Denkyu: Anime Webzine

Welcome one and all to the new layout of Denkyu. We here at Denkyu are always open to suggestions, comments, or critiques. If you have any, feel free to drop by the forum and post your thoughts. As I sit here coding the new website by hand I was wondering what everyone thought of the new layout for the site, ergo this small page at the very back of the issue. Click here for the specific forum topic. In other news we are also looking for people interested in writing for Denkyu. The articles can be anything from reviews of Japanese restaurants, to anime or manga, to a fan-fic if you feel so inclined. As long as it deals with Japanese culture, it’s good.

Now that Convention season is in full swing, how many have you attended so far? Unfortunately I haven’t attended any yet. Real life always seems to interfere with the things I want to do! But this year, after having a small taste of being involved with some of the happenings, I’ve decided to become more involved with the things that make up a con. This summer my anime club and I have become involved with a somewhat local Con known as ConCarolinas, and Denkyu will be there for the ride! So this brings me to ask, what attracts you to the Cons that you attend? Is it the guests? The anime that is shown? The panels they offer? Better yet, the dealer room filled with all that wonderful swag that we fill our rooms with? Or is it just something for you and your friends to go to, to hang out at and party? Over the last few years, I’ve met a number of different people in the anime scene that go for either all of these reasons or some of them. No matter what the reason, we all go for the fun that can be had.

While for many of you the Con season has started, I envy you. For those of you who are like me and have to wait till the summer before ours will start, I feel your pain. For those who have yet to experience one, I hope that this will be the year that you do, to experience all the wonderful fun and meet all those colorful characters that attend.

So, here’s to the fun that is Conventions!!

~Andromeda~

Serves 4
8 dried shiitake mushrooms
2-inch/5-cm piece of daikon, peeled
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp brown sugar
7oz/200 g tenderloin steak, trimmed
1 quantity freshly cooked sushi rice

To garnish
strips of toasted nori
wasabi paste

To serve
pickled ginger

Soak the mushrooms in boiling water for 20 minutes, and then simmer them in the same liquid for 3 minutes. Lift them out and squeeze them dry. Chop 4 mushrooms into small pieces and halve the rest. Shred the daikon and carrot using the finest setting on a mandoline or a very sharp knife. If you are using a knife, then cut the daikon and carrot into long, thin slices and cut each slice along its length as finely as you can.

Preheat the broiler to its highest setting. Mix the soy sauce, mirin, and brown sugar together and brush the mixture all over the steak. Broil the steak for 3 minutes on each side, and then let it rest for a minute. Slice into strips.

Mix the sushi rice with the chopped shiitake mushrooms.

Fill 1 large or 4 small wooden or ceramic bowls of plates with the rice – they should be about ¾ inch/2cm full. Arrange the steak and halved mushrooms on top of the rice and add a neat pile of shredded daikon and carrot to each bowl. Garnish with some nori strips and a small mound of wasabi. Serve the pickled ginger on the side.

*Mirin is a sweet rice wine that acts as a flavoring. It is used to make sushi rice and gives a luster to the rice as well as adding flavor. Hon mirin and shin mirin are the two varieties. The difference being that on mirin contains more alcohol.

by Sojian Mix the artistic style of Hare no Guu with the graphic violence of Elfen Lied and you get Dokuro-chan. Sent from the future, Dokuro-chan is an angel with a magical battle club called Excaliborg. Child-like with blue hair, her sole mission is to protect Sakura-kun, a middle school student from being killed. Unfortunately for Sakura-kun, he keeps getting killed… by Dokuro-chan… and then brought back to life by her after she realizes what she’s done.

After having his head torn off, strangled, estranged by his classmates, see the class rep turned into a monkey, and then clubbed to death again by Dokuro-chan they introduce the actual assassin Sabato. Sabato actually wants to kill Sakura-kun and so uses her own feminine charms to trick him into doing what she says. She also furthers the rather short story by showing how in the future Sakura with his lolicon tendencies invents a technology for stopping women’s aging at 12 years. Consequently this leads to the technology for eternal youth, and since God doesn’t want humans messing around with it, orders Sakura’s death. Yet Dokuro believes she can change the future and goes to the past to stop Sakura from inventing it.

The rest of the 8 episode long series follows in the interactions between Sakura-kun and Dokuro-chan with a guarantee that Sakura-kun dies in some horrible fashion at least once each episode. The episodes include such activities as going to school, playing matchmaker, going to the movies, a school field trip (including a test of courage), club activities (watching glue dry), and meeting Dokuro’s sister with her Murderous Wet Towel.

In the end, this series did not have much of a story. It does parody a few well-known anime, but not in great quantities. It was amazingly violent, and had a crude sense of humor with blood and gore. It has yet to (will it ever?) be licensed in the US. Watch at your own discretion.

a.k.a. Kasimasi
By Andromeda Hazumu is the typical shy boy but with feminine features. After meeting a girl and getting to know her, he decides he wants to confess his crush to her. Shy as he is though, it takes encouragement from his friends for him to do so. Yasuna is a sweet girl who shares the same interest as he does, gardening. But could she see Hazumu to be more than just a friend? Unfortunately for Hazumu, it’s not meant to be.

Rejected and hurt, Hazumu goes for a hike on Mt Kashimayama, where him and Yasuna met. Flashbacks of the day they met play through his mind until he finds himself at a clearing where he can see the night sky. While making a wish on a shooting star, Hazumu has no clue that his life was about to change and that the shooting star really is a falling spaceship until it is too late.

Having been squished by their spaceship, the aliens feel so bad that they regenerate Hazumu’s body. But there’s one little problem with that. The aliens took it upon themselves to reverse Hazumu’s sex. No longer is he a boy, but a girl. This is only the tip of what’s to come for Hazumu and his friends and family. The aliens took it upon themselves to tell the world of their mistake. And when I say the world, I mean the whole world, from Japan to the United States to the North and South poles.

Not only does this become a media circus for poor Hazumu, he now has to deal with a perverted father who seems to have a want to take a bath with his “new” daughter, a male friend who may become attracted to his best friend, and a female best friend who was secretly attracted to him. And what of the girl who had a crush on him? She has yet to speak to him since the night that he became a girl. I guess his best friend Asuta won’t try to do that male bonding thing with him anymore by sharing his girlie magazines.

But it’s not a bad situation at all. Hazumu is actually enjoying being a girl, even if he does blush at seeing his own breasts. Or should I say she? There will be things he’ll.. she’ll… now need to know, like carrying tissues and wearing a bra, walking up the stairs while holding his, um, her skirt so that boys don’t see his, err, her panties. Better yet, not to let your male best friends check out your goodies, or fan your skirt in the classroom while explaining how breezy it feels. These are all things a girl learns before becoming a teenager.

For Hazumu, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, or so he acts.

Girl Meets Girl is a cute romantic comedy. Hazumu’s naivety about the things girls do that he must now due is comical. Tomari’s vow to make him the best girl ever is what a true best friend would do, even if she does have a few problems with this change. Not only is Tomari supportive and there for him, but all his close friends are. I can’t wait to see what will happen with the relationship between Hazumu and Yasuna.

The artwork was clean and colorful with quite a bit of detail. I loved the way the transformation of Hazumu was drawn. As a shy guy, his hair hung in his face, while being a female, Hazumu become a curious wide-eyed girl. Another thing to point out is the English used when the American crew at NASA was shown. The English was perfect, unlike in a lot of animes where you can still hear the accent, even faint, of a Japanese person speaking English. So it makes me curious as to whether American voice actors voiced these characters.

Girl Meets Girl is definitely an anime I recommend. This is a new series that guys and girls both will enjoy.