Archive for the Yuri Network News Category


Yuri Network News – March 24, 2012

March 24th, 2012

Yuri Anime

Top news this week had to be the unexpected licensing announcement of Oniisama E / Dear Brother by streaming site Viki. Jasmine has written a very well-thought out short article on why Dear Brother is so important  – and such a compelling watch for GeekGirl World.

Crunchyroll announced that it will be launching in Latin America with Spanish subtitles. This would be perfect if it were two separate news items – that they were launching in Latin America and offering Spanish subtitles for *anywhere.*  Anime and manga companies really have issues with language =/ country.

The new Jormungand trailer looks…well…awesome. ^_^

And the second trailer for Saki: Achiga-hen, looks like….Saki.

Since Madoka Magica is on Crunchyroll and I’ve already written the series up at great length, I don’t really have more to say about it than I have already done. So…if you’d like to be the one to write up Madoka on CR, email me a three line proposal on what you have to say about the series and anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com and you could be our next guest poster. )If you have never guested before, please also introduce yourself. Thanks.) Looks like we’ll get a Madoka movie this fall. I wish we wouldn’t. The series was wonderfully self-contained.

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Yuri Manga

JManga is right in the middle of a special Yuri Manga promotion, until March 28. From their press release:

Subscribers who purchase any Yuri titles during the promotion will get 100 points back (up to 21% off) per volume! You must be a subscriber in order to purchase manga on JManga, but during this promotion  Jmanga will be offering a special sign-up bonus of up to 4500 points!

For the purposes of this promotion the only “Yuri” titles are GIRLFRIENDS by Milk Morinaga, Poor Poor Lips by Hayako Goto, and Love My Life by Ebine Yamaji. And some regional limitations still exist. I have asked if JManga plans on making these all global soon, but have not yet heard back.

Amusingly, I clicked onto Okazu today and saw this in the advertising space below my post:

First time ever – a Yuri manga ad on Okazu. It gave me a bit of a thrill, I have to admit. ^_^

The first volume of Kimono Nadesico (きものなでしこ) from Comic Yuri Hime is forthcoming in April. As is Metesaratekya- (メッてされてキャッ) and Saitei Megami (最低女神),

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Snatches of Yuri

Murasaki-iro no Chorea (紫色のクオリア) is a manga based on a light novel that has at least some Yuri, if not more.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this manga here and shame on me, because now that GUNJO is over, it’s the only thing I’m reading in IKKI. Golondrina (ゴロンドリーナ) by Est Em is a really overwrought story about a young woman being trained to be a matador. There’s a previous affair with a woman, but that’s not really the point. The point is – woman in a “suit of lights.” Just sayin’. ^_^ Oh, and Est Em. Very cool.

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Yuri Webcomics

On Twitter, YNN Correspondent Sparkle turned my attention to the already delightful story and art  by Strangelykatie of Princess vs Princess.

And Kris Dresen has been drawing coffee-flavored flirtation over on Outlines Press. You can catch the first 10 pages of Closing Time and I hope it makes you smile as it did me.

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Other News

YNN Correspondent Katherine H. points us towards Passionate Friendships: The Aesthetics of Girls in Japan, which covers shoujo romance in literature and manga, among other things. And it happens to use as its cover art a picture I adore and once wrote a story around. ^_^

And she forwarded this – something she learned about from Erin S. – and I wanted to tell all of you. Ohime-sama Youchien to Hakuba no Oujisama is a book about a class for Princesses, and one Princess who just doesn’t fit the mold. A great synopsis and discussion can be found on the Minesweeper Addict Tumblr.

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That wraps it up 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.





Oniisama E…Licensed.

March 20th, 2012

I cannot believe I am about to type this.

This is not rumor and I have done some due diligence, and this appears to be actually legit: Oniisama E, (Dear Brother) Ryoko Ikeda’s classic high school drama…has been licensed by streaming site ViKi. You can find it here: http://www.viki.com/channels/5849-dear-brother The license is global except Italy and Japan. Rose of Versailles has not been licensed by ViKi and they were told it is not available.

I will say four words about this: Sainte Juste. At last.

The ViKi CEO has added a few words about their licenses to their blog. If you, like me, had some questions, check it out.
 





Yuri Network News – March 17, 2012

March 17th, 2012

What a good day to talk about Yuri. It would surely have given St. Patrick apoplexy, along with the carousing and misbehavior now commonly attached to his name day. ^_^

Other News

This week had a lot of important news, some of which I wanted to share, and a few rants I really need to get off my chest.

First, the CBLDF announced that the criminal charges were dropped in the “Brandon X” case. The case was ultimately settled on non-criminal charges. CBLDF director Charles Brownstein talks at length about this case and the fact that, ultimately, it did not go to trial and therefore did not create a legal precedent. He makes a lot of excellent points and I hope you’ll read this fantastic interview Tom Spurgeon did with him on Comics Reporter. (And I am so excited to be able to link to Tom’s site. He’s been kind enough to link to me many times over, so back atcha Tom!) The CBLDF is still paying off more than half the legal fees so any help you can give them, even donations as little as $5, are greatly appreciated.

