BEING UPFRONT: A Pictorial Guide to Bodacious Women in Anime
HONOURABLE MENTIONS Page 1 (A-J)

AIR MASTER
Maki Aikawa
In the main entry, I told you about Kaori Sakiyama and the pool photograph incident, which seriously set her off. On the left, you will see the scene where Maki's photo is actually being taken. On the right, you will see the magazine picture. You can't help but notice the difference, can you? It looks like somebody at the magazine had a bit of fun with Photoshop™ before this went to press. Since Maki's chest is normally not very prominent--as can be clearly seen in the scene when she's trying that swimsuit on--she's an Honourable Mention. I just hope that she doesn't give me a flying boot to the head for that.

Once more, I present

ALL-PURPOSE CULTURAL CATGIRL NUKU NUKU (Jpn: BANNOU BUNKA NEKOMUSUME)
Atsuko "Nuku Nuku" Natsume
Kyusaku Natsume is on the run from Mishima Heavy Industries, whose CEO just happens to be his estranged wife Akiko. He had designed and built a cyborg prototype called the NK-1124 for them, but had a change of conscience and decided he didn't want his creation to be used as a weapon, so he took it with him as he left with their young son Ryuunosuke. While having to take a quick pit stop in an alley, Ryuunosuke comes across a cute cat, and he decides to take it with him. Shortly afterwards, Mishima's forces attack and chase them down. While thankfully Kyusaku and Ryuu survive, the cat doesn't. Kyusaku puts two and two together and transplants the cat's brain into the cyborg, thus making Atsuko (who answers to "Nuku Nuku"), a cute, sexy, affectionate, ultra-powerful and very feline big sister for Ryuu. At one point, after destroying Ryuu's bike during one of her BMX-tricks-are-for-wimps rides, she's told to find a job to help replace it, and she proceeds to become the most popular waitress at the local franchise of the family restaurant chain Akkie's, which is owned by Mishima (and buys uniforms from the same people who kit out Anna Miller's). Part of her popularity most likely springs from the cute bobbling when she turns to greet a customer in the scene the right capture above is taken from. As for how well she actually does as a waitress and the events that occur...I'm not spoiling it for you. You have to see it for yourself.

ANGEL LINKS (Jpn: SEIHOU TENSHI: ANGEL LINKS)
Anne Lapin (two pictures); Elizabeth Aihara Chang (left to right)
In the main entry, I let you know that Angel Links, while not quite as good as its parent series Outlaw Star, is still good. However, there is one thing about it that did bug me a bit about it when I was auditioning the whole series for the page: The obvious state variation. Possibly the most annoying example of it is Meifon Ri in an otherwise-nice swimsuit--which very noticeably reduces her bustline. However, two of her crew members occasionally benefit from this. Anne and Aihara still really have it bad, though; we never find out their last names or their backgrounds in the anime (it took a cover feature in Protoculture Addicts issue 64 to find that out), their personalities are "bridge bunny" all the way, and the producer never settles on their chest sizes--even in the same scene. As such, the above are examples where the variation was generous to both of them. Considering that this is really a minor quibble on my part, you can imagine how I get when something really sets me off.

Let's give a little bit to one of the male crew members--as if the hug Anne is giving to the young fellow crew member Bowie Barikuzah Jr. in the first picture isn't enough.

ARMITAGE: DUAL MATRIX
Naomi Armitage; unnamed holographic sign; white replica (left to right
In this sequel to the original 1994 OVA series/1997 movie (depending on the edit), Naomi Armitage and Ross Sylibus have gone into hiding on Mars, living under different identities and raising their daughter Yoko, just like a normal family. However, things don't stay normal when a robot riot breaks out at an anti-matter plant back on Earth, and both Naomi (in that nice outfit, of course) and Ross go there to investigate just what is happening behind the scenes. The action is not only busier than the original, but AIC couldn't resist throwing in a few more tiny touches of fan service. This not only includes a shot of a holographic sign that leans out of the frame and bobbles a bit and and our heroine in a nude scene (being repaired, but what the hey), but a fight between Naomi and two very skilled replicas of her in which both she and the white replica move a little more than their limbs at each other, as you can see. Since all of these instances are very small in the scale of the whole movie--in fact, they really only do this once each--here it is.

Before your computer revolts on you, you can check out the

CHOBITS
unnamed persocom (upper row; right in both pictures);
Yumi Omura (lower row)

