Yuri Manga
A lot of rebooting, reworking and re-releasing is going on in the Yuri manga world right now. With the dissolution of Hirari and Tsubomi magazines, Ichijinsha has picked up a number of older titles for Kindle-only releases. This means that they are not available to buyers based outside Japan, but it’s darn interesting to see them bring so many old series back as digital releases.
Here’s a small selection of older Yuri titles I’m seeing up for JP Kindle release:
Mitsukini Hajime’s Musou Honey (妄想HONEY)
Hakamada Mera’s Yozora no Ouji to Asayake no Hime (夜空の王子と朝焼けの姫)
Yoshitomi Akihito’s Futari to Futari (ふたりとふたり)
Himawari Souya’s Sakura Buntsuu (さくら文通)
Sakamoto Mono’s Pie wo Agemasho, Anata ni Pie wo ne (パイをあげましょ、あなたにパイをね)
Kindaichi Renjurou’s fascinating Josei collection by a male author, Mermaid Line (マーメイドライン)
In addition to loads of Kindle releases, Ichijinsha is releasing new editions of several older titles:
Rokuroichi’s Kuchibiru ni Saketa Orange New Edition (くちびるに透けたオレンジ 新装版)
Fujieda Miyabi’s Iono-sama Fanatics Special Edition Volume 1 (with new original Drama CD) and Special Edition Volume 2 (with new original Drama CD.) Also available on Kindle.
I love that so much Yuri is available digitally and frustrated as heck that I can’t just buy it that way.
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Ichijinsha is continuing to release new Yuri Hime Comics manga, as well:
Nekota’s Tomiko no Kimochi (トミコの気持ち)
An anthology about which I know nothing, called Kimashi (キマシ)
Kuzushiro’s spin-off from Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san, Ryuuzaki-san to Torao-san, Yuri Hime Short Story Collection. (龍崎さんと虎生さん ～百合姫短編集～)
Saburouta’s 4th volume of Citrus, with an option for a special edition that includes a Drama CD.
And the September volume of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫 2015年 09 月号), which will ship mid-July.
Yuri Game
The folks over at St. Michael’s School for Girls, are at Anime Expo right now(!) and have a Sono Hanbira short story collection, Shiroyuri Memorial, planned (白百合のメモリアル).
LGBTQ Event
Planning on attending San Diego Comic-Con 2015? Prism Comics and Northwest Press have teamed up to bring you this year’s Gay Agenda. ^_^
Share any interesting Yuri News you’ve heard with us and become a Yuri Network Correspondent. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Please do not post news to the comments here, 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.
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!
Following the end of the show last Tuesday, I’ve been wondering if you have been paying any attention to Sound! Euphonium and the fierce debate surrounding it and whether or not it counts as yuri. Apart from being a great show that seems like it’d be more at home at Sundance Festival than among late night anime and centering on a high school brass band, it has drawn a lot of attention for what can best be described as extremely romantically charged scenes between the two leads Kumiko and Reina.
While everybody who has seen the show agree that the scenes are extremely charged, views of what they mean are divided. More specifically they range from the view that it is all in the heads of the yuri fandom who want to make “normal” characters gay to, mostly among European fans as far as I can tell, the position that the two are canonically in love with each other and likely dating at the end. In-between stands the view that they’re romantically charged and that the creators ought to have made them a couple, but didn’t, which appears to be the dominant position.
In general, it appears that while the show wasn’t advertised as yuri and holds the drama surrounding the band starting to take music seriously as its central feature, this debate and by extension the show has become the biggest thing happening in yuri right now. And due to this, I wonder if you’re going to cover it given your position in the western yuri fandom and bring it up for consideration, if you hadn’t heard about it before.
I’ll understand if you’re not interested, I just thought to mention it now that it was over.
I haven’t been paying any attention at all. IMHO, it looks like every other female-cast “girls do X” series ever. I know that female cast shows get a lot of fanon Yuri interest. If you’re interested in writing a guest review send me an email and we’ll talk. ^_^
It looks like it is, people expected it to essentially be K-On with different instruments, but it isn’t. For one thing there are several important male characters and for another only the marketing displayed the tropes of that genre. It’s a serious drama with an indie movie aesthetic that pushes the boundaries of what 2D animation can even do visually. This latter aspect is to the point where several Japanese animators on multiple occasions asked how the visual effects done were even possible. It’s a show worth looking into if you’re interested in the medium of 2D animation itself because of how it uses lightning, depth of field, fake movie grain and handheld camera and shot composition.
