I have a few dumb things to say/ask about this whole VD fandom thing.

1. While this is cool news and all, I do have to wonder how reliable 4chan of all places is. Are there are any, you know, more reliable sources? It does seem pretty interesting, and I would like to read more about this phenomenon.

There's this bit from an interview with Lady Lady seiyuus

--Besides that, what else do you find to be impressive from Valkyrie Drive

O: I heard that this show have quite a lot of female fans too, so I was pretty surprised.

A: I have received letter from viewers that know me and watched Valkyrie Drive. There’s also plenty of female fans among them. They’d said things like “I love Mirei-san and Mamori-chan combination” or “I love Lady Lady”. No matter how you see it this show is definitely intended for male demographic, but in Valkyrie Drive, not only you can see a friendship between girls, they also depicted a romance between them. So perhaps female viewers found this approach to be refreshing and that’s what draws them to this show.

And it was mentioned a few times by the anime's director on his twitter. I have scans from all the interviews with the staff as well so if anyone fluent in Japanese wants to give it a look, just say the word.

Also NinaRyo being a huge yuri fan nowadays is easy to confirm simply by looking at her twitter feed.

1. Maybe the devs will learn from this and include even more yuri in the sequel?? I never played the first one 'cause I'm too poor to afford it, but I heard it's mostly subtext. Now, as I said, I haven't played it, so I'm probably wrong, but, still, the more yuri the better.

The game is actually pretty blatant. Like half of the cast have their love for another of the girls being the driving force behind their acts. By the way, the game is now available on Steam where is considerably cheaper than the Vita release.

1. I wonder if the sequel will be any different to accommodate for the unexpected female fandom. I mean, I think this proves more than anything else that women can enjoy ecchi-filled games, action games, and ecchi-filled action games just as much as men can but you never know what the dumbasses in charge will do.

As long Kaneko and Takaki remain in charge, seems like a safe bet they would try to capitalize on the series popularity with women. Both of them seemed to enjoy engaging with the fans over twitter, Kaneko in particular. There's also how he's directing a romantic anime during this season that is quite frankly, very odd given his previous work.

1. I got to say that I couldn't stand Valkyrie Drive... the anime, that is (apparently, that's Mermaid, I thought the game was Mermaid, but, nope, it's Bhikkuni). Soul Eater was one of the first manga I ever read, if not the first, so I was pretty excited for Soul Eater... WITH LESBIANSSS. Alas, the first episode just had a bunch of prolonged, unnecessary sex scenes and very little action that was poorly animated to boot. None of the characters really struck me as particularly interesting either. I mean, I thought the love-fueled transformations or whatever would involve saucy kisses, not... full-on sex scenes. Now that the anime's over (well, been over... for like a year and a half), I have to ask: is it worth watching?

As Nevri says. the anime has enough substance to stand on its own beyond the fanservice (in fact most of its female fans simply love to pieces the characters) unlike other series. --I'm looking at you, Seven Sins.

Personally I thought it was pretty well animated and enjoyed the fighting scenes quite a bit.

On a related note, I'm more tolerant of oversexualized BS in games though... but only if the game in question is actually a good game. I hear Bhikkuni's not a bad hack-and-slash game, so maybe I should just cough up the money to buy it at some point

Bhikkhini is hands down, Takaki's best game to date. And is considerably tamer for his recent standards.

By the way, who's NinaRyo?

https://dynasty-scans.com/authors/ryousai_material

Well that's just ridiculous! What makes games so different from movies or books?! So unfair.

Kayo-chin posted:

Well that's just ridiculous! What makes games so different from movies or books?! So unfair.

German and Australia are really strick about violence and nudity. It's not just games in their case.

Kayo-chin posted:

Well that's just ridiculous! What makes games so different from movies or books?! So unfair.

German and Australia are really strick about violence and nudity. It's not just games in their case.

Oh? Even so, it is ridiculous. :/

The whole "it mind broke straight women into being lesbians" bit never fails to make me laugh

last edited at Aug 14, 2017 12:34AM

The "TEEHEE IM BI FOR ATTENTION" bit seems a bit... offensive, but, hey, that's why I don't go on 4chan. They can say whatever they want on there, but I don't feel particularly inclined to ever go there (and I'm sure they don't want me there either). That whole Anon thing confuses the hell out of me too; I get the point, I suppose, but it's just confusing and annoying to me.

