Yuri Network News – March 17, 2012

March 17th, 2012

What a good day to talk about Yuri. It would surely have given St. Patrick apoplexy, along with the carousing and misbehavior now commonly attached to his name day. ^_^

Other News

This week had a lot of important news, some of which I wanted to share, and a few rants I really need to get off my chest.

First, the CBLDF announced that the criminal charges were dropped in the “Brandon X” case. The case was ultimately settled on non-criminal charges. CBLDF director Charles Brownstein talks at length about this case and the fact that, ultimately, it did not go to trial and therefore did not create a legal precedent. He makes a lot of excellent points and I hope you’ll read this fantastic interview Tom Spurgeon did with him on Comics Reporter. (And I am so excited to be able to link to Tom’s site. He’s been kind enough to link to me many times over, so back atcha Tom!) The CBLDF is still paying off more than half the legal fees so any help you can give them, even donations as little as $5, are greatly appreciated.

Also of great importance has been the saga of content sellers vs content publishers in regards to Digital Manga Publishing. Although I have very little motivation to read their stuff (and have some issues with their Digital Manga Guild, as I consider it to be a race to the bottom for quality work for fair cost,) I like the folks there personally. Recently, both Apple and Amazon have delisted DMP’s BL titles. Apple demanded DMP pull Yaoi from its Apple app and Amazon told DMP that they couldn’t sell through Kindle. As you can imagine, I was livid at this. I wrote the Apple and Amazon CEOs. Clearly I was not the only one, as 24 hours later, Amazon rescinded. Apple has not.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen my rage at Apple and their randomly enforced, bizarrely Victorian business practices that seem to somehow always be against LGBTQ-themed content. I started my computer days on an Apple, but now you could not pay me to buy any of their products. I am so strongly opposed to their obscure and cloaked content policies, their anti-LGBTQ focus and even more opposed to the willful blindness of Apple users who keep insisting I must be mistaken. I am not mistaken – Apple was, once, a very progressive company. Now they are just another large company who does not hire full-timers, they farm everything out to contractors, who are clearly given too much room to be repressive, and they treat foreign workers like animals. Come ON folks. Apple is “The Man.” Their culture and their policies are totalitarian. I get it – they were cool when you were in school. They aren’t cool anymore. You should say something about that to them.

While I’m ranting, I would like to repeat myself once more about the Yuri market. Now that Poor Poor Lips is doing well at JManga, there is some cognitive dissonance about it being released in print. This is abstracted from a comment I made on Facebook about the matter:

Fans assume there are tens of thousands of people out there reading Yuri. Sales in the west run at about 1% of audience. It’s just a really freaking small niche. There are not enough fans to support a load of Yuri titles…that is why there are not a load of Yuri titles in print in English. Best Yuri titles do somewhere between 2500-3000 in sales, which is still short of the 4000 copies or so to make enough money to keep going. Even top selling mainstream titles like Naruto barely reach 15,000 copies sold here in the US and that’s barely enough to make Japanese sales lists.

To all Yuri fans who somehow think that there are a legion of fans being under-served here….there aren’t. There are a few of you. And of that few, only a fewer few actually buy Yuri. That is why there is so little Yuri here. There are not enough people to make it profitable. Yet. Give it more years, more promotion and more support from the fanbase.

Think about this. How many copies of Poor Poor Lips do you *really* think would sell? Now, multiply that by three volumes. Be honest – how likely do you think selling 12,000 print copies of a cute, but not particularly world-shaking series, is there? 

There is no relationship between sales on JManga and success of a print volume. Print needs WAY more sales to cover costs and make it worth printing, shipping and distributing. That is *exactly* why JManga is a great idea – it’s a place to get out all the niche titles we want to see that really don’t have a decent chance at making a profit in print.

I don’t meant to be harsh, but…stop. Please stop living in a fantasy where there are a million Yuri fans and 10% of them want to buy books. This is not true. WHEN it is, there will be more Yuri than you can handle. Right now, there are a few hundred people who will buy anything and a few hundred more who will buy when it’s cheap enough and convenient enough and simple enough. And the rest simply do not count at all, since they have no intention of buying anything, from anyone, ever.

Okay…rants over now. ^_^

***

Snatches of Yuri

A collection from Hana to Yume comics called Kanoujo no Namida ga Yuki Datoshitara (彼女の涙が雪だとしたら) includes at least one short in which there is Yuri.

Idol Pretender ( アイドルプリテンダー ) seems to think it has BL and Yuri, at least based on the obi copy. While there’s definitely some Yuri-like behavior, the jury appears to still be out. It’s a Champion Red title, so even if there is Yuri, don’t expect it to make you happy.