As for the content, if I were to compare it to one show, I’d say MariMite, but less overtly fantastic in the setting. Like that it has a strong focus on a central protagonist and her development, but also a major focus on developing an ensemble cast and their shaky road to growing up with the drama that entails. Also, unlike most girls do X shows, the music is absolutely central to both the characters, including the differences in dedication from those who know that they’ll want to be professionals when they grow up to those who have already clocked out of the band which spurs a lot of the conflict and drama. It also isn’t interested in maintaining a status quo, every episode drives both the plot and the character arcs forward and there is a clear beginning, middle and end for both the show as a whole and the arcs of the characters. These arcs are also marked more by actual change than informed change or simply revealing traits that weren’t brought up before.
The particulars of making it are similarly not glossed over, with people with a band background pointing out how the playing is animated completely accurately to the music being played. They also point out that the band dynamics and internal politics take them back home and that the quality of the playing matches the reaction of the characters. Bad playing sounds like bad playing rather than cartoonish cacophonies while a competition between two of the best musicians in the band makes it clear that the one who won genuinely played a lot better than the other, who still played well. This is all second hand for me as I have no band experience, nor any experience with other kinds of music. But one of those hands I got it from is the Japanese brass band association, so it’s probably trustworthy.
As for the yuri, some people do have a ship that falls in line with the typical ones in predominantly female cast shows. That is not the one that triggered the big discussion, however. The main one, Kumiko and Reina, is set apart from it by virtue of not only being the absolutely central relationship of the show that drives the development, but also being treated entirely seriously. There is no joking groping, assaulting or tsundere antics, it is played entirely seriously throughout. It also goes all the way to mutual declarations of love, promising to never abandon each other and sensually running a finger over the face of the other in a serious scene, while also including constant, smaller gestures whenever the two interact or think about each other. In the words of Nick Creamer who did the weekly reviews of the show for ANN how romantically charged their interactions are is the elephant in the room and “far more romantically charged than anything in the actual romances this season.” I agree with his statement and would add that it’s more romantically charged than most of the romantic interactions found in yuri manga by more acclaimed yuri mangaka like MOrishima Akiko and Takemiya Jin. Not saying that it’s better, just that it is that strongly charged as romance, while also avoiding sliding into fanservice or joke territory. I’ve also seen enough shows with predominantly female casts to say that I’ve never seen anything this intense romantically in any of the typical goggles stuff. And yet, there is just enough room for (im)plausible deniability of it being romantic that a lot of people are betrayed and disappointed and /a/ is trying to shout down anybody who sees it as yuri.
Also, I think I’ll take you up on your offer of talking about a guest review, the show is one that deserves it for both its own sake and for what it says about standards of proof of gay relationships in fiction.
You totally can buy stuff off the amazon jp kindle store, if you’re willing to be slightly devious. I’ve done it. Here’s how.
1. Enter a legitimate Japanese shipping address and add it to your list of addresses at amazon.com. I use my friend who is currently living in japan, but it doesn’t matter where, because nothing physical is getting shipped there.
2. Change country settings on your kindle to Japan. That will switch your default store over to amazon.jp. it’ll ask to confirm this, say yes.
4. Go to amazon.jp. To be safe, use hola unblocker or something to make it look like you’re browsing from within japan.
5. Go nuts buying whatever you want. Japanese Kindle store still takes American cards, so you are paying real money for the books. Even preorder, if you see anything you like.
6. Switch your country settings back when finished.
Ta-da!
I did this while staying in Japan, but because I do get things shipped to the USA, it wasn’t allowing it. You’d have to have a separate account for the JP Kindle. I’m too lazy for that. ^_^
Interesting. It’s worked well for me so far. Maybe because my amazon jp and amazon.com use the same email address?
Possibly.
Read & follow! SonoHana vsual novel series is having campaign where if 50K followers follow, they make a Sono Hana Yuri anime! and if 6million follow, they make an actual all-girls Mikajyo gakuen replication!
https://twitter.com/mikajyo_info
I would like to understand what people find appealing about this series. It looks pretty much like straight up child porn to me.
It’s a good combination of sexy and cute yuri. There’s not much of a story, but the series is all about the feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeels :)