Yuri Network News – March 24, 2012

March 24th, 2012

Yuri Anime

Top news this week had to be the unexpected licensing announcement of Oniisama E / Dear Brother by streaming site Viki. Jasmine has written a very well-thought out short article on why Dear Brother is so important  – and such a compelling watch for GeekGirl World.

Crunchyroll announced that it will be launching in Latin America with Spanish subtitles. This would be perfect if it were two separate news items – that they were launching in Latin America and offering Spanish subtitles for *anywhere.*  Anime and manga companies really have issues with language =/ country.

The new Jormungand trailer looks…well…awesome. ^_^

And the second trailer for Saki: Achiga-hen, looks like….Saki.

Since Madoka Magica is on Crunchyroll and I’ve already written the series up at great length, I don’t really have more to say about it than I have already done. So…if you’d like to be the one to write up Madoka on CR, email me a three line proposal on what you have to say about the series and anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com and you could be our next guest poster. )If you have never guested before, please also introduce yourself. Thanks.) Looks like we’ll get a Madoka movie this fall. I wish we wouldn’t. The series was wonderfully self-contained.

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Yuri Manga

JManga is right in the middle of a special Yuri Manga promotion, until March 28. From their press release:

Subscribers who purchase any Yuri titles during the promotion will get 100 points back (up to 21% off) per volume! You must be a subscriber in order to purchase manga on JManga, but during this promotion  Jmanga will be offering a special sign-up bonus of up to 4500 points!

For the purposes of this promotion the only “Yuri” titles are GIRLFRIENDS by Milk Morinaga, Poor Poor Lips by Hayako Goto, and Love My Life by Ebine Yamaji. And some regional limitations still exist. I have asked if JManga plans on making these all global soon, but have not yet heard back.

Amusingly, I clicked onto Okazu today and saw this in the advertising space below my post:

First time ever – a Yuri manga ad on Okazu. It gave me a bit of a thrill, I have to admit. ^_^

The first volume of Kimono Nadesico (きものなでしこ) from Comic Yuri Hime is forthcoming in April. As is Metesaratekya- (メッてされてキャッ) and Saitei Megami (最低女神),

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Snatches of Yuri

Murasaki-iro no Chorea (紫色のクオリア) is a manga based on a light novel that has at least some Yuri, if not more.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this manga here and shame on me, because now that GUNJO is over, it’s the only thing I’m reading in IKKI. Golondrina (ゴロンドリーナ) by Est Em is a really overwrought story about a young woman being trained to be a matador. There’s a previous affair with a woman, but that’s not really the point. The point is – woman in a “suit of lights.” Just sayin’. ^_^ Oh, and Est Em. Very cool.

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Yuri Webcomics

On Twitter, YNN Correspondent Sparkle turned my attention to the already delightful story and art  by Strangelykatie of Princess vs Princess.

And Kris Dresen has been drawing coffee-flavored flirtation over on Outlines Press. You can catch the first 10 pages of Closing Time and I hope it makes you smile as it did me.

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Other News

YNN Correspondent Katherine H. points us towards Passionate Friendships: The Aesthetics of Girls in Japan, which covers shoujo romance in literature and manga, among other things. And it happens to use as its cover art a picture I adore and once wrote a story around. ^_^

And she forwarded this – something she learned about from Erin S. – and I wanted to tell all of you. Ohime-sama Youchien to Hakuba no Oujisama is a book about a class for Princesses, and one Princess who just doesn’t fit the mold. A great synopsis and discussion can be found on the Minesweeper Addict Tumblr.

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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.

5 Responses

  1. BruceMcF says:

    Note that the announcement by Crunchryoll of the Latin American site with Spanish subtitles was in response to a question at their Tokyo International Anime Fair presentation ~ I’ve read the babel fish style auto-translation of the Japanese transcription of the presentation, and while ANN is careful here to report on what was explicitly said, that might not be identical to the way that the formal announcement and press release will express it.

    Their trial run with Spanish subtitles this season used the subtitle selector option (retained from their pirate bay days), and was available wherever Knight in the Area was licensed (which did not include Latin America), so it appears to be technically feasible for them to make the Spanish subtitles available to everyone. If they use the same existing support function, then the distinction of the Latin American site would be that Spanish Language menu text and Spanish subtitles where available would be the default rather than English.

    If they don’t clear it up sometime this week, then the details of whether all, some, or none of the subtitles will be available outside of the Latin American region is a question to pose. Since Crunchyroll is an industry sponsor of Sakura-Con, so I’d assume there would be an opportunity for someone to pose the question at Sakura-Con.

  2. JIN H. says:

    ‘Jormungand’ does look very cool. ‘B.R.Shooter’ wrapped up and ‘Another’ is almost over so I can’t wait to give it a try.
    Saki: Achiga-hen; I’m sure I will watch the series but I noticed in the trailer, in the background, character pan ‘from the waist down’ and I almost can’t stand it anymore Especially when it’s moe or loli – it’s not okay. Speaking of perversion, for those who love hentai there’s a few new Queen’s Blade clips in the Crunchyroll news… I decided I’d rather have no Yuri at all then continue to grasp at straws like this. I don’t care if the man-boys ever make two of the women get married (for the boy’s entertainment of course) or anything else. Done. There is no such thing as Queen’s Blade.
    ‘Princess vs Princess’ looks cute; the “shoujo style spontaneous flowers GO” made me LOL.
    ‘Closing Time’ = smile.

  3. TempestDash says:

    Is it just me, or is there a bizarrely high number of pages available in the Amazon “Look Inside” function for the “Passionate Friendships” book? I’m seeing almost a hundred pages of the book available for viewing, with periodic, unexplained gaps that I assume were pages that displayed graphics.

    I hope the author is aware so much of their book is available for free and this isn’t a mistake on Amazon’s part. (Maybe you should remove the link until it can be confirmed?)

  4. @Tempest Dash – One of the things about putting your book on Amazon is that you really have very little control about what they do with it. Releasing them to “Look inside” is part of the contract.

  5. Anonymous says:

    “…Speaking of perversion, for those who love hentai there’s a few new Queen’s Blade clips in the Crunchyroll news… I decided I’d rather have no Yuri at all then continue to grasp at straws like this. I don’t care if the man-boys ever make two of the women get married (for the boy’s entertainment of course) or anything else. Done. There is no such thing as Queen’s Blade…”

    I hear ya!

    Question for anyone…what is to Yuri as manhwa and manhua are to manga?

    I mean, what to do when you can’t find enough lesbian content that doesn’t piss you off in Japanese content and animation? Consuming lesbian content that *does* piss you off in Japanese comics and animation is an option, and one you’ve just ruled out for very good reason. Checking out lesbian content in Korean and Chinese comics too is another option. Then there’s lesbian content in other nations’ comics and in non-comics…

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