Yuri Visual Novels
Breaking News! The visual novel creative team at Studio Élan, announces a new publishing initiative, Bellhouse, by Studio Élan. Bellhouse will be publishing games not developed by Studio Élan, but that they believe deserves attention. Like Studio Élan projects, Bellhouse will focus on positive representations for LGBTQ women. Their first project is First Snow by Salty Salty Studios.
Yuri Manga
Kadokawa has a new “mistress and servant” anthology, Shujuu Yuri Anthology Rhodanthe (主従百合アンソロジー Rhodanthe).
May will bring us Makoto Hagino’s A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Volume 3!
Tamifull’s How Do We Relationship, Volume 1 the English edition of Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana? has an June release date from Viz Media. I’m telling you now…save up all your money for a very, very, very queer June this year.
Jennifer Sherman on AANN reports that Saki Achiga-hen, episode of Side-A manga is restarting after 7 years.
Here’s a bunch of books that aren’t going onto the Yuricon Store, but if they sound interesting to you, here you go!
Comic Natalie reports on Pochi Climb, Volume 1 (ぽちゃクライム！), the collected chapters of the bouldering comic that runs in Comic Yuri Hime and thus sort of awkwardly mashes up awkward torso shots, bouldering details and a vaguely Yuri plotline.
Byougestu, (病月) by Mochi au Lait, is a “villain’s pure love story” about a girl who stalks another girl. The creator of Happy Sugar Life recommends it, if that gives you a better idea of the audience. (-_-)
Ichido dake demo, Koukaishiteimasu (一度だけでも、後悔してます。) is Miyahara Miyako’s story of a lolicon-looking female landlord who is willing to take sex from an older female tenant as payment for overdue rent.
Unicorn to Sabishigariya Shoujo (ユニコーンと寂しがりや少女) follows a lonely girl who conjures up a unicorn(-girl) in her attempt to transport her dog magically to her dorm. Attracted by her virginity, the unicorn won’t leave her alone. This looked cute, but if the word “virgin” is in the editorial copy, I know it’s unlikely to be for me. ^_^
girls x garden has two new Yuri anthologies plumbing the depths of unpleasant emotion. Qualia – Envy and Qualia – Jealousy.
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Yuri Anime
The first Princess Principal sequel film has some announcements according to ANN‘s Rafael Antonio Pineda.
Yuri Light Novel
We’re getting Otherside Picnic, Volume 3, in April. This is available on Kindle and multiple formats directly from J-Novel Club.
Other News
Highly recommended reading, is Caitlin Moore’s Power, Oppression, and Victimhood in The Twelve Kingdoms versus The Rising of the Shield Hero on AnimeFeminist. An excellent bit of compare and contrast.
Anne Reid, a Narrative Director for Ubisoft has written an excellent article on Ethical World Building in Games that is also very worth your time.
Nintendo Switch in Japan is promoting Animal Crossing with a video that seems pretty gay to me. ^_^ H/t to Rachel Thorn for that.
Let’s wrap on this book which has immediately gone onto my to-read pile, Sarah Galley’s Upright Women Wanted, the queer Librarian Wild West adventure we have been longing for! If you’re not already getting the Tor newsletter, I’m going to tell you to do that for yourself. I’ve been getting amazing reading recs from them. Also, yes, there were librarians on horseback in the American Wild West and yes, I will put money down than some of them were queer. Fight me. ^_^
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! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an essential part of the team!
FWIW, “Ichido dakedemo…” isn’t quite as dire as its skeevy and salacious (skeevalacious?) setup portends. The initial sex trade happens off page and though the service quotient is high it’s not especially gross. Once/if you can look past that “no woman would ever do this” setup, the subsequent “services in lieue of rent” are more of a slow burn toward relationship development/general intimacy and friendship.
Also, the landlady is 19, and is shown to have been struggling with same-sex attraction and the way people have treated her for it for a long time. Later on the main characters are out shopping and they run into one of the landlady’s high school acquaintances and her boyfriend. The acquaintance outs the landlady to her boyfriend, and even though neither reacts badly they are pretty callous with how they talk about her. Kozuka (the tenant) comes to her rescue and they have a sort of coded talk about how it’s been for Hara (the landlady) and Kozuka’s attitude about gay relationships.
The biggest problem really is that since it’s obviously intended to be a romance, Kozuka is undoubtedly going to come around to falling in love with the landlady, even though she’s been nothing but clear about not having any same-sex desire. That said, the landlady does bring a lot to the table for her, at the very least as a roommate and companion, so if they do end up together they should be relatively happy.
I don’t think this excuses the problematic sexual coercion/power abuse setup. I do think the author tried to offset that by making the landlady so much younger and smaller, so that it feels more like Kozuka consents to the terms for her own gain rather than because she feels threatened or forced. It’s not going to be a title for everyone but I was pleasantly surprised at it… not being as bad as it could have been? No, more being way better than I would have expected? How’s that for an endorsement. ><;
Thank you, do you want to do a whole review (this is fairly close to one)?
“Better than expected” is a perfectly acceptable endorsement, for sure. ^_^
Sure, if you’d like! I’ll work something up and email it.
Awesome! Thank you.