Yuri News This Week – January 31, 2009

January 31st, 2009

Pretty quiet week. Watch me make soup from stones. lol

Yuri Anime

Bruce McF. believes that Kaleido Star being shown on Crunchyroll is an objectively Good Thing. And to the guy who keeps writing in to say that KS isn’t Yuri – that’s the good part of subjectivity. You can see a non-Yuri anime, and those of use who see it as a love-hate Yuri relationship can see that. :-)

Not as much of an aside as it seems

I’ve been talking alot about this on my Twitter Feed: Japanese Anime companies are clearly starting to hit a wall in regards to using western companies as middlemen. Last week, TV Tokyo’s Iwata talked about how, in order to survive in a glutted, shrinking market and to combat fansubbers, Japanese anime companies are taking control back of series. The key to this seems to be simultaneous multiple digital distribution methods. (日本語で) I’m not surprised – and I strongly suggest that manga companies should start thinking about ways that they too could be cut out of the loop. Manga is already distributed by cellphone in Japan, and several OEL series can be found on iPhone apps. How big does the writing on the wall have to be before Nebuchadnezzar notices? Guess we’ll see.

Which leads back me to….

Yuri Anime

An announcement in March’s Dengeki Daioh magazine states that Queen’s Blade anime, slated for April will be simultaneously released on YouTube, TV and the company’s official cellphone site.

IMHO, the writing on the wall is REALLY big.

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Yuri Manga

I mentioned this before but it’s worth repeating. The January issue of Morning 2 magazine is graced by a Gunjou cover. Before I give you the link, go *read my reviews*. Because a bunch of you seemed to have completely missed the point of the series. It’s not what you think it’s going to be. And your initial reaction is likely to be “Aaah!”. Take a deep breath. Look at it. Really look at it. I’m not the only one who thinks it’s genius. You can find the picture here.

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Snatches of Yuri

I should probably have mentioned this series earlier, but it just kept slipping my mind, can’t imagine why. Strike Witches features moe, pantless, military uniform-wearing girls. And lots of Yuri potential, I’m assured by an awful lot of guys. So far I haven’t met any women at all who watch it. It’s a good candidate for a guest review, so if you’d like to tell the world why you like military uniform-wearing pantsless moegirls, drop me a line. :-)

O-Astuku COOL ni Oshiete A-ge-ru is an anthology with various levels of Yuri, and all of it is Yuricest.

***

And there you have it, another exciting week o’Yuri. Or not, but there you have it.
-_-;

18 Responses

  1. Katherine says:

    *looks at the Gunjou picture* o__o Dear god, what happened?! *curiosity piqued* And if you haven’t seen it already, you should check out the Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo anime; there’s some good Yuri potential, and a character who you would especially like (Nina- voiced by Naomi Shindou, of all people).

  2. Anonymous says:

    WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GUNJOU COVER. THAT IS THE MOST TERRIFYING, MANLY, AND FORCED-LOOKING KISS I HAVE EVER SEEN.

  3. Wow – you people really didn’t read my reviews, did you.

    That *IS* the series. Right there.

  4. Erin says:

    A bit of news about Yuri Hime comics: According to the ads in Yuri Hime 15, Chatting at the Amber Teahouse volume 1(including the limited edition with the drama CD, which there is an extra ad for with more info) and Sweet Peach! volume 1 are both due out on April 18. There are also ads for Hanjuku Joshi volume 2 and Gokujou Drops volume 2, but I don’t think specific dates are given for those.

  5. Anonymous says:

    I love Kaleido Star and Sora and Layla’s relationship, they somehow remind me of Hiromi and Ochofujin from Aim for the Ace, giving off the same mixture of rivalry and romantic subtext.

    I ADORE the Ace movie, it’s as Yuri as a 1979 movie can get without making the Yuri super-obvious. In fact, I believe the only way to avoid a tragic ending back then was to make the relationship ambiguous enough so that non-Yuri fans could still interpret it in a non-Yuri way. But we Yuri fans know what flying off to America together means :)

    Plus, as in Kaleido Star, there are no concrete male love interests. Sadly, the manga and the 1989 remake end up pairing off Hiromi with that guy who is interested in her in the movie (but gets nowhere fast). I don’t know about the original 1973-74 series, though.

  6. Winterbraid says:

    Hehe, not bad. (The cover, I mean.) Though I think I still like “Blame!”`s Cibo and Sanakan better…
    …Never mind that. ^-^;

  7. Katherine says:

    Sorry- that was a poor reaction. Even though I read your reviews of Gunjou, the cover was still surprising- not what I expected. (I actually expected something like the blonde holding a knife next to the brunette or vice versa…because it didn’t sound like the sort of story where they would end up together.) It is nice in how it’s extremely different from the usual, though.

  8. deanbcurtis says:

    I’m well beyond agreeing on the awesomeness of the Gunjou cover. In fact, I’ll flat out say it has more artistic merit than pretty much anything to have come out in any medium over the last five years. That may have strained my hyperbolic muscle, but, in all fairness, that’s precisely the kind of work that should be garnering mainstream praise. The fact that sites like AfterEllen et al. aren’t even glancing at it is disheartening. Honestly, how can one cover glbt arts and ignore that?

    [/tangent]

  9. @Katherine – they’ve already slept together, some months ago.

  10. darkchibi07 says:

    Isn’t that Girls’ Love festival going to be tomorrow in Japan? Do you know anyone that’s going to attend there and give us a report?

  11. redadmiral says:

    If anyone’s thinking about getting their hands on a copy of the current Gunjou chapter, it might help to know that it’s not just the cover – there’s a couple of full-colour pages in the chapter itself, and I would say that they’re even better than the cover image.

  12. @redadmiral – Thanks for that piece of news. My issue is waiting for me at the bookstore. I can’t wait to get it…

  13. *After reading the review, looks at the pic again and again, then visits http://ching.tv/*

    Damn, that one cover drove home the point with a very different, rough twist. Wow.

  14. Ida says:

    I am a female, and I enjoyed Strike Witches very much. It is hilarious and… very random.

    It has Yuri potential. My favorite character is Mio, and the most Yuri tension is revolving around her. Whether it is from Yoshika, Perrine, or any other random character. But the other girls, too, form pretty natural couples.

    However, this is the universe where women aren’t alowed to wear pants, and they apparently have only one pair of panties… dunno. I personally found it pretty amusing to watch. But I am a pervert, after all.

    Plot-wise… meh. There wasn’t much plot to begin with. They sort of replicated WWII setting and tried to add characters that sort of existed during that era, but they decided to add aliens and created girls with dog ears. And it went all downhill from there… They lost half of their plot lines along the way, the other half they forgot to close in the end. I really hate when it happens. But as long as you forget about the plot and just enjoy the show, its not that bad =)

    So… the reason why one would want to watch this anime… probably, just to count the panty-shots. In the episode 2 we counted somewhere about 70. And that was on the low side…

    And, I do agree with Katherine, Sora Kake Girl is pretty interesting to watch.

  15. Anonymous says:

    I actually know a good deal of female watchers of Strike Witches. YuriYuri hijinks aside, the research and planning that went into it should be acknowledged…the -verse is quite well done.

  16. @Anonymous/Ida – So, please feel free to write up a review!

  17. BruceMcF says:

    Strike Witches is also on Crunchyroll (FWIW).

  18. BruceMcF says:

    Oops, my lack of eagerness to actually watch Strike Witches betrayed me … its available on Crunchyroll, but only for download at $3/episode – “the streaming window is closed.”

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