Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – August 1, 2026

August 1st, 2026

In blue silhouette, two women face each other. One wears a fedora and male-styled attire, one is in a dress and heels. Their body language is obscure - they may be dancing, or laughing or fighting. Art by Mari Kurisato for OkazuOkazu News

This month Okazu turns 23 years old! And like many 23 year olds, it has grown up, gone to school, learned about itself and is off on its own. I have spent 23 years shepherding Yuri into the world and now it’s doing all kinds of stuff without me!  I love it.  ^_^ Thank you to all the Yuri fans out there!

I am going to launch a new fundraising campaign this month. We are within spitting distance from our fundraising goal for the year. If we get 25 new $5/month  sustaining members, or just 12 new $10/month sustaining members, we’ll hit that goal. I’m working on a sweetener for that $10 deal on the horizon. As always if you prepay a year on Patreon, you get one month free, as well. Your support on Patreon and Ko-fi helps us give raises to our writers and makes it possible for us to do event reports and support Yuri creators directly and indirectly!

If you love Yuri news and reviews, I hope you’ll support all of us here at Okazu!

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Yuri Manga

Pretty exciting news this weekend already from Otakon. Omoi has announced the digital license for Sukeban Deka, the classic girl delinquent manga. I’ve written about it here on Okazu a few times, it has its own category for the anime, live action show and movies, manga and spin-offs.  If you’re not familiar with it, begin here, with my overview of the anime and the manga. There is some Yuri, often in ways that made me shriek in laughter. This is such a benchmark series, you absolutely have to read it.

Speaking of classics. Manga Mavericks revealed an incredibly stylish signed shikishi for every pre-order of The Sword of Paros. I’m not joking, every time we touch this, it gets better. Original color pages from the magazine,  gorgeous cover and sprayed edges…and now a signed image!  Definitely worth pre-ordering this gorgeous book.

Galette WORKS announced that the Galette Special EN Edition, No. 6 Kickstarter will being on August 19! This is the penultimate issue of this project.

Kodansha announced the license for I Love You, Please Dump Me, a Comic Yuri Hime rom-com manga about a girl who has always been told to avoid love, it’ll stop you you from achieving your dreams. Hikaru is determined to do well in school, but when Kairi becomes her girlfriend, everything falls apart.

Via Comic Natalie, we have news of  Ijimete Ijirarete (イジめてイジられて) being serialized on Nico Nico, about a yanki that tries to bully an otaku, only to find the otaku girl more than able to stand up for herself. This “ecchi” comedy Yuri is by Chida Daisuke.

Last week I noted that Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch From Mercury Seishun Frontier  (機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 青春フロンティア) is up to a Volume 2, but this week, we got a Youtube Promo video with slight animation, voiced by Suletta and Miorine’ VA’s. Check out this AU of our favorite Gundam characters. ^_^ Aerial is now a motorcycle, upping Suletta’s butch cred another notch.

Sr. YNN Correspondent Sean Gaffney notes that Yuri-adjacent over-a-decade-old series Gabriel Dropout is ending. Anita Tai has the details at ANN.

Via YNN Correspondent Ambi, ihe director of the There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless… has posted on X to say the manga adaptation ended this week, and he has some thoughts about it on the Dash Ex official account.

 

Yuri Events

The Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures Symposium 2026 has announced a Call For Papers. I love this event, but won’t be able to present this year, sadly. If you have some queer and/or feminist research you’d like to present, definitely apply. This is an amazing, welcoming group of people. Join them for some fun papers!

Anime NYC is around the corner. I will be there with Manga Mavericks, and creator of Horon of the Closed Country, Sen-sensei.  Sen-sensei is lovely and Horon is so wonderful. You’ll definitely want to pick up a copy and get it signed. ^_^

 

Live-Action

The Look Back movie is doing the film festival circuit and Alex Mateo has some updates on ANN. TIFF is screening it as a North American Premier, says Alex.

 

Thai GL

Our Sr. Thai GL Correspondent, Frank Hecker, highly recommends the content on Thai GL Hub, which covers series, has interviews, essays and more on Thai GL.

 

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Yuri Anime 

ANN’s Joanna Cayanan has news about the upcoming Star Detective Preure! anime. Looks like we’ll get an opposing squad of equally magical girls. That’s a bit different.

ANN’s Alex Mateo wants us to know that Ocean Veil has picked up Yuru Yuri! I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why. OV’s stuff is mostly T&A.

