Archive for the Okazu News Category


Okazu News: We’re the Top!

December 12th, 2007

I’ve been getting a lot of email these days on how impossibly cool Okazu is. I can’t say this displeases me. LOL

This week we got two pieces of particularly ego-gratifying email.

Okazu is being included in an upcoming book, Top 500 Blogs by online dating blogger Vicky Zhou. The book is slated for release in Q4 2008; Okazu will be included in the “Animation & Media” section.

And this morning I learned that Okazu is coming in in the Top 3 blogs at Inside Manga. According to the website, Okazu is one of the hottest blogs on manga. Okay, I accept graciously. :-)

So thanks to Vicki, Inside Manga, Cole Porter and to all of you for making Okazu the top! I look forward to writing more reviews and hearing more from all of you. :-)





News from the Yurisphere

November 7th, 2007

A couple of news items of interest that I wanted to throw your way today!

Eriko Tadeno, author/artist of the collection Works, and contributor to Yuri Monogatari 5, has been interviewed by Polish magazine “Comix Grrrlz.” Thanks to Sylwia for the link! This review is in Polish, so don’t be surprised.

Dedicated reader and Yuri fan Eric P points out that Love My Life, the live action movie based upon the Yuri manga of the same name by Yamaji Ebine, (here’s my review of the movie) has been starting to pop up at Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Film Festivals in North America. It’s already been screened in Tampa and at Outfest. ANN Previously reported that Wolfe Video licensed it, so keep an eye out for a North American release.

Download the new Yuricon toolbar! In the never-ending quest to provide both good information and a lively community, I have developed a Yuricon toolbar which is now available for download at: http://yuricon.communitytoolbars.com/. There are toolbar versions for M$IE and Firefox, which works on Linux and Macs, I’ve been told. The toolbar includes a search box, messaging, an Okazu headline ticker and a Yuricon Chat. (I’ve been looking to do a chat for some time and this seemed like an interesting experiment.) The rules of the chat are the same as those on the Yuricon Mailing List.

The search box utilizes the custom Yuri search engine I built – which is also located on the Yuricon Site Map, so the results will be very anime/manga-centric. You can also search for reusults within the Yuricon site, as well.

Feel free to download and play around with it – tell friends who are interested in Yuri and want to chat, send messages or just search for Yuri online. :-)

And thanks to eagle-eyed Erin S. for pointing out that a Spanish scanlation group has received permission from Rica Takashima to scanlate Rica ‘tte Kanji!? in Spanish. I know that Yuri has a huge Spanish-speaking following, so cool for them! :-) And thanks to Erin for the news! Here’s the link to the thread on the CoYuHi forums.





Okazu on Wikipedia

September 23rd, 2007

Okay – I need your help. Okazu has been increasingly cited in Wikipedia entries and I want to collect a bibliography of them all. Some of them are incredibly silly, and some are vaguely interesting – most are just references to my reviews.

Here are some of the cites that I know of off the top of my head from the English Wiki:

Yuri_term
Kashimashi Girl meets Girl
Maria-sama ga Miteru
Shiroi Heya No Futari
Okazu
Strawberry Panic!
Madlax
Strawberry Marshmallow
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
.hack/Sign
Sukeban Deka
Yuri Hime
The Last Uniform
Claudine
Bee Train
Simoun (anime)
The Sword of Paros
Strawberry_Panic! (short stories)
Anata no Scandal
Oniisama e…
Shoujoai_ai
Falling_of_Blossoms
Pieta (manga)
Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo

(I suppose I ought to alphabetize all that but I’m not going to…)

There used to be an entry on me, but I edited it to add a bit about Okazu and it disappeared slightly afterwards. (Anyone feels like putting it back up, you have my blessing. It failed for “lack of notability.” Write me and we’ll write a better entry. lol)

There’s also links from the Russian Yuri and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou entries.

Yuricon has a stub entry (I’ve got way too much on my plate to do a more detailed one, so again, if anyone wants to expand it, go right ahead!) and is cited in the Yuri entries in English, Russian, Italian
November 15 2007 Note: And my big excitment for the day – I’ve made it into the Japanese wikipedia as a reference for the Simoun entry. Woo!

Here’s what I need from you all – as you scan Wikipedia, can you comment here with links for the various entries where Okazu is cited? I can’t remember half of them – and I’d like to have a record of them all. Thanks to all of you – it’ll be a big help. :-)





Okazu News: 5th anniversary ahoy!

