Yuri Network News – December 19, 2009

December 19th, 2009

Just a quick personal note to start off – for the next month or so I’ll be working three jobs and, so, reviews may be sporadic, because this is a fourth job and even I have a breaking point. ;-) As a result, I am soliciting guest reviews – here are some basic guidelines for doing so.

What I’m looking for is reviews of series I will not review. I know that that’s asking you to be a bit clairvoyant and I apologize for that, but it’s not an impossible task. If you’ve read a Light Novel or manga series I’ve never mentioned, or watched an anime that has never popped up here then you’re looking at a good bet for a Guest Review. You can use the categories on the sidebar and the search at the top to see if the series in question might already be part of the blog. So, while I understand your interest in reviewing, say, Hayate x Blade, I’ll be handling that myself. :-)

Lastly – if this is a licensed series, then I would strongly prefer you not review based on scans, subs or rips you have downloaded. Write about the actual licensed item that you have bought, borrowed from friend or library or rented. Please. Thank you.

Now, onto some news!

Yuri Manga

Here’s something exciting! Morishima Akiko-sensei has been working on an Edo-period manga that is now out from Mangatime KR Comics, O-Edo tote Schön. You may remember that she had a period piece in her first collection of manga from Yuri Hime and it set her off on an interest in the period. I’m really looking forward to this, it ought to be fun.

For those of you who are enjoying Sora’s battles to save the girls of Utopia Academy, the second volume of Shitsurakuen 2 will be on sale in about a month. (This would be a great subject for a guest review, if you’ve bought and enjoyed the series!)

Last year I was saying that there would be no more Maria-sama ga Miteru novels, but you know, I was totally wrong. Yes, Yumi and the gang are no longer the main focus, but Konno-sensei is still cranking them out. Several of them have followed Yuuki and his adventures as a first-year at Hanadera (finally explaining what *really* went on with the island dance he had to learn) and I’m reading Little Horrors right now. Yumi and “our” Yamayurikai show up in the story that ties it all together, but are not the focus of the individual shorts. The point of saying all this is, there’s a new novel hitting the shelves on Dec. 25 – Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Watashi no Su.

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Yuri Anime

LexXxich points us in the direction of “Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, which is a sequel of 2007 Darker than Black. Second season features Hazuki, nicknamed Lesbian Lightsaber Ninja, a contractor whose remuneration is kissing males. She does not like it one bit, going as far as to flush her mouth with vodka after the deed, and kissing her female assistant Kyouko to “remove a bad aftertaste”. She even tries to molest Kirihara, a (female) ex-cop working now in her agency. She’d just go down the drain as “another predatory lesbian”, if not for a disaster happening to Kyouko, during which it’s revealed that their feelings were mutual. Any more spoilers would be awful, so I stop here.”

Funimation has announced the English voice cast of the second season of the Strike Witches anime.

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Snatches of Yuri

L16 volume 2 is about 16-year old Nanaka-chan who admires her beloved 28-year old onee-chan. (Real or symbolic sister, I don’t yet know.)

From the creator of Maka-Maka and Mars no Kiss comes a news series, i.d.. There’s not so much Yuri in this first volume, but Yuri Goggles will help with that, it seems. I’m probably more interested in this series because I found Mars no Kiss so sensitive and intelligent and was surprised at the delicacy of art and writing that were displayed in that volume.

Yuka-hime!, another Mangatime KR comic, sounds like Doki Doki School Hours with the main character being the class president, rather than the teacher. Absurdly short, large chested Yuka is cuddled and fondled by her adoring classmates. The standard Nadesico beauty of the class uses every opportunity to touch her, making for very Yumi/Sachiko, Himeko/Chikane photo ops. :-)

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Other News

Egypt Today has posted an interview with Cutey Honey and Devilman Lady (among many other series) creator, Go Nagai.

Urushihara Satoshi has a new artbook out. If you have ever looked at any of his artwork, you’ll know what to expect – shiny girls, often naked, sometimes Yuri, overt or implied.

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

7 Responses

  1. Hah, first I thought Hazuki was a woman, then when she kissed that guy and felt disgust and kissed the girl, I thought she was an androgynous man, and that was the idea I had until now.

    Is she really a woman? lol

  2. @Anonymous – Thanks, fixed. The link we use is through the Yuricon Shop and it got a bit borked.

  3. Anonymous says:

    @Ghost In The Shell

    …not to be mean or anything, but I don’t understand at all how you could have thought Hazuki was a dude.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Hazuki is at least voiced by a woman, not that that means anything I guess. I was rather certain that she was a girl. Also, I think that her grandfather in one episode refers to her as being a girl. :-P

    I’m personally enjoying the second season of DTB much more than I did season 1.

  5. Hah, she still looks like a man that looks like a woman to me, but if she is officially a woman, ok

  6. Anonymous says:

    I know this is old, but on your – ‘LexXxich points us in the direction of “Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, Second season features Hazuki, nicknamed Lesbian Lightsaber Ninja’: Now, I think I saw a first for anime revenge moments, yes or no? Mina Hazuki Lesbian Lightsaber Ninja, and her female assistant Yoko Kyouko, if you tie together they’re first meeting in the end of the one OVA with all the other parts, it’s obvious that their feelings were mutual yes, a downplayed relationship. But it seems like the first time I can think of that a truly lesbian character (Mina) seeks and gets her revenge against the man who hurt / killed her girlfriend. If that’s ever been done in any ‘real’ anime please tell me. This fact actually went right past me at first, and maybe that’s why they cut the actual fight scene so we couldn’t see the (downplayed)lesbian revenge against a man and the man loses (he is left very dead).

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