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!

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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.

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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!)

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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.

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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.

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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. :-)

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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.

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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 Events

Snatches of Yuri

Looking for crazy hijinx in a manga club that never draws any manga, but does a lot of cosplay, with a little light Yuri yearning? Then you’ll be happy to hear that Manken Volume 3 is out!

Somewhat subsumed by the noise of the Marimite movie, another live-action movie based on a Margaret manga hit all the corners of the Yurisphere. Bushido Sixteen, which has pretty much all the bells and whistles of classic Yuri-ish material. Girls, sports, swords, high tension, attraction/desire/rivalry, etc. Volume 1 of the manga was supposed to have have potential, in Volume 2 of the manga it ignites. Ish. Is it just me, or is Margaret a totally passive-aggressive magazine? Every time it gets a really good GL-themed thing, it starts to kill it off. I’m not sure what the deal is.

Running in Renai Paradise magazine, one of those teens have sex too-type magazines that are scattered around Japanese bookstores, is a series called Warui Onna, which one Japanese Yuri blog hailed as a “real-life teen Yuri romance.” Only, not so much. :-) Sample pictures from the creator’s blog here and here (NSFW, which is the point I’m making!) say its more like “yet another lesbian porn story.” That’s not fair – it might really be a love story with lesbians and everything. :-) I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt until I see it for myself. But it does run in a magazine for teens in which everyone has sex in pretty much every chapter.

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Yuri Manga

Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends, Volume 4 will be hitting the shelves on June 11.

On June 18th, we’ll be getting Takemiya Jin’s Yuri Hime stories collected in Love Breaker and Yuri Hime Selection 3, the third volume of collected one- and two-shot stories from previous issues of the magazine.

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Yuri Light Novel

Itsuwari no Hime ha Kishi to Odoru Double Engage is both a new Bunko Iris Light Novel from Ichijinsha and a candidate for one of the silliest titles I’ve seen this year. A glimpse at the cover with basically tell you everything you need to know about it.

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Yuri Anime

The new “adult” anime based on the popular Yuri ero-game Sono hanabira ni kuchizuke wo anata to koibito tsunagi will be making its debut in Japan on July 30.

Anime News Network reports that the So Ra No Wo To website has a 132-second trailer for a bonus episode that will be packaged with the upcoming Japanese Blu-Ray release.

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Maria-sama ga Miteru News

Thanks to YNN correspondent Erin S for clarification on this news: The Maria-sama ga Miteru manga is starting up again in The Margaret magazine, picking up with with “Cherry Blossom,” when Noriko sees Shimako for the first time. We’ve already reported that the previous volumes of manga are being reissued as omnibus volumes and, with the movie coming out in the fall, this is great timing to stimulate interest.

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Other News

This is unrelated to Yuri, but it is totally worth reading. Takashima Misako, an artist who draws manga for children  and teaches art workshops to kids under the name Misako Rocks! (and who has been a guest at a number of anime/manga events across the country) recently did an interview with Mainichi about the differences in culture in terms of what is considered “appropriate” in the US and Japan, among other things.

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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!

Shortish report today. I’m feeling kinda crappy and got stuff to do. But I promise you something extra good tomorrow in return! An interview with Fujieda Miyabi, creator of Iono-sama Fanatics and Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan! Now on to the report:

Yuri Anime

Via @giapet on Twitter, our friends at Media Blasters have relaunched their website with streaming for Ikkitousen and Queen’s Blade. For you old-school anime fans, Media Blasters sort of forgot to mention to anyone that they also have released the entirety of Magic Knight Rayearth – season 1 and 2 as a set. I’m watching Season 1 right now for the first time all the way through. I’ll let you know what I think when I’m done.

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Yuri Manga

Shoujo Hakumei~ Nekomedou Kokoro-tan collects a bunch of the Black Cat Mansion tales from Yuri Hime and is out this week from Ichijinsha.

Also out this week from Yuri Hime is Shoujo-Holic and Yuri Hime Selection, Volume 2. If you recall, the “Selection” books are collections of the random one- and two-shots that appear in earlier issues of the magazine.

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Yuri Artbook

Speaking of Ichijinsha, you gotta love how they are wringing every drop of money they can from their IP. Along with a pile of manga, they are also putting out Yuri Hime Artworks – CHRONICLE, an artbook of the color illustrations from the magazine (and, I’d presume from YHS, as well.) This is slated for July, so plan yourself a summer gift. :-)

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Snatches of Yuri

Comic Lo has a series which may or may not have Yuri, but the Japanese bloggers seem to think so, anyway. Probably because the title is Hajimete no Yuri. :-)

This piece of news is for Bruce, really. God help us, but there’s a 5th volume of Mikarun X. Can you believe it?

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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 Manga

Anonymous wrote to let us know that Rakka Ryuusui, Volume 5 is soon to be out. Also, Anon points that a booklet for Shitsuji Shoujo to Ojou-sama is available – the PDF on the website tells you how to get it.

This month is going to see a pile of Yuri Hime comics released, so I’ll do a few at a time, so we can savor the list.

Soulfege ~ Sweet Harmony is among the group this time, with a mild story about a girl who faces adversity when she comes to a private school to find her beloved onee-sama.

Orange Yellow is another collection of shorts and Mizu-iro Cinema is a collection of the story of common girl Tae as she becomes involved with a film superstar, both by the quietly wonderful Hiyori Otsu.

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Snatches of Yuri

Nonnonbyoriatto is full of dorm hijinks and a super cool sempai beloved by her kouhai. And stuff that passes for Yuri.

Hidamari Sketch Volume 5 is full of dorm hijinks…and stuff that passes for Yuri.

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Yuri Reviews

I don’t usually point to other people’s reviews of books, but Jason Thompson had a two-for-one this week with a review of Maka-Maka on his 365 Days of Manga site and an overview of Rose of Versailles on his new column for Anime News Network, House of 1000 Manga.

Other News

I thought this worth passing on. Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing mentions an article on Tsurupeta about a semi-official Strike Witches bi-lingual doujinshi. I think this is worth mentioning, because you’re going to see more and more of this. There is a desire on the part of creators to reach their audience and frustration on their part with those fans who don’t respect their ownership of their work. More importantly, now that readers are starting to assign the power of choice of what is published not to publishers, but to hardware providers like Apple and Amazon, who are wielding that power haphazardly and unfairly, I think creators are smart to take as much control of their work as possible.

Which leads me to something else Simon links to – a report that 30% of books submitted to Apple’s iTunes on behalf of Kodansha have been rejected. Other publishers have commented that even when a first volume of a series is accepted, later volumes might not be. I know everyone’s blown away by the shiny iPad, but with the inconsistency and hypocrisy rampant in regards to iTunes, are the users going to tolerate this? Wield your money wisely when you purchase.

LGBT News

Kansasa City.com gives a short, incomplete and (not-surprisingly) American-comics biased history of gay characters in comics. It’s full of holes, but not done with malice.

And while I’m here, I might as well just mention that Batwoman is going to get her own series over at DC. I finally had a chance to read Detective and I can guarantee my impressions are not in line with everyone else’s. :-) Nonetheless, I’m glad DC’s giving the green signal to keep her and not just shelving her now that Rucka’s leaving.

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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.