Yuri Manga
We’ve added a couple of new titles to the Yuricon Store!
Galette No. 12 (ガレット) is hitting shelves this week and the cover, illustrated by pen, is just lovely.
The fifth anthology in the Éclair series, Éclair orange – Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology (エクレア orange あなたに響く百合アンソロジー) also makes it to Japanese bookstores this week. This one features a new story by Bloom Into You creator Nakatani Nio.
Speaking of Nakatani Nio…the final volume of Yagate Kimi ni Naru is being released this week in Japan. Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 8 (やがて君になる). Now I’m just killing time until that third Sayaka novel. ^_^
I’m currently reading Yuri to Koe to Kaze Matoi (百合と声と風纏い) about a girl who has no real idea what love means…until she falls for a mysterious woman with a motorcycle who helps her out on a rainy day.
Now that I’m done with events and traveling for a little while, I’ll play catch up on the Store and get some more stuff up!
I’ve just gotten a glimpse of the Udon edition of The Rose of Versailles, Volume 1 and …it’s breathtaking. I expect to have it in my hands this week and I will stop everything and review it immediately. In the meantime, pre-order it, you will not be disappointed.
Lilies Anthology Volume 8: Nodding Lily is now available in print and digital on a number of formats!
I know everyone asks this all the time, but we really do need your help to continue to cover as much as we do here on Okazu. Please consider making an Okazu subscription part of your 2020 budget. $5/month and you’ll be eligible for all our perqs, including a personalized Yuri panel!
LGBTQ News
Via Cartoon Network’s Twitter account, Steven Universe Future has a premier date! I’ll keep saying this – this cartoon is the only thing standing between me and a complete breakdown since November 2016. Around my house every night we take two episodes before bed. ^_^
Be Gay, Do Comics is a queer comics anthology; 250 pages of queer history, memoir and satire from amazing political cartoon website, The Nib.
Avery Kaplan takes a look at Queerness in Naoko Kodama’s manga I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up.
Now You Know, an animated history of 200 years of LGBTQ history and rights is narrated by Wanda Sykes.
This Renault car ad is the best lesbian movie of 2019. ^_^
Yuri Podcast
I was a guest this week on Anime News Network’s ANNCast. Zac Bertschy and I talk Yuri and queer representation in Revolutionary Girl Erica (and the comments drop down to Queen’s Blade as a good Yuri in under two pages, so you can see exactly what Zac is talking about very clearly. I was trying to be kind, but guys..seriously…Queen’s Blade is not good representation. )
Yuri Events
Folks in the Shinjuku area on March 1, should plan on attending the 20OL Expo, a doujinshi market focusing on Yuri romances in the workplace.
I’m very pleased (and proud!) to announce that our panel: Transporting Yuri Across Borders has been accepted to the Mechademia conference in Kyoto in May 30-June 1, 2020. Myself, James Welker and Verena Maser will be presenting papers about “challenges and opportunities in the evolution and transformation of yuri as it has been transported across chronological, geographic and linguistic borders.” Sounds cool, right? Now we have to, y’know, write the papers! I’ve been using the Nanowrimo energy of the month to push myself and have gotten a third of the way through the thing.
Interestingly, a whole new section of my paper opened up with my desire to create a new word for Yuri fans. We’ve gotten first-hand testimony from Rica Takashima that Itoh Bungaku-sensei meant to specifically coin a phrase for lesbians when he chose Yurizoku and I’ve done some primary research this week of currently used terms. Yuri is a common genre term now, but there is no clear pre-eminent word for Yuri fan. Yurizuki has been suggested, but it’s no more common than anything else, having been primarily promoted on Twitter through the efforts of two bots who RTed it an average of 5 times a day in 2013-2015. So a bunch of us are now working with 百合人-Yurijin…although predictably there’s already valid discussion about pronunciation and calling it Yuribito…but as I was typing this I realized why I don’t care for that. Yuribito describes a single person’s identity or role within a society. I’m thinking of us all as “the Yuri people,”so Yurijin it is for me. (Leaving Yurizoku still for lesbians, as opposed to anyone who likes Yuri the genre.) I’ve been among those who shape how we talk about this genre for 20 years now and I love how we’ve pushed and prodded it towards a broader vision of inclusivity. ^_^ This conversation will evolve, undoubtedly. Who knows what we’ll call it in another 20 years! Isn’t language fascinating?
Other News
Here’s a fun interview with Laurie Halse Anderson, creator of Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed on rebooting Diana’s origin story through a real world lens.
Here’s a funny story to wrap up. Reed Pop, having whiffed twice at creating an anime festival at NYCC is trying again over at Emerald City Comic Con with Pop Asia. Why. Seriously.
Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Write me with any questions you have, and I’ll do my best to answer them on my YNN podcast, when I revive it this winter!
