Archive for the Yuri Monogatari Category


YM6 Launch Party & Events Update

April 18th, 2009

I am of course, not “out of office.” I am getting ready for the Yuri Monogatari 6 Launch Party tomorrow at the Rare Flix store in the Secaucus Outlets.

Join JD Glass, Rica Takashima, Althea Keaton, Jessie B and some of the staff behind ALC Publishing for a late-late brunch, Yuri anime and lots of great conversation!

I will therefore not be posting a news report tomorrow, because I plan on sleeping in and kicking back. I’ll see you all tomorrow anyway. :-)

Going forward, you should probably know that ALC is *not* planning on being at Otakon this year, but we do plan on hitting up Anime Las Vegas 2009 – the furthest west we’ve made it since Anime Expo in 2002.

We do hope to be at AnimeNEXT and MangaNEXT as usual, barring disaster.

In any case, don’t expect a post again until Sunday at the very earliest. Have a lovely weekend and see you in Secaucus!





Yuri News This Week – April 11, 2009

April 12th, 2009

Two quick things: One, I am working in an office again, so until I get settled reviews may be sporadic. I have a ton to review, I’m just running out of time to do it all. :-)

Secondly, in **one week** we are having the Yuri Monogatari Launch Party at the Rare Flix store in Secaucus, NJ. The party is open to everyone, and we’ll talking, watching and reading Yuri all night long, so please, please feel free to stop by and meet the artists and staff of Yuri Monogatari 6! The Media Blaster folks will have the store open, so you’ll be able to by Simoun, Strawberry Panic and more! Bring friends – the more the merrier!

Now on to serious stuff.

Yuri Manga

Aurora, the American imprint of Oozora Publishing (publishers of lesbian-themed ladies comic Mist back in the 90s) is up against the wall, as are all the American manga publishers right now. Yes, including ALC. We need to sell about another 500 copies of YM6 to break even. It’s a cold, harsh reality fans don’t care about but, it is a very real issue for publishers every day. Aurora is doing a deep discount sale on *everything* they publish, including Hitohira. So if Mugi’s struggle against shyness, or Nono and Mirei’s intensity appeal to you, consider jumping aboard the Aurora wagon and buying direct!

And, yes, ALC will be doing something similar, as *soon* as I have a second to spend some time on it. So look for a sale on ALC books shortly.

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Yuri Anime

The spring season offers us a cute mahjong anime called Saki which stars Kana Ueda as the lead voice actress and a Hikaru no-go-esqu intense friend/rival with whome Saki is easily slashed. And since Saki has been out as a manga for a while, I expect they already have been.

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Yuri Light Novel

After the riveting excitement of the last few Ichijinsha Iris novels, I was wondering if they sold well enough to bother printing more. Wel that answer appears to be – yes! A new Yuri Light Novel is coming out that tops off the scale on having almost every “Yuri” trope possible. Girls’ School, mysterious girl, Prince of the school…everything but the teacher on the motorcycle. We can still hope. :-) Oh, the title? see if you can not roll your eyes: Otome ha Hana ni Koi o Suru. No, I couldn’t not roll my eyes, either. lol

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Snatches of Yuri

Urapan is instantly reminiscent of Lucky Star. If you can imagine the LS girls in a music club, you’re not far off, apparently. :-)

Snow White- Kimi ni Mau Yuki takes place in a school for maids(?) in that fantasy land where there are no men, but there are romantic onee-sama relationships.

Tenzen Aluminum appears to be out of the same mold as Natural Four Color Heroines, but it is actually a “slightly” explicit 4-koma manga that is, according to one of my sources, “pleasing to the eye.” His eye and mine don’t always agree, but it’s nice to know. :-)

Sekai Seifuku Kirara Joshikan School. Crushes. Underwear. You know the drill.

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We’ll call it a wrp for this week. Thanks as always for all your support and here’s to see you all next week at the Launch Party!!





Yuri News This Week – March 14, 2009

March 14th, 2009

Happy Π Day!

