Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

The other night, I noticed that I had a tennen tate-roll (just one, on the right). This reminded me, I don't know where the stereotype that such a 'do is sported by rich ladies (as exemplified by the source for the subject line, which applies just as well to me as to Ms. Azumano; also includes three-point ellipses, which are somewhat half-assed according to the Yuri Dōjō in a recent issue) originated. The only support that comes to mind is Ms. Daitokuji from PROJECT "A" KO, which was itself a parody (in her case, of a character from the original Macross, if memory serves; I never saw it anyway).

Closer to my heart is the much more commonly obvious trope of the character with a lot of melanin in the skin but not in the hair. (I call it a trope because it doesn't seem to appear in real life, except where darker hair has gone gray/white or has been artificially changed. I've never encountered any accounts of such localized albinism. It's probably also popular because of the abstraction needed to differentiate characters when all but one human race in the real world seem to have the-same-colored hair, a point that the Japanese unsurprisingly have a tradition of stylistically avoiding. Incidentally, I also have found myself unable to find reference information about races' physical characteristics on Wikipedia, which makes it difficult for me to check the authenticity of my work. On example that I don't plan to use but that has bothered me for a while: I don't recall having ever seen a man of American descent with facial hair. Is this genetic or cultural?) As far back in time as I've traced it (through idle thought, not actual research, as I don't know any good places to look for such information on Japanese media), there are two main possibilities:

1. Ms. "Storm" Munroe of Ame-comi fame. As Watsuki's liner notes often illustrate, these are well known in Japan (although not enough that she influenced him to use a similar character design in Ruro-Ken, even though, despite the fact that all but five of the characters in the 28 books are native Japanese, he goes quite far in variety, including at least a 1,000% range in height of grown men; maybe he was just too lazy to cut all that tone). Unless we can find someone way back there who was so direct about his influences, it would be pretty impossible to pin this one down.

2. The Dark Elves from Lodoss-tō Senki (an island whose name, despite the official Romanization, is spelled exactly the same as "Rhodes"). In case you were living under a rock in the '80s as I was, this series was a thinly veiled retelling of a Basic D&D campaign, as illustrated by the fact that the starting lineup consisted of six of the seven classes from the original "blue box" (excluding only the one that was stolen entirely from Tolkien's creation). Even back in those days, there was already the policy that the dark-skinned subraces of the good peoples are the evil ones, but D&D avoided some flak by saying the drow were actually black-skinned, not a human skin tone. Whether it's because they hadn't made that point yet or because of creative differences, that safety was not present in Lodoss, so (other than the being evil part) it translates just fine to humans in versions of the real world. This one could be easily confirmed or denied by asking someone who's actually watched the major Japanese animation and read Japanese comics from before that whether or not there were any examples then, but I don't think I know any such person.

By the way, in one of the extra stories from Sapphism, Ms. Lee (Ley?) tries to talk Ms. Yang down by telling her that her loss would devastate all the dark-skin fetishists. Of the examples given, I recognized only Akamatsu (no doubt due to my lack of attention to mainstream stuff), but all were called "-Sensei," so I imagine the other two are of the same ilk. But from what I've read of Akamatsu's, he's less so than I am: no major character in his first work, one who starts ranking at fifth-most-important then is displaced further by new ones in his second. As if it's not maniac enough already, my taste is mostly restricted to the illustrated versions, as in real life I'm more narcissistic, preferring my own two races (now that I've been out of high school long enough to break down my prejudice against non-white blood). I feel as if I don't much like real-world African features, which is a hell of a generalization considering that they're thought to be the oldest and thus now most diverse human race. (The aforementioned Ms. Munroe looks good, particularly with the 'do in the third movie.) I don't seem to have any such preconception about ladies of South Asian or American descent, probably because I don't see as much of them in American TV and movies.

In terms of more general tropes, is there some name for the one where the hero thinks up a clever plan but keeps it a secret from his friends in order to maintain audience suspense? I'd look around on the eponymous wiki, but from what I've seen it just seems to be a bunch of people typing whatever they feel like typing, so I'm not bothering to learn how to find things there.

I was playing a game starring Mario, Luigi, and Koopa, set in a house that was much too big for them (like the stage in SUPER MARIO LAND 2, only 3-D). Bowser [Koopa]'s goal was apparently to jump up and down on tables to punch holes in them so they'd sink. A female player or character also questioned why Luigi, despite being the younger brother, had a larger and bushier mustache.

I was Sano from Ruro-Ken, and I was staying at a modern gym for training. For some reason, I couldn't find the men's locker room, until I realized that it was one of the places through which I'd rampaged looking for it.

