Yuri Anime: Devilman Lady
Okay, yesterday I forgot to tell you about the one great big gay character in the
Devilman Lady manga, but that's okay because I'll be covering her today, with great enthusiasm. lol
Let me start off by saying that the anime version of
Devilman Lady is SO lesbian, that it's a wonder it doesn't get more spin in yuri circles. I guess the majority of viewers just prefer cute over tough, but call me a happy minority. I'll take cool, competent and tough any day over cute. :-)
Where in the manga our heroine, Fudou Jun, was a uber-tough, butched up athlete, even had been in the Olympics as a swimmer, the anime Jun is a quiet, lovely top-notch fashion model. She's immensely popular and we can see why, becuse when she gets in front of the camera, she becomes something alive and animal - her charisma is obvious, and so is her hunger.
Into this life comes the (still) completely psychotic Ran Asuka, who throws Jun into a room with a guy who becomes a ravening Devilbeast. The shock of being attacked forces Jun to transform (no demon bats here...) and Asuka calmly tells Jun that she'll help Asuka hunt other Devilbeasts around the city. Jun, who has pretty low self-esteem, does.
Asuka is openly and obviously attracted to Jun, but pretty much only when she's in her Devilbeast form. Like me, Asuka appreciates raw power. lol Unlike me, she seems to find fangs and fur attractive. Whatever floats yer boat. In any case, Asuka definitely is seriously gaga for Jun and teases her unmercifully, as she forces Jun to travel the country slaughtering people, in the name of preserving humanity.
Complicating Jun's life is the addition of a young friend, Kazumi, who after her parents are killed by a Devilbeast (and she is saved by Jun in her transformed state) moves in with Jun. It is *equally* apparent that these two LONG for each other. You'll be happy to know that about 3/4 through the series, they finally acknowledge their feelings and even spend a night together, but this series is not a comedy - it's a tragedy. I'll leave you to guess the rest.
Episodes 5 and 6 of the series ought really to come witha 100% yuri label. Kazumi has moved in and now wants to buy a bigger bed to share with Jun. She all buts says, "Look, stupid, I really want to sleep with you" but she's young and a little unsure of Jun's feelings. Jun, is agonizing over this, exactly *because* she wants so desperately to sleep with Kazumi. Trust me - this is not subtext. From this point on, whenever anyone other than Jun mentions Kazumi, it's to refer to her as Jun's lover, even though they aren't. Jun wimps out, btw, and buys bunk beds. Kazumi is quite shocked by this admission of Jun's, because what it says is either "I want you so much I won't be able to control myself" - which is the truth, or, "I loathe you so much I can't stand the thought on sharing a bed with you, in which case she ought to make Kazumi leave. It's pretty apparent that Jun feels she wouldn't be able to control herself.
In the meantime,we introduce Jun's old high school classmate(and in the manga, rival), Big Gay Aoi.
Let me backtrack. In the manga, Kurosaki Aoi is like 6 1/2 feet tall and HUGE. Muscles everywhere. She makes butchy Jun look like a little girl. She obviously wants Jun, but they have a nasty rivalry between them and Aoi has a abusive background and doesn't do well when she's not letting the Devilbeast in her body eat people she hates. The Devilbeast, of course, decides it wants to eat Jun. Aoi and the beast that is her body argue and the beast eats Aoi i.e., itself. Aoi does confess her feelings and in the end, Jun is forced to admit that she was also attracted to Aoi. Duh.
Okay, here in the anime, Jun is no athlete - in fact, she's anemic, and had a problem with passing out when she got too excited as a youth. Flashback to high school at a swim meet. Aoi sees Jun pass out and carries her to the locker room. When Jun comes to, Aoi tries to kiss her. At first Jun gives in, but then, in a moment of weakness, pushes Aoi away and they never speak again. For years. Now, Asuka sets Jun on Aoi's tracks, because she's exhibiting signs of being a Devilbeast. In the manga, where Aoi became a Devilbeast to avenge herself on her sexually abusive stepfather, here in the anime Aoi basically has done it for Jun. Jun visits her at the pool and Aoi blatantly asks Jun to love her back, but Jun refuses, again. (Given Jun's reacton to Kazumi and Asuka, it seems to me that the worst enemy Jun has is herself. She obviously is attracted to women, but it scares her silly, even after all this time.) They fight and ultimately, to save Jun, Aoi sacrifices herself. Let me just add that as Jun is played by Iwao Junko (Tomoyo in
Card Captor Sakura and Aoi's voice is done by Ogata Megumi who played Tenou Haruka in
Sailor Moon, we're talkin' serious yuri-fest right here. :-)
Episode 6 is the story of a rival model who also wants Jun and ends up getting her naked and tied up in bed before the devilbeast transformation happens and Jun has to kill her.
From this point on, the story becomes a triangle between Asuka, Jun and Kazumi. Kazumi wins, in a way, because she and Jun admit that they love each other, but in a more concrete way, Asuka wins, because she makes Jun into what she wants her to become. Asuka also wins because she's the only transgendered lesbian from New Jersey that I know of in anime. I am seriously not making any of this up - Asuka was born a guy, but we see her full frontal and know she is now a woman. And we learn that she was born and raised in New Jersey. Montclair, from the looks of it. LOL So in my book, Asuka wins, hands down, because I can say that she is a transgender lesbian from NJ. In anime. Go ahead say it - you'll see what I mean. :-)
This series is campy horror, not as violent as the manga, but still violent and has a really sort of ambiguously happy ending. I think it's one of the most yuri series out there and its a damn shame more people don't know how wonderfully weird and bizarre it is. Sure, the girl doesn't get the girl, but it really doesn't matter, because it's a great story, with a strange, but less super-weirdo-bizarre ending than the manga, but still penty weird.
