Please enjoy this teaser I made for the first video of Season 2 of Yuri Studio. It took much longer than it should have but the fade out was being a pain in the butt. ^_^;
Archive for February, 2021
Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – February 20, 2021
Yuri VN & Game News
Studio Élan is celebrating Heart of the Woods‘ second anniversary with a planned console release for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4. And they are doing an anniversary giveaway of free Steam Keys, so get on that!
Via Yurimother, Sukerasparo, creative team behind Kudan Folklore, is planning an audio drama based on its Yuri comedy visual novel OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos.” YuriMother says “The audio drama, titled Oshi no Rabu Yori Koi no Rabu Akuruto Koi no Koukan Nikki, will vocalize a diary of love notes between series protagonists Akuru and Ren.” The studio is crowdfunding the project on Japanese platform CAMPFIRE. The project is scheduled for release on March 26.”
YNN Correspondents Megan and Evie want you to know about Blue Reflection, a RPG from Gust that is getting an anime! The anime official page definitely seems to be leaning in on the Yuri. Crystalyn Hodgkins has details and a trailer for Blue Reflection Ray on ANN.
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Yuri Manga
YNN Correspondent CW writes in to let us know that “Seikyouiku 120% (性教育120%) ended with volume 3 released on the 10th. It’s a sex education series that values LGBT inclusivity, written by a bisexual woman, with a yuri framing narrative. Topics in the last volume were Pregnancy and Abortion, Transgenderism, LGBT History and Bisexuality.”
Megan then pointed out that “So that series is wrapping up just as the English release gets going – from Yen Press under the title Sex Education 120%, vol 1 is penciled in for March 23rd!”
CW also notes that Volume 2 of Ise-san to Shima-san 伊勢さんと志摩さん) , also the concluding volume, comes out on the 16th. CW says “I think it’s an interesting series for the way the flashback chapter that shows how they started living together recontextualizes what the series was doing.” I enjoyed Volume 1 and will now look extra forward to Volume 2!
I have no idea how I missed this but, Akili’s Vampeerz, My Peer Vampire, Volume 1 and Volume 2 are out from Denpa Books. For those of you who have been around a while, Akili is Show Higashiyama, whose work does favor Yurisploitation, but isn’t bad…with flashes of really good story writing in between the panties and bodily fluids. It’s not porn, just pornishly drawn. I’m still reading it, but not reviewing it. ^_^
My hopes for this are tempered, but Dekono Takahide (I’m sure I have this name wrong, please feel free to correct me) announces “bloody Yuri action” DamDam!! (ダムダム) manga in Young Jump Battle 2 (ヤングジャンプバトル2). The link here goes to Bookwalker, where you can get this issue in ebook form, since I think the print issue of the magazine may be harder to get out of Japan.
We have some new items on the Yuricon Store:
Our Teachers Are Dating, Volume 3, will be out next month. ANN’s Rafael Antonio Pineda reports that this series is ending in the April issue of Comic Yuri Hime.
Strawberry Fields Once Again, Volume 2 will be available next month. Buckle in. ^_^
We’ve got Nettaigyo ha Yuki Kogareru, Volume 8 (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる), which came out in December in Japan. Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, Volume 7 gets here in May 2021.
Nagata Kabi’s recent release, Meisou Senshi – Nagata Kabi (迷走戦士・永田カビ) hit shelves this week in Japan, and you can read her next work, Meisou Senshi- Nagata Kabi Gourmet de Go! (迷走戦士・永田カビ グルメでGO！) in Japanese on Web Action now. Chapters 0 and 1 are up.
Yuri Events
The Yuriten is back! With key visuals from Nakatani Nio and Takahashi Minori, we now get to see Bloom Into You‘s Touko and Yuu all grown up. ^_^ Check the Yuriten feed on Twitter as they announce participating artists for their virtual exhibition.
Yuri Light Novel
I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 3 is now available for pre-order and is on the Yuricon Store! The print book in English is slated for a July release, but as with the rest of Seven Seas’ Airship line, I’d assume the digital will be released earlier.