Edit (2008.06.25): Apparently old habits die hard. I haven't been interested in such video games since before I grew a brain, after all. I don't know where they would've gotten the idea to give a generic dog name to a turtle—perhaps he's supposed to be a rock star (as his courses' BGMs in MARIO KART games suggest). Of course, even in countries where they voice the "é" as in the original French, it wouldn't be that way, but we all know that American translators are crazy Germans.

Edit (2008.06.26): Maybe it wasn't all because of that crazy American video game I bought from arifyn; this may also have contributed.

My readership appears to be at an all-time high (apparently at least two regulars!), but I've accumulated quite a lot of stuff during its absence, to say nothing of my sloth and the fact that I've built up a lot of new things due to year's-end-and-beginning splurging. So, I'd like to see if you have any requests or suggestions. What I've got in the works is as follows:

( Ridiculously long notes )

This time I had a small batch, so I'm trying to drop them all down here before I get the next one and end up being distracted again. But if I always use the same number of items for good luck, why is this one smaller than usual?

説明しよう！†

I did indeed pick 13 items in my original order. However, due to the fact that the release of one of the items kept being postponed, I had a chance to trim out some mistakes I had made: one that I had bought elsewhere (and posted kansō here‡), one that I had accidentally put in the cart twice and ordered elsewhere, and one where my suspicions were confirmed, resulting in its removal as per my policy. When I heard that Yuri Michelin (?) was pushed back again to February, I finally gave up on having it in this order, so the survivors finally shipped.

Anyway, the actual kansō:

「Comic YuriHime VOL.9」 (Anthology): I don't remember too much of these, no doubt due to the difficulty of keeping track of multiple series with multi-month gaps in-between episodes. Nonetheless, it's all good. (Actually, I haven't gotten around to reading the solid blocks of text yet. I'm somewhat curious about an entire article on the Himitsu no Kaidan series, which I found very disappointing from a yuri standpoint—but, then again, I'm a man.) I found it amusing that, unlike Ms. Kiryū, Futami saw the good side of not being blood-related to one's sibling. There's also a second one-shot from the person who did the one about the yakuza heiress earlier. Apparently she/he likes "bad girl" protagonists—and sex, although the latter is pretty ubiquitous in this mook lately.

「MY OTOME Zwei」 (Higuchi Tatsuto/Abeno Chaco): Fortunately, this one follows the chronology from the Ein animation rather than the comics (although there is an allusion to the latter), yet has just as much nudity as Yoshino/Satō's works. (Incidentally, I can't seem to find that post on one of my sources that describes exactly how much you see of which characters in Episode 3.) The chief things I like about it over the OVAs are the increased focus on the relationships between Ms. Kruger and Ms. Viola (although still not much) and Ms. Chrysant and Ms. Armitage (the latter because the author admits that she's her? favorite character), and the complete lack of appearance from Ms. Marguerite (which is better than seeing the depths to which she'd sunk in the show).

「Gakuen Utopia MANABI STRAIGHT! Massugu Go!! Amamiya Manami 3A NO.45526 SEIOH GAKUEN 1」 (ufotable/Tartan Check): The title refers to the punch visible on the cover, which is one of Ms. Amamiya's trademarks. In any case, the primary heroine is quite cheerful and provides lots of skinship, mostly with the secondary heroine; there's some hint of admiration for a character who shows up later on, as well. A standard sports lady and an assiduous tsun-dere (hmm, seem to remember one just like that from Na*na*ki!) round out the cast. I have some difficulty telling the four heroines apart visually, as they're all the same size and shape, and all have short hair other than the fourth.

「Shiharu Genesis 1」 (Kondō Rururu): There are plenty of stories about reincarnation of demons, but it's unusual to use that as a premise for a honobono girls' school life comedy. . . . Like X and Ten-Kin, this follows the 1999-based chronology, but in this case, that's only the birth of the Devil, so it's set in the near future, before her awakening (thus avoiding the continuity problem the other two had, in that they were not finished by the time 1999 passed and the world didn't end). You may notice that I said "she," which fits in with my description of the series in the first sentence. It's not clearly stated, but I assume that this follows the standard in Japanese secular sources that demons (and possibly angels) do have gender, so this would probably fall under the heading of "transexual yuri"—although in a fantastic manner, like KA・SHI・MA・SHI. Anyway, it's mostly about the friendship between the two major heroines, but there are hints that Lilith is looking for a bit more (unsurprisingly, considering that she's often described as the bride of Satan, despite the fact that she is also commonly called the first human woman). Stating the presence of any given reincarnatee is not much of a spoiler, as all are identified by their names (e.g. ルシファー → るしはあ → しはる).

Speaking of names, this work also follows the Japanese convention of "Lucifer" being the demon name of the Enemy, as compared to his Latin angel name. In Ten-Kin and DEVIL & DEVIL, his angel name was Lucifel, a fabrication using the Hebrew "el," which is found in many angel and human names. In the former, "Satan" is a title applied to his seven lieutenants (and not him), while the latter has "Satan" as the hereditary title for the ruler of hell.

