (Suzumiya Haruhi's Kyon)
Hikasa Youko (K-ON!'s Mio)

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha:
An adaptation of a light novel with unusual origins- it started on a 2 channel forum.

Maou ("Demon Queen") and Yuusha ("Hero") live in a world in which humans and demons are at war. When Yuusha confronts Maou over the war having started because demons declared war against humans, she explains that the point was to prevent humans from going to war with each other by giving them all a common enemy. Yuusha allies with her so they can come up with a way to bring peace to humans and demons alike.

This series's premise has potential- but going by the PVs, its protagonist is a bland audience stand-in and the Demon Queen... well, the PVs are pretty obsessed with her boobs.

Seiyuu:
Koshimizu Ami (Saki's Nodoka, Marimite's Kanako)
Fukuyama Jun (Code Geass's Lelouch)
Saito Chiwa (Madoka Magica's Homura)
Tomatsu Haruka (Mouretsu Pirates's Gruier)
Kamiya Hiroshi (Zetsubou-sensei)
Sawashiro Miyuki (CANAAN's Canaan, Blue Drop's Hagino, Psycho-Pass's Shion)
Tooyama Nao (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon's Margot)
Fukuen Misato (Hidamari Sketch's Natsume)
Itou Shizuka (Marimite's Rei, El Cazador de la Bruja's Nadie, Psycho-Pass's Yayoi)

01/05

D.C. III ~Da Capo III~:
An adaptation of the D.C. III ~Da Capo III~ visual novel. Which haremette will the protagonist ch...zzzzzzzz. I watched an episode of the first Da Capo anime years ago. One of the dullest things I have ever watched. I don't have high hopes for this series. PV here.

Noteworthy Seiyuu:
Nitta Emi (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon's Malga)

Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru:
An adaptation of a light novel series. Eita, a high schooler, aims to get into medical school and, because of that and his parents' divorce, wants nothing to do with romance. A cool-headed beauty named Masuzu decides to make him her "fake boyfriend" to ward off unwanted attention. Eita's childhood friend Chiwa, who is "like a little sister" to him, gets jealous. Masuzu and Chiwa start fighting over him.

Well, this looks promising. Here are the trailers.

Seiyuu:
Tamura Yukari (Nanoha)
Akasaki Chinatsu (Mouretsu Pirates's Maki)
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Kanemoto Hisako (Mouretsu's Pirates's Grunhilde)
Nazuka Kaori (Simoun's Yun)
Tooyama Nao (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon's Margot)

AKB0048 Second Stage:
AKB0048's second season. At the beginning of the twenty first century, humanity fled Earth as a result of interplanetary war. In their new society, music and art are forbidden. Forty eight years after this ban started, AKB48 was resurrected as a guerilla group called AKB0048 that fights (often literally) to bring music to the people.

I recently started watching this series and have enjoyed what I've seen so far. I don't care about AKB48, so I wrote this series off when it was airing, assuming that it would be crap that would only really appeal to AKB48/idol fans. But then certain people told me that the AKB48 aspect is just branding- that this show has honest-to-goodness good characters and a fun story, courtesy of Macross's Kawamori Shouji helming it. From what I have seen, it is indeed a fun series with likeable lead characters- and the AKB48 aspect really is just branding. And it isn't servicey. I look forward to watching this season after finishing season one.

PV streaming here, but its first episode has already been released anyway. Sadly, no legal streaming sites have it.

Seiyuu:
AKB48 members Satou Amina, Ishida Haruka, Iwata Karen, Watanabe Mayu, Nakaya Sayaka, and Satou Sumire.
SKE48 members Yagami Kumi and Hata Sawako.
NMB48 member Mita Mao.
Kawasumi Ayako (Chikane, Saber)
Ueda Kana (Marimite's Yumi, Saki's Saki)
Nakahara Mai (Strawberry Panic!'s Nagisa)
Noto Mamiko (Marimite's Shimako)
Sawashiro Miyuki (CANAAN's Canaan, Blue Drop's Hagino, Psycho-Pass's Shion)
Shiraishi Ryoko (Saki's Mako)
Horie Yui (Hourou Musuko's Anna, Aoi Hana's Kyouko)
Tamura Yukari (Nanoha)

Minami-ke Tadaima:
The fourth season of a slice-of-life series focusing on a household composed of three sisters. PV streaming here. Just click the orange button that says "PVを見る."

I tried Minami-ke a while ago. Thought it was okay, but never finished it... so needlessly to say, I won't be watching this season. ^^;

Seiyuu:
Inoue Marina (Toshokan Sensou's Iku)
Satou Rina (Mouretsu Pirates's Jenny, Marimite's Tsutako)
Chihara Minori (Saki's Touka)
Toyosaki Aki (K-ON!'s Yui)
Ono Daisuke (Kuroshitsuji's Sebastian)
Kitamura Eri (Madoka Magica's Sayaka)
Mizuki Nana (Nanoha's Fate, Heartcatch's Precure's Tsubomi, Symphogear's Tsubasa)
Chiba Saeko (Mai Hime and Mai Otome's Natsuki)
Nanjou Yoshino (CANAAN's Maria)

Hakkenden: Touhou Hakken Ibun:
An adaptation of a manga series that ran in Ciel Tres Tres. It's basically a supernatural reimagining of Nasou Satomi Hakkenden, a 19th century novel about eight samurai half-brothers and their adventures.

Going by the trailer, this is a very loose adaptation of Hakkenden set in modern times. Doesn't look that interesting, so pass.

Seiyuu:
Takagaki Ayahi (Sasameki Koto's Sumi)
Kamiya Hiroshi (Zetsubou-sensei)

01/06

Senran Kagura:
Girls with big boobs fight. They're supposed to be ninjas. Oh, and the blonde's signature gag seems to be groping other women's boobs- so, some yuri-flavored service. I'm not biting for that, though.
PVs here.

Seiyuu:
Imai Asami (Steins;Gate's Kurisu)
Harada Hitomi (Sasameki Koto's Tomoe)
Mizuhashi Kaori (Madoka Magica's Mami)
Kobayashi Yuu (Saki's Yumi, Negima's Setsuna)
Iguchi Yuka (Symphogear's Miku)
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Kitamura Eri (Madoka Magica's Sayaka)
Toyoguchi Megumi (Marimite's Sei)
Shiraishi Ryoko (Saki's Mako)

Love Live! School Idol Project:
Like Strawberry Panic!, Love Live! School Idol Project started as a "user-participation project" in Dengeki G's magazine, in which readers voted on the future of the characters. (In SP!'s case, readers voted on favorite pairings. Nagisa/Tamao won again and again, so ~~thankfully~~ clearly, those polls didn't ultimately hold much influence.) Online mobile phone polls also allowed folks to vote on the characters' hairstyles and costumes. Several music videos have been released starring these characters, and now they're getting an anime. In the anime, the characters attend a school that is in danger of being closed, so they become idols to save it.

Doesn't interest me. PVs found here.

Seiyuu:
Nitta Emi (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon's Malga)
Suzuko Mimori (Yuru Yuri's Himawari)
Nanjou Yoshino (CANAAN's Maria)

Ishida to Asakura:
Another gag comedy series being doled out in extra-short episodes. (Two minutes in this case.) It focuses on two best friends in high school- Asakura, who wants to become a teacher at an all-girls' school, and Ishida, who wants to become a florist with Asakura.

*shrug* Don't think I'll be following this one either.

