Just Between Us

March 9th, 2026

A woman in a black and gold skating costume twirls on the ice, mirrored by a women in white in the ice.Lydia Chen is driven. She’s driven to be the absolute best female skater in the world, and she doesn’t really care who gets hurt in the process. When Elaine Yee begins to seriously be a rival for the top spot, it throws Lydia into a downward spiral that will call into question everything she believes…by making her realize she doesn’t really believe in anything at all, not even herself. Elaine just wants to be friends, Lydia just wants to be left alone to skate. Their rivalry will push them both past a breaking point where they will have to find something to hold on to.

Just Between Us, Adeline Kon’s sapphic ice skating story landed on my feed just as Alyssa Liu was completing her own redemption arc at the Olympics in what is the finest women’s free skate performance I have ever seen in my life. It seemed kismet, as I’m always hoping for a good Yuri rivals-to-lovers sports story. Just Between Us is not exactly what I am looking for, but it is very good.

To begin with Lydia and Elaine are both in theirs 20s but Lydia, especially, comes off as extremely immature. After a decade of competing, her inability to grow from loss felt very childish. This works well, if the story you want is athletes struggling with inner demons. Lydia’s inner demons have been winning for a very long time when we meet her. Elaine is a bit more sympathetic, as her struggles have not served to twist her. She holds her hand out over and over to Lydia. It isn’t until a common enemy appears that Lydia suddenly realizes that she’s the problem here.

If you are looking for a rivals to lovers story driven by deep emotions, delving into family obligations, scandal and expectations, you will love this book.

The art is really expressive. I especially loved the different-colored patterns of skating and the stop motion graphs of the jumps. It felt very much like a book with its hands thrust right into the foundations of woman’s competitive ice skating. The font size is occasionally small, but the art is worth it.

While I was hoping for a story in which the competition itself took the place of the tension between them, I do genuinely believe this is a solid book about athletes, competitive pressure and finding both ones’ self and love in that world.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 0
Yuri – 10
LGBTQ – 9

Overall – 8

The cover is the best example of this, but there is a very Odile/Odette vibe between these two skaters, in the sense of a story I wrote a long time ago. I thought the costuming choice was a good one.

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A Scandal in Yuri Publishing & Important Statement

March 8th, 2026

This was not the post I expected to write today. It’s pretty brutal that this is going out on International Women’s Day.

CW for CSA, Suicide, Online Harassment

It has come to my attention that a Yuri science fiction author in Japan has embroiled the Yuri community in a scandal. To begin with, I received an email today with an “investigative report” about an author going by the name of Namboku. The report stated that this author, though having a partner, allegedly deceived a fan in order to have an affair and, when she found out, threatened her. The fan has subsequently committed suicide and the author has been deleting posts on their socials. The Yuri community in Japan is outraged in part because of the lack of reaction by the author’s publishers. On X, people are speaking out plainly about this situation.

None of Namboku’s work is licensed in English, but that is not a good reason for us to ignore this. 

In the week after the Manga One scandal at Shogakukan, (and the whole Epstein files cesspit on the political stage) fans are taking a stand against systems that protect predators.  

You know that we say Yuri is by anyone and Yuri is for everyone here, but equally, it needs to be said that the global Yuri community stands up for women.  Whether it is book publishing, manga, companies, or governments, any and every  system that protects predators deserves to be destroyed. 

What can we do as readers? Well, we can write publishers. I wrote one of several emails already to a Japanese publisher this morning. Others will be going out. I want them to understand that the global Yuri community is watching and we see how they side with predators through silence and inaction.  

The inevitable criticism will be that if I feel so strongly about this, why am I not doing the same about my own government. I assure you, I am. I contact my government representatives regularly to let them know what must be done. I contact and criticize companies that enshrine bias and give my money to companies that normalize equality and opportunity for people to thrive. In so far as I am able, I spend every day mobilizing to save what we can of our future.

We might not have buying power in Japanese science fiction on our own, but our voices can and should be in union against men who abuse women. The Yuri community is for all women, everywhere, whether they are Japanese, Iranian, Palestinian, American, cis or trans. 

We ask that publishers reject people (whether creators or staff) who do not show women respect. We’re done with horrible men being promoted and protected. Namboku’s actions are personal, but his publishers’ actions or lack thereof, are a public statement.

Yuri can be by anyone and can be enjoyed by everyone, but we Yurijin demand that Yuri artists and publishers respect women.
 

 

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Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 5, 2025

March 7th, 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 Events

The YuriTen will be celebrating it’s 10th anniversary in conjunction with the first permanent Yuri Cafe in Ikebukuro, Atelier Lilium.  Yuri Navi has the complete rundown. Keep your eyes peeled for dates and more.

