Welcome to the future! Thank you to Mari Kurisato for the lovely new logo, which we will add to the mix of our lovely YNN logos! Mari is a long-time friend and fan and talented artist who is responsible for several of of our logos here. She is running into a brutal reality of American life. She’s on disability, so if she starts to make enough money to live, they cut her disability off (yes, this is a thing we do in the USA) – and the outgoing administration is particularly brutal, clawing back funds they paid to her because she made a little bit more. If you have a few dollars to spare, please visit her GoFundMe to help her out and to thank her for the art we enjoy every week!
Now we’re on to our first news report of 2021!
Yuri Cartoon & Anime News
Via Senior YNN Correspondent Eric P.,The Legend of Korra: The Complete Series Blu-ray Limited Edition Steelbook Collection looks damn fine. The series is also available in a slimmed down Complete Series on Blu-Ray.
We sincerely loved Zombie Land Saga for 10 out of 11 episodes here at Okazu Central, and it was plenty queer enough, so we’re delighted that it will be getting another season, Zombie Land Saga Revenge. Egan Loo at ANN has the details and the trailer is perfect. ^_^
Otherside Picnic anime is imminent! ANN’s Alex Mateo has all the details…except for why the fuck Toriko is in a skirt. Check out the trailer to boggle at the lack of sensible clothing for no reason. /eyeroll/
Vlad Love finally has a date for streaming in Japan. Oshii Mamoru’s vampire girl-meets-girl story will be hitting JP streaming platforms like Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Bandai Channel in February. Komatsu-san has the report over on Crunchyroll News!
And whether or not its Yuri, Kageki Shojo!! looks like it’s going to be as wonderful as an anime as it is a manga. ^_^ Crunchyroll’s Kara Dennison has the scoop on initial impressions from Japan.
I missed this news back in September when it posted and I’ve seen no updates, but it appears that Diskotek has has licensed the Rose of Versailles anime, with a projected 2021 release! That means this year will see the very first time both anime and manga for this classic series will be available in English! That’s pretty fabulous.
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Yuri Science Fiction
The second special Yuri issue of SF Magazine is out in Japan, and it is #2 in the Art, Fiction and Literature category on Amazon JP. Now that’s pretty amazing. We’ve got SF Magazine February 2021, Special Issue (SFマガジン 2021年 02 月号 特別増大号) on the Yuricon Store for you. I am about 40 pages away from the end of the scifi prose anthology based on the 2019 issue and hope to have that reviewed for you shortly.
Yuri Manga
The very silly Yuri romantic comedy Yuri-Ota ni Yuri ha Gohatto desu!, Volume 1 /(百合オタに百合はご法度です!) about a Yuri Otaku at an all-girls school, ready to live the dream, is up on the Yuricon Store.
The doujinshi anthology “Yurico”n has a new volume out, this one is 18+: Otona Yuricon 2020 (大人のユリコン2020) is now available on Melonbooks.
Other News
Kara Dennison wrote an interesting overview of streaming in 2020 and beyond over at OtakuUSA Magazine in Streaming Anime, Lessons, and Life Post-Lockdown: What Needs to Stay.
Our friends at Autostraddle have rounded up 69 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way in Winter 2020 and 2021, so that’ll keep us busy!
NPR’s Marketplace has a fantastic article about anime featuring ANN’s Exec. Editor Lynzee Loveridge. Well worth a listen to. It turns out 2020 may have been a good year for the anime industry. And it’s so nice to have a piece about about anime that includes people who know something about anime!
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I was really starting to wonder when Vlad Love’s airing would be – never quite predicted it will start for real on Valentine’s Day! Such a sappy move doesn’t seem quite in keeping with Oshii’s acerbic public image, but that makes it even more sweet ^_^
Kim Morrissy / Frog-kun has translated some of Oshii’s comments from the recent advance screening. There were a range of JP reports with details about the show’s unique production process which will definitely be making it into future reviews. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2020-12-31/mamoru-oshii-on-vladlove-let-make-an-anime-that-can-also-serve-as-a-strong-medicine/.168023
Character design notwithstanding, I’ve been extremely pleased so far with how Otherside Picnic’s anime is shaping up. Due to the sci-fi nature of the series and the low number of illustrations in the LNs I’m more excited for this especially on the visual side than many LN adaptations.
Crunchyroll has a preview of ep 1 of “So I’m A Spider, So What?”… which isn’t Yuri (though is still probably queer – the 9th LN volume recently implied the protag is ace) but since some readers are interested in “I’ve been killing slimes for 300 years”, this one has a fun and very chatty female protagonist who eventually joins up with a eclectic band of mostly women and girls. And the story is just really, really good. Worth a try especially for people who usually feel turned off by the Isekai genre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emdtGYWvWP8
I saw that CR had the license for Spider, but had no idea about it. Good to know, I might give it a try.
Ace?
Asexual, shortened to “ace”.
Now I get it, thanks. Well, given that title don’t have any romance and MC, at least in a new form, had spider children purely mechanically, this makes sense.
Kageki Shoujo!! so popular? I never even knew about it, now I will wait for the anime even more.
Also, you enjoyed Zomieland Saga? I will not argue, this was one of the best shows of 2019, at least for me. I just wanted to clarify, did you mean trans-friendly messages by queerness, or did I miss something else?
I hadn’t realized that Nozomi’s license for *Rose of Versailles* had lapsed.
The list of 69 books has quite a few eye-catching titles, thanks for pointing it out.
Re: *Otherside Picnic* and Toriko’s skirt — it’s a scene from the first book. Toriko is so excited at finding Sorawo in the university cafeteria that she drags her off to the Jinbouchou entrance to the Otherside right then and there. They’re wearing their regular day clothes, which, for Toriko that day is a white blouse and pleated skirt. Not long after, Toriko remarks at having been silly not to change her clothes before starting out.
(Thankfully, in many of the other scenes in the trailer Toriko is more appropriately dressed.)