Yuri Network News – March 10, 2012

March 10th, 2012

Yuri Manga

If you’ve been reading Okazu at all the week, you’ll know that JManga is the big news-maker here. Japanese Publisher Takeshobo has agreed to let all of their titles be released globally, which allows readers everywhere to access Poor Poor Lips and Morita-san ha Mukuchi. As a result, PPL lips has become their best-selling title. Thank all of you for jumping in and purchasing it! I hope you find it to be as interesting as I did. And thank everyone around the world for helping me make the (really obvious) point that letting more people buy a thing means you can sell more of it.

Hopefully with the success of Takeshobo’s global push, JManga will be able to convince other publishers that selling more is better. It’s hard to not eyeroll at that, I know, but let me just remind you that your cooperation and effort are still needed in this! Bruce McF had a great suggestion – go to a title you want to read, but can’t and use the feedback tab on the page. “I’m from XX country and I would like to read YY Title.” Just keep doing that until they can convince all the publishers to open their titles up globally. (My next goal is to encourage them to list whole magazines on the system. The day I can subscribe to Comic Beam in JManga is the day they own me for life.)

And, I hope, because PPL is doing so well, JManga and ALC Publishing are teaming up again to bring you another Takeshobo title, Kimi no Tamenara, Shineru. This is a much more typical 4-koma, but the setup makes it unique. It’s worth a read, anyway. ^_^ In fact, I’ll be spending the weekend doing some research to write up a nice introduction on Heian Imperial life and literature. ^_^;; (If anyone ever tells you that once you get out of school, you won’t have to write reports or essays, they are lying.)

In honor of this new license, here’s the link to Volume 2 of Kimi no Tamenara Shineru, (姫のためなら死ねる) which will be out in Japan in April. 

Spring will blossom with Yuri this year: Comic Yuri Hime, May Issue and Tsubomi, Volume 17 are both ready to bloom. ^_^

YNN correspondent Katherine H. doesn’t want you to miss Higashiyama Show’s  Prism, Volume 1, from Tsubomi. (Neither do I, for that matter.) This was a series that started off much like a Story A and suddenly, magically, was a very lovely realistic story that had some actual body to it and a little real-world conflict. Totally worth getting.

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Other News

In other news, Jean Giraud, known as Moebius, passed away at 74. This has nothing at all to do with Yuri, but Moebius was the first comic artist whose name I learned. His style of art and story-telling radically influenced my reading and I believe it was his work that allowed me to step into manga with little difficulty. I will never forget the moment  I encountered his work in Heavy Metal magazine. It changed everything I ever thought about comics. If you are not familiar with his work, check out his official website. The world is a bleaker place for his loss. Rest In Peace.

I also really want to turn your attention to the three-part series on Anime News Network called The Anime Economy. Written by Justin Sevakis, this series is a cogent, incredibly well-written and compelling breakdown of the money trail in the anime industry.

If you ever wondered why about anything in terms of money, costs, distribution, profits (which many fans still imagine to be great piles of cash) read this series!

Part 1: Let’s Make An Anime!
Part 2: Shiny Disks
Part 3: Digital Pennies

Part 3 is especially important for the discussion of “mindshare” and the disconnect between wanting to read/watch a thing and wanting to support that series. This lack of mindshare is why we’re still struggling with a large body of “fans” who do not have any intention ever of paying for manga or anime, unless they can have it exactly the way they want it, for prices they determine, not market-bound, and an even larger percentage of fans who have absolutely no idea at all that there is a reason to pay for entertainment at all.

This series was genuinely terrific reading. I hope you’ll all take a few moments and read it.

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That wraps it up 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.

6 Responses

  1. JIN H. says:

    Yes yes, I already spent my JManga points, I let them pile up waiting for more Yuri. Ah, thanks very much for ‘The Anime Economy’ post, I learned a few new things I was always wondering about and learning new things is my daily goal.

  2. @JIN H – I’m glad you learned something new. That’s always a bonus.

    And thank you for buying Yuri on JManga. The more successful those titles are, the more likely they are to invest in more!

  3. BruceMcF says:

    A magazine subscription along the lines of SJalpha / YenPlus could fit right into the JManga system. 99 points for one month access to an issue, or 599 points for an annual subscription with (following YenPlus) access to the current issue and the previous issue.

    To encourage people to buy permanent access to individual chapters (money now is better than money later!), people who own each chapter in a volume could be automatically given the volume access, with a rebate of the “extra” points that the individual chapters cost over the volume cost.

  4. @Bruce McF – Definitely suggest that to them. ^_^

  5. BruceMcF says:

    Well, and so I just did, “money now is worth more than money later” and all.

    I actually sorted out a workaround for reading the 4koma on my netbook, and since I was able to finish Poor Poor Lips vol1 in only a day or two after my next batch of points arrived, I’ve been able to buy vol2. Picking a page from the page display that pops up with the info bar doesn’t reset the zoom from 2x, and of course nothing reads easier with pan and scan than 4koma.

  6. Arkadi says:

    *Sigh* I too have been mourning the loss of Jean Giraud for the last few weeks :( He was a giant and there’ll never be anyone remotely as great as him. At least his legacy will live on forever.

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