Noteworthy Seiyuu:
None.

01/07

AMNESIA:
An adaptation of an otome game, about a girl who wakes up with, surprise, amnesia. A boy who introduces himself as a spirit named Orion appears before her, offering to help her regain her memories. She gets a phone call from her boyfriend, but it being a phone call, she can't see what he looks like. Some super-powered villains are after her also. PV streaming here.

Not really interested in this one. It does sound kind of neat that in the game, apparently, one has a variety of personalities one can create for the protagonist, depending the route one chooses.

Seiyuu:
Nazuka Kaori (Simoun's Yun)
Ishida Akira (Mai Hime's Nagi)

Line Offline Salaryman:
Another series of shorts, this time based on the mascot characters from NHN's voice chat/messaging app. Line Offline Salaryman is a workplace gag comedy, taking place in a corporate office setting.

Not interested in this one either.

Seiyuu:
No seiyuu cast yet.

THE UNLIMITED: Hyoubu Kyousuke:
By the creator of Zettai Karen children, which I have not seen, a series about an "esper outlaw" who was betrayed by humans way back in his past. Looks like he fights some dude with heterochromatic eyes, and has adopted a psychic orphan. PV found here.

Doesn't seem like my cup of tea either.

Seiyuu:
Tooyama Nao (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon's Margot)
Kugimiya Rie (Marimite's Touko, a million tsunderes)
Oohara Sayaka (Fate/Zero's Irisviel, Aria's Alicia)
Nakamura Yuuichi (Clannad's Tomoya)

Bakumatsu Gijinden Roman:
An adaptation of a pachinko game that has character designs by Monkey Punch- woe be to any Lupin III fans who are like, "Sweet, this looks like Lupin! It must be based on another series by the same guy!" The game stars Roman, a "phantom thief" living in the Genroku era (1688-1704) who steals back items that were unfairly taken from their original owners. The anime will be set during the Bakumatsu era, the years when Japan transferred from the Tokugawa shogunate of the Edo period to the Meiji government. PVs here and here.

I like Monkey Punch's character designs and the old school atmosphere the PVs are going for, but... well, the story is what's most important and this is a pachinko game adaptation. Those tend to be mediocre at best.

Seiyuu:
Nakai Kazuya (One Piece's Zoro)
Kitamura Eri (Madoka Magica's Sayaka)

01/08

Jigoku Youchien:
Another series of shorts, whose premise is self-explanatory. (Jigoku Youchien translates as Hell Kindergarten.)

Passing on this one too.

Seiyuu:
Asumi Kana (Hidamari Sketch's Yuno)
Ookubo Rumi (Yuru Yuri's Chinatsu)

Senyu:
A Jump Square manga adaptation. Demons invade a fantasy world, so its king declares that the demons must be fought by the descendants of "the hero." Seventy five people qualify. One of them teams up with a warrior from the palace to fight the demons.

Color me awestruck, this one has extra-short episodes too. There really are more series like that than usual this season. Pass, anyway.

Seiyuu:
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Nakamura Yuuichi (Clannad's Tomoya)
Nakata Jouji (Hellsing and Hellsing Ultimate's Alucard)

01/09

Tamako Market:
From Kyoto Animation and Yamada Naoko, the person who directed both seasons of K-ON (which I enjoyed), comes an original series about a girl named Tamako, whose family runs a mochi shop, and the other people who live and work in the Usagiyama shopping district.

This could be an enjoyable light series. At the least, it'll look really good (especially the lovingly rendered mochi) and won't be servicey. Will definitely be trying it.

Seiyuu:
Yukino Satsuki (R.O.D. the TV's Nenene)
Ono Daisuke (Kuroshitsuji's Sebastian)
Hikasa Youko (K-ON!'s Mio)

GJ-bu:
An adapation of a "4-koma novel", a light novel consisting of four page short stories. This one focuses on a boy named Kyouya and his four female classmates, who are in the Good Job Club. PV found here.

*shrug*

Seiyuu:
Suzuko Mimori (Yuru Yuri's Himawari)

gdgd Fairies season 2:
Each episode of this series will be fifteen minutes long. This completely cgi series focuses on three fairies with weak powers who live in the creatively named Fairy Forest.

*shrug again*

Seiyuu:
Mizuhara Kaoru (Ga -Rei- Zero's Yomi)
Suzuko Mimori (Yuru Yuri's Himawari)

01/10

Sasami-san@Ganbaranai:
Studio's SHAFT's offering for this season- an adaptation of a light novel series about a hikikomori named Sasami, who won't do so much as change clothes or eat without her older brother's help. (Let me know when there's a series in which an able-bodied boy needs a girl's help to carry out basic life functions.) She views the outside world through a "Brother Surveillance Tool" on her computer. Thus, she witnesses the "relationships worthy of a romantic comedy" that her brother has with three sisters.

Yeah, pass.

Seiyuu:
Nonaka Ai (Madoka Magica's Kyouko, Negima's Konoka)
Saito Chiwa (Madoka Magica's Homura)
Asumi Kana (Hidamari Sketch's Yuno)
Hanazawa Kana (Mouretsu Pirates's Chiaki, Black Rock Shooter's Mato)

Vivired Operation:
From the director of the utterly gross Strike Witches, a series about a 14 year-old girl who protects the Earth from alien invaders with her color-coordinated friends. There will be many ass and crotch shots.

Seiyuu:
Ootsubo Yuuka (Yuru Yuri's Kyouko)

Boku ha Tomodachi ga Sukunai NEXT (a.k.a. Haganai NEXT):
The second season of a series about a boy who has trouble making friends because people assume he's a delinquent because of his blonde hair and "fierce-looking" eyes. (Contrary to people's assumptions, he didn't dye his hair to look rebellious. It's naturally blonde because he's half-British.) He befriends a girl who has trouble making friends also, and they form a club for people in their school who have trouble making friends. PV here.

The premise isn't bad, but in practice, it looks like it's just an excuse to surround the lead with moe girls. Never tried the first season, so I won't be sampling this one.

Seiyuu:
Itou Kanae (Taisho Yakyuu Musume's Koume)
Inoue Marina (Toshokan Sensou's Iku)
Kimura Ryouhei (Penguindrum's Shouma)
Hanazawa Kana (Mouretsu Pirates's Chiaki, Black Rock Shooter's Mato)
Fukuen Misato (Hidamari Sketch's Natsume)
Iguchi Yuka (Symphogear's Miku)

Kotoura-san:
An adaptation of a 4-koma manga running online. Kotoura Haruka is a new transfer student. She can read people's minds, so she joins the ESP club. Her clubmate Yoshihisa becomes her love interest. PV here.

This one looks lame too.

Seiyuu:
Hanazawa Kana (Mouretsu Pirates's Chiaki, Black Rock Shooter's Mato)
Kanemoto Hisako (Mouretsu's Pirates's Grunhilde)

01/11

Mondai-Ji-tachi ga Isekai Kara Kuru sou Desu yo?:
A light novel adaptation, about a boy named Izayoi who is transported to an alternate world. He finds that two other "problem children" have been transported there, a girl named You and a girl named Asuka. A buxom bunny girl named Kuro Usagi ("Black Rabbit") tells them she summoned them there to overthrow the Devil.

Surprise, the trailer looks shitty.