Annnnd, Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou, Volume 4 hits at the end of this month. You can get this on Amazon Kindle in Japanese. or if you are in Japan, on Amazon JP Kindle from GL Bunko. I’ve already pre-ordered and cleared my calendar. ^_^
The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 1 is hitting shelves early next week. I’m willing to give it a try.
Yuri Anime
ANN’s Rafael Antonio Pineda has cast and premiere news for Battle Athletes Daiundoukai ReSTART! anime. News characters and old will “compete” for the title!
Alex Mateo has the news that Funimation will be streaming the Adachi and Shimamura dub. Read the details on ANN!
Joseph Luster on Crunchyroll News, has some good news for us. Crunchyroll will be streaming Stellvia, which I’m going to encourage you to watch despite the fact that it is 99% enraging, because that 1% was worth it back in 2006. ^_^ I have a whole category for this series on Okazu: Stellvia – and, interestingly, for the final review, I compare and contrast Battle Athletes and Stellvia. Overall I rated Stellvia a better anime.
Other News
Last year I treated myself to some art by Robin Eisenberg, because monster girls on a lesbian date with food appears to be my jam. Well, she got to work with singer Marzz on the music video for So Frequently. You can see the “cyclops girls on a pizza date” print I have hanging here in the living room in the background. ^_^
A bunch of my favorite people are talking about manga in a new podcast called Mangasplaining. Christopher Butcher, Deb Aoki and David Brothers have taken on comic artist Chip Zdarsky to see if they can find manga a non-manga reader like Chip will enjoy. They come out of the box strong with Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic, Akira. It was great to work to this conversation this week!
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Our Teachers are Dating!, Volume 2
In Volume 1, we met Hayama Asuka and Terano Saki, two teachers at an all-girls high school who find themselves falling in love with each other, pretty much in the public eye. Luckily for them, their students, peers and administration all think they are absolutely adorable.
In Our Teachers are Dating!, Volume 2, Saki and Asuka continue to be ridiculously adorably in love. Bandou-sensei, the Yuri otaku, thinks HayaTera is the best ‘ship ever, even as she’s annoyed to death by them. ^_^ And they are, honestly so absurdly adorable that it’s very hard to take their drama seriously. Between a minor misunderstanding and visible hickies after an enthusiastic birthday evening, they just keep getting cuter and cuter. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
It’s really critical to me to have manga like this where we see an ideal situation – where a world without homophobia and sexism is modeled for us, so we can imagine that one can exist. Queer literature is full of failure to make utopias works, and failure of current society to give space to the joys of life. Come at me, but I think it is equally as important to have stories that center joy, even if it means ignoring reality. Saki and Asuka are in love – their first love. And we are able to enjoy their feelings, think of our own, and enjoy a world full of sparkling sunshine and blue sky days and moonlight nights, full of those feelings. It is perfectly okay to want that.
For those of you who might counter, “But what about society, Erica? Aren’t you always banging on about queer characters having someone to talk to?” My reply to you is yes. Bandou, while not gay herself, is a good friend and gives good advice, but also…wait. This series may be a bit idealized, and because of that, you can be sure there will be someone to talk to. ^_^
In any case, this series is darling and handled in the most charming manner by translator Jennifer Ward, adaptor Rebecca Scoble, editor Jenn Grunigen. Erika Terriquez does a nice balanced lettering and retouch job and kudos to Nicky Lim for another creative cover design that doesn’t just mimic the Japanese, but still feels right. T
Ratings:
Art – 9
Characters – 10
Story – 9
Service – 5 There is nudity and sex, but it is sweet rather than salacious
Yuri – 10
Overall – 10
Finally, you all know what I mean when I say “Okay-saurus!”
Thanks very much to Seven Seas for the review copy. It’s always appreciated. Great job as always.
Full of Yuri joy, Our Teachers Are Dating is a celebration of love. You’ll be able to enjoy Volume 3 next month when it hits shelves at the end of March 2021.
Journey Through the First 100 Years of Yuri Manga with Erica Friedman By Your Side
It’s official! I and Journey Press are pleased to announce By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Manga & Anime.
