Webcomic Time: Princess Princess

StrangelyKatie's Princess Princess webcomic is a parfait of delightful, topped with awesome and sprinkled with a liberal amount of squee. It is also complete at forty-two pages, so it's a great choice if you're looking for a webcomic that's not long, with a clear beginning, middle and end, as befitting a fairytale.

One day, cross-dressing Princess Amira, riding her trusty steed Celeste, hears someone screaming and comes across another princess locked in a tower. Princess Sadie was in fact trying to sing, not scream, and is like, "Oh meh, another prince here to save me?" Amira tells her that she is actually a princess, and she has a grappling hook. Sadie agrees to be rescued, but of course, things don't go as expected.

Turns out Sadie's older sister put her in the tower after their father died since she saw Sadie as a threat to her power as queen. Sadie kept sabotaging the princes who came to rescue her because she was afraid of what her sister might do if she got out. But she trusts Amira's promise to protect her and there's some chemistry between them, so off they go away from the tower. Sadie and Amira rescue a prince who becomes a friend and traveling companion of theirs and save a village from an ogre, once again using some unconventional methods.

Sadie's sister has Amira abducted to lure Sadie back so she can lock her away again. (You'd think she could have just abducted Sadie, but it's a handwave I forgive since it allows Sadie to do the rescuing, in a switch from her and Amira's roles at the beginning.) Of course, things turn out well. The story ends after a pretty great time skip, Amira and Sadie getting their Happily Ever After.

So yeah, I really enjoyed this webcomic. It's fun, the characters (save for Sadie's sister, naturally) are likeable, and Sadie and Amira make an adorable couple. And as I've mentioned about 20,000 times here, I have a weakness for fairytale tropes given a lesbian spin- in this case, a light, tongue-in-cheek take on the fairytale formula.

You can only read part of Princess Princess on its SmackJeeves site and its author's DeviantArt page, but the entire thing is here on the Tumblr its author set up for it. Reading it on Tumblr also allows you to see some cute bonus art of Amira and Sadie (like this Sailor Moon parody) and wallpapers, as well as some neat fan art made by other folks who like it.

A look at volume 1 of the Psycho-Pass manga, some Yayoi x Shion goodness, and some rambling on doujinshi

This post started as one thing and ended entirely another. I decided to add some fan art and a link to a good fanfic about Psycho-Pass's yuri couple below this review, and hey, an artist who does fan art I really like of said couple is releasing a doujinshi of them at GLFes (a yuri doujinshi event in Tokyo on May 26) and here's a translation of its preview pages, and here's some more info about GLFes.

The Psycho-Pass manga adaptation, re-titled Kanshikan Tsunemori Akane (Inspector Tsunemori Akane), is currently running in Jump Square, a magazine aimed at the oldest subset of the shounen demographic, late teens. As someone whose first exposure to Psycho-Pass was through the anime that premiered last fall, like most people who've tried at least one iteration of Psycho-Pass' story, it's hard for me not to compare Miyoshi Hikaru's manga adaptation to the anime.

As in the anime, the manga's story takes place in Tokyo in 2112. The government has implemented the Sibyl System, which monitors every citizen's psychological state (or psycho-pass) to deduce whether they will commit a crime. If one's psycho-pass becomes too "clouded", one is judged a latent criminal. In theory, latent criminals with low enough crime coefficients can be rehabilitated through therapy. In practice, they're fucked, and have next to no chance of returning to normal society.  The Sibyl System, unsurprisingly, has very flawed criteria for judging people. (Btw, I love the people who criticize this story on the grounds that a society enabling such an obviously flawed government institution is implausible enough to constitute a plot hole. Yup, that never happens.)

It's disappointing that the most extreme example of Sibyl screwing up isn't included here- Kagari Shuusei telling Psycho-Pass's protagonist Tsunemori Akane, a non-latent criminal, that he has been a latent criminal since Sibyl judged him one at five years old. That information not only illustrates how much the Sibyl System can mess with people's lives, it's Kagari's only background information and gives more context to his resentment of the amount of choice Akane has had.

At least in the manga we still get Karanomori Shion mentioning that she had a medical license before she became a latent criminal and Sibyl figured she'd be most useful as a physician/lab and data analyst for the Public Safety Bureau's Crime Investigation Division; see Kunizuka Yayoi reading a guitar magazine (which alludes to her past as a guitarist in a band, as the anime later shows in a flashback illustrating what Unit 1 of the PSBCID was like when she joined them); hear Masaoka Tomomi's explanation of his past as a detective who became too good at what he did; and see hints of what made Kougami Shinya into a latent criminal, which fuels his vendetta against the story's main villain.

Akane, just out of school, joins the PSBCID as an Inspector. Inspectors go after latent criminals and plain old criminals on Sibyl's behalf. They work with Enforcers, latent criminals Sibyl judged as having the aptitude to catch latent criminals and criminals. Enforcers aren't able to leave the PSBCID unaccompanied by an Inspector. The other Inspector in Akane's unit, Ginoza Nobuchika, sees latent criminals as subhuman while Akane wants to work with them as equals. This becomes a source of tension between them.

Chapter one covers Akane's first day on the job, in which she and her co-workers deal with a hostage situation that escalates- thankfully, not as badly as it would have if Akane weren't willing to make up her own mind rather than follow whatever Sibyl says.

Chapter two covers the anime's episode two, in which Akane deals with her guilt over having hurt Kougami to save the hostage's life. As in episode 2, she and Masaoka arrest a latent criminal at the mall. In a weird story change from the anime, Kou, who should be recovering his ability to move in a hospital bed, having been hit with a heavy duty stun gun, decides Akane and Masaoka arresting a run-of-the-mill latent criminal is enough reason to break out of the Public Safety Bureau (something he took elaborate measures to do in the anime, for a much more crucial reason) and run to the mall so he can help. This scene is supposed to make him look like a badass, but just makes him seem like kind of a drama queen. The low amount of danger Akane and Masaoka are in aside, the idea of instantly recovering from being temporarily disabled because of sheer willpower is stupid- that's not how being disabled works- but again, I guess the editor or someone thought it would seem cool.

Chapter three brings us halfway through the story covered by episode three, in which Akane and the other members of Unit One investigate a series of suspicious deaths at a drone factory. Not being able to connect to Sibyl or any outside communication within the factory puts them at a disadvantage.

