Tag: Yuri

Animini: Revolutionary Girl Utena – Episode 1- The Rose Bride

Many Geared Greetings to all visiting these islands! With Flip Flappers being finished we were given two suggestions for shows to watch one was Magical Girl Raising Project… suggested by Senpai Irina the other was Revolutionary Battle Girl Utena suggested by Mari I opted to watch the classic first.. I miss a lot of the fundamental shows here.. yet after one episode I am not sure yet if I made the right decision. I did enjoy myself, in a slightly, clinical, way. 

The Summary

Utena is introduced to us in a fairytale style animation that immediately reminded me of the stained glass scene from beauty and the beast it tells us the story about a princess that was once save by a prince that smelled like roses.. her parents died but she was save.. as a memento he have her a ring that would allow her to find him again. She was so impressed .. that she did not fall in love with him.. no she wanted to be a prince herself to save her own princess. This heads on approach is kept on throughout the episode as after we see our backstory we jump to present day. Where Utena is a girl at a pretty snooty looking school. She prides herself in wearing a boys uniform instead of a girl one..to the chagrin of one of the teachers.  In the gardens of her school Utena discovers a dark skinned beauty by the name of Anthy. She is being slapped around by some Bishounen boy Saionji , shocking Utena who feels drawn to Anthy. Utena’s peppy friend distracts her and provides the exposition on who is who and what their roles are.  All very straightforward and clear.

We cut to Sionji being part of some super elite School Council who seem to live in a castle up in the sky or close to one.. I could not really work that out yet.. and he is the owner of Anthy because he won the last duel.. whoever wins the duel owns Anthy who is better known as the Rose Bride. When the green haired pretty boy hands a love letter he got from Utena’s bestie to his friends so she can be mocked.. Utena in a fit of rage challenges the man to a Kendo match.. he notices she has a ring and instead duels her for the sake of Anthy’s ownership.. for  this cold water has to be splashed on her ring in some secret place and more secret locations are revealed.I will be honest that went a bit fast for me.. I am sure I will familiarise myself with that location sooner rather than later.. but I still had questions when this episode was done.  Bringing her Kendo sword Utena did not expect her new rival to draw a magical sword out of Anty .. the sword known as Dios gives up the sword to whoever owns the Rose Bride.. while her sword gets broken Utena still manages to win the match by knocking a rose out off her rivals chest pocket, while he had to do the same to her. Anthy then is reunited with Utena saying she is now her property.

The Positives

I like how modern this show is , even though it stems from 1997 it is pretty relevant with it’s themes to this day. We get a dark skinned romantic interest to a woman claiming herself to desire to be a prince and rescue her own princess. Utena clearly is into women and very much into Anthy. I want to watch a bit more Yuri shows so this does play into that agenda pretty well. While the visuals look a bit off by today’s comparison I do really like the colour use in this school. Lots of weight and regal colours give the show a sort of luxury and vibrancy that make a nice balance with the somewhat more somber, Hikaru no Go and More grey tinted Cowboy Bebop.  It even offers a nice change of pace from the very natural tones of Natsume. It does bring me back to that sailour moon vibe but it feels more “unique”  and since I do dream of a rich girl finding me.. I can dream away a bit of finding my own Utena. (I can’t tell if I am into Anthy as I have not seen enough) 

I really do like seeing the more classical style of battle as well, there is an impact to it, you don’t get as much in modern anime. Even though it is just slaps and punches for the most part here the hits really make a connection. Which helps immediately feel bad for Anthy who has the potential to be a super interesting character as well. Utena herself having pink hair is always a plus and even her basketball action is pretty entertaining in that same connecting way. I ADORE how petty she can be.. not wanting to play Basketball for a certain team afraid she might get boysweat on her. I can kind of relate.. and it seems that  we get a person that is very confident with the person who she is rather than the shy, reflective one or the bubbly happy go lucky girl that usually make up the dynamic in Yuri couples..There are the dramatic ones as well but so far I feel that Utena might become one of the most relatable for me.

The Negatives

I am not sure if this show is for me.. based on this episode. While there is much I admire about this show , so far there is much less I enjoyed. I find everything to be a bit too “on the nose”  The second Utena sees Anthy she immediately gets trusted into a situation where she might wonder Anthy’s relationship status, all the girls in school take turns into letting Utena take turns in using their towel and Utena says “sure it’s your turn”. Coming off a bit strong there..I knew she would be Yuri ..but to literally take turns into “what girls towel you use”  kind of feels gross to me. Doesn’t she have a towel of her own?! Why would the other girls take their towel to spectate a basketball match.. which is against guys by the way. We see Utena kick the boys asses, we see her stand up to the teacher about wanting to wear a boys uniform so she can feel like a prince….yet she wears short pants underneath…which kind of makes it NOT a uniform anymore and thus WOULD put her in violation of the rules unlike she claims.

