I know this is really kind of late this year. Chanukah, Solstice, Christmas and Kwanzaa are all piling up quickly. I’ve done my best to provide links to items on Amazon and RightStuf where I can, to make your online shopping easy! This is not a Top Ten List, so there’s no rhyme or reason or order, just some great gift ideas for yourself or the Yuri lover in your life. So sorry again for the delay but here is the official 2002 Okazu Gift Guide! Haha, just kidding, but on this list everything old is new again, and we’re revisiting a lot of past faves. ^_^
Let’s start with Anime.
Can I express how much I like that we have moved to Box and Season sets? This kind of thing used to be impossible when we had to do this a 2 episodes at a time. How did we even manage to stay fans?
Rose of Versailles
The entire series is now available on DVD! All 40 Episodes of this timeless historical drama, with one of the most exceptional Girl Prince leads ever created.
Who will like it: Fans of historical fiction, French Revolution, soap opera, Takarazuka fans and, of course, fans of the Girl Prince type heroine.
Part 1 – Amazon/RightStuf |Part 2 – Amazon /RightStuf | Complete Set on RightStuf
While you’re indulging in that oh-so-shoujo wallow of feels and melodrama, you might as well keep your finger on the Riyoko Ikeda button.
Dear Brother
If you haven’t had a chance to see this, you really should. It’s a surprising not-at-all easy thing to watch, but it’s really good. Everyone involved was at the top of their form for this dark, yet completely not paranormal YA school classic.
Who will like it: People who love to have feels when watching media, fans of the classic shoujo genre, fans of Dezaki Osamu’s animation.
Sailor Moon
Making our way forward in time, we’re still looking backward at another foundational series for Yuri fans everywhere. The first half of the first season of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon is now available from Viz Media, with the second half coming out in February. While we’re waiting for Sailor Moon Crystal to come out on DVD/BD, have fun watching the Monsters of the Day, the terrible moralizing and messy plots of the original.
Who will like it: More shoujo, more! Magical girl fans, 90s anime fans, die-hard Sailor Moon fans and anyone who you think would be happy shouting “Moon Healing Escalation!”
Season 1 Part 1 DVD/BD Combo – Amazon | Season Part 2 DVD/BD Combo – Amazon (I am limiting options here, but there are about 700000 editions, with varying levels of extras.)
Ikkitousen Xtreme Xecutor & Shugaku Toshi Keppu-roku OVA (Season 4)
Too shoujo-y, you say? Too many tears? I think I hear you asking for something with a little oomph. Well, amazingly, we got something for you. How about chicks with big boobs that beat the leaving crap out of each other?
This season 4 collection has all the exploding clothes, and upskirt shots you’ve never wanted, combined with a fairly not-suckass story and even slight hints of Yuri. Look, Ikkitousen is not for anyone who wants their anime to have dignity. But if you’re laying in the gutter anyway, you might as well have something to look at.
Who will like it: Me, Serge and a few other people who have given up on having a soul, as long as the girls can punch the lights out of their opponents.
Season 4 DVD Box Set – Amazon / RightStuf
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Let’s move on to some Manga suggestions. It wasn’t a terrible year for Yuri. ^_^
Whispered Words
Volume 1, contains the first 3 volumes of Ikeda Takashi’s Yuri manga series Sasmekikoto. Volume 2, which hit shelves in October, has the next 3 volumes, which of course leaves us at the lowest point of the series. We all have to buy a lot of Volume 1 and 2, so we make sure we get Volume 3 in Spring 2015, which is awesome! ^_^
Here’s hoping this title is successful enough for OnePeace to consider licensing more Yuri.
Who will like it: Any long-time Yuri fans, especially those who can recognize the parody aspect of the many Yuri tropes in early chapters.
Volume 1 – Amazon / RightStuf | Volume 2 – Amazon / RightStuf | Volume 3 – Amazon
Gakuen Polizi
Morinaga Milk is one of the best-selling Yuri authors in English, for a variety of factors. Coming off her incredibly successful Girfriends series, Gakuen Polizi is more focused on action, some real -life drama and comedy that her romances typically are. It’s a nice change of pace for her and for us.
This two-part series will make a terrific “now and later” gift for a Yuri loving friend, with Volume 1 available now and V2 coming out in April.
Who will like it: Morinaga Milk fans, people who are on the fence about all-romance Yuri, people who like school life drama-comedy and police drama fans.
Volume 1 – Amazon/RightStuf | Volume 2 – Amazon/RightStuf
Citrus
Also coming soon from Seven Seas is Citrus, a popular Yuri manga currently running in Comic Yuri Hime magazine. The story follows two step-sisters who find themselves bound by a deep, yet uncomfortable, attraction to each other, in the middle of family drama, while trying to balance their lives at school and home.
Who will like it: People who like their forbidden love to be extra forbidden, this story is hot to fans of Yuri incest, and lukewarm to those who don’t find it as attractive.
Volume 1 – Amazon /RightStuf | Volume 2 – Amazon / RightStuf
Can’t decide what you want? Try one of these suggestions!
Don’t know what get or what to ask for? This gift is good for anyone, any age, any interest in anime or manga. There’s bound to be something there for any fan. For as little as the cost of a sandwich per month, you and/or someone you love can access tons of anime, and watch as the selection of manga grows! There’s no real down-side to this gift. ^_^ Check out the slowly expanding Yuri anime selection and the new 2014 titles, like Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san and Sakura Trick, and Sailor Moon Crystal, as well as old favorites.
TRSI has piles of rock bottom deals and unique goods, as well as reasonably priced anime and English-language manga.
They do tons of sales and have an Anime Club to increase savings. There’s a fair bet that you or the person who receives this gift will be able to scratch some anime or manga or other itch thoroughly. ^_^
Amazon Gift Certificate
I’m pretty sure this is self-explanatory. ^_^ Choose from a e-certificate or a physical one and customize it with your own images. They go over pretty well.
Thanks for the gift guide!
“Whispered Words”, vol 2, is already out in the US. I purchased a copy from my local anime store two weeks ago. If you can’t find a copy, let me know (Erica will have my E-mail) and I’ll send you the name and address of my store. I’m sure they’ll be happy to send you a copy or special-order it for you.
Thank you, yes, this did come out on October, my mistake. I’ll edit.
Just one correction about Citrus: they are step sisters not half sisters (Yuzu’s biological father is dead and her mom remarried Mei’s dad), so it’s not actual incest, thankfully.
This seems to be really important to some folks. I’ll correct but honestly, what is the difference? The manga is *clearly* presented as an incest story.
The girls in Citrus are step-sisters, not half-sisters. Not that the distinction really matters, since as you said, the series is aimed squarely at Yuricest fans …
It really makes no difference. It’s presented as incest.
My name drop in the Ikkitousen entry made me chuckle.
Haha, I thought you’d get a kick out of that.
To jump on the corrections bandwagon: only the first half of the first season of Sailor Moon is out on DVD/Bluray, the second half comes out in February. This sadly interferes with my plans to binge-watch the whole first season on bluray when I’m home for winter break… I guess I’ll just have to watch all of Bodacious Space Pirates instead, which I just ordered from Rightstuf for SUPER CHEAP.
Thanks. I’ll make the corrections!
Citrus is by a woman, right? Hopefully that will make it be not as gross and fanservicey as it could be.
I do not know. The story is definitely not gross, although whether you find it fanservice-y will depend on your personal taste, I think.
Citrus’ main problem is that it seems incoherent. It’s like a good two-tankobon manga and a bad three-tankobon manga jostling for space.
Naturally it’ll get at least seven tankobon.
That’s a very good point. I was reading a chapter in the magazine last night and I find it absolutely impossible to like or sympathize with Mei. She’s a mope. I’m sure there will be excellent reasons why, but the extended “Mei rebuffs Yuzu with no explanation” is tired. Mei has to do Student Council work on Christmas Day and can’t even eat a piece of cake or explain why? What? She’s not the Prime Minister, this is toooooooo heavy for a not-really-heavy situation.