Seiyuu:
Nakajima Megumi (Macross Frontier's Ranka)

Chihayafuru season 2:
The second season of that rarest of beasts, a josei manga adaptation. Chihayafuru is about a girl named Chihaya, her two childhood friends (and love interests) Arata and Taichi and several other friends, who all play in competitive karuta.

Have you ever started a series that you think is good and feel like you should love and faithfully watch week after week, but end up dropping it? That's what happened with me and season 1 of this series. It is a well-written show, I just... ended up dropping it. I'm glad for the fans who are looking forward to this season, though. Surprisingly, there isn't a PV out for it yet.

Seiyuu:
Asami Seto (Hourou Musuko's Takatsuki)
Kayano Ai (Mouretsu Pirates's Ai)
Miyano Mamoru (Ouran's Tamaki)

01/25

Hetalia: The Beautiful World:
Hetalia's fifth season- and the only show that can claim the fame of allowing BL fans to slash different countries. You should already know if you're going to be watching this gag comedy that anthropomorphizes different nations or not. No PV yet.

Seiyuu:
Onosaka Masaya (Trigun's Vash)
Noriaki Sugiyama (Naruto's Sasuke)
Konishi Katsuyuki (Gurren Lagann's Kamina)
Kaida Yuki (Prince of Tennis's Shusuke)
Takahashi Hiroki (Prince of Tennis's Eiji)

And, that's it!

Update:
02/03

Whoops, I forgot about Doki Doki! Precure. So... I guess I'll try it, since I've given every Precure series a shot.
PV here.

Seiyuu:
Nabatame Hitomi (Strawberry Panic!'s Shizuma, Marimite's Eriko)
Kotobuki Minako (K-ON!'s Mugi)

Happy New Year!: A Review of Yuri in Anime in 2012

2013-01-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

As with my Anime of Interest to Yuri Fans in 2011 list, I'm just listing everything relevant I've watched alphabetically. (Also- like the fan art in this post? The X's below them are links to the art's sources.)

Binbougami ga!:
I know some people shipped this series's leads, but I didn't. It's here for Kuroyuri, a death god with a thing for her female boss who only shows up for the second half of episode nine. As a whole, this show was good for some mindless fun.

Binbougami ga! is streaming on Funimation.

Black Rock Shooter:
I could see Mato having feelings for Yomi and Yomi possibly returning them. I found this series's ending disappointing, but a number of people seem to like it.

Fate/Zero season 2:

Because this is me when Saber and Irisviel are together onscreen. Canon shmanon.

This show has a ripping good story to boot. Aside from the Kiritsugu flashback episodes, I really looked forward to seeing what would happen each week. Saber and Irisviel both got tragic endings as expected, like almost everyone who participated in the Holy Grail War, but I still find them squee-worthy.

Fate/Zero is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Girls und Panzer:
This doesn't really count to me, but I'm assuming that if I don't mention it, someone will be like, "What about Girls und Panzer?" Having heard that it actually wasn't servicey, I decided to watch its first episode when I was drunk one evening. I remember thinking, "That line's yuri fan-bait" at one or two points, but not what the lines are. I was amused by some bits (in a "Haha, wow, that's stupid" way), but mostly bored.

Girls und Panzer is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jormungand seasons 1 and 2:
For Valmet's utterly unambiguous feelings for Koko. The first season was good, mindless fun, and the second season is... well, it's more ambitious than the first, but my feelings about it are much more mixed. The only spoiler I'll give for anyone who hasn't finished it- that jingle that plays over every next episode preview? ("Her name is Koko, she is loco.") It really isn't kidding.

Jormungand is streaming on Funimation.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon season 2:
I can't say that I enjoy Horizon, but it has done an excellent job with its canon yuri couple, Malga and Margot. Malga got a bigger role and some good character development in season 2, and contrary to its heavily servicey execution, this series became frank about the fact that Malga and Margot are not only in love but sleeping together without being sleazy about it. I still wish I could move these two to a different series. ^_^;

Horizon is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Last Exile -Ginkyoku no Fam-:
I, erm, haven't finished this series. It fell by the wayside when things got hectic during my final college semester. I watched beyond the first episode to see Tatiana and Alister's cameo as an older, still ambiguously yuri pair. It was nice to see them still together. And it was neat (if puzzling) to see Dio again. Otherwise... eh. For what it's worth, Last Exile didn't do much for me either.

Last Exile -Ginkyoku no Fam- is streaming on Funimation.

Mouretsu Pirates:
A show I like with a yuri couple whose relationship is made as clear as day? More like this, please! Jenny and Lynn are great characters, and are very squee-worthy together as a couple. They even get their own arc. I hope to see them again in the upcoming Mouretsu Pirates movie.

Mouretsu Pirates is streaming on Crunchyroll and Sentai is releasing it, under the cringe-worthy title Bodacious Space Pirates, with English subs and a dub on DVD and Blu Ray.

(Yeah Rosalie, that's my reaction to Oscar too.)

Ikeda Riyoko's Oniisama E and Rose of Versailles are hardly new series, but they are both must-watch shows for yuri and shoujo fans that became licensed in English for the first time this past year. Oniisama E is streaming with English subtitles on Viki, as is Rose of Versailles. Rose of Versailles is also set to be released on two R1 DVD box sets by Nozomi Entertainment this year. Between RoV and Aoi Hana's pending DVD releases, not to mention Nozomi's earlier licensing of Utena and Maria-sama ga Miteru, I want to marry Nozomi.

Psycho-Pass (a.k.a. the show I won't shut up about on Twitter):
Because Shion and Yayoi are clearly doing more than work in Shion's workplace. And... well, Yayoi's a cool woman in a suit and it's a hot pairing.

I've been dying to see these two get more development (rather than continue projecting it in my head), especially Yayoi (man, she's been underused so far), and it looks like that is going to happen when this series returns from its two week break. I'm both excited about Yayoi getting her time to shine and anxious, since, you know, a lot of horrible shit has happened to the characters who have gotten the spotlight so far. (Pretty obvious that her bandmates were killed, and that's why her crime coefficient shot up.) I'm even more curious now about how she became an Enforcer. It's easy to see a fallen Inspector like Kougami being made into an Enforcer- but how did the powers that be decide that a pop band member with a high crime coefficient had a future catching criminals ahead of her? And of course, I'm really hoping for something further of note on the yuri front. Are Yayoi and Shion only in a physical relationship? Are there any feelings involved? Hopefully we'll see. I was originally lukewarm towards this show, but I'm really into it now and looking forward to seeing where it goes from where the mid-season climax left off.

Psycho-Pass is streaming on Funimation.

Rinne no Lagrange seasons 1 and 2:
Lagrange's first season started off dull, but became a lot of fun. Its second season fell flat on its face. I could see Madoka x Lan as a subtext pairing in season 1 and at the beginning of season 2, but like Lagrange's plot, it fizzled over the course of season 2.

Rinne no Lagrange is streaming on VizAnime.

Saki Achiga-hen episode of Side A:
This spin-off of Saki bored me to tears, but Yumi and Momo's cameo in the first half of episode 8 made me smile. Here's to seeing them again in Saki season 2, which I am really looking forward to.

Saki Achiga-hen is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear season 1:
Tsubasa loves Kanade and Miku loves Hibiki. This turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable series, with good characters, a heavy dose of camp and some catchy songs by Mizuki Nana.

Symphogear is streaming on Funimation.

Yuru Yuri season 2:
Same yuri as in season 1- but improved, since it showed us that Himawari and Sakurako have affection for each other instead of simply expecting us to interpret their snarking at each other as tsundere love.

