The dream that will come true someday
(Becomes) a mere unheard whisper
That is lost within the light  shone by the night
Soon enough, her eyes will open  if it is fate
At least  yes, only now…

So with this year about to conclude it is worth mentioning what a glorious year of Yuri it was and how it was a decent year for a few select heterosexual couples. While there are cretins who chafe about the lack of quality series their numbers are few and they are stupid for having such narrow tastes. It gloriously began with Mariaholic with Kanako concocting glorious fantasies of a Yuri world and ruined Shizu for marriage though her final victory was thwarted by a most dangerous and skilled trap. Despite the lack of Best End for Kanako I do hope that one day she will mature into a powerful master of the Yuri and claim the yuri harem that her loli angel had prepared for her. Sadly it was also a winter of despair as the hateful Saji and those CB terrorists brought ruin upon Soma and Louise and forced them into tyrannous hetero pairings with loser animu males. Skip Beat! had Kyoko confess her undying love for Moko despite persistent speculation that Kyoko has even a drop of affection for Shotaro.

Spring brought K-On with Mugi-chan giving Ritsu ample opportunity to claim Mio and ruin her for marriage. But the best was yet to come as summer introduced us to a paragon of Yuri Virtue in the form of Alphardonee-sama . Even now her prowess has yet to be matched and she remains one of the more unforgettable heroines that have wielded the Yuri. Such was he grace that she has become the Gold Standard against which all heroines will be measured by. Riding along Alphard onee-sama’s side was the redoubtable Liang Qi whose yuri love for Alphard was truely great though sadly it was not to be reciprocated fully. However the union of Alphard and Liang Qi produced a glorious daughter they named Kuroko who inherited many of their best traits and combat prowess. While not as powerful or great Marin and Kanon were a delightful pair whose yuri love was sadly unconsummated because of silly rules and Kanon being bi. Also of note was the yuri baiting series Kampfer which I found to be a riot for it delivered consistent yuri despite the presence of a male whose loyalty would have been most praiseworthy had he not been so misguided. There was also Aoi Hana, Saki, Taishou Yakyuu Musume, and Sasameki but we didn’t cover them nearly as much this year though I might manage considering the horrid lack of yuri this winter. So comrades let us toast to this glorious year that will be long remembered and possibly sorely missed as 2010 reaches every corner of the globe.

Calawain’s- Traps, Nopan, and an Unstable Teleporting Lesbian

I’m a rather devout fan of yuri, giving every show with it at least a shot, and wow, there were a glut of shows with yuri content in them in 2009. One of the most anticipated yuri titles in awhile was Sasameki Koto, which was a decent enough adaptation. I found that Kazama’s seiyuu and character were pretty weak and heavy on the emo, but Murasame’s voice was perfect, and I felt that they really nailed her deadpan side as well as the delusional one. Also, can’t forget the awesomeness that was Akemiya the trap, above. They also managed to insert a heap of humor throughout, and didn’t get bogged down in Aoi Hana-like melodrama.

Railgun managed to definitely snag the best comedy yuri title of the year, with the impassioned Kuroko wholeheartedly stealing the show with her antics of Biribiri love and abuse. I came for the Biribiri, but stayed for the Kuroko. Now if only they could come up with a plot that isn’t total trash. Oh, and ditch the other two “protagonists,” Uiharu and Saten, what a glut of boredom those two manage to inspire.

By far the best yuri title of the year in my mind is Saki, whose yuri antics (among other things) I covered previously. The show featured a rather large collection of yuri pairings, and everyone had their favorite (shamefully, I’ll take the often overexposed Saki and Nodotits). What was fascinating is that even though people had their favorites, there was rarely any hate for other pairings, just an appreciation for the deliciousness of it all. My image folder for Saki is filled with more than just two characters thanks to /a/. What began, ostensibly, as a show about mahjong certainly ended up being about yuri and a lack of panties. Saying that Saki is about mahjong is kind of like saying FLCL is about robots and aliens, right?

