Lesser-Known Bishonen

Sometimes there are just too many bishonen in an anime series.

Bishonen characters are part of the fun for this anime fan. But the best ones don't always get enough screen time (in my view). Here are a few who deserved to be featured more.

Did you see Code Geass? Remember this man?



Gilbert G.P. Guilford was the commander of the Glaston Knights of Brittania. He was also Princess Cornelia's personal knight.



It doesn't get much more romantic than a handsome knight swearing to defend his Princess, at all costs.





Ah, lovely. I haven't checked, but there has to be a ton of m/f fan fiction featuring Guilford and Cornelia. I know I perked up every time he made an appearance in Code Geass and I can't be the only girl who reacted this way.

And then there are the boys of Meine Liebe.



Meine Liebe is an odd anime. Set in the fictional Northern European country of Kuchen (which I understand means "kissing") between the First and Second World Wars, it's a tale of indolent European nobles, pretty boys with names like Orpheus von Marmalade and Ludwig Herzog von Liechtenstein. Into the mix comes a Japanese exchange student, Naoji Ishizuki.



Naoji's Kuchen grandmother eloped with Naoji's Japanese grandfather to Japan years before. Naoji's family has sent him to Kuchen to protect him from the rise of imperialism at home.

Nothing much happens in Meine Liebe or in its sequel series, Meine Liebe Weider, but the scenery (of the human male variety) is certainly, well, scenic.

Did I mention that Naoji does archery?



Finally, there's that bishonen fest, Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru, or, its less-of-a-mouthful shorter name, Uraboku:



Uraboku featured a large cast and a complicated plot, centering on a Duras - a kind of evil supernatural being - named Luka (he's a good Duras, of course) and Yuki, the (now male) reincarnation of Luka's former (female) love. Fighting alongside Luka and Yuki are a host of "Zweilt Guardians," humans with paranormal powers. One of them is Hotsuma Renjou.



Hotsuma is the tsundere of the group, always yelling and getting hot under the collar. So he gets all the good manga-face shots:





For some reason, all the characters in Uraboku are paired up as if on Noah's Ark. Hotsuma's Zweilt partner and "other half" is his childhood friend, Shuusei Usui:





At one point, Shuusei is kidnapped and tortured by an evil female Duras, and naturally Hotsuma is the one to rescue him. As you can see, there is no yaoi subtext at all between them - none.



There was no real reason for this post (lol). I just enjoy feasting my eyes on these pictures. I could post some more, actually. Oh wait, the latest episode of The New Prince of Tennis just came out on Crunchyroll. Later!

Anime Spring Season 2010

Just a quick post about the two new series I'm watching this spring season.

Hakuouki is the one I can definitely recommend to everybody. The story is about Chizuru, a young girl in Edo, whose physician father takes a temporary position in Kyoto and then goes missing. She disguises herself as a boy and travels to Kyoto, where she witnesses some rather paranormal, vampirish-looking samurai attacking another group of rogue samurai. The Shinsengumi intervene and take Chizuru captive. They discover that the man that they are looking for also happens to be the man Chizuru is looking for: her father. The Shinsengumi then agree to allow Chizuru to stay at their headquarters, still disguised as a boy, while they all search for her father.

This is a serious presentation of the Shinsengumi. The action sequences are exciting and realistically bloody, and the tone is all drama.

Much has been written in the anime blogosphere about Hakuouki's bishonen character designs. For me, that's just an added plus here: the story and characters are what make this series. The stirring background music and beautiful art design are further quality features. In sum, even if you don't particularly care for samurai stories, you might give Hakuouki a try.

The other series, well... There are good series that happen to feature bishonen character designs, and then there are series where bishonen character designs and screaming shonen-ai subtext are the main reasons for that series to exist. So let me briefly mention Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru, or Uraboku for short.




A young man can read people's minds when he physically touches them. He's a nice guy and has no idea why he has paranormal abilities. He frequently gets rescued from danger by a dark, sexy man, and when he does, memories of being somebody else seem to surface...

If you guessed that this young man was a female in his former life, and the girlfriend of the dark and sexy man, then you are: 1) an old anime hand who has seen this plot a thousand times before, and/or; 2) a shonen-ai and yaoi fan who will watch this kind of thing regardless of lack of originality, if the character designs are attractive enough and your favorite seiyuu are in it.

I'm in the latter category. I get that this story isn't exactly stunningly original, but it's pretty to look at; and Takahiro Sakurai, Souichiro Hoshi and Akira Ishida are in it, so I'm in for the long haul. ;) I can only recommend it to other shonen-ai and yaoi fans, however, as the rest of you are likely to either fall asleep or run screaming at the sight of it.

Hope everyone is enjoying this spring season of anime!