I've only mentioned the changes I don't like. ^^; Better changes: seeing the day Akane found out what Sibyl considers her viable career options, and seeing her break the news of her choice to her parents, who weren't pleased but stopped opposing after she told them why she wanted it. (Her parents' opposition was only alluded to in the anime. Also, now I wonder what would happen if someone said they wanted to do a job outside the range of what Sibyl deemed appropriate for them. That was kind of sort of answered with Rina. She sang anyway and- assuming she isn't a special psycho-pass snowflake like Akane- I guess stayed free by dodging getting her hue measured by staying in the underground scene of a less regulated area of Tokyo?) We also briefly see Akane's training at the Academy and her meeting her boss before being sent to her first day on the job.

That said, time to bitch about another change! Yayoi and Shion, who are lovers in the anime? The first scene indicating that they're together in the anime is toned down here. So you better understand, here's a visual comparison.

I shouldn't need to explain the difference, but there are people who missed the point of that scene in the anime even though it was as clear as the sun is bright for most viewers. In the manga, Yayoi isn't putting the last touch on getting dressed while leaving Shion's office and Shion isn't lying on her office's couch while pulling her pantyhose back on. The fact that she's pulling on thigh highs instead of regular pantyhose also makes a difference, and it's impossible to contrast these scenes without sounding like a perv isn't it. Ah well. I've already translated the first part of a smutty doujinshi (that I'm buying) below, so I suppose I'm past the point of no return already.

Tl;dr, there are many good things about the anime and some of those good things are still here- but going from this volume, this is still the beta version. I didn't read this volume looking for a carbon copy of the anime. I wanted some changes, since I might as well re-watch the anime for the exact same take on P-P's story, but I wanted the changes to more consistently not make me go : \

But whatever, I still really like the anime. (Reader: "What the hell was the point of this review, Katherine?")

This review also gives me another excuse opportunity to post fan art, as well as a fanfic rec. I found a really good fic on how Yayoi and Shion got together, "In Darkest Red" by Jen.

And some of the fan art is nsfw-ish, so I'm placing it all under the cut below.

Morinaga Milk's newest: Gakuen Polizi volume 1

Morinaga Milk's current Comic High! series is pretty different from her previous Comic High! titles, the lovely Girl Friends and Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo. Rather than a romantic drama, Gakuen Polizi (I'm going with Okazu's romanization of this series' title because I agree that it does sound kind of snazzy) is meant to be a romantic comedy. Unlike Morinaga's other romantic comedy, Himitsu no Recipe, Gakuen Polizi's leads are both likeable, so it's already ahead of Himitsu no Recipe even though its romance hasn't really started yet.

If you're familiar with Morinaga Milk's doujinshi output (*cough*), you'll know that she's a fan of the magical girl genre and police dramas. (I have never watched Odoru Daisousasen, but I love the doujinshi Morinaga drew slashing two police women from it. Between her fangirling over that show and one of its two directors having acted as Psycho-Pass's Chief Director- not to mention it being a mega-popular example of its genre- I really ought to watch it already. Ahem, anyway...) What a coincidence that Gakuen Polizi's protagonist, Aoba Sasami, opens this volume narrating that she loved magical girl shows, sentai shows, and police dramas growing up, so she wants to uphold justice herself.

In Gakuen Polizi, the police are rumored to send undercover officers to work as teachers and staff at schools. Sasami is one of the school police, but she's a student. She has just been assigned to Hanasaki Girls' School, where she is friends with two girls named Tokiwa and Minauchi (a.k.a. "Minmin.") There doesn't seem to be much to do, since Hanasaki is a peaceful school with no corruption, crime, or bullying.

One day, however, Sasami thinks she's caught someone stealing books from the school library. Not only is it a misunderstanding, the "culprit" is Sakuraba Midori, the other officer assigned to Hanasaki. Midori assumes Sasami can't be her new partner because Sasami screwed up so badly when she arrested her in the library, but nope. 

Midori tells Sasami that she'll be transferred to a new school soon enough when there's a vacancy at a place that needs school police. Midori will always stay at Hanasaki because of what happened at the school she was previously assigned to. It resulted in Midori's partner being injured badly, and she would have been kicked out of the police entirely if it weren't for her father being the Chief of Police. Instead, her father had her permanently assigned to a school where she would never have anything to do as an officer. 

When Sasami loses her badge (which is disguised as a notebook), she says that it means more to her than her life, causing Midori to tell her to never say that again. And when a dog seems to be attacking Midori, Sasami jumps in front of Midori and tells the dog to stay away: "Kanojo ha watashi no daiji na partner dakara!" ("Because she is my important partner!" or "Because she is my precious partner!") This painfully reminds Midori of how her previous partner once said "Midori ha itsumademo zutto zutto watashi no daiji na partner da yo." ("You will always, forever and ever, be my important/precious partner.") 

Sasami's friend Tokiwa is nearby during the dog incident, and she's a member of the Hanasaki newspaper club, camera always on hand, so she does a front page story on the dog incident, painting it as a dramatic love confession. The student body squeals over it, and Midori's like, "God damn it, we're supposed to keep a low profile here."

Midori and Sasami deal with a bunch of minor incidents, and Midori, as expected, starts warming up to Sasami and respecting her as an officer. There are a few little moments hinting at the more romantic turn we know Sasami and Midori's relationship is going to take.

Tokiwa tells Sasami and Midori about a groper who has been targeting high school girls without being identified, so they get to work catching the perp. The groper's in for a bit a surprise when he tries to resist. :-)

Minauchi catches a glimpse of Sasami's badge during the groper incident, so she goes to Sasami for help with her own problem.

Her sister's being stalked and the police are being shitty about helping her, as police often are in such cases. The stalker's still free to do what he wants, and she's still terrified. As Erica explained perfectly, this arc is a great commentary on the failings of how stalking cases are handled, and in a manga magazine aimed at an audience that could especially use that message, in addition to its general anti-creepines message. I also liked how the stalker was portrayed insofar as showing that there's no way to eliminate the possibility of someone being a stalker (or guilty of other creepiness/behavior that goes beyond creepiness) based solely on how they seem in their public day-to-day life. Victims' accusations are often trivialized (or outright dismissed as lies) at least in part because the person victimizing them is well-liked/is an upstanding student or employee/has a girlfriend/etc.

Needless to say, things turn out well. :-) And of course, this volume's ending dangles a new cliffhanger in front of us- a message Midori receives from her old partner.