Like CHRNO CRUSADE and Project AnthraXX, a running gag is that the chief demon is actually a very nice person. And like Ten-Kin, there is also an angel who is reincarnated in parallel to the fallen—although this time they reversed the missed opportunity by making them both ladies. Personally, I'm glad I wasn't actually reincarnated as a Japanese lady in 1999. I appear to be the most popular angel in Japanese media; in Earthian, DEVIL & DEVIL, and this, it looks like I'm the only one taken from Abrahamic scriptures and apocrypha. At least in this and Ten-Kin, I get to fight, instead of being in what appears to be a purely administrative post. . . .

「Neko Mokoro 1」 (Otokasa Aki): Another one set in a magic school for ladies, although this one is in some sort of space opera setting. The heroine's feelings originate in the fact that the object was the first other person she ever saw who looked human, but she remains loyal even after meeting various other beauties. An amusing running gag is that, although the heroine spends most of the first volume only being able to see her admiree from afar, she has many fantasies about what would happen when they meet, all following the same pattern, including that what they're doing towards the end of the dream is always censored (or perhaps left to the reader's imagination, but I like the sound of the first one better). The heroine's reaction when they finally do meet face to face is also quite nice. Of course, it's hard to say they have good prospects for a relationship if they don't even know one another, but I'm confident (as is the cover to Volume 2). Incidentally, this series is also the first I've seen to portray the difficulties of mermaids living on land.

「PENGUINMUSUME 1」 (Takahashi Tetsu): On the inside pages, this is called "PENGUINGIRL 14," where the "14" means (numerically, not phonetically) the same thing as in 14; the exploitative nature and the overly developed figures of the two chief heroines are other parallels. Sadly, this one loses out in the key point, as the athletic lady and her suitor (suitress?) are Heroines #2 and #5 rather than #1 and #2, and the former doesn't seem to have a huge following of underclass fans. (I told you the "boku" was an important selling point!) Still, there are several good prospects—I think the hime-sama dakko was a nice touch. (Incidentally, that's the one point that punk Zidane wins over Squall. It might have something to do that Ms. Til Alexandros was actually a real princess, though.) Heroine #1 has been related to the term 「ミーハー」, but unlike Ms. Kuremi, she's interested in men, too. Heroine #2 also knows a hunk when she sees one, but then again, so did Meg (too lazy to look up her surname).

Other points of interest include the fact that, for some reason, the ladies' uniform has a slit skirt with a fake petticoat doohickey. Meanwhile (not much of a spoiler), like in Ruro-Ken and Iono the fanatics, the drag queen guest (hopefully)-chara feels the need to show concrete proof. (Is it a coincidence that all of these were written and drawn by men?) Also, the Japanese heiress has a head butler named "Sebastian" (contrary to most old geezer butlers I've seen, who are called "Jī" or "Jīya" by their masters), while the American? one ("Marie Chupacabra W. Whitebear" sounds quite multicultural, but since the "W." is pronounced "Double-U," English has as many points as French and Spanish put together, and we all know how English speakers love giving their kids names from other languages, as anyone who knows my family can attest) has a head maid named "Maguro." Takahashi beat me to the punch with his badass eyepatched maid, but her personality is completely different from mine's, and the world still has room for plenty of gantai moe. There's also the same misunderstanding about the term 「メイド」 as in HAYA-BLA, but this time it's because she's Chinese, not because she's had an unusual upbringing.

「Kyōkan Astro 1」 (BannoNegi): From the title, I thought this was going to be set on an educational starship or something, but apparently the "ASTRO" is just the name of the athletics wear company that the main heroine patronizes. (I haven't the foggiest idea where they got the 「艦」.) Anyway, this is something of an unusual series, as it's set in a high school, yet the main characters are the teachers. (There was a student with good taste and a name who appeared, but only for one strip. Perhaps she was hospitalized after the heroine's hug.) Still, they are mostly in their 20s, as is to be expected from a society where female sex appeal is supposed to peak in the teens or earlier and ladies are ostracized for not marrying and retiring by the age of 25.

Anyway, the chief heroine inadvertently provides a lot of good scenes, mostly with the other who fell for her on the third page, but also with the other two main heroines and several lesser characters. (The story starts out focusing on a small group of individuals, but later adds some others, likely when it was clear that the serial was going to continue. Kubo did a similar thing with BLEACH, I imagine due to the fact that he wasn't told until the last chapter that his previous series was being cut.) I believe that falls under the heading of "tennen." The other characters are disappointing, but on the whole, I think this is my favorite of the new ones.

「HAYATE CROSS BLADE DRAMA CD Vol.2」 (Hayashiya Shizuru): Since this one has audio, I haven't gotten around to listening to it yet, but I do notice that they've skipped ahead to the Gakuensai part. Obviously they don't have the demand to adapt the entire series, so they're just doing the favorites.

