Contest News
Thanks to Nozomi/RightStuf, we have 3 copies of Hyakko Complete TV Series Litebox Set to give away. The contest winners this time are:
Dennis Bouchard
Urooj Siddiqui
Roberto Romani
Please email me at yuricon at gmail dot com with your addresses and I’ll get your prizes out in the mail as soon as I can motivate myself to get to the post office.! (Thank you to everyone who entered…I promise we’ll have another contest coming up soon.)
***
Loads of manga news this week！
Yuri Manga
From YNN Correspondent Niki Smith on Twitter, the source material for this year’s Cannes winner, Jean Maron’s lesbian graphic novel Le Bleu est une Couleur Chaude is now on Comixology – in the original French. This is cool on several levels – it’s good to see Comixology branching out into Bande Dessinée, it’s cool to see them pursuing LGBTQ content and it’s just plain cool. If you’re a French reader, have purchased the book in print or digital and want to do a review – write me and let me know!
July’s gonna be a rough month – we already know Aoi Hana is ending in Erotics F magazine, and now we’ve gotten news that Hayate x Blade is finishing up in the July issue of Ultra Jump. Boo-hoo~~ (T_T) I mean, I can’t complain – it went 18 volumes, I just wanted it to go on forever. ^_^
Akili has a webcomic called Stretch (ストレッチ) about two women sharing an apartment, one of whom is interested in the other, but that’s just part of it. The comic also has helpful discussions of stretching as exercise, how to do it, what it’s good for, and service. ^_^;
Got a bunch of Yuri Hime manga coming out this summer: Sankou Noise (残光ノイズ), Volume 1 of citrus, Strange Babies (ストレンジベイビーズ), and an unexpected Volume 7 of Yuri Hime Wildrose (百合姫Wildrose)
Rakuen le Paradis, Volume 12 (楽園 Le Paradis) is up streeting the last week of this month.
Ohana Holo Holo, Volume 5 (オハナホロホロ 5) was released at the beginning of June. If you’re following this story and have been waffling, I’ll say only this – get it. ^_^
I took a look at Flowers Magazine on Magazine no Mori this month at Manga Bookshelf. Also on Manga Bookshelf, Sean Gaffney wrote what I consider to be the definitive review of the English edition of Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossom Pink by Morinaga Milk. I’m gonna be honest here – I’m glad that Sean’s got his own blog, but it’s been a real loss for us here at Okazu now that he’s too famous to Guest Review anymore. ^_^
And let’s finish up with a feel-good gender switch comic suggestion from Erin S. called the The Prince and the Princess. This is a sweet little Torikaebaya with a happy ending. Awww…
***
Yuri Live Action-Movie
Some breaking news from YNN Correspondent Komatsu-san: A Yuri-themed live-action move Schoolgirl Complex ~ Hosoubu Hen~ (スクールガール・コンプレックス～放送部篇～) will debut in Japan on August 17th. Check out the trailer. Komatsu-san asked me what I think of it. My response was, “It looks like every Yuri Manga ever, doesn’t it?” ^_^ (Sean replied “Story A: The Movie”!) Eagle-eyed commenter Beatriz says she thinks Kotobuki Minako (Yuri-goggle user Mugi from K-ON!) plays the teacher. (It’s hard to tell if she’s a teacher or parent from the trailer.) That’s a nice Easter Egg for Yuri fans. ^_^
***
Other News
Looking for some good tools to read Japanese? Or write it? or speak it? Or to understand it? I found a Japanese language portal called Nihongoeな that has links to just about anything you need.
A pair of Licca-chan dolls of Madoka and Homura have been premiered. If I can find the Homura doll, I might even get it. ^_^
***
That’s a wrap for this week! 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!
Just saw the trailer for the live action film and seiyuu trivia for those who didn’t recognize her, Kotobuki Minako (Yuri-goggle user Mugi from K-ON!) plays the teacher (I think she’s a teacher…)
Very cool news. I’ll add it to the report. Thanks!
I was so sad to read that HxB is ending :( I really hope it gets an anime adaptation someday
One thing I’ve thought about recently is to remember to refrain from excluding audiences and markets. There are some audiences on twitter, e.g. the Japanese or Korean, with millions of fans. Sure, there are difficulties where we do not communicate in their audience’s language. But think about it: just one once-a-week translation service could build an extra 10,000 customers. Isn’t that worth it?
In fact, I am already doing this for large, “significant” opinion pieces. Not the weekly news reports, as there are already many similar blogs and news magazines doing the same thing.
But.
One is not “excluding” an audience merely because one focuses on an audience. There are a number of Yuri blogs in Japan. This blog focuses on bringing news to the English-speaking audience. Resources and time are not infinite, every site has to focus on what is most important to them.
Interesting number you chose – how do you figure an additional 10K readers? On my most-RTed and shared articles, that have been translated into Japanese, it’s translated into a few thousand extra readers, no 10K. Remembering that this is a niche blog, not a link farm, or a general news site.