Here we are at the first news report of what already looks to be a really busy year. ^_^

Yuri Manga

And to start I have some really wonderful news. Last month, I received a tweet from the creator of GUNJO, Nakamura Ching-sensei, tell me that she was launching new manga online and the topic was Lesbian Life!  You can imagine how excited I was.

In fact, she has launched 3 new titles online! All three have sample chapters, up, and are being sold through Note.mu.

Okaasan Futariitemo iikana? ~ Lesbian no Mama Seikatsu (お母さん二人いてもいいかな！？~レズビアンのママ生活~) 800￥

Rezu to Nanajin no Kanojotachi (レズと七人の彼女たち) 600￥

Mienai Me to Onaji Dessho  (会えない日と同じでしょ) 500￥

Check out the samples. Yay we’re getting more comic from Nakamura-sensei! (Note: I don’t seem to be able to get Note.mu to take my overseas credit card, but I’ll keep trying.)

In Yuri Hime Comics news, Ohsawa Yayoi’s latest collection Spice Girls (スパイスガールズ)  has a mid-January release date, as does, Nakahara Tsubaki’s  Himitsu, Hitotsu (ひみつ、ひとつ),  and the first volume of Amano Shuninta’s new series Ayame 14 (あやめ14 ). The January issue of Comic Yuri Hime is already on shelves, and the March issue is available for pre-order.

And, the final volume of Takemiya Jin’s high school series from Rakuen Le Paradis magazine, Omoi no Kakera, Volume 3, had a Christmas street date.

I hadn’t been paying attention, but Morita-san ha Mukichi (森田さんは無口) is still going strong. We’re up to Volume 9 of this cute one-joke gag comic.

The final volume of Golondrina (ゴロンドリーナ), Est Em’s epic bullfighting manga is available. I’m dying to read it!

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Yuri Anime

Otaku USA reports that Funimation has licensed Yuri Kuma Arashi for digital simulcast in the USA and Crunchyroll has picked it up for non-North American regions. I’m sorry to say this news doesn’t actually make me happy. Funimation’s site is terrible. It’s organized badly, rarely works and is frustrating to use. If they want to position themselves as a digital anime channel, they have got to get off their asses and develop the damn thing properly. ANN takes a look at the creepy online countdown to the anime. Eric P has reminded me that Funimation series can be watched at Hulu.com, so we can avoid the agita. ^_^

We have a trailer for  Sailor Moon Crystal‘s second arc,  (which I will continue to think of as ‘R’) with a brief look at Sailor Pluto!

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Other News

I really, really want everyone to read Noah Berlatsky’s article in The LA Review of Books The Virtues of Know-Nothing Criticism. Noah hits the ball out of the park on this one, discussing how “knowing a lot about a series” or “having read/watched all the canon material” /= expertise and expertise and perspective can come from a lot of different sources and still be very relevant to a niche fandom.

In a fandom, it’s quite often that new fans or younger fans or female fans in a space that male fans presume is theirs are challenged to “prove” their expertise in series ephemera, or time dedicated. Not only is this childish gatekeeping, it ignores the wider existence of expertise, experience and plain old knowledge about something that also exists outside the pages of >this comic<. Really, please read this article.

In case you missed it, we started off 2015 here at Okazu with a frank discussion about our place is our comics ecosystem and how we can help keep this industry sustainable: Supporting Your Comics Ecosystem in 2015

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Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Welcome to the final Yuri Network News of 2014! Before we move on with the news, I want to stop and thank all of you who have sent in Yuri-related news over the past year, my trusted YNN Correspondents – and a special shoutout to our Senior YNN Correspondents, Erin S. and Grizsnak, who have really been pulling out the stops this year. Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

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 Yuri Anime

ANN has the third Yuri Kuma Arashi trailer up for our perusal. A plot seems to have been settled on. A plot idea, anyway. (Crunchyroll adds in some Christmas-themed logos and art from Morishima-sensei and Twitter.)

Back to ANN for this amusing note – DLE is streaming Frogman’s Rose of Versailles parody shorts which are highly amusing.

And again ANN reports Non Non Byori is getting a second anime season.

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LGBTQ Comics

Via Jennifer Camper, grab a hold of this LGBTQ comics collection by Side by Side, the first ever of it’s kind in Russia.

Via YNN Senior Correspondent Erin S. we have a webcomic with fairies and witches called Gay Birds by Mariana S. Costa.

Not necessarily LGBTQ, but ass-kicky and interesting, webcomic Princess Retribution has a kickstarter to collect and print all five volumes as a GN.

Japanese TV Talent Ichinose Ayaka, whose public coming out was accompanied by the creation of a manga called Real Bian, has just announced her impending marriage ceremony and a desire for it to *not* be merely a ceremony, but to be accompanied by actual rights. The fight, my friends, is on. It’s going to be a slow one, but this is the opening round.

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Sailor Moon

I am not the only person obsessed with crossing King Arthur and Sailor Moon! Yay! Next time you want a fix of archetypes being all archetypical, check out my Courtly Tales of Crystal Tokyo series and cap it off with Studiodisa’s Holy Avenger Sailor Moon art!

And because I’m in the mood, here’s a link to some Sailor Uranus/Neptune Korra/Asami crossover art by Sleepy Senshi. It’s kind of obvious who the artist thinks is the most confident in each couple. ^_^

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Other Stuff

You need this Youtube cut of Japanese female metal bands. I don’t consider them all metal, but some sound pretty darn good.

And I know you need to watch io9’s supercut of Super Sentai heroines transforming. Obviously.

Balogun has put together a nifty list of 10 Black Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists I’d Love to Work With (or work with again)! The art and links are fantastic, go click, read, think, buy, fan at.

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Coming up, it’s time for our Top Ten Lists of 2014! I wonder what I’ll write? ^_^

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Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondentby sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Yuri Anime

The big news in Yuri anime is the upcoming series Yuri Kuma Arashi, visioneered by Ikuhara Kunihiko with character designs and manga drawn by a favorite Yuri manga artist, Morishima Akiko. Slated for an early January release, we’re getting tantalizing glimpses of characters and setting as we get closer.

A second Promo Video has been released – watch it on ANN, they’ve provided a text translation of the words, as well. Everything looks adorable as expected. But, I feel some trepidation. While the manga and the anime do not appear to be the exact same story, this is typical for Ikuhara’s work and doesn’t bother me. But when I open the pages of Birz magazine where the manga is running and see the characters presented like this (click to enlarge):

I can’t but help feel I’m being made fun of. Is the problem merely that the audience for Birz is presumed to be bottom-feeders? I don’t know. ^_^;

Interestingly, the manga for Mawaru Penguindrum runs in Birz as well and Ikuhara is using two different aliases for the two manga projects. O_o

Moving on – if you, like me, haven’t had the heart to watch the second season of Psycho-Pass, YNN Correspondent Katherine H. has written in to assure us that Shion and Yayoi’s relationship is, thus far, intact. “Mika, the new Inspector who started her job at the end of season 1 and you might remember as the ponytailed girl from the girls’ school arc who Yayoi comforted, loathes latent criminals but has a thing for Yayoi. Yayoi seems to like her, but in a “you’re like a little sister to me” way (like when she pats Mika’s head when giving her some advice), and is still with Shion. The most recent episode compelled me to report on this season because it shows Yayoi and Shion discussing work in their bedroom after having obviously had sex again. Here’s hoping they continue not to die. lol” ^_^ Katherine has promised us a full series review when it is over.

Komatsu-san over at Crunchyroll News reports that the first six Pretty Cure movies are getting a Blu-Ray release for the first time in Japan. PreCure fandom has certainly proven their long-term loyalty!

Komatsu-san also has a report about the Maria-sama ga Miteru anime 10th anniversary event being held this month through the new year in Asagaya Anime Street in Tokyo. The complete series Blu-Ray box set is being released on December 19th. If you’re going to be around Tokyo in the next few weeks, do consider writing up a report for us!

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Other News

Turning to ANN once more, Bamboo Dong helps us express our inner magical girl with  Card Captor Sakura makeup kit and “magical girl” costume patterns from McCalls. (For the folks who don’t know McCalls, they make patterns for people who sew their own clothes or costumes. When I was growing up, practically every house had a few random McCalls patterns strewn around the sewing machine.)

The Prism Queer Comics Press Grant is open to applications. Every year, Prism awards the Grant to assist in the publication and promotion of LGBT comics. Applications are open until March 2015

Three LGBT Gamers Talk About Queering Geek Culture, including the fabulous Zan Christensen of LBGTQ Comics Publisher Northwest Press on Bitch Magazine.

Autostraddle has put together an amazing list of 25 Queer and Trans Women Comic Creators to Support – we’ve featured a bunch of them here on YNN!

And a new focus for us here, Priya’s Shakti is a “augmented reality” comic from India that teams up a human woman and a goddess to fight back on behalf of rape survivors. Scroll down and watch the trailer. This looks really interesting!

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Enjoy staying up-to-date on Yuri news? Subscribe to Okazu with Patreon!