Special thanks to all of our Okazu Patrons on Patreon, who make this report possible!
“I was a guest this week on Anime News Network’s ANNCast. Zac Bertschy and I talk Yuri and queer representation in Revolutionary Girl Erica (and the comments drop down to Queen’s Blade as a good Yuri in under two pages, so you can see exactly what Zac is talking about very clearly. I was trying to be kind, but guys..seriously…Queen’s Blade is not good representation. )”
IMHO, depending on what you mean by this word. I saw many people who believed that “representation” is literally any image of queer characters in the media in general. Even if it’s a moe comedy like Yuru Yuri or a fanservice for fanboys like Senran Kagura. Personally, I’m used to understanding this word as a realistic and / or at least serious image.
We talk about how representation is not “literally any image of queer characters in the media in general.” In fact, we address that directly.
“Yurizuki has been suggested, but it’s no more common than anything else, having been primarily promoted on Twitter through the efforts of two bots who RTed it an average of 5 times a day in 2013-2015.”
I take it you formed this theory based on use as a hashtag.
Here’s a twitter query for before 2013:
twitter.com/search?q=百合好き%20%20until%3A2013-1-1&src=typed_query&f=live
I’m not trying to object to you wanting to make your word a thing.
I know you aren’t. ^_^
I spent some time yesterday doing research (I’m a professional researcher for my day job, its what I do when I wonder something.) The first use was in 2011, in fact.
Year – Usages by Unique Users
2011 – 1
2012 – 9
2013 – 14
2014 – 28 Two, (then three) bots repeated the same posts roughly 5 times a day. Other than them and non-subculture usage 15 people used the term.
2015 – 34 by 13 people – 1 bot goes down, conversation by 2 users spiked the usage in August.
2016 – 29 by 27 users, a bot starts posting 3-4 images a day with term.
2017 – 30 by 22 users
2018 – 71 by 48 users. At announcement of Kase-san movie, all the theaters pick up the announcements with the term RT it.
2019 – 103 by 64 unique users. One of them RTs themselves at least once every post, so the number of posts is higher than usual.
I was interested to see if it’s used on Pixiv, so again I did so primary research. It only returns 5 results there.
In case you ever wondered! I’ll be charting this and adding it to my Mechademia presentation, so it’s not wasted effort. ^_^
Talking about its use as hashtag massively downplays how commonly used it is. If you use the link I provided, that’s a query that isn’t limited like that.
I did that search too。The hashtag is merely representative, a sample size, but the proportions were the same. I am not arguing that it is not used. I’m saying that it doesn’t suit my needs, just as [女同士] didn’t.
A few thoughts that came to mind as I listened to the podcast:
1. Why would anyone presume to tell someone else they should not consume any form of art or media? Who cares what the “intended” audience for a work is, it takes nothing away from you if someone else wants to engage with it for whatever reason. Too many people are too concerned with policing others and not concerned enough with understanding them.
2. Which segues nicely to thought number two. Why would anyone *want* to have a genre of romance that doesn’t reflect an actual person’s lived-in experience? Isn’t that the appeal? If they’re a ridiculous fantasy construct, what insight do you gain from that? I’ve always loved the Roger Ebert quote that “movies are a machine that generates empathy.” I think that’s true for any form of storytelling. When I watch a movie or TV show or read a book or manga, I am *looking* for the experience of someone who isn’t like me. I want to know what their life is like and how they see the world. It’s like a magic power to live an infinite number of lives. I guess I’ve always been naive in looking for series with some LGBT truth to them to enjoy, and assuming that they were for gay people and that I should respect that and expect to enjoy it on those terms and not “my” terms. It seems dumb to me to wall off actual lesbians or gay men from yuri or BL or film characters or even porn. Isn’t the *whole point* to be a vicarious passenger in a life unlike your own?
3. When Adolescence of Utena came out on VHS and laserdisc (!) I was living in Japan. I rented it immediately on release day and although my Japanese was nowhere NEAR good enough to understand the dialogue it blew me away in much the same way as it did you and Zac. The story, the themes, the *emotions* are so plainly conveyed in the voice acting, the visuals, the staging and choreography. As you say, understanding the dialogue adds in the subtlety and nuance but is wholly unnecessary to appreciate what Ikuhara wanted to convey. The people who find him inscrutable make me laugh because he is so flamboyant and transparent about his ideas, really. The symbolism and metaphors and audacious theatricality is all gilding and layering on top of big neon signs saying “THIS IS THE POINT.” It’s so obvious his background is in stage plays – he wants you to FEEL something, even if you don’t “understand” it.
I agree with all three points.
“[Ikuhara] is so flamboyant and transparent about his ideas, really.”
YES, exactly. It’s not about the meaning of a symbol with him, but about the feelings it engenders.