Here we are at the first news report of what already looks to be a really busy year. ^_^
Yuri Manga
And to start I have some really wonderful news. Last month, I received a tweet from the creator of GUNJO, Nakamura Ching-sensei, tell me that she was launching new manga online and the topic was Lesbian Life! You can imagine how excited I was.
In fact, she has launched 3 new titles online! All three have sample chapters, up, and are being sold through Note.mu.
Okaasan Futariitemo iikana? ~ Lesbian no Mama Seikatsu (お母さん二人いてもいいかな！？~レズビアンのママ生活~) 800￥
Rezu to Nanajin no Kanojotachi (レズと七人の彼女たち) 600￥
Mienai Me to Onaji Dessho (会えない日と同じでしょ) 500￥
Check out the samples. Yay we’re getting more comic from Nakamura-sensei! (Note: I don’t seem to be able to get Note.mu to take my overseas credit card, but I’ll keep trying.)
In Yuri Hime Comics news, Ohsawa Yayoi’s latest collection Spice Girls (スパイスガールズ) has a mid-January release date, as does, Nakahara Tsubaki’s Himitsu, Hitotsu (ひみつ、ひとつ), and the first volume of Amano Shuninta’s new series Ayame 14 (あやめ14 ). The January issue of Comic Yuri Hime is already on shelves, and the March issue is available for pre-order.
And, the final volume of Takemiya Jin’s high school series from Rakuen Le Paradis magazine, Omoi no Kakera, Volume 3, had a Christmas street date.
I hadn’t been paying attention, but Morita-san ha Mukichi (森田さんは無口) is still going strong. We’re up to Volume 9 of this cute one-joke gag comic.
The final volume of Golondrina (ゴロンドリーナ), Est Em’s epic bullfighting manga is available. I’m dying to read it!
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Yuri Anime
Otaku USA reports that Funimation has licensed Yuri Kuma Arashi for digital simulcast in the USA and Crunchyroll has picked it up for non-North American regions. I’m sorry to say this news doesn’t actually make me happy. Funimation’s site is terrible. It’s organized badly, rarely works and is frustrating to use. If they want to position themselves as a digital anime channel, they have got to get off their asses and develop the damn thing properly. ANN takes a look at the creepy online countdown to the anime. Eric P has reminded me that Funimation series can be watched at Hulu.com, so we can avoid the agita. ^_^
We have a trailer for Sailor Moon Crystal‘s second arc, (which I will continue to think of as ‘R’) with a brief look at Sailor Pluto!
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Other News
I really, really want everyone to read Noah Berlatsky’s article in The LA Review of Books The Virtues of Know-Nothing Criticism. Noah hits the ball out of the park on this one, discussing how “knowing a lot about a series” or “having read/watched all the canon material” /= expertise and expertise and perspective can come from a lot of different sources and still be very relevant to a niche fandom.
In a fandom, it’s quite often that new fans or younger fans or female fans in a space that male fans presume is theirs are challenged to “prove” their expertise in series ephemera, or time dedicated. Not only is this childish gatekeeping, it ignores the wider existence of expertise, experience and plain old knowledge about something that also exists outside the pages of >this comic<. Really, please read this article.
In case you missed it, we started off 2015 here at Okazu with a frank discussion about our place is our comics ecosystem and how we can help keep this industry sustainable: Supporting Your Comics Ecosystem in 2015
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Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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!
You can always watch Funimation’s stuff, new and old, on Hulu as an alternative, so I’m not much worried at all in checking out the new Ikuhara masterpiece.
Excellent point! Thanks for reminding us!
Though you probably may have to wait a week after the premiere for the new episodes to be posted on Hulu unless they posted on Hulu Plus.
A small price to pay for functionality.
That’s why everyone was linking note.mu! Great news.
I can’t wait for you to review OnK 3, I really want to talk about it!
I won’t get it until the end of January, but hopefully by then I’ll be caught up. ^_^
Also, my week in Yuri:
「AmaHima • SakuSaku ~ 13 Years After」by 7001 … Is legitimately good. As a story of adult women it’s no Nishi Uko but as an extrapolation of Yuru Yuri it’s excellent. These are the same goofballs but grown up; it’s sweet and funny, and Sakurako becomes more sympathetic, Himawari’s love for her fits despite some of her old habits sticking around. It’s a Yuri story because there’s a legitimate couple to invest in, and their relationship is very much romantic and committed. The cameos from other YY characters are amusing and apt, the art is clean and appealing.
My only real complaint is that Sakurako and Himawari’s relationship developing very slowly over 13 years and then hitting the accelerator as the manga starts doesn’t quite ring true, but it’s forgivable to keep the on-screen action focused on the 26 year old versions of the characters.