Anyhow, it doesn't seem like any of these people have any actual proof to support their assertions... that's an Internet argument for you. In the interview you posted, the interviewees did say that they got fan mail from "a lot of female fans" though... they certainly did not say that they received fan mail from ONLY female peeps, so I think logic would dictate that there are also some male fans. Also, it's not like you can fucking derive someone's sexuality from fan mail unless they outright say "I'm gay," so, unless the person saying it's ONLY liked by lesbians has some more evidence... then yeah. Also, "larping lesbian," what in hell. Also dos, fan art isn't an indicator of anything!?! So I guess Touhou and KanColle aren't popular now, huh? I suppose one could argue that no one actually plays the games and only reads the fan works, but VD is more... well, plot-oriented than those games (not something I ever thought I'd seriously say about Valkyrie Drive!) and the doujins reference stuff that happen in the show. For that reason, I'd wager that more VD fan artists actually watched the anime and played the games, although the same may or may not be true for Touhou and Kancolle fans.

I am a heterosexual (possibly bi, not relevant at all to the point though) man (yeah, not really, I'm 17) and I... did not like Valkyrie Drive at all. As I said before. But, you all convinced me to give it another go, so I'll probably watch it some time... eventually.

How did Flip Flappers do anyway? Hopefully, it did well, I'd love to watch a second season, an OVA, a movie, whatever. It seems as if Princess Principal is following in FliFla's footsteps though so I presume it did so well that 3Hz decided "Hey, let's insert yuri into EVERY FUCKING THING WE DO IN THE FUTURE" AND I'M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THAT. Probably didn't do quite that well, but, yeah, one can hope.

And, lastly, what the fuck even are skinnimax yuri and thirsty jailhouse gay het chicks?

last edited at Aug 14, 2017 12:58PM

Back in the early days of cable TV, when the earth was cooling and dinosaurs roamed the land, there were four major cable channels which aired feature films: HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel, and Cinemax.

Cinemax was clearly the runt of the litter. They didn't have the market power of HBO, so the bulk of their offerings consisted of movies that were available to all four channels (i.e. movies which weren't "HBO Exclusive!" or "Showtime Exclusive!"), or movies which had been "HBO/Showtime/TMC exclusive!" in the past but were now old enough that those exclusive rights had expired, or movies which the other channels just didn't want to show.

In this latter category was a lot of softcore porn that Cinemax aired late at night. Strictly R-rated T&A stuff, nothing hardcore. Eventually, they started making their own original softcore porn movies.

This earned them the nickname "Skinemax".

So presumably "skinemax yuri" would be softcore lesbian porn aimed at a heterosexual male audience.

Interesting, I've never known about this dark side of Cinemax... dark at least in the sense that I'm sure present-day Cinemax would want to erase this part of their history to pass itself off as a reputable channel and not as a softcore porn channel. I don't use Cinemax all that often though, so perhaps the softcore porn is still a big part of it... Anyhow, it seems that Cinemax is still the runt of the litter even today seeing as though HBO has stuff like True Detective and Game of Thrones, Showtime has American Gods (at least I thought it did, but that's Starz, apparently... uh, I'm sure Showtime has something) and Cinemax seems to have nothing on the level of GoT. I've never even heard of The Movie Channel at all, though that's apparently because Showtime purchased them before I was even born.

Pretty interesting stuff, thanks for telling me about it. I'm still no closer to finding out what the hell "thirsty jailhouse gay het chicks" means though. Judging by that particular Anon's other colorful insults, I suppose it's not supposed to make sense but... still, come on, what the heck is that.

I don't remember what Showtime has now, but they were the ones who broadcast Dexter.

Anyhow, it doesn't seem like any of these people have any actual proof to support their assertions... that's an Internet argument for you. In the interview you posted, the interviewees did say that they got fan mail from "a lot of female fans" though... they certainly did not say that they received fan mail from ONLY female peeps, so I think logic would dictate that there are also some male fans. Also, it's not like you can fucking derive someone's sexuality from fan mail unless they outright say "I'm gay," so, unless the person saying it's ONLY liked by lesbians has some more evidence... then yeah. Also, "larping lesbian," what in hell. Also dos, fan art isn't an indicator of anything!?! So I guess Touhou and KanColle aren't popular now, huh? I suppose one could argue that no one actually plays the games and only reads the fan works, but VD is more... well, plot-oriented than those games (not something I ever thought I'd seriously say about Valkyrie Drive!) and the doujins reference stuff that happen in the show. For that reason, I'd wager that more VD fan artists actually watched the anime and played the games, although the same may or may not be true for Touhou and Kancolle fans.