Yuru Yuri is streaming on Crunchyroll.

Never watched Hidamari Sketch season 4 because, again, I'm sick of the franchise. I understand that Sengoku Collection has some canon yuri in it, but haven't gotten past its first episode.

I haven't seen the first two Madoka Magica movies, but really look forward to seeing where the third movie takes the franchise.

And I'm still doing cartwheels over the Sailor Moon reboot. :D

I hope you have a happy year ahead! (^_^)/

Manga Review: Sailor Moon volume 6

2012-12-25T03:29:00.001-05:00

At long last, a Sailor Moon review. Specifically, of the first volume of the S arc, which introduces the wonderfulness that is Haruka and Michiru.

I won't bother summarizing Sailor Moon up to this point. If you're considering reading the sixth volume of this series, you should already know what Sailor Moon's premise is. I will say that the volumes up to this point (covering the first two arcs) are excellent. And Haruka and Michiru are one of the most enduringly beloved, mega-popular yuri couples for good reason.

Just to be up front, although I've written about it here before, Sailor Moon is my gateway manga and anime and holds many sepia-tinted memories for me. For what it's worth, on re-reading this series as an adult, I still find it well-written and enjoyable, although naturally, some aspects of it read differently now.

As for what is in this volume...

A new arc, a new set of baddies. And a new pair of Sailor Soldiers who we know will be allies, even if Sailor Moon and the other Inner Soldiers don't yet.

Yes- kyaa!- this volume introduces Haruka/Sailor Uranus and Michiru/Sailor Neptune in its first chapter. Haruka being mistaken for a guy plays out less comedically here than in the anime, and there is more confusion on Usagi's part over her fleeting attraction to Haruka. And one... surprisingly creepy line from Haruka to Usagi. And there are a lot of helicopters. Helicopters seem to be to Haruka and Michiru in the manga what fluttering flower petals are to them in the anime.

We first see Michiru emerging from the swimming pool in her penthouse and Haruka wowing everyone at a racetrack before they fly together in their private helicopters to the elite school they attend. Strawberry Panic!, eat your heart out. One of the funniest moments in this volume is when a character Haruka and Michiru track for a bit (because she entered the villains' headquarters without realizing it) emerges outside and is like, "Oh wow, it's dark, and I need to get home. Kind of dangerous to walk after dark from here, isn't it," and they suddenly swoop down in a helicopter and are like, "Oh hey, we were just passing by in our helicopter. Want a lift home?" I also question the extent to which Haruka and Michiru desire to keep their Senshi identities a secret from the Inner Senshi, given that they give a big hint about it to Chibi-Usa and Haruka nicknames Usagi "Dumpling" (after her hairstyle) when she encounters her as a Senshi and as a civilian.

The Sailor Moon manga is darker and less campy than the SM anime, but it still has some comedic gems- this is the origin of attack names like "Jupiter Coconut Cyclone!", "Tuxedo La Smoking Bomber!", and my favorite, from a later arc, "Star Gentle Uterus!" (Poor, poor Taiki.)

Mugen Academy, the elite academy that Haruka and Michiru attend, is a towering glass skyscraper where preschoolers through graduate students are cultivated to be the leaders of tomorrow. Mugen Academy and its affiliated lab are owned by Professor Tomoe, a mad scientist who acts as the ringleader of this arc's villains.

While the head villains in the previous arcs had fantastical backstories, Tomoe is just a widowed man with a sick young daughter named Hotaru. Hotaru doesn't know what her father is up to, although she notices that his behavior is strange and his hands colder than they used to be. Tomoe and his lab assistants, the Witches 5, create creatures that latch onto to people and turn them into inhuman things, which Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Soldiers vanquish when they encounter them, returning the possesed people to normal.

My one criticism of the villains in this arc is that the Witches 5 aren't as... well, entertaining in the manga as they are in the anime. Physical appearance and attacks aside, they're pretty interchangeable. The manga's pacing doesn't give it as much room to give them individual quirks as the anime does, but one still misses how much of a hoot their anime counterparts are.

Another downside of the manga's tighter pacing is that we don't have time to see Haruka and Michiru being playful and lovey-dovey in this arc the way we do in the S anime- although we will get that itch scratched later in the manga, when Haruka and Michiru don't have their hands full trying to prevent the apocalypse by themelves. Despite their current lack of lighthearted couple moments, they're very cool and display plenty of badassery while indubitably being an item.

The Inner Senshi come to distrust Haruka and Michiru for understandable reasons, but Usagi still believes they can be allies. More like Usagi than she thinks, Chibi-Usa believes that Haruka and Michiru are trustworthy also.

Chibi-Usa also meets Hotaru, who is reticent and reclusive and a little floored by Chibi-Usa's desire to befriend her. One of the nicest developments in this volume is Hotaru opening up to Chibi-Usa.

Towards the end of this volume, Neptune and Uranus save Mercury from an enemy attack and a familiar face pops up in Mugen Academy's university science department. How will these elements tie together? Keep reading and see! ^_^

The glitches in Kodansha's early translation of this series have smoothed out by now- but don't be mistaken, it has always been good and made me weep with joy compared to the old localized Tokyopop version. For a softcover release, Kodansha's edition of Sailor Moon has very good production values, with sturdy binding (another aspect I can't helping contrasting with Tokyopop's release from eons ago) and (in this case, somewhat spoilery regarding Hotaru) glossy color art pages at its beginning. There are translation notes in the back and a preview of the next volume.

I especially appreciate the color art pages because I love Takeuchi Naoko's ethereally pretty artwork. Takeuchi has some really freaking beautiful drawings, especially in color. The best aren't in this volume's color pages. I want to send Kodansha flowers not only for re-releasing this series in English, but going the extra mile by planning to release a snazzy new Sailor Moon artbook in Japan, the U.S., and five other countries (not sure which ones right now) in 2013, since the Sailor Moon artbooks have been long out-of-print worldwide. (I actually have the German release of the first Sailor Moon artbook, since I spotted it while traveling in Germany years ago.) There may be some artistic inconsistencies in the Sailor Moon manga, but Takeuchi's art style still delights me to an extent that few series match, just as her storytelling does.

Story: A-
Art: A- (A for the color art.)
Overall: A-, but even with its flaws, no less loveable than any other other series.

As a bonus, a cute Haruka and Michiru Christmas fan art by one of my blog's readers, Kori! (Who I know some of you know as the person who pens Prince of Cats, which I still find adorable.)

Her DeviantArt page (where I got this fan art) has a lot of other good Haruka x Michiru/general Sailor Moon pics.

Manga Review: Himawari-san volume 1

2012-12-15T00:35:00.000-05:00

This book was originally intended to stand alone, so nothing on its cover indicates that it has subsequent volumes. After it came out, it sold well enough that it got green-lit to keep running in Comic Alive, the same magazine Sasameki Koto ran in.

Himawari-san is a pleasant, laid-back slice-of-life series about Matsuri, a high school girl who has an undisguised crush on the owner of the old-fashioned Himawari ("Sunflower") bookshop located across the road from her school. Everyone in town nicknames Himawari's owner "Himawari-san" after her shop. Himawari-san is a little gruff, but genuinely cares about her customers (who like her quite a bit in turn) and comes to have a soft spot for Matsuri- but not in a romantic sense, Matsuri's age being what it is.

