Well, well.

I didn’t see the point of the gang except to show that Akane is a bad girl. But it’s so sweet that Akino saves Mari, and Mari throws herself at Akino.

The heroine saves the damsel in distress. “Hers and hers” towel in the bathroom for them! Ooooh.

Akino’s willing to betray her whole race for the sake of Mari, and Mari’s definitely falling for her. So I was right! In movies, sitcom, drama, and even anime, couples fall in love by arguing.

But the supreme commander of the fleet isn’t going to let her go free and easy.

By protecting Mari, she’s definitely incurred wrath onto herself.

For whatever odd reason, when she choked Mari in episode 1, I knew they were going to fall in love. I was thinking Eva, when Shinji choked Asuka by the end of the movie.

There isn’t a heavy sense of these girls obviously falling fiercely in love like Strawberry Panic. But the school is exactly like a secret garden of the girls…It’s just so sweet Mari throws herself at Asuka…I mean Akino…Uh.

Interesting tactic by firing a huge ass frozen ice stake at the enemy using…”boson jump” from Nadesico, or “transporter” similar to Star Trek. Interesting tactic, indeed. I kind of expected some kind of Nadesico scenario where Akino would become just like Yurika and out maneuver and user superior strategy to defeat the enemy. Oh well, it’s a yuri show. I’m perfectly happy seeing girls in love with each other.

That probe/capturing device with tentacles on the other hand….0___________O …I wonder how many male doujin authors are going to make great doujinshi out of it. I hope they feature both Akino and Mari gets probed and played and they get so turned on…

Ahem, in any case. the drama here is not bad, but it isn’t soul shaking, either.

85% recommended for your daily anime diet.

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OK, first Hagino chokes Mari, and then she moves in with her, and then next time she’s touched by Mari she writhes in (ecstatic) pain, and then the two of them see who stay up the longest. Then Hagino goes away for some time and Mari misses her terribly.

Wow, girl love is beautiful. Even the lovers’ quarrel looks so cute…Ooh.

Whatever the voodoo Hagino does, she leaves a deep impression in Mari’s mind. Hence when she’s away. we keep on seeing the shot of her space next to Mari being empty.

Hagino finally decides to obey the order to mobilizes blue, much to the delight of her first officer. Also, Hagino goes back to the ship and back to her post as captain.

It’s interesting that their planet has no men, and yet they still dress in a psudo-one piece swim suit like uniform. Must be because they want to attract each other by showing off their legs. It looks like they’re shaved.

We learn that the captain of the flagship of the fleet wants to investigate about the incident on that island, which looks like it’s caused by the battleship Blue. We also learn that the more masculine first officer on the flagship (of course I’m stereotyping!) was in love with the formal first officer(?) of Blue. We also learn that it seems like during a jump, the first officer of Blue died. I wonder if this has something to do with the burning of the island where Mari lived.

In any case, Hagino’s beginning to have feelings for Mari as well, and she’s in denial. Mari just doesn’t realize her feelings for Hagino and Hagino is denying her feelings…Ooh, how cute.

Other stuff happen and we get to learn how much of a rich, spoiled girl Mari is. She can’t even cook spaghetti. We at the States say that you just can’t do spaghetti wrong. But, she does.

The classroom teacher gets into the Bijisan’s (dean’s) car, and girls are screaming jealousy.

I felt the emotional responses from the women (are there real men in this anime) are genuine and believable. Each woman has her own distinguish personality and no bimbos live here. The music is nice as usual and the animation hasn’t degraded at all. The plot certainly thickens as the captain of the flagship will be instigate the tragedy that happened 5 years ago when Blue was at the island.

My only question is: did a man or a woman draw this manga? I can see women liking Escaflowne because the mecha can be passed off as knights, but space battleships? That’s a big element of space opera, and last I checked, women don’t usually care for giant space battle cruisers with its crew dressed in one-piece swimsuits. But my recommendation is

84% recommended for your daily anime diet. Yuri is so beautiful…And every episode has a flower name…Poetic. I hope Hagino and Mari will confess to each other and go to the secret garden where they make sweet love…Ahem.

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Between the three bloggers on this site, it looks like we’ve covered pretty much every major show except Shana 2 (none of us have seen season 1). This is my opinion on shows we’ve already covered: Blue Drop, Dragonaut, ef-a tale of memories, Gundam 00, Genshiken 2, and Mokke. You can read Ray’s articles in the links provided.

Blue Drop 1 (Ray’s Review of 1 and 2)

Now that’s more like it. If there was ever a show that was calculated to make me swallow yuri, it would be this one. :) It’s the only show this whole season that to me as any degree of genuine aesthetic beauty–beautiful music, beautiful imagery, emotional nuance (with one slight misstep in an unnecessary slapstick scene near the end in the cafeteria). It is slow, though, slow on the edge of boring, but given my tastes for European art film, I didn’t find it unbearable in the least. Mari is already an interesting character, though Senkouji, the alien girl, is still a rather blank personality so far (despite her sudden KILL ALL HUMANS activation program or something). The flowers were also a bit much, I think, a bit too shoujo-y for even my taste, and certainly all the hint we need that sometime soon there will be wink-wink-nudge-nudge-saynomore going on. Lovers always start by fighting. But I found the birds around Senkouji in the start to be rather beautiful. Gonzo did a good job animating that scene.

I am keeping a close eye on this one. I need some seriousness in my diet too, you know.

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Man, Higino is very torn.

She wants to make sweet love to Mari, but she tries to strangle her in the last episode, and now when she touches Mari, she writhes in agony.

All right, all right, seriously. What this episode tells me is that Mari’s full name may not even be Watatake Mari. Not only her last name may not be hers, but her first name (Mari) may be added to her. In short, we’re not sure (except those who read the manga) if she’s even from earth.

She has the power to make Hagino’s true, blue-eyed self come out. The first time when that happened, Hagino’s beast within tries to kill Mari. This time, Hagino feels awful about something that happened and she cries while curling up into a ball.

It’s Shinji VS Asuka dilemma.

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For everyone who has followed my reviews you know I’m rather critical and I favor shows that grab me within the first 5 minutes or so. So take this one with a grain of salt.

Previously, I wrote that I felt this one would be an introspective show. Looks like I was right. The atmosphere this show gives off is subdued, quiet, and thoughtful. A little bit like Makoto Shinkai’s work, but not as happy and nostalgic. In fact, like the first episode of Mushi-Uta, we get to see strong evidences of the decline of rural towns in Japan, possibily due to economic downturn, though we are not told of that.

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Wow, I didn’t know this one has been on Youtube for a couple of months already. Hats off to those of you who have already seen it and have been panting for yuri for a couple of months…I mean been anticipating some great drama and friendship issues. Anyway, I just watched it and here are my thoughts.

I can see the color is quite bright even though they tried to tone that down a little. CG colors are never muted, dull or earthy. In any case, a little bit of Makoto Shinkai nostalgia in the colors and background, and I also got the vibe of Eva and Rahxephon from it. The shots remind me of preview animations for large-scale graphical novel games. Actually the setting itself reminds me of Sci-Fi graphic novel games for some reason. Anyway, it looks like it will have some serious introspections and reflections. But we also get that huge space battle ship.

There’s a good but lonely feeling emanating just from the preview. This definitely looks like it’s going to be a thoughtful show.

I’m looking forward to the yuri and other elements. Let me know what you think.

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