Archive for the Events Category


It’s Time for a Yuri Celebration!

August 13th, 2021

I’m taking the rest of this week and weekend off to do a couple of things:

Celebrate the Yuricon Community’s 20th Anniversary Online Event. There are a small number of spaces left before tomorrow’s event at 8AM Eastern US Time, so if you haven’t registered yet, please register today.

Work on the next Yuri Studio video (Gateway Yuri Anime, Part 3!)

Work on By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga, because we are coming on a deadline for this part of the process.

And watch the last Evangelion movie. I’m an otaku, after all.

I’ll see you on Zoom tomorrow!

 





Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 31, 2021

July 31st, 2021

Yuri Events

HUGE NEWS! Join us for a special Yuricon 20th Anniversary Discussion – Global Yuri Fandom, with James Welker and Verena Maser, hosted by Erica Friedman.

We are adapting our Mechademia panel, so if you missed us all presenting about our various research into Yuri fandom and how it’s changed, you’ll get your chance to hear us and ask us questions online, and free! ^_^

When: Aug 14, 2021 08:00 Eastern Time (US and Canada), 13:00 BST, 21:00 JST (Japan).

Registration is free, but there is limited space, so please register early. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. I hope to see you there!

 

Yuri Manga

Playing some catch up this week! First, we have a couple of new items up on the Yuricon Store:

Cocoon Entwined, Volume 3, out from Yen Press is now available in English and the story is becoming more compelling and creepy.

The Whole of Humanity Has Gone Yuri Except for Me is out now also from Yen Press. This is a sci-fi story in which a girl finds herself in a world where everyone is in a Yuri relationship. And yet, I bet there isn’t a single lesbian. /eyeroll./

Ami-chan no Nikki (あみちゃんの日記) is a new Galette publication. Yatosaki Haru’s school diary about the prettiest girl in school, is now a collected volume.

Asumi-chan ha Rezu Fuuzoku ni Kyoumi ga Arimasu! (彩純ちゃんはレズ風俗に興味があります!) is a Comic Yuri Hime manga about a woman who…you know what? It’s about sex. The plot is meaningless. It’s just about sex.

Meijou Shigatai Kanojo to, Ano Goro Okubyoudatta Watashi no Hanashi (名状しがたい彼女と、あの頃臆病だった私の話) is a horror series about a withdrawn girl who meets a woman who manipulates monsters.

UDON Entertainment has announced the project I just finished up, Rose of Versailles Episodes, the final 4 “new” volumes of Riyoko Ikeda’s epic. These volumes were drawn for the 40th anniversary of the series, and will be released here as a 2-volume set. They are *fantastic* and I know you will love them. ^_^

 

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Via Comic Natalie, Volume 3 of a series I hadn’t been following at all, Yuri de Naru ♥ Espoir (ゆりでなる♥えすぽわーる), a sory of a girl who draws little Yuri scenarios about women she sees, but who is herself fated to return home and marry, is on sale now and all the various stores in Japan where it can be found are selling it with special goods.

Ane no Shinyuu, Watashi no Koibito (姉の親友、私の恋人。) is, exactly as it sounds, about a love triangle between two sisters and the older sister’s friend, which debuts in Vol. 94 of Kadokawa’s Dengeki Daiouji magazine.

I haven’t had  a chance to read Volume 1 yet, but Volume 2 of the schoolgirl x mermaid Yuri, Watashi o Tabetai, Hitodenashi (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし) is on Japanese shelves.

And surely this deserve an award for squeezing in a few extra current trends, Kukkorose no Himekishi to Nari, Yuri Shoukan de Hataraku koto ni Narimashita (くっ殺せの姫騎士となり、百合娼館で働くことになりました。 ) which I am reading as “To become a female knight I am working in a Yuri brothel,” because omg, no one has lick of imagination, good heavens. <– This is me rolling my eyes so hard I strained them.

 

Yuri LNs

Via Yurimother, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 2 has hit shelves. According to RightStuf, Volume 3 is looking at a November release date.

 

Yuri Anime

ANN’s Alex Mateo has the trailer and news about the upcoming Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Walpurgisnacht: Rising– .

And Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story 2nd Season -Eve of Awakening- OP has premiered and Rafael Antonio Pineda at ANN has details.

I’m also going to draw your attention to Caitlin Moore’s review of Stellvia, an anime that was pretty big in Yuri fandom in the 00s but has been lost to time.  I reviewed it as it came out here, and there was a lot to like and some significant stuff to hate. It has long painful character arcs and the grandest coming out in anime. It’s totally worth a rewatch – and you can get the complete series from Discotek!

 

Yuri Games

Alex Mateo has the detes on Blue Reflection: Second Light with trailer, on ANN.

Via Yuri Navi, Yuri Visual Novel FATAL TWELVE is now available on Switch.

Via press release, Symbiotic Love – Yuri Visual Novel from White Dew Games and Kikai Digital, is now on Steam!

 

Other News

Tor has announced the next book in the Locked Tomb Series, Nona the Ninth in 2022, followed by Alecto the Ninth in 2023.

The California College of the Arts is doing a video series called Comics in the City, featuring folks like Alison Bechdel, the team known as Akira Himekawa, and Emil Ferris.  The videos for this year’s series are online now and I highly recommend them to you.

Folks in Yokohama will be able to enjoy the first Aria art exhibition, Aria the Memoria in late August. Komatsu-san has the details on CR News!