CLAMP does a wide variety of work, including seinen; this is the best (only?) example of their work targetted to 18-25-year-old guys. Hideki Motosuwa (the guy in three of the above pictures), a farm boy from Hokkaido, is trying to get into university in Tokyo. When he finds that he failed his entrance exams, he decides to move to Tokyo anyway to attend a prep school. When he reaches the big city, his mind is thoroughly blown by the existence of "persocoms"--personal computers which look mostly like human beings (almost all of those look like cute girls, of course) and even walk, talk and act somewhat like people. Hideki wants one of his own, but their outrageous price tags get in his way. However, walking home one night, he finds an especially cute one sitting on a trash heap on the sidewalk, wrapped in bandages. Figuring that there'd be no problem with taking away other people's trash, he takes it home, turns it on, and finds that it's not only cute, but very affectionate--and wiped of all its memory, so that all she says at first is "Chii," which becomes her name. It turns out that Hideki's little trashpick has a whole lot of mystery inside her, and it's suggested that he and Chii visit Minoru Kokobunji, a very young lad who knows persocoms inside and out. When Hideki walks in his door of his big flashy house, he's greeted by four very sexy women wearing very ecchi maid costume variants. Yeah--four custom-built persocoms. This surprises Hideki, especially when Minoru asks them to help him take off his shoes, which earns him the faceful of silicone above. They look bigger sitting on his shoulder, don't they? Later on, when he realizes he needs a part-time job in order to keep afloat, he's walking along when a girl accidentally splashes him with the water she's wetting down the sidewalk with. Thankfully he doesn't turn into a girl or a pig, but into the bar she's doing this in front of, to dry off. The girl is Yumi Omura, the high-schooler daughter of the owner of the bar Yoronkonde, where Hideki is later offered (and accepts) a job. She likes to flirt with and tease him, especially when it comes to his bad habit of talking to himself. During one of the teasing times, she tells him she's an E-cup (American D-cup). For some reason, while she doth look impressive in the bar uniform and bending a little at the waist, the Anime Law of Mammary Photosynthesis works against her in the beach episode. That doesn't look like a D to me; still, the left picture and the references are notable enough for here. For some reason, she looks kind of down when Hideki talks about persocoms with her--and we get to find out why later on in the series. While Chobits is fluffier and the character design is not as elaborate as, say, X/1999 (designs by a different artist in the group, y'see), it's still a nicely-rounded show with lots of comedy and drama that both guys and gals can appreciate. And nicely-done fan service; can't forget that. Recommended.

When not using your persocom to surf ero websites, you can use it to check out

COWBOY BEBOP Faye Valentine This excellent series is based around Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter who tours around space with his partner Jet Black, following whatever leads he can find. During one of his adventures, he encounters Faye Valentine, a fellow bounty hunter. She ends up hanging out around Jet's ship, the Bebop, when she isn't trying to snare the bounties Spike is after or otherwise causing him a lot of trouble. Because of her nature, Spike doesn't trust her very much, which makes for much great comical tension between the two. When she was first proposed to me for inclusion in BU, I decided against it, since her standard outfit, as nice as it is (those hot pants would make James Brown scream anew), doesn't make her chest look quite outrageous enough (yeah, I know I'm picky; gotta have filters somewhere or I'll be swamped even more). Then I watched the Ganymede Elegy episode, in which she stretches out in the sun in a killer bikini and leans forward to put on some sunscreen lotion. Boggle. Given that she doesn't do that very often, she's here in the Honourable Mentions section, but it's a hard-won placement. For more on Ms. Valentine, check out the wonderfully ambivalent Untouchable Shrew Woman and easy come, easy go. For more about the show in general, see you at Emily's Cowboy Bebop Page and dmoz's page of CB links. English-version videos (sub VHS/dub VHS (at two eps a tape; gee, thanks)/bilingual DVD (4-5 eps a disc)) are available from Bandai Entertainment, Inc.

DEVIL HUNTER YOHKO (Jpn: MAMANO HUNTER YOHKO)
Ayako Mano; Yohko Mano (left to right)
Yohko Mano is a typical teenage Japanese girl who hangs out with her friends at school and dreams of finding a tall, handsome boyfriend. However, when strange things start happening to her at school, her grandmother Madoka informs her that there are mamano afoot, and that Yohko is the 108th in line in the Mano family to inherit the family business of hunting them down from her. This series is best known for being A) most Western anime fans' first exposure to fan service, in the form of nude transformation sequences, and B) the first title a new company in Texas called A.D. Vision licenced and released back in 1992, but that's not all, folks. The second OVA opens with Yohko fighting and defeating a green ectoplasmic monster (but not before it sprouts tentacles and grabs her so fast it makes her wobble), and also features a not-very-subliminal scene where she flops down on the floor in a baggy men's-undershirt-style dressing gown (presumably in tribute to a similar scene with Noriko in Gunbuster). This series spawned five OVAs and a music video collection (released here as DHY 4-ever!), and the last OVA featured both new character designer Yoshimitsu Ohashi (who made Yohko look a bit more genki than she originally did) and a new rival. Y'see, Grandma just beat out her sister Chiaki for the title of 107th Mamano Hunter, and sis was none too pleased, so she raised her own granddaughter to compete to be the 108th. Enter Ayako Mano, who steals a student teacher Yohko had a crush on, thus goading her into fighting. The transformations were changed here as well, and Ayako was given a particularly elaborate one with a lift-and-drop. And that's it on the warm front movement, hence the placement here, but it's still an enjoyable action series with some good comedy spice.

Being an older series, not very many DHY fan pages are kept up to date.

