Yuri Manga

Loads of new titles for us today!

Kase-san and Apron, the 4th volume of Takashima Hiromi’s adorable high school Yuri romance, hits shelves in February.

Also available in late February is Kiss and White Lily For My Dearest Girl, Volume 5.

Fan’s of Canno’s work, will be pleased to hear that a third Eclair anthology is being published this month in Japan. Eclair bleue – Anata ni Hibiku Yuri Anthology (エクレア bleue あなたに響く百合アンソロジー) has a release date this week.

I’m not entirely sure how Yuri Hagino Makoto’s story, Nettaigyo ha Yuki ni Kogareru  (熱帯魚は雪に焦がれる) is, but a lonely clumsy girl falling in love with a snow girl sounds like it’s in our wheelhouse. As does Yukio Yuki’s Mabataki Dekinai ( 瞬きできない) in which a NPC falls in love with a player character.

And I am more than a little interested in Yubisakikara Suberiochiru Valetta (指先から滑り落ちるバレッタ), even though it looks a tad grim. ^_^ A girl blackmails another girl into being her “friend.” Yeah, uh-huh.

BE Comics, from a publisher I am wholly unfamilar with, Fusion Product, is putting out Yuri + Kanojou (百合+カノジョ) and I have no idea what to expect.

Rap-battle sport-manga-like story, Catcher in the Rhyme (キャッチャー・イン・ザ・ライム) has been collected into a first volume. So has the ambiguously promising Kuroyuri Gakuen Oooku Gakka (クロユリ学園大奥学科)  (by Young King comics, so don’t get your hopes up!) with a Volume 2 coming up next month.

Other News

This is an absolute must-read: Vrai Kaiser’s article on Anime Feminist,  Land of the Lustrous, singular “they,” and the politics of subtitles.

Justin Sevakis takes on the big question as Answerman on ANN – Why is Anime Still region Locked?

The Seijinshiki is a annual ceremony marking a Japanese person’s majority. The Kansai LGBT Seijinshiki recognizes you as the adult you are and who you want to be. This year’s event, held in Kyoto, with celebrity guests, will be held on January 21.

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Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Yuri Manga

In celebration of the 20th anniversary, Viz put out a gorgeous 2-volume set of the (to-date) complete Revolutionary Girl Utena Manga . And Shogakukan, not about to be outdone has responded with a 4-volume set of Shoujo Kakumei Utena (新装版 少女革命ウテナ ) for the Japanese audience. (Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4.) I will be very honest, I think the English set is better looking, but it’ll be easier to add a 5th volume to the Japanese set to include the new chapters. ^_^

The Advocate posted their Best LGBT Graphic Novels of 2017 and no surprise, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is on the list.  Congratulations to Seven Seas and thanks to them for being part of the swift and positive sea change of seeing actual queer manga on the shelves and seeing it at #1 in it’s category for the last 7 months!

ANN reports that the Rose of Versailles manga is getting 2 new chapters! 

The third volume of Nisho Yuhta’s After Hours (アフターアワーズ) has hit shelves in Japan. No date yet for the US release.

Aoki Toshinao’s girl-meets-girl manga, ripple. has been collected up in a volume that hit shelves in Japan last month.

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LGBTQ Live-Action

Lesbian classicmovie Desert Hearts is available on the Criterion Collection label and if you haven’t ever watched it, I do recommend it. As Nathan Hood writes in his review of the movie, “Deitch creates a fantasy world where homosexuality is tacitly accepted as a fact of life, even among Stetson hat-wearing cowpokes. There are no raving bigots, no ranting preachers threating Cay and Vivian with damnation, no explicit antagonists. ” If you’re more of a book person, I also highly recommend Desert of the Heart, the novel by Jane Rule from which the movie was adapted. Jane Rule’s work was overtly lesbian long before there were categories to sell those in. This book and others by her were some of my foundational lesbian literature.

The Korean girl group LOONA is releasing single videos before releasing an album, each one featuring a different singer. In “Heart Attack,” the storyline follows one of the singers, CHUU with an apparent longing for another of the group members. Take a look at the video on Youtube. 

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with your name and an email I can reply to!

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Short report today. I dislocated my shoulder Thursday night and typing is not so fun.  I’m fine, I promise. I put the shoulder back in Friday morning and just have a nasty sprain now. Just want to keep this short. ^_^

Yuri Anime

The trailer for the citrus anime is here and it is not as awful I as I expected. I don’t know if the anime will even be able to approach the layers of dysfunction in the manga, so it might just stick to the top one or two issues. 

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Bunches of new theaters in Japan have been added for the Asagao to Kase-san anime OVA premiere!

Via Crunchyroll News, a new Cutie Honey anime is heading our way in 2018! Waaah! Called Cutie Honey Universe, I’m with Go Nagai, I wonder how Cutie Honey will look in these times. 

Also from Crunchyroll, the Revolutionary Girl Utena BD box set from Nozom/RightStuff has been delayed.

To celebrate the release of a new Blu-Ray set in Japan, Digimon Tamers is being rebroadcast on Japanese TV. 