Bolts reviews the opening episodes of I Want To Love You Til Your Dying Day on ANN.

Also on ANN, Kevin Cormack takes a look at the opening eps of the new Ghost In The Shell, which is my next watch, for sure.

One more ANN review, the always worth-reading Rebecca Silverman looks at Goodbye, Lara, which our own Eleanor Walker reviewed yesterday. Coop and Sylvia take a look at Goodbye, Lara in Playing Chess with a Dog on ANN.

 

Yuri Visual Novels

The folks at Yuri Eureka want you to know that they have released a free demo for Exhibition of the Heart on Steam. They want you to know that this 18,000 words and 3 pieces of CG art demo are very explicit.The full release is heading our way this October. 

Blue Reflection Quartet is out and George Yang reviews it over on ANN.

 

Other News

Over at ANN I reviewed the  Though I Am An Inept Villainess light novels, in for folks about to watch the anime. I love the LN series, but absolutely cannot bring myself to watch the anime. ^_^;

I quite enjoy doing the READ IT FIRST! series, where I read a gazillion volumes of something before the anime comes out. So here’s a few more I did: 

Love Unseen Beneath the Clear Night Sky is about a blind woman finding her way through life with the enthusiastic help of her friends, her mom, and her boyfriend.

I also binged Tomb Raider King, Volumes 1-14 and actually enjoyed this “reincarnated to get revenge” manhwa about a terrible person and the idiosyncratic relics he plunders.

I also did a ton fr reviews for the Summer Manga Guide. Some amazing stuff on offer this year! Holy crow, we have Billy Bat! And don’t miss some of the Yuri titles, like The Delinquent and the Transfer Student.

Avery Kaplan of The Comics Beat gives us a write-up on the LGBTQIA+ Activism in Comics panel from San Diego Comic Con.

 

Your support for Yuri journalism and research has never been more important than right now. Patreon and Ko-Fi are where we currently accept subscriptions and tips.  Our goal is to raise our guest writers’ wages to above industry standard, which are too low!

Your support goes straight to paying for Guest Reviews, folks helping with videos, site maintenance, managing the Yuricon Store and directly supporting other Yuri creators. Just $5/month makes a huge impact! Become part of the Okazu family!

Become a part of the Yuri Network, by being a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share with us.

Posted in Yuri Network News | No Comments »


Goodbye, Lara, Episodes 1-3

July 31st, 2026

Three girls, one with blonde hair, one redhead and one with dark hair, leaning over the railing of a sailing boat surrounded by seagulls.

by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what would happen to The Little Mermaid if she was reincarnated in modern Japan, then Goodbye, Lara is the show for you. Even if you haven’t it’s still worth a watch. Produced by Kinema Citrus as a 15th anniversary project, and streaming both subbed and dubbed on Crunchyroll, the show is described as a modern interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

Episode 1 is mostly exposition and is set in the 1700s, under water in the mermaid kingdom. Lara is the youngest of her sisters, has been brought up as a member of the royal family and, like all mermaids, is supposed to believe that humans are beneath them. But as in the original, Lara falls in love with a human prince who she rescues from a burning shipwreck. She is imprisoned for this by her father and is then given an impossible choice by her aunt Grace, a sea witch who has been banished from the kingdom previously. Lara can either drink the mysterious potion to become human, but will dissolve into foam unless she finds true love. The prince rejects her when she transforms back into a mermaid and she is sent back to her kingdom, which to her horror she discovers is in ruins as a result of her foolishness. Grace reappears and Lara is sent to the modern world via Lake Biwa, and is immediately punched by a girl walking nearby.

Episodes 2 and 3 are about Lara adjusting to the modern world. The girl is named Mari, and she is a national champion boxer who trains at her school boxing club. Grace has reappeared in the body of Mari’s pet fish and is affectionately called Gon-chan by Mari. She acts as a mentor to Lara and keeps her out of the worst trouble. Lara is focused only on the fact that she must find her true love in order to reawaken her family below the sea. We also learn that Lara’s sister Lisa and a mysterious figure known as Kota are also in the modern world. Lara goes to school with Mari and begins to learn about love from the other people around her.

Yuri wise, there’s not a lot going on in these first episodes but the signs are there if you want to see them. At first Mari seems annoyed by Lara’s naivety but she definitely starts to care more for her as time goes on. The show makes a big deal about the fact that Lara is looking for her prince, but what if her prince was right beside her all along? I hope the show’s creators are brave enough to take it in that direction.