I also feel uncomfortable with Anthy being the property of Utena and that doesn’t have anything to do with the pigment she has, I am generally a bit uncomfortable around characters that lack free will.. not persé the hypnotised once but characters who just accept their fate even if they are miserable. Utena owning a bride now again feels a bit too “in your face” Just like the rose theme is a bit overplayed, the school logo is a rose, her ring has a rose, Anthy likes roses, Utena remembers the smell of roses and Dios has a rose on the hilt.  I do not mind roses being the source of power.. but let the rose  be iconic to the school council.. not also the school, not also the ring.. AND the sword. It all feels a bit to obvious This I will acknowledge is probably a first episode problem though as puzzle pieces fall in place I most of the time will stop minding them..but I would have thought it was stronger if Utena remembered a eye colour or a look.. over the sense of a very specific rose. It all feels just a bit stiff..like a tutorial in a point and click game!

The Score

Some anime really need to get fired up and you will need to give it a few episodes before it gets going..maybe it will pick up.. but for some reason I feel a disconnect with this anime so far. I love that the hero really reflects me in a way.. though I probably would not walk the same path. She walks to the sound of her own drum and her own ideals and I very much respect that.. if that theme is highlighted I will  surely grow to like this show. Yet I am also a bit weary that she might beat up every boy with too much ease and become a bit of a Mary sue. I can relate to how her mind works so far..but it feels to me as if the show in the first scene tells you “yes she is gay” and the next scene.. “did you know our main character is gay?”  I kind of would like to grow into a character rather than one point of relatability becoming an hyperbole of itself. I can’t judge based on a single episode but this will be a show I will either hate or love and so far I am not convinced of either side.

Simply for existing, going this route and writing characters like this is already pretty amazing. Giving her pink hair makes it better and since I see no signs of a revolution yet I suspect a lot more will come into play. At least I assume she will take a stance against the system at one point.. rather then being revolutionary in the “you have never seen someone like this way”  I suspect her to be revolutionary in the sense of LeLouche or V rather than the newest Dyson Vacuum cleaner or latest Iphone. I am content with what I saw.. but this might very well be one of those ball gowns you see that looks amazing on other women..but you know on you it will just not work!  To be continued.. for now.. it was fine.

Pinkie Watches a Random Anime 3: Märchen Mädchen

Hello my dear Island Guests! It is time again for me to watch a randomly generated anime! This month Märchen Mädchen came up. A show that scores a lackluster 5.4 out of 10 on MAL. In the comments it seems to be very disliked, both on CrunchyRoll where I watched the first 6 episodes as on MAL. I can see why people would grade it so low.. but for some reason I really really like this show.

Quite often upon a Time

Märchen Mädchen is a show about a young girl named Hazuki! A book nerd with anxiety attacks. Even though she sits at that very same desk in anime as all the other characters sit.. she is very different. She has no friends! None at all! When she gets too socially awkward she has to calm herself by reading novels. She lives with her stepmother who barely has time for her.. and her popular step sister who can be quite harsh to her in Japan. One day she has another of these panic attacks and goes reading in a hamburger restaurant. Already assuming her step mother does not have time for her. When suddenly she finds a mysterious new book she can not open in her purse.  At that time a mysterious girl shows up who nobody but her can see. She follows her into a library that is a gateway to another world.  There she discovers the girl is actually a “Mädchen”  a magical girl that draws her power from a classical story.. and surprise surprise. Hazuki is a magical girl too! Just in time even because a big tournament is about to start and the winning school of magic gets a wish granting magic! As the tournament draws closer we learn some of the darker secrets of these magical powers and how they can easily cause despair.

Hazuki the clumsy bookworm protagonist! Like me she lost her shoes in school!

On Paper this sounds like one of the most generic magical girl anime that has ever been published and it probably is. This anime made my Hoods Entertainment aired in the Winter Season of 2018. It seems to get a lot of hate from the community for it’s visuals and its weird writing and generic plot. I experienced something different myself.  Now I shall be the first to admit that I do not really have an eye for solid visuals.. if I am engaged with an anime my brain fills in missing frames, and if I see a face in less detail I auto completed that. I had no trouble with the visuals..except for episode 9, it  is one of those episodes like that one episode in Dragon BAll Super people still nag about!  I must admit I noticed Episode 9 being super off.. but it happens with deadlines being a thing! It’s horrible yes.. but the show is more than that episode. Overall I enjoyed the visuals.

Henshin Kinda looks like Pokémon Mega Evolution.. so I am game!

Characters do look a bit samey and sometimes I had a hard time to tell who is who.. and sure.. we don’t always get perfectly shaped things.. but I kinda found that neat! The show gets flack for using a lot of archetypes and basing everyone on a fairy tale character could be counted as.. “well there are no original characters here” yet in a way it is designed to feel that way. I can see why people dislike it.. but I can also see why this show chose to go that way. Probably if you measure with grades per category like animation, story, music etc. you end up with an anime with a low grade..but to me this anime shines in all those things we usually do not grade.

I told you a lot of the characters looked samesie!

