Anime characters you never knew were related

(I’m beginning to wish my pictures were archived in a database for easy retrieval by character and type like danbooru -_-) Fluff post today, revising for tomorrow’s final exam. Perhaps serious-ish post tomorrow…if you’re lucky.

1 – Haruka Suzumiya and Haruhi Suzumiya (Mother and daughter)

Emo-lover Takayuki Narumi (Kimi ga Nozomu Eien) gets bored of Mitsuki throwing things at him and goes back to Haruka for one last night of passion. Unfortunately, Haruka gets knocked up, blackmails Takayuki for 100 million yen, sets up her own publishing company and becomes rich. Unfortunately, dabbling in research for new forms of nuclear fusion results in her baby being endowed with super god like powers. She names her Haruhi.

2. Tamaki Suou and Mikoto Suou (Brother and sister)

Tamaki lives it up as president of the Ouran High School host club, but little does he know that the person he sees in his twisted childhood memories is not his fiancee to be, but his long lost sister Mikoto, lovechild to his father before he got rich and married his mother. When Tamaki gets older, he meets Mikoto on a school field trip and immediately falls in love with her. Mikoto punches him in the solar plexus.

3. Kazuma Azuma and Hazuki Azuma (Same person in different universes)

Luckily, they cut out the episode of Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito where Hazuki visits the alternate universe where she is born a boy in in the back streets of Izu with an uncanny ability to make bread.

4. Teletha Testarossa and Fate Testarossa (Mother and daughter)

Having saved the world in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s, Fate marries Nanoha aboard the Asura on her 16th birthday and settles down with her on Earth. In an accident involving discovering unsavoury new uses for Bardische and Raging Heart in closed bedroom environments, Fate gets pregnant and has a baby which she named Tessa (in a fit of madness). However, during a routine job, the baby was lost through a dimensional dislocation and landed in 20th century America where she was brought up, her latent magical powers being mistaken for technological knowledge. Currently she lives blissfully unaware that she could just say the word and transform into a mahou shoujo in a omega-kawaii bunny suit.

5. Akane Higurashi and Higurashi no naku koro ni (err…)

Erm. Actually, no.

Yuribou Top 10 yuri underdogs

To celebrate my getting to a month (yeah, I know, its not long, but sticking with a project of mine to a month is a pretty good acheivement for me), I present the Yuri to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito yuri underdogs top 10. I have to apologise beforehand, since I started out writing them funny (I use the term loosely, of course), but then they went soppy. So I’ll post 10-6 in this post, and 5-1 (the soppy ones) tomorrow, so people can skip them more easily.

Anyway, this Top 10 is for the yuri couples that I feel have been pushed aside, storyline-wise for a main couple of a series, and then slowly fallen out of favour and ended unsatisfactorily (or not given an ending at all -_-;;).

However, to make it into the top 10, a couple had to actually have some subtext in the anime, therefore neatly ruling out most of my favourite couples; for example, Haruka/Mitsuki (Kiminozo) and Evangeline/Chachamaru (Negima) to name but a few. (But anyway, they’ll get included later when I do an Imaginary couples yuri top 10

Without further ado then, I introduce:

The Yuribou Yuri Underdogs Top 10!

10. Tessa/Mao (Full Metal Panic!) underdog to Chidori/Sousuke

Yeah, I know its sub-sub-subtext, but any yuri involving Tessa is manna from heaven in my opinion. The entire fandom is based on Tessa and Mao’s competition and post competition hug in episode 13. Which was hot. And also the 10 millisecond shot of Mao abusing a drunk Tessa in the OVA. Which was also hot. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to think that the prim and proper captain of the Tuatha de Danaan enjoys yuribeating her subordinates in her spare time?

My guess is that she would be into Japanese bondage.

9. Kaede/Primula (SHUFFLE!) underdog to Rin/Asa, Rin/Everyone

Kaede: Rin, you love Asa more than me, don’t you, even though I climbed into bed naked and offered myself to you.
Rin: Yes
Kaede: Oh well. Rim-chan, let’s go and have hot yuri sex instead then.
Primula: OK.
Hijinks ensue

8. Fate/Arf (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha) underdog to Fate/Nanoha

 

Well, lets face it, Fate is gayer than a Pentecostal church congregation at Christmas mass. But where did she get all her experience from and at such a young age? Well, that long rough doggy tongue of Arf’s has to be useful for something, doesn’t it…

Feito chan!!!! Iku!!

*ahem* Ignore that last bit.