ExecutiveOtaku’s ‘The Sound and the Yuri’

While I do not worship at the Temple of Yuri as my comrade Crusader does (i.e. I don’t specifically enjoy yuri just for the yuri), this past year has delivered a number of great shows that had high yuri content. Maria Holic was a great comedy. Evil trap roommate, Kanako’s angel song, nearly Hosaka-level daydreams, oh-so-SHAFT animation and humor elements, and that great ending song/animation. Maria Holic was definitely in my favorite comedies of the year, probably second after the newest Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and it had plenty of competition this year. Plus it had the amazing Matsurika, deadpan abusive maid commentator extraordinaire. K-On, while not explicitly yuri, definitely brought the lulz with it’s yuri undertones in several scenes. Tsumugi quickly became my favorite for her elegance and feigned ignorance while she secretly shipped her friend together. Behind those oddly cute eyebrows lurks a sharp and devious intelligence.

Moving on to action, Canaan was not my favorite show ever, but it had some great moments in it. Alphard was an amazing antagonist, at times a master of frontal assault, at others a deliciously cunning trickster. Backed up by her crazy, obsessive, failed yuri-love Liang Qi (GET SOME GET SOME), it made for some great action scenes and was a decent if not amazing show. Finally, on to more dramatic things, Aoi Hana, which I’m still working on finishing, brought us some lovely yuri romance and equally lovely visual style. As my love for Honey and Clover and Kimi ni Todoke shows, I’m a sucker for those watercolor landscape and location shots, and Aoi Hana knew just where to hook me by setting the story in Kamakura, one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to. Despite a little too much of the waterworks early on, I’m looking forward to a satisfying ending to what is so far a very nice yuri love story.

Additionally, all these series had some pretty good music. K-On centered around it, giving viewers a lot to listen to. Maria Holic’s wonderful ‘Kimi ni Mune Kyun (Kyun!)‘ ending theme was catchy and nicely executed in 16-bit style, both visually and in its audio.  Aoi Hana’s OP, Aoi Hana by Kukikodan,  started off as slow and kind of sad, but moved to a more upbeat tone, and seeing Akira and Fumi dancing around together was both cute and beautifully animated. Canaan had quite the badass OP right from the first electric guitar notes, Mind as Judgement. And that countdown featuring all the main characters was one of my favorite elements in an OP this year.

Crusader’s The Fighter, The Dreamer, and The Lover

While it was a glorious year overall I have to make special mention for Mariaholic, Canaan, and Railgun. I have never wavered in advocating love between otome as the state of animu males is generally lacking, but Mariaholic brought a good number of glorious Kanako fantasies that just SMASHED REALITY INTO ATOMS IN THE NAME OF SHINING ZEUS while poor Kanako never had a night of forever and ever with the harem that was rightfully hers it was most fun to bear witness to her flights of fancy. Having now ruined Shizu for marriage I hope that Kanako will become the mistress of yuri that we all know that she is capable of being. Alphard onee-sama simply out shone every yuri heroine of the year as she is indeed an heir of Chikane’s legacy as Alphard is indeed an ojou-sama from a distinguished family that has been continued for a thousand years, skilled in both literary and military arts, with wit and beauty, the intensity of summer, the grace of autumn, the pride of winter, and the gentleness of spring. Such is her greatness that she can outfight most of the boys that marred this season, save perhaps Prince Ali himself (it’d be a draw really since they come from the same school of CQC) and of course ALMIGHTY ZEUS (really I’d like to see someone other than Hades try, could use another instance of AWESOME TYPE ROCKET PUNCH). Alphard consummated her yuri love with Canaan producing a daughter maned Misaki who inherited the latter’s super powers and she also raised a wondrous daughter named Kuroko with Liang Qi. Thoughtful, loving, and mighty Alphard was everything that any one should aspire to be, sure she made a few mistakes, but at least she strove to correct them while liberating Canaan Mk II from the shadow of Siam. Final mention goes to Kuroko whose love of her onee-sama is almost as intense as her mother Liang Qi’s and whose martial prowess makes Alphard smile with pride. All in all it was a good year with many heroines worthy of praise, a year like this might not come again for quite some time. For the fans of yuri at least for this year anime was worth watching despite the cries of decline from the hordes of hetero harem animu infidels. So IN THE NAME OF SHINING ZEUS HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Alphard Onee-sama was most willing to pull punches when it came to women.