Hazuki’s story of power is Cinderella, which is an obvious metaphor but in a way this metaphor also applies to the anime itself.It might look like a commoner that is standing in front of us.. and in a way it is! Yet with a bit of magic that commoner can still conquer our heart.There are a lot of analogies I really liked in this series. Sure the countries participating in the tournament are quite stereo typical and the Americans are not depicted favourably but it really makes sense. This series is about fairy tale or fable culture and America does not really have that. So in this show it is depicted that America usually borrows stuff and does their own thing with it. Every girl uses a fable or a story to draw power from and the Americans have the Match-Stick Girl.. but also Star Wars (though slightly renamed) and Santa Clause.. which is one of my favourites.. her magic is to “gift” her enemies.. the ammo of her weapons.. Santa Clause gets out a Tommy Gun or a Bazooka.. because.. she’s American! I laughed! So yes.. because this series is very much about established work we can see very many tropes happening.. but again.. that is part of it’s narrative. How this story SHOULD go according to all the classics is an intrinsic part of what is being told here! It might not be told all that well..but I found it told super charmingly. As if I am reading an actual Fairy Tale.

Why is it when people see a magical Portal they always try it! Bear Grylls would dissaprove! I would go through as well though

Princess Charming

What appealed to me most in this show is the main character. Hazuki Kagimura is a character I relate to a lot! I might not flee in books when I am in stress but the way her mind works throughout this show I found highly relatable.While I do have friends, in that phase of life where she was in I did not really have them either. The questions in her head about how to address a social situation are extremely relatable to me and the whole way she flaps her arms nervously and constantly apologises for being who she is reminds me a lot of myself before I found my magic! I also love the journey she is on! In this anime she discovers that girls who wield the power of the book are destined to live lives like the characters they embody. So it means she will settle down with her prince charming, have a family that doesn’t love her and that she is quite quaint looking but a little bit of magic will draw out her charm. She is Cinderella after all! However she falls in love with a girl and doesn’t want a charming prince. She doesn’t want to be that frail little girl walking around on glass slippers. She wants to be with the person she wants to be with..she wants to write her own story and in doing that.. she encapsules almost everything I stand for! I love that aspect of this show. 

How do you even walk in that outfit Shizuka?!

To complicate this, her semi-romantic partner or “special friend” as this show prefers to call it..though heavily implying the romance is Shizuka Tsuchimikado.. the wielder of the Moon Princess, or Princess Kaguya fairy tale. A story about a woman who is destined to be alone. 
A girl that unlike Hazuki is much more traditional and more inclined to accept her destiny. While it is not very original to tackle a story like this it works for a reason. In my opinion it also works here! Not every story has to be surprising! In fact I dare say that NONE of the classic Fairy Tales are surprising… well at least not the publicly accessible translations and variations. From the moment they met to the very last scene I felt invested in this relationship. Not because it is cleverly done, unique or well written.. no because it  felt like a Yuri variation of a Fairy Tale. All those classic stories are not made for the modern world and nowadays can have toxic messages, and that is what this show aims to explore and highlight. This show tells us.. let’s find a modern ending to our classic fairy tales and I support that story and a very soft core lesbian interest while not unique is a perfect method to explore this.

Why am I weirded out..but a girl still liking an hours old hamburger! I guess she warms it up with magic?!

I ADORE the voice acting in this movie. Hazuki and Shizuka both have very timid whisper-like voices, they feel frail and exaggerated. Yet without hearing the actual words you can follow the context of their emotion as everything is amplified..almost overacted. The same goes for all the other voice actors. The Brazen character does the shouting voice, the butch woman sounds like an actual man, the somewhat deranged american girl sounds like she is completely insane and the chinese girl has this melody in her voice like she is spouting wisdoms everywhere she goes, sounding like a mentor of a kung-fu movie. The principal is clearly brazen, bold and self confident and while they never really feel like “Real” characters because of it they once again feel very much like Fairy Tale characters. Think of how your mother threw her voice to make someone sound princessy when reading to you from a fairy tale book. The first time I heard Hazuki I was like.. oof this is laid on a bit obvious.. yet if I had to voice Cinderella in a japanese audio version of the classic tale.. this is probably the direction I would take. I really adore everything they do with Hazuki in this show!

Well..except for making her naked all the time?! Not sure why the principal would steal your clothes!

A Modern Fairy Tale

Like I said earlier this show goes to great lengths to establish it wants to be a modern retelling. Hazuki makes this very clear in her behaviour as well. When she gets invited to join the magic school and has to stand there in a bit of a skimpy-ish gymsuit she openly tells everyone she did not expect school to be like this and that she kind of expected it to be more like Harry Potter. It’s funny to see a Japanese girl in bliss when she references Harry Potter and seeing this world is NOT like that! It sounds so funny! She makes a lot of relevant comparisons. Oftenly a bit aimed at the weird dogmatic ways some of these old tales work kind of showing us “hey these stories have been more modernly retold.. why do we follow this old trope” I found that a great source of comedy. There is no flippy phones but actually touch screen ones , which the more classical characters have huge trouble using.. making references that they would prefer something like a flippy phone but acting as if they do not know what those are . Since the show is basically one big tournament arc with teams across the world we can see classical roles being fulfilled in several teams. So when the shy Hazuki brings snacks aboard a train.. the shy girl on the russian team would have had a similar mindset and does the same. This show uses tropes a lot. It is fun and kinda interesting to see the tropes clash with “itself” by placing characters that should not be together… well uhm.. together!