For starters the guy complaining about VD is just ranting and pulling things out of his ass with the others either taking the piss on him or offering somewhat sustainable counterarguments. That said, what do we know about the series fanbase is that a majority of it were women. It was mentioned by the staff and by the very own fans on its moment.

I am a heterosexual (possibly bi, not relevant at all to the point though) man (yeah, not really, I'm 17) and I... did not like Valkyrie Drive at all. As I said before. But, you all convinced me to give it another go, so I'll probably watch it some time... eventually.

Good man

How did Flip Flappers do anyway? Hopefully, it did well, I'd love to watch a second season, an OVA, a movie, whatever. It seems as if Princess Principal is following in FliFla's footsteps though so I presume it did so well that 3Hz decided "Hey, let's insert yuri into EVERY FUCKING THING WE DO IN THE FUTURE" AND I'M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THAT. Probably didn't do quite that well, but, yeah, one can hope.

I didn't follow Flip Flappers so I can't comment on that but I'm sure someone else will be able to clear some things up.

And, lastly, what the fuck even are skinnimax yuri and thirsty jailhouse gay het chicks?

Vank answered the thing about skinmax so I'll explain the thirsty jailhouse bit. Basically is saying girls that get into lesbianism/yuri as novelty and/or boredom, not unlike to they way inmates indulge on homosexuality in prison.

last edited at Aug 14, 2017 11:22PM

i got my copy of the bluray from one of my partners today. i still love that wedding dress cover. it's perfect.

Flip Flappers bombed, FYI.

How did Flip Flappers do anyway? Hopefully, it did well, I'd love to watch a second season, an OVA, a movie, whatever. It seems as if Princess Principal is following in FliFla's footsteps though so I presume it did so well that 3Hz decided "Hey, let's insert yuri into EVERY FUCKING THING WE DO IN THE FUTURE" AND I'M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THAT. Probably didn't do quite that well, but, yeah, one can hope.

Just a side note, but I don't think PPrincipal is following in FFlapper's steps, idk if FFlapper's reception could influence another of the studio's series airing barely a year later. Like I guess if shit goes well, it'd be smart to redo what was successful, but I'm guessing that PP was likely already in production when FF itself was aired, if not before FF was even finalised. Dunno how drastic the changes could have been, if they would change anything about PP, in relation to FF's reception
3Hz seem like a relatively newer studio, with just a couple of series under its belt. I like the usual cute girls doing cute things SoL series, but it'd be nice to get plot oriented stuff with a main female cast too. It'd be nice if they kept going in that direction TT v TT

last edited at Aug 15, 2017 3:28AM

I saw a reddit post in Janurary that showed FFlappers sold less than 900 copies. Why must people fail to watch good shows?

Anime productions are not fast performances. Some anime for manga get planned as soon as the first takabon hits stands, despite usually coming out years into the manga's actual run.

Edit: Bunch of reasons. New studio, niche genre in yuri, magical girl series that is neither marketed towards kids nor is part of the darker line in the vein of PMMM, the list goes on.

last edited at Aug 15, 2017 3:33AM

Well, that's a damn shame. I just wasted like 20 minutes reading through the reddit thread, and it kind of surprised me that literally no one mentioned the yuri aspect of FliFla while there were plenty of people mentioning the yaoi aspect of Yuri on Ice. Perhaps this yet again proves that queerbait sells better than legit gay things (but, yeah, it was probably 'cause the fujoshi audience is apparently much larger than the yuri fan audience and because FliFla's so "arthouse") (also, I still dunno whether or not Yuri on Ice is queerbait but I think it is).

The peeps in that thread did have some good points though. I can't say that I wasn't a bit disappointed by the direction that was taken in the last few episodes. The first 8 or so episodes were all freaking amazing and then we got to the cliched Mimi/Salt/Papikana segment. I enjoyed the rampant symbolism and air of mystery and then it all got dashed when we got a bunch of heavy exposition (combat wedding dresses though). It's not like it'd be any better if they just went to random Pure Illusion locations every episode and the story was never properly explained, but a better one would have been nice. I still think that Mimi should have fucked Papikana instead of Salt which would have made Cocona Papika's daughter... would it be fucked up? Certainly. Would it be infinitely more interesting? Damn right it would (I'm definitely speaking from a totally unbiased perspective).

Also, it looks like the only other anime I watched that season (Kiss Him Not Me) sold even worse than FliFla. It was hardly the best thing I ever watched, but I still thought it was a solid anime and it's sad to see that both of my picks that season completely bombed...