Ratings:
Art, Characters, Music, Yuri, Stories, Acting, all get "10," across the board.
Devilman Lady is one of my very favorite anime series in the wholy of yuri-land. :) Get it on the
Yuricon Shop!
Devilman Lady Manga
I'm waiting for a new shipment of stuff to arrive from Japan (some new drama CDs and old manga to fill in some gaps,) but I wanted to take a long moment and *finally* discuss one of my favorite series ever with you.
I've already reviewed
Kekkou Kamen on
April 8th, and today I want to wax poetic about yet another wonderfully wacky series from the mind of Go Nagai.
The
Devilman Lady manga and anime are two entirely different creatures, which really can't be compared at all. They have nothing but the vaguest similarities, including the lead characters' names. After that, it's as different as possible.
Today we'll deal with the manga. Typically of a Go Nagai creation, the manga is full of strong women who get naked *alot*, and sex, some of which is violent and non-consensual. Because this is a story that resides in his
Devilman universe, there is much demon-y stuff going on, half-human, half-moster hybrids...you know, the usual. And lots and lots of violence.
In the manga version of
Devilman Lady Fudou Jun is a way butch woman, who teaches in a high school. She coaches the girl's tennis team, works out with weights and is in general as fit and muscular as any woman who clearly uses steroids can be. One night, while on summer camp trip with her tennis team, she and the students are attacked by demon bats. The boys are eaten or turned into ravening monsters, the girls are eaten and/or raped. Jun is bitten and becomes this super-strong bestial creature that defeats all the demons and saves a few of the girls.
After the incident, Jun is visited by a woman, Asuka, who can only be described as "completely psychotic". Asuka tells Jun that is her destiny to become the Devilman Lady and defeat these evil devil-creatures, who eat men and rape women. Jun resists, until Asuka produces her father and mother (who live in California) who calmly tell her that she was born with this propensity, but they gave her drugs as a child to supress it - but now it's time to become the Devilman Lady! so Jun does. From that point on theire's lots of violence and sex and yuri implications between Asuka and Jun which, sadly, do not go much further. They share one hot kiss early on, and from there it's all downhill.
The story gets very weird and complex and includes a love affair with Lucifer (really Akira, the Devilman) and ends with...
Spoiler Warning!!...Jun and Asuka merging together to form St. Michael the Archangel and fighting alongside Lucifer to defeat the demon legions of hell.
I bet you saw *that* coming a mile away, eh? LOL
This was *such* a weird ending to a manga that I could not stop staring a the last page, re-reading the text over and over, because I was sure I was getting it all wrong.
Anyway, to sum up. Lots of violence and violent sex, blood and more violence. Many sexy naked women, not as much yuri as one would hope. Volume 1 has the hot kiss - stick with that and you're fine.
Next up, the anime - a yuri lover's dream. :-)
Yuri Manga: Houkago, or After School
It'll be a quick one today...
Houkago is a new serialized manga running in
Cookie monthly magazine. It just started this month, so it's hard to tell if the potential for yuri has got any staying power. In fact, I'm not even sure it wasn't a one-shot story. (The monthlies are getting very lax about telling you when/if another chapter will run on some of the series. And many of the mangaka end a chapter with "The End" so you don't know if it's the chapter that's ended, or the series. Drives me nuts.
Anyway, Cookie is the same magazine running
Nana which has some serious akogare bordering on yuri, but sadly, nothing will actually happen. Nonetheless, alot of yuri fans like
Nana.
Houkago is a short chapter, about a girl who is being picked on by classmates at school. As the story continues, the teasing predictably gets more vicious. The girl is befriended by the cool class loner and they two of them start spending alot of time together and being happy in each other's company.
There's much hand-holding, and an embrace or two, but no declarations of love or kisses in this chapter, so it's nothing ground-breaking or notable. It's just another high-school shoujoai potential romance. :-)
I'll keep you posted if anything good happens in it. LOL
Yuri Anime: Spring 2004 season
And *while* we're on the topic of
Marimite, let me just point you all to
Gokigenyou.com, the official
Marimite website, where yesterday, the new season was announced. The good news is that it's starting as soon as July 4th, the bad news is that they've buried it on Sunday morning at 7:30 AM. Apparently they feel that insomniac six-year-olds are the target audience.
Most importantly, now we, the western audience will get to officially meet Yumi's potential souer, affectionately known as "drill-hair" and "stalker." Makes you really wanna meet 'em, doesn't it?
Now, onto other business.
This season of anime is sort of only vaguely yuri-ish. There's the usual Bee Train yuri implications in Madlax and some fanservice-y kind of stuff in Bakaretsu Tenshi, but nothing that set the yuri-o-meter off at a high level. However, if goofy, silly yuri that will never go anywhere is good for you, then I recommend you catch the fansubs of Sensei Ojikan: After School Doki Doki Hours.
Sensei Ojikan is reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh, but really, only in the sense that they are both very silly comedies set at a school. There is a little overlap in character type, but only a little. If I remember correctly, Sensei Ojikan came first as a manga, so it isn't really any kind of rip-off at all. Speaking of which - you all know that Azumanga Daioh has been relwased on DVD here, right? Run out and get it, if you haven't, because this is a *very* funny series.
Sensei Ojikan is nominally the story of a teacher, Mika-sensei, who looks like a 10-year old. She's only marginally effective as a teacher, but her class feels very affectionately towards her. There's a goofy selection of kids in the class: the hyper genki underachiever, the over achiever, the class leader who is a boy idol otaku, the mangaka otaku, the gay girl, the gay boy, the crossdresser, the old guy and the slacker. All together, they make a fun combination and some of the episodes had me laughing out loud.