In her defence Hogwarts is a terrible place to live in! Cold damp castles, trolls, Basiliks, muderers ghosts and more!

It has issues though! I will admit that but weirdly these issues only really come out once you start comparing it to anime. One example of what this show could vastly do better is explain how the world works. There is a magical world and a non magical world, where Hazuki comes from. Apparently only Hazuki lives on the other side but Shizuka comes there because there are hamburgers and they aren’t on the other side? It never is fully made clear and at times can even feel like a plothole like.  They bounce between locations and worlds at times and it is hard to tell what is going on. Never ever does this show explain it properly. That is a problem…..when you compare it to an anime because there is plenty of anime who do it better. When you compare it to a fairy tale though, not explaining the world is kind of a thing there. Where did the fairy godmother come from? How does the Magic Mirror on the Wall work? How can Maleficent cast a death curse and how can the fairies cancel it?!  It is not that relevant to the story so it’s not explained.. and the same can be said here.

I half expected this spell to take three days!

The side characters are all paper things, they get one exaggerated personality trade and are usually very much stereotyped based on a country. For example the leader of the German team is an amazing tactician, and very military minded. She has a stuffed animal called Messerschmidt , after the world war II plane. Her power is shooting guns! She isn’t as evil as she seems though. The british main girl is called Arthur Pendragon she is very regal and classic minded. She has a very commanding presence and wields a huge sword of light. The american girl Lyn Daves doesn’t respect classic stories.. as they do not have their own so they use their own media to copy and change cross media stuff to create their own more powerful stories not caring for tradition. She is a daddy’s girl and a cheater and doesn’t care for others. That is as far as these characters go! In anime characters this shallow are kind of passé.. but can anyone tell me the personality of Flounder, or the prince from the little Mermaid?!  Side characters are treated like Fairy Tale side characters.

Wonderwoman with a light saber Mrs Clause, Cinderella and Snow White together.. kinda sounds like my D&D!

That is exactly what the problem of this anime is!  It tells us that Fairy Tales did not always age well yet they build their story on these pillars to highlight this. Thus we get flat side characters like in fairy tales, we get very stereotypical characters like in those classics and this show does everything wrong what fairy tales arguably do wrong. By being flawed by design it does end up being flawed in the eyes of its beholder as well. I would love to see a few side characters more fleshed out but some even spontaneously pop up in the story when the need for them arises, their existence comes out of nowhere.Here it doesn’t feel modern it really feels like story telling of back in the days.  So I can see why it isn’t well received, yet it’s flaws are not always by poor writing but by mimicking a flawed writing style?! So if you like this or not might really depend on your mindset. If you strictly can see this as an anime I can see how you would not be pleased. Also if you can not handle the Americans being very flawed because Murcia is perfect.. this is not the anime for you either!

Since America has no original fantastical stories.. she just mashed them all together in a mixed media book! MURICA!

And they all lived ….

How good this show is very much depends on your mindset. If you are the type that does believe you have to fit in society, get your job at any cost and conform to society and do what everyone does this show will not really do it for you. The message of this show hits hard for me.. but had it resonated less with me I would probably think less of this show. In the end I am the type that will refuse to give up my friends to take a job elsewhere I will just push to make my future possible here! I will not settle with a boy and have a kid and lose track of my friends and I will not take any job just to be productive. My life is about me, I determine my story and that is exactly the message of this show! I know some of my friends would disagree and I do not think they would like this show that much. If that message is lost.. a lot of things get lost in translation, it becomes a sub-par anime instead of a beautiful fairy tale.  Yet if you are like me and dig this message and can judge it more as a fairy tale than a anime this bowl of porridge is JUST right!

That medal is not pinned in a comfy place!

People nag about the ending how a reveal is made in the end that for them came out of nowhere, but I can safely say, no that is not true! I have seen that twist coming from about half way in the series. The plot threats are there and while that story hasn’t really been a part of anything I think it got the perfect amount of attention for a 12 episode format. To me it shows that this story is much more cleverly written than most people give it credit for.  It isn’t anything special by today’s standards but it is not aiming for today’s standards. If you watch this more as you’d watch a three hour disney movie or as story time before you go to sleep, this is just a very cute, wholesome story that has a girl in an iron maiden for some reason.

I never knew my neignouring country puts girls in Iron Maidens! Would explain my crazy german ex though!

If you watch it, watch it in batches of either 2 or 4 episodes at the same time. Not only are the even number episodes stronger.. but by using that format you will not end a day on episode 9.. because that one is so badly animated it will give you nightmares! In the end it might be a generic , unoriginal story but so are all disney movies and I love this exactly the same way as those classics… and that I think can only be a huge compliment. I choose to believe in Fairy Tales! Do you?!

