According to the Studio IG Panel at Anime Expo, going on right now, RightStuf also has the license to the Adolescence of Utena Movie.
That doesn’t mean they are releasing it, mind you – just that they have it.
Archive for the Yuri Network News Category
Yuri Network News – July 3, 2010
Yuri Anime
The top news this week just came in last night, with the Nozomi/RightStuf panel at AnimeExpo. RightStuf is going to be releasing the digitally remastered Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena) in 2011. According to prelim press releases on Twitter from their panel, the release will be in three box sets. No news whether a remastered movie (with a soundtrack that isn’t squashed) is in the works, so don’t ask. Or, don’t ask me, anyway. Feel free to drive RightStuf crazy with your questions. In the meantime, if you know a young Yuri fan, an anime fan who has never had the pleasure of enjoying the surrealistic exercise that is Utena, or just want to fuck with someone’s brains, this will make a great opportunity to get ’em, but good.
Nozomi/RightStuf also announced the licensed for Sora no Woto, which seems to draw interest from Yuri quarters, regardless of whether it actually has any. :-)
Not to be outdone in “moe with very little, if any Yuri, but fans like to see it there, anyway” Bandai Entertainment also announced that it has licensed the K-On! anime. (Also from Twitter, but here’s the ANN report.
Funimation weighed in with a few licenses of their own. Intersecting our interests here are the resurrection of Haibane Renmei and Serial Experiments Lain and a new license of To Aru Kagaku No Railgun.
And, although this is really no more than rumor and there is nothing, no proof at all, except wishful thinking and an ambiguously worded ad in Nyantype, there are persistent rumors of a Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Force anime. I usually don’t report rumors, but I’m kinda hoping this one is true. ^_^
***
Yuri Manga
My sincere apologies, I complete forgot to mention this last week – Candy Boy is now out as a manga from MF Comics. So if you loved your time with these two sisters that love each other more than anything, please consider supporting the creators and purchasing the manga.
I am once more going to mention that Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 3 is out now. Why am I mentioning it again? Because I only recently learned that among the many artists contributing that I like, Hayashiya Shizuru-sensei is among them. Exhibit A:
That puts this magazine in strong contention for my favorite manga magazine I read right now, as it has three of my top artists in it.
I typically read about 5 manga magazines regularly, with supplemental others as the mood or opportunity strikes. In fact, just for fun, here’s what I’m reading right now: Ultra Jump, Ikki, Yuri Hime, Yuri Hime S, Ribon, Rakuen Le Paradis, with Comic Blade and Dengeki Daioh as my whimsy takes me, Comic Ryuu and CompAce when I can find them.
I reviewed (and enjoyed) Volume 1, and now Volume 2 of Morita-san no Mukuchi is coming out. I bet Morita still doesn’t talk much.
:-)
While I’m pimping 4- koma manga with a little Yuri, Hinagiku Junshin Jogakuen, Volume 3 is also on the way.
Also soon to be hitting the shelves are Yuri Hime comics Shinigami Alice and Sakura Buntsu and Yuri Hime S Comic, HONEY CRUSH, Volume 2.
And if I’m reading this right, a number of the artists from Yuri Hime have gotten together some of their original Yuri doujinshi for a new Yuri Hime doujinshi, Yuri Hime Collection, Volume 1. Which is freaking genius on the part of Ichijinsha if that’s true and I didn’t just totally misunderstand the press release, which is also possible.
YNN correspondent Katherine H. wants to let you know that the second volume of CANAAN manga is up for pre-order, “bad art and all.”
***
Drama CD News
The news has been sounded – Hayate x Blade Volume 13, which will be out in October, will be available in a deluxe format, with a Drama CD. I am so there.
***
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 Network News – June 26, 2010
Yuri Manga
YNN Correspondents AudioErotica and Erin S. remind us that the first of the Tsubomi collections are coming out in August, starting with Ebisu-san and Hotei-san, Shimaism and Hoshikawa Ginza Yon-choume.
Also out on the same day is Tsubomi, Vol. 7.
For folks that like our Yuri a little more mature, Rakuen Le Paradise, Volume 3 is due to hit the streets next week. I know that I will never turn down more Nishi UKO.
Winner for this week’s oddest title is Rokuroichi’s Yuri Hime collection, Kuchibiru ni Saketa Orange.
***
Snatches of Yuri
There’s a series I haven’t looked at at all called Nishiburi, but a number of the Japanese Yuri lists mention that Volume 3 is totally Yuri, 5 out of 5 stars!! And in this statement lies the crux of the matter – this zOMG Yuri? One character says she likes the other character. This is exactly why I blog. Because that moment that, to so many of the male Japanese Yuri fans is the apex of Yuri is not, to my mind, the climax of a relationship, but the beginning. That, in a nutshell, is why we get so many “Story A”s, in case you ever wondered.
