This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
I too, used to wonder if Yoji Enokido was the true genius behind BePapas.
And then I found out he was involved in Eva 3.0 Q
Oh well.
On Penguindrum:
I, too, like the show (or I'd never have incorporated it into my Seinen Kakumei Xover) I think it's flaws, on top of the weaker character-presentation when compared to SKU, has to do with its treatment of this:
Me in PMMM Thread wrote:
The Japanese - which harbors a strongly ingrained culture of social bullying - see an “occurrence of crime” as being “a lasting tragedy”.
In almost all Detective Jdrama, most of the criminals are depicted as people who’re “grieving” due to some failing/injustice in their society. At the same time, said crime (it could be of the non-murder variety) – no matter what noble/choiceless motive is behind it – will always be given huge gravity, to the point that the criminal is considered guilty for life, beyond whatever sentence they’ve legally served. Proven criminals in Japan – be they men or women, underaged boys or girls - are shamed by their unsympathetic society as “monsters”, and can expect to be “punished” unto their deaths.
So, supposing a PMMM “witch” is a “grieving girl who end up a heavy-crime criminal”, then you can be sure Japanese society will treat her as a monster beyond redemption - a thing deserving of destruction.
The unsympathetic fear/hatred Japanese Society has for its “criminals” extends also to the criminal’s family members, who are considered guilty by association (think the Takakura siblings in Mawaru-Penguindrum). The unfortunate family members can expect to have rocks thrown through their windows, “Murderer!”graffiti sprayed across their front doors, losing their jobs, losing their schooling, etc, etc . . . and they’re expected to endure it without protest, and be made to continuously apologize for the crime their related-committed, because society says they are guilty too.
Remember how MP’s Momoka pressed Shouma and Kanba to offer up their Penguindrums while knowing it means their death? This is because she, as a Kiga Victim, has the right to claim the Terrorists' kids' lives according to the Japanese view. Remember how Shouma was initially against Kanba painting their house to cheer up Himari? He fears drawing the attention of the self-righteous – or god forbid, the victims’ family – that would inevitably lead to their being persecuted. Such fear is proven valid by Tabuki; friend of a Victim, the man ended up hurting/terrorizing the Takakura children - even while knowing it is wrong on a rational level. Remember how Shouma refuses Ringo’s friendship for some episodes after finding out she is related to a Kiga Victim? Japanese society corners the Criminal’s Family and the Victim’s Family both such that they can only be Enemies. This is also why Shouma and Kanba MUST die (they present it as a magical erase/reincarnation) at the end: Tokyo Subway Attack is a real life event, and having an anime showing the terrorists’ blood-related children flat-out surviving would cause public outrage in Japan even in this day. Being “tainted” by their fathers’ blood, Shouma and Kanba (and even adopted Himari) can only be allowed happiness if they’re “no longer Takakuras”. MP, being a Shoujo Fantasy, uses magic to accomplish this, and turns the boys’ “death” into something “freeing/rewarding”.
Through Penguindrum, Ikuhara and his team tackled the Japanese society’s vile tendency on using “guilt by association” on criminal’s relatives (the entire punishment theme of the show – how even an adopted daughter of criminals deserves ‘punishing’ by illness); they also tackled the society being unsympathetic to the crime victim’s family thing (see the Seedy Reporter hounding Ringo scene). However, the team STILL refuse to allow the Takakura trio to find salvation as Takakuras (likely out of fear of offending surviving families from the real-life 95 Tokyo Subway Attack), and gave them an ending that basically says “If you’re a criminal’s relative, adopted or otherwise, then you deserves punishing by the world even if the victim’s family say they forgive you; you can either completely erase your tainted family name or you can die: pick one.” This is such a downer of a de-powering underlying message for the ending, that not even the great music and animation and magical rebirth can lift it back up for me.
On Yuri Bear:
I heard it's coming out this July (which is just a month's wait) so I'll reserve judgement till then.