The gay boy is very obviously in love with the slacker kid and everyone in class knows it but the slacker. The gay girl is Kitagawa Rio and she is even more openly in love with the teacher. She's very open about her liking girls in general, cute girls more specifically and Mika-sensei in particular...and she plays that card a lot, especially when she's trying to get a reaction out of poor Mika-sensei.
Again, this is all played for laughs, so don't expect Kitagawa and Mika-sensei to ride off onto the sunset or anything, but it's cute. And, in accordance with the Rules of Supporting Yuri Characters, Kitagawa is especially good-looking and smarter than nearly anyone else in class.:-)
So, if you want a few laughs and aren't looking for a permanent relationship, drop by anime.mircx.com and check out Sensei Ojikan. And don't forget to drop by and let us know what you think at the Yuricon Mailing List!
Maria-sama ga Miteru Manga Update
It's been about a month since the
Marimite anime ended, and of course, we're all waiting with baited breath to hear any news of a second season. In the meantime, however, I'm filling the void with the manga, running in
Margaret monthly.
And since I have to kill about forty minutes here at work before the week ends, I figured an update of the manga story was in order. :-)
As I've mentioned about a thousand times since this series exploded onto the yuri scene, the manga is more detailed than the anime, and in some cases, more exact to the novels. Although for purists, any cut is a bad cut.
The
first volume of the manga has been out since the end of February and we can probably expect a second volume pretty soon, even though the installments are coming monthly now and not biweekly. I've covered some of the differences between the anime and the manga of the first arc in my
February 6th entry.
Well, now the manga is firmly into the second arc, aka "The Yellow Rose Revolution" and I wanted to share a few of the fun bits either changed in or left out of the anime with you, because I can. :-)
Just to remind you (or introduce you to the story) the second arc deals with the repercussions when Yoshino (Rosa Foetida en Bouton Petite Soeur) returns her rosary to her oneesama, Rei (Rosa Foetida En Bouton.) This happens shortly after Yumi has become Sachiko's soeur and she is still very new and uunsure of herself in her role. It absolutely shocks her when Yoshino returns Rei's rosary, undoing their relationship...and poor Yumi is even more apalled when other girls do the same thing. In the meantime, Rei is training for a kendo match, at the same time that Yoshino is preparing to have heart surgery.
Here are a few of the more romantic/funny moments so far...
So, Yumi and Sei (Rosa Gigantea) are in the Rose mansion and Sei is coughing up the fact that Eriko (Rosa Foetida) is basically good at anything she tries to do, but is seriously unmotivated.
Sei throws her arms around Yumi, once again completely taken by Yumi's cuteness. Yumi grimaces and says, "Why don't you get yourself someone as a boyfriend?" and Sei laughs and says, "I couldnt be faithful to some guy. Only Yumi-chan." and kisses Yumi...just as Sachiko walks in.
The rest of that conversation is in the anime as well, with Sachiko telling Sei to play with her own petite souer. Sei says, "Gee, I never thought of that..." and Sachiko yells at Yumi for not struggling to get away, and not to do anything that would make Rosa Gigantea happy. LOL
While tying ribons into Yumi's hair, Sachiko calls Yumi Rei and Yoshino's "carrier pigeon."
Yumi is immediately distracted as Sachiko takes her hand, quite forcefully, and begins walking towards the bus stop. As they walk hand in hand, Yumi's head explodes and her heart begins to pound and she
desperatey wonders if the other petite souer have this problem of so wanting to be close to their oneesama that they can't quite cope. Her face becomes so red and distracted that, despite Yumi's fervent wish that they stay connected a while longer, Sachiko lets go - she thinks she's bothering Yumi. When they approach the bus stop holding hands - a few of the other girls see them and go all girly-squealy, but sotto voce, about how sweet it is that they Rosa Chinensis en bouton and her petite souer are holding hands.
Later, at Rei's
shiai Sei wanders over with lots of snacks for Yumi, reassuring Yumi that she doesn't need to be paid back, but Sachiko insists on paying for her. Yumi feels awfully contrite, because she didn't think to bring her purse. Sachiko smiles gently at her and tells her that she, Yumi, should let her, Sachiko, act like an oneesama every once in a while. Yumi sits, once again overwhelmed by Sachiko's coolness. LOL
One other difference is that Eriko's absence is more notable - people at school have commented that she's missing, and Yumi thinks she sees her, but each time, Eriko is gone when she looks again. At the hospital while visiting Yoshino, Yumi thinks she sees Eriko's "ghost" because she looks so pale and is in all white - with further reflection Yumi might have realized that Eriko was wearing a hospital gown, but at the moment, she strikes her as ghost-like. It is from these things that the weird rumors will assumably begin about Eriko. :-)
In any case, the manga is more satisfying than the anime, if what you crave is more interatcion, more story, more personal details, etc. I imagine that I'll write another update at the end of this arc and by then, we ought to have some news of the new anime season! :-)
Yuri Manga: Blue
Before I write today's review, I just want to let you know that I've changed the "Comments" field below so anyone can comment - you no longer have to be registered.
Now, today's review:
Blue, by Nananan Kiriko, was published by MAG Comics in 1997. Stuck as it was in the limbo space between the tough girl epics of the 1980's and the new wave of yuri in the early twentieth century (that would be now...), this manga reads like a tentative probe into a sensitive spot.
Blue has a simple storyline - Kayako is a recent transfer student to a seaside school, still tentatively making friends. She becomes interested in the girl who sits in front of her and never really interacts with anyone. One day, on a whim, Kayako invites the girl, Masami, to join her and her classmates for lunch and a new friendship is born. Masami seems nice enough and she and Kayako start spending more and more time together.
