Yuri Manga: Air Master
This month's
Recommended Manga is:
Air MasterAir Master is a decidedly shounen series about a former gynmastics star turned street fighter. Don't look for complexities of plot here, kids - the fights *are* the plot. Despite the silliness of the basic story, I cannot recommend
Air Master enought to anyone who doesn't mind sheer mindless violence and some explicit sexual situations, not all of which are pleasant.
Aikawa Maki, aka "Air Master" is a 16-year old transfer student to Tomato Girl's High School. She's befriended by Yuu, Michiru, Renge and Mina at a local game center. Yuu, a kogal, picks a fight with two guys who are gaping at Mina's enormously oversise breasts, and ends up on the ground, beaten and bloody. Renge, an immature, repulsive whelp, can only cry, but Maki steps up and beats the heck out of the guys - securing her a place in street fighter history, and four lifelong friends.
Each of the girls is a blast, with perhaps, the exception of Renge who is *so* horrible and repulsive, that she becomes funny in an appalling way. Yuu is, as I mentioned, a kogal, and proudf of it, while Michiru is a pretty normal, responsible girl and Yuu's best friend. Mina is described as a "real live rich girl." She goes to a different school than the others, but has been Yuu's friend since childhood. Almost immediately, Mina takes a liking to Maki, but after Maki saves her from the mashers...Mina's like turns into a crush, which quickly escalates into full-blown love and lust. (Some of the most fun scenes are those where Mina indulges in fantasizing about what she'd do with Maki if she had a chance.) Maki eventually comes to return both emotions, but don't expect it to be played for anything but giggles and fanservice - this is a *really* shounen manga.
There is a surprising amount of genuine character development, considering the point of the manga is the fighting, and with the exception of one really awful character, everyone is pretty likeable - Maki's opponents tend become her allies after she defeats them, in fine old shounen fighting manga tradition.
The biggest downside is the art, which is REALLY bad. But the story and characters more than make up for it, IMHO. 19 issues are currently available, as is a 27-episode manga (which I'll review next month), so don't hesitate - go find a Kinokuniya or other manga store or click the picture above for the Amazon JP page, and order
Air Master today! You'll be glad you did.
Ratings:
Story- 8
Art - 2
Characters - 10
Overall - 8
Tags: Manga, Yuri Manga, Air Master, Maki and Mina
Yuri Anime: Stellvia of the universe
If you haven't yet seen
Stellvia of the Universe...you should. It's a space opera, plain and simple, with some of the typical cliches of the genre: threat from outer space, humans bonding together to confront the universal foe, young boy and girl become heroes, etc., etc. However, this hardly describes the complexity, not only of the characters in
Stellvia, but also the plot.
The initial plot is resolved by episode 10, leaving the viewer with the feeling that either something big is going to happen, or that the writers were even lazier than usual. Luckily, the former is true. A second plot structure develops which is completely *unlike* the first, and focuses on how humanity is as likely to be divisive as it is to unite at the advent of a threat.
Despite the decent plot of
Stellvia, the show's strength lies in its characters, most of whom are fleshed out enough to be genuinely satisfying. While the lead character is a bit weepy, she's delightfully free of whining. Her friends are in many ways more realistic and three-dimensional than she is, and almost all of the characters are better than the lead male who is dopey and unrealistically gifted by turns. The *real* strength of the story is in the byplay between the secondary characters and the relationships that form between them. All of the dialogue is amazingly age-appropriate. The teenaged characters actually *sound* like teenagers...even their disagreements are rendered realistically.
At the heart of
Stellvia is not one love story, but four. There's little doubt that the lead male and female will get together, but an unlikely relationship between two of their friends is rendered exceptionally well. There's a romance between an "older" (i.e., adult) couple, which I found goofy, but charming, and lastly, a lesbian romance which is painful and fascinating. From my perspective, it was obvious, but at the end,
Stellvia offers us one of the most delightful "coming out" scenes ever, as it's done on an open radio channel in front of the whole world - quite literally. It'll have you grinning like a moron, trust me.
One last added benefit,
Stellvia actually *ends*! With a resolution that makes sense and everything... and an epilogue that ties together all the threads. So on that note alone, this series stands out above others.
For the art,
Stellvia scores only a 6 - I found the main characters drawn to look much too young for their ages, the story, though, scores a 9. On the yuri scale, this is not a hot lesbo sex story, but the relationship between the two women is as present and accounted for as any other. I'll give it a shoujoai 8. All in all,
Stellvia rates 8 out of 10 overall, mostly because of the great ending.
To find all of Stellvia, visit the
Yuricon Shop! Enjoy!
Tags: Anime, Yuri Anime, Stellvia, Ayaka and Yayaoi