I wouldn't normally write about the bonus illustrations in a tankoubon, but the one between chapters one and two of Gakuen Polizi is of a chibi Midori posing with a yo-yo weapon, clearly referencing Sukeban Deka, a long-running 70's-80's shoujo series about a teenaged girl who infiltrates different high schools as an undercover police officer to compensate for her past as a delinquent. All of the bonus illustrations are of chibi Sasami and Midori doing crime drama-esque poses, and I'm sure there are other visual references I missed. Speaking of references, a load of police dramas are name-dropped in this volume, and there's a Madoka Magica sight gag.

So far, Gakuen Polizi is one part much-needed social commentary and one part love letter to a genre its author loves, with some romance seeds being planted. I'm looking forward to volume 2. ^_^

Story: B+

Art: B+

Overall: B+

Manga Review: Golondrina volume 1

est em became well-known known for her BL manga. She seems to have an affinity for stories set around the world, particularly Spain, so it follows that the series she has running in Ikki (the offbeat seinen magazine that ran Nakamura Ching's Gunjo and Onozucca Kahori's Aido), starring a lesbian lead, takes place in Seville. When I first heard about Golondrina, I wasn't sure how much I would like it since its protagonist aims to become a matador and bullfighting disgusts me, but I found it compelling and want to see what happens next.

Chica (a nickname, not her real name) decides to commit suicide after her girlfriend Maria dumps her in a horrible way. Maria breaks the news that she's pregnant, not even acknowledging how much she's hurting Chica by bringing it up it as if she were confiding in a friend. Chica was abandoned by her parents, so what Maria did, wretched as it is, isn't the only thing causing her major pain- it's the straw that broke the camel's back.

Chica can't bring herself to take a blade to her wrist in the bathroom, with her roommate Seche asking if she's okay outside it, so she decides to run into traffic. The car she runs in front of misses her, and its driver, an old man named Antonio, asks what the hell she's doing. When she tells him she's trying to die, he talks her out of at least using that method ("You'd make innocent people into murderers.") and drives her to his home. She wakes up there the next morning.

Antonio turns out to be a matador coach. When Chica learns that he considered making her into a matador until he realized she's female from changing her out of her rain-drenched clothes, she insists that he take her on as a pupil. Because pro bullfighting deaths still get publicity, Chica wants to die in the bullring, counting on Maria seeing the coverage of it.

Seche finds Chica and Antonio outside Seville's bullfighting stadium, worried sick over Chica. Naturally, he worries even more when he finds out what Chica wants to do and why.

Seche does some research on Antonio and finds out that the last matador Antonio coached, a star of bullfighting whose death rocked the country ten years ago when Chica was five, died because Antonio sent him back into the ring after a bull badly injured him.

We see that the matador, Francisco, begged to be allowed to finish the fight, and Antonio let him do so because he believes in "following the will of the matador." Even though Antonio says he doesn't regret letting Francisco make his fatal decision, he is clearly still haunted by it. Chica finds out the truth about Francisco, but would have been fine with Antonio being her coach regardless. (Antonio's professed feelings about what happened with Francisco aren't the only glaring example of self-deception in this volume. When Chica dated Maria, Maria scoffed at women who date men for being "fake" to impress them while imposing her own style onto Chica, who did/wore whatever she could to make Maria love her.)

Seche decides to become Chica's matador assistant so he can keep an eye on Antonio because he still doesn't trust him.

After months of training, Antonio takes Chica to a bull ranch, where she meets Vicente, the son of a famous matador who expects to be a bullfighting star himself. He doesn't endear himself much to Chica by assuming Seche is Antonio's new trainee instead of her. Chica faces off against her first bull, a smaller one than normal... and fails.

Like I said, this is a compelling series so far. Not only is its art top-notch, it's very well-written. I want to see how Chica and Antonio resolve their issues. (And crikey, I really want to give poor Chica a hug.) Chica herself is a spirited protagonist- as in her response to Antonio when he accuses her of being unable to stomach the sight of blood. (She sticks her hand down her pants, shows Antonio her bloody fingertips and is like, "I'm more than used to seeing blood, idiot.")

Like many a fictional trainee and coach, Chica and Antonio fall into the "hotheaded greenhorn/hard-assed instructor" dynamic, but are fleshed out beyond that enough to feel like people you might know.

Seche is realistic also- and I felt for him when Chica said she was sure he would threw her away at some point, even though they're like siblings. His approach to how Chica should resolve her issues (telling her she's selfish and should just forget Maria), while well-meaning, really misses the mark, but I got the impression that we aren't meant to see Chica's issues as something she can just snap out of through sheer strength of will- she isn't "weak", just in a lot of pain without seeing an end to it. (Fyi, Gar Gar Stegosaurus' Day wrote an excellent review of Sand Chronicles volume 1, better explaining the importance of suicidal feelings not being portrayed as a symptom of weakness.) If my impression is off the mark (I'm open to critique), or turns out to be, I am willing to revise it, of course.

In short, this series is worth reading for its characters, with est em's eye-popping artwork as icing on the cake. Golondrina certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm looking forward to volume 2.

Story: Surprisingly excellent.
Art: A
Overall: A-

"Golondrina" is Spanish for "swallow", as in the bird. I'm not sure what its significance as this series' title is. I suppose est em may have just thought it rolls off the tongue nicely, but I like to think she put at least a little more thought into it than that.

What I've Watched From the Current Season

Sorry about the long lack of posting here- blame it mostly on getting sick. Now that I've caught up on the new season, I'll comment on what I stuck with from the winter anime season and what I've seen from this season.

From the winter season, I stuck with Tamako Market and Doki Doki! Precure. I'm close to finishing Tamako Market and wish I liked it more than I do. But I'll see how it ends.

I went from hating Doki Doki! Precure to liking it to cursing whoever decided it needs a magic baby (I knew the magic baby was coming, but didn't think much about it until she was introduced. Guess Japanese parents are going to start being bugged into buying Precure baby dolls, in addition to Precure lunch boxes, coloring books, plushies, backpacks, bed sets, action figures, compacts, etc), to liking it again (although I would love to sit down with Mana and tell her that the explosive device set to go off inside her if she says no to doing anything anyone asks of her doesn't really exist), and then being like, "...Do I want to watch this for three more cours?"

I'm not a fan of Precure as a franchise. I really liked Heartcatch and have given the other seasons a shot. To Doki Doki's credit, at least, this is the farthest I've gotten in a Precure season after Heartcatch.

HJHGTYUGCLKHYUIFVK Shion and Yayoi's hands.