One night, Kayako goes out with a few friends to an arranged drinking party with some guys. She ends up at a hotel with one of the guys, but afterwards, she realizes that it was pretty pathetic of her, because she's fallen in love with Masami. Shortly therafter, she and Masami share their first kiss.
Their relationship becomes a little more exclusive, so when Kayako's friend who had set up the drinking party comes in screaming at Kayako, she's really taken aback. The friend is appalled at Kayako for sleeping with the guy *she* liked...for sleeping with him at all, really. In the following days, Kayako is quietly shunned by her circle of friends, but she and Masami become closer than ever - they decide to move to Tokyo together when they graduate, etc, etc.
But summer vacation comes and Masami disappears with no word to either her mother or Kayako. As Kayako's happiness collapses around her, she's forced to learn more about the Masami she didn't know, and face her own fears and jealousies...and be more honest with her other friends.
In the end, Masami and Kayako do not stay together - there really is never any reason to believe they might, to be honest. If either one of them were male, this entire story would simply be a "first love" story and disappear into oblivion. The entire manga seems to be balanced on a pinhead of tension. There just isn't much there, except the usual day-to-day stuff of adolescence. From my lofty perspective (adolescence was a *long* time ago now) it's sweet, but not compelling, stuff.
In 2002, a
live-action version of
Blue was made. I haven't managed to see it, yet, but I would like to, despite the fact that the movie seems like a slightly blander version of an already bland story. There's a
review of the movie that confirms this opinion...but as I wrote the review's author, it's not like we, as yuri manga fans have so many choices that we can afford to reject the few attempts at making our stories live. Despite the fact that I strongly believe that the movie-viewing audience is more than ready for a more robust story than this one. Nonetheless...
Blue is not a hateful story, just sort of a nondescript, bittersweet "first love" story.
The one thing the *does* stand out about this manga is the art. To call it stark would be an understatement. There are no screentones, almost no shading and the characters are drawn realistically - not manga realistically, but actually realistically. This makes the story feel more real, but it makes it damn hard to tell some of the characters apart, if they have similar hair styles. Let's face it, most mangaka can only draw one face and they stick different color hair and eyes on everyone, so we can see who is who. Take away weird hairstyles or distinct physical attributes, and all colors and most of the shading and all you have left is a bunch of nearly identical shapes. This makes
Blue a little tougher than usual to follow, unless you can actually *read* the conversations. I was able to follow it alot better this time than I was the last time I attempted it. Assumably, one day I will actually be able to read every word with ease and it'll all make sense. ;-)
So,
Blue is only okay, but if you're a completist and are trying to build a collection of all the yuri manga ever, you'll want this one too. :-)
Yuri Manga: Futtemo Harettemo (Rain or Shine)
Way back, when I was writing about things I didn't want to write about, I wrote about this.
Well, recently I revisted this old, "miserable classic" of shoujoai by Fujimura Mari, which was published by Margaret Comics back in 1993. And I decided that it deserved a column of its own, not because it's happy or unique, but becuse it's neither. Unlike
Pieta,
Futtemo Harettemo, does not end with the girl getting the girl, but these two stories have more in common that you'd think at first glance.
Futtemo Harettemo is the story of Nagi and Hiro, two classmates who have instant and almost obsessively deep feelings for one another. This five-volume manga details their encounter, friendship, and the painful things that they do to each other to try and convince themselves that they don't, in fact, love one another, or wait, maybe they do. This is a really ugly story at times, as Nagi and Hiro are hurtful, sometimes destructive and even homicidal at each other. Hiro ends up being cast as the more emotionally unstable of the two, while Nagi gets the award for being the more selfish. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there are some genuinely tender moments between the two girls.
Since one of the storylines is Nagi's conflict at being torn between Hiro (who is admittedly not a very dependable person) and a guy who is clearly and committedly in love with her, you can expect that these two will not get together any time soon. Hiro does get some credit for calling it love first and kissing Nagi several times, trying with increasing desperation to hold onto a girl with whom she is "more than friends, but less than lovers." (This quote is from a short Japanese movie about lesbian romance entitled
3 Second Melancholy, and a very common Japanese phrase about intense relationships without committment.)
So, given the fact that Nagi and Hiro do *not* end up together, unlike Rio and Sahako, and the fact that their relation is tumultuous and sometimes violent, why do I say that it has anything to do with
Pieta? Because both of these manga, and many of the shorts that are currently being published in
Yuri Shimai pair lesbianism with mental disease.
It wasn't until I re-read
Pieta and
Futtemo Harettemo in the same week that I realized that both include characters that inflict violence on themselves, and in the case of
Futtemo Harettemo, others as well. Which led me to notice that there are several stories in the three volumes of
Yuri Shimai that pair lesbian love with a suicidal desire...and it dawned on me that we're *still* reading the same damn stories from the early twentieth century, when lesbianism itself was considered pathological, and frequently paired with other mental diseases, especially depression. (Although Hiro acts like a classic manic-depressive, IMHO.) Can anyone say
Well of Lonliness? LOL
And while I'm marginally annoyed,
Pieta at least offers very reasonable and believable explanations for Rio's behavior, while
Futtemo Harettemo simply expects us to care about Hiro and Nagi while they duke it out on the battlefield of unhealthy attraction. If *I* were one of these girls' mother, I'd call this relationship unhealthy and try to put an end to it.
Nonetheless,
Futtemo Harettemo was, in the end, a kind of a bittersweet story (as so many Japanese manga were until recently, when the audience began to demand this thing called a "happy ending"). In the last chapter, Hiro and Nagi meet up at a class reuinion years later. Both are married and happy, and now, at last, able to be happy for each other. Hiro introduces Nagi to her husband as her "first love," which was kind of cute and, at the same time, massively irritating.