Yuri Events

You are invited to join Rica Takashima, J.D. Glass, Althea Keaton, Jessie B. and the cast and crew for a Yuri Mongatari 6 for a Launch Party on April 18th, 2009 at the Rare Flix store in Secaucus, NJ. This event is co-hosted by Yuricon and Media Blasters, and will include the premiere of our “Yuri Monogatari 6” video trailer, and plenty of Yuri anime on the TVs! We’ll be there from 7PM til will throw you out, so stop by! Bring friends! Buy Yuri!

Sakuracon announces Serial Experiments Lain‘s Yoshitoshi Abe as a guest. Ask him whether Lain and Alice were a couple – I’m sure he’s never been asked that, before. :-)

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Yuri Manga

y_y let me know that the doujinshi circle Sakuraike will be publishing a mass market collection of their adorable Yuri series, Tact. It’ll be available in July. This is honestly very, very cool news for them. As soon as there’s info for purchasing the book, you can be sure I’ll make it available to you.

You’ve probably heard of this already, and I think I even mentioned it before, but – Moonphase says that there may be Sasamekikoto anime, and 2chan is all over it, endlessly. Will it be reality? Who knows.

Comic Yell, the “Shoujo magazine for Boys” from Hobunsha (publisher of Tsubomi,) is ending, leaving no competetition is Comic Hai (home of Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends.) I wonder if Tsubomi is meant to take up that slack….

Here’s some Yuri Manga you want to pick up this month!

Rakka Ryuusui 4

Sasamekikoto 4

Ichigo Mashimaro 6

Yuri Hime S, Volume 8

Of course all of these have been added to the Yuricon Shop, as well.

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Other News

I attended the KRAZY! exhibit at Japan Society a couple od days ago. The exhibit is very small and, because of the lack of context for it, it appeared to me to be the zOMG! moments of a person’s anime/manga interest. As it turns out, there was a huge western component to it that had to be cut out for space. The original exhibit was much larger and talked more about the evolution and convergence of visual culture and zeitgeist to make an explosion of concepts that defy cultural hegemony to create a kind of translocal modernism. (Words from Ueno-sensei one of the lecturers the night I attended.) It might seem a tad pretentious, but if you take a moment to parse it – so exactly right. :-) I want to thank translator Mari Morimoto for asking me to accompany her.

I got to meet Roland Kelts of Japanamerica, who did a very very good job of speaking to an audience that was half Japan Society members with no understanding of anime or manga and half anime and manga fans with no understanding of Japanese art.

Lastly for today, Riyoko Ikeda has been awarded the French Legion of Honor for her efforts promoting French history through Rose of Versailles. Hopefully that will inspire everyone involved to get that movie completed already!

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It’s also Einstein’s birthday today and White Day, so take a moment today to celebrate art and science, math and language and the power of the human mind.

See you next week. :-)





Yuri News This Week – December 20, 2008

December 20th, 2008

Yuricon and ALC Publishing

The pre-order for Yuri Monogatari 6 is officially up on the refurbished Yuricon Shop! ALC Publishing now has a page for direct orders for 100% Yuri.

And we’ve migrated the Japanese Drama CDs page on the Shop to the new format! This weekend, I’m going to try and get the English Manga page to the new format, to make shopping for Yuri Manga in English a painless and pleasurable process. :-)

YM6 has a place holder on Amazon now, as well; pre-order coming soon. :-) You can sign up for updates about the availability of YM6 on Amazon.com.

We’ve updated the Yuricon Toolbar with new links and new widgets. This toolbar includes a customized “Yuri Search” and present RSS feeds so you can stay up on anime and manga news without lifting a finger. :-)

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Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll announces that you can watch legally, licensed, streaming episodes of Steel Angel Kurumi and the even more Yuri Steel Angel Kurumi 2!

The director and team that brought us R.O.D. – Read or Die are working on a full-length feature film of unknown content. Might be something to look forward to…might not. lol

Canada’s YTV will be showing Futari ha PreCure. It still amazes me that western Yuri fans haven’t glommed onto this series yet. It’s totally derivative and has the world’s most annoying “cute” mascots, but the Yuri isn’t exactly subtle. lol

And Anime Vice notes that Konno Oyuki is being credited as “Supervisor” for the 4th season of Maria-sama ga Miteru, which is a leap past “consultant” or “anime based on novels by” as in previous seasons. Read more on Anime Vice’s Winter 2009 Anime Preview. Looks like we’ll get service in a few of the series, but no substance.

