Forum - View topicREVIEW: Yawara! Preview DVD
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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Forgive me if this was mentioned elsewhere (it's 4 in the morning where I'm at right now), but you can get the preview disc for free from the Animeigo website. (Well free except a small s&h charge.)
Thanks for the review. I've heard about this title before and can't wait to check it out now. It's so rare for the "older" stuff to get released. (Now if they'd only work on Touch next. . . ) |
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minakichan
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Well, yeah, it's light entertaining and not nearly as good as other Urasawa works. At the time, Urasawa wanted to write more sci-fi or drama, but his editors told him to make something cute and funny with a female lead. ...EDITORS ARE EBIL!
Man, can someone just license Monster already? I mean, to license Yawara, which is not only old, but certainly not as good and still too far from mainstream to be more popular... |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I disagree. Yawara is an excellent manga, and very typical of Urasawa's storytelling style. It may well have been made-to-order at the behest of an editor, but it fits very well into the continuum of Urasawa's work. - abunai |
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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So glad its finnaly getting a release after almost a decade of rumors.
I can finnaly replace my old worn out tapes |
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DmonHiro
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I don't know much about this show. It seems kinda like Ranma without the super-natural stuff. Correct me if I am wrong. It DOES look interesting
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Anime World Order
 Posts: 390 Location: Florida |
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I watched a whole ton of Yawara! on VHS fansubs (including the movie followup that actually resolved stuff...kinda), and it never really grabbed me even though the opening and closing themes are now stuck in my head all over again after reading this article. I think the main problem I have is the fact that it doesn't really work as a sports series on account that...hmm. Do I spoiler this? I'm going to spoiler the remainder of this post since even though the show's old enough, most people haven't had the opportunity to see it.
spoiler[Yawara never loses. Ever. Oh sure, there are like, two instances in which she forfeited due to not showing up for the match, but nobody--NOBODY--puts her in any real danger of actually LOSING. Not even Jody. Her supposed rival is Sayaka, but unlike other sports anime (or its successor, shonen action/adventure), it's not like Yawara starts off inexperienced and Sayaka is so far advanced in skill that surpassing her serves as an inspirational goal. Jody only appears a few times and she fills this role by default because Yawara drew her instead of throwing her effortlessly like EVERYONE ELSE. Sayaka never actually beats Yawara in a matchup EVER, be it sports or romance. She doesn't even come close. It's all just too one-sided. Sports shows are ultimately not about whether you win or lose at the end (and they seem to always lose at the end to drive this point home), but the journey you take. Where the hell is Yawara's journey? She's perfect and unbeatable at the start and she's perfect and unbeatable at the end. No training, no effort, no anything. Yawara's just up and ready to steamroll past everyone straight to the Olympics time and again, all while caring more about how to properly make beef stroganoff than judo.] I know Yawara! is a longtime fan favorite, but nowadays we've got much better sports shows out there (which nobody is watching). Then again, I never much cared for Ranma 1/2 either. I'll concede that Yawara! is a better show than Ranma though, if only because the seventh episode of Yawara! features a poster of Rikidozan. Which the fansub I saw translated as "Mr. Rikido" since the translator was obviously not a fan of pro wrestling and had never heard of Rikidozan before. Last edited by Anime World Order on Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I picked up this disc at SDCC over the summer from Animeigo's booth (it came free with another purchase) and absolutely loved it. I'd seen the first episode of Yawara! a few years ago at a convention and didn't connect with it for some reason, but this time around I devoured all 4 episodes on the DVD and can't wait to see what comes next. Maybe it's my nostalgia for older anime kicking in, or maybe it's my fondness for Urasawa's storytelling, but I really can't remember the last time I smiled so much while watching an anime series. I'm definitely in for the long haul on this title.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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It's really hard to get the theme song for this show out of your head.
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Cowpunk
Posts: 168 Location: Oakland - near the Newtype Lab |
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I'm a huge fan of this series and am really looking forward to when it ships.
I recently took notes on the preview discs and plan (starting this weekend and for several weeks afterwards) to include entries on some of the cultural details on the Anime Companion Supplement webpages. http://www.koyagi.com/ACPages/ACmain.html |
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tasogarenootome
 Posts: 593 |
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I agree, it's frustrating, but I felt Yawara's journey was more about her own growing up than growing as a judoka. Her battle between wanting to be a normal girl and the judo star she was trained to be seemed a little cliched at first, but ultimately played out pretty well I think. I really loved this series, even though it has a tendency to get repetitive, and it makes me nostalgic for my exchange college's judo-bu (the captain of which was the one who got me watching this show in the first place). The opening is catchy, but I always loved "Stand by Me" and it always got stuck in my head. It's got such a mellow 80s feel to it. |
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CaptainAvatar
 Posts: 381 Location: Saint Louis, MO |
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I've only seen episode 1 which was on a recent Newtype (RIP
 ) preview disc, and I liked what I saw. I'm looking forward to more!
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14889 |
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I've had the first 12 eps in VHS fansubs and never thought anybody would ever finish the series. I read then that when it was airing in Japan, it was actually getting higher TV ratings than even Ranma 1/2; yet nobody was even thinking of picking it up.
This series was so long ago that the real Yawara-chan (yes, there is a real Yawara-chan, and yes, she made it to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and maybe even this year's Beijing Olympics) now has her own little Yawara-chan herself. 
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mrsatan
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 913 |
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Is Hiroko Tokita really a "he"?
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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To be fair, your issue with the series would also put you in opposition to Initial D (as far as I know) which follows a similar path and other series. I think the problem is that you're looking at it as a sports anime, when it's really more of a "slice of life" anime that involves an athlete (albeit a reluctant one). In that way, it's more like GTO in that it's not about her getting "better" its about how she changes and how the people around her change by being around her. |
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elsie
Posts: 61 Location: Virginia |
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Oddly enough, just this week my colleague was showing me the cells from this series that he'd just put up in his office. What a coincidence.
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