Yuri Anime
YNN Correspondent Evie wants you to know that upcoming anime Aquatope of White Sand states it is “Girl-Meets-Girl”. The plots seems quite similar to Hagino Makoto’s Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru / A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow. Daryl Harding has details, trailer and links on Crunchyroll News!
Senior YNN Correspondent Verso S. wants you to know that Liz and the Blue Bird is getting a Blu-Ray release in Japan! There’s some minimal changes to the packaging and a few extras, so if you’re interested in getting the JP release of this film, now is a good opportunity.
Yuri Doujinshi
I went on a bit of a spending spree this weekend and *finally* managed to get myself a copy of mkBooks’ dual-language doujinshi The Life of a Yuri Couple in Love (おさななじみの百合夫婦生活). This is legitimately available on booth.pm as an electronic download in both Japanese and English for a mere $2.50.
Lilyka has a new doujinshi available by TWA, about a police officer and criminal, in Baby, Wanted. Now, there’s a plot that I hadn’t yet added to Yuri Manga Bot… . (Speaking of Yuri Manga Bot, someone wrote a short story based on one of the plots! Thanks Musesana!)
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Yuri Manga
Nagata Kabi has a new book coming out in Japan and one on the way in English! This spring, Seven Seas will be releasing her fourth comic essay volume, My Alcoholic Escape From Reality. Following on her previous three volumes, Nagata-sensei has been through a lot and now, she’s dealing with the physical consequences. I reviewed the Japanese volume of this book in February 2020.
Her upcoming volume in Japan is titled Meisou Senshi – Nagata Kabi (迷走戦士・永田カビ) and I think, for a lot of us here, it will be an “ah” moment. Nagata-sensei has started to think about love, and finds herself and thinking about sexuality, and gender and weddings and who she is. YNN correspondent CW wants you to know that you can read chapters from this book right now in Japanese on Comic Action‘s online platform Web Action, where it is the #1 title right now. Also interesting, this book marks a third publisher Nagata-sensei has worked with. I think she’ll find Futabasha a better fit than Shogagukan. East Press seems to be pretty open to whatever creators want to do, but Futabasha has the magazines and the promotion power that East Press doesn’t.
Via YNN Correspondent Megan and Comic Natalie, we have news of Hon no Mushi (本のムシ) a manga about a girl who works at a publishing company who falls in love with her coworker…who keeps paper-eating bugs for some purpose…. It’s certainly an original idea.
I have no idea what this is about, because I just grabbed due to the title. ^_^ Kawai Roh has a new Yuri collection called Girls in the Hell, (ガールズインザヘル).
LINE in Japan is offering a set of 2DK, GPen Mezamashitokei (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) stamps by Ohsawa Yayoi. Comic Natalie has the details. I just bought it (50 coins, so 99 cents US) and it’s a massive stamp set. Yes, I scrolled through it to make sure we got Tanihara Yuuko and her coffee. ^_^
Kita no Onna no Tamesaretai (北の女に試されたい), by Kaido Minoda, appears to be about two women on a road trip through Hokkaido picking up women. You can read it for free in Japanese on Comic Walker. I think I will definitely give it a try. ^_^
ANN’s Rafael Antonia Pineda reports that Yuni’s Shakaijin Yuri comedy Hitogoto Desukara!, licensed by Manga Planet in English as It’s Personnel! will come to an end this week, wrapping up with Volume 3.
Sailor Moon News
Reader Super noticed last week that I had added the Sailor Moon Eternal trailer to the regular Yuri Anime category. I honestly hadn’t noticed. ^_^ I am sorry for any confusion. Sailor Moon Eternal isn’t Yuri, in any way, really, except in the sense that Haruka and Michiru are themselves the reigning Queens of Yuri. But I am pleased to see that the Outers will get their rightful place in the story.
On Crunchyroll news, Kara Denison covers the new music video from Momoiro Clover Z, Tsukiiro Chainon. Definitely watch the video for some nicely animated transformations.