Would this story be any different if it were written today, as opposed to in 1993? I think not that much. Nagi, at least would still be married in the end. Maybe, maybe, Hiro might be with another woman, or perhaps she might have been portrayed as less emotionally unstable, but I think that these two could never have gotten together and lived happily ever after. Perhaps it was better that they just moved on. :-)
In any case,
Futtemo Harettemo turned out to be alot more provocative this time, than when I read it the last time and if you're the kind of person who is interested in historical yuri manga, you might want to look for this series in a used bookstore, or a
Yuricon auction.
If you have already read this book, and have opinions about it, or about the issue of lesbianism=mental instability, join us on the
Yuricon ML or leave a comment!
Yuri Manga: Pieta
PietaOkay, back from a weekend of forced relaxation. First of all, if everything works, I have enabled commenting on this blog - I don't know if it will work, or it's worth it, but please help out by testing this new feature! And be nice - abuse will get you nowhere, since I grade it on grammar, syntax and content. :-)
Today I want to go over a few of the classic shoujoai manga titles once again - a few that I already mentioned briefly, but have revisited recently, and a few that deserve revisiting for one reason or another. I'd like to start with
Pieta, a surprisingly well-done little classic, by Haruno Nanae, published by Young You comics way back in 2000. (It seems *alot* older than that!)
Pieta tells the story of Rio and Sahako, two girls in, (surprise!) high school. Rio seems cool and aloof and is the subject of many rumors in the school. Even though the girl's unifrom includes a tie, she wears it like a boy and is very boyish in loos and manner. Rio very obviously is dating one of the girls in her school and doesn't seem to care what people think of her.
Sahako finds herself simply fascinated by Rio, and is very quickly drawn in by her charismatic, yet engimatic, personality. For her part, Rio makes no bones about the fact that she's interested in, and attracted to Sahako, even going so far as to break up with her current girlfriend.
We learn that Rio, for all her external coolness, is actually a seriously tortured individual, with very painful memories of abandoment and rejection - and a classically evil, hurtful stepmother.
In some ways, *because* of this situation, Sahako is drawn closer and closer to Rio, until it is obvious to themselves and everyone around them, that they belong together. The climax is not the final crisis, but in the end, there is a happy ending for them -and the girl does get the girl, which sets this story up among the few and far between.
On the whole,
Pieta a slow-moving and sometimes painful story, but it is undeniabley sweet and romantic - and in places genuinely touching. Watching Sahako watch Rio is so sweet, it's actually a little heart-rending.
The plot is not earth-shaterringly new or unique, but it is tight and well-constructed, with a fair amount of tension.
While Rio is given alot of depth, as a character Sahako is left a little fuzzy. Her family seem to disappear by the end, and there's no conflict in her life, as there is in Rio's...I keep wondering how her family reacted to what's going on with her (remembering that my completely functional family certainly had a reaction to when *I* was falling in love the first time...), but we never see any of that.
The art is smooth and slow and very open - lot's of white space and implications in motion and position, which goes well with the feel of the story.
All in all, you could do way worse than Pieta as a solid shoujoai (girls' love) story. And, although it is out of print, we sometimes have the two-volume set available at Yuricon as a prize or for auction, and for those fo you who are too lazy to earn or buy a copy, lol, the lovely ladies of lililicious are scanlating it - and doing an excellent job, as always.
Nonetheless, I recommend that you get an actual hard copy, because it's just not the same to read manga online, as it is to carry it around with you, whip it out and read it wherever you are. Pieta would make *great* beach reading. :-)
Ratings: Art - 8. Characters - 8. Story - 8. Yuri -8. Overall - 8
***
One last thing, and I'd love to hear from you all on this -
What do you yuri fans think of the term "Girls Love"? Do you think it should be the default term now, or its an abomination, or just a marketing gimmick, or do you feel better with yuri, or shoujoai? Let me know - I want to hear from you on this! :-)
Live Action: Yurisai
From alert reader Erin, (who happens also to be one of the fabulous folks from scanlating/fansubbing team
Lililicious) a new movie of interest to yuri and shoujoai fans has appeared on the scene.
Yurisai, or
Lily Festival, has already played at a few gay and lesbian Film Festivals (including the London one I was at last month, can you believe I missed it?) and the upcoming New York
New Fest.
Yurisai sounds very unique - as a whole, it's about older women whose sexuality is reawakened when a senior playboy enters their apartment complex. But part of the story includes a lesbian relationship between two of the women. Aside from the fact that seniors' sexuality tend to be ignored completely by TV and film, it's even less common to see a senior lesbian couple portrayed as sexual. If two older lesbians are shown on film, in my experience, they are reminiscing about politics ansd social change...not kissing or touching.
If this movie is playing at a GLBT film fest near you, try to get to it. I'll do the same and we can compare notes on the
Yuricon Mailing List :-)
Yuri Manga: Yuri Shimai 3
It's that time again! The folks at
Sun Publishing have released the newest volume of
Yuri Shimai.
Once again
Yuri Shimai offers a beautiful color cover, along with short narrative on the characters inside the book, a few color posters and about half a dozen or so short girl's love manga stories that take place exclusively in middle and high schools, since, as we all know, lesbians die at 18 or become bi in order to survive.
On the eye-rolling side of the equation, many of the characters are still mis-matched size types - i.e., one character is teeny and looks 10 and the other *almost* looks her age and is at least a foot taller. This will never cease to creep me out, because of the implications of this particular convention - the constant use of
oneesama by the younger-looking characters only makes it worse for me.
However, that having been once again beaten into the ground, there are many positives to this issue, and some hope for future ones.
The first thing one notes upon opening this volume is that the color pages in the beginning include yuri-centric write-ups of several anime that were notibly yuririffic. In fact, I had to laugh, because we were certainly following them all closely on the
Yuricon Mailing List! LOL
Jubei-chan 2,
ROD The TV,
Kaleido Star and
Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito were all represented with full-color pictures of some of the key yuri moments. So, that was really fun, right off.
Secondly, one of the best stories in the book so far,
Strawberry Shake, has been running since
Yuri Shimai's inception and it has not only been slightly different, but also funny and wacky in a very not-annoying way. This volume it gets several color pages of its own and a slightly longer chapter. In this chapter, Julia has decided to separate her personal and professional life in order to get to know Ran better. Of course, hilarity ensues, only this time, it's actually kind of funny. :-) When they do eventually get together, Julia and Ran will make a great couple.
Also continuing from the last volume is a story by Kita Kanno. "Under the Noon Sun" is about two dysfunctional schoolgirls who find themselves as roommates. I found this one typical and disappointing. I am officially announcing my dislike for the following plot complications (PCs):
Fevers caused by standing in the rain, or sleeping in the cold, or random who knows why-type reasons that have nothing to do with the real reasons people get fevers
Amnesia
Food stuck on a person's face as a substitute for a kiss
Warming someone's body up with a naked body (yes, I know it's a real thing...it still makes an utterly crappy PC.)
Losing weight on crash diets
Breast grabbing for whatever reason
Falling on someone, completely sprawled across them, full-body
Cramming for exams
Licking someone's finger to stop the bleeding as a substitute for kissing
Any PC that has to do with schoolgirl's skirts, bathing suits or "three size".
These are all utterly without merit and need to be removed whole from shoujo manga, in my curmudgeonly, yet humble, opinion. And yes - it *is* possible to have a good story without these.
But back to the point - in "Under the Noon Sun" one of the characters gets...I kid you not...a fever from a cold, because the other one crawled into bed with her the night before becuse she was cold. I mean, really.
On a more positive note, the lesbian bug continues to spread throughout the high school in the next installment of Morinaga Milk's all-girl school series. This chapter is entitled "Someday This Love" and it is unfortunately yet *another* stupid-reason-induced-fever based plot, but is otherwise kind of cute. More importantly, the next Morinaga Milk story looks to have at least one real kiss coming, and *that* I'm looking forward to.
The last volume of
Yuri Shimai seemed to have an inordinate amount of breast-grabbing; this one, everyone is coming down with unreasonable fevers. It's like a weird group mind, that so many of the authors use the same stupid plot devices in any given volume.
Nonetheless, with the usual book, movie, manga, game, anime and fan work reviews,
Yuri Shimai is really shaping up to be a valuable resource and, in some case, an interesting read. So here's thumbs up for this issue and hopes that the next one, due out in July, will be even better. :-)
Tags: Yuri Anthology, Yuri Manga, Yuri Shimai
Drama CD: Maria-sama ga Miteru 1
It is no secret that I am into voices. All my favorite actors and actresses are distinguishable as much by their voices as anything else. The same is true for anime - it is the fact that I can hear my favorite characters come to life, as opposed to seeing them do so, that appeals to me.
As a result, I absolutely love drama CDs. Not only can you hear your favorite voices, there are - as I wrote a few entries ago - many drama CDs of series that will never be made into an anime - or with other, sometimes better, actors and actresses in the roles.
So, while I was picking up the
Koi Shimai CD, I also got myself a copy of the first
Maria-sama ga Miteru drama CD. (BTW...I purchased these, the copy of Yuri Tengoku that I reviewed yesterday and the new volume of
Yuri Shimai, which I will review in the future, at
Amazon Japan. They will ship internationally and they have English language buttons to help you get through the registration and ordering process.)
All the characters are played by the same actresses that portray them in the anime - so Toyoguchi Megumi's unusual voice is still Sei's voice, Shinohara Emi's sweet voice is stil Youko's and Itou Miki's polished Sachiko is the same. In a way, it's already getting to be like listening to old friends.
The story follows the anime closely - so closely, in fact, that I wondered if they actually had to do any extra voice sessions for the CD at all. Yumi's introduction of herself and the school - and its early twentieth century sensibility - are exact replicas of the anime opening.
One of the challenges of this particular drama CD is the language that the girls use while at school. Yumi is not, naturally, a formal speaker - her thoughts are couched in reasonably casual language. But if I wasn't already familiar with the scenario, Sachiko's sentences would be nigh on unimpenetrable, they are so formal. :-) However, if you've had the pleasure of watching the
Lililicious translations of
Marimite, then you're not going to run into any surprises in the script...until the very end, that is.
This CD, which is the first of the series (and since the anime is over and the CDs only just being released, I'm hoping that the seiyuu will have many a months worth of work to come) covers the first two episodes of the anime, wherein Sachiko and Yumi meet, Sachiko claims Yumi as her petite sour and Yumi refuses. The CD ends with the end of the second episode of the anime (or chapter of the manga) where Yumi breaks down in tears as she's questioned by well-meaning friends about her refusal to take Sachiko's rosary.
The scenes follow the anime progression not the manga, which is moderately closer to the original novel. I think that that is a shame, since the manga is a little gentler to Yumi in this arc. In the manga, when Yumi shows up for dance practice Youko takes her in hand and asks for a volunteer, rather than Sei stepping up, then abandoning her. On the other hand, since the scene is mostly for us to get to know all the Bara-tachi, I guess it hardly matters....
