Tokyo Pop has been buying up tons of shoujo manga and, in case you haven’t noticed, has been spitting out decent English-language translations at an amazing rate. Well, along with manga for the younger crowd, and a few Korean and Chinese manhua titles, they’ve made a foray into josei manga, as well. (Josei manga is for a slightly older female audience than shoujo manga. It has more open sexuality than shoujo, as well.)

Well, they’ve picked up some titles from josei publisher FC Gold comics – primarily by mangaka Erika Sakurazawa – including one of her lesbian-themed titles, Between the Sheets. This is not a happy story, but I was surprised to see it at all! Erika Sakurazawa has a better yuri manga, Love Vibes, which has a happy ending, but hasn’t yet been picked up by Tokyo Pop.

This mangaka has been around for a long time, and has easily 40 titles or so to her name. Needless to say, with the semi-explicit sex in the stories, these manga are labeled for a “mature audience” on the Tokyo Pop site. Despite my reservations, I think we ought to congratulate Tokyo Pop for publishing this mangaka’s work. If they don’t want Love Vibes, ALC Publishing will be glad to take it!

And remember, if you’re looking for some high-quality yuri manga at a reasonable price, Yuri Monogatari is on sale now, for 30% off the retail price. The price goes up after Yuricon, so get your order in today!

Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, ALC Publishing’s next project, is 90% complete and should be going to the printers this week. Get ready to read some yuri manga by an openly lesbian mangaka! Rica is funny and touching and you *know* the girl gets the girl. LOL

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And don’t forget to check the Yuricon Events page for shoujoai and yuri anime events near you! The Yuricon team has taken over the Anime North 2003 shoujo anime room…there’ll be plenty of good shoujo, shoujo ai and yuri to be seen!