The movie launched this week in Japan with a whole lot of tie-ins and collaborations. I’ve been enjoying look at the Wendy’s display and other goods.
Bunshun.jp has an interview with Mitsuishi Kotono, the voice of Sailor Moon, in Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon ‘Tsukino Usagi wa Jinsei no Doushi” Mitsuishi Kotono ga Miseru. (美少女戦士セーラームーン「月野うさぎは人生の同志」 三石琴乃が魅せる“セーラーパワー” の輝き). The interview is in Japanese, but you should be able to understand well enough with a translation tool.
The Japan Foundation of New York is holding an online talk Sailor Moon: How These Magical Girls Transformed Our World, on January 28th. Registration is free. The talk features two of my favorite people, Kathrynn Hemmann as moderator and translator Mari Morimoto as a panelist.
In case you need a calendar to keep track of all your Sailor Moon fan events, here is the official Sailor Moon Eternal 2021 calendar, with character pop-ups. ^_^ Sadly, they are not ordered by birthday month…which I know wouldn’t work, but still.
Queer Media
Via YNN Correspondent Verena Maser, we can share the German-language Comics aus den Queeren Welt Project, Ach, so ist das?!.
We’re going to close out this week with some great news, from Senior YNN Correspondent Eric P! Queer Japan, the documentary about LGBTQ+ life in Japan will be released on Blu-Ray in March! I’m a backer for this project…and was there when some of the interviews took place, so I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
Become a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share and be part of the Yuri Network. ^_^
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The first announcement of Aquatope of White Sand was literally only yesterday, but as is usually the case, people already start arguing about whether it will be yuri, bait or another Irozuku that was illustrated by fly and had two female leads, but was completely straight. To be honest, I hate to speculate, but it seems like every year needs to have an ambiguous yuri-ish (?) show that will generate such discussions.
Aquatope of White Sand – it turns out the character designer U35 has some Yuri pedigree, having contributed to one of the Eclair volumes, and as artist to the new Yuri LN series I mentioned some weeks ago, 〆切前には百合が捗る… and while looking this up I also learned this LN series is written by the author of Haganai and A Sister is all you need (ignore the title, it’s much better than you think). The latter series was about the ups and downs of being a writer, so expect that to play a role in this new series aswell.
The trailer certainly grabbed my interest! PAWorks originals have almost all fallen into “pretty and well-constructed but slightly dull” category for me, but it being Yuri(ish) and the aquarium focus are positive signs. Almost inevitably I’ll end up seeing it as a combination of A Tropical Fish Yearns For Snow, and for the sealife sequences, 2019’s magisterial anime film Children of the Sea, but as big fans of both that’s no bad thing!
Yen Press announced some new licenses, including The Whole of Humanity Has Gone Yuri Except for Me https://twitter.com/yenpress/status/1350476919725301763 and Farewell to My Alter, the short story collection from Bloom into You author Nakatani Nio https://twitter.com/yenpress/status/1350475662226821125
BL Metamorphosis (aka Metamorphosis Engawa), the excellent manga series about fandom and cross generational friendship, is getting a live action movie: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-01-07/bl-metamorphosis-manga-gets-live-action-film/.168176
I have U35 doujinshi from way back, fwiw.
The Yen announcements came as I was working on the report and so we overlapped. I’ll post them next week. ^_^ Thanks!
Author of Haganai has always loved yuri, this can be easily seen both by the foe yay subtext in the Haganai itself and the side yuri couple in his second LN. Although this is only the second time I know of a straight romcom author to write yuri, it doesn’t come as a surprise.
As for Aquatope, sometimes it seems to me that almost every Japanese illustrator has drawn yuri or bl at some point. Maybe it’s a match check or something, lol. But if this anime really will be yuri, then it will be funny to compare it to that when PAWORKS called fly, they gave them a completely normy straight show.
Kyoani is no longer accepting orders for their re-release of the “Liz” Blu-ray with screenplay version. As announced, the limited application period ended at one minute to midnight on February 15 (JST).