Yuri Manga

ALC and JManga present Fujieda Miyabi’s Ameiro Kochakan Kandan Vol.1 (飴色紅茶館歓談)! We were very excited to work on this for you. I’d love to see sales of this blow JManga out of the water. ^_^

Torikago no Shoujo-tachi (鳥籠の少女たち) looks excruciating, but I’ll probably read it anyway. ^_^;

Itazura Choucho has made it to a Volume 2 in which we’ll learn the results of the piano contest.

Comic Yuri Hime, March 2013 (コミック百合姫) issue hit shelves on Thursday and a whole lot of the mangaka were excited about it on Twitter.

Circus-themed Cirque Arachne (Cirque Arachne -サーク・アラクニ) by Saida Nika has wrapped up in Comic Yuri Hime and a collected volume is being released next month.

Speaking of Comic Yuri Hime. (Amazon JP has CYH and it’s collections cataloged very oddly. Instead of having a Yuri category, Yuri Hime is listed under Magazine> Comic/Anime/BL> Seinen Comic and  the collections are listed as Book> Comic/Light Novel/BL> Comic. Clearly, Amazon employs no librarians or anyone with the vaguest clue how Indexing works.) But that isn’t my point at all. My point is that I just happened to check The January issue of Comic Yuri Hime it is coming in at #23 in its category and the March issue at #1.  Since the magazine came out on Thursday, that’s seems a good sign. I know someone of you keep wondering how it’s doing. Ichijinsha does not, apparently, release circulation data for the magazine. Amazon does not release sales numbers, but that is at least a relative measurement of popularity this week that does not include any measure of direct sales. (Realistically, who buys comic magazines in Japan through Amazon JP? In or near a major city, you’d go to a store, or get a subscription.)

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Yuri Anime

Episode 1 of  Aoi Hana/Sweet Blue Flowers is up on the Nozomi/RightStuf channel on Youtube  (Region blocking applies)

Random Wonderfulness

Via Fernando Ramos on Facebook, this awesome poster from the Kanagawa Rainbow Center sas, “Love Has Many Forms.”

The bit next to the red circles at the bottom says, “Whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual, love isn’t different.”

Scott Green, from Ain’t It Cool News Anime and Crunchyroll, shared these cute Hidamari Sketch latte pictures on Twitter.

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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!

Anime of Yuri-ish Interest

DokiDoki PreCure is going to start up next month and it looks like the cast will be a 6 Degrees of Yuri-fest with Nabatome Hitomi and Kotobuki Minako among the cast. Trailers/ads are up on ANN for your viewing pleasure.

Saki Achiga-hen is being extended to 16 episodes. Crunchyroll will be streaming it starting at the end of the month.

Yuyushiki has been on Yuri lists for some time, and now it’s going to be an anime. Expect a typical 4-koma slice of life gag story with questionable Yuri. ^_^

Queen’s Blade: Vanquished Queens anime trailer is up, as well.

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Yuri Manga

Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 11 (楽園 Le Paradis) is being released at the end of February. Woot!

Kaneda Natsumi has a collection of Comic Yuri Hime comics called Kanojouna Maid. (かのじょなメイド)

From Mangatime KR comes Lily (リリィ) a school life story about a devil girl and human girl and their paired fates.

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Other News

For those of you who can’t get enough Yuru Yuri goods (I haven’t met any of you, but I have to assume you’re out there, because they keep making them) February and March will see the release of Akari and Kyouko dolls – not figurines, yarn hair doll-like dolls.

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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!

First news report of the year! Always exciting. Let’s see what the Yuri Network has uncovered, shall we?


Other News

Totally random item from YNN Correspondent Mitsu_Manabe on Twitter, from the Japanese otaku culture show MAG Revolution, a screenshot of a list of Yuri Manga listed as “Yuri Manga.”

Interesting choices.

1) Lonely Wolf, Lonely Sheep by Mizutani Fuuka
2) Magarikado no Bokura – by Nakamura Asahimiko (which we know of thanks to Tomo K., but I haven’t seen the Yuri story yet.)
3) Hanjuku Joshi by Morishima Akiko
4) Yuri Danshi by Kurata Uso
5) GIRL FRIENDS by Morinaga Milk

I’m cool with all but one of those choices. Yuri Danshi?!?  With so much amazing Yuri coming out, leave it to otaku to focus on some utterly un-Yuri thing. Oh well, the rest are good. ^_^

Anyway – what do you think of this, Yuri Manga on a show in Japan? Cool? Yes or no? Tell me in the comments!