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The rumour said that Yuri Kuma Arashi would be coming out this July.
It is now July, and we haven't even had so much as new promo material, never mind a trailer or a homepage update. I think it's safe to say that that particular rumour is false, since even Ikuhara wouldn't be so much of a troll as to release a new series without promoting it in some way first.
Anyway, I did a bit of digging around by googling ユリ熊岚, and I've found a more level-headed summary of the original PV that was shown at March's SKU exhibition.
Here's the blog entry in Japanese, and the translation for it comes from an anonymous person on this... 4chan-like site: archive.foolz.us/a/thread/82306129/
Anonymous wrote:
From what I was able to get with my poor Japanese skills is that the PV starts with these lines:
>Are you "YURI"?
>Is that a sin?
>The "YURI" trial begins.
The MC's name is Kureha. It seems she has a dislike for bears, for whatever reason. She saves some bear from a truck accident, but ends up pulling some assault weapon out of nowhere and shoots the bear dead. The dead bear splits into two.
The words "The meeting that wasn't meant to be, between a person and 2 bears," "Miraculous meeting," and "Unforgivable mistake" are shown.
A spinning 3D object rolling around with the words 「罪Guilty」 (Guilty of sin) is shown.
Anyhow, later on those 2 bears turned into human girls. One is named Ginko and the other one Ruru. They went to live together with Kureha, and in the PV they are shown getting naked, taking a bath together and hugging while doing so. The one writing the entry described it as erotic.
It seems that while the bears can transform into humans, they-re not yet humans but they want to become humans.
There's also a trial, in which the scene itself seemed like the summoning of the PotC in Penguindrum - you know, some whacky atmosphere. The judges are 3 men.
The words "365 days until the fated kiss" "YURI acknowledgment" were said and they're sealed with a bear stamp. The PV ends there.
It's not that much more informative than the Baidu post, but if nothing else, at least it makes it sound less like a tacky male-gaze-fest.
Also, the "365 days" thing makes me wonder if the release date is more likely to be sometime next year.
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Yep . . . looks like the July release thing I saw on baidu is just not true after all
MikoGalatea wrote:
Also, the "365 days" thing makes me wonder if the release date is more likely to be sometime next year. emot-confused
I read somewhere the 365 days is how long the bears can disguise themselves as human girls . . . but I'm no longer sure of anything, since the info scrapes are just so vague and far between.
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Any updates on the anime? it been a while since we got anything new.
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No news lately, unfortunately. Ikuhara isn't even bringing it up on twitter. He used to tease that he was going to "meetings" and put a bear emoticon next to it. But he hasn't brought it up again for a few months. So I don't know what's going on with it. I still can't believe no one leaked the PV.
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.....Ikuhara has a twitter?
You know, I don't know why I'm surprised, really. I mean, everyone except me has a twitter. Gio got a twitter just so she could keep an eye on Bryan Fuller's twitter. I guess I can convince her to also check on Ikuhara's. Maybe.
I don't trust him, though. I think someone needs to keep an eye on him.
Wait, no, that's not what I meant....
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I'm a little surprised you didn't already follow Ikuhara. I added him on my Twitters, justifying it with, "It'll force me to practice my Japanese because I'll want to put forth the effort to translate what he says!" Hahahaha, no. So every now and then incomprehensible gibberish shows up in my feed(I'm sure it would be so even if I translated it...).
Edit: Your murdering emojis crack me up. Where do they come from? I don't want to try and find out on my own and end up with all the viruses.
Last edited by Frau Eva (08-29-2013 03:42:08 PM)
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Honestly, the only time I like twitter is when I'm looking at the Florida Man twitter (Police Find Florida Man Naked, Tripping On Mushrooms And Walking Dog Through Neighborhood/Florida Man Busted For Drugs While Having Sex In Car With Relative). Other than that I stay away from it, I'm already at info overload.
