Yuri Manga
From Dengeki Comics comes Eclair – Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology (エクレア あなたに響く百合アンソロジー), a Yagate Kimi ni Naru (Bloom into You) anthology, with works by Hirao Auri, Kitao Taki, Kanno, Mekimeki and other Yuri creators.
NTR: Netsuzou Trap and Citrus creators Kodama Naoko and Saburouta have a round table discussion about their works and Yuri generally, on Comic Natalie. (In Japanese.)
Comic Natalie also reports that Kimi ni Yagate Naru and Happy Sugar Life are banding together for a special 16-page collaboration to be sold with Volume 3 and 4 of each series, respectively.
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Yuri Anime
Just in time for your gift wish lists, we’ve added a couple of Funimation titles to the Yuricon Store:
Yurikuma Arashi Complete Series (BD/DVD)
Riddle Story of a Devil Complete Series and OVA Limited Edition.
Not anime, but definitely Animation, YNN Correspondent astrojensen suggests this animated sci-fi short, Orbitas. It’s worth a watch. ^_^
Manga/Comics News
Crunchyroll News has the scoop on the Twitter-comic announcement by Aoki Ume of the 9th volume of Hidamari Sketch (ひだまりスケッチ).
ANN reports that creator of Jormungand and Destro 246, Takashi Keitarou, is starting up a new manga series. Just as a guess, it’ll have some fetishy Yuri, because his work usually does. ^_^
Refinery29 has a first look at America, Marvel’s new title starring a queer Latina superhero, America Chavez.
Light Novel News
Yen Press has announced they will be publishing the Sound! Euphonium light novel. ANN has the news.
LGBTQ News
Alison Bechdel last drew a Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip when Bush was president. In the intervening 8 years, she hasn’t had a lot of reason to worry about her characters. But like so many in the post-election pall, she found herself looking towards them. And so, on November 23, 2016, Alison Bechdel drew a new Dykes to Watch Out For strip. It says so much about the need the LGBTQ community has for this and her place in our artistic community that her site was crashed by the sheer number of visitors she received.
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I’d like to editorialize here for just a second. I’ve received a number of kindly-meant emails from the straight, white, men of the Okazu family, most of which express calm reproach for my tone of late. I love you all, but I respectfully ask you to listen with sincerity to the fact that we, your LGBTQ, non-white, non-male, non-Christian friends and family are terrified. Not irrationally so, as the incoming government will be informed by and run by actual white Christian nationalists. It is already, not all right.
Thank you for understanding.
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From Japan, we have two PSA poster campaigns that offers up hope for a better world.
Yodogawa Ward in Osaka has a launched a LGBTQ issue awareness campaign, which speaks to issues like bullying over sexuality and gender presentation.
And, in Aichi prefecture, the “We’re All Normal” poster series, teaches folks about the toxicity of presumed gender roles, and prejudisce around sexual and gender identity.
Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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.
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!
Thanks for the updates, Erica. (and the stocking stuffers ^_^) I guess people WON’T get it until it’s their rights being rolled back 50 years.
Yes that seems to be the one lesson we can all agree upon.
You’re most welcome. Writing Okazu has been a real balm for me. ^_^
I’m extremely happy they got a queer Latina writer on the book as well!
Me too. The interview was great.
Funny, I’d say your “tone” has been, if anything, understated given the potential gravity of the precipice we sit at.
But hey, I guess “calm” and “kindly-meant” is something given the general tenor of country.
I hope this isn’t out of topic. Seeing the Round-table discussion made me recall articles that I’ve read on disseminating the Yuri genre in Japan (including a few from Yuricon).
One thing in common were critiques about how Yuri sometimes tends to be stuck in Subtext, Class S tropes and School-yard romances/ages even today.
This makes me wonder if people think that this is something exclusive to Japan. It also made me think about the usage of the genre from differing cultures (aside from the west).
For example (as this is the only other example I’m more familiar with), back in the “Yuri Network News – July 16th, 2016” issue, I left a comment about Audio TV Dramas. That was my first foray into the world of Mandarin Yuri.
Just like elsewhere, they are huge fans of anime and manga. And, inspired by the Japanese, co-opted the category of “Yuri/GL” not just in relation to Japanese items, but as main terminology for their entire fiction genre (in the modern age). A majority of their Yuri/GL works come in the form of original novels and Audio TV Dramas.
However, their portrayal of Yuri/GL is startlingly different. Subtext, Class S, School-yard romances/ages and other common tropes predominantly do not exist. Most works are straight-up romances centered around women in their 20s – 30s.
Genres range the gamut from Corporate Dramas, Entertainment romances between star actresses, Medical Dramas, Trendy Contemporary, Cop/Triad Action shows, Ancient Mythological worlds filled with Immortal powers and dragons..etc.
Definitely, there are teen romances inspired by Japanese manga, like a popularly known manga series called “Their Story”. But, these are the smaller minority share of Yuri/GL works.
However, despite this, there are some lines drawn between fiction depiction and realism, as like the Japanese they don’t have the same openness about LGBT representation as in the West.
Although, I’m not sure how they can be interpreted as anything else, as the characters are career women who date, have sex, ask each other to move in together and/or buy houses together and marry each other, where the romance ends with them together (For the good endings).
So, I’m quite amazed at the difference in allowance of fictional depictions within the Yuri genre between two cultures of similar attitudes. Overall, I see the eruption of many sprouting Yuri works worldwide as a fantastic sign of the genre healthily growing in great directions!