(Thanks to @angelx03 for pointing out this splendiferous example of official art.)

I continued to follow Psycho-Pass each week, and am happy with how it ended. (That said, if it ever gets a second season, I will watch the hell out of it.) I think it's very much worth watching, although I know that it isn't for everyone. Not just because some people will disagree with me about its quality, but because, as Erica noted, certain difficult-to-watch scenes may be triggering for some people. Again, I thought it was a great story all-around, and I got a canon lesbian couple I like* out of two of its side characters. 

*Bit of an understatement. Anyone following my tweets on this show knows that I set on Yayoi and Shion like a pack of wolves on a deer carcass.

Translation: 

Otsukaresama deshita. (Phrase used to laud someone for their hard work.)

Thank you very much ❀

Source: Hana's Pixiv.

*resisting the urge to dump more fan art*

I have also put Zetsuen no Tempest on my to watch list since a number of the people I follow on Twitter really got into it, and word is that it ended strongly.

As for what I've tried from the new season:

Aiura (2 episodes watched):
Aiura is, like this season's Yuyushiki, an adaptation of a 4-koma manga about three high school girls who are friends. In episode 1, Ayuko runs into Kanaka and Saki after buying an ice cream cone the day before her first day of high school. In episode 2, they meet each other again at school and become friends. Kanaka is the boke to Saki's tsukkomi, and the usual 4-koma pun-based humor ensues. This didn't leave any impression on me. I didn't particularly like its first two episodes or find them funny, but didn't really dislike them either. Since they're 2-3 minutes each (not counting their surprisingly long opening and ending themes), they didn't grate on me like episode 1 of Yuyushiki did.

Aiura is streaming on Crunchyroll. Available everywhere except in Japan for premium members, and everywhere except "East Asia, Southeast Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Iran & Afghanistan, and Southern Pacific" for free members.

I know Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil) is the big controversy of the season because of its rotoscoping, but it's a moot argument to me because I tried the first volume of the Aku no Hana manga and didn't like it. Don't see the point of trying it to opine on its visuals when I know its story isn't my cup of tea.

Arata Kangatari (Arata The Legend; 2 episodes watched):
My friends and I got hooked on the Fushigi Yuugi anime (and Ayashi no Ceres, to a lesser extent) in ye olde days of middle school. (The one friend I'm still close to from that group still owns the second half of Fushigi Yuugi while I own its first half, even though neither of us is into it anymore.) This is the first animated adaptation of a Watase Yuu series since Ceres in 2000. Watase became a shoujo juggernaut after Fushigi Yuugi, and Arata is her first shounen series, 17 volumes and still running in Weekly Shounen Sunday.

Arata is a high school boy whose former friend bullies him at school. Another friend throws him under the bus when some boys (including Arata's former friend) threaten to bully him for being friends with Arata. This series' depiction of bullying interests me because some other people and I had a discussion on Twitter a while ago about how rarely shounen deals with bullying- let alone realistically- compared to shoujo.

Apparently this animated adaptation abridges a LOT, including the bullying that informs how Arata reacts to much of what happens later. I plan on reading at least volume 1 of the manga, to see how different it is. Never gave it a chance before because I read a review some time ago ripping Arata as worse than Fushigi Yuugi's protagonist. Going from the anime, I don't see what's so bad about him. Unlike Miaka, he is an introvert and has some trust issues because of his two former friends, but he isn't whiny or immature or bumblingly incompetent or anything.

Arata's wish to disappear is granted when he switches places with a boy from another world, also named Arata. They each take on the other's appearance to the people around them- confusing for all involved because the two boys have very different personalities.

Protagonist-Arata finds that he is not only in a magic fantasy world, the boy he switched places with has been falsely accused of trying to kill that world's ruler, Princess Kikuri, by her twelve guardians. Watase being Watase, the Twelve Guardians are bishounen and probably have tragic backstories. It is one of the guardians, Kannagi, who attacked Kikuri while the other guardians looked on, before her magical defenses went up and she went into a self-preserving comatose state.

In episode 2, protagonist-Arata turns out to be capable of wielding a Hayagami (a relic weapon inhabited by a god) that was being kept by the clan the other Arata comes from. The Twelve Guardians are the only other people shown capable of using Hayagami. Protagonist-Arata (I'll just follow the other Arata's lead by calling him Hinohara from now on) manages to communicate with Arata because... it's a long story, but they get on the same page about what happened. Hinohara is put on trial for what happened to Kikuri. Kannagi has him sentenced to exile to some horrible place instead of execution because he wants to learn more about why Hinohara can use a Hayagami.

It's a solid show so far. Again, I'm curious about how much was left out by the manga, and how much of a difference that makes. It's easy to see the similarities to Fushigi Yuugi: the feudal China-influenced alternate world (although unlike in FY, Arata's alternate world isn't directly modeled on feudal China), the teen being spirited there, the betrayal of friendship, the magical fighting bishounen, and the communication between worlds using personal objects. This show isn't too much of a Fushigi Yuugi clone to stand on its own- Watase has tweaked the elements she's re-using enough to avoid that, and it helps that none of Arata's personalities have equivalents in Fushigi Yuugi so far- but watching it did feel like a blast from the past.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US and Canada.

Glass no Kamen desu ga (It's Glass Mask, but; 2 episodes watched):

A series of shorts parodying the characters of Glass Mask. The first episode reimagines Maya and Ayumi as "yankee" girls, Tsukikage-sensei as the leader of the Scarlet Angel gang, and Hayami as a cop. The second episode features the characters in an office setting, adding Hayami's fiancee to the mix.

This series kind of works as a one-time inside joke. Its first episode was weird more than anything, and made me want to try the next episode just to see how far the writers could take this series as a parody. While its first episode is no masterpiece, its second episode made me cry a little on the inside at how bad it was. Just watch or read Glass Mask.

Glass Mask is about a working class teenaged girl named Maya working her way towards being an actress worthy of the ultimate role- the Scarlet Angel. (Or Crimson Goddess, depending on the translation.) She meets a retired actress, Tsukikage-sensei, who sees the potential in her and helps her train. Hayami, a rich guy with a tragic past who initially gives Maya the impression of being a complete dick, secretly supports her as a fan, sending her roses and messages of encouragement.

Maya's biggest competition for the role of the Scarlet Angel is Ayumi, a girl of the same age whose parents are a famous actress and director. Ayumi wants to prove her worth outside her parents' shadow and is often, ironically, one of Maya's few pillars of support because she sees Maya as the only person who understands her, as the only person whose acting skills rival her own. In short, Glass Mask is excellent and you should watch or read it if you can- especially if you're looking for shoujo that isn't romance-centric, for a change of pace.