Those emotes are from Something Awful, and there's a bunch of them trialing on the forum right now. Use them if you like them, because I'd like to add a few of them.
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I know a few forum members went to the Utena event, though I'm not sure if it was the same Utena event where the PV was shown. (There are so many events going on now!) So, I was wondering if anyone may have seen the pv with their own eyes?
Here's someone describing it, but it's in Japanese:
http://web.archive.org/web/201306130843 … /24/051344
Last edited by HonorableShadow (09-13-2013 06:01:47 AM)
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......That's what I get for responding to the fact that I'm slowly forgetting HTML by ignoring any sort of code exists ever. I WILL NOW USE ALL THE THINGS
Honestly, I'm not all that surprised for the delayed start. He took, what, about ten years to make another series after Utena? I was honestly really shocked when I saw something for a new project so soon. It seems immediate even for more prolific directors. Likely he has a few things together for it, but was just being way too premature.
Last edited by Frau Eva (09-13-2013 10:20:33 PM)
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HonorableShadow wrote:
Here's someone describing it, but it's in Japanese:
http://web.archive.org/web/201306130843 … /24/051344
Thanks, HS! So, the translation of the PV Content from google translate
The contents of the PV
The story was as follows: When you interpret to rely on memory . First caption is displayed .
" Are you a lily ? "
"It's a sin? "
" Yuri begin trial "
What do you refer to the lily . What is sin? What is lily trial . Without even afford to think about the meaning of words , the title of " lily bear storm " is displayed Ave Maria flows .
Hero is like a long-haired girl cream color called " red feather " . ( There is a grudge ?) Hate bear is the , but encountered the scene of the truck accident one day , she tries to kill him with a gun shooting spree the bear was there . She is to have a gun for some reason . About two life-size to the last bear at this time is " bear " .
The " bear of two people and one person that should not meet ", " meeting miracle " and " mistakes that are not allowed "
3D objects drawn as " sin Guilty " will rotate round and round .
Then , two bear head seems to have turned into a human girl as " Ginsu " and " Lulu " , living together with three red feather begins . Along the way, scenes Eros is followed by skirt or rolled up , jump into a bath together , and hugging each other or in the nude .
It seems that hope " want to be a human soon " Lulu and Ginsu Apparently, want to be a true human .
The trial will begin . In the atmosphere such as the summoning scene in Purikuri teddy bear -like , in a different dimension , such as CG, the units of the presiding judge that was decorated with flowers . Three men who judge them appeared there .
PV exit stamp " 365 days to go until the kiss of fate " and " Lily approval ! " Bear sign is pressed .
... I do not think travel well to the person you're writing even if I do say so myself , you are reading , but saw the PV of 2 minutes before and after it was video as described above.
Okay, it sounds like the previous content info I got from Baidu like months ago was actually pretty accurate after all. There's definitely gonna be a lot of male gaze fanservice (Ikuni has been trying really trying hard to draw in the fanboys since Penguindrum). At the same time, the "men who judge" seems to point at some SKU-ish men-judging-women thing going on somewhere in there too . . . so feminist fangirls should also have something to angst over/analyze too.
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Almost a year after it was first announced, we finally have something resembling news about Yuri Kuma Arashi! It's getting a manga starting from the end of February, so sayeth Anime News Network. It's drawn by Akiko Morishima (who has also drawn the female-targeted yuri manga Hanjuku-Joshi), will be running in Comic Birz (best known for running Hetalia) and based just on that one preview photo, it looks pretty cute.
The "intellectual fantasy" follows Kureha, a "transparent" high school girl who is plain and is barely noticed by others. Seemingly every night, she has a "dream about a bear and transparent storm." In this dream, her mysterious classmate Ginko Yurishiro appears in the form of a bear.
Still nothing about the actual anime, but maybe we'll get something soon now that we're hearing about a manga and finally seeing some character designs?
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News! At last!
"Intellectual fantasy", huh?
Thanks, Miko, for again drawing my attention to this
Edit: I guess this really drives the point home about just what "transparent/invisible" people stand for in Penguindrum, same with "the non-special" in Utena.
Last edited by gorgeousshutin (01-30-2014 09:19:48 AM)
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Ahh, I was really hoping for an anime instead of a manga to be honest. Partly because I'm not a big manga person and partly because I think it will be hard for us to get scans of it. For instance, the Mawaru Penguindrum manga hasn't had scans since chapter one. ;_; I don't want to be left out of Ikuhara's new project!
Well anyway, hopefully it will be good. I'm still looking forward to it!
Last edited by HonorableShadow (01-31-2014 11:10:58 AM)
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Depending on how fanservicey/male gaze-y it is and if any scan group picks it up, I might be tempted to try an non-pro translation for my own practice. It's not looking too special from the promos, tbh, but it could surprise us all.
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I'm really looking forward to this I haven't read anything by the author, but I'm still very excited with anything involving Ikuni I do hope we get scanlations or at least raws...
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Does this mean it's only getting a manga, or are they just making a manga before the anime drops?
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Why not? SKU did the same thing.
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If there was a better scan available of the ad, I might be able to read more info off it, but I couldn't find anything even after doing a (admittedly quick) Google search in Japanese. I was hoping the stuff under the promo pic would clearly say something about being attached to an anime project, but it's too blurry for me.
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It's out now. I want it so bad. ;____;
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The rifle is definitely a bit of a standout in that picture.
So it's confirmed as just a manga, then? I'd be surprised if it doesn't get picked up for a TV show. From what I understand PD was pretty successful in Japan, enough that Ikuhara shouldn't have lost any 'BITCHES I'M MAKING THIS ANIMU' clout. Although I think he's getting a little creepy hardcore into lesbians.
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It appears to be getting an anime too? Unless this article is worded weirdly:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 … gets-manga
The March issue of Gentosha Comics' Monthly Comic Birz magazine is announcing on Thursday that artist Akiko Morishima will draw a manga of the Yuri Kuma Arashi anime project by director Kunihiko Ikuhara (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Penguindrum, several Sailor Moon television series). Morishima will debut the manga in the April issue on February 28.
So they call it an anime project and act like the manga is in addition to it. Also, there was the PV.
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Giovanna wrote:
The rifle is definitely a bit of a standout in that picture.
So it's confirmed as just a manga, then? I'd be surprised if it doesn't get picked up for a TV show. From what I understand PD was pretty successful in Japan, enough that Ikuhara shouldn't have lost any 'BITCHES I'M MAKING THIS ANIMU' clout. Although I think he's getting a little creepy hardcore into lesbians.
From what I've heard (or read in the subtitles) in his interviews, he's been a little creepy hardcore into lesbians from the beginning. I'm paraphrasing but he's given the excuse before that a man being involved takes away from the emotional impact of the relationship. To me, that just screams, "I love girl on girl action!" And, being a fellow carrier of the Y chromosome, I can relate.
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Yeah, I almost get manhating lesbian vibes from him.
It's true he's been like this since the beginning. I guess the problem is now studios are willing to pay for his nonsense. (And it seems to me like actual girl-girl romantic relationships are a little more acceptable in anime these days?)
Who am I kidding. I'll probably read/watch it, but I'm more interested in the Nokemono to Hanayome project he did. That was shiny and pretty.
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Well, I'm hoping he can deliver on yuri with a plot. I was so disappointed with Sakura Trick this season. :\ It seemed like it was going to have a plot but it just turned out to be fanservice moe (well, I only got through like half of the first episode but that was enough for me. It might have gotten better, but I doubt it.) Yuri Bear Storm seems like it's going to be very fanservicy but since it's Ikuhara I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt that it will be good.
Last edited by HonorableShadow (03-04-2014 01:09:16 PM)
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