Conclusion: Apparently the loss of luck wasn't terribly significant, as these are all worthy of continuing to read (with the exception of the one that was only one volume).

P.S. I was going to discuss a few new vocab words from this batch, but I've already spent my computer sessions for three days typing this, so I'll follow that up later. So much to type, so little time and readership . . .

†I first remember hearing this element used by Seki Tomokazu (played by Seki Tomokazu) in Love Pheromone (half of Love-Ge), but I can only assume it's more prevalent in pop culture than I've noticed. It's also used commonly in PENGUINMUSUME.

‡I know that you can't access this if you're not a member of daily_yuri. However, if you actually care, it's no trouble to join. You don't even have to have it on your friends page. The only risk I see is that someone might see your membership on your userinfo and think you're weird. You can also join whenever you want to read a post, then immediately quit again when you're done.

For some reason, I've been going through my old downloaded videos that I hadn't gotten around to watching yet, as well as viewing some new ones flagged by Ms.? yuri_amagasa. One of the perks of doing this is that I can post the good bits on daily_yuri, which, unlike posting here, usually results in actual communication between at least two different people. What I've had has been something of a mixed bag, but nothing I've regretted watching.

However, this reminded me that one of the other things I hadn't watched was the rest of the MariMite OVAs. OVAs tend to be difficult, as I tend to lose track due to the long time between releases of individual episodes. If memory serves, the last one I happened to watch was the episode where it showed at the end that Ms. Hosokawa would be featured in the next one. As ever, I'm too lazy to read novels, but from the various fanzines I've perused, she stands out as quite a lovely character. I know all the new underclassmen have to call the quintessential everywoman "Yumi-sama", but Ms. Hosokawa really means it. (We don't need to think about our tsun-dere friend with the annoying hairstyle.) Upon a bit of research (which I had to do to find her surname, as the like isn't often heard in the series), it turns out she's also played by Ms. Koshimizu Ami, whom I remember from half a dozen other 21st-century animated series (although she only played a yuri character in one of those).

And what reminded me about that? Ironically enough, it was the bad news about Ms. Fukuzawa's choice of petite soeur. (It was a long time coming, but I have to admit that it was never likely that such a major character would lose just because I didn't like her as much—much like our problem back here.) I'll just have to try not to think about that when I watch the rest.

I know there's only one person here who gives a damn, but I have an unusual history with MariMite. My first encounter with the series came back in '04, the very first time in my life that I actually went out and ordered comics for a reason—including the first volumes of Yuri Shimai and Yuri Tengoku. These were also the only fanzines by other than the original creators for which I have ever paid, because jpqueen had not yet pointed out the fact that they were such. (In retrospect, one of them actually has a story that sends an interesting message about Ms. Hosokawa, even though she only appears on one page—the one right after the spread (sorry) in the upper right.) From these two anthologies, I managed to piece together a vague idea of what the hell the series was, and was ready with Azureus when the animation came out. It was much later, through daily_yuri, that I happened to come into contact with Ms. mizuno_youko and her massive archive of fanzines.

Personally, MariMite is a bit laid-back for my tastes (and has those damned sailor uniforms that are supposedly the archetype for "rich girl" schools), but, as noted in that issue of Yuri Shimai, it's something of a bible for the community, so it's essentially a must-read/-see/-something (or preferably more than one of the above). I've included at least one tasteless reference in my own projects, too. . . . Still, it's better than certain ripoffs with large amounts of added unpleasantness.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss to let this go without talking about one or two language elements that I've been wanting to mention for some time. As you can no doubt guess from the title (which I haven't bothered to list in full in this entire post) and the fact that it's set in a mission school, loanwords like "Maria" and "rosario" (no, not the guy from DRAGON HALF) are key plot points. The fact that these are the Portuguese versions is presumably a holdover from the Jesuits (remember the orange-robed dudes from SHŌGUN?). It may seem odd that a Catholic school is the setting for the (arguably) biggest yuri phenomenon in history, but the Japanese aren't terribly strict about religion these days (although I hear the purges of the Buddhists in the 19th century were motivation enough for one puny monk to become the third toughest of the Juppon-Gatana), as illustrated by their assertion that there's no need to be a follower of an Abrahamic religion to attend a Catholic school. I also find it somewhat odd that, in some cases, a gift of an image of a dying naked guy is a symbol of sisterly love. Well, at least the Vatican no longer preaches the policy that wearing a rosary around your neck is disrespectful.