I honestly have no idea if this is good or not, but if you like Transgender Yuri, take a look at Hero no Himitsu (ヒーローの秘密), Feel free to write up a review for us!

And Smile Style (スマイル・スタイル) has been all over the Yuri lists in Japan. It’s moe school life Yuri. Just the way so many like it.

***

Random Stuff

There will be a Yuri Danshi Drama CD…with character songs, in June. As much as I adore Drama CDs, I’m giving this one a pass. ^_^;

Bruce made me promise to tell you that Wandering Son, Volume 3 is available for Pre-order on Amazon.

To end this report on a really, really positive note, April will be bringing a new Maria-sama ga Miteru Light Novel, Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Farewell Bouquet (マリア様がみてる フェアウェル ブーケ) –  in which we will be seeing, for the first time, Yumi as Rosa Chinensis! Yay! Okay, now the series can end if it has to. ^_^

***

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.

11 Responses

  1. Cryssoberyl says:

    I suppose that means Yuri Danshi is doing well? I’ll be honest though…I feel that Kurata Uso’s massive talents are going to waste on this title. His stories of actual Yuri are some of the best of the day, and I dearly wish he would return to working on female/female romance rather than this awkward meta-commentary on the fandom of same.

  2. @Cryssoberyl – I have no idea if it’s doing well, but it’s clear that the staff wants to promote this.

    The editor-in-chief, Nakamura-san, clearly throws money at the stuff he likes.

  3. JIN H. says:

    A CBLDF related victory is one for all of us. I wish more people would understand that. Seeing their total for legal fees the obvious occurred to me as far as the small number of people donating $5 required to fully pay that off. Sad.
    That was a very good ‘rant’ and I agree!
    ‘Snatches of Yuri’ not so good. Maybe ‘Smile Style’ as the only exception, but moe gives me very mixed feelings and I still don’t know exactly why that is yet. More Champion Red and the taste of bile…
    Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Farewell Bouquet!!! Yumi as Rosa Chinensis, her graduation(?), Touko, my mind is racing! This is like a dream come true! And yes, I am aware of the fact I’m a complete Marimite loser…

  4. @JIN H. – Your thoughts and mine are exactly alike. ^_^

    “More Champion Red and the taste of bile… “

    LOL Yes!

    But I am also a complete Marimite loser, and will be so happy to see Yumi as Rosa Chinensis and pass that on to Touko. That was exactly what I wanted for the series to end. After all, it begins with Yumi…it ought to end with Yumi.

  5. Anonymous says:

    You know, speaking of JManga, I wonder if it would be possible for them to grab up Hayate X Blade? I suppose it would mostly depend on whether or not Seven Seas still retains the right for domestic publishing of the first six volumes.

  6. @Anonymous – Go ahead and ask them! I’ve communicated my interest in that title, as well. ^_^

  7. BruceMcF says:

    This DMP news is also a reminder to be careful about which “content ecosystem” we pick when we choose hardware. I wasn’t in the iPad price range when I was getting my little 7″ skinny media tablet, but one reason I shied away from the Amazon Kindle Fire was the hurdles in buying books outside of the Kindle system.

    In the character limits of Twitter, I abbreviated that as “B&N Nook Color”, which is the tablet I have, where there’s an extra step in buying books from “ADE” DRM bookstores on a PC and then sideloading them …

    … and since B&N is the most obvious rival to use as a bogeyman when writing to Amazon …

    … but while B&N show no evidence of buckling to the pressure that is being directed to Apple and Amazon, it is only more open compared to the iPad and Kindle ecosystems. Still more open are devices like the Samsung tablets, the Kobo Vox, the Archos G9 line.

  8. Lady_Rufus says:

    Whew, so many rants… Good, keep ’em coming!
    I wasn’t really aware of the world or even myself at the time, but when apple was promoting their mac didn’t they sell it as an opportunity to take a stand with the less recognized, innovative guy and “think differently” as opposed to going for the more common options? My, how things have turned around… Here, having an iPhone is the standard that has only arisen in the last 2 months, with a few people owning a Blackberry here and there. With good reason perhaps. But apple’s still a corporate body that lives to shift units. Why people ever seen them as anything different, i don’t think i will ever know.
    Hearing the news about a new season of Marimite has made me oh-so-very excited. Thanks for that! And Lá Féile Pádraig sona daoibh! Indeed.

  9. @Lady_Rufus – Not a new anime season, there’s a new Maria-sama Light Novel. They were published for 7 years before the anime and have continued being published after the anime started.

  10. Gustavo says:

    I’m glad that I chose an Android tablet. Now, if only JManga released an app already.

  11. @Gustavo – I’m with you on both counts. ^_^ An Android app would be very helpful.

    I’ll be doing a full review of JManga on computer and tablet this week, if all goes well.

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