Yuri Events
With regret, I have had to cancel my appearance at Crunchyoll Expo. There were some complicating factors. I very much hope to make a future west coast con, but the airlines sure don’t make it easy.
My updated schedule is as follows:
Yurithon, August 16-18, Montreal, QC, Canada
Girls Love Festival, as part of the 100 Years of Yuri Tour!
New York Comic Con – October, 3-6, New York, NY, USA Tentatively, I’ll be there, doing some press work.
Michigan State University – October 14-16, I’ll be out there talking about Yuri and translation. More on this as it develops!
Diversity Comic Con – October 25, New York, NY, USA. I will be joining them as a panelist on SuperQueeroes: Representation in Comics. Okazu is a sponsor of this event, as well. ^_^
AnimeNYC – November 15-17, New York, NY, USA – I’m very much hoping to do a talk on Yuri here. Write them and let them know you want me to speak!
Tentatively, I’m planning on attending Mechademia in Kyoto in 2020. I’m telling you this, in order to push myself to apply for a panel. ^_^
As always, I would love to speak at your organization, school, institution or event. Please feel free to contact me!
Yuri Manga
A few new items up on the Yuricon Store!
Our Wonderful Days, Volume 1. Seven Seas has licensed Tsurezure Biyori, so we can all share in Mafuyu, Koharu, Nanaya and Minori’s pleasant days together.
Mira Ong Chua’s successfully kickstarted ROADQUEEN: Eternal Roadtrip to Love has also been picked up by Seven Seas.
The fifth volume of Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru, (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる) hit shelves at the end of June. As we head into summer, Konatsu and Koharu face Christmas and a winter aquarium show together.
At Anime Expo, Yen Press announced the license of Breasts Are My Favorite Things in the World. This will be the last time I mention this title on Okazu. ^_^;
Speaking of things which will never be mentioned again ^_^… Syrup Shakaijin Yuri Anthology (シロップ 社会人百合アンソロジー) is getting a sequel, Syrup secret Forbidden Yuri Anthology, (シロップ secret 禁断×百合アンソロジー). There is so much Yuri being published right now and I cannot keep up as it is, I’m opting out of things that are set up to be blecch up front.
Yuri Novels
Via YNN Correspondent Sean G, J-Novel Club has licensed Yuri Scifi novel Otherside Picnic. I’m reading the manga for the story now, in fact. Also from J-Novel Club is the license of (supposedly) Yuri light novel, Onna dakara, to Party wo Tsuihōsareta no de Densetsu no Majo to Saikyō Tag wo Kumimashita. This news via YNN Correspondent Mecasonic13 on Twitter who says, “Kinda interesting to see a yuri/fantasy narou work that was written in reaction to the scandals involving Japanese medical universities discriminating against women in their entrance exams…” I’ll definitely be interested to see how it turns out.
Via Nambu Kumako on Twitter, we learn that Nambu-sensei is writing a note.mu novel Yuri Nurse ~ Kawaii Anoko~ (百合ナース！ 〜かわいいあの子〜) with illustrations by Morinaga Milk.
Also by Nambu-sensei, Sasayaki no Kiss~ (囁きのキス～), illustrated by Morishima Akiko, which has always been available on JP Kindle is now available for folks outside Japan on Bookwalker Global!
Other News
I can’t remember (and can’t be arsed to look) if I told you about this yet. but the second Steven Universe soundtrack is out and as it has “The Working Dead” you all need to get it. ^_^
Deb Aoki has an article on Publisher’s Weekly on Light Novels: Mixing Prose with Manga, Light Novels Attract North American Fans
Brown University Is Archiving Gay Pulp Fiction To Preserve A Moment Of LGBTQ History. It’s gay, not lesbian pulp, but how fun! Also NYU has a gay and lesbian pulp archive.
Have I been banging on about queer horror a lot these days? GOOD. Here’s some more: Via Ricardo Serano Denis at Comics Beat, Monstrous sexualities and empowering terror: queer horror gets its own Shudder documentary.
Avery Kaplan at Comics MNT takes a look at Getting Queer Comics Into Libraries.
A Beginner’s Guide to LGBTQ+ Manga by Amanda Pagan on the New York Public Library site makes a terrific, if BL-heavy, resource.
Do you have questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast, Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to!
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!
Speaking of yuri novels, how do you feel about the ranobe format itself? I heard that in Japanese yuri fandom there was a long debate about writing yuri LN, as some purists doubted that this format fits with the “style of writing” yuri works.
Frankly, I do not quite understand such claims, but until recently, yuri for some reason was relatively poorly represented among the genres of LN.
No media format is better or worse than any other media format. I don’t have “an opinion” about Light Novels as a media format any more than I do about un-illustrated novels. Some LNs are good, others are bad, many are extenders for various mediocre franchises. Others are the source. Some few are extraordinarily good or bad, as one might expect.
I totally agree with you. It’s just that there is a point of view among a some part of the yuri fandom that the male reader supposedly should be as far as possible from the heroines, so LN with its frequent first-person narrative is supposedly the “wrong” format. Personally, I think it is weird, but nonetheless.
As I have repeatedly said, what “some people” think somewhere on the Internet is never something I’m particularly concerned about. “Some people”generally lack nuanced thought or context for their opinions.