7. Shimako/Noriko (Maria sama ga Miteru) underdog to Sachiko/Yumi, Sei/Shiori

Noriko: I love you Oneesama!
Shimako: I love you too, Noriko-chan, here, I’ll make you my en-bouton.
Noriko: Wait, oneesama! Watch out for that pit of obscurity!
Shimako: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Shimako fell into the pit of obscurityGAME OVER

6. Chie/Aoi (Mai HiME/Otome) underdog to Mai/Yuuichi/Shiho, Shizuru/Natsuki.

Well, lesbians who are actually together are less interesting than infatuated Kyoto-ben kimono-clad evil-yuri chasing tsundere biker chicks, aren’t they? Well, Sunrise seems to think so. Anyway, they were a lot cuter in Mai Otome; at least Chie won’t have to worry about losing her right to be an Otome in the near future, eh?

Second installment tomorrow

Tanoshimi ni

Ix

PS Sorry about the crappy pictures, its the best I can do for the moment. Update with nicer pics when I am home.

Gah, I still can’t find a nice picture of Chie and Aoi. FAIL.

Konshuu no Renai ~MaiHiME’s Shizuru and Natsuki~

Wow, I just realised that I started Konshuu no renai on a Wednesday, so that makes it really inconvenient for me to get it all typed up at home with nice user friendly pictures. Therefore this weeks entry will be typed up here at medschool and pictures added later (if I can be bothered, of course ^_^)

This week,

Mai HiME's Shizuru and Natsuki

Shizuru and Natsuki (or Shiznat, as how it is known to the English speaking fanfiction community) is one of my favourite pairings at the moment. However, as the anime itself is barely a few years old, the amount of fanwork for it is less than other series, (for example last week's CCS feature)

But why Shiznat? Why does the relationship work so much better than the other canon shoujo ai pairing in the series, Haruka/Yukino?

In my opinion, the main thing that helps the pairning work so well is that both the characters in question are main characters and so they have a good background development, so you get to know each character well and the pairing makes a lot more sense, whereas both Haruka and Yukino are probably the least developed characters in Mai Hime and so the viewer feels a lot less affinity towards them.

In Hime the relationship is (for the most part) subtext with some consummation, yet in Otome, the relationship is actual canon with very little reference to what is actually going on behind the scenes as it were. I actually prefer the subtext of the first series as fodder for shoujo ai and fanfiction as it has a great feeling of "Illicit love" on the part of Shizuru and wrestling with her own feelings (although her transformation into Evilyuri girl was surreal to say the least)

And who can't say that Shizuru fighting for Natsuki's love and approval wasn't romantic?

I think that the makers of the anime went to great lengths to show that the reason for the pairing was that the two characters complement each other in that they are almost polar opposites of each other in many respects and each girl offsets the other's personality well. Take Shizuru, for example, who is gentle, graceful and traditional with a lot of inner strength and sense of what she wants, whereas Natsuki is a rebellious and gung-ho lone wolf with buckets of inner insecurity and no idea what she wants despite her gruff outer coating.

Since they are both attractive characters in their own rights, a relationship between the two has all sorts of paths and storylines it can take, especially (the hardest) marriage and leading a normal life.

Therefore, it is surprising that the MaiHiME Shoujo ai community is relatively small, most fiction focusing on the relationship between Mai and Yuuichi. A relevant community on fanfiction.net are the Fuuka Gakuen – A Shoujo-ai fanfic community.

Also worth looking at is the Mai HiME page on Shoujoai.com.

I offer these links though most of the fanfiction I have read of this pairing is strictly average…no offense to the authors of course, but nothing has really grabbed my eye in terms of storyline or quality of writing…I will review my collection and recommend the best when I get home later today. However, one author I heavily recommend is dauthik, who is a fan of the pairing and has a good list of Shiznat fic on her Livejournal. She has written 3 excellent fics, "Another Chance to Bloom", "Forgiven" and "Two plus Two equals Five" I will mention her much more when I get round to doing Konoka x Setsuna later on. Also worth looking at is the Shizuru x Natsuki fanlisting "Into the Sunset" which has a small collection of fanfiction.

Another interesting fanwork unfortunately not in English at the moment is a webnovel in which Shizuru and Natsuki are married and have children (who are clones of themselves, as far as I can work out); though the rest of the storyline is a mystery to me, it is definitely worth checking out.

Apart from fanfiction, the pairing has generated huge amounts of fanart and doujinshi which can be found online (for example in danbooru's Mai_hime and Mai_Otome pages).

Shiznat forever ^_^