Speaking of Fairy Tales?! Have you heard the Fairy Tale about the Blog Follower that got turned into a Coconut?! They supported the princess Kofi and were invited to live on a magical island with a unique coconut avatar and ALWAYS got nominated for any Blog Tags!
The princess used the Kofi money to build a better palace and to write her blog in more comfort so they could even show more positivity than she already tried! And they all lived happily ever after! At least.. if the coconuts could really miss the money! The princess would not want them to sacrifice what they could not miss! So if people would not the princess would just smile gleefully when people left something sweet in the comment section!

Pinkie watches a Random Anime: Saki

Hello my sweet island guests! For my Saturday anime posts I have been covering ways to discover anime for the past two weeks! Ending with how excited I was to watch some random anime using the Random Anime Generator Website! Now once a month, or at least I will try to do so, I will generate one random anime and watch it’s first five episodes (about a movie length) discussing my thoughts about it and whether or not I would pick it up to finish it! My first randomised anime came up as: Saki!

I did not read any descriptions I just generated a random anime title , looked if it was available to me and watched the show. Saki should still be available for everyone using Crunchyroll but I am not sure how everything works for that. The first opening minute I saw a slightly tomboyish girl  looking at another girl thinking she is super pretty! I never heard of this anime before and I had no clue what to expect.. but already I was getting some Yuri vibes. Lucky! The tame kind too! It was also clear there would be a lot fan service.. even though it’s fairly tame.. I did find myself kind of annoyed by it, but that is mostly because I really like the character being lewded a lot. They at times make her out to be just a pair of boobs .. and they have to really go out of their way to set it up as well so yes in this case I found it unpleasant. Still I get why you do it.. gotta keep Mahjong interesting.. because yes I stumbled upon an anime about Mahjong. With a pink seemingly gay (semi) main character , some flashy weird animations and people taking part in a tournament. This SHOW random show really hit some marks for me.

I’ll be honest, I have started watching A Certain Magical Index as well, but now that I am five episodes in for both! This one has my preference to finish first. The show is about a girl named Saki .. if you would believe it… a young girl who comes from a broken family. During family game night they would always play Mahjong but if she did to well her sister would throw a tantrum and people would get mad at her and if she did to poorly she would not get any candy! So Saki learned to play perfectly average and is blessed with incredible luck playing this game. She finds out the beautiful girl is in the Mahjong club because a friend asked her to help her out for a bit.. and little by little Saki begins to enjoy the game of Mahjong again .. that she learned to hate under her broken family! Now that same game has the chance to bring the family back together as her sister represents another regions team, playing in the Tokyo nationals. Before they do that though they have to win regionals.. which according to the first five episode holds some very scary and evil girls they have to face. As well as super powers?! I am not sure yet!

I have no idea how to play competitive Mahjong , only that tower stack thing we get from internet games here.. well that is not the Mahjong this is about. This is about changing together events, like Ron and Richi and Kan or whatever they are called. I have no idea but this anime certainly makes it look impressive. Studio Gonzo produced the first 14 episodes ..which obviously includes the first five I have seen and they certainly know how to frame the game nicely.  The dramatic reveal of hands really have this larger than life vibe. Which is great because this series very much knows what it is. There is a strong cast of character that are larger than life which again compliments the series very well. Saki is the overly nice naive girl that is attracted to pink girl , with big boobs, talents in spades and a child like demeanour, Nodoka. Nodoka is a very calculative person who secretly is into Saki as well but also someone who can not comprehend her luck (yet) . They represent two aspect a skilled player needs to have , skill and luck! Nodoka has a plush penguin named Etopen which I find adorable! Could it be that she is Waifu material?!

Kyoutarou is the only boy in the Mahjong club.. he dreams of being with Nodoka he wants to play with them tiddies.. but of course he doesn’t know she looks at Saki!  His fantasies about her are often interrupted by Yuuki, a tiny energetic bubbly girl, who loves taco and tako. She likes to play house with him calling him darling or husband. She has a wild imagination and always seems to twist reality around her! She lacks the ability to do proper math which results in her being weaker in the game than she could be.   The cast is rounded off by the student council president.. though .. she calls it Student Congress President , she is a strategist and plays the group to make them better and then there is Mako.. the presidents bestie whose parents have a maid café.  She seems leaned back but also very analytical.  

Five episodes in and I really like this cast a whole lot more than I like the main cast of Magical Index. These feel like people I’d enjoy being around. . if I would be their age. I honestly did not expect that I would like this anime this much. Yuuki can be a tad annoying with how her voice sounds but I rather found that endearing. I even smiled empathically at how Kyoutarou is such a loner just for being a guy! If you can make me care for the kinda bro-ish boy .. you are doing something right!