The term “Yuri” began life as a coded reference to lesbianism within manga and anime genres, but in the last two decades has been shaped by creators, publishers and fans into a genre of its own. Though Yuri as a genre is a modern development, it has a century of artistic and literary history behind it. In “By Your Side: The First 100 Year of Yuri,” we take a stroll through that history, from Yoshiya Nobuko’s pioneering works for young women in 1920s Japan, to current 21st century trends in webcomics, light novels, visual novels, events, manga and more.
Factual, funny and highly entertaining, By Your Side is a series of interlocking essays, articles and lectures from Friedman’s work on Yuri anime and manga. Meant to be approached as informal discussion in the manner of convivial conversation over multiple dinners, or panels at an anime convention, through these essays, readers will become familiar with the key creators, tropes, concepts, symbols and titles of the first 100 years of the Yuri genre. Walk by our side as we journey through the past, present and future of Yuri!
By Your Side is scheduled for a June 2022 release, in time for both Pride Month and the 20th anniversary of Okazu, the oldest and most comprehensive site on Yuri in any language.
About Erica Friedman
Erica holds a Masters Degree in Library Science and a B.A. in Comparative Literature, and is a full-time researcher for a Fortune 100 company. She has lectured at dozens of conventions and presented at film festivals, notably the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. She has participated in an academic lecture series at MIT, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Harvard University, Kanagawa University, and others.
She has edited manga for JManga, Seven Seas and Udon Entertainent, most recently Riyoko Ikeda’s epic historical classic, The Rose of Versailles.
Erica has written about Yuri for Japanese literary journal Eureka, Animerica magazine, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Dark Horse, and contributed to Forbes, Slate, Huffington Post, Hooded Utilitarian, and The Mary Sue online. The founder of Yuricon, she has written news and event reports, interviews Yuri creators and reviews Yuri anime, manga and related media on her blog Okazu since 2002.
About Journey Press
Journey Press was born in 2019 with the goal of bringing unusual and diverse science fiction to the forefront of the publishing landscape. They are dedicated to supporting the women and queer people who have been erased from the history books and reprinting novels that fell by the wayside, in addition to publishing new novels by creators of all types.
For interviews, signings or appearances please contact Erica Friedman
https://www.yuricon.com/contact-yuricon/
For all other publicity, please contact Christine Sandquist at [email protected]
Uchi no Shishou ha Shippo ga nai, Volume 1 (うちの師匠はしっぽがない)
Mameda is a tanuki who has fallen hard for the magic of rakugo, the traditional Japanese form of comedic storytelling.
Mameda heads to the big city in the form of a human girl. Finding herself on the run from humans after de-transforming from her human form to her tanuki form, Mameda is rescued by a woman who turns out to be a rakugoka, Daikokutei Bunko.
If you’ve ever wanted a story about a tanuki who wants to be a human, so she becomes the disciple of a competent and talented woman in order to learn rakugo, then welcome to Uchi no Shishou ha Shippo ga nai, Volume 1 (うちの師匠はしっぽがない)!
Like so many Kodansha manga, this series is in part “teaching” manga, with a charming story attached, so readers don’t feel they are doing homework. We learn about the importance of rhythm in rakugo, the way different schools handle the presentations, and the details of how rakugo is performed and enjoyed.
Mameda is a big goof, as one might expect of a tanuki, but she has a good heart. Bunko is a mystery, but no surprise her intelligence and competence is a draw for me. It is clear that, despite Bunko’s initial rejection of Mameda, she’s rather fond of the tanuki by the end of the volume.
The art is likewise goofy, with Mameda the goofiest of all, for obvious reasons, but it does have moments that transport you to another world, as befitting the topic.
Ratings:
Art – 7 Belly buttons and city life
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 4 light nudity, breasty hugs and tanuki butt
Yuri – hrmmmm…… 2ish
Overall – 7
This blog has covered any number of forms of affection between women over the years. It took a tanuki’s magic to make it happen, but with this series, we can add a master of the arts and her disciple to this list. ^_^