The 2005 Glass Mask anime adaptation (a.k.a. the good Glass Mask anime adaptation) is completely available on Crunchyroll. Can't find information on region restrictions, sorry. : \

Devil Survivor 2 the Animation (1 episode watched): 

I had to consciously try to remember what happened in this one.

A website that can show how other people would look dying gruesomely becomes popular. Devil Survivor 2's protagonist and his best friend sign up for it and see pictures of each other being crushed by a train. Specifically, the train that's about the arrive where they are. This makes them nervous, but they aren't able to leave before the train arrives. As they lie on the brink of dying, the mascot from that website asks if they're willing to make a contract to survive. They agree and download a demon-summoning app, surviving unscathed. The only other survivor is a girl from their class. The demon summoned by the app she downloaded saves them from the other demons that appeared there. Somehow, they make it outside the train station, where people are panicking about what happened. Everyone's cellphone reception goes dead and aliens attack. The protagonist fights the aliens off with the magic tiger his app summons, and the government people watching are amazed that he summoned it because it's an extra-special demon.

Eh. A lot happened- it just didn't leave much of an impression.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Hataraku Maou-sama! (The Devil is a Part-Timer!; 2 episodes watched):
The only funny comedy this season.

In a fantasy world where demons and humans are at war, the human side overtakes the demons, causing the demon king Satan and his henchman Alciel to retreat to our world. They wind up in Japan, where they have human bodies. A couple police officers mistake them as cosplayers. Satan and Alciel (now going by Maou Sadao and Ashiya Shirou, respectively) register as Japanese residents and settle into an apartment. Satan takes a part-time job at "MgRonald's" to help them get by, and they start acting like a bickering old married couple. At the end of this episode, Satan realizes that the woman he gave his umbrella to on the way to work is Emilia, the knight who led the human side of the war and drove him out of his world.

In episode 2, Emilia threatens to stab Satan but doesn't because, as he notes, she only has a flimsy one hundred yen knife. She stalks him for an opportunity to kill him, and instead realizes he's completely domesticated. She lives in a nicer apartment, but alone, and doesn't seem to be eating much better than Satan and Alciel. She works in customer service at Docodemo, a company modeled on Docomo, and goes by the name Yusa Emi. Just as Satan's Japanese surname plays off the Japanese word for "demon king", Emilia's plays off the word for "hero."

Emilia visits Satan at his workplace to challenge him to meet her after his shift, which he responds to by treating her like any other customer ordering a burger (which she ends up buying.) Satan's co-worker Chi gets jealous of Emilia, but he doesn't get it. (Thankfully, this plot point is miniscule, at least for now.) When Satan meets Emilia after work, an unseen assassin shoots magic bullets at them. Emilia winds up crashing at Satan and Alciel's apartment because she dropped her wallet running from the assassin. (Small handwave- she had to spend the night because she lost her wallet- presumably because she couldn't take the train without it- so if Satan could lend her a thousand yen to take the first bus home in the morning, couldn't he have just lent her the money to take the train home before it stopped for the night?)

Fun show so far. If you want a comedy that doesn't suck, you should check it out. I also find it refreshing that, fantasy trappings aside, it's about working young adults instead of, I don't know, more high schoolers. I'm not sure how seriously to take the assassination plot point right now. How will it affect this show's direction? Guess we'll see in the next episode.

Streaming on Funimation. US and Canada. Episode 3, which should have come out yesterday, is being delayed until Wednesday. Episode 4 is still scheduled to stream next Friday.

Kakumei Valvrave (Valvrave the Liberator; 1 episode watched):
The best show about mech-piloting this season- meaning that while it isn't good, it didn't bore and annoy me the way Majestic Prince did. (And unlike Majestic Prince, it doesn't have horrible character designs.) Valvrave is bad in a cheesy way- complete with a "wtf" moment after its ending credits. Valrave takes place in the far future, with humanity living in space. Some terrorists who fail at reading as threatening, despite this series' best efforts, attack Haruto's school. Haruto's crush is like, "Wait! I see someone knocked out in that car. I'll save them, nothing bad will happen to me!" right before being killed. Haruto winds up piloting a mech, causing Valvrave's equivalent of Twitter to explode (best part of the entire episode), and saves everyone.

So yup, pretty stupid, but entertaining in its own way. Not sticking with it, though.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, and Ireland.

Ketsuekigata-kun! (Blood type-kun!; 2 episodes watched):
As a lot of you know, blood types in Japan are associated with certain personality traits, like horoscopes.

This series, which runs at two to three minutes an episode, anthropomorphizes the different blood types to poke fun at their stereotypical behaviors- how they date in episode 1, and how they respond to societal expectations in episode 2. It is kind of interesting from the point of view of learning more about what the blood types are associated with- more specifically, since I'm narcissistic, seeing what my own blood type's supposed to be like, even though I know blood type personality traits don't hold any more water than horoscope personality traits.

I am amused that whoever's producing this show felt the need to include disclaimers telling viewers not to make fun of other people based on the blood type stereotypes riffed on in this show, and that the blood types' personalities are incidental and don't actually have anything to do with their blood types, even though that's the point of this show? I guess I fail at having type A blood, since I'm not shy about asking someone out, don't see social norms as a gospel of the only right way to live, and like trying new things. lol

Majestic Prince (1 episode watched):

Some teenagers are chosen to pilot ships in a special mission for a space war. I don't remember much else, except that there was a slickly animated space fight and the girl on the far right in the screencap above was really annoying. I think the lead was like, "No, I won't give up!" at some point. I can't say the same about continuing this series.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

Otona Joshi no Anime Time (Adult Women's Anime Time; 4 episodes watched):
In January 2011, NHK aired a one episode adaptation of a prize-winning work of fiction by a female author, under the name Otona Joshi no Anime Time. That episode is about a woman named Noriko who returns to her hometown five years after marrying and living abroad, now with a four year-old son and intending to divorce her husband.

She doesn't tell her family what she wants to do as far as we see because she doesn't want to spoil the enjoyment of being with them for the first time in years. She remembers Hisao, the man she fell in love with before she met her husband, and meets him to get closure on what happened between them. I thought this was an excellent character study of someone dealing with how her life played out versus how she wanted it to play out- and still taking action to move forward. (i.e. Divorcing her husband instead of stewing in misery "for the sake of the kid"- like kids can't pick up on their parents being unhappy- or some other reason.)