Poor Liang Qi did not live to see Kuroko grow up and find yuri love.

Kanako is equivalent to an Ez8 for she will marry Aina.

Also Kanako is part of the 8th Yuri Team.

I approve of public displays of Yuri Affection, religious and cultural considerations be damned!

Best Customs declaration EVAR.

Well unfortunately it had to end, but it was quite a journey along the way. One can only hope that in a couple of years when the manga has had time to develop the national tournament some non-bankrupt company will be able to rescue it and produce a second season. Cross your fingers.

There’s always time for fanservice before we get to training.

Like Zyl I’ve been very happy with the Yumi x Momo coupling, if only to give more variation to the yuri in the show. While I wouldn’t elevate them above Saki and Nodoka, they aren’t far off and I’m very glad they were given a lot of attention. Plus, I think it’s kind of hot when the younger one is the aggressor.

I’d like to say again, “wow Teru is a bitch,” but we’ve only really seen things from Saki’s point of view and we don’t even know the actual story (as far as I can recall it hasn’t been revealed in the manga either). I should try to hold off judgment, but it’s kind of hard when it’s the lovable Saki being abused.

First name basis, gift exchanges, promises, hand holding, and massive blushing. I think that’s about as far as you can go without them actually making out. And I am pretty disappointed at that last part. Still, makes you dawwwww and get hot at the same time.

Miko high school?

Halfway decent final episode, with plenty of character time and such. When you compare it to all of those atrocious Gonzo ends over the year this one should look amazing. For those of you curious, the manga is up to around episode 19. The individual tournament and training camp were all filler, but pretty damn well done filler (once again, especially for Gonzo). They introduced a new character, but didn’t make her have too much of an impact, and let different characters match up against each other. Plus plenty of yuri fanservice. I definitely approve of this filler arc.

Final Impressions

My overall thoughts on this show really haven’t changed much from the last big post I made on Saki, wherein I told everyone why they should be watching it. I wrote that post before the final arc and Saki’s victory over Koromo, and neither disappointed. Tournament shows are generally fun to watch when done well, and with engaging characters that mean more than how poor the sport (mahjong here) itself is handled.

Before the season started, I didn’t think I would even watch this show, and I was rather lukewarm in our preview post. However, I was hooked after the first episode, which had nopan, yuri, and mahjong power levels pumped up to the max. I knew I had a winner then and it kept going from there. What it all boils down to is this show was extremely fun to watch. Nothing serious, nothing deep, nothing to make you ponder your place in the universe. A great show for entertainment’s sake that I looked forward to every Sunday afternoon. Definitely worth the watch. Final Rating: 9/10.

Oh yeah, I was so pumped for this episode to air and it totally delivered. Edge of your seat comeback victory with my love, my anger, and all of my sorrow! Plus Saki uses her Nanoha friend beam on Koromo and the last scenes are full of yuri blushing and hand holding. This show is glorious.

Scary!

Cute, but definitely not going to happen.

Sorry, not happening for you either.

Kinky

Friend flag initiated. Saki has let loose with a full blast Nanoha lesbian friend beam. I always find it amusing when bitter enemies become best friends in anime and manga. It’s rather unrealstic and childish at times, but I at least find it somewhat more feasible in sports/competition stories rather than in battle shows where they were trying to kill one another.

The first kan draw.

This is the first time I can recall a really detailed shot of the glasses girl’s face. She’s pretty cute.

Second kan draw, getting serious up in here!

The music and sound effects for the winning scene in this episode were so over-the-top awesome. It really helped hold you to the edge of your seat as well as sell the over-dramatic nature of their version of a table-top game you play with tiles. I admit it’s no NFL Films video, but it was certainly exciting.

Third kan draw and reactionface.jpg

I actually found this smiling Saki in space sequence to be really creepy.

Dominated

T_T

It was predictable that Saki was going to win, else the manga would end, but nonetheless I found it really exciting to watch. I covered many of the reasons why I love this show in my previous post on Saki, but this episode was definitely the best in the series so far. I love tournaments, and this was quite an epic finish whose atmosphere allowed you to get absorbed into it and forget about the silliness of four haitei raoyue or multiple chan-kans and rinshan kaihous.