 

Yuri Manga

Gal x Gal Yuri hit 5th place in the “Manga I Want To See As An Anime” rankings. It’s a fun little manga, you can read it for free at Viz.com.

Aoi Uozumi’s Pink Candy Kiss, Volume 5 is headed our way in June.

Sweet Heat!, Volume 1 (スウィートヒート！) is about two pro-wrestlers who are rivals in the ring and lovers at home.

Baka Onna 26-ji, Volume 1 (バカ女26時) is a road trip adventure when one woman tells another she’s killed the woman’s husband.

Edizioni Star Comics announced on Instagram they are releasing an Italian edition of Sal Jiang’s office comedy Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko!

Via Hotwaterandmilk on Tumblr, sono.N was selling a new SHWD doujnishi this past Comitia. This series began as a doujinshi series. I picked up the first 3 chapters at Comitia some years ago, as it happens. We can order this from sono.N’s Booth store in print or digital download. 

rainbow port Tokyo Anchor’s Yuri Club is doing a signing with Hanakage Alt, for her new manga Unnie ‘tte  Yonde mo Ii Desuka?, which is about to be released as a collected volume.

Yen Press premiered the cover for the upcoming Shino and Ren, a raunchy peek into the two high school girls’ love lives.

Seven Seas announced pre-orders for Koharu and Minato: Happy Life with My Girlfriend, Volume 1! They also licensed, A Love Yet to Bloom by Kon Fukaumi. My Goddess is Precious Today, Too, Volume 2 is also on the way from them, as well.

 

I wanted to leave Seven Seas until last this week to address concerns about their acquisition by Media Do. I’m sure you’ve all heard that Seven Seas employees were not told of the acquisition beforehand. I can attest from many rounds of this that companies don’t – and often can’t – tell employees while they are in the process of mergers and acquisitions.  

Seven Seas put out a  statement declaring that their leadership and editorial will remain the same and that they have no intention of using AI in their books. Media Do as a company is looking to use AI and in a recent presentation to investors stated that they want to double Seven Seas’ output. Needless to say ,people were concerned by this gap. Following this, Media Do put out a statement that they do not plan on using AI for Seven Seas’ books. They still mention their LLM program to “assist” translators. Therefore, I would read all of this as “for the foreseeable future” in which foreseeable future is anywhere from 3 months to a year. 

While of course I ask that people not be paranoid in advance, do stay on top of Seven Seas/Media Do, and police their overall quality politely. Keeping up the pressure that AI slop is not wanted, will not be supported and is anithithetical to a genre rooted in human creativity, is our best weapon against it.

 

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Yuri Anime 

Via YNN Correspondent Burkely Hermann, Media OCD is re-releasing the remastered Blu-ray edition of Dear Brother, the classic anime based on Riyoko Ikeda’s Onii-sama E. If you haven’t seen this, grab a copy now. It’s…a lot. But a gorgeous masterwork of a lot.

 

Yuri Literature

The amazing award-winning Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.  It’s also available as a audiobook. I’m definitely going to get a copy of that. I listened to a sample and the reader, Sarah Skaer, is very careful with pronunciations.

 

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Yuri Other Things

Kinokuniya USA announced an improbable and amazing thing: A The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All x Sanrio collaboration. My gob is smacked. I know Sanrio collabs with a lot of stuff, but…wow. Can’t get to a Kinokuniya? Take a look at Kino USA online shop.

Nancy, the classic American comic about the girl with the spiky hair and spikier personality, now drawn by Caroline Cash, took a step into our world on March 4 with a very gay comic.

 

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The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Volume 1

March 6th, 2026

Cover of The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate by Kodama Naoko. On a pale-blue background with pale white letters spelling out the title, a tall short-haired woman wears a tuxedo, back to back with shorter woman with light brown wavy shoulder-length hair in a wedding dress.In The Lying Bride and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate, Volume 1, Naoko Kodama offers up a lesbian that is a little more than just a plot complication. 

I’ve noted in the past, that some of Kodama’s work gets very close to discussions of trauma and the way people react to it.  In some cases, she sets up a reaction that is so extreme, the originating event appears to be serious, only to back off into a troubling, but not damaging, situation. There are two exceptions (mostly) to this trend -notably, I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up and the topic of today’s review. I say “notably,” because these two books, of all of her work, directly address queer life in Japan. 

