Welcome to an edition of Okazu that transcends time and geography!  We have some really exciting news this week.

Yuri Manga

Starting, as always with new Yuri manga on the Yuricon Store. The store is the largest catalog of Yuri media and goods on the internets – if you’re looking for the newest volume or an older volume to fill in your collection; for anime,manga,  LNs, drama CDs and other media, you can search by creator, title, publisher, in Japanese and English. It’s a damn good resource, if I do say so myself. ^_^

School Zone Girls, Volume 2, a juvenile delinquent school life comedy is on shelves now from Seven Seas.

Don’t miss Cocoon, Entwined, Volume 3, as this school romance becomes more and more complicated out now from Yen Press.

Crowd-funded, creator-owned Galette, No. 19 (ガレット)  is out. One more and they make the big 5 year mark! You can of course get this as a print volume from Japan, but you can also get it as a digital magazine in Japanese on Bookwalker and Amazon US Kindle!

I haven’t read this yet, but love the cover, Anemone ga Netsu wo Obiru, Volume 1 (アネモネが熱を帯びる) is a school life drama by Sakuragi Ren.

Comic Natalie hosted a 4-way conversation about Kaijuu-iro no Shima (かいじゅう色の島) between Yuri manga artist Mochi Au Lait, Animate Yuribu Editor Saigusa Kensuke, SF magazine editor Mizoguchi Rikimaru and Yuri Navi’s Furippe.

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Yuri Studio

Okazu Patrons now have access to our newest video, the final entry in our Gateway Yuri Anime review. Part 3 covers 2010-present. Become a patron and get access today! Part 1 and Part 2 are available on Yuri Studio for you to enjoy.

Yuri Light Novel

Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou., Volume 5 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。) landed on Kindle this week and you are very lucky I took precious reading time away to do this news report. ^_^ I’ve carefully steered clear of spoilers for this final volume of the Nur arc.

Live-action

I’ve been really interested in Yuri outside Japan recently, I’ve bookmarked a Chinese GL webnovel I want to try to work through (致女神（娱乐圈GL)) and I was absolutely beside myself when BL scholar and gentleman Thomas Baudinette looped me into the news that an upcoming BL series in Thailand, Secret Crush on You was going to have a separate Yuri storyline. I detailed as much of the information as I had on Thai Yuri novel GAP ทฤษฎีสีชมพู being adapted into a live-action story, ทฤษฎีสีชมพู GAP The Series in a post on Friday, Thai Yuri Novel Adapted Into Live-Action: Pink Theory GAP, The Series.

WELL, since then, Thomas let me know about another BL series that includes a GL storyline: “The final of the 7 episodes titled “Remember.” The official trailer of 7 Project can be found on Youtube. Cool, huh?

Yuri Anthologies

Super fab news from queer manga artist Mutsumi Natsuo, a person whose work I was introduced to for our video, Are There Queer Creators Creating Yuri?. Mutsumi-sensei announced the second volume of a “butchy lesbian” anthology, called Boyish², being crowdfunded now. I backed it, and Mutsumi-sensei told me that an English-language digital version is being planned. Woot! Of course I’ll keep you in the loop when that happens.

Thousands of Books announced an upcoming Taiwanese Showa Yuri collection, Kitan Hana Monogatari (綺譚花物語). This is also being crowdfunded in Japan…I’ve backed it, as I love Showa and Taisho period pieces and I’m excited about/for the Taiwanese Yuri fandom.

Yuri Visual Novels

Via Yuri Anime News, “Taiwanese studios Narrator and Storia recently announced on Steam plans for a character image refurbish for their Yuri visual novel” Lingua Fleur: Lily.

Via Yuri Navi, we have a new Yuri VN, Watashitachi no Marriage ①. Watch the official Twitter account for updates.

LGBTQ Comics

Out Magazine offers up 18 New & Upcoming Queer Comics We Love by Mey Rude.

Queer manga artist Rica Takashima tells me that she’s got a table at AnimeNYC artist’s alley, and she’ll be selling her self-published comics, including her “Rica ‘tte Kanj!?” stories. Rica’s been working hard on the cover art for By Your Side: The First 100 Year of Yuri Anime and Manga, and let me tell you…it looks amazing. Okazu Patrons were able to see a teeeny little piece of the cover and even that looks awesome. I would like to attend AnimeNYC, but think the arc of COVID will keep me away.

AV Club has this terrific article in which writer Willow Maclay and artist Cressa Beer discuss the intersection of anime fandom and transfeminine identity, from Sailor Moon to Neon Genesis Evangelion: “Anime was a safe space”: On magical girls, damaged villains, and trans adolescence.

Other News

I haven’t done this in a while, but there are a couple of global same-sex marriage news items that I want to round up this week.

Marriage for All Japan announced this week that both Saga and Mie Prefectures are starting prefecture wide same-sex partnership programs. They join Osaka, Ibaraki, and Gunma prefectures and about 100 other individual principalities.

In Mexico, Yucatán’s Congress has passed SSM, making 22 of 32 states in that country in which same-sex unions are legal.

The Church in Wales is going to take up the issue of blessing same-sex unions in Welsh churches and I kind of think it’s likely to pass.

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