It’s been a long two weeks since the last report and there’s a bunch of great stuff to talk about. The top story at AnimeNYC has got to be the surprise license of Stop! Hibari-kun by PEOW2. This license came as a complete surprise to most of us. I spoke with PEOW2 a bit and will get back to you with that as soon as I have a second. Anita Tai at ANN has details.
But…seriously, wow. Eguchi Hisashi’s 1980s shounen romantic comedy manga about a trans girl is absolutely a welcome license! I reviewed Volume 1 of the Complete Edition here on Okazu in 2020.
Yuri Manga
At AnimeNYC, Seven Seas announced omnibus collections for sono.N’s SHWD and Black & White by Sal Jiang. Honestly think those are good choices and will do better as collections than as separate volumes.
Yen was pushing pre-orders for The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All with a huge display at their booth. I’ve said this before, and will continue to say – this title is being set up for success.
Yen also announced three Yuri licenses, Anemone wa Netsu wo Obiru by Sakuragi Ren as The Anemone Feels the Heat and light novel Watashi no Yuri mo, Eigyou da to Omotta? by Asakura Neru as Did You Think My Yuri Was a Sales Pitch?. They also licensed Merryhachi’s Zenbu Kimi no Sei da as It’s All Your Fault. (Thanks to Katgrrl for reminding me of the third.)
Sales of Yuri manga was a topic of much discussion the convention. Ultimately, it seems like Yuri fans are more discriminate than BL fans – which is not to slam BL fans at all. There more of them and their genre has been around longer, so they have more to choose from. But, my experience in Yuri leads me to believe that Yuri fans – especially queer fans, who are looking for stories with representation – are more likely to ignore stories that don’t speak to them, directly.
Which brings me to the other side of that. This month we have had (and still have a a few hours left of two) several amazingly successful Yuri Kickstarters!
Galette Magazine in English has a little more than a day as I type this, and has significantly surpassed its final stretch goal and is heading towards making 400% of the initial goal. More than 500 backers have made this possible.
Aneido’s No One Lurks Beneath The Snow, an 18+ erotic horror also nearly hit 3x the initial goal, with almost 500 backers.
Yorita Miyuki’s Her kiss,my libido twinkles has passed 4x the initial goal with nearly 400 backers.
So, where is the gap? How can Yuri kickstarters do so well when sales of Yuri manga is so variable? The answer is in the nature of crowdfunding itself. I think this might be a topic for an essay, but Tl;dr – fewer people can make a bigger impact by backing/supporting at higher levels with crowdfunding, where sales of manga are…sales of manga. The same 500 people buying a manga is low sales numbers. When I was publishing I had a break-even point for making a manga profitable. Crowdfunding doesn’t have that limitation. Definitely a topic to digest later.
Azuki the manga reading app, has announced the addition of Kotonoha by Kisugae about a lost love reclaimed. I read and reviewed the first volume of this back in 2018 and now you can get it on Azuki!
Notably Hana to Yume magazine in Japan promoted the series Sono Urawashiki Hito ha, (
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Yuri Light Novel
Yen has released My First Love’s Kiss by Hitoma Iruma, illustrated by Fly. I love Fly’s art, but historically have a very hard time with Iruma’s writing. We’ve got a reviewer who is looking at this volume for Okazu, but if you want a quick overview, check out Sean Gaffney’s review. He expertly notes the weaknesses in this Yuri light novel.
Yuri Visual Novels
Incredible news from – Japanese visual novel company SukeraSparo has licensed their VN Please Be Happy! for Japanese language release!
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Anime News
Whisper Me A Love Song is still getting the short end of the stick, with new delays announced for the Blu-ray and no word at all on the last two episodes. Rafael Antonio Pineda has details on ANN.
There’s a ton of PreCure news: Rafael Antonio Pineda wants you to know that Crunchyroll has added Futari wa PreCure Splash Star, and that Witchy Pretty Cure!!: Mirai Days has added visuals, staff and announced the musical artist for the theme. Joanna Cayanan has news about new cast additions to Wonderful Precure! The Movie.
ANN’s Anita Tai has the news that Girls Band Cry is getting a game.
Other News
Via YNN Correspondent Patricia Baxter, Why Is Shoujo So Gay (Even when it isn’t?) is a YouTube video by Colleen’s Manga Rec’s that explains a lot about the genre. Colleen is always worth a watch.
Bela on X has a nice little thesis on The Evolution of Safe Spaces in Yuri: From Greenhouses to Aquariums. I’ve asked them to flesh it out to an essay for us here!
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