I'm ready to type up a description of the Brides of the Gray Wolf. I'd also like to write information about how vampires spawn, but I'm getting caught on the details. Unlike traditional vampires, they are living creatures developed through research, so I'd prefer if I could find pseudo-physiological reasons for their idiosyncrasies. Key points:

1. They have some problem with producing blood, requiring them to receive supplements from outside sources. This comes from the daimonic tissue samples used to create the vampirism nanohomunculus, and is probably Dr. Mikazuki's way of adapting daimons' method of nourishing their immortal forms by feeding on human animae to a more cheaply sustainable system.

2. Vampirism is contracted simply by consuming a vampire's blood into a human (or, theoretically, mostly human) body. However, unless the body meets rigorous specifications, this will result in severe circulatory problems and a truncated lifespan. I would like it if it would cause bulging blood vessels like the Claymores when they use their yōma powers, or, now that I think of it, Yukishiro Enishi from RuroKen when he overloads, but I think that would mean that they have extremely high blood pressure, which doesn't fit very well with point 1. Perhaps vampires actually do produce blood, but it's defective, or something.

I know I won't get much medical help out of you liberal arts and computer science majors, but I like typing about this stuff.

As you can see from my last preview, I'm getting pretty swamped by all the kansō I wanted to type, so I'm not getting any done. As a mitigating measure, I think I'll cut them down into very small chunks [one here] so I'm more motivated to get some of them done.

So, despite the fact that I've been too lazy to watch any other videos lately, I eventually caught on to ICE from my usual source. The problem with Japanese videos is the fact that, since no one managed/was willing to help me set up my Internet connection, I have to use Western sources. Since I don't have any way of knowing what'll be good until (Ms.?) Amagasa reviews them, I'm generally too late to get anything without supporting the translators. However, this one is an OVA, which means slow release schedules, so I got the review in time to get Vol. 2 and was desperate enough to get a soft-subbed .mkv of Vol. 1.

And it was rather nice—although some parts were unintentionally silly. The heroine is quite a badass, despite the fact that the actress has a lot of young boy roles on her résumé (remember LOVELESS?). Sadly, she's one of the deviants in the world who don't show their friendship through sex. Also, I was easily able to spot the fact that the dictatrix is played by our old friend Ishida, master of annoying villains for the last decade. It's pretty common to have actresses play young or effeminate male roles (which is one of the things that bothered arifyn about RuroKen), but I don't remember ever seeing a man playing a human lady before. If it turns out that she is indeed the last man on Earth, they certainly gave it away (the opposite of how they did it in BLEACH).

Between the DVD (for which I hear you still haven't collected your recompensation, arifyn), the amazon order, and other things I've encountered, I have an oodle (not a word you see often in the singular) of kansō to type. So, let's start with BLEACH. With 10 books (10–17 and 19–20), I have plenty of comments, and since my two best readers are familiar with the series, it's on a comparatively high priority. So, here goes:

( Minor spoilers up to the end of Soul Society Kyūshutsu-hen )

Edit (2008/06/20): Fixed a couple of typos, noted a broken link (not related to the ones in the comments)

When my brother was home for Spring Break this year and playing Ogre Battle 64, I realized that it was yet another Japanese video game where the hero deserts the evil empire and joins the resistance. I thought that this seemed odd, considering how traditional and conformist Japanese society is (although it's starting to change). I guess that's a sign that fiction is a radical, non-mainstream element of society. Just to illustrate this, I decided to list a bunch of adventure stories I knew from modern media and see how they add up. Hopefully I wasn't too biased in which ones came to mind.

For these purposes, "establishment" is the main power in the setting, whether it's the most powerful nation, the state religion, the secret society behind the throne, the student council, the local gang, super-powerful invading aliens, God, destiny, or whatever. Where the protagonists' motives change throughout the story, I list the one that they choose in the end (as far as I've seen). Where there are multiple paths, I list the main one. Where the series has more than one separate storyline, I hope I've listed which I mean. Where I couldn't decide (for instance, in SIMOUN, where it's a war between as-far-as-I-know two equally powerful nations), I've left them out. I've also recused (?) sentai and mahō shōjo shows, as they'd almost always end up in the first one—which means, of course, that there is a bias there. Meanwhile, haven't bothered to use official capitalizations, as it's too much trouble to look them all up. And no, I'm not making links for all those. You can find them yourselves.

Protagonists for Establishment: Akira, Bleach (Shinigami Daikō-hen), Cain Series, Cattō Ninden Teyande~! [sic], Chrno Crusade, Cowboy Bebop, Godzilla, .hack//SIGN, .hack/Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu, Hellsing, Peace Maker Kurogane, R.O.D Read or Die, Rurōni Kenshin (Kyōto-hen, Jinchū-hen), Shin Seiki Evangelion/Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyō!, Uchū no Stellvia, Versailles no Bara, Yami no Matsuei

Protagonists against Establishment: Abenobashi Mahō Shōtengai, Biohazard Code:Veronica, Bleach (Soul Society Kyūshutsu-hen), Blue Drop, Chrono Trigger, Devil & Devil, Dystopia, Escaflowne, Et Cetera, Eternal Arcadia, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy Tactics, FLCL, Fushigi no Kuni no Miyuki-chan/Miyukichan in the Wonderland, Grandia II, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi/Fullmetal [sic] Alchemist, Himitsu no Angelis, Hōshin Engi, Kannazuki no Miko, L A S T E X I L E, Loveless, Mahō Kishi Rayearth/Magic Knight Rayearth (first series), Mononoke-Hime, My HiME, My Otome, Ogre Battle, Ogre Battle 64, R.O.D the TV, Rurōni Kenshin (Bakumatsu-hen), Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Seiken Densetsu II, Shichi-nin no Samurai, Shimpi no Sekai El-Hazard, Shining Force, Shining Force II, Shōjo Kakumei Utena, Slayers TRY, Super Mario Bros., Tenjho Tenge, Tenshi Kinryōku/Angel Sanctuary, Texhnolyze, Tokyo-under Ground, Top o Nerae!/Gunbuster, Top o Nerae 2!/Die Buster, Yōjimbō, Zelda no Densetsu

As I noted before, I've been planning to whine about semantic drift—specifically, in the case of loan-words between Japanese and English—for some time now. It would be easy to do a lot with the ones that go from English to Japanese (although I don't seem to remember what they're called, but I'm sure arifyn can correct me since his senior thesis was on the subject IIRC), but I have a (commonly broken) policy of not making fun of other cultures. So, that leaves me to whine about what I hate about Americans, which has always been one of my favorite pastimes. Here are a few words that I noticed have changed in usage:

「アニメ」→"Anime"; 「漫画」→"Manga": These are of course close ones to any geek's heart. As you know, they mean "animation" (an abbreviation of the English word) and "comics," respectively. For some reason, it never occurred to me that Westerners had narrowed the meaning until my first college Japanese professor asked me to clarify whether or not I meant Japanese "anime." Because of that, I've since avoided using the word, instead using normal English to avoid confusion. I've also done the same with the latter term, although in this case I'm not as certain about its uses in the original Japanese. After all, as anyone who's read Ruro[-]Ken knows, Watsuki often talks about his love of "Ame-comi" (American comics). In daily_yuri, they've extrapolated on the usage and refer to Korean comics as "manhwa," an obvious cognate. Oddly enough, these terms are often even capitalized as if they were proper nouns.

「変態」→"Hentai": Here's another one that's pretty ubiquitous in the fandom. In Japanese, it's, as best as I can tell, almost identical to the noun form of "pervert"—i.e. it refers to a person. However, for some reason, in English-speaking places, it's used to denote pornographic media (comics, animation, computer games, and the like)—the kind of stuff a hentai would read/watch/play. Even a Japanese company like jpqueen resorts to using the latter definition in order to best communicate with its Western customers.

"Shōjo Ai": All right, here's where I show my true colors. "Shōjo ai" is a term created by Westerners from the words "girl(s)" and "love"—thus, equivalent to the Japanese "yuri" (although the latter has had more "adult" connotations early in its use in Japan, and later in America). However, despite its creation from Japanese words, the term "shōjo ai" does not have any such meaning in Japan; in fact, it happens to be the same words as another unrelated idea in Japanese. 「少女愛」 refers to a movement fighting to remove the social stigma and legal restrictions on [adult men] having sexual intercourse with young girls. Obviously, this is a very controversial subject, so one should be careful about using such a term when speaking with Japanese people. It is also interesting to note that where Americans use "shōjo ai" (a literal Japanese translation of what they mean) as a synonym for "yuri," the Japanese also refer to 「百合」 as 「ガールズラブ」 (GL), the English words meaning the exact same thing. Incidentally, I don't know whether there is an analogue with the relationship of "shōnen ai" and 「やおい」, as I don't have any interest in the subject and thus didn't bother to find out. (Of course, that tends to suggest that I do have interest in the subject of the previous paragraph. Grr.)

「刀」→"Katana": Here's another one where Westerners have narrowed the usage of the word. Technically, it refers to a specific type of Japanese sword, curved and single-edged, designed for use with two hands. This is true in both English and Japanese. However, in Japanese, the term can also be used generically to refer to, I believe, any sword (or perhaps only Japanese or Asian ones). Due to the lack of testosterone-pumping series that I've read lately, I don't immediately recall any examples of this usage, except in HAYATE CROSS BLADE, where characters regularly call their straight wooden swords "katana," since the specific design doesn't seem to have any particular name.

Edit (2008.05.10): Upon actually looking it up, katana does not technically mean a specific type of sword, but it does imply one. I'm planning to discuss that in a later post.

Edit (2008.06.20): Clarification above

Even after I've had specific requests, I still don't get any responses when I post them. Nonetheless, I don't have much else to do, so I'll keep practicing my typing. . . . These are the comics I received in my last two orders (one from amazon and one from jpqueen).

