Archive for the Nanoha Category


Yuri Network News – January 30, 2010

January 30th, 2010

This week was the last week of having 4 jobs; as of next week, I’ll be back to my usual 3 at a time. Thank you all for your patience with gaps in reviews. I’m *still* open to guest reviews, so if you have something you’d really like to review here, email me and we can talk!

Before we start, I have a Mystery to Solve. Someone sent me an absolutely *beautiful* doujinshi from Romania. There was no name, no note, no nothing. Can someone claim credit and let me know who to thank?

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Yuri Manga

The pre-order for the first volume of Gunjo is up on Amazon JP. It’s got a February 25 release date.

Ordering from Amazon JP isn’t as hard as it appears, since all the buttons are the same size, color and shape on every Amazon, and the check-out can be displayed in English. However, I know that not everyone is comfortable with the idea of ordering from there. So, to make things easier, I’ll be coordinating a bulk order. I’ll let you know when it’s all set up, but here’s the plan: I’ll set up a link to take orders through Paypal. You’ll have to pay shipping from Japan, the cost of the book, the fees on Paypal and shipping to you. However, you’ll be paying a smaller shipping cost than if you placed the order on your own. You don’t *have* to order this way, I just want to make it easier for you if you want it. :-)

YNN correspondent Sean G. did some great investigative reporting this week, when he contacted Digital Manga Publishing and asked whether they had abandoned the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga. Their response was ‘We still have it. Lyrical Nanoha Strikers will come out this year. Vol. 1 is in September.’ As Sean said, “there you go.”

Octave Voume 4 is up for preorder, and the latest Comic Yuri Hime magazine has already hit the shelves.

The big news is that Morinaga Milk will be doing a color illustration for Yuri Hime. This has excited some hope that she – and therefore Nana and Hitomi’s story – will be returning to the magazine. File that under conjecture and rumor. All it really means is that she’s doing a color illustration.

CANAAN Volume 1 is now available. So far, it pretty closely mirrors the anime, which is both good, and bad.

It’s the Year of Nanoha! The movie is out, with a Number #1 song for Mizuki Nana, and the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid has hit the stands. The story is excellent, the execution gives me nightmares.

For those of us who prefer the adult characters, the first volume of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Force is also available.

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Yuri Artist Interview

Speaking of Yuri manga artist Morinaga Milk (Girl Friends), she answers 10 questions on the Comic High website. These cover important issues like her unusual pen name and what items she keeps around when she’s writing, etc.

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Other News

It’s my pleasure to announce the winner of “Get this thing out of my house! Contest” from last week – Satoshi Miwa. Miwa, can you DM me on Twitter or email me with your address and I’ll get this fine example of unrestrained crap out to you as fast as I can manage? :-)

It’s all the rage to give away manga these days among the manga bloggers – I may make this a regular feature!

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go 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 Network News – December 12, 2009

December 12th, 2009

The holiday season is in full force and buying is reaching frenzied heights – which I’m totally for. Let me see if I can help with some good suggestions for holiday gifts, shall I? ^_^

Yuricon News

The Yuricon 2009 AMV contest is heading into final hours. Please get those entries in soon! We have a fabulous art contest coming up so keep your eyes peeled!

The up-to-40% off sale on 100% Yuri from ALC is also coming to a close. Please get any orders in by Monday, Dec. 15 for Xmas shopping.

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Yuri Anime

RightStuf & Nozomi Entertainment announce the ARIA The Origination Collection for March 2, 2010. The set will include the series’ third (and final) TV season, plus the OVA. For more info, downloads, extras and lots of pretty pictures, visit RightStuf’s Aria website.

Sasamekikoto is heading to the end of a successful first season and to celebrate there will be some contest-like thing you might want to know about. I didn’t mention this, you just *might* want to check back on Wednesday. Just sayin’.

No clue what the anime will be about, but Candy Boy‘s Hoshikawa Takafumi is working on a new, unnamed project, along with Seed Project.

I do not know if there is any intention of bringing this to the west, but in Japan, April will see R.O.D. The COMPLETE BluRay Box set. For this, I might *actually* be tempted to buy a BluRay player and a sound system, but it would probably all be wasted on my craptastic TV. :-) (The wife suggests I put all the components on my Yuri Wish List. lol)

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie The 1st two-minute trailer is streaming live and online for your pleasure. The movie is due out on January 23rd. I think it looks overall good, with some (sadly inevitable) creepiness.

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Yuri Manga

While we’re on the topic, Digital Manga Publishing has licensed the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga and I should probably warn you that Yuri content in that is low to non-existent. If you like Nanoha for itself, it’s good. Don’t go reading it looking for Yuri, you’ll be disappointed.

It’s time for the next issue of Yuri Hime S, featuring “Konohana Link” on the cover and filled with a ton of stuff and even the occasional story about women who like one another. ;-) YHS will hit the streets on December 18.