I've watched all three episodes of the Otona Joshi no Anime Time continuation that aired this past March, each based on a different prize-winning work of fiction by a woman. Each OJnAT episode was animated by a different studio- the 2011 one by The Answer Studio, the first 2013 one by Production Reed, the second 2013 one by BONES, and the third 2013 one by Wao World.

OJnAT's second episode is the most wish fulfillment-y of the bunch. It is also the one that anyone who reads this blog would have the easiest time predicting my response to.

This episode is about a woman named Mimi who leaves her cold, unappreciative husband for a man who has actual affection her and appreciates her cooking- albeit in a way that made me want to elbow him in the gut at points. I would side-eye any guy who calls any single woman who is younger than him an "onna no ko" ("girl"), and his analogy comparing Mimi to a pet was icky even though, I know, it was meant to parallel her feeling like the abandoned kittens he saved from dying. I couldn't get as irritated as I might have by Mimi having no life at all beyond cooking for, cleaning for, and having sex with her boyfriend because she had such a god-awful life before meeting him. Her boyfriend telling her that she's good at cooking is the first time anyone has told her she's good at anything, so, in a way, I can understand where she's coming from in making cooking for him her life's purpose. Kind of hard to begrudge someone starved almost to the point of dying being overjoyed at getting something to eat, you know.

In short, I can't say I liked this episode, even though it was well-executed. I did like how it combined live action footage and animation.

Otona Joshi no Anime Time's third episode is about Hatoko, an office worker approaching her fortieth birthday who has some interesting choices on her list of top ten life moments. lol She is single and spends a lot of nights with her good friend whiskey, thinking over her life's top ten. Even she recognizes that this is a sad way to spend time.

A lot of older folks, I imagine, would sympathize with Hatoko being like "Holy shit, I'm almost forty? It doesn't feel like I'm almost forty. My life really hasn't gone the way I wanted it to." I was amused by her flashback to she and her middle school best friend predicting with dead certainty what their lives would be like at twenty, thirty, forty and when they're in their twilight years. (Like I'm completely beyond doing that. >_>; )

Her life not only did not go as planned because she is single and never married, she has a job with a snotty kouhai and friends who don't listen to her when she brings up non-trivial topics.

She decides to attend her high school class reunion because her first boyfriend Yuusaku, who she dated for three weeks in middle school before he dumped her for an older girl, is attending. She counts her time dating Yuusaku as the high point of her life's top ten. (To give you a better idea of her standards for that list, her grandma's funeral is on it too.) She expects Yuusaku to be a handsome adult, and hopes sparks fly when they run into each other.

Hatoko's batshit plan aside, I liked the part of this episode taking place at her class reunion because, even only about five years out of high school, I've been surprised at finding out what has become of some old high school classmates.

Hatoko runs into Yuusaku at the reunion. Rather than go to the reunion's after party, they get drinks and go to a love hotel. She later finds out that he wasn't Yuusaku, and laughs it off. Good for her being able to laugh it off, but I don't know if I would count something like that as my top moment in life. lol Although, yeah, we've established that she has some unusual criteria for that list. She learns to cook using the insanely expensive cooking ware he scammed her into buying and enjoyed the time she spent with him in the hotel, so I guess she got something out of it.

My impression of this episode is mixed- it is one part amusingly relatable, one part stupid and one part unintentionally funny. It also has my favorite art style of the OJnAT episodes.

OJnAT's fourth episode made me want to call home and apologize for taking so much for granted. It's a heartbreaking look at Maho, a woman who works as a cashier at night to support her family after her husband loses his job. Her husband, college-aged son, and high school-aged daughter don't care about how much she's doing for them, and her elderly mother only wants her to listen to her complaints, never listening to Maho.

Maho emotionally hits rock bottom before essentially telling everyone to go fuck themselves and deciding that she will live for herself more. The make-up drawn on her from that point on is a nice touch. I like that this episode focuses on family instead of romance, for a change of pace in this series. It's a rather bleak portrait of a family, but it's an involving one and also very much worth watching as a character study of Maho.

Railgun season 2 (1 episode watched):
I feel confident saying that the people writing the Railgun anime adaptations write Railgun better than its original creator. I lost interest in the Railgun manga, but still look forward to seeing how this season plays out.

While season one of the Railgun anime followed the Level Upper arc by resolving Kiyama-sensei's quest to save the children Academy City used as guinea pigs, in the manga, she gets carted off to jail after Mikoto defeats her and we never see or hear of her again.

The second season's first episode nicely bridges the two seasons, as Mikoto, Kuroko, Saten, Uiharu, and Uiharu's roommate Harue visit Banri (one of the kids Mikoto and the others saved at the end of season 1, and best friends with Harue) in the hospital to give her a present. A criminal recovering in that hospital makes a break to escape with help from his friends, taking Harue hostage in the process. Of course, things turn out fine, with Mikoto, Kuroko, Uiharu and Saten all getting chances to be awesome. Early on, we also meet Misaki, a Queen Bee at Mikoto and Kuroko's school who uses her mind-control ability to warn Mikoto from challenging her status in their school.

In short, fun episode. It highlighted the characters who made the first season great (the Sisters Arc's biggest weakness in the manga is its dearth of Kuroko, Saten and Uiharu (well, that and Touma lol; couldn't care less about him or the Index series); here's hoping they appear at least a little more in the animated adaptation of it), and I'm looking forward to watching episode 2 this Sunday. My only complaint about Funimation's treatment of this series is their translating Kuroko's "Oneesama" as "Sissy." That one stupid translation choice isn't a deal breaker for me, but, well, it is stupid.

Like Railgun season 1, Railgun season 2 is streaming on Funimation. US and Canada.

Red Data Girl (1 episode watched):
15 year-old Izumi lives at the Tamakura shrine, where she was raised. One day, she gives herself a haircut before going to school because she wants to be different. Because her hair is tied to her powers, which influence electronic devices, her haircut affects how her abilities manifest.

Her absent father wants her to go to school in Tokyo, but she tells him that she will stay in her hometown and he has no right to make decisions for her since he's never around. Unfortunately, this is the only spirit we see from her the entire episode.

Her guardian, a man named Sagara who looks like he could be her brother even though he has a son her age, picks her up early from school. He takes her to a hospital to have her abilities tested. When he brings her home, we meet Sagara's son Miyuki, who is Izumi's destined guardian and an asshole. Going from the next episode preview, he will become Izumi's love interest. Blech.