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Other Yuri-ish News

Not really Yuri, but totally GLBTI-frendly. Fans of comic artists Abby Denson and Colleen Coover will want to take a look at their collaboration for Spiderman Family 3 which is now available at comic stores. Aunt May as the Amazing Spiderman. I mean, really, who wouldn’t want that? lol

And also not “Yuri” per se, but if you like your women animated, and are looking for a game that is a little off the beaten track, JILL-OFF might appeal to you. It’s simple, silly and about boot-licking, Queen-loving warrior of love and justice, Jill and her adventures defending her beloved Queen’s Tower. It’s so cute that I was almost tempted to try and play it. :-)

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Snatches of Yuri

Amazingly, Wild Bouquet: The Flower Whose Name Spells Hope is indeed a sequel to the other Wild Bouquet Light Novel, so we can learn what happens to Deriana and Josette after they sneak away from rigid-gender-role-land. Who knows – they might even kiss this time!

Takahashi Mako apparently left her creepy kids home for her new collaboration, Seinen no tame no Dokusho Kurabu.

And Abunai! Tosho-inchou! looks to be a perfect gift for the Kokoro Library fan in your life, or anyone you know who feels that librarians ought to wear maid outfits. Personally…I’m all for the military librarians of Toshokan Sensou, but that’s just me. lol

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That brings us to the end of another wonderful week o’Yuri! Keep the news items coming please – email me at anilesbocon at hotmail dot com with any Yuri news that comes your way!





Yuri Manga: Sneek Peek at Yuri Monogatari 6!

December 19th, 2008

It’s just about that time again, when we roll out a fantastic new all-Yuri anthology. Yuri Monogatari 6 is available on Amazon and directly through the Yuricon Shop.

In the meantime, I wanted to give you a glimpse in between the covers, so you can get an idea of what you’ll be seeing this year!

 

 

 

 

We are very excited to have Circle UKOZ returning with their beautiful and subtle stories. The book starts off with two stories by Nishi UKO: “Grass” and “Make a Style,” both of which are sequels to the story in Yuri Monogatari 5, following teachers Zuka-chan and Enomoto in their relationship.

Newcomer Maria Bieganska has drawn a surreal and evocative story about loss, need and love in her tale “40 Minutes.” Sample of the art can be seen to the left. It’s dreamlike and beautiful.

 

 

 

 

In “Sakura Gun,” lesbian novelist J.D. Glass tells us a tale of the epic fight against evil and to protect the ones you love, in this side story to her newest novel American Goth. Sample on the right.

Mike Hayes and I have teamed up together to teach you “How to Tell The Difference” – because we’re pretty sure you all need the help. lol

In “Miho-chan’s Memories,” Rica Takashima looks back at little Miho’s early years, to point out that some things are just…obvious. lol

Sobiyuki and SirKozz’s collaboration “Jaded” (on the left here) is a classic gangster flick/film noir with guns, beautiful but deadly dames and a twist or two.

What do you get the girl who has *everything*? Althea Keaton ponders this age-old conundrum in “For the Girl Who Has Everything.”

Houjo KOZ, the second half of Circle UKOZ takes a long, hard look at exactly what “love” means through the words of a popular singer who never stops to think about what she’s saying, in “Sinful.”

A party, a major misunderstanding and a looooong list of “Univited Guests” cause humorous chaos in Jessie’s B’s world of cracked characters.

 

Coming out isn’t really ever simple – and in “Simple,” (seen on the right) Sophia Kudo reminds us that sometimes our sexuality isn’t the only thing we’re dealing with.

Greyscaled’s “Speak Love” is a look at the end of a relationship – and the ironic turn that it takes to put it back together.

And we end the anthology off this time with a lovely, poignant story by Eriko Tadeno about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of a really long term relationship in “30th Christmas.”

Several other extremely talented individuals have also contributed to this volume: Susan Knowles, Sirk Tani and cover artist Kristina Kolhi have all provided art for our viewing pleasure.

There you have it – an early sneek peek at the upcoming Yuri Monogatari 6!