Best of all: no Kyouko! Buy this doujin if you can (I’m giving it a big rap because it really exceeded my expectations, I don’t expect Okazu readers to need as much encouragement for Takemiya-sensei, Nishi-sensei, Amano-sensei etc.)
「Chocolat Orange」 by Takemiya-sensei was the standout of her doujin. While I’m a huge Takemiya Jin fan, the Junk Lab stuff is very difficult because she hand-letters the dialogue, kind of brutal on a Japanese beginner :). This one has one of my favourite types of Takemiya Jin characters, the 格好いい ones (cool). The main character (her name is a pun on chocolate, can’t get a clear reading on it though) is a confectioner (the Yuri dream job apparently) whose colleague and best friend quits to get married. Chocolate drunkenly confesses to her, which does not end well. The next day she meets Mikan, a bubbly and clumsy girl who wants to be a confectioner and has a job interview that day…
Chocolate is really cool and I like her a lot, even though she displays a lack of professional ethics regarding a girl she’d clearly like to sleep with. The main problem is Mikan is 16 to Chocolate’s 26; Takemiya sensei is clearly OK with more of a power imbalance in relationships than I am. Recommended anyway, it’s appropriately sweet.
「Wish」 is Takemiya-sensei’s Love Live doujin, and while I don’t follow Love Live I liked it a lot (my shipping opinions come from osmosis, but even so if you ship Maki with anyone but Nico we fight with knives!). This is an Eri x Nozomi piece, and begins by giving us a vision of their adult lives together. I am a huge sucker for the Yuri domestic bliss thing (see me gushing over Amahima Sakusaku above), so that got us off on the right foot. While that turns out to be a dream, Eri’s passion and determination to make it reality sells it. This is a legit Yuri story and worth it even if you don’t know your Love Live from your Aikatsu! I think the Okazu community should now be on team Eri x Nozomi.
Speaking of breaches of professional responsibility and ten year age gaps, it’s 「Dear my Teacher」 6 and 7 by Ajiichi! Mikoto graduates in 6, so from 7 on this series is no longer problematic, yes? ;). 6 is a predictable but sweet graduation story hitting most of the beats you’d expect, but apart from the melodrama of Mikoto’s extremely long “confession” works pretty well. I haven’t read 7 as closely but it’s the couple’s first adult date, so good premise! I don’t remember 1-5 that clearly so this probably needs a thorough reread from the start, but I think it will be rewarding if I’m prepared to cut Ajiichi as much slack for student-teacher relationships as I am Takemiya-sensei.
UKOZ’s 「木の葉隠し」 and 「Aurora」 each contain one continuing story each from KOZ and Nishi-sensei. KOZ’s story is a young fox spirit attending high school but running into trouble from a Tanuki who continually tricks her about how the school and humans work, I’m the form of a pretty girl herself. Despite this teasing, it’s clear something is developing between them. It’s a fun story and the art is appealing, it just suffers from being in the same book as the strongest artist in Yuri. However I was a bit lost in Nishi-sensei’s story of a pianist seducing a younger woman; based on the numbering (2.5 and 3) I’m clearly missing earlier chapters of both, but KOZ’s simpler story is easier to pick up in the middle. I’ll be hanging out for a collection.
Finally the Visual Novel 「Flowers」 is…really difficult. Not only does the less expressive visual context put it half way between a manga and a novel for reading level, it wears its ojousama/Maria-sama influence proudly by using refined language and difficult kanji wherever possible (who the hell uses the kanji form of anata?).
Unlike Marimite it focuses on horizontal relationships rather than vertical ones, hammering home the need for “Amity” with your class mates. I think this is leading me to bad endings, as I’m focusing on the delightful Mayumi (assertive and strong but still feminine, a good match for the gentle main character Suo) at the expense of the other main girl Rika (who is a bit nuts and I’d prefer not to encourage her) and the rest.
Still it’s ridiculously pretty, and the music is good. My only real complaint is that Suo has very long unvoiced internal monologues; not only are these difficult for me but they seem to leave the other girls hanging for ever when they ask her a question, artificially amplifying her timidity. They seem to forgive her because they all find her stunningly beautiful, which maybe isn’t the strongest foundation for building a relationship but it’s useful I guess.
So that’s…maybe 5% of my purchases? Orz, as they say.
Getting home and reading through the pile is one of the most fun parts about the process!
Crunchyroll doesn’t have “Yuri Kuma Arashi’ for the UK, Ireland or Scandinavia, and so far I’m not aware of anywhere having it for the UK.
Which is another reason to dislike Funimation, as when they get something it often means it’s not legally available in other English-speaking parts of the world like, say, England!
That’s not Funimation’s fault, typically. The Japanese companies who do licensing are notoriously arcane and awful about it.