I really like how these first episodes where paced out. Without getting into spoilers to much, episode one sets up the main character Saki and episode 2 sets up Nodoka. Episode 3 sets up the main plot.. that is participating in the tournament while episode 4 lets reality set  in and turns down Nodoka’s amazing talent and Saki’s luck by putting in into perspective by having them learn they are not ready for the tournament yet. Which perfectly sets up for episode 5, training camp! Every episode flows very nicely into the next and each episode and as a result each episode can stand on its own. It’s all well defined tiles that when put together form a nice combo. I notice how this is in contrast with Hikaru no Go for example which has stronger episodes in their lineup..but a weaker flow between them. While Hikaru tells the better tale.. it has slack water.. dead tides in between. This show (At least so far)  flows nicely. In fact there are very few anime I’ve recently been watching that match it’s amazing pacing.

Toss in a lot of cuteness and this show becomes something that does warm my heart. The Blossoming friendship between our main characters works well. Saki feeling awkward around Nodoka in  the beginning makes sense because of how toxic her family games were. When the titular character finally begins to enjoy winning this goes at the cost of Nodoka which makes her passion feel invalidated as Saki claimed not to like the game. It sucks to be beaten by someone who doesn’t take your passion seriously.  These emotions feel legit and make sense with the characters that are established.

This does come at the cost of the personality of the other team members though. While Hisa the team leader still shows some proper character.. but mostly in her understanding how others work, Yuuki,  Kyoutarou and Maki remain rather 2 dimensional. I am not sure if this is a bad thing though. I found Yuuki’s flat and shallow character quite hilarious and it breaks up awkwardness of two closet lesbians playing with some tiles. Maki is the exposition character. “Boss did you set that up to teach them a lesson” .. “Do you think she realises she has that ability” .. that’s her type of dialogue. It could be painful but since they made her a bit of an analytical slightly colder person.. it works. Kyou makes the awkward romantic stuff more comedical by putting it into perspective. So everyone adds their bit to the pot.

The only thing detrimental to this is the fan service. Our pink haired girl has a fully developed chest while the others don more humble models. Nosoka thusly often gets the butt of some jokes that kinda feel out of place. For example how hugging her plushy means hiding the thing under her boobs. I might be flat so I could not compare.. but I hold my plushies near my heart or chest at , Etopen is quite large though so it makes sense from a perspective that she also has to play Mahjong.. But still that feels like hugging a friend in my belly button area! That just feels awkward!  There are a few cheap shots like that like having her run through the rain and giving her a dramatic talk while zooming in on her chest emphasises her white shirt got wet and all. If that floats your boat good for you but I did not like it. I am not against the use of fan service as long as it is used in moments where it’s not detrimental to the main emotions and that’s where the show misses a few swings for me personally. It just feels like Nosoka’s character on occasion has to make room so she can give some fan service at times.. which is a wrong way to go about this.

The opening song and the ending song are AMAZING! Well they aren’t that memorable but the fact that they could make this work for them  as a Mahjong series was pretty good! It has action in it but also some beauty..it is almost shot as a shounen opening which I really could appreciate.  The ending is so cute that this one one of the few ED’s I ended up watching three out of five times. Well two and a half but normally I don’t watch it at all so thats HUGE!
Like I said Yuuki’s voice can be a bit annoying at times when she talks to long or has to shout for shouting sake. but this also endeared her a bit to me at the same time.. that is who she is. The final knitpick is that this does not make it very clear on how to play Majong.. which is also i’s strength.. it’s not a game you easily pick up I think there is a lot involved so since everyone in universe would more less know how to play.. there is little exposition to explain. There are a few schedules and diagrams but there might as well have been a unicorn poster there! I did not get info at all. The characters do though so that is good.. but I guess I just have to believe the words and the flow here.

I know Ron is a good thing for the one who declares it. So I will use that term for my final evaluation! Five episodes in and I am very pleasantly surprised by this series. So much so in fact that I am probably going to finish this series and bench Magical Index for a while. This series spoke a lot more to me. It’s just cute , slightly yuri , fun with characters I really enjoy and stylistic and visual choices I enjoy even more!  I very much hope it keeps this nice buttery smooth pacing throughout the show because that to me was it’s absolute strength.
I could not tell you what I think about the animation because I haven’t really paid much attention it it. I noticed it was from 2009 and I would have guessed it was slightly earlier.. but the visuals worked for me. 

The colours are nice and vibrant  but never obnoxious, there is plenty set-up going on that makes me feel this might quite the interesting show.  So yes I do want to finish this show. With only 25 episodes I should be able to do so before the next randomisation is up but this is also a great series to cheer me up so I might save some of it until I need some Etopen and Yuri Mahjong goodness in my life! We will see but I really think the first five episodes of this Mahjong show where very good! The only thing that prevents it getting my highest score is my inability to comprehend Mahjong.. and my inability to care for boobs!

Random Anime : Saki
Episodes Watched: 5
Watching On?: Yes
Favorite Character: Etopen
Score:

Pinkie in Search of a Waifu (Part 3) Aoi Hana

It’s almost Valentine’s day and by the looks of it , I am going to be all by myself.  To prevent such an incident from happening next year , on this blog we have started the quest to find me a Waifu! In this episode we will look at the third of Fred’s four suggestions. After which I will need six more to start our Bachelorette series. Where we pit these girls against each other to earn the roses and find out who will be my waifu! So keep the suggestions coming.  Today we look at the anime Aoi Hana!
Who will get to live with me in my Bachelorette mansion?! 

Warning:
This article contains spoilers for the entire series of Aoi Hana. That being said these spoilers are all fairly obvious outcomes of their respective story. As far as I am concerned none of these spoilers ruin the show due to the way the show tells its own story and how the inevitable the outcome of the show feels.

Sweet Blue Flower

What is it with Yuri series and the colour blue? Is blue some sort of symbol colour for gay girls that I am unaware about. I don’t think it’s much of a thing in the Netherlands and my Italian friend didn’t know about it either! Italians love blue so they should know! I really wonder though! Yet I can not let that distract me. Aoi Hana is a show about two childhood friends Akira and Fumi who reunited with each other once they start commuting to their new schools. Both join their respective schools drama club and their paths begin to cross more and more. Fumi is a lesbian woman and Akira is mostly oblivious to love.  We see them form relationships with others from friendly ones to romantic once as we explore what is is truly important in any relationship. This all is set on the background of their drama clubs performing the play Wuthering Heights which in its core is about a toxic relationship. So this is one of those heavy analogies shows!

(I really hate this shwo’s intro.. it has very little to do with the actual show)

The contenders for the Waifu list are limited to the main characters this time, as all four main characters show at the very least a hint of being into women. Most secondary girls or women are rarely given enough depth to see if they are into girls though after watching the entire 11 episode series I can fairly certainly say we got no other contenders. Having said that, my attention has slipped throughout the course of this show a few times so I might have missed a subtlety. 

The four main characters are Manjoume Fumi a first year who is socially a bit awkward. She is emotionally very frail and cries a lot and the most fully convinced lesbian in the series. Her best friend Okudaira Akira is about her counterpart. She is bubbly , tiny energetic and  a super positive entity that smiles with everything even her own failures… she is referred to Achan by Fumi. Their childhood tradition. Sugimoto Yasuko is the bisexual popular girl that every girl wants to be with (even the straight ones) the cool kid. She plays basketball and is tall and butch and thusly gets the male lead role in the school play. She has her heart set on Fumi..but keeps a secret in her heart as well. Finally we have Ikumi Kyouko who is Akira’s classmate and she is desperately and very one sidedly in love with Yasuko. She is an artist who joined the drama club to be close to Sugimoto Senpai but gets more than she bargained for when she finds out her new friend’s best friend is in a relationship with the woman she loves.

(Akira, Kyoko, Yasuko, Fumi)

Triangles Everywhere

I will admit I struggled with this anime a bit. It is not necessarily a bad show though. I really loved the story it had to tell. What I like less is the way it is set up. Take for example the main love story that is central in these 11 episodes. Yasuko and Fumi , it is a somewhat toxic relationship where Yasuko is very much depicted as a selfish person. This is shown throughout not one but two triangle relations around the talentful basketball player. First of all there is Kyouko who loves her while she is with Fumi. This sours the relation between Fumi and Kyoko..to an extend. They aren’t mean to another but very tense still. It would have been an interesting dynamic if Sugimoto would not have one sidedly loved her male teacher, kinda using Fumi as a rebound. Throughout the show we also see Fumi notice her relation is not going that well and be more drawn to Akira…who in turn kinda, but not really, shows interest in Kyouko.Who is also desired by her fiancé in name only Kou. It all feels very convoluted for an 11 episode manga and in the end that does form a bit of an issue.

It doesn’t really help that the instigator of everyone’s misery, Sugimoto Yasuko is a fairly horrible person. She is super petty, often has temper tantrums, she is snobbish and selfish and a very VERY poor loser. Near the middle of the show the stage group performs Wuthering Heights, which is about the toxic love between Heathcliff and Catherine and the audience speaks their minds on how terrible Catherine is, she is an analogy for Sugimoto herself. Which brings me to another little gripe I had with this series. This analogy feels a bit hammered in. Wuthering Heights is a fairly well known novel by Emily Bronté and one would figure people who see the play either know the story or go there to support their family. 

Instead we see the crowd analyse the story so the anime and manga can make analogies… and that’s not the only times stuff like that happens. For some reason this only happens to Yasuro though. Like the show really wants to hammer in how terrible this person is. By the end of the show she sees the error of her ways ..but because she doesn’t get what she wants she then decides to bail on everyone and go study abroad. While doing this we see newspaper headlines on how the girl has pushed her basketball team to great heights how they need her and now she bails for petty reasons. We see her family acknowledge how petty she is and she mistreat Kyouko to a ridiculous extend. Even when the latter is trying to get closure she is shown to ignore the message that would give the other girl some closure finally. We get it! Sugimoto Yasuko is bad! She will not be my Waifu Pick.

Friendship is love too!