You know those moments when you see something and you think, “Wait, how did I not know about this?” I don’t have them too often, sitting as I am in the middle of the vast YNN Network…. No, I’m kidding. I have them all the time, because I’m only one person and I cannot read every piece of news on every blog and sometimes I leave the house (at which point, inevitably, a major announcement is made. ^_^;;)

Anyway, my point is, I just had that moment this week, when I learned that Colleen Coover (she of Small Favors fame) has a comic series with Paul Tobin called Bandette. Not Yuri, but an utterly delightful YA female masked thief gig. It’s available for less than $1/issue on Comixology. (Those of you already reading comics on your tablets will love the Comixology app. It’s smooth.) How did I miss this? I don’t know, but I’m on track now and thrilled to have a YA female-lead comic to recommend to anyone who asks, (and random strangers who don’t.)

Go! Read Bandette! We need more non-sucky young female comic leads and clearly DC and Marvel are not to be relied upon for this. Yay Monkeybrain Comics!

Okay, one last utterly random thing. Through my gracious and talented friend Komatsu-san, I have met the cheerful and talented Ransui-san of Fantastic Yuri Rhythm. The two of them were vendors at this past Winter Comiket (and they sold pretty well, I’m told. ^_^)

Well, in reading Ransui-san’s Comiket report, I see that she shared a table with SEINE, who did a lovely Yuri photography book. Red Zoo is SEINE’s website, with some of the pictures available as a slide show (Click “Photography Works” on the Homepage, then the cover of “Kimi no Te” (きみの手) to enjoy the photos.) I hope I’ll be able to get a copy of that book one day, the photos are great and a few of them made me smile before I even realized it. ^_^

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Yuri Manga

Volume 3 of Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-Choume (星川銀座四丁目 ) hits shelves next month. Crisis after crisis. What will happen to our improbable couple? Read it and find out.

Ichigo Mashimaro Volume 7 (苺ましまろ)? Oh, right, that’s still ongoing. Huh.

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Yuri Anime

ANN reports that character designs for the Bodacious Space Pirates movie have been revealed on the official movie site. I’m really looking forward to this. ^_^

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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!

Yuri Anime

YNN Correspondent Katherine H. wants to give us all the heads up on the new anime Psycho-Pass. Her reasons? “The one female Enforcer who works for Akane, Yayoi, seems to have some sort of relationship with the unit’s data analyst (another latent criminal), Shion. (In case you don’t mind being spoiled, here are the moments from episode 2 and episode 6 that got me especially excited) Yayoi’s suit helps. LOL Yayoi hasn’t gotten that much screentime, but what she does have is pretty riveting. Still, I’m champing at the bit to see her more, and see her and Shion’s back stories filled out. (The show has already hinted why Yayoi became an Enforcer.) I’m not tolerating this show just for the Yuri. It’s a genuinely good show – although its first episode is the weakest, and while its early episodes have interesting aspects, it really took off for me from episode 6 on. It’s streaming on Funimation *inhales* That’s it. ^^”

Katherine also points out that the series was created by Urobochi Gen, creator of Madoka and Fate/Zero.

I had seen Psycho-Pass(and Yayoi)all over Japan but the plot seemed kinda meh. With your recommendation, I’ll put it on the “to try” list. ^_^

Fans of anime based on 4-koma manga with very marginal Yuri will be happy to know RightStuf has announced the release of Hyakko in April 2013.

I completely forgot to mention this – The National Tournament Arc for Saki, was greenlit for a TV series. Call me crazy, but this was sort of the point of the series and it frustrated the heck out of me that we weren’t going to see it. So, yay! There’s also going to be a special 13th episode of Saki Achiga-hen, but you know it’s going to be something like a onsen episode or something, sigh. ^_^;

iatheia on the Yuricon Mailing List wants you all to know that the preorder for Rose of Versailles is up on RightStuf in two parts.

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Yuri Manga

Ichigo69 notes that Morinaga Milk’s Kisses, Sighs, and Cherry Blossoms Pink: The Complete Collection is available for pr-order from Seven Seas. It’s slated for a June release, so that’s a pretty long pre-order period.

I appear to have spoken too soon when I congratulated Tsubomi on making 5 years, because with volume 21, Tsubomi is ending its print run. Komatsu-san’s report on Crunchyroll reports that it will continue with it’s free online webcomic, and to print collected volumes of the stories from the magazine. I’m going to say this again, because it bears repeating – publishing in print is becoming prohibitively expensive and the Yuri audience is *just* at the line of ROI. I expect to see more things going digital in 2013. Digital distribution is the future. So, folks who are crying that Yuri is losing a magazine – no, it isn’t. It’s just not being printed on dead trees anymore.

I’ll be reviewing this shortly, but I wanted to mention Asagao to Kase-san, (あさがおと加瀬さん) from Hirari, is available. It’s a very cute little first-love story.

And, although I have never mentioned or reviwed it for my own reasons, Utakoi, (ウタカイ) one of the serialized novels from Comic Yuri Hime, is hitting shelves next month.

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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!