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!

Catching up on a couple of week’s worth of Yuri News! 

Yuri Anime

ANN reports that anime for Saburouta’s Yuri series Citrus will premiere on Japanese TV on January 6th. No streaming license as of yet for it here in the US, if you have news of it legally streaming in your locality, let us know. Additionally, ANN has news about the Citrus anime theme songs and character voices.

Vixz has announced the release of Sailor Moon Crystal 3rd Season on Blu-ray/DVD combo.

Crunchyroll is on a licensing spree the last few weeks. They’ve added Kiddy Grade and Burst Angel, (aka Bakuetsu Tenshi, notable for having characters named Meg, Jo, Amy and Sei-who-is-not-named-Beth) from the Funimation catalog. Both of these have marginal Yuri, the latter more than the former. Not-Yuri, but of interest to many of us, Crunchyroll has also added ARIA The NATURAL.

Also available in the new year will be the new Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card Arc, (for which Funimation will be producing a dub.) Here’s the lushly animated trailer.

Komatsu-san over at Crunchyroll News says that Toei has announced the next PreCure series – Hugtto! PreCure, which based on its name, is going to be ever-so inspiring to doujinshi artists. Komatsu-san also notes that Toei has created a PreCure 15th anniversary website announcing collaborations and celebrations.

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Not-Yuri, and very likely, not-good either, “gender-bender idol manga” Back Street Girls is getting an anime, that I think ought to be titled, “Many ways to offend women and trans people-a-Gogo” as three street punks getting “sex change operations” and become a girl pop idol group seems like a great way to be obnoxious about both sex and gender for many hundreds of pages.

LGBTQ Manga

Reminding you all that Seven Seas has announced the license of My Solo Exchange Diary by Kabi Nagata, the sequel to My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness. Very interestingly, Seven Seas announced another autobiographical LGBTQ Comic Essay recently, The Bride Was A Boy by Chii, about her life as a transgender woman.

Live-Action News

The Japonisme 2018 event in Paris, France will have an exciting addition this year -a Sailor Moon musical performance! Check out ANN’s report for the details.

My Mom saw Fun Home the Musical last night and thought it very good. She viewed it from the perspective of a mother whose daughter was like Alison, so a completely different perspective than my own, obviously. ^_^ (So, now, both my mother and father have reviews on Okazu. How fun is that?)

Visual Novel News

BL game production site BL Lobby, has announced a Yuri route in their game Hatsukoi Signal. 

Other News

ANN confirms what I guessed, that Torikaebaya by Saitou Chiho will wrap up with the 13th volume (I’m reading Volume 12 now and we are heading for a tempestuous climax.) They also report that she’ll be starting up a new series in April and that the second new Utena chapter will be in the March issue of Flowers magazine, hitting shelves on January 27.

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!