August 7th, 2007

I just happened to notice last night that we are only a few posts away from the 800th post here on Okazu and, coincidentally, one week from today is Okazu’s 5th anniversary. (No, I won’t be forcing the two things to land on the same day.)

Wow.

800 rambling, incoherent opinions about nothing much, over 5 years! What a total waste of time. LOL On the other hand, I have met many, many of you, my dear readers, and that has been a pleasure and not a waste of time at *all*.

Since we have a week left and I love prezzies, how about some 5th anniversary art? I think it would be nice if the art illustrated the theme “Hungry for Yuri? Have some Okazu” in some way. It could be the blog seen on a computer screen, a word in an ad, a typical Okazu meal being shared by two women, or the faboo Yuri Okazu designed by my wife (which can be seen above and has a place of honor in the in the downloadable banner on the sidebar or the scrolling headline banner the bottom of the page) as part of the picture. However you want. Fan or original art (fan art of Yuriko and Midori or any series, whatever you want.)

You can email any 5th anniversary art to me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail.com . Include contact information, please, because there’s a high likelihood that I’ll send out a thank-you prize or two. :-)

Good lord. 5 years of this. lol





Guest Review Guidelines

July 12th, 2007

2021 Update: Guest Reviews on Okazu are paid at what is currently an industry standard. As a result we are more strict about Guest Review applications and submissions. Please read and follow the process below carefully: 

If you would like to write a Guest Review for Okazu, please begin here before you contact us!

1) If you have never been a Guest Reviewer before, please email me *first*. Introduce yourself. “Hello, my name is _____ and I am writing to discuss a possible Guest Review for /name of series and media/.” Anime, manga or games only please. Games and Visual Novels are especially welcome. 

Please send a request for *one* series to review. (Folks have been known to send suggestions for multiple series. Please do not. Thank you.)

Please also do a quick search using the search function on the righthand sidebar to see if the media you’re contacting me about has already been reviewed. We have a lot of content on Okazu, we may have covered it already. ^_^

 

If you have previously Guest Reviewed and are suggesting a review, you can begin here:

2) Suggest a series that you have legitimately purchased or watched on a legal stream. No subs or scans or games that were downloaded illicitly. Remember, at Okazu, we support the industry and the creators. 

3) What should follow is a short discussion of *why* that series suitable as a review topic for Okazu – i.e., where’s the Yuri or Queer content and why it is of interest to Okazu readers. This is the meat of your “audition” so please, I beg you, keep your email relevant. Spell check it, make sure the grammar is correct. It is upon this section that I will be making my decision. (This is unnecessary if I have specifically solicited a review for a series from you.)

 

If you have have been solicited to write a review you can start here:

4) DO NOT EMAIL ATTACHMENTS. I hate, loathe and abhor attachments. When you email the review, you MUST send it as inline text, so I can cut and paste it. If you make me open an attachment I will be very grouchy. 500 words is average for a review, but we’re not counting, so you don’t have to be anal. If you can write a succinct review in a couple hundred words, feel free, or go longer if you have a lot to say.

5) Please use the format I use for Okazu and include ratings as I do. The format is, roughly: 

– Personal Intro and links to your relevant sites.
– Series Intro and
Synopsis.
– Notable Items of Interest. If there are any. For instance, this is where you might discuss the art or a theme, etc.
Discussion of the Yuri/Queer content
– Ratings.

If it is an obscure, out-of-print or hard-to-find series, a cover picture or a link to a cover picture would be nice, as well. If it is currently available I’ll use the official cover art.

Ratings on Okazu are from 1-10 on categories:
Art
Story
Characters
Service (level of salaciousness)
Yuri 
Overall
You can also add in ratings for notable qualities like music for an anime. Ratings may be as capricious as you like. The Overall score does not have to be an average of the other scores. The Overall score is a general effect/overall impression score.

 

6) Please proofread your review before you send it. Have a friend proofread it or read it out loud. 

Lastly – being a Guest Reviewer on Okazu is an honor. I do not bestow it lightly. I may reject your review. It is most likely not personal. Either I did not feel that the series was worthy, or your review needed improvement or I want to review that anime/manga myself or something else. Please don’t take it personally. 

7) If your review is accepted payment will be made through Paypal. You can include your Paypal email with your review. ^_^ We won’t demand formality. If you send out invoices for your own records, that’s fine.

We welcome Guest Reviewers on Okazu and look forward to working with you! Thank you to all our Okazu Patrons for making it possible to pay Guest Writers the industry standard!