The art and animation are nothing to write home about. The character designs have a kind of early 2000s/Rumiko Takahashi vibe which I quite enjoyed.

Overall, I will keep watching but this is definitely one of those shows where the yuri is subtle rather than in your face.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 0
Yuri  – 2

Overall – 6

Posted in Eleanor W, English Anime | 4 Comments »


Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance, Episodes 1-4

July 30th, 2026

In a ruined landscape in front of a city, Fate and Nanoha stand in their barrier jackets, holding their sentient weapons, while a girl burns brightly behind them.It has been a long while since I reviewed a Nanoha franchise entry. In fact, it’s been more than 10 years! And truthfully, I love The Nanoha franchise very much for what I would like it to be, far more than for what it is. 

But here we are again, 22 years after my first post about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, with a new entry and I once again both really like it and don’t in nearly equal portion. This time for exciting new reasons! Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance, is streaming now on Crunchyroll and I had a chance to watch the first four episodes.

Let’s get the negatives done first, so we can focus on the positives. The story is…generic. It’s true that the fighting in earlier Nanoha entries were hardly works of literature, but ends of the world, and eternity-eating books are abstract enough that we don’t have to sit through grimdark blood and guts. In this new world, mutating gross monsters are the foe and there is a lot of blood and guts.

The other negative is the same as the original series in that the trauma, loneliness and misery of young girls is mined for entertainment. And in this, the misery has notched up. We’re not just watching them be emotionally and psychologically manipulated, but physically hurt as well.  We understand that this is to increase our empathy for the young women in question…but, eww. It’s just a nasty habit of anime’s that children’s suffering is regularly turned into motivation for revenge, i.e., everyone is fridged, all the time. 

So, Episode 1, a double-length episode, introduces us to Kuze Shiina and her sister Setsuna, an abandoned girl she took in. They live on a remote island. The entire world has been infested by ravenous monsters called Majin, cleverly translated here as Diaboli. Shiina is a very talented hunter, since the government and experts have abandoned them. Within seconds it becomes apparent that her and Setsuna’s happy life is not going to last, and so, we are treated to our first two of many tragic stories. But things are not what they seem and Shiina will lose something and gain it again all at once.

Shiina leaves the island and comes to the city, where we see an adult Yagate Hayate is in charge of the fight against the Diaboli. But it is 13-year old Takamachi Nanoha that saves Shiina, and asks her to be part of the new task force. C.P.. being abandoned by the government, Shiina refuses, but eventually becomes part of the EXCCEDS taskforce.

As of Episode 4, the typical nude transformation scenes have been left behind. In my book, that is a huge plus. Those made it hard to recommend Nanoha, because they wee so obviously pro-creeper.

And while we have not yet seen them except as a still, Hayate’s Knights got a mention. I cheered when Raising Heart and Bardiche had lines. Bardiche is my favorite character. I even have a lovely metal keychain replica of him. This is an approximately accurate size picture of it. This is the kind of shit I pick up when I’m in Japan, get home and think…okay, what am I gonna do with that?

Now that the story is lined up, the next few episodes proceed to introduce our frenemy squad. These are girls who have been abused and suffered and are doing good work fighting assassinating the people who profit off the Diaboli, but of course will be our enemies and then, ultimately part of the Nanoha extended family.

Immediately, Shiina meets Towa, and they become friends right away. They will be the Nanoha and Fate of this series. Towa’s mission is good, the way she and her friends go about is understandable…but we all know that they are going to be “befriended.” before the end.

And in this, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance hits the sweet spot for me, even though the monsters and the people who profit off them are the most generic, unmagical, overdone plot ever. Because Nanoha is not about the fights, those some of those have been excellent. Nanoha is about family.  I talk about this in a 2012 essay The Concept of Family in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha-verse, this idea of bringing people into one’s family, giving love and affection to the outcast and unwanted, is one of the key features that makes the Nanoha francise appealing, even despite a legacy of sexualization of young women. This progression of friend to enemy to family is a repeated theme in this series.  By the end of Episode 4, it is clear where we will find our newest family members.

For Yuri fans, since we’ve returned Nanoha and Fate to their tween years, they are once again in the time just after A‘s. We know this, because in this iteration, Fate introduces herself as Fate Testarrossa Harlaown. Fate, to our eyes, has more of an interest in Nanoha, and blushes when she is in proximity to the other girl, while Nanoha proudly declares Fate her “best friend.” Again, undoubtedly, we’ll see emotional intimacy, tears and reconciliation between Shiina and Towa, as we did with Nanoha and Fate.