「1年777組」/1-Nen 777-Gumi/1st Year Class 777 (Shu Kazuki) 1 of (continuing?): Yet another four-panel comic serialized in Manga Time Kirara and recommended by Yuri Shimai. This one is actually set in a co-ed high school, and consequently the yuri-do is rather low. Nonetheless, there is some, and the pictures are pretty, so I plan to continue with this one.

「えとせとら」/ET CETERA (Nakazaki Tō) 2~6 of 9: For the first time in quite a while, I bought a comic not for yuri, but for nostalgia. I first encountered Episode 11 of this one in a copy of Gekkan Shōnen Magazine that the Japanese teacher at high school had lying around the classroom. There were plenty of obscure comics serialized in it at the time, but for some reason ET CETERA was the one that jumped out at me. Of course, at the time I had no way of getting my hands on more of it, so nothing came of it. Then, some time later, Ms. space_coyote posted the first few chapters on The Nameless Manga Translation Site. As the name of the site suggests, it was in English, but nonetheless I was happy to finally see the beginning. I had encountered jpqueen by that time, but they never seemed to have the set in. By the time I got to amazon.co.jp, I was fully enthralled by the yuri "my boom," so I pretty much forgot about ET CETERA. I didn't think much back to it until a couple of months ago when the above-stated volumes showed up in jpqueen's discount section. (Unfortunately, they for some reason didn't have the rest of the series.)

I have of course watched a few "space Westerns" (and read a rather nifty Western-themed fantasy yomi-kiri in one of the volumes of TOKYO-UNDER GROUND), but this is the only Japanese series I've encountered that's set in the actual Old West. (I've also heard of GUN BLAZE WEST, of course.) Oddly enough, the heroine is a young Chinese lady. Although there are some serious themes, the drawing style is particularly exaggerated (in characters' physiques and expressions, for instance), and there is a fantasy element in the core objective of two mystical guns.

I remember thinking when I first saw TRIGUN that the "hero who refuses to kill" thing was a takeoff of RuroKen, but here they have much the same thing going on. Further, ET CETERA also beat TRIGUN to the punch with the "deadly preacher as a traveling companion" idea. The parallel goes further than that, but I won't spoil that (except to say that he doesn't speak Kansai dialect).

Another thing that particularly surprised me when I read through the volumes I got was the character of Ms. Fino. Whereas the heroine only cares about killing humans and doesn't think twice about slaughtering animals for food, Ms. Fino is actually an ethical vegetarian. I have never encountered this in any aspect of Japanese culture—even in Chikyū Shōjo Arjuna, they only had problems with eating meat if it was processed. Ms. Fino doesn't determine who does and does not deserve to die depending on species, but depending on guilt. As if she weren't perfect enough already, she's also really cute and uses my favorite speech patterns. . . .

「俺フェチ」/Ore Feti/Me Feti (Kuwahara Hihihi) 1 of (continuing?): I haven't the slightest idea what's with the "ore" in the title, as all of the main characters are female, and there isn't even a "bokukko," much less an "orekko." The "feti(sh)," on the other hand, is quite evident in the heroine. I don't know why, but both here and in Nanami & Misuzu (serialized in Comic YuriHime), human ladies' cat ears are depicted as sloping downward from the sides of the head. Yes, it is a very "o-taku"-type comic, but it seems worth reading more.

「豪放ライラック」/Gōhō Lilac/Frank Lilac (Kuwata Noriko) 1 of (continuing?): Another one recommended by Yuri Shimai. This one's set at a girls' school, but the yuri-do is quite low. I don't think I'll be continuing with this one.

「コミックHi-t―ジョシコーセーアンソロジー」/Comic Hi-t—Joshikōsei Anthology/Comic Hi-t—High School Girl Anthology (anthology): Another one that amazon forgot to shelve in the "adult" section. Avoid at all costs.

「コミック百合姫」/Comic YuriHime/Comic Lily Princess(es) (anthology) 4~5 of (continuing): This continues to be great stuff, although Strawberry Shake Sweet is running out of space to showcase all the characters.

「ごめんね、マリア様」/Gomen ne, Maria-sama/Sorry, Maria-sama (?): Not as bad as the one mentioned above, but still precious few saving graces.

「ストロベリー・パニック!」/Strawberry Panic! (Kōno Sakurako?/Takumi Namuchi) 1 of (continuing): The animated version of this (which I mentioned earlier) is the chief reason that I regret having lost contact with lokodraucarn. Anyway, the comic is different in many ways (particularly characterizations—oddly enough, in this version, the main heroine of each school uses her name in place of a first-person pronoun), but still one of the highest yuri-densities I've ever seen, and the anatomy looks better too.