Also of great importance has been the saga of content sellers vs content publishers in regards to Digital Manga Publishing. Although I have very little motivation to read their stuff (and have some issues with their Digital Manga Guild, as I consider it to be a race to the bottom for quality work for fair cost,) I like the folks there personally. Recently, both Apple and Amazon have delisted DMP’s BL titles. Apple demanded DMP pull Yaoi from its Apple app and Amazon told DMP that they couldn’t sell through Kindle. As you can imagine, I was livid at this. I wrote the Apple and Amazon CEOs. Clearly I was not the only one, as 24 hours later, Amazon rescinded. Apple has not.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have seen my rage at Apple and their randomly enforced, bizarrely Victorian business practices that seem to somehow always be against LGBTQ-themed content. I started my computer days on an Apple, but now you could not pay me to buy any of their products. I am so strongly opposed to their obscure and cloaked content policies, their anti-LGBTQ focus and even more opposed to the willful blindness of Apple users who keep insisting I must be mistaken. I am not mistaken – Apple was, once, a very progressive company. Now they are just another large company who does not hire full-timers, they farm everything out to contractors, who are clearly given too much room to be repressive, and they treat foreign workers like animals. Come ON folks. Apple is “The Man.” Their culture and their policies are totalitarian. I get it – they were cool when you were in school. They aren’t cool anymore. You should say something about that to them.

While I’m ranting, I would like to repeat myself once more about the Yuri market. Now that Poor Poor Lips is doing well at JManga, there is some cognitive dissonance about it being released in print. This is abstracted from a comment I made on Facebook about the matter:

Fans assume there are tens of thousands of people out there reading Yuri. Sales in the west run at about 1% of audience. It’s just a really freaking small niche. There are not enough fans to support a load of Yuri titles…that is why there are not a load of Yuri titles in print in English. Best Yuri titles do somewhere between 2500-3000 in sales, which is still short of the 4000 copies or so to make enough money to keep going. Even top selling mainstream titles like Naruto barely reach 15,000 copies sold here in the US and that’s barely enough to make Japanese sales lists.

To all Yuri fans who somehow think that there are a legion of fans being under-served here….there aren’t. There are a few of you. And of that few, only a fewer few actually buy Yuri. That is why there is so little Yuri here. There are not enough people to make it profitable. Yet. Give it more years, more promotion and more support from the fanbase.

Think about this. How many copies of Poor Poor Lips do you *really* think would sell? Now, multiply that by three volumes. Be honest – how likely do you think selling 12,000 print copies of a cute, but not particularly world-shaking series, is there? 

There is no relationship between sales on JManga and success of a print volume. Print needs WAY more sales to cover costs and make it worth printing, shipping and distributing. That is *exactly* why JManga is a great idea – it’s a place to get out all the niche titles we want to see that really don’t have a decent chance at making a profit in print.

I don’t meant to be harsh, but…stop. Please stop living in a fantasy where there are a million Yuri fans and 10% of them want to buy books. This is not true. WHEN it is, there will be more Yuri than you can handle. Right now, there are a few hundred people who will buy anything and a few hundred more who will buy when it’s cheap enough and convenient enough and simple enough. And the rest simply do not count at all, since they have no intention of buying anything, from anyone, ever.

Okay…rants over now. ^_^

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Snatches of Yuri

A collection from Hana to Yume comics called Kanoujo no Namida ga Yuki Datoshitara (彼女の涙が雪だとしたら) includes at least one short in which there is Yuri.

Idol Pretender ( アイドルプリテンダー ) seems to think it has BL and Yuri, at least based on the obi copy. While there’s definitely some Yuri-like behavior, the jury appears to still be out. It’s a Champion Red title, so even if there is Yuri, don’t expect it to make you happy.

I honestly have no idea if this is good or not, but if you like Transgender Yuri, take a look at Hero no Himitsu (ヒーローの秘密), Feel free to write up a review for us!

And Smile Style (スマイル・スタイル) has been all over the Yuri lists in Japan. It’s moe school life Yuri. Just the way so many like it.

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Random Stuff

There will be a Yuri Danshi Drama CD…with character songs, in June. As much as I adore Drama CDs, I’m giving this one a pass. ^_^;

Bruce made me promise to tell you that Wandering Son, Volume 3 is available for Pre-order on Amazon.

To end this report on a really, really positive note, April will be bringing a new Maria-sama ga Miteru Light Novel, Maria-sama ga Miteru ~ Farewell Bouquet (マリア様がみてる フェアウェル ブーケ) –  in which we will be seeing, for the first time, Yumi as Rosa Chinensis! Yay! Okay, now the series can end if it has to. ^_^

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That wraps it up 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.





Yuri Network News – March 10, 2012

March 10th, 2012

Yuri Manga

If you’ve been reading Okazu at all the week, you’ll know that JManga is the big news-maker here. Japanese Publisher Takeshobo has agreed to let all of their titles be released globally, which allows readers everywhere to access Poor Poor Lips and Morita-san ha Mukuchi. As a result, PPL lips has become their best-selling title. Thank all of you for jumping in and purchasing it! I hope you find it to be as interesting as I did. And thank everyone around the world for helping me make the (really obvious) point that letting more people buy a thing means you can sell more of it.

Hopefully with the success of Takeshobo’s global push, JManga will be able to convince other publishers that selling more is better. It’s hard to not eyeroll at that, I know, but let me just remind you that your cooperation and effort are still needed in this! Bruce McF had a great suggestion – go to a title you want to read, but can’t and use the feedback tab on the page. “I’m from XX country and I would like to read YY Title.” Just keep doing that until they can convince all the publishers to open their titles up globally. (My next goal is to encourage them to list whole magazines on the system. The day I can subscribe to Comic Beam in JManga is the day they own me for life.)

And, I hope, because PPL is doing so well, JManga and ALC Publishing are teaming up again to bring you another Takeshobo title, Kimi no Tamenara, Shineru. This is a much more typical 4-koma, but the setup makes it unique. It’s worth a read, anyway. ^_^ In fact, I’ll be spending the weekend doing some research to write up a nice introduction on Heian Imperial life and literature. ^_^;; (If anyone ever tells you that once you get out of school, you won’t have to write reports or essays, they are lying.)

In honor of this new license, here’s the link to Volume 2 of Kimi no Tamenara Shineru, (姫のためなら死ねる) which will be out in Japan in April.　

Spring will blossom with Yuri this year: Comic Yuri Hime, May Issue and Tsubomi, Volume 17 are both ready to bloom. ^_^

YNN correspondent Katherine H. doesn’t want you to miss Higashiyama Show’s  Prism, Volume 1, from Tsubomi. (Neither do I, for that matter.) This was a series that started off much like a Story A and suddenly, magically, was a very lovely realistic story that had some actual body to it and a little real-world conflict. Totally worth getting.

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Other News

In other news, Jean Giraud, known as Moebius, passed away at 74. This has nothing at all to do with Yuri, but Moebius was the first comic artist whose name I learned. His style of art and story-telling radically influenced my reading and I believe it was his work that allowed me to step into manga with little difficulty. I will never forget the moment  I encountered his work in Heavy Metal magazine. It changed everything I ever thought about comics. If you are not familiar with his work, check out his official website. The world is a bleaker place for his loss. Rest In Peace.

I also really want to turn your attention to the three-part series on Anime News Network called The Anime Economy. Written by Justin Sevakis, this series is a cogent, incredibly well-written and compelling breakdown of the money trail in the anime industry.

If you ever wondered why about anything in terms of money, costs, distribution, profits (which many fans still imagine to be great piles of cash) read this series!

Part 1: Let’s Make An Anime!
Part 2: Shiny Disks
Part 3: Digital Pennies

Part 3 is especially important for the discussion of “mindshare” and the disconnect between wanting to read/watch a thing and wanting to support that series. This lack of mindshare is why we’re still struggling with a large body of “fans” who do not have any intention ever of paying for manga or anime, unless they can have it exactly the way they want it, for prices they determine, not market-bound, and an even larger percentage of fans who have absolutely no idea at all that there is a reason to pay for entertainment at all.

This series was genuinely terrific reading. I hope you’ll all take a few moments and read it.

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That wraps it up 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.





ALC Publishing & JManga Partnering on Heian Period Yuri Manga “Kimi no Tamenara Shineru”

March 9th, 2012

“When you think of Heian period literature, two names come instantly to mind, Murasaki Shikibu, creator of the Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon, writer of the Pillow Book.

What may not come to mind is the image of Shonagon as a 27-year old NEET, blogger, Twitterer and…well, perv.

That is, it may not come to mind, until after you’ve finished reading Kimi no Tamenara Shineru (姫のためなら死ねる). After that, you’re just about guaranteed to think of her that way.” – Okazu Review 7/9/11

With POOR POOR LIPS topping the JManga bestsellers, ALC Publishing and JManga are teaming up once again to bring you entertaining Yuri Manga.  Kimi no Tamenara Shineru, by Kuzushiro combines leading lights of Heian period literature, Imperial life and wacky Yuri comedy in a way that’s sure to bring a goofy smile to your face.

And now that Takeshobo allows access globally to all their manga on JManga, there’s no regional barriers at all between you and this and other fun Yuri manga!

Cover Image: Copyright Image: Kimi no Tamenara Shineru Volume 1 (c)Kuzushiro/Takeshobo Co., Ltd.)