An illustrator that has done some work for Ichijinsha, and has done Sonohanabira and Strawberry Panic! illustrations, Sakai Kyuuta has an artbook coming out this summer called candy rain. One expects the Service quotient to be rather high, so if nekkid girls are what you’re after, save up your money and buy yourself a present. :-)
And for folks who like Hakamada Mera’s style, Yamaguchi Maiko’s Futari Poppo seems like a good bet.
***
Maria-sama ga Miteru Movie News
A week without Marimite news is a sad week, so I’m glad to tell you there is now a photo book available with photos from the filming of the Maria-sama ga Miteru live-action movie!
***
Twitter News
I shared this on the Yuricon Mailing List and thought I’d share it here, as well. And I may make Twitter News a semi-regular feature, since there’s a lot going on there. This week’s Twitter news is idiotic. :-)
For those of you who are fans of Hayate x Blade (that’s all of you, right?) joining Twitter just got even dumber than before. You too can befuddle, annoy and confuse a number of the HxB characters by talking to (or about) them on Twitter.
amachi_hitsugi
minori_bot
kurea_bot
Yuho_SHIZUMA
kugajunbot
mudou_ayana
mikado_akira
inorbibot
Kurea threatened to call the school guard on me. ^_^;;
***
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 Network News – June 19, 2010
I’ll be at AnimeNext this afternoon, wandering around with a bag of goodies to give away (just like a Yuri Santa Claus!) If you see me – I’ll be wearing my black “I Love Yuri” T-shirt – say hello and get…something. No guarantees for quality or worth. If I don’t know you yet, please introduce yourself! Also, if you’re going to be there, please join me at the Promise Sisters’ concert at 4:30 in the Arena. If you’ve been to a Yuricon event any time in the last few years or been to pretty much any con in the NE of America, you know the Promise Sisters. Leanne, Vanessa and Melinda are friends and wow, can they sing! They’ve won so many karaoke contests that they now perform as a pop idol group. They’ll have some guest singers as well as performing both anime and original songs. I hope to see you there!
***
Industry News
You know I don’t go totally off topic too often here, because there are about a zillion people covering the wide world o’manga, and few focusing on Yuri but, there are a few industry round-ups that I really think are worth noting right now.
First of all, thank you everyone who contributed to the comments (here and elsewhere) in a positive and creative way on last week’s post about the Solution to the Scanlation Solution. It’s not at all surprising that many companies are scrambling to be that solution right now.
I wanted to call your attention to this overview of the fallout of the last week. All the links you all need to read have been summed up at The Beat in The Week in Digital: HOLY CRAP. And Matt Blind had a stellar post on the problem with proprietary formats – something he and I were talking about on Twitter, but he and Bruce McF are smarter about it than I am and had a lot more to say.
And, lastly, NPR has a summation of the situation for the uninitiated, that was not only pretty good, but highlights the work of several manga-industry bloggers of note. If you’re not following these blogs…you really should be. Additionally, you can give this article to your significant other/spouse/parent to explain what all the fuss is about.
Really, if the future of digital comics interests you, go read these. We’re in a new pre-Guttenberg press world. We want to be able to read stuff, but the technology isn’t there yet. And companies are hiring as many monks as they can afford to. This is our chance to build the new press.
Thank you for your patience with my digression. Now back to our regularly scheduled Yuri Network News.
***
Yuri Anime
Primastea is releasing a new anime, Kuttsukiboshi about two girls on a “risky” vacation. There is a trailer which implies Yuri. It will be service-y without substance, but for the kind of people who like this kind of thing, that will suffice. You can judge for yourself by watching the trailer. The anime ships on August 16th in Japan. The actually amazing thing about the anime is that it was directed, written, and animated by one person. Good bad or indifferent, that makes it worth watching.
Okay, it’s a stretch calling this Yuri, probably, but Queen’s Blade is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Remind me to write about “gatchi Yuri” one day.
(The one thing I absolutely love about Queen’s Blade is that the only things guaranteed to be more infantile and fulls of “boobs” than the series itself are the reviews of the series. My god, do these people read their reviews!?)
So, true to form, 2010 has been a backlash year so far in Japan, with mostly hentai and bouncing breasts on the Yuri anime front.
Thank heavens Maria Watches Over Us, Season 4 is shipping in a few weeks! Miraculously, I have already received my order (thank you friendly little gremlins at RightStuf!) and I will be sure to review it for you in loving detail asap. (Pre-orderers will get a very fetching writing pad as a premium. I bet you all wondered…I know I did!)