Kono Koi ha XXX is an anthology of short, PWP stories with Yuri content and sex by an artist who formerly contributed to Yuri Shimai. So you know what you’re in for.

Hayate x Blade Volume 5 is out. I will review it as soon as I can. Trust me – it’s fabulous.

And Nijiburi has been on all the Japanese Yuri lists recently. I’m sure it is relevant to our interests, but I’ve hit the wall on large eyes for the morning. :-)

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Yuri Light Novel

Light Novel Kimi ga Boku wo Doushite Sora ha Aoi no? sounds, gasp! interesting. In a shopping center that was formerly prosperous, a girl finds herself involved in working with (for? as?) a butler to an official, i.e., another girl. The story sounds half typical and half not so much. I might give it a try, just because it has to be better than the LN I’m trying to read right now.

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Other News

From time to time I get requests for suggestions and recommendations for LGBT books. I don’t actually do recommendations of any kind, but I can provide links. I’ll try and do my best to add some good LGBT book links here from time to time. Since it is the holiday season and you may be looking for some LGBT lit other than manga to buy, here are a few sites that may be of interest to you:

GLBT Bookshelf

Bella Books

Bold Strokes Books

Alyson Books

Brisk Press

I hope you find something fun for the LGBTQ-friendly folks in your life. ^_^

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That’s a wrap for this week.

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go 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 News This Week – May 30, 2009

May 30th, 2009

Once again, we are off in a blaze of Yuri!

Yuri Manga

From a conversation on the #lililicious channel on IRC, Erin S is pleased to report two new Yamaji Ebine books, Aoaza Shimi and Ai no Jikan. Be warned however that the second is not Yuri in any way – it’s about a possibly gay girl who falls in love with a definitely gay man after he saves her from being stabbed by a rapist. (It was a really depressing story, I read it for many chapters in Feel Comic.) The first title looks more promising.

Anonymous says that Gunsmith Cats Burst Volume 4 in English is tentatively due out in Autumn 2009 , while Volume 5 is planned for Spring 2010. (Yay!!!!!)

Coming next month from Ichijinsha is Butterfly 69, the collection from Natsuneko. Woot.

And double woot for Hayate x Blade 10 also hitting the shelves next month. The current arc is amazing, btw. :-D

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Yuri Anime

Sean reports back from the Funimation panel at Anime North, where he dutifully asked them about things that I care about. Sadly, they have said that sales for Lyrical Nanoha and Nanoha As have not been very good and so at this time there is no plan for a release of StrikerS. Which makes me wonder, yet again, why the lolicon of Japan are so willing to shell out money and the lolicon of the west so very not. I am not the only person in the industry who is of the opinion that most of the people who screamed bloody murder at the pulling of the Kodomo no Jikan license had no intention of ever buying it. I was discussing why this is with another industry professional at lunch yesterday. I joked that the lolicon here are too busy with their hands down their pants, they didn’t have time to put them in their pockets, but that was only to watch him snort milk. The truth is more complex. The audience in Japan for lolicon is older than it is here, it is less entitled, having not grown up with free downloadable illegal media, but that still isn’t the crux of the issue. In Japan, fans buy to show their love and support for a series and to gain status. They buy official goods and media to be part of the “real fan” club – to show that they are part of the team. In America, fans are mostly just consumers and don’t have any connection with showing loyalty by buying. A hand-made artist’s alley item that clearly is violating IP is *better* than the official item, because it leaves them with more money to buy more and it “supports” fan work – which to western fans is more crucial than supporting companies that make the original.

I can’t answer this, but I wonder if fans here would feel differently if the work was native. If they knew the artists who did the animation, the voices, the production and it was a western company that *made* the work, would they feel more likely to buy official, more expensive goods to support the company? I don’t know. I do know that lolicon here are exactly the demographic least likely to buy anything, media, goods, games, etc – college-ages males.

On to other marginally disappointing news, Funi also says that their agreement with Toei only covers online distribution, so there are no plans for a DVD release of Air Master. However, they said that if online views were really good, it might be considered. So, watch Air Master online. There’s, that’s easy.

Right Stuf announces a Gakuen Alice website launch.

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Yuri Drama CDs

sarcastic weasel wants you to know that the next Maria-sama ga Miteru Drama CD is slated to come out this July. Tears of the Rosary/ Yellow Rose Storm Warning has been added to the Yuricon Shop Drama CD Page along with all the Special CDs and many other great Yuri-themed DCDs.

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Snatches of Yuri

Dan wants to report a blink ‘I think that was Yuri’ moment in Zero no Tsukaima. He says: ‘Main character is Louise, a teenage student witch. A minor character is Agnes who is the captain of the all female guard for the princess. Well, the two are following a possible spy for another country when the spy hears a noise and back tracks. With no where to run, Agnes pulls Louise into a lip to lip kiss. The spy sees them and grins but leaves