Like many a manga heroine, Matsuri is cheerful and good-hearted but none too bright, so when she studied for her high school entrance exams, no one gave her much encouragement. Himawari-san believed in her, however, and that was the start of her crush.

Himawari-san helps a few other customers out with their problems in this volume- including Matsuri's younger sister Fuuko, who, amusingly, develops a crush on Himawari-san also, although she's slow to admit it since she was initially kind of a jerk to Himawari-san. My favorite chapter is the Jinbocho chapter, since it perfectly captures the appeal of browsing the stacks at a bookstore, especially when you find a book that unexpectedly captures your fancy.

It turns out that Himawari-san's older brother Kuroizato-sensei, who kind of reminds me of Fruits Basket's Shigure, is a light novel author, and there's a rift between him and Himawari-san. Matsuri pieces together the misunderstanding between them after reading his latest novel and, in a nice example of things coming full-circle, helps them patch things up.

So, like I said, this is a pleasant, pick-me-up kind of series. You're going to be disappointed if you go into it for the yuri (which I didn't, although I liked how no one reacts to Matsuri's obvious crush on Himawari any differently than they would to a teenaged girl who has an obvious one-sided crush on a guy), but if you're looking for a yuri-friendly slice-of-life with likeable characters and no fanservice, this is a solid pick.

As a bonus for folks learning Japanese, like Sasameki Koto, this series is chock full of furigana, so it's easy to read for a seinen series.

Story: B (But B+ for the Jinbocho chapter.)
Art: B+
Overall: B

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 3

2012-12-10T21:37:00.000-05:00

We ended the previous volume of Paros no Ken on yet another cliffhanger- but this time the threat is real.

The contestants in the sword-fighting tournament are whittled down, and Yurias is one of the semi-finalists. Erminia hopes he'll win because they have sparred together since they were children and she has never lost to him. At this point, Yurias is competing not with the aim of marrying Erminia, but of freeing her to choose whoever she wants.

However, Yurias's next opponent not only defeats him, he slashes his right eye and exults over it. Technically, the man who blinded Yurias is still allowed to compete.

Enraged, Erminia rushes into the arena to challenge him, and the livid spectators cheer her on. Erminia holds her own to the point that the folks who had wanted her to be a delicate flower are really impressed. But then her opponent knocks her sword out of her hand, her uncle Alphonse throws her another sword, and Erminia finds, too late, that she has walked into a trap.

Long story short, Erminia's father dies, Kauros takes over Paros's capital, and Erminia wakes up imprisoned. The third prince of Kauros is there when she wakes up. He confirms what happened and tells her she will be his bride. The prince of Kauros is a sewer of a human being ("You may act like a man, but that does not change the fact that you are a woman! And women must submit to men." After being rejected by her: "Erminia... what a pity it is that such a beautiful woman holds men in such disdain. I shall cure you of that illness."), and tries to rape her, but thankfully, doesn't go through with it. He figures he'll have plenty of time to break her after she marries him in Kauros.

The procession escorting Erminia to Kauros stops at a town overnight, where Fiona and Erminia are reunited.

How did Fiona get there after what happened in volume 2? After being raped, Fiona threw herself into the river nearby and was rescued downstream by a nice older couple who live in the countryside. While living with them, she recovered somewhat.

After learning what happened to Paros's capital and Erminia, she organized the other youths in the area into a rebel group (in case you're wondering, Fiona is sixteen; Erminia is eighteen), helped Yurias leave his captivity (he was much less stringently guarded than Erminia; and somehow, knew what happened to Fiona), and hatched a plan to get Erminia to safety.

While the people who attended the sword-fighting tournament easily bought Alphonse's reason for indicting Erminia for her father's death, most of the citizens of Paros recognize that Alphonse's argument for Erminia's guilt is bullshit and are still willing to resist the Kauran military under her. Their loyalty to Erminia and Paros is so moving, in fact, that I felt pretty awful for them re-reading this volume, knowing how things would pan out.

In a nutshell, Fiona, Erminia, and Yurias all ultimately sacrifice everything else for love, and Fiona and Erminia get to be together.

The ending is pretty abrupt and leaves Paros's fate more ambiguous than I'd like. I suspect Kurimoto Kaoru wound up not having as much time to resolve things as she wanted, and had to do the best she could given the page count she had left. But, erm, despite the ending's problems- especially considering this series's context and the fact that Kurimoto could have easily written an unhappy ending for Erminia and Fiona for perfectly valid reasons- I'm glad Kurimoto was like "lol Nope" to ending things with Erminia accepting Fiona's sacrifice and sacrificing her own happiness with her, and made Erminia save Fiona anyway.

Despite its flaws, this is a very worthwhile series, both for its value to the yuri genre and simple entertainment value- especially if you're in the mood for a romance that is more plot-oriented than most.

Story: B+
Art: A
Overall: B+

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 2

2012-12-06T01:37:00.000-05:00

Couldn't find a picture of this volume's cover online and my scanner's being funky, so I'm just posting a photo of my copy of it.

Volume 1 left us with a masked Yurias breaking into Erminia's room and covering her mouth before she could scream. He only snuck in because he wants to play fairy godmother and give Erminia the chance to go to Paros's capital city Paro's annual carnival with Fiona. Yurias made sure Fiona had the night off so she could go. Erminia gives Fiona a beautiful gown, dons a dapper outfit herself, and promises Yurias that she will return before midnight. If she doesn't fulfill her promise, Yurias will be found out and executed for helping her leave.

This series' artwork is always lush, but the carnival pages are especially vibrant and eye-popping.

The revelers admire how good Fiona and Erminia look together. (Granted, because Erminia is wearing a mask, they don't recognize her as their princess. They think she's some random guy.)

When Fiona and Erminia step away from the crowd, Fiona shares her fear that that night will be as good as it gets for them and she'll never see Erminia again. Not knowing how little Fiona has to look forward to in her day-to-day life (or how little hope Fiona had of seeing Erminia again after being demoted to an even more menial position than laundry maid because her co-workers are all assholes), Erminia has a more optimistic view of things. Erminia asks Fiona if there aren't any dreams she wants to fulfill, and shares her dream of traveling the world. Erminia is thrilled Fiona takes her dream seriously, because the only other person who has is Yurias. She is surprised when Fiona tells her that her only dream has been to meet the prince from her childhood, and that prince is her.

They kiss, but their moment is cut short when a tipsy masked man with a villain smirk shows up and hits on Fiona. He persists, so Erminia challenges him to a sword duel and kicks his ass. His reaction to losing makes Erminia think he might not be so bad after all. He reveals that he has been living the dream, traveling the world as a sailor. Erminia tells him that Fiona is an aristocrat who has seven days to choose a groom to marry, and Erminia cannot marry her because her status is too low. The stranger proposes a solution, which Erminia puts into effect when her time to choose a groom is up.

Erminia's suitors must compete in a sword-fighting tournament, and the last man standing must win a sword fight against her before he can marry her. Erminia, of course, expects to win- and then (although she doesn't mention it as a condition to her father), expects to be free to publicly make Fiona her bride as a result. Awww/nothing can possibly go wrong, right? ^^;

The part in which we see people in the various classes of Paros preparing for the tournament is cute- especially the cameo by Candy Candy's leads.

Erminia's uncle Alphonse, whose interests would be served by Paros being absorbed by Kauros, reminds Erminia of the very real possibility that she will lose and gives her a way to cheat. Erminia dismisses him, but can't bring herself to dismiss his plan completely. When she thinks that she would be willing to dirty her hands for Fiona's sake, you know the story isn't going to let that go.