Other News

Universal Studios Japan is opening a Sailor Moon attraction, according to a report on Crunchyroll News.

ANN reports on the Revolutionary Girl Utena Musical, with main visuals. 

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news 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

Having found success with the most exploitative series in Comic Yuri Hime, Ichijinsha is trying again with Tachibanakan To Lie Angle (立花館To Lieあんぐる). This perve-fest of cameltoes and breast shots is getting an anime according to Comic Natalie. As with NTR, I won’t be watching or covering this here. It’s another series that is physically repulsive to me. (I’ll point out only that Comic Natalie also basically calls it a “perve-fest.”)

Tomoyo is her usuall over-excited self in anticipation of the new Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc anime in this promotional video.

Via Crunchyroll News, Funimation has announced simuldubs for both Cardcaptor Sakura and citrus . Crunchyroll will be streaming citrus with subtitles. I didn’t see news that they are streaming CCS, but I’d assume so, in any case.

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Yuri Manga

Viz has a lovely video in honor of the release of Shimura Takako’s Sweet Blue Flower series. 

Via YNN Correspondent M, take a look at this conversation between Bloom Into You‘s creator Nakatani Nio and Takemiya Keiko about expressing love and gender in manga. (Clearly something I need to read after my thoughts in yesterday’s review!)

Kickstarter News

Great news from our friend Niki Smith. Her serial Crossplay is being Kickstarted (already more than fully funded with days left) to be collected into a full-sized Erotic Graphic Novel from Iron Circus Comics. This is a bandwagon worth jumping on!

Other News

For something fascinating and tangential to us here, this video of Keridwen N. Luis, Naked Among the Karma Eaters: The Body Politics of Women’s Lands presented at the Boston Athenæum, on Dec. 5. 2017 is full of interesting discussion of body politics among women’s groups.

Kakinouchi Narumi is going to resurrect (see what I did there?) Vampire Princess Miyu in a news series, Vampire Princess Miyu – Saku, according to Crunchyroll News’ Paul Chapman. Whee! That was a great, creepy, occasionally super gay series of the 1980s and 90s.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news 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!

Lots of exciting news this week!

Yuri Anime

Our top story is that Takashima Hiromi’s series Asagao to Kase-san anime OVA is going to kick off with theater premieres, starting in Ikebukuro, in Tokyo. (Remember once again the significance of that choice over Akihabara. Ikebukuro is the location of Otome Road and is the home of the “women-focused” Animate HQ.)

Thanks to YNN correspondent Verso S, we also have more details on other theater showings. Verso writes:

Ticket pre-sale starts January 13. “Slightly lower price on those advance tickets than for other pre-orders of movie tickets. I’ve been tempted to consider that as a very vague indication about the film’s length – but that may well be an entirely wrong way to look at this. A very long way to say the length of this “OVA” hasn’t been mentioned, yet, as far as I could tell.”

“Tokyo and Osaka are well represented on the list of cinemas while in many regions in Japan the OVA will open in one theatre. Limited numbers of screenings and venues combined with an announced short time period the films might be available in those theatres will probably mean that reception will be difficult to track and there’s going to be more speculation. I hope even more cities will be added based on the response to pre-sales and based ultimately on butts in seats come June.”

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Yuri Manga

Via Comic Natalie, Pocket Shounen Magazine offers something I can’t wait to read – a Yuri manga about women’s boxing. Abe Rei’s Magnum Lily (マグナムリリィ) follows Higuchi Yuri, 15 years old, as she gets involved in  the sport of boxing. You can read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 online (in Japanese) for free.

Also from Comic Natalie, Kovachi Luka’s Hana ni Arashi (はなにあらし) is a story about two high school girls who are lovers, but are keeping their relationship secret from Shounen Sunday magazine. The first three chapters are available online (in Japanese).

One more Comic Natalie report, Tanabe Usoumi’s Eden no Otome (エデンの処女) is a story set in a world where everyone is a woman. Take a look at chapters online (in Japanese) from Comic Ruelle.

Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 25 (楽園Le Paradis) is premiering a couple of new Yuri Manga. Available in print or digitally on Bookwalker Global.

Live-Action News

Probably the biggest news of the week in the larger picture is that Tagame Gengoroh-sensei’s My Brother’s Husband is getting a live-action miniseries adaptation on Japanese TV network NHK BS! Komatsu-san over at Crunchyroll News has the details.

Yuri Visual Novel

Via YNN Correspondent Alice D., Fruibat Factory is releasing Yuri Visual Novelcalled  Seabed,. This VN about a girl and a ghost is slated for a December 19 release and pre-orders are open now. Check out the trailer on Youtube.

Other News

Via YNN Corrspondent Verso S. once again, NPR’s Best Books of 2017 includes Kabi Nagata’s My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness. and My Brother’s Husband.  These two books have blown the lid off the need for good LGBTQ manga.

The Daily Beast has a fantastic article on Elsa Gidlow, the person to publish the first book of lesbian love poetry in America.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news 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!