As of today I am once again unemployed. I won’t burden you with details except to say that it was the second most diffcult decision in my entire life to date. It’s been a horrible four months, and I’m really hoping to move forward with all of the things I had to set aside in that time. Like, my life.

In the meantime, I wanted to share these hideously bad photos with you. They were taken on a moving train, so sorry, really blurry. But more excellent examples of wtf train advertising.

This advertisiement is supposed to be extolling the virtues of Pennsylvania. Could there be anything less appealing than some guy stading in front of a raggedy pup tent in his skivvies with an elk (elk, are you kidding me?) staring him down. Gosh Penna, I’m like, right there!

This is the ad I mentioned before. It’s for Pom’s chocolate coffee drink. The tagline is something like “for real wakey-wakey-upedness” or something equally as awful. The eggs have eyes and are *jittering* from too much caffeine. I want to point out that, although you probably can’t see it in this picture, the flame under the pan is on. On! Those egg eyes are frying right in front on us! Blecch.

I will never, ever again say that Tokyo train advertising is weird, having now seen NJ Transit advertising.

No review today.Instead I want to do something unusual and post about a non-Yuri related thing that happened on the train this week, because it was *hilarious.*

On Tuesday morning, I was sitting on the train during my morning commute. A little girl got on with a backpack on her back and a pink plastic handbag on one arm. Very seriously, she started to rummage around the handbag, looking for something – obviously something important. After a moment, she pulled out…a pair of Groucho Marx glasses. Still totally serious she put them on.

I asked her if I could take her picture and she agreed. Here it is.

I hope it makes you giggle. I’ve been laughing about it all week.

Now that I ride the train all the time, I’ve begun to notice that NJ train advertising is no less bizarre than Tokyo train advertising. I’ll see what I can do about getting some pictures of the weirder ones and posting them for you from time to time. Like the Pom Chocolate Iced Coffee ad with the two eggs in a frying pan that are eyes…totally freakish.

Erica is on vacation this week. She will have sporadic access to the internet, so has thoughtfully supplied reviews ahead of time for you to be entertained and/or outraged by. Comment approval and replies will undoubtedly be delayed while she eats lobster rolls and steals rocks from protected sites.

Thanks once again to everyone who sent in questions for this edition of “Now This is Only My Opinion,” in which I answer completely random questions for no reason other than we all find it amusing when I do. :-) Let’s get to it…

Have any of Yoshiya Nobuko’s works been translated into English?

Not that I am aware of. I know that chunks of Yaneura no Nishojo were translated by Hiromi Tsuchiya for her paper “Yoshiya Nobuko’s Yaneura no nishojo (Two Virgins in the Attic): Female-Female Desire and Feminism”, and I remember discussing some years ago a translation of her Hana Monogatari with Dr. Frederick, but haven’t heard anything since. I think that if someone *did* do a translation, you’d all be disappointed, because her writing is very early 20th century. Like when you read Lady Chatterly’s Lover in school because it had been banned and was scandalous, and then didn’t see what the big deal was. lol

Besides Seirei no Moribito (which, indeed, is very awesome), what other recent non-yuri anime series have you enjoyed?

I watch and read quite a bit of non-Yuri, I just don’t review it here. ;-) I think the two anime that I’m following right now that are not at all Yuri, but are very enjoyable are Black Lagoon (Balalaika is my role model) and Ni-mensou no Musume. Neither are Yuri, but both are action series that star strong, competent women.

Do you find there are different character types in yuri aimed at different audiences? What are they?

Different audiences in Japan are defined by gender and age, so the portrayal of Yuri characters fall along the lines of what that audience expects in *any* anime or manga targeted to them. Kids series will have a different kind of Yuri than shows for an older audience, series for girls, women, boys and men all have quite specific tropes that have been developed in the several decades each genre has been in existence. I wrote a bit about some of the typical tropes one sees in shoujo vs shounen in this post about Yuri.

Is there yuri series that even casual fans can identify that automatically synominous to the yuri genre?

Nope. See above. And remember, what you see as definitely positively Yuri, I might not see as having any at all. Because “Yuri” spans all ages and audiences, what some people see as definitively Yuri others don’t. In my experience, the series that Western fans have used as their gateway Yuri most often are these, in chronological order:

Sailor Moon
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Maria-sama ga Miteru
Kannazuki no Miko
Strawberry Panic

The last is about as close as we can come right now to a series that is synonymous with “Yuri” in most people’s minds. More’s the pity.

Can we ask the same question to the same casual fans about the one series they automatically think of that’s yuri?