 

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Upcoming Yuri and Queer (and Queer-Adjacent) Events

July 6th, 2021

We have a couple of upcoming Yuri or queer events of interest and I want you all to have time to register and join me virtually. ^_^

I’ll be at Anime Lockdown 2021 on July 10, 3:30 Eastern US Time for Yuri: How It Began – How It’s Going. I’ll be giving a brief history of the genre and talking about the exciting developments in Yuri over the past few years! This is my first Yuri panel since 2019!

I’m not presenting at this, but if you are interested in early Shojo Culture don’t miss the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership in NY’s No Friend to Girls: Kawabata Yasunari and Appropriation of Girls’ Culture with Deborah Shamoon and Melek Ortabasi. on July 15, from 8PM Eastern United States time.

I’ll be virtually joining HYPER JAPAN, in the UK on 26th July, 2021 at 16:00 BST (11:00 EDT, 00:00 JST) for their LBGT+ Japan panel.

If you’re going to be part of a panel or event, contact me so I can add it to our next news report!

 





Save the Date for a Yuricon Community 20th Anniversary Event!

June 18th, 2021

Back in the day, there was a brand-new online community for fans of lesbian characters and stories in Japanese comics and animation. That group was named AniLesboCon mostly as a joke1. By 2001, I was transitioning that name to a new name, one that I hoped would re-connect this new genre to its ties to Japanese lesbian history. In August 2001, I relaunched our website as Yuricon2, a virtual convention and community for fans of what we were now calling “Yuri.”3. Here we are, 20 years later, and still going strong! If anything, we’re stronger than ever, with more Yuri manga and anime coming out in Japan and being translated for a global audience. (Okazu followed a year later, also in August, and I’ve got some ideas for next summer, too.)

Clearly, a 20th anniversary calls for a celebration.

As you may know, I was part of what I believe was the very first Yuri-focused panel at Mechademia this year, at which I was joined by Prof. James Welker and scholar and translator Verena Maser. It was a tremendous honor and a lot of fun. But, because to attend you had to register with Mechademia, we ran into a lot of limits – we had limited access and we couldn’t record the panel. And so, to celebrate the Yuricon community’s 20th anniversary, I invite you to save the date for an exciting event:

Saturday, August 14th, 2021, 21:00 JST (8 AM US EST, 1PM BST) I will be joined once again by James and Verena for a live panel on Yuri!

We will be recreating our panel from Mechademia, Transporting Yuri Across Borders. This panel focuses on challenges and opportunities in the evolution and transformation of Yuri as it is transported across chronological, geographic and linguistic borders. This time we will be able to discuss things more leisurely, take more questions and, hopefully, record the session to be able to post on Yuri Studio later, for folks to watch the whole thing.

Registration will be free, but there will be limited space available. Okazu Patrons will get early access to registration and be able to send in questions beforehand. I want to apologize to folks on the West Coast, this timing is the best we can do to not drag into super late hours for Japan and still be accessible for me on the East Coast. Hopefully some of you early birds will still be able to attend.

I hope to see many of our friends and Patrons there! Links to registration will be posted to Okazu Patrons in July, followed by general registration in August. So, save the date and we’ll see you on August 14th at our Yuricon anniversary event!

***

1Named after the fictitious Animated Lesbian Convention (AniLesboCon) from Dreiser’s fanfic, Scenes From An Elevator.

2This was followed in November by YahooGroups nuking the ALC community in a Yuri/BL/Queer/Porn purge and me re-starting it as Yuricon, a group that survived into late 2010s.

3https://www.yuricon.com/what-is-yuricon/#whatisyuri

 





Yuri Events of Note for May and June

May 11th, 2021

As “con season” opens on this second pandemic year, some cons are still virtual, others are giving virtual a try (and we’re all side-eyeing creepy cons who think we’re going to go to a big public in-person gathering this year. I’ll be staying in for a while, then avoiding big crowds for longer, thank you.) But even if you’re staying in, you can enjoy yourself with some incredible Yuri events. Put these on your calendar!

 

Toronto Comic Arts Festival:

Wednesday, May 12 at 7PM (Eastern NA Time) Deb Aoki will be hosting a discussion with the creator of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and My Alcoholic Escape for Reality. Watch the interview with Kabi Nagata on the TCAF Youtube channel! (I also highly recommend the Loop Sessions panel with DJs doing live mixes as artists do live drawing online. I would 10000% subscribe to a channel of just this. It was brilliant.

 

Mechademia:

June 5 21:00 JST (8 AM US EST, 1PM BST) Join myself, Verena Maser and James Welker at our Mechademia panel, Transporting Yuri Across Borders. As far as I can tell this is the first Yuri-focused panel at the Mechademia conference. The presentations are all going to be available by video after May 15, so when you register, you can watch them any time. Our panel will be for Q&A and I really hope I’ll see some familiar faces in the online crowd.  I will be pie-eyed. I am NOT a morning person. ^_^ This conference costs $30 for non-academic/student participants; it looks pretty amazing. Register here. Registration opens to the public on May 16.

 

CasaCon:

June 25-27 Stay home and join me at CasaCon!
The event is free on Discord. We’ll be talking about inspiring things in pop culture! I’ll be doing my “Secret” History of Yaoi and Yuri panel! Register here.

If you’d like me to be part of your online event, drop me a line! I’d love to join you virtually. ^_^