I don't see any reason to watch more based on this episode- especially because I found so little to like about Izumi and so much to dislike about Miyuki.

Red Data Girl is streaming on Funimation. US and Canada.

Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan; 2 episodes watched):
In a Medieval Europe-like setting, Eren and his adopted sister Mikasa live in a city bordered with fifty meter walls meant to keep out the man-eating giants, called Titans, that roam outside. The walls have held out the Titans for a hundred years. Eren doesn't want to spend his entire life inside the walls, and thinks that doing so is living like livestock. He plans to join the Recon Forces that venture outside the walls to attempt to reduce the Titans' numbers and learn more about them.

The day his parents find out what he wants to do, Eren's father leaves on a trip, telling Eren he'll show him what is in their basement after returning. A sixty foot Titan then breaks down the outermost wall, Wall Maria. A lot of townspeople are either crushed by rubble or eaten. The latter fate befalls Eren and Mikasa's mother as a friend of hers forcibly carries them to safety on her request. Her legs being incapacited, she couldn't run away herself.

In episode 2, Eren, Mikasa and their friend Armin make it out of the breached territory, into the safety of the land surrounded by Wall Rose. Because the refugees put a strain on Wall Rose's food supply, the citizens of Wall Rose send the adult refugees on a doomed "campaign" to reclaim Wall Maria's territory. A few years later, Eren, Mikasa and Armin join the youths being trained to kill Titans in the event of future attacks.

I like this show (it's in my top 3 of the season, with Gargantia and Railgun), but you might loathe it. Why might you loathe it?

• The brutality of its premise. Too stupid to converse and driven to eat humans for the sake of eating humans- not for nourishment- the Titans are kind of like zombies, except that they aren't dead and can swallow you whole if they feel like it. I've taken a look at the manga, and the anime isn't as violently graphic, but there's still no shortage of blood spraying and horrific implications here. I am a horror fan and am completely fine watching something like The Walking Dead, so, although I am not a gorehound, my tolerance for that kind of thing is higher than most people's. (Although I still can't stand torture porn.)
• Araki Tetsuro, who directed Death Note, Kurozuka, Guilty Crown, and High School of the Dead, is directing this series. His vision is not subtle. As with this show's premise, I can understand some people being repelled by it. Even though there are a couple points in these first two episodes at which the direction feels overwrought to the point of being cartoonish (like when the leader of the Recon Forces snaps and rants that they haven't gained anything, for all the soldiers they've lost, after the mother of a fallen soldier asks him if her son's death helped the human cause), it mostly doesn't bother me and fits the mood the story's going for.

My biggest knock against this series is the question of how the huge walls meant to keep out the Titans were built after the Titans appeared. It would be an easy enough plot point to address- say, by making it that the walls existed before the Titans showed up and the surviving people in the area retreated behind them after things went to hell. For now, I'll stay hopeful that this plot point will be addressed satisfactorily.

Attack on Titan isn't high art, but I like it as popcorn entertainment/effective horror/a shounen series that will end, and want to see where it goes. Adding icing to the cake, Okazu reported that this series will have a yuri character named Ymir, who looks to be one of the teens training to fight the Titans.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, and Ireland.

Sparrow's Hotel (1 episode watched):

Easily the worst-looking show this season, Sparrow's Hotel is another series composed of shorts.

Sparrow's Hotel follows the staff at a hotel. Most of the gags revolve around busty, none-too-bright, physically formidable Sayori, pictured above- Sayori fishing a hotel key out of her cleavage because she wanted to keep it warm for a (pretty startled) customer, her disappointing a customer who thought she was asking him out by being like "Do you have any plans after your stay in this hotel? Do you want to make an extended reservation?", mistaking a customer's love confession as his saying he loves the hotel, and making apple juice for a drunk customer by smashing an apple with one hand.

Hopefully next time someone adapts a 4-koma manga about grown-ups, it will be one that is good.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll didn't list their region restrictions for this show when they announced it, but said they would later. I can't find any further news from them on that.

Suisei no Gargantia (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet; 2 episodes watched): 

Urobuchi Gen's first one cour series since Madoka Magica, Gargantia is very good so far.

Urobuchi isn't doing as much work on this series as he did on Madoka and Psycho-Pass, but he is still in charge of its series composition. For anyone not sure, being in charge of a show's series composition = being the head writer, who directly writes at least one episode and plans out the rest of the series, supervising any other writers involved to make sure they write in keeping with how s/he wants the show to come out. Urobuchi scripted the first episode of Gargantia. The person who scripted episode 2, Tanimura Daishiro, has worked on several projects- including the screenplay for Wasurenagumo, which is an unsettling gem of a short horror movie. (Utterly different from Titan's brand of horror, for those of you who don't like Titan.)

As loads of other people have noted, Gargantia is a change of pace for an Urobuchi show- lighter in tone than Madoka, F/Z, and P-P.

Gargantia's protagonist Ledo is a soldier living in the distant future, in which mankind has moved into space and created a territory called Avalon for its most privileged. The computer running the battle mech that Ledo pilots tells him he has spent enough time on duty to earn four weeks of eating, sleeping, and reproducing as he pleases in Avalon after he finishes his current tour, to which Ledo has a pretty lukewarm reaction.

When Ledo and his fellow soldiers retreat from a battle against their alien enemy, the Hideauze, a Hideauze intercepts Ledo and he gets knocked off course. Ledo's mech wakes him up months later on what turns out to be Earth, which he thought had been rendered uninhabitable long ago.

Apparently global warming happened, so the people of Earth live on floating communities. The Earth people aren't nearly as technologically advanced as Ledo and, despite the obvious technical superiority of Ledo's mech over anything they have and their old legends about how some people left Earth to go to space when the Earth underwent major changes, are skeptical when he says he comes from space.

A teenaged girl named Amy believes Ledo and befriends him, and is the only one on his side when the leaders of her community discuss what they should do about him. They only agree not to do anything to Ledo because they fear he has companions out there who might want revenge. Unlike the grown-ups, Amy's kid brother thinks Ledo sounds awesome, and her two best friends are benignly curious about him.

When pirates attack in episode 2 (for all the warmth in the Earth scenes up to this point, mostly because of Amy, this series is blunt about the fact that pirates can really fuck you up if they target you), Amy asks Ledo to use his mech to help. He agrees, figuring that it will make a good bargaining chip. He kills all of the pirates with such quick, literally laser-focused precision that the Earth folks must realize by now that trying to do anything to him would have been suicidal.