In both the manga and the anime, the second chunk of the arc ends with Yumi crying from stress brought about by her feelings of inadequacy, the pressure she's feeling from everyone at the school and the pressure of having to be in the presence of not only the Yamayurikai in general, but especiallly her idol Sachiko-sama. Although she tries to be cool like Sachiko, she can't maintain the emotional distance and breaks down in front of her friends (who have the decency to feel awful about it.) Yumi thinks that the real problem is that she has real feelings for Sachiko and, so, it was alot easier to adore her from afar, where her feelings could be safe. Now, close to Sachiko as she is, she's become vulnerable. In the anime and manga, Yumi leaves it at this, but the Drama CD takes it one step further.
Yumi admits to herself that she likes (
suki) Sachiko, and that it was easier to admire her from afar. Because Yumi likes her, it's too painful to be this close. At which point Yumi stops and admits that she *really* (
daisuki) likes Sachiko. The CD ends with Yumi repeating, "Daisuki, Sachiko-sama, daisuki" over and over.
IMHO, that puts their relationship one clear step further away from
akogare and closer to love. Since we know from the manga, if not the anime, that Sachiko no longer has any feelings for her cousin (who, along with her father's and grandfather's callous disregard for the feelings of the women in their lives, has soured her on men in general), I think we can, in fact, say that Yumi and Sachiko are as much of a couple as we could hope for.
The CD itself is very slickly produced, with background music reminiscent of the anime - without the Utenesque eyecatch theme. The sound quality is good and in general was totally worth the price. It even comes with little plastic Yumi and Sachiko stand-up dolls. (I love the fact that Japanese goods almost always come with an
omake. It makes it ever so exciting to open a DVD or CD up to see what else you get! LOL) The CD comes oddly packaged in a DVD-type case, not a jewel case, and the credits look like a personal journal in which Yumi has written - or more correctly, has her thoughts printed in it. There's also a nice sketch of the Yamayurikai and Yumi in the middle, with the seiyuu and characters names listed by each character. All in all, a very nice addition to a growing CD drama collection.
Ratings:
Story - 8.
Yuri - 10.
Characters - 8.
Voice Acting - 9.
Music - 8.
Overall - 8.5.
Tags: Yuri Drama CD, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Maria-sama ga Miteru Drama CD
Yuri Manga: Yuri Tengoku 2
Yuri Tengoku is an anthology of all-girl's love stories. It sits somewhere between a
doujinshi and a
magazine and a - that is, it's not *quite* a fan work, but it's not really a professional magazine, either.
The first
Yuri Tengoku was released in 2003, and I reviewed it on
January 22, 2004. Looking back at that post, frankly *nothing* has changed from the first volume to the second.
Yuri Tengoku still looks like a slick doujinshi, with a color slipcover and color pages of indifferent art. It seems such a waste to blow color pages on what are, IMHO, pictures of 7-year olds in school uniform not doing anything that any two girls might do at lunch - like lay next or sit next to each other. No sense of "love" there.
The preponderance of lolicon - characters that are supposed to be in junior high or high school that look 6 years old at most - still sets my teeth on edge. In fact, even more than the last issue, this felt more like a loli fetish manga than a yuri one. I mean, can we *really* conisder it "love," much less a lesbian romance, when the character is a little kid?
And with only one exception, every single story is exactly the same. Here is the plot:
I am in love with my classmate, but I can't tell her. I remember the day we met
. Wait, maybe she feels the same way! (Something occurs to make characters realize they like each other.) Hug. I'm so happy.
By the fourth or fifth story I was beginning to feel caught in a loop!
There are two stories that are *clearly* anime fan art - one a Michiru x Haruka high school crush thing that has diffferent names, but jeez guys, we're not stupid! And a R.O.D. The TV parody that simply removed any names at all, but there was no other attempt to make the characters look like anything other than Anita and Hisa. To be fair, the Michiru and Haruka types are pretty common in all aime and manga, so it could be coincidence, but not so the ROD thing. Of the two, the Michiru/Haruka stand-ins were at least a semi-decent rendition of the same story as always.
Only the final story in the anthology managed to escape almost all the conventions of the rest of the magazine. I'm not saying it was *good*, but it was different. For one thing, the characters are actually post-high school. Phew! Three years after graduation, in fact. And the story is hardly like the others, since it includes a violent pimp, a beating and a large knife. Sadly, it also has absurdly misplaced breast-groping and two fairly unrealistic characters, but who cares? It's didfferent! LOL
I'm can't recommend this volume of Yuri Tengoku unless you are extremely hard up for something resembling girl's love, or you are absolutely stricken dumb with joy at cute little girls who are impossibly young-looking for their purported ages.
Ratings:
Art - Varies, but nothing better than a 7.
Story - 4.
Characters - 4.
Yuri - 7.
Overall - 5.
You can definitely do better than Yuri Tengoku 2.
Tags: Yuri, Yuri Manga, Yuri Tengoku
Drama CD: Koi Shimai 1
Drama CDs are all the rage these days (well, actually, they've always been the rage at my house) - not only does every anime have a few floating around, but many more games and manga which have never been made into anime do as well. Of course, there's a
Maria-sama ga Miteru Drama CD (which I will review later this week. Hmmm - maybe I should do a review of just the fun yuri-related drama CDs I own...) And now, from Sun Publishing, the people who brought you
Yuri Shimai, comes
Koi Shimai, the first "Girl's Love" drama CD.
Koi Shimai is the sound drama of the first story of the first volume of
Yuri Shimai, the tale of Haruna and Chika and how they met and fell in love. (This story was the printed story, the first one of the first volume - not the first manga. The cover is an illustration of Chika and Haruna.) Their story is melodramatic and predictable - pretty much like all the stories in
Yuri Shimai, but as it had pretty color pictures, I have to give it a thumbs up.