Awww, they are all friends in the end, too bad Kana got slaughtered and has little chance of beating them in another context. I do feel kind of bad for her, trying to play against two godhax level players at the top of their game. Just wasn’t gonna happen for the catgirl.

OTP, right? It’s no coincidence that the primary “pairing” in Saki consumes a large part of mine and others Saki image collections. Of course mine is also littered with a healthy dosing of just Nodoka, being a boob man myself.

They all look pretty happy for just getting their hearts ripped out by a last second comeback~

The captain has quite a harem over at Kazekoshi.

Blushing hand holding and a quasi-confession! It’s getting hot up in here.

One last “wahaha” for the road.

Oh man what a glorious victory, but it’s not the end. A lot of people have been wondering what Gonzo is going to do about the last few episodes, since they finished the big tournament after 19 episodes. The manga is currently at chapter 52, which takes place in the middle of episode 19. However, they could have consulted the author as to what roughly was going to happen afterward.

Next week is a Kiyosumi swimsuit episode? Delicious. And they have 5 more episodes after the swimsuit one to do the individual prefectural tournament (which is what they magazine previews have indicated they will be doing). Whether that means 4 episodes of tournament and 1 episode of nationals prep, or all 5 episodes of tournament who knows. The individual tournament is a golden opportunity to mix and match awesomesauce match ups like Kyapten vs. Hisa and watching people quake in fear against Saki and Koromo. They might even let someone aside from Saki win the tournament, then she can come to the nationals and provide friend power support for the team tournament. Consider if Saki is about to go face her sister in the finals and she gets a pump-up from Koromo. Awesome stuff right there.

Thankfully they will not attempt to cram some sort of Gonzo made-up nationals and can leave that up for a hopeful second season in a couple of years when the manga has progressed. I see no reason why they won’t make a second season, the show is insanely popular right now. Just look at how the early rounds of this year’s Saimoe are turning into Sakimoe.

Gonzo may be going completely bankrupt in addition (and likely because of) to recently making mostly crappy shows, but they’ve scored one hit at least. Superficially, Saki is about mahjong, but it’s actually more about yuri, power levels, and not wearing panties…and is a surprisingly solid entertainment experience.

Yuri Goggles Unnecessary

The central brilliance of this show is taking the very subtle yuri undertones in the manga and dropping a massive bomb on them. The only males in this show are for comic relief or made to look rather stupid, and the yuri yuri girls are constantly blushing over anything and everything related to their BFF+. Usually when Gonzo goes off on their own the results are quite disastrous, but for once they’ve done something wickedly awesome.

You’ve got plenty of pairings to choose from, some more subtle then the others. The main ship is Nodoka and Saki, who do everything from holding hands blushing while, to resting on one another, and to sleeping half naked together. Perhaps some of it is wishful thinking, but all of the emphasis is definitely deliberate on the part of the studio.

Moejong Powerlevels

One of the most hilarious parts of Saki is the mahjong powerlevels, something that is hardly an accurate portrayal of how mahjong is played, but is amusing nonetheless. Massive amounts of luck, seeing through tiles, and other 6th sense silliness is quite pervasive. If you want an actual portrayal of something a bit more realistic you should definitely watch Akagi instead (although it has a tad of its own, but it’s much rarer and not as overbearing). In fact, Saki is a rather poor way to learn about the game of mahjong, as they don’t explain things very well and there’s actually a couple of mistakes here and there. Everyone should watch Akagi without such a prompting, but it’s important to note. I think regardless of your experience in mahjong, if you get into the show as much as everyone else you’ll be yelling out “OH SHIT SHE JUST BUSTED A RINSHAN KAIHOU IN HER FACE!” like the rest of us, even if you aren’t totally sure what it means.

