Stuck in the February doldrums? Let the light of Yuri bring you joy!

Yuri Anime

Right Stuf/Nozomi announces ARIA The ORIGINATION DVD Collection has a new street date of March 16.

In the footsteps of Lesbian sites like Afterellen, SheWired, OneMoreLesbian and CherryGrrl that have opened up their doors to Yuri anime, Brazilian Lesbian website Parada Lesbica has reviewed Kannazuki no Miko. Ton Ton, from the Yuricon Mailing List did us the favor of translating into English. English is not Ton Ton’s first language, but I’m sure you can understand this without too much difficulty. Disclaimer: This review has *nothing* to do with Okazu, so if you’d like to respond to it, please visit Parada Lesbica and tell them. Thanks!:

Today I bring to you the animated version of Kannazuki no Miko. Created by the Kaishaku group in 2004, the series started with a manga, very short, with only fourteen chapters published during eight months in a Japanese magazine.

In the same year, the Geneon released the series in anime version. Although this anime is not an so old anime, he won many fans, and today is a reference when it comes to yuri.

Recently, Kannazuki won a spin-off manga, which is already being translated and released by the group Moonlight Flowers in Brazil.

The story begins with a collegial atmosphere, very typical of the yuri series. One of the main characters, Chikane, is the perfect model of girl. Good student, pretty, stylish and admired by everyone. Chikane is always misterious and she is the desire of girls and boys from her school.
The other protagonist is Himeko, a girl who is extremely sweet, confused and muddled. Of course, Himeko is one of the Chikane fans in school.

Another important character is a boy named Souma Oogami, according to the students of the college where they study, this boy is the only one who has enough quality to be Chikane boyfriend, but as always, there are someone who suffer and he is in love with Himeko.
During the first episode, the two girls become friends, take tea in a hide place.

But all this pure, happy and high school mode ends soon. The city is taken by a curse, and chaos is installed. Chikane and Himeko discover that they are Mikos (a kind of priestess), and must fight together against the Orochi.

There’s a little drama here, because Souma, that loves Himeko, is an Orochi. Obviously he refuses to be a being of evil and fight your loved one. But he can not always dominate his nature, after all, he is cursed.

The narrative begins to develop from here. I find this anime very interesting because it mixes romance with mecha battles, and spells. It is an exciting anime, there are no points where the story stagnates, and the end is really incredible, in my opinion.

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Yuri Manga

YNN Correspondent Bruce P. offers up glowing piece of praise for an upcoming addition to the Yuri Hime lineup: “the prolific and long established mangaka Ishida Atsuko
will have her first Yuri story published in the next Yuri Hime S. She has been drawing shoujo manga (among other genres) for many years; she also did the character design and animation direction for several older anime series, including Magic Knight Rayearth and Shamanic Princess. In her work she concentrates heavily on her female characters and obviously very much enjoys drawing them, in a lush, freehand kind of style. Both Rayearth 2 and Shamanic Princess had slight touches of Yuri, and she drew some cross-dressing fake Yuri in Jun-sui! Date Club back in 2004, and so I’ve been half expecting her to eventually try her hand at the real thing. It’s been a long wait. Unfortunately it appears from the advertising blurb that her contribution will be a fluffy akogare schoolgirl story (in Yuri Hime S? Imagine).

The first volume of GUNJO has hit the street this weekend! For those of you who would like to try your hand at reading the story in Japanese, YNN Correspondent and my respected colleague in the world of Yuri, Erin S, points out that some of the chapters that were published in Morning 2 magazine (1, 3, 11-13) are currently online on the IKKI magazine website. The current issue of IKKI is running chapter 14. I have not myself read Chapters 1 and 2 and I’m holding off until I get the whole collection next week.

Through the generosity of Okazu Superhero Ted V., we will have a copy of the first volume to give away. I will announce the giveaway rules officially next week. Thanks Ted!

I’m pretty excited about seeing GUNJO in print – I hope you are, too.

Rakuen Le Paradis, the first volume of which I have reviewed, now has a second volume on sale. (Thanks Erin and Sean for the reminder!)

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Other Yuri News

Also from Erin, is a news item about a movie called Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, which is based on the Yuri manga, Love Vibes by Sakurazawa Erica. There is a trailer on the website, which makes it look interesting – definitely different than the source material, but interesting nonetheless.

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That’s a wrap for this week.

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