「天然女子高物語」/Tennen Joshikō Monogatari/Natural Girls' High School Story (Kadoi Aya) 1 of (continuing?): Quite cute, but no yuri.

「トランジスタにヴィーナス」/Transistor ni Venus/Venus in the Transistor (Takemoto Izumi) 1 of 8?: This is ostensibly a space-age spy story. It wasn't until the second or third chapter that the author decided to have the heroine go around kissing people all the time. Unfortunately, amazon doesn't have Volume 2 available anymore.

「爆裂天使Angels' Adolescence」/Bakuretsu Tenshi: Angels' Adolescence/Burst Angel: Angels' Adolescence (Murao Minoru) 1~3 of 3: This is a prequel to a series that seemed great from what I saw, excepting the silly-looking costumes. There is one notable yuri mōsō.

「はやて×ブレード」/HAYATE CROSS BLADE (Hayashiya Shizuru) 5 of (continuing): This is one to remember, as it (finally) shows the first match among the top class of kentaisei. As it happens, Ms. Hayashiya hasn't shown any in the A or toku-A ranks either, so this is the first time we see modified swords, and even those who use regular ones still keep showing interesting new styles. As more of the upper-ranking characters move into the spotlight (all three of the foul-mouthed young ladies in the school are now S-rank!), it's clear that this series has a lot ahead of it. Ms. Someya's "secret" (which I guessed from the very start and confirmed after looking closely at a certain page of Volume 3) is also revealed, and apparently she's going to be in the next big fight. This is serialized in a monthly magazine, so it's surprising the author can go so long without showing the heroines in action. Meanwhile, Ms. Kuga's sex-hara is becoming more and more prominent, particularly in the two bangai-hen.

「春よ、来い」/Haru yo, Koi/Spring, Come (Saki Kaori) 1 of (continuing?): I heard about this one from daily_yuri (although I didn't read any there because it was all scanslations), so I decided to grab the first volume when I found it on discount at jpqueen. The story centers on two young ladies' relationship, but there are some male characters that provide some ugliness. It gets somewhat graphic, but not enough to put me off from buying the rest.

「ヤミと帽子と本の旅人―ロマンス」/Yami to Bōshi to Hon no Tabibito—Romance/Yami, the Hat, and Travelers in Books—Romance (Sakurai Aya): This one was quite iffy, as in the animated series it was quite obvious that it was based on a pornographic game. As it turns out, the unpleasant bits are somewhat turned down in this case, but the main character is some random man who didn't even appear in the show (at least not as a humanoid). Consequently, the yuri is requisitioned to passing references.

「落花流水」/Ryakka Ryūsui (Sanada Ikki) 1 of (continuing): I know it's just like a male human of me to prefer the relationships with an obvious physical attraction, but, in my defense, that is one of the best ways to ascertain that it's a romantic relationship rather than the characters seeing each other as sisters or friends. In this case, you can see it in a whole lot of nosebleeds.

「レンズのむこう」/Lens no Mukō/Beyond the Lenses/Through Eyeglasses Darkly (?): This is a set of short stories about people in adult relationships, but it has a pretty laid-back mood. I believe there were three couples depicted, and two of them include men.

As I alluded before, there are perks to working for a bookseller. One is the fact that I get to read random things that are in stock. Last time, I went through this and this, although the latter was all prose, so I didn't get around to finishing it. This time, I stuck to graphic novels (although I would have read this if I hadn't forgotten). Unsurprisingly, all are American.

Fray is typical Whedon ass-kicking (at least from my meager experience), other than the setting—rather cyberpunk.

Bounty Hunters is an anthology with a rather self-explanatory focus. arifyn and I were rather entertained by Lando's rather over-the-top expressions. Speaking of Lando, he's the only good guy from the movies who appears, so they aren't particularly happy stories in general.

Dark Empire II was a bit iffy, since I hadn't read the first one. One of the most noticeable characteristics is the large amount of boxed text. Apparently the pictures aren't enough to convey the intricacies of different types of droid shielding or individual Force usage, so the narration has to run constantly to tell the reader what's going on. I did find it somewhat amusing that Palpatine has made this cadre of super-powerful darksiders, but they keep getting killed off abruptly, so he has to make more. In other news, Luke actually looks cool when he's not played by Mark Hamill and he has a big giant black cloak.

The Dark Knight Returns was interesting. I thought Batman was all colorful and Adam-Westy until the real movie, but this was quite dark. Superman kinda steals the show, as he's the only character who has actual superpowers—kinda like a certain naked blue guy from Watchmen—but Batman gets a few good ones in too. The whole thing about nuclear war breaking out with the Soviets is another parallel to Watchmen—apparently that was big in the mid-'80s. This too has a lot of boxed text, but in this case, it's the characters assessing the situations and planning them in their heads—as opposed to things like RuroKen, where you have participants and bystanders having a constanct discussion on what's going on.