YoI isn't "queerbait", it just takes loops to avoid actually acknowledging Victor and Yuuri's relationship directly in dialogue.

Well, that's a damn shame. I just wasted like 20 minutes reading through the reddit thread, and it kind of surprised me that literally no one mentioned the yuri aspect of FliFla while there were plenty of people mentioning the yaoi aspect of Yuri on Ice. Perhaps this yet again proves that queerbait sells better than legit gay things (but, yeah, it was probably 'cause the fujoshi audience is apparently much larger than the yuri fan audience and because FliFla's so "arthouse") (also, I still dunno whether or not Yuri on Ice is queerbait but I think it is).

What queerbaiting?
Awks cus you are stating that you don't actually know if Yuri on Ice is queerbaiting or not but are assuming it to be anyway and low key bashing it and dismissing it anyway. How can you think it is, if you don't know? @_@
From what I heard, it's heavily homoromantic, there's a kiss, they get matching rings they wear on their left ring finger
The hype may very well be cus yaoi is more popular, but the praise it got sounds very well deserved imo

last edited at Aug 15, 2017 4:23PM

Faust posted:

From what I heard, it's heavily homoromantic, there's a kiss, they get matching rings they wear on their left ring finger

From what I heard they never really got explicit and all of it can still be easily seen as just subtext and there is plenty of people who doesn't consider it actual yaoi. And the kiss scene is actually not shown, I mean they are only implied to kiss, but they could as well only hug, so there is that. From what I heard, it indeed felt like instead of like old yaois where they were really direct, this one felt more like just a subtext and they were too afraid to go all the way to lose potential audience, so they instead went the well proven, subtext way.

Sounds like there's plenty of ppl in denial lmao
The kiss
That's how I hug my friends too, and that's also how we stare at each other post-hug. No homo lmao :p
I mean, did you see how the kiss scene in the Kase-san music video was shot? Not seeing the lip to lip contact doesn't mean it's subtext. There's a clear mood lol, there are some obvious dots to connect. Dismissing it is just ppl being in denial, thinking there is no way these two guys just kissed because two guys wouldn't kiss because queer people don't exist TT v TT

last edited at Aug 15, 2017 4:51PM

The director literally referenced a TV kiss on twitter the day that episode aired. There is no argument here.

Oh, I didn't mean to bash YoI at all, I'm sure it's an excellent anime. I just hear people referring to it as queerbait all the time, so I assumed that it actually was; since I never actually watched it though, I had my doubts. Anyway, about the kiss, isn't that the whole point of queerbaiting anyway (I'm probably wrong here but these are my thoughts on it anyhow)? They can attract the queer crowd by saying "Hey, look, we have queer characters!" without scaring away the homophobes by saying "Yeah, kissing is usually seen as a romantic thing, but, nah, they're just friends." I'm sure many wouldn't even take a kiss as confirmation of queer love; it has to be fucking hammered into their heads... yeah, this is a huge strawman, ain't it? In my defense (this will probably be incomprehensible if you don't follow RWBY), this is pretty much happened in the RWBY fanbase after they released a song known as Bmblb. Even if you don't know what RWBY is, I'd say the lyrics are pretty blatant... well, for starters, the lesbian ship between Blake and Yang is popularly referred to as "Bumblebee," so the title itself is a pretty blatant reference. There's also the fact that a female singer sings the lines "You can be queen"... hmmm... Now, people who say that this is a queerbaiting piece of crap or a fun little thing not meant to be canon in any way are perfectly valid in their assumptions, but the people who say that it doesn't support the ship at all are just ignorant idiots. I kind of veered off this topic, but the point is that... people actually are that stupid.

The director literally referenced a TV kiss on twitter the day that episode aired. There is no argument here.

I just think it would have been better if they made it even more blatant than it actually is and actually said they were dating or whatever. I'm sure there are some who deny Cocona and Papika are together; in doing so, they pretty much misssed the entire point of the fucking series, but I don't think even the most hardcore idiots can deny that "yeah, we're gay and we're dating" means that THE CHARACTERS IN QUESTION ARE GAY AND THEY'RE DATING. I suppose you could argue that there's no need to hammer it into these people's heads, but I can't say that I'm not frustrated when someone completely misses all the subtext... I mean, I guess it's not really bad in many cases... I used to be like that before I got into yuri, I missed all the Korrasami signs back when I was watching Korra (I wonder how different my reactions to their interactions would have been if Korra had aired after I had become a yuri fanatic...) But, still, I think confirming it in a firm, undeniable manner would go a long way.

last edited at Aug 15, 2017 5:14PM