Embellishing a bit on the foundation laid in the manga, the anime version shows scenes of the characters’ avatars in some fantasy world (Nodoka flashes a bunch of cleavage, gets wings and flies around, etc.) In the “real” world you also get the Geass eye from the Kazekoshi capitain (Yui Horie’s character) and Hisa’s demonic hand, among others. Some have rather stupid abilities, like the invisible girl (although that one has hilarious yuri action to it with her captain), while others are much more awesome (Hisa’s hell waits are pretty wicked). Mahjong itself is a very long and strategic game that generally doesn’t lend itself to short bouts of excitement, so they have to be given a bit of a creative license here. It’s all rather overdone and a bit hamfisted, but then again so was the erupting burning finger.

Panties Optional

There’s no coincidence that one of the 2ch nicknames/memes for this show is “Saki is not wearing any.” The pure amount of low-angled shots and impossibly high skirts that leave little to the imagination is something else. Gonzo manages to somehow come up with new ways to lay on ultra-thick fanservice (I thought they had reached the end when the entire female cast of Strike Witches never wore pants). The best example of this was the first episode, which had full body shots of Nodoka in wet clothes, and then a well-designed shot from below as pictured above. Needless to say I was impressed with how far they were willing to go, and glad that there wasn’t a bat or something obscuring it and making it look stupid.

If you haven’t yet this is the perfect time to marathon and catch up on the first 15 episodes. We’ve just started the final match of the tournament with Saki going up against the demonic little loli. I admit I’m pretty weak for tournaments, even if they are a bit cheesy and you know who is going to win (I’ve read the tourunament volumes in Negima way too many times). If nothing else, watch it for the all-star seiyuu cast, just about everyone who is anybody has some part. In conclusion, if you can handle fanservice, yuri, over the top power levels, and don’t take your anime too seriously, you may just really enjoy this one.

[←122] Kaioshin:

Is it because Saki gets right into the whole Mahjong affair while K-On lingers until the very end of the episode? I’m not quite sure what it is specifically, but it’s probably a combination of the above and the fact that I find the Mahjong fair presented to me in Saki’s opener fair more sophisticated and to my tastes…then K-Ons light music which barely got approached in the first episode.

Yes, that’s very true. K-ON tried all too hastily to give us a full-blown exposition in the space of an episode. You can lay out a relative, reapplicable sequence of events:

1. Existence of the subject (music club) is made known (Ritsu confronts Mio)
2. Existence of subject is problematized (not enough people)
3. The problem is slightly remedied (Mugi joins)
4. Full remedy of the situation requires another Event (Yui needs to join)
5. The subject is unproblematized (music club is up)
*6. Problematic secondary subjects arise (Yui needs a guitar and she can’t play guitar)

Of course, each of these bullets is a process in itself. *6 is important because it’s the cliffhanger, it’s the event that establishes continuity between the first and second episode.

The part I didn’t like most was #3, when Mugi joins. She originally wants to join the choir club, but is very easily converted into the light music club. Obviously this was a directive to speed up the exposition, but it was contrived and felt very forced. Mugi’s passive archetype only corroborates this.

What I did like about this episode were the two parallel narratives. I listed the chronology of Ritsu/Mio/Mugi, but Yui’s is different:

1. Subject made known (Yui herself as a first year student via opening ceremony)
*2. Subject is problematized (can’t find a club)
3. The problem is addressed (Yui contacts the light music club)
4. The subject is slightly unproblematized (she joins but needs guitar and can’t play)

*2 is when the two narratives meet, which is fairly well into the episode. Yet the viewers always know the irony between the two narratives.

Saki’s timeline

1. The subject (Saki) is established
2. The site of the subject (mahjong club) is established
3. The subject’s problem is revealed (Saki hates mahjong)
4. The subject’s problem is addressed (but she says it’s different than playing it with her family)
5. The site is developed (SUPERHUMAN LUCK)

The key difference in expositional technique is that K-ON has to establish the premise, problematize that very premise, then resolve it within a single episode, and all that is just the exposition. Saki, on the other hand, uses character revealing to set up continuity to future episodes but focuses on the development of the site (mahjong game progressing). It’s also significant that a “passive third person” (student congress president) narrates the development of the site – I doubt she’ll receive any character development – to frame Saki’s narrative in perspective, rather than face-to-face as it is in K-ON.

But let’s be clear.

light music club > mahjong club
moe blobs > orthodox fan service

(屮゜Д゜)屮