Despite Gargantia's warmth- especially for an Urobuchi show- I fear for what might happen to the Earth characters if/when Ledo's people find him because of the distress signal he sent out. ^_^;

Gargantia's first episode did a great job establishing the differences between Ledo's society (which a friend and I jokingly called "Psycho-Pass in space") and Earth's society-  it imparted a lot by showing instead of telling. (And I'll admit I laughed at Ledo's mech's over-literal translation of Amy's cursing. I like how the language difference between Ledo and the Earth characters is being handled in general- more realistically than that kind of thing normally is in entertainment.) Episode 2 further established the characters, and... well, I'm excited to see how it'll play out. It's a well-written sci-fi adventure, and its visuals are sharp to boot.

Streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, and Portugal.

Yuyushiki (1 episode watched):
Three best friends start high school. One of them is the sensible tsukkomi and the other two act as boke. There's some yuri-flavored humor that isn't going to lead anywhere. (Mostly the pink-haired one intentionally flustering the blonde by being like, "Let me kiss you on the cheek! Let me grab your boobs! Can you lick this ice cream off my face?") There are a lot of unfunny puns also. I don't expect anything ambitious from a show like Yuyushiki, but I don't think it's too much to expect to not be bored.

Yuyushiki is streaming on Crunchyroll. US, Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Manga Review: Asagao to Kase-san volume 1

Takashima Hiromi's Asagao to Kase-san (Morning Glories and Kase-san) hails from Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, a relative fledgling in the admittedly not very big world of yuri magazines. (You've basically got Yuri Hime and Hirari. Tsubomi recently stopped being printed, but its publisher has continued its unfinished series online.) Asagao to Kase-san doesn't travel any ground that hasn't been tread many a time, but it's a sweet, sincere falling-in-love-in-high-school series that I look forward to seeing develop beyond the point it reaches in this volume.

Yamada is the plant appointee at her school. She loves gardening, so this duty suits her to a tee. Every morning, she comes to school to water the plants. One morning she sees popular, attractive Kase, the star member of her school's track and field team, taking care of the morning glories she planted. After their conversation that morning, Yamada can't get Kase out of her head. It's made apparent to us that Kase likes Yamada back. They start hanging out, neither quite realizing that their interest is mutual.

When Yamada's best friend notices that she's spending an awful lot of time with Kase, she tells her that rumor has it Kase is gay and her ex is on the track and field team also. (But oh, don't worry, Kase's standards are probably too high for your level, Yamada, she half-jokingly adds.) Yamada gets jealous of Kase's rumored ex and can't bring herself to mention it to Kase. I would like to see the gossip about Kase being gay addressed further in this series.

Kase, tipped off by Yamada's worried best friend, saves Yamada from a karaoke outing with some of the other girls in her class, who don't make any bones about how much of a loser they think she is and make fun of her singing. As someone who sucks at singing but enjoys doing it anyway, I sympathize with Yamada. lol This chapter's resolution is really cute.

Later, Kase helps Yamada buy sneakers and train for the race at their school's athletic festival so she won't lag behind too badly. (My favorite moment in this volume, btw, is the semi-hand holding scene after they go shopping.)

Yamada gets injured in the race. Kase panics when she sees her all bloodied and bandaged up in the infirmary window and forgets the race to run to Yamada. As a result, they finally become a couple. ^_^

So yup, this is a cute series so far. :-) Yamada and Kase are both pleasant, likeable people, and their tentative, none-too-complicated steps towards coupledom make for some enjoyable reading. Although this series is a good example of solid character writing making well-trodden territory still entertaining, I count the expressiveness of Takashima Hiromi's character renderings (which come close to being precious, but manage not to cross that line, imho) as this series' biggest asset so far- particularly how she draws Yamada's reactions.

This volume isn't going for anything ambitious- a feel-good look at two people who like each other- but it does what it is trying to do well. I look forward to seeing where this series goes in its next volume's worth of content, which will focus on the much less-covered territory of two girls who are already going out moving forward.

Story: B
Art: B+
Overall: A smile-inducing B

Some takeaways from the news about ALC Publishing

You surely are familiar with this news. (Sorry for the slowness in posting this. Was under the weather earlier this week, and the original draft of this thing was kind of messy and all over the place, so I decided to wait and come back to it.)

In the comments of my previous post, on JManga, I commented on how, even though I like and appreciate JManga, I would have liked it more if their titles had been available as download to own- even knowing that licensing manga is a complicated process that I know little about, having never worked in it, and there's only so much a licensor has control over when negotiating with the (not necessarily forward-thinking or reasonable) company that holds the rights it wants. I know, even typing this, that I'm just an armchair quarterback commenting on the pros.

ALC did with the excellent yuri manga Rica'tte Kanji!? what I (and many others) consider the ideal means of selling manga digitally- making it available as a downloadable, DRM-free ebook. The digital Rica omnibus (with more story material than the original print version) was priced lower than the original print version at $4.99 and $5.99, the $5.99 version coming with more nifty extras than the $4.99 version. With enough digital copies of the Rica omnibus sold, ALC could put out a print version of it, which is what a lot of people held off buying the digital version for. It's a catch-22 that didn't translate into good sales. (Btw, the Rica omnibus is still purchasable electronically, and one can still read it online for free.)

I'm focusing on the low sales for the digital release of Rica in my reaction to the news about ALC here because I- apparently naïvely- expected its sales to be better than they were, and saw it as a model for how manga (and books, period!) should be sold digitally. That is, as close as possible to what it is like to buy a print book, with your purchase not dependent on whether whoever you bought it from remains in business.

Anywho, thanks to ALC, I got to read some great yuri by mangaka who would not be sought out by other manga publishers, being josei and independent. I also saw Poor Poor Lips and a bunch of Yuri Hime titles licensed thanks to ALC's partnership with JManga. Yeah, it didn't work out, but better to try and not succeed than not try at all- something that a lot of people fail to grasp.

In short, I am thankful for what ALC has done during its years in business, appreciate the effort Yuricon has put into events in the past (a lot of people talk about wanting a yuri panel or event where they live, but few take action to make it happen; if you really want one and there isn't one in your area, stop talking and walk the walk, unless you live in an area where holding an event focusing on fictional lesbian relationships wouldn't fly), and look forward to continuing to read Okazu.