To be very honest, I felt Episode 1 did not do the series justice at all. The banality of the “invasion of the mutating monsters” just left me feeling like it was a magic-less world. Nanoha has clarified that her “magic” is not an innate ability, but that it can be learned, as we know. In this world, science and magic are nearly the same. 

But as the story proceeds, I felt it move closer to the Nanoha-verse, and not just because more familiar characters arrived on screen. Whether they are fighting monsters, magical items running amok or megalomanics, when it comes down to Nanoha, it’s always about humans connecting.

Ratings: 

Art – 9 Actually really good! Gone are the days of cheaping out on this series
Story – 6, but I’m willing to give it a chance
Characters – 8 Nice to see old friends and make new ones
Service – 2 Much less than it used to be. I’m so glad.
Yuri – Who knows?

Overall – 7

It was a bit of a slow start, but we’ll see where it goes.

Posted in English Anime, Nanoha | No Comments »


Common-Sense Monster, Volume 2

July 29th, 2026

Surrounded by the gaping maw of a monster, two girls in dark blue Japanese school uniforms make the heart sign together. One girl, with long dark hair smiles gently, the other girl, with messy light brown hair, stares in abject horror.In Volume 1, we met Itou, an awkward high school student and the eldritch horror of a monster that is walking around in the skin of popular, attractive fellow student Takahashi.

In Common-Sense Monster, Volume 2, Itou is confronted by her incredibly creepy, shape-changing monster of a teacher Niehara-sensei, and accused of being a monster herself. Itou refuses to help Nie-sensei, but neither she nor Takahashi has the ability to kill him. No matter how many times Takahashi bites his head off, Nie-sen just pops up again, with his toothy grin and grabby hands.

Itou is then confronted by her next greatest fear – two classmates who want to be friends.  Itou’s personality is so cutely, weirdly awkward that these two classmates find her charming…and the next thing she knows, as the class trip looms, is that she’s part of a friend group for the first very time. Even if the fifth of their group is a…very…unknown quantity.

Itou’s still looking to Takahashi for guidance, and getting really solid, simple advice that she just cannot put into play. But more importantly, Niehara-sensei is getting more and more brazen with his taunting and attacks, until the end of the book which, while we were told it was coming, is still monstrous.

The underlying horror of this story is that monsters live among us. And we know it. Predators, abusers, “normal” people who destroy the people around them. Which is more horrific, really? A teacher who is a known sex offender that no one seems to be able to get rid of, or a monster that eats people? I argue that the former is far worse and causes more damage, but when both real and fantastic monsters are one and the same….it makes for difficult reading. 

This is not an easy book. Itou’s an anxious mess, but one sympathizes. Every quiet moment, every kindness, every moment of humanity is likely to be literally swallowed up. It’s hard to relax when the ordeals keep coming, piling on to one another, leaving no room for anything else.

Is this a Yuri story? Kind of. Itou admirse Takahashi, but also cares about her – even though she understands that it is foolish, she’s always clinging to any small kindness. In the bigger picture, Itou is simply without affection in her life, but her care and affection for Takahashi definitely feel a step beyond that.

What this absolutely is, is an uncomfortable mix of fears both real and phantasmagoric, without space between them for a horror manga that will keep you on edge. 

Ratings: 

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – Pervy teacher makes everything icky
Yuri  – 1

Overall – 8 

Common-Sense Monster, Volume 2 is out now from Yen Press.

Posted in English Manga | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 25th, 2026

July 25th, 2026

In black block letters, YNN Yuri Network News. On the left, in black silhouette, a woman with a broad brim hat and dress stands, a woman in a tight outfit sits against the Y. Art by Mari Kurisato for Okazu

Yuri/GL/Queer Manga & Comics

New Yuri License from Yen Press this week! Watching the Angel Sleep, Drowning in Bed Together. A woman assigned to a room finds it occupied by another woman. They move in together…and find they are attracted to one another.

I am a bit behind on this, but there is a GWitch “parallel spin-off” (cough/fanfic) Called Mobile Suit Gundam The Witch From Mercury Frontier (機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 青春フロンティア) that features Suletta and Miorine at a Japanese Technical College. Volume 1 and Volume 2 are out now in Japan. I am going to have to get this series, obviously. ^_^

I’m reading this for ANN and frankly, think it’s pretty good. Let Loose on Lezhin is a bit of a suspense story about a woman in enemy territory who encounters an old…friend. Human/beastkin characters and lots of painful emotional stuff in this post-war setting. 