Additionally, Erminia worries about an old legend saying that Paros will have its glory restored if it is ruled by one who is both a man and a woman, and will be destroyed if ruled by one who is neither a man nor a woman. The people of Paros are anxious to see if Erminia will turn out to be the former or the latter. Yurias freaks out about the legend after Erminia rejects him. You're more of an ally than an ass, Yurias, but please stfu about how if Erminia could just "regain a woman's heart" and like guys/you, you would be happy.

Btw, despite the context for this series, the effect I know its setting would have on how its characters conceptualize and discuss sexual orientation and gender (i.e. not how we do) and its awesome progressiveness and skewering of sexist and heterosexist social conventions, I'm annoyed by the weirdly conservative correlation drawn at points by the story between Erminia's lack of interest in men and her gender being possibly male/not-female. Claudine...!, which I compared to this series in my review of Paros no Ken volume 1 for having a protagonist who could be read as a butchy cis lesbian or a straight trans man, actually succeeded at pulling off that ambiguity without drawing that correlation. I remember a similar correlation coming up briefly at one point in Rose of Versailles also, and it annoyed me there, as much as I love RoV. (Like, to the point of having a PVC figurine of Oscar in uniform, brandishing her sword.) Ribon no Kishi plays with a similar idea (its protagonist Sapphire being cool and competent and actiony when she has her boy heart, but weak and damsel-in-distressy when she only has her girl heart), but takes it to the point that I dislike Ribon no Kishi.

Erminia cannot see Fiona until after the tournament. Unbeknownst to her, something horrible happens. Some knights from Kauros find Fiona and rape her, thinking she will be ashamed enough of it to never approach Erminia again.

On the last day of the tournament, Kauros's army crosses the border into Paros.

While volume 1 focused on setting up character relationships, this volume sets up the plot denouement that will take place in volume 3. What will become of Erminia and Fiona!? Tune in next time and see.

Story: B+
Art: A
Overall: B+

Speaking of portrayals of lgbtq folks in Medieval Europe-inspired fantasy stories, this two part blog post series, "Heteronormativity, fantasy, and Bitterblue", is really worth reading for its discussion of writing sexual minority characters in such settings.

Another Serving of Yuri Christmas Fan Art

2012-12-02T01:36:00.000-05:00

It being December again, I'm posting a batch of Christmas and winter-themed fan art based on yuri and yuri-ish series. ^_^ My previous Christmas fan art posts are here and here. Without further ado...

Saber and Irisviel still make me giddy. I have a ridiculous amount of fan art of them at this point. XD

Can't find the original source for this image. If you do know it, please let me know so I can link! (The X's in this post are all links.)

For anyone wondering, I am fangirling over a certain pair in Urobuchi Gen's newest series. Bless his heart for writing another cool, hyper-competent suit-wearing woman and making it surprisingly obvious (more than once) that there's... some sort of relationship between her and one of her female co-workers. I'm dying to find out more about them.

A cute moment with one of our classic couples. D'aww, Himeko.

Squee, NanoFate! Speaking of subtext couples that I have a ridiculous amount of fan art of.

X

X

No yuri Christmas fan art post would be complete without MariMite's loveable characters. Coincidentally (in all honesty), most of what I found features the White Roses again.

I don't ship Yumi with Touko, but I still thought this was cute.

Man, Sei, you player.

Seriously.

If, like me, you ship Sei with Kei, you should visit this Pixiv account.

The pic below is technically not a Christmas pic, but the star makes it feel Christmasy.

The pic below was drawn to celebrate the New Year. The joke is that Yumi and Yoshino are giving Sei (whose birthday is on Christmas) a belated birthday present. In response, Sei's like "Woah, this is kind of late!! But thank you~"

Good times with the ladies from Noir.

And of course, some Madoka Magica.

Below the cut at the bottom of this post, you'll find a sweet but spoilery Madoka x Homura picture.

Yumi and Momo- definitely my favorite Saki couple.

I also still like Saki and Nodoka as a couple.

Yay, Haruka and Michiru! ^__^ Wonderful, as always.

Last but not least, Alpha and Kokone, a pairing I like from another excellent classic series, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 1

2012-11-26T23:57:00.000-05:00

Paros no Ken (The Sword of Paros) is a three volume fantasy series written by Kurimoto Kaoru (Guin Saga's author) and drawn by Igarashi Yumiko (Candy Candy's artist). It ran from 1986-1987 in Monthly Asuka. It is, as far as I know, the earliest example of a yuri romance that doesn't end with either half of its couple being killed off, committing suicide, or marrying a man. Incredible progressiveness for its time aside, it holds up today as a ripping good yarn.

Paros no Ken begins and ends described by an unnamed wandering minstrel to us as a legend based on events from long ago.

The kingdom of Paros was once in a dark period, in which it was threatened by a militant neighboring kingdom called Kauros.

Although Kauros could have gained control of Paros by invading, its leaders tried to save themselves the trouble by uniting the two kingdoms through marriage. Paros's King Aldius doesn't want his kingdom to lose its independence to Kauros by any means and tries to politely decline them. But he's running out of excuses, so he pressures his only heir, Erminia, to pick a Parosian man to wed. Unfortunately for him, Erminia isn't interested in men and makes no secret of it.

Erminia spends most of her free time riding horses with her best friend since childhood Yurias. One day Erminia saves one of the castle's laundry maids, Fiona, from being run over by a runaway horse. Neither can stop thinking about the other after that- Erminia because Fiona's her type, and Fiona because Erminia reminds her of the "prince" she met once as a child who she has always wanted to meet again. Of course, the person from Fiona's childhood is Erminia. I've mentioned before that I find the "I have been in love with you since we were kids, even though I haven't seen you at all since then!" trope stupid, but I actually don't mind it here. Fiona has had such a godawful life that it sadly makes sense that she would cling like a drowning person to a memory like that.

But anyway, Erminia's sex doesn't make any difference to Fiona, and Fiona and Erminia spend more and more time together. Erminia becomes further smitten because Fiona is not only kind, she's the only person Erminia knows who isn't like "You're a woman, so you should do this and that and this! And be interested in these things!" Yurias, who is in love with Erminia, instantly pegs where things are heading between Erminia and Fiona. Some knights from Kauros attack Erminia when she is with Fiona. After Erminia and Yurias fend them off, Erminia notes that the Kaurian knights had several chances to kill her, but didn't. They were just testing her, for some reason.

Erminia's father finally gives her an ultimatum to chose a groom within ten days' time, and has her confined to her room until she chooses. This volume ends on a cliffhanger.

Erminia, who has justifiably been compared a lot to Rose of Versailles' Oscar, is a charismatic, ass-kicking lead- and, of course, groundbreaking for avoiding certain negative tropes and being happily outspoken about who she likes. In a high fantasy setting, but still. Erminia's out-ness is a big deal within the world she lives in because Paros no Ken's world is brimming with heterosexism, not to mention sexism. It can be incredibly, wonderfully refreshing to read something like Malinda Lo's Ash (one of my favorite novels), in which the characters live in a world where homophobia is nil and being openly interested in other women/other men need not come with any potentially negative consequences (because, you know, that's how things should be and will be someday)- but stories in which the characters work through (or have worked through) the less pretty aspects of coming out are, in a way, more... Well, let me put it this way. As a high schooler in the "What do these feelings mean!?" phase, I loved how utterly not a big deal the romances between Strawberry Panic!'s characters were. But for its much lower amount of out-and-out yuri, I found Maria-sama ga Miteru more comforting because the one canon lesbian among its leads, Sei, dealt with the less pretty aspects of coming out and ultimately came out happy even though she didn't get the girl she liked when she was questioning.