***
Snatches of Yuri
The novel Vertigo sounds dreadful in every way, so I’m dying to read it. In 2030, public disorder, dystopian future, blah blah, two female cops, fight club, pretend to be a lesbian couple, blah blah. Do want.
***
Yuri Manga
There is more info about the planned Yuri Hime move to bi-monthly status. It appears that Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S will be consolidated into one magazine and released on a bi-monthly basis. This makes excellent financial sense for Ichijinsha and us. They were putting out two quarterly magazines, so we were buy 8 issues a year. Now they will be putting out one bi-monthly, so we’ll be getting 6 issues a year. Both magazines were getting downright huge, so I bet the combined issue is well worth our money. And, I’m kind of glad we’re losing the “for guys”/”for women” gap. We read them both, so…. Although I do admit to being a tad troubled by the current cover of YHS. It might be weird when they try to satisfy both audiences in one magazine.
Hayate x Blade 12 is out in Japan. I know I don’t have to tell you to go get it, do I?
Also, in English, Seven Seas is putting out Hayate x Blade Omnibus volumes, for a very reasonable price. Volume 1 would make a great gift for the wacky kid/lesbian/violent psychotic in your life. Also, more sales is likely to stimulate the possibility of more volumes. Remember – series sell less each volume as a series goes on, so stimulating sales means more money for the company to invest in printing a new volume.
Funniest Yuri news I heard all week is that Senno Knife is putting out a second volume of Lesbian Shoujo-Ai. Read my review of Volume 1 to understand why the news made me laugh. :-)
Of the recent crop of YH Comics, I want to draw attention to Takemiya Jin’s Love Breaker and Amano Shuunta’s sweet guilty love bites. More to come.
***
Okazu News
If you take a look alllllll the way down at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar, you will see a teeny little widget to “Like” Okazu for Facebook folks. Please click. It costs you nothing, feeds my ego and probably doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in the larger scale of things, but I’ll like you more. Thanks. :-)
***
Yuri Drama CD
And finally for today, as announced on the obi of the 4th volume of Morinaga Milk’s GIRL FRIENDS, there is an upcoming GIRL FRIENDS Drama CD. Details to follow.
***
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 Network News – June 5, 2010
Yuri Events
If you’re going to be in Japan in September, consider scheduling in a trip to the Girl’s Love Festival, the fourth such Yuri-only doujinshi event held in Tokyo.
***
Yuri Manga
That’s a wrap for this week.
Yuri Manga
Not only is there going to be a second volume of the Shoujo Yuri anthology, the Yuri network is buzzing with the news that both members of Yuri doujinshi circle Sakuraike, Kitao Taki and Mitou Kana, will be participating.
***
Snatches of Yuri
Machigatta Ra-Nobe no Tsukurikata is about, one has to presume from the title, a clumsy/awkward/mistake-prone girl who wants to write Light Novels. Yuri is the kind of “funny” sexual harassment substituted by people who can’t create for people who can’t discern.
The plot of Shoukoujo (Thanks to Ana for the translation!) fascinates me. Not for the reason you might think. Apparently, in the future, when humanity has reached for the stars and plies their way across the universe, Yuri stories *still* happen in Catholic private high schools. :-)
Yuri seems to be on the slight uptick in the shoujo manga magazines these days. Running in Ribon is “Blue Friends” and in Nakayosi, “Nobara no Mori Otome-tachi” sounds ridiculously promising. I haven’t had a chance to confirm/deny/anything these, so this remains hearsay until a YNN correspondent tells me it is true. :-)
***
Other News
I’ve talked about Twitter before here on Okazu. I know that it’s not to everyone’s taste, of course. But I remain convinced that it is a stellar tool for bringing the world closer. I’ve discussed some of the many excellent manga bloggers on Twitter. This community is growing all the time – you can see many of them participating in the monthly Manga/Manhwa Movable Feast project (the last one was hosted by Katherine Dacy at Manga Critic). This community has fabulous, fascinating and often incredibly funny and thoughtful conversations about the manga industry in 140 characters or less practically every night. It’s a supportive community, with members sharing each other’s triumphs and providing solace for down moments – and we promote the hell out of each other, sharing links and commenting on each other’s blogs. It’s a really fabulous place to be. If you are on Twitter, or just joining it, you don’t have to go through the trouble of searching for these folks – I’ve created an Anime/Manga list of people I follow. You can simply follow my list. You may notice that some of these people are posting in Japanese. That’s because the Twitter world is smaller than you’d think. Some of the folks I follow on that list are not just bloggers and reviewers, too….some of them are Yuri manga artists. You might be surprised to see some of the names.
If you do decide to join Twitter, don’t forget to say hello! You can always find me @Yuricon. :-)
***
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!
