Okazu turned 22 years old this past week! Given the fact that 38% of websites from 2013 no longer exist, to have 22 years of Yuri reviews and news is miraculous. ^_^
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Yuri Events
AnimeNYC is upon us! Friday, August 23 – Sunday, August 25 at Javits Center in New York City, I will be at Table E01 in the Artist Alley with Rica Takashima, where we will be signing By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga. We also will have a fun little display of Yuri Anime History, that you can photo yourself with! Drop by, pick up a signed copy of our book and say hi!
I’ll be moderating a panel on Friday, August 23 – The Rise of Queer Manga, featuring editor TJ “Tiff” Ferentini, Letterer Nicole Roderick and Translator Jacqueline Fung! Join us at 3PM in Panel Room 3, A121. It’s gonna be a fantastic conversation.
Author Zack Davisson and I will be moderated by the awesome author and librarian Jillian Rudes on Sunday, at 12:30 for Manga By The Decade: Manga’s History Two Books At A Time in Panel Room 2, 1A12. I had a LOT of fun choosing my choices for this. All three of us will be talking about our books, including Zack’s and my upcoming work with Frederik Schodt, Rachel Thorn and Jonathan Clements, Manga: A Visual History.
As a result, there will be no YNN next week, but I hope to see you all at AnimeNYC!
For those of you who cannot make it, I’ll be doing a presentation of The Rise of Queer Manga for CitrusCon online on Sunday, August 25 at 9AM. Join us on Discord. It’s free to attend, but you do have to register.
There are two other interesting queer content panels, too at ANYC I want to should out: It’s a Serve! Queer Themes in Haikyuu!! and Transgender Representation in Anime. Drop in and see what they have to offer.
The inaugural North American Manga Awards will be held on Thursday, August 22. A couple of queer books have been nominated, including both She Loves To Cook and She Loves To Eat and The Summer Hikaru Died for Best Continuing Manga Series and My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Special Edition for Best Publication Design. These awards are very long in the making and I’m going to be covering them for Anime Herald, so here’s hoping for an amazing first event!
Comiket is past, and a lot of Yuri circles rolled out for that! If you have FOMO about that, and can deal with wading through a lot of stuff that is porny, check out Melonbooks Comic Market 104 section. Comitia begins tonight my time, on the 18th in Japan. Two amazing comic shows back to back!
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Yuri Light Novel
There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless…, Volume 3 is up on the Yuricon Store!
The audiobook for I’m in Love with the Villainess: She’s so Cheeky for a Commoner, Volume 2 is out and absolutely worth listening to!
From Yen Press, My First Love’s Kiss, Vol. 1 by Adachi and Shimamura creator Hitoma Iruma, illustrated by Fly, tells the story of two girls whose lives are forced together and who, despite promising not to interfere with one another, end up becoming involved in one another’s life.
Yuri Manga
Comic Yuri Hime and Pixiv are holding the first Original Literary Yuri Manga Contest! Beginning in July through the end of September, they are accepting submissions for the contest. The Literary Fiction Contest has netted us some great stuff, I’m looking forward to the submissions for this.
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Yuri Games
Via YNN Correspondent Patricia Baxter, The Songbird Guild Demo is on Steam. This Yuri RPG/VN is about the secrets of a corrupt fantasy world and fighting creepy (yet somehow adorable?) monsters in turn-based battles, all to pay the bills in this world where being a magical girl is a regular 9-5 job and where magical girls fall in love.
Kitsune Tails is available on Steam and Itch.io! “Run, jump, and dash across a land inspired by Japanese mythology and untangle the love triangle between three young women on a journey of self discovery. Explore the complicated relationships between kitsune and humans through classic platforming action.” I know Eniko from way back – support their work!
Other News
Not sure if I have mentioned the Comic Yuri Hime online shop before, but hey, now you know that you can get goods from many of your favorite series from Comic Yuri Hime!
Star Fruit Books is launching a new manga magazine called Comic Bright! Star Fruit picks up really interesting non-mainstream manga, so this might be a rare chance to follow a number of unusual indie series at once!
ANN’s Lynzee Loveridge has a great interview on the creation of the Look Back anime movie, in How A Small Team Created a Huge Hit: Look Back Anime Film Director Kiyotaka Oshiyama.
I am completely down with the naming of a new crustacean species that is both male and female after Takashima Rumiko’s character Ranma. ^_^ Ken Iikura-Gross has the details at ANN.
Very sad news for Utena fans this week – we’ve lost our second Utena, with the passing of Rachel Lillis, who, like her Japanese counterpart, Kawakami Tomoko, died far too young. Jean-Karlo Lemus has a nice eulogy on ANN.
Via Megan Catherine Rose, some fabulous reading as she and Patrick Galbraith interview animator Colin Armistead and voice actress Phoebe Chan in the Journal of Femininities. Megan says on her FB post, “In this interview we explore why anime cuteness, in particular the bishōjo figure, is significant for transfemmes. We discuss concepts of hyperfemininity in anime, its excess and boundless potential and what this can mean for those negotiating trans-feminine identities.” Read Animated Femininities, Queer Discontent for free on Brill.com.
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