The point of that rambling tangent is that, even though Paros no Ken takes place in a high fantasy setting, it's written in such a way that Erminia's development parallels a lot of folks' real life experiences with coming out/being out as lgbtq, for better and worse, such as when Erminia tells Fiona (after mentioning that Yurias called her selfish for her time spent romancing Fiona), "If I express anything of a free will at the castle, I am accused of being selfish. One day, I simply realized that I needed to be true to myself, even if it caused others to curse my existence. I have just one chance... One chance to live a life that belongs to none but me."

One thing that does date this series is the ambiguity between trans male and lesbian identity in it. To quote what I wrote about that ambiguity in my essay on lesbian identity in yuri:

In some early works like Ikeda Riyoko’s Claudine…! and Kurimoto Kaoru and Igarashi Yumiko’s Paros no Ken, there is some ambiguity between lesbian identity and transgender identity. Oniisama E’s Rei is an example of a character whose description of being like a man—having the aura of a man, as Nanako [Oniisama's E's protagonist] describes her—was pretty obviously the closest thing that you were going to see to the word “butch” (or the Japanese equivalent) in a 70’s shoujo manga. That may have been the case with Claudine (the lead in Claudine…!) and Erminia (the lead in Paros no Ken) as well. Sailor Moon’s Haruka is described by creator Takeuchi Naoko, as having the “heart of a guy,” although when Takeuchi Naoko was asked if Haruka had been a man in her past life, she said no, and affirmed that she intended to create a relationship between two girls. Just as the concept of akogare in Japan has a Western historical parallel in the idea of “smashings” between Victorian schoolgirls, the association between lesbian and transgender identity in older examples of Yuri has a parallel in the numerous historical examples of lesbians who passed themselves as men or adopted a masculine identity in order to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities men enjoyed, like La Maupin. Some characters are clearly butch, but for some, like Claudine, one can’t be certain whether they are asserting themselves as transsexuals or as lesbians who want the privileges exclusive to men. Yuri fans have fondly dubbed cool, butchy yuri characters “Girl Princes,” partly because their earliest ancestor (who actually isn’t a Yuri character) is Ribon no Kishi’s Sapphire, who is literally a girl prince.

In short, like Claudine, you can read Erminia as a butchy lesbian or a straight trans man (or genderqueer, since the text leaves room for that), whatever suits you. That ambiguity is actually a plot point in this series, but it doesn't come into play majorly until later on.

I should also, finally, mention that Erminia and Fiona are sweet as a couple, but Fiona is more passive and damsel-in-distressy than I'd like for the first two volumes of this series. Thankfully, she moves away from that in volume three and (SPOILER!) saves Erminia from the biggest threat she faces- and Erminia likes Fiona's heightened competence, even if the risk Fiona takes because of it scares the shit out of her. But I'm getting ahead of myself. More romantic intrigue and political skulduggery coming in volume 2~

Story: B+

Art: A LOT of beautiful detail. A

Overall: B+

Manga Review: Concerto

2012-11-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

Concerto is an all-yuri series of one-shots that Hattori Mitsuru (better known to anime fans as the creator of Sankarea... which I haven't seen or read) published in Young Animal magazine from 2005 to 2011. The quality of Concerto's stories is highly variable, but overall, I like it.

Ino plays the guitar and Hitomi plays the piano. They've been best friends since they took music lessons at the same place as small children. They've kissed, but their relationship is still in the gray area between friends and lovers. In "Concerto", Ino and Hitomi's school asks them to perform together at the end of their graduation ceremony. A crisis crops up when Hitomi and Ino question the nature of their relationship (or put less sentimentally, Ino: "After we graduate, we'll always be friends!" Hitomi: "I don't just want to be friends. IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT. *bow chicka wow wow*" Ino: "Wait, what? *runs away*" Hitomi: ";_; ..."), causing Hitomi to stop showing up at school. After Ino tells Hitomi that she returns her feelings (shouting from outside Hitomi's house while strumming a guitar, which I thought was cute in a dopey romantic comedy movie kind of way), Hitomi makes it to the ceremony and she and Ino make up by performing, capping it off with a kiss in front of the entire school. Despite the ham-handedness of its confession scene, this is a cute story- helped by that especially nice ending. :-)

"Longing" wins the Story That Feels Like It Should Be a Skit in the Vagina Monologues award. At Ino and Hitomi's school, a few years after their graduaton, Kyouko is in love with Touko, her cool, stoic sempai in the kyuudo club. Kyouko learns that Touko hates her body for being "manly." Touko has always felt that way, but has been beating herself up more over it and slumping in kyuudo since her boyfriend dumped her for the same reason. Kyouko tells Touko that she has always thought Touko was beautiful and doesn't understand her self-loathing. They get together. Touko pulls out of her slump and publicly dedicates her next competitive kyuudo win "to my beloved Kyouko!" As you can imagine, I liked that ending also. :-) Kyouko and Touko's connection isn't as developed as those between the other couples in this book (excluding the characters in "Spice"), but it's still a cute story.

"Spice" is a dumb, PWP-ish story about a glasses-wearing plain Jane named Kotori, and Rui, the hot young teacher who everyone wants.

"Innocent"'s couple is my favorite. Fumiko, a high school first-year, is in the art club. One day after painting in the art room, she looks at a painting discarded by a third-year she hadn't seen there before. The painting is a realistic rendering of a naked woman.

A friend of Fumiko's tells her that the third-year, Ritsu, has been a school pariah since she unwittingly outed herself in her third year of middle school. Despite Fumiko's friend's warning to stay away from Ritsu and Ritsu's obvious distrust of her schoolmates, Fumiko befriends Ritsu, bonding over their love of painting.

Fumiko falls in love with Ritsu and, remembering her friend's warning about how folks reacted to Ritsu's outing, agrees to pose nude for Ritsu's graduation project. As Ritsu paints Fumiko, the tension between them, as expected, becomes thick enough to cut with a knife. Fumiko finally tells Ritsu she is "of the same mind", and they kiss. As much as I like the public coming outs in "Concerto" and "Longing", this private one made me squee the most.

Fast forward two years, and we see Fumiko looking at Ritsu's graduation painting in the art room. Smiling, Fumiko plans to do a painting of her "beloved" for her graduation project. This book's bonus art confirms that Ritsu is the subject of Fumiko's graduation painting. ^_^

In "Rendezvous," Chizu's girlfriend Yayoi is temporarily living with Chizu and her family. When Chizu's mom catches Chizu and Yayoi kissing, Chizu and Yayoi run away. They return home after running out of money, expecting to be separated but ready to show their parents they're serious about each other. But. When Chizu's mom sees them, she goes all blushy and nostalgic and tells them that she'll keep their relationship a secret from Chizu's dad since she gets how they feel, because she dated some girls when she was young. That works. lol I agree with Erica that this plot point has a potentially problematic reading, but I'm choosing not to read it that way and just taking it as a lucky break for Chizu and Yayoi. So anyway- now that Chizu and Yayoi have returned, there are rumors about them at school, but they don't care and are confident that the god of marriage will always watch over them. :-)

So like I said, this collection is a mixed bag, although really, it's only the third story that I wouldn't miss. For its problems (including some obvious male gazeyness; see the magazine it ran in), I still enjoyed it overall.