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Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondentby sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Yuri Manga

There never was an original Nanoha manga. The series got short interstial volumes that summarized the previous anime series and included additional gag comics. Well that’s been rectified, with a two-volume retelling of the first series.  ORIGINAL CHRONICLE Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The 1st (ORIGINAL CHRONICLE 魔法少女リリカルなのはThe 1st) Volume 1 and Volume 2. Two volumes seems fair for the relatively short first series.

Hirari collections Fuji Tamaki’s  Kono Yo ni Tada Hitori, (この世にただひとり), Hakamada Mera’s  Riyuu (Wake) monaku Kanashikunareno (理由(わけ)もなく悲しくなるの), are out now and Isotani Yuuki’s Sayonara Mutski-chan (さようならむつきちゃん) will be out at the end of the month. Comic Natalie reports that Comic Yuri Hime have picked up and will be putting out several formerly Hirari series, as well.

The third and final volume of Omoi no Kakera, (想いの欠片) by Takemiya Jin-sensei is getting a Christmas Day  release.

The same week sees the second volume of  Anoko ni Kiss to Shiroyuri wo (あの娘にキスと白百合を), a surprisingly good series. Here’s my review of Volume 1. I didn’t expect a sequel. That’s cool. ^_^

Woops, I missed reporting this in a timely fashion by taking last week off. Comic Yuri Hime celebrated it’s 10th anniversary last week. Congratulations! Here’s to another 10!

And squeeee, Nishi UKO-sensei’s new collection Tonari no Robot (となりのロボット) is out.  ^_^

There is growing interest in Yuri among Chinese readers! A manhua with Yuri, All Hail Empress Her Majesty (拜见女皇陛下) is a title that has got growing popularity among Chinese Yuri circles. (And for Chinese readers, the Okazu interview with Takemiya Jin has been translated into Chinese with my permission. Thanks Tsukasa!)

I’m a terrible person…I forgot in my overview of Sparkler Monthly, to mention another comic starring a lesbian – a trucker, no less! For Peace by Alexis Cooke, is up for you perusal for free! Go try it! The tagline is “The interstate of true love never did run smooth. ” You gotta love it for that. ^_^

I got my copy of Eureka‘s Current State of Yuri Culture issue (ユリイカ 百合文化の現在) today and I am extremely chuffed at seeing my name in the book. And for those who asked – the cover illustration was by Shimura Takako-sensei. ^_^

I was thinking about what I can offer folks who have subscribed to Okazu on Patreon as a special holiday gift. How about an early look at the English version of this article?

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Enjoy staying up-to-date on Yuri news? Subscribe to Okazu with Patreon!

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Other News

MOON POWER! A Sailor Moon fanzine is available for free, alongside some of the artist’s other works. Again, there’s no reason to not try. Thanks to Senior YNN Correspondent Erin S. for the link!

YNN Correspondent Simon B wants me to remind you all  Wandering Son Volume 8 is up for pre-order. It’ll see a May 15th release. I’m glad that Fantagraphics is sticking with this title after it brought in a good chunk of contributors to their last Kickstarter. Volume 7 came out in September, so catch up before the new year!

On Crowdfunding watch as always, We Need Diverse Books! is addressing the very real problem of lack of diversity in children’s books head on.  WNDB is providing educational kits to libraries and schools, travel funding for writers and artists to attend conferences and funding for diverse interns at publishing houses. All to promote all kinds of diversity in children’s lit. They’ve already reached and exceeded their goal, but they’ve got a few days left – and we really need diverse books.

There is a Shingeki no Kyoujjn/Attack on Titan spinoff series called Lost Girls in the works. The first volume looks depressing as hell and has Mikasa and Annie on the cover. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for some Ymir/Krista time. But I’m not holding my breath. ^_^

Geeks Out is putting together a queer comics anthology called Power! that will debut at their now-funded Flame-Con in spring of 2015.

The Mary Sue has dedicated an article to the awesome trans character in Dragon Age Inquisition, Krem. Which then led to an article on Visual representation: Trans characters in comics. A good, if Sandman-focused article.

Shoujo manga powerhouse magazine Nakayoshi is celebrating 60 years with the help of some of our favorite magical girls. ANN Editor Lynzee Lamb has the story.

Action Labs is debuting a new Comic – Fight Like A Girl, by David Pinckney and Soo Lee, which looks darned good!

I just want to end with this fantastic video from Feminist Frequency, starring all male gamers, discussing the nature of the privilege that being male in gaming provides that people might just not be thinking about. It left me feeling better about the gaming community overall.

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Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondentby sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!