Via Sr. YNN Correspondent Frank Hecker, schwinn has a new doujinshi up on her Patreon. A preview is available for Our Hope, Twenty Years After We Lost The Right To Marry.

This kind of went under the radar, but Fantagraphics is re-releasing Wandering Son in a new paperback edition! Hopefully this time they will be able to complete it. This story about two trans teens was foundational (and problematic) for many readers  in the ’00s! YNN Correspondent Ivan just let us know that Fantagraphics just sent out email indicating 25% off everything on their site. The code is SDCC, so if you want V1-2 of the new edition, the time is now. ^_^

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Yuri Anime

Via Sr. YNN Correspondent Matt Marcus, The Executioner and Her Way of Life Season 1 anime is now available in a complete Blu-Ray set  from Sentai Filmworks.

 

Yuri Events

The Art Locker in NYC is holding a Yuri Comic Panel, where we’ll be having the incredible Adeline Kon, Kimberly Wang, and Kelly Ficarra on August 30th, from 2-4:30PM, at 38 West 32nst St, in New York City. The event is currently sold out, but keep your eyes out for openings.

I will be at Anime NYC with Manga Mavericks, and I’ll be signing copies of my books for you at their booth! I’ll also be helping out with some fun stuff that is top secret as of yet. Keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, go pre-order the Sword of Paros Deluxe edition. It is gonna be so pretty and petty and fabulous. I promise you, it will be worth every penny. Also pick up Horon of the Closed Country, which has more than on genderqueer character. It is just such a fantastic story, if I do say so myself, because this is 100% my editing darling right now.

 

Yuri/ Baihe/LGBTQ Live Action

Amber Glenn, the figure skater who is out as an openly queer woman, decided she liked Heated Rivalry and lesbian ice skating comic Just Between Us so much, she made a queer women’s ice skating music video, featuring herself and Lena Lemon as skaters to a remade “All The Things She Said”, a song that hits hard for Millennial lesbians and is now a new hit for Gen Z. (As Nirvana is becoming Everything old is new again.)

via live &love on X, Cage of Shadows, a”dual women lead, gl-coded, master-disciple, women-centred, wuxia revenge, chinese survival thriller series” is available on You Tube for free right now with English subtitles. 

 

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Light Novel

Via Sr. YNN Corrspondent Ashley 1000 Lotuses is a “lesbian tale of passion and vengeance inspired by China in the 10th century.” Available by the chapter on itchi.io

 

Other News

Mathematician Yu Deng has won the Fields Medal for his work on Randomnness and order. Deng  specifically cited Yuri as an inspiration in this article at Quanta magazine. Sr. YNN Corrspondent Matt Marcus found this further discussion on differentials being Yuri, via haystack on X. 

I often feel these days that Yuri as a genre has hit it’s adulthood, and is out there in the world doing very cool stuff that I am no longer involved in, but can be proud of, as a parent. ^_^

On FiftyShadesofGayOfficial account on Instagram, a swip-through article on the disappearance of dag king culture in Korea in Drag, Defiance and Disappearance: Inside Korea’s Vanished Female Drag Culture.

You may remember my interview with Dr. Stanley Love, the NASA astronaut who repped Sailor Moon at the Artermis II mission control. Well Stan is not done repping! He’s written an article for Reactor, Why Sailor Moon Belongs in Mission Control:  The lead CAPCOM for the Artemis II mission explains how magical girls embody NASA’s core values. This is a great article that came out of part of our conversation, and some comments that Stan made on ANN. Absolutely worth reading!

Via YNN Correspondent akatsukinoluna, here is a 2019 interview with Last and First Idol writer Gengen Kusano and Otherside Picnic writer Iori Miyazawa, called Yuri Made Me Human.

Lastly, not Yuri, but so pretty, Udon Entertainment just announced a license for Hiromi Matsuo’s Department Store Waltz, Rondo Manga. Crystalynn Hodgkins has the news over at ANN. I adore Matsuo-sensei’s work. I have a postcard of their take on a Takabatake Kasho painting I also adore sitting right here where I can see it as I work. ^_^

 

Your support goes straight to paying for Guest Reviews, folks helping with videos, site maintenance, managing the Yuricon Store and directly supporting other Yuri creators. Just $5/month makes a huge impact! Become part of the Okazu family!

Become a part of the Yuri Network, by being a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share with us.

Posted in Yuri Network News | 2 Comments »