The CD begins with Chika, as the new kid in school. She's feeling a little out of her depth when cool upperclassman Haruna shows up and offers to help her. It turns out that Haruna has been sent to find Chika and take her on a tour of the grounds. They get along really well immediately, so Haruna takes Chika to a quiet, pretty spot that she knows. Of course, Chika falls pretty hard for Haruna while sitting with her in this romantic place. So, when Chika falls and Haruna bandages her with her handkerchief, Chika's in seventh heaven.
But, when she tries to give the hankie back, Chika realizes that she likes Haruna, but the older girl isn't sure of her feelings. When Haruna offers to tutor Chika, the younger girl thinks things are going well - but her score on the test is so high that she is accused of cheating! Haruna tells Chika that she believes in her - that Chika is her most important person...
The voice actors are pretty good - fairly typical of their kind. Cute girly voice for Chika, polite sweet voice for Haruna, kiddy voice for Haruna's little sister Akiho (and one of Chika's classmates) and a deep, cool voice for Hiiragi Touko, the plot complication for the next CD . :-)
If you can understand basic Japanese - and I mean *basic* - you'll be able to understand this CD. It's that predictable.
Nonetheless, how many Drama CDs do you know that are girl/girl romances, with a kiss scene and everything? For that reason alone,
Koi Shimai is totally worth having!
Ratings:
Story - 7.
Yuri - 10.
Characters - 8.
Voice Acting - 8.
Music - 7.
Overall - 8.
Tags: Drama CD, Koi Shimai
Manga with Yuri: Haru Yo Koi
Haru Yo Koi is one of those perfectly typical shounen manga where there's a yuri relationship, sex and all, and you just *know* that it's going to go south almost immediately in favor of straight relationships...and it does. But, surprise! It seems to have taken a different route, so here's a quickie review:
Mafuyu is a high school student that has fallen in love with Sae, another girl in their school. After being caught
inflagrante delicto with Sae on the school roof, Mafuyu was expelled from school and her parents threw her out, so she's moved to Tokyo to live with her brother. However, Sae follows her and the three of them live together in an awkward setup. The brother, who is the most genuinely decent guy I've ever read in any manga, shoujo or shounen, finds this all unbearable...but for all the right reasons. Heck - i'd be peeved, too.
Sae has given up everything she ever had - friends, family, her home, to be with Mafuyu...but then the story gets horribly predictable. Mafuyu starts to date a guy and leaves Sae alone in the house, where she, in turn, falls for the brother (who has a nice girlfriend, thank you very much.) Typical love polygon, no surpises here.
We follow the brother as his relationship with his girlfriend develops - this is a very refreshing arc, because the progression seems normal - they meet, date a while, eventually sleep together, like each other's company...you know *real* relationship stuff, without the endless supply of emotional and sexual dysfunction that populates so much manga. He can't help but feel bad for Sae, and they kind of have something between them...but he has a girlfriend he loves, and Sae was, after all, his sister's girlfriend. So he declines to take advantage of Sae.
Then we follow Sae - she runs away, so as to not have to deal with all the conflicting emotions she's feeling. She becomes a hostess and shares a room with another hostess. In the meantime, the brother has asked all his friends to keep an eye out for her, which they do. When one friend finds her, he hides the fact from the brother, and tries to woo Sae, but she's basically fallen in love with the brother and the resulting chapters are a little tiresome, as the friend lies and cheats and does basically every skanky guy thing he can think of to sleep with Sae. He just won't get the "no" part of "no." Eventually he gets it and tells the brother and he and Sae meet. But she says she won't come back until she's standing on her own two feet again and knows who she is and what she wants.
And then we turn to Mafuyu to se what she has been doing all this time. She dropped Sae, pretty coldly, for a guy she met at work. And although she's sleeping with him, its obvious that the two have no connection. On the side, she's had a skinship with a classmate, but Mafuyu is repulsed by her own behavior, even as she's kissing the girl...comparing herself to a male character in a dating sim game. When she finds out that the guy she's dating is cheating, she's not really even angry - almost relieved. But she's still in a bad mood.
And then a new, young and good-looking sustitute teacher arrives. Nijiko-sensei is popular among the boys, but it's Mafuyu she pays attention to. When she finds out that Mafuyu's being cheated on, Nijiko-sensei takes her out for a night of eating, drinking and dancing. Almost immediately, Mafuyu finds herself attracted to her new teacher.
One day, Mafuyu decides to tell the teacher the whole story - about Sae, and the guy, and how she started dating him to prove to herself that she wasn't gay...but now she realizes that she is. And she tells the teacher that she's attracted to her - she knows that the teacher isn't interested, but she, Mafuyu, just wants the teacher to know.
Later that night, Nijiko-sensei pays a visit to Mafuyu at home and confesses that she's a lesbian and, if Mafuyu graduates and still has feelings for her, she'd be willing to date her. But they have to wait, because it would be more than a little awkward if they were found out while they were still teacher and student. Mafuyu agrees, stunned.
But...Mafuyu breaks the promise, and one day at school, corners Nijiko-sensei and kisses her. Hard.
And that's where we are, kids - in the middle of a manga that was getting boring, but has suddenly gone all interesting again! LOL
Chaotixubs are scanlating this manga...I've never even seen it for sale in the manga stores I frequent, but you can be sure that if I do, I'll be scoffing it up. :-)
There's nothing really standout about the series, except the brother's character: the art's fine, the story is okay, but that kiss was pretty much worth the whole thing so far. :-)
And don't forget - we love to talk about good yuri manga at the
Yuricon Mailing List, so if you have any suggestions, join us and let us know!
Tags: Yuri, Manga with Yuri, Haru yo Koi