Same answer as above. Everyone is going to interpret Yuri based on their own unique interests. Yaoi/BL is a specific genre designed to appeal to a homogenous audience of gender and age, so it has very specific tropes and conventions that appeal to that crowd. There’s a huge difference from a 15-year old straight boy’s idea of “Yuri” and a 42-year old lesbian woman’s.

Why are butchy characters (like Utena, Haruka, and Plica) usually the “uke” and femme characters (Anthy, Michiru, and Mari) usually the “seme” in yuri relationships? Is there a cultural reason, or some basis in an early influential yuri title?

I think it’s because in real lesbian relationships, the femme tends to be the one who calls the shots. As I once said to a group of Japanese lesbians in Tokyo – my wife is the Queen of the Universe and I live to serve.

What’s your favorite yuri manga of all time?

Always a tough question, because I don’t do favorites. I like what I am reading right now best. Right now, my favorite is Gunjou by Nakamura Chin.

What do you think are the chances of Strawberry Shake Sweet being made into, if not an anime series, at least an OVA (in light of the adaption of mangas like Blue Drop and Shoujo Sect)?

You’re comparing apples and oranges. The magazines that publish Blue Drop and Shoujo Sect appeal to and sell to a COMPLETELY different audience than Yuri Hime. Considering that we haven’t gotten an anime of Hayashiya’s infinitely more popular and better selling Hayate x Blade, not that good. So far Ichijinsha hasn’t attempted to make anime from any of the Yuri Hime titles.

If you could take one yuri anime to a deserted island with you, which title would you choose?

The Drama CDs for Kntonoha no Miko to Kotodama no Majyo to. These never fail to make me smile like a complete freak, because they are so wonderful.

What the hell am I supposed to use pencil boards for?

The usual use in the West is for decoration, but I use them as a thin, flat, smooth surface to write upon which is what they were intended for, I believe. I’ve got some friends who are professional editors who I’ve converted to the use of pencil boards during editing and proofreading. They work perfectly for that. The point being that when you are writing on top of a stack of paper, your writing utensil doesn’t push through to the pages below. The wife posits that they were probably developed for use with workbooks.

What is your opinion about the upcoming Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha movie?

I won’t have an opinion until after I’ve seen it, but I do wish they were doing a StrikerS movie instead. :-)

And to my wife, who also asked me a question for this Q&A, my answer is, “Yes.” :-)

***

That’s it this time! As always that was loads of fun. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions! We’ll do it again – eventually!

I *will* make the rest of the data available to you at some point, as promised. But I have a load of work to get done this week and next looks worse, so you’ll just have to wait. :-)

In the meantime, I thought you might get a kick of knowing who you are.

Okazu readers are female (70%) (which surprised me quite a bit) as likely to be straight (31%) as lesbian (30%) or bi (26%), between 18-25 (47%) and from the United States (49%). (A message to a few of you who chose “Other” – Alaska and Hawaii *are* part of the US. LOL)

You are likely to read Okazu a couple of times a week (75%), with almost half of you reading me at nearly every update (44%) – and thank you for that.

Here’s the thing that didn’t surprise me at all – 60% of Okazu readers have bought anime or manga in the last *month*, with 25% having bought in the last week. I was convinced that you, more than any other audience in the whole world, were likely to be active consumers and I am very gratified to find that my assumption was correct. On behalf of anime and manga companies everywhere, thank you. :-)

Another surprise is that reviews of Japanese anime and manga were the top reason (18%) y’all read here. This was a close race with more than 5 reasons coming in at about 15%.

.75% of you wish you didn’t have to read me, but don’t know where else to look. To you I say, look up Yuribou on Google. He’s got the guy’s perspective on Yuri you’d rather read. ^_^

Slightly more than 25% of you use Okazu as your only news source. This was surprising – and a little alarming! ^_^ Most of you (75%) go elsewhere and the usual suspects, AnimeNewsNetwork and Anime on DVD at the head of the pack and a HOST of other sources listed. I’ll see what I can do about collating those into a list of some sort.

And lastly, just slightly over half (51%) of you don’t attend any anime events at all, so just slightly less than half (49%, duh) do.

To sum up, you are a cute 22 year old girl, who buys anime and manga, lives in Ohio, is named Jessica, reads Okazu voraciously and will drop by the Yuricon table at Otakon. I look forward to meeting you there. ^_^

***

While I have your attention, I am now soliciting questions for the 6th “Now This Is Only My Opinion” question and answer segment. Ask me anything, and I’ll do my best to answer as many questions as possible. You can put them in the comments here or send them to me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with the subject line “Q&A”.

I won’t promise to answer every queston, but they can be about anything. Feel free to ask about anime or manga, but don’t hesitate to ask something better. :-)

I have really enjoyed the last 5 versions of this, so I’ll look forward to your questions and the 6th iteration!

Thanks, Jessica. :-)