Because of how clearly toxic this relationship between Fumi and Yasuko is from the get go we are all waiting for her to end up with Kyouko or her Achan and the show is at it’s best when the old love is out of the picture. Luckily enough that is plenty of time still. The show really shines when it’s just Achan and Fumi.. or even the little summer camp with all their friends but Yasuko was adorable. Fumi begins to develop feelings for Akira who still has this weird non flirty but very connected kind of way. I really liked those feelings because they actually felt genuine. While Fumi clearly loved Yasuko the doom flag was raised from episode 2 so on a subconscious level I never really bought it. 

All the other girls are connected through friendship.. a friendship that deepens over the course of the series and the show does a really fine job of depicting how friendships can mean so much more than just to find your significant other. Fumi has friends, Sugimoto has not, one gets a fairly happy end, the other is miserable. Romance shows tend to .. hype up that significant other over anything in the whole wide world where nothing else matters anymore.. this show keeps its feet firm on the ground.

I might even go as far as to say this isn’t actually a romance show. It’s not about love.. in the romantic way.. it’s about unrequited love and false love more so than real one. It’s about how romantic love can be such a strong desire that sometimes we are just chasing ghosts. Kyouko is one of the strongest examples. Not only is she desperately in love, with sugimoto senpai,  she herself has a suitor who is desperately in love with her. Kou her fiancé in name only is often strung along for a ride that will only inflict pain on him. Even when he asks Akira to help him pick out a perfect give to please her, she immediately knows the gift is to perfect to be from him! They aren’t compatible which made me think that Kyouko and Akira just might be.Kyouko is being pictured as desperate though even if she tries to move on she simply can not  let alone with Kou. In the end we get a girl that has her charm but also still feels kind of mean spirited and also a bit toxic so our little painter will not be moving into the Bachelorette mansion with me!

A blooming flower

That leaves us with Achan and Fumi-Chan , by far the best characters in the entire series. Some of the best characters I have seen in a fair bit and while I do think they would fit nicely together the ending of she show keeps things fairly open. Which apparently is a huuuge issue for people all across the internet. To those people I really have to ask if they watched the same show as me. There are incredibly strong  implications that the two will get together, simply for being two non toxic people and Fumi realising how to cope with relationships in the end. She tells the only cure for unrequited love is moving on gracefully and to only have room in your heart for one love. While Fumi was obsessed and in love with her cousin at the end of the show she realises that wasn’t her first love at all, her first love was Achan..so she could finally let her cousin go. Now she only has one love in her heart which is Achan. Should that love go unanswered she has the tools to move on gracefully. All the flags for a successful relation fall into place at that moment. Fumi will find her happy ending no matter what. We have seen hints that Akira might swing that way as well so it may just be a matter of time. 

That being said I can still use the vagueness of the ending to snatch Fumi as my Bachelorette contender. While I love Achan for her quirky behaviour the character is simply way to immature to me. I found her voice a bit annoying in all honesty even though I do like the quirkiness of it I think I would get annoyed with her fairly soon. While I am happy and cheerful minded like her, I do not have the huge amount of energy she has and would not be able to find my rest with her. She is a great and loyal friend who would be fun to hang out with Yet I would get that same energy around since she is Fumi’s best friend as well. The latter has shown she can perfectly live with Achan just being a friend.. as long as I managed to conquer Fumi myself though.

Fumi is the only person I really respect in this series, she has shown growth and has become more confident even if she is still the easily to cry loveable socially awkward girl she was at the beginning. Miss Manjoume has accepted who she is by the end of the show, something she very much struggles with in the beginning. She isn’t as afraid to tease and to have fun. She also isn’t afraid to defend herself even if it hurts others.  I could not be with someone who constantly diminishes themselves just in favor of others. 

It’s very annoying when something you love gets a bad review or if that restaurant you like and love to talk about gets called gross a few hours before you go eat there. If I love a person more than anything in the world and they keep devaluing themselves to below everything else.. it kind of feels like that love is being devalued as well. The person that I love more than anything in the world feels like they need to give up everything for others because they are not worth more… that would include they would give up me. I went through that once with an eternal good person.. and that just doesn’t work. You have to somewhat love yourself to be loved.

Fumi does this the best , she matters, what she wants matters. When we first see her she can barely pick anything from a menu.. or a club to join .. but in the end she asks for what she wants, she tells people her needs and lives by it and we see a much happier Fumi, who doesn’t just cry from sadness but for the first time we see her cry with happiness. Those type of tears are from a woman I could see myself being with! Those are the tears of a strong woman.

In the end I got to watch a very enjoyable show, that is slightly bogged down by the character of Sugimoto. There is just to much going on with her and things drag on to long in her romance. I hated the unnecessarily nude intro as it barely has anything to do with the show and skipped it every time. Yet there is still a quite enjoyable anime that stumbles for me around the fourth till seventh episode. Those could have been removed and put at the end to give us a stronger sense of closer for an even better show.  The art style with it’s fluffy looking backgrounds took some time to get used to but grew on me as charming. All in all a good anime to put on for valentines if you do not want something overly sweet. 

More Pinkie in Search of A Waifu

-Liz and the Blue Bird
-Bloom into You

Please suggest a show in the comments!