END OF SUMMER (Jpn: DOUKYUUSEI: NATSU NO OWARI NI)
Mai Sakuragi
This is my all-time favourite adult anime series, based on the popular dating-simulation game. In the dream sequence opening of the first OVA, male lead Wataru Morooka sits on the diving board of a large, dark pool, where his dream girl Mai swims naked just out of his reach. Her blissful expression as she surfaces suddenly, hair, water droplets and breasts billowing*, is the closest to poetic that you'll find in this phenomenon. Wataru most definitely wants the beautiful, demure and shy Mai, but several things stand between them, including her very strict (and rich) family, a rich (and arrogant) young man and a few of Wataru's female classmates. I love this series because it doesn't skimp on stories and character development, and while the adult scenes are not at all explicit, they are still hot. Not to mention warm-hearted, too, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of adult anime being made (and licensed in North America) nowadays, seemingly by people who have problems with women. This one is heartily recommended for people who feel good about sex.
* I'm well aware of the fact that real wet hair doesn't billow, but this is an anime dream sequence, so work with me here.

Chinkeii's Doukyuusei Page seems to have bit the big one, but this

F³ (FRANTIC, FRUSTRATED AND FEMALE) (Jpn: NAGEKI NO KENKO YURYOJI) Hiroe Ogawa A classic moment in one of the few 18+ anime titles to address the issue of sexual dysfunction is about three minutes into the first volume, when Hiroe defiantly declares her battle to overcome her difficulty in coming to terms, and adds her own punctuation. As for how the battle goes, I'm not going to spoil it, but I will tell you that it's not entirely friendly to Hiroe, but still less cringe-inducing than a lot of today's adult anime. By the way, the original title of the anime and Wan Yan a Gu Da's manga translates to English as A Perfectly Healthy Child's Grief. English-version videos (Volume 1--sub VHS/dub VHS; Volumes 2 and 3--sub VHS only; DVD with all these versions) are available from Soft Cel Pictures (18 and over only, please). All three subtitled OVAs were re-released on one VHS tape under the name F³--Menage à Trois, so I recommend avoiding the individual-episode tapes (unless you really want them that badly and/or you find them cheap as dirt).

FLAME OF RECCA (Jpn: RECCA NO HONOO) Fuuko Kirisawa (BWH: 87cm/??/??) (Source: Original manga, vol. 5, straight from the fighter's mouth) Another funky supernatural fighting anime with large doses of humour, drama, violence and even a little romance. Yeah, yeah, what's new, right? Well, the tough, tomboyish Fuuko has known ninja wannabe Recca Hanabishi since they were kids, and has always sparred with him, with the promise that, if she wins, he has to call her "princess" (Fuuko, meet Ayeka; you two will get along great) and serve as her own "personal ninja" (hmm, there's a song in there somewhere). She still has yet to win. But when the fertilizer hits the ventilator for Recca and his "hime" (princess) Yanagi Sakoshita, Fuuko ends up joining his team. In episode 34, Fight, Fuuko! The Pain Behind the Skin, she gets her moment in the fighting spotlight, and relishes it so much that she jumps for joy afterwards. And in the preview of that episode. And in the flashback at the beginning of the next episode. In the outfit in the cel pictured on the left. It's the only time it happens, though, so here she is. While the format is clichéd as hell, the show is still very entertaining. Check it out. The Fuuko/Aira Kirisawa Shrine has everything you'd want about her and an entire case of chips. For general info about the show, there's the Flame of Recca Shrine and a page full of dmoz-collated links. Hey, buddy, got a light?

JUBEI-CHAN THE NINJA GIRL: SECRET OF THE LOVELY EYEPATCH (Jpn: JUUBEI-CHAN: LOVELY GANTAI NO HIMITSU) Jiyuu Nanohana This series, created by Daichi Akitarou (Kodomo no Omocha), grafts fierce sword fighting onto cuteness, shoots it through a wacky sense of humour and pulls it off. We are introduced to a young man named Koinosuke, the servant of Yagyuu Juubei, a Samurai from 300 years ago. On his deathbed, Juubei hands the heart-shaped Lovely Eyepatch to Koinosuke and tells him that it contains a power which can only passed on to a female of his chosen bloodline. Juubei's last words describe how to find the girl: "Pocha pocha de purin purin no bon bon" (which was fan-translated as, "lovely, cute and bouncy"). Enter a high school girl named Jiyuu Nanohana, chest first into the camera, who runs across an anxious young man--Koinosuke--in the forest on her way home from school. Koinosuke catches up to her and tries to give her the Eyepatch, which is where the series takes off. Jiyuu does leave BU with a dilemma, though; as nice as the fairly tight sweater she wears is, her chest isn't really that big, and I've seen no jiggle so far. The thing is, it's subject to a lot of glances (follow the arrows) and almost every other character in the show comments on it, so she (or it) can't exactly be ignored. What do I do in a situation like that? Give her an Honourable Mention. And why not? The show's cute and funny and has quite good (if short) action scenes as well.

I did a little more digging and finally found some English fan pages: