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YouR ACT NOw-

WE NEED To FLEE!
TF YOURE CAUGH T
Nou'L BE UQu EEO!

WEVE GoT
TO GET TeEevoe!

TREVOR 1S ALIVE,

BUT IN CEEPANO
EXACTLY WHAT PAINFUL TRACTION
HAPPENEO AFTER THE
ENO OF THE CAST
COMIC WHERE TREWR
ORoPPED HS PANTS,
EXPosing HIMSECE
AND CREATING 6
SMALL AOT IN THE
PRONESS.

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MIKE ano as NEw
“FRIENO’ URSELA WERE
PRLE TO HEE. TO
SarevTy ins THE
ENSUING CHAOS...

WHILE AIS EXACT MOTIVATION
FOR OROPPING WAS PEROTS
IN A ROOM FILLEO with
GAB Feminists iy STELe
UNCLERR , WE 9O HAVE pal
IDEA OF WHAT RAPPENED.

TREVOR, FEELING OUERWHELMEO
BY TRE PRO-NOMYIN'S SENTIMENTS
OFCLDED THAT A DISPLAY oF
“PENILE” PRIDE NOLO Senve
To BALANCE THE OFINIGNS
OF THE WOMEN AT THE
OVULAR.

RY DE VERE |

TREVOR AS HERE
somewnere!

HE WAS QuoTEO As sAvING
"CAOIES- You CAN'T STOP
THE THUNDER! WwHite
PoInTine FEVERWSLY AT
His CRoTcH. HE THEN
BAN “AAOK"™.

NAAT poe Ss ALL THts MEAN
FoR You- THE READER?
THAT THIS SHIT BAS BEEN A
MONUMENTAL WASTE OF

, {ONS

By Kathleen DeVere

Fansubs. Anyone who
watches anime will eventual-
ly discover this term, and
eventually most hardcore
anime fans are going to sit
down and watch one. But
how do you know what's
good and what's not when
you’ve never actually heard
of anything that you’re going
to watch? Well this is where I,
as your fearless local anime
reviewer am going to come
in. From now on, I’m going to
try to let you know about eas-
ily available anime, and the
not so easily acquired anime
that can only be watched
through fansubs.

So it was with great otaku
pride that | sat down for a

night of fun and fansubs with

my friend, Holly who was gra-
cious enough to arrange for
me to see Honey Yori Dengo,

‘a lengthy shojo anime.

What can | say about
Honey Yori Dengo? First of
all, | must confess that shojo
isn't my cup of tea most of
the time, and perhaps that
makes me unfairly biased
against it. Basically, HYD is
the story of life, love and loss
at an exclusive Japanese
high school. If it sounds like a
soap opera it’s because it is a
soap opera. Forget love trian-
gles, we’re talking at LEAST
hexagons. Let me know if
there’s a name for a geomet-
ric shape with as many sides
as there are students at an
exclusive Japanese high
school, because if there is a
name for it, HYD has it.

| found the plot quite
intriguing, | just couldn’t help
but become interested in the
lives of the characters
despite my protests. The
main character is Tsukushi
Makino, who is actually a
strong-willed ass-kickin’
chick. | liked her right away.
She is very smart, but also
very poor, and she gets a
scholarship to a very elite
high school that only the
incredibly rich and famous
can attend. She tries to stay
low, but she gets caught up
with the elite group of four
upperclassmen that basically

Midraied Siosictst comme wtshé Maes ub 20007
run the school according to
their whim. Why do they do
this? It’s shojo, that sort of
thing happens in shojo!

Anyways, the group, or the
F4 for short, are pretty much
a bunch of assholes, and one
day Tsukushi gets on their
bad side, and well folks; it’s
not pretty. You will find your-
self angrily shaking your first
and crying ‘that darned F4!’
when you see what happens
to poor Tsukushi. To make
things worse, she falls for
Hanazawa, the quiet, ‘intro-
verted, slightly lobatimized
looking member of the group,
and Doumyouji, the pig head-
ed leader of the F4 falls for
her, and so on and so forth.
Add some nasty girls bent on
her demise, a grade school
chum who likes squid (don’t
ask), and money obsessed
parents to the mix and it’s
classic shojo school drama.

The good points of HYD
were Tsukushi (she’s really
cool) and the comic relief,
which was really quite funny.
However, the soundtrack had
to go. It was SO overblown
and melodramatic, that |
thought the first couple of
episodes would have alien
attacks in them just to justify
the ridiculous amount of ten-
sion that they created. There
is no reason to have super
dramatic organ music playing
just because someone
moved your desk.

As far as the quality of the
fansub goes, this one was
lacking. The picture seemed
to have a really yellow tint,
and some of the translation
was really bad in parts. “I'll
take you to my secret spot...”
and “Look! A squirrel!” Were
some of the funnier ones that
stuck out in my mind.

| would have to recom-
mend HYD to anyone who
loves shojo or wants to watch
more, but it's not for every-
one.

Stay tuned otakus! Next
time we'll talk about the dif-
ference between mangas
and movie adaptions!