Story: I'll give "Innocent" a B+, "Concerto" and "Rendezvous" a B, "Longing" a B-, and a plain old "blah" to "Spice."
Art: It's fine. Starts out pretty sketchy, gets much more polished by the fifth story. C+
Overall: B

Manga Review: Butterfly 69

2012-11-16T00:38:00.000-05:00

Like most Yuri Hime tankoubon, Natsuneko's Butterfly 69 is a collection of one-shots. Most yuri manga aim for a delicately pretty or cute look, but Natsuneko's work, while still festooned with pretty characters, goes for a more hard-edged, sleek, occasionally punk-flavored aesthetic. Her strong linework and heavy use of black and white contrast really make her artwork pop. Thankfully, most of the stories in this collection are at least as enjoyable to read as they are to look at.

"Butterfly 69" is about a half-Japanese rocker named Maria and her girlfriend Ageha (pictured on the cover), who attend a Classical music academy for proper young ladies where Maria doesn't fit in. A U.S. record label offers to sign Maria's band, Butterfly 69, but Maria is willing to turn them down so she can stay in Japan with Ageha. ("I can sing anywhere! Who cares about my dream if it means I have to leave you...?!") Ageha feels icky about being the reason for Maria sacrificing her dream, and roundly tells her so. At the school cultural festival, Maria plays one last concert before leaving for Los Angeles, promising she'll come back for Ageha. Time skip a few years ahead, when Maria and Ageha reunite with a kiss (to squealing from some of Maria's fans) after Maria's band returns to Japan to tour after becoming popular abroad. ^_^

"Quilt Queen" is also very squee-worthy. In high school, Sakura and Dahlia promised each other they would be a famous designer-model duo someday. Sakura would create a prêt-à-porter fashion line and Dahlia would be her #1 model. Years laters as adults, they're still in love but their dreams have panned out very differently. While Dahlia's modeling career has taken off, Sakura's designs are still obscure. Dahlia's manager urges Sakura to break up with Dahlia, insisting that she's holding her back, and Sakura complies. Sakura decides to throw in the towel for trying to be a famous designer, until she sees Dahlia wear a dress she gave her on TV. (This story's one significant handwave- you'd think having a world famous super model girlfriend who publicly wears your designs would give you some fame as a designer, but... eh. I love this story anyway. XD ) At a major fashion competition, the model who was hired to wear Sakura's final design isn't able to do it, so Dahlia steps in and models it. Sakura and Dahlia reunite with a big old kiss on the runway, Sakura's designs win the competition, and Sakura's clothing line finally becomes famous.

"Beautiful Pain" is the only story in this collection that I wouldn't miss at all. Lily and Hokuto are half-sisters from a rich family. As the family's only legitimate child, Hokuto is being pressured to enter an arranged marriage. She and Lily decide to run away together, but like, five minutes into running away, Hokuto gets hit by a truck. Hokuto is now paralyzed, so the arranged marriage is off. Lily's glad the engagement is off, and Hokuto's glad the aftermath of her being hit by that truck panned out exactly as she'd hoped. So, uh, I guess they're meant to be.

Where "Beautiful Pain" is closer to what I'd expect from Yuri Hime S, Yuri Hime magazine's now defunct/partially absorbed offshoot that pandered to the Megami magazine crowd, "Rooftop Miracle", the other story in this collection that ran in Yuri Hime S instead of Yuri Hime, is good. (Yuri Hime S had some quality content, like the early chapters of Fu~fu and most of Kurata Uso's earlier work and this story, but really, the vast majority of it was disposable. That said, I... I did like Otome Kikan Gretel...)

So, "Rooftop Miracle." To Kyouko's irritation, another woman, Mirai, chose the same building to jump off that she chose, on the same day, at the same time, for the same reason- a horrible experience with an ex-girlfriend. Happy to meet someone who understands her feelings, Kyouko stops the other woman from jumping. They realize they have the exact same engagement ring, given to each of them by an ex who conned them out of their savings. They laugh about being tricked by the same woman, marvel at the odds of their meeting just in time to prevent the other from dying, and start going out. Definitely one of the more unique approaches to a new relationship starting. Like the story following it, "Rooftop Miracle" effectively puts a cracked, humorous spin on a potentially grim situation without making light of it.

"Spicy Sweets" blends yakuza, coming out, and romance into a tasty confection. (Couldn't resist.) Coming out to a homophobic parent may be scary, but can you imagine coming out to one who runs a yakuza syndicate? Yuu, the daughter of a yakuza family, is hiding the fact that she's gay from her family and what her family does from her girlfriend Aki, since all of her past girlfriends dumped her once they found out what her family does. When Yuu's mother visits her apartment (along with some scary underlings) while Aki's there... well, her mother already knows about Aki, and isn't pleased. And! Yuu has to come clean with Aki and tell her mother to piss off and stop trying to drag her into the family business. Against all odds, things turn out happily, and Yuu and Aki look forward to their future together. Aki aims to run her own patisserie someday, while Yuu decides to enter law enforcement.

Finally, "Butterfly Effect" shows how Maria and Ageha stayed in touch when Maria's band was still abroad. Not even a big-shot producer could keep them apart. ^^ (Maria punches him out when he's like "You're not agreeing to meet with me tomorrow because that's when you're meeting your lover? Oh yeah, you're a lesbian. You should break up, since I'm sure she's just some gold digger.") Of course, Maria meets up with Ageha, and the story ends on a perfect note. ^_^

Great collection. Do read, if you want a strong yuri collection featuring a variety of ages and settings.

Art: A good-looking, but not-as-strong-and-confident-as-the-rest B for Natsuneko's earliest story, "Spicy Sweets." B+ to A- for the rest. "Quilt Queen" and the "Butterfly" chapters are the stories that give Natsuneko the greatest opportunity for visual flourish.
Story: Highly variable, because of one story. But I'm ignoring it.
Overall: A-

Yuri no Boke 百合のボケ 〜百合が好きだ〜

A look at volume 1 of the Psycho-Pass manga, some Yayoi x Shion goodness, and some rambling on doujinshi

Morinaga Milk's newest: Gakuen Polizi volume 1

Manga Review: Golondrina volume 1

What I've Watched From the Current Season

Manga Review: Asagao to Kase-san volume 1

Some takeaways from the news about ALC Publishing

News: JManga Shutting Down

Manga Review: A Transparent Orange in the Lip

Manga Review: Ameiro Kochakan Kandan volume 1

Manga Review: Aoi Hana volume 7

ARRRR, yuri pirates: Love Flag Girls!! manga review

Anime Review: Mouretsu Pirates

Shows I've Tried From the Current Season, and a Load of Psycho-Pass Yuri Fan Art

Manga Review: Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu

My Top 11 Yuri Manga Highlights of 2012

The Winter 2013 Anime Season

Happy New Year!: A Review of Yuri in Anime in 2012

Manga Review: Sailor Moon volume 6

Manga Review: Himawari-san volume 1

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 3

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 2

Another Serving of Yuri Christmas Fan Art

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 1

Manga Review: Concerto

Manga Review: Butterfly 69

Yuri no Boke 百合のボケ〜百合が好きだ〜