Shigisawa is not out at her workplace, but she is very aware of and unhappy with the inequality she faces as a woman who will(can)not get married and a woman without children. She is grumpy about this. When a popular former colleague shows up needing her help, Shigisawa is not happy about that at all, either. On the one had, she had a mild crush on Goto and is grumpy about that too, as Goto left to get socially-approved married to a man. On the other hand, Shigisawa Rei is actually a softy and doesn’t turn Goto Saya away. 

The main conflict for Rei is being in close proximity to a woman she finds attractive and who appears to be all but throwing herself at Rei in what she believe is a clueless straight-girl way. For Saya, the conflict is very different, as her marriage is…she doesn’t know what it is, but it’s not working. This is not a funny at all, though. By not understanding her own self, Saya spends the volume unintentionally putting Rei’s emotions at risk.  

Because Kodama’s work typically comes with a guarantee of a happy ending, there isn’t that much tension in these two conflicts. We have to assume Saya will – at the last possible moment – deal with her failed marriage, and Rei will get the girl. And whether you like them as a couple or not is up to you. But at least, here in Volume 1 we get some pointed griping about Japanese society and their government’s abject failure to legitimize same-sex marriages, something that more than 70% of Japanese people think ought to exist (and despite multiple court rulings that lack of SSM is unconstitutional.)

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 6
Characters – 7
Service – 4
Yuri – 8
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 7

Kodama-sensei’s work often strikes me the same way Melissa Scott’s science fiction in the 1990s did. It comes so close to making a point, dealing with an issue, managing an emotion, but shies away from follow through. That said, Kodama has been edging closer and closer and I hope that one, day, she’ll write the thing that has to be written.

Posted in English Manga, Kodama Naoko, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Fatale Game, Volume 1 (ファタールゲーム)

March 5th, 2026

A woman with long black hair is draped possessively over a woman with short pink hair, sitting cross-legged, who looks put out by it. Envelopes with hearts fly about them.You may remember Battan from Run Away With Me Girl, all three volumes of which were reviewed here on Okazu by Guest Reviewer Matt Rolf. Well, Battan is back with a new series that is unique and uncomfortable in equal parts.

Fatale Game, Volume 1 (ファタールゲーム) is the story of Tainaka Seri, a one-hit wonder of a manga artists. Her first story was a massive hit and she’s been in a slump every since. When she gets a new editor she is ready to leave the manga world altogether, until she meets Fukami Sumire, her incredibly passionate new editor. Proclaiming her love for “Nanakusa”‘s work, Fukami begins to light a fire in Seri.

But that fire, clearly, is also likely to burn.

Fukami is passionate, yes, claiming to be moved to tears by Seri’s work, but she also is a grounded taskmaster, requiring more than just average work from her charge. Seri is being pushed out of her comfort zone by Fukami, and part of that is Fukami’s way of not quite crossing the line into inappropriate intimacy. As uncomfortable as she, is Seri is drawing and writing again, and feeling some kind of spark between them. 

When Seri meets another of Fukami’s manga charges, things take a turn. Iwao warns Seri away from Fukami, claiming that the editor has a definite ranking in who gets time and attention. And we see that Iwao and Fukami’s relationship is more intimate than Seri and Fukami. 

As the volume concludes, Seri goes to an awards ceremony to see Fukami and is confronted with the fact that he editor does this for everyone she is in charge of. She loves their work and would LOVE to see them reach number one in the magazine rankings! Seri meets the others as they begin Fukami’s “game,” but what will that entail?

As I said, this book is equal parts interesting and uncomfortable. Fukami’s femme fatale method works, and clearly she uses her personal charisma to motivate her writers, even possiblysetting them against one another to compete for her favor. It also can be read as Fukami does genuinely deeply, personally love manga and genuinely, deeply, personally wants every single one of her mangaka to reach for the number 1 ranking.  Her behavior borders on (sometime crossing into) inappropriate, but her desire is not for the mangaka, but for their art.

It also could easily be that both these readings are true at the same time, depending on which perspective you take. I’m waiting to see how it pans out in the next volume.  I’m interested enough to see if this is a deep psychological game by Fukami and where it leads, or if the game is simply “kick these do-nothing artists into high gear.”

Ratings: 

Art – 6 I don’t care for the messy, wet look of Battan’s art, but YMMV
Story – 7 Could be good, could be bad, might be creepy, might not. Don’t know
Characters – 7 A bunch of soppy, slumpy manga artists and a femme fatale editor….what could go wrong?
Service – 4 Mild, but suggestive situations
Yuri – 4 There’s some projection happening and mopey crushing and an inappropriate kiss

Overall – 7

If you like Battan’s art, complicated and uncomfortable humans in complicated and uncomfortable situations or stories about stuck manga artists facing their own truths, give Fatale Game a try. 

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »