Yuri Anime

The Anime Network (the cable network, not to be confused with ANN) has announced that they’ve added some titles of interest to their streaming service. Episodes of CANAAN, Uta-Kata, Lucky Star and Taisho Baseball Girls have all been added to the subscription-based site.

Media Blasters announced on Twitter that they are doing a dub and sub version of both Loveless (with it’s terrific Yuri arc) and Kashimashi ~ Girl meets Girl. Kind of strangely, these are both being called a “Vocal Collection,” so don’t get confused that these are CDs or something. The previous releases of both series were subtitled only. They are slated for a March 2011 release.

This was sort of interesting – the official Japanese Simoun blog, which had been dead for sometime, came back to life to announce a new box set…and a Twitter account. That was the interesting part, because why bother if they don’t have something to say on an ongoing basis? Right now it’s repurposing of material, but there’s always hope and insane fan speculation.

In possibly the most inexplicable news this week, the third volume of the utterly unfun and all-but-totally-not-at-all-Yuri Yuriseijin Naoko-san will have a short anime as an extra. I followed this series for years when I was getting (and it was running in) Dengeki Daioh. All I can say is, for pity’s sake, fellas! My vote to manga that most needs this treatment goes to Poor Poor Lips, not this crap.

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Yuri Manga

Good news for folks who liked Shitsuji Shoujo to Ojousama, because Volume 2 is being released in January 2011. More Butler x Tsundere Mistress wackiness with service.

I have forgotten if I’ve told you this yet and I am too lazy to look, so, Tsubomi, Volume 9 , out this month.

Blue Friend is apparently getting an “after story” in a Ribon Magazine special issue. I wonder if it’ll be a good after, or a bad after….

The Third and final Volume of Choir! has been announced for a January release – it promises a happily-ever-after Yuri end.

MangaTime Lovely magazine has announced that veteran BL creator Tanaka Rin will be trying her hand at some GL. When I was in Animate last month, I almost passed out at the number of MangaTime this and that magazines.

And how fun is this? Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 4 has their info page up. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see two long horizontal boxes on the right. One says “New!” and the one below that is red. Click on the red box and you’ll get a page which is a manga Advent Calendar! Clicking on a number opens a page with a short manga story by one of the creators (controls are the little gold boxes on the left. To see the whole thing, press the control that says 進む, second row from the bottom on the right.) Because it’s an Advent Calendar, you can’t open the box until that day of the month. How freaking cute is that?

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Other News

You may have heard that a spin-off of Shueisha’s Super Jump called Girl’s Jump (ガールズジャンプ) is launching on December 15. The premier issue will include a one-shot by Nakamura Ching, creator of Gunjo. Obviously, you must all by it. ^_^ Although the creators are all female, the audience is presumed to be young men. I’m very much looking forward to it. As soon as I can get a Amazon JP link for it, I’ll be sure to give it to you.

This week, David Welsh of Manga Curmudgeon was gracious enough to host a review by me – twice. The first, discussing Mr. 2 of Oda’s One Piece, I already mentioned. He was also kind enough to host my rather long look at Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, in which I discuss some of the problem with “critical” analysis of shoujo manga, along with discussing some of the primary themes of this book. I hope you’ll read and enjoy them.

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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!

Snatches of Yuri

CANAAN, Volume 2 from Kadokawa Comics has been out for a while, but since I just started rewatching the anime, it’s in my head. So why not check that out?

Daremo ienai looks really interesting. It’s being published by Hakusensha and the Amazon package deal is with Rakuen le Paradis, so I’m guessing it skews towards an older female audience.

Himitsu, by Otomo Megane is subtitled “Secret Love” and the cover features two girls holding hands. This is a KR comic and with all those things I project that it is /drum roll/ Story A. When it hits the shelves next month we’ll know for sure. (YNN Correspondent Erin S. confirms that this is a collection of Otomo’s stories from Tsubomi anthology, so I feel even more confident that they are Story A. ^_^)

From bottom-feeding Champion Red comes Minori Scandal. The first line of the first review on Amazon JP reads “I love Yuri hentai!” and the cover shows a girl – I assume it’s Minori – looking “sexy” for our bottom-feeding pleasure. I’m done with it, but if you decide to throw money at it, feel free to write a guest review!

I’m sure that, somewhere, someone likes Gokujouu, but that someone wasn’t me. It’s made it to Volume 3, more’s the pity.

Densho is said to be very, very, Yuri by people I almost always disagree with. ^_^ I have absolutely no idea what it’s about and am adding it to the report to be as comprehensive as possible.

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Yuri Manga

Back in the world of manga that doesn’t make us sad to be alive, Uso Kurata has a new collection out from Ichijinsha. Sore demo Koi wo Suru will be hitting shelves on December 18th.

Yuri Hime Wildrose is undergoing a name change. From now on it will be known as Yuri Hime Girl’s Love. It remains to be seen if the content undergoes any change.

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Maria-sama ga Miteru News

Take a deep breath. According to Shueisha’s release list, a new Maria-sama ga Miteru novel will be out on December 28! I’ve been enjoying the O-shaka-sama ga Miteru series, (with the exception of the odious Andre-sempai) but I’ll be thrilled to return to Lillian for a bit. As I have not been reading Cobalt Shueisha, I can’t tell you when the stories are, if they include any of “our” Yamayurikai or what. Maybe someone else can help us out on that end.

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Yuri Anime

You may remember the manga I mentioned last week, A Channel. It’s being turned into an anime. The official anime website has announced the staff and the names are familiar to many Yuri fans. Folks that worked on Strawberry Panic, Saki and Strike Witches are gathering together to work on this moe 4-koma to anime.

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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-ish Anime

Taisho Baseball Girls is now on sale as a season box set. While the Yuri was minimal, it was really just an absolutely wonderful series that should be purchased by everyone to show that we LOVE absolutely wonderful series more than we do dreadful crap.

Speaking of dreadful crap we love, Ikkitousen is streaming on Crunchyroll. I don’t know why I  thought it already was, but now it really is. This is the first season, which you may remember gave us Ryofu and Chinkyuu.

Wasting no time with seeing if the first OVA is even popular, there is *already* noise  about a second OVA of Morita-san ha Muguchi, amazing as that is.

While I was gone, Funimation announced that they have picked up the licenses for Excel Saga, Noir, and Bubblegum Crisis 2040 all of which are worthy of your love and money.

I know there’s a few Hourou Musuko fans out there, because you email me all the time, asking me when I plan on reviewing this series. (The answer is…eventually.) The official anime website has two trailers up for you: Trailer 1 and Trailer 2.

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Yuri-ish Manga

Continuing its pursuit of a reputation as “publisher of crappy manga that only a creep could love” Tokyopop has listed Kampfer on Amazon. Boggles, doesn’t it?

Out from Yuri Hime Comics is Mugen no Minamo, a series I completely ignore in magazine and out. Giant heads, little kids, drippy looking art AND threadbare content! Whee!

KR Comics offers you A Channel, a 4-koma about hyper, yet doofus-y Ron, stylish Yuuko, straight man Nagi. etc. If you like this type of gag comic, you’ll probably like this one too.

Manga no Tsukurikata, Volume 4 will be out in mid-December.

In a masterful bit of re-purposing, Ichinjinsha is releasing Yuri Hime Wildrose: Remix disc A, which is very likely meant to be a “best of” collection of the Yuri Hime Wildrose volumes.

And last, but not at all least for us, the Reborn Comic Yuri Hime website has undergone a goth makeover, which concerns me a little. I was hoping to move away from the dark and spread some light on the subject of Girl’s Love, but we’ll see what they have in mind. :-)

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Yuri-ish Novel

From the admirably twisted mind of Mori Natsuko comes a new novel, Super Otome Taisen, which is absolutely sure to induce howls of laughter. When Angel Lillith appears in the St. Anna dorm of prestigious St. Teresa’s Academy and explains to the girls that God has asked them to use their pleasure power to manipulate a giant robot to fight a giant monster to save the earth…who wouldn’t say yes?  What I like best about Mori-sensei’s stories are that they have both lesbian content and lesbian awareness and are still unimaginably cracktastic. She is my hero.

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Other Yuri-ish News 

YNN correspondent Jenna sends in this report of a French book about shoujo/josei manga that at least touches on Yuri. It interests me greatly that they put Yuri under the rubrick of “manga for women,” because of course, it’s not. It *used* to be manga almost exclusively by and for men, until I started pointing out that there were women who read and create Yuri and now it’s mostly by both men and woman for anyone who reads Yuri. But..because I started pointing out ten years ago that there are women who like it too, somehow that got shifted to “by and for women,” which was never what I said, nor what I meant.

So, let’s just say this again – right now, on November 10, 2010, Yuri is created by both men and women for an audience of whoever buys it.  Which makes it more complex to label, capture, identify and sell than Boy’s Love, which is mostly drawn and bought by women. Personally, I think that’s an excellent thing, as it gives us more of a variety in our stories, styles, points of view and far fewer specific genre tropes to deal with. The tropes in a Yuri story are more likely to be the tropes of that particular genre: action, romance, sci-fi, for guys, for girls, etc,.

Anyway, Jenna goes on to note that “a free sample can be found here, which includes the first two pages of the Yuri chapter: http://www.editions-h.fr/Docs/M10ki-3-site.pdf”

Thanks Jenna for the heads up – this is exactly why I need the Yuri News Network!

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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!

Thanks to everyone for your patience while I gadded about the globe. We’re back with a Yuri Network Report that’s sure to thrill…or something.

Live Action Movies

From the “ehhh?” file, we’ve got news of Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, the creative team behind Xena, Warrior Princess picking up the option for a live-action movie version of Bee Train’s Noir. Immediately upon my tweeting this, fans began saying incredibly stupid things like, “It’ll be good as long as they keep Canta Per Me” or “Ohh, maybe that means they’ll do El Cazador too!” Quick note folks – they will change *everything,* location, stories, music, everything and no, they will not also do El Cazador. Get past that now, it’ll save a lot of tiresome teeth-gnashing down the line, supposing this project goes anywhere at all. Thanks. ^_^

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Yuri Manga

The reborn Yuri Hime magazine will hit the shelves this week!

Also out this week is Kazuma Kowo’s Sayonara Folklore from Yuri Hime Comics.

And, at last, the final volume of GIRL FRIENDS by Morinaga Milk is available! I’d like to take this opportunity to ask all of you who have been enjoying this manga by reading scanlations to please *support* the artist by purchasing the manga. If even a third of you do, it will make a big difference to her.

Let me also call your attention to a new anthology called Flower Festa, which is a group work by a number of doujinshi artists – each artist has contributed a character, and a story using any or all of the characters submitted by the others. One of my favorite artists, Houjou KOZ of Circle UKOZ has contributed. It’s a neat premise and it looks like the execution will be fun.

Yuri Anthology Hirari is launching the 3rd volume with a new name – Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, which I think is pretty indicative of the “slightly before story A” type stories that have been running in it.

And my last bit of news this week is a kind of WTF moment, as (according to the book covers in the stores) the third Volume of Morita-san ha Muguchi, slated for late next February, will come with a short anime. If you recall, this series is about a girl who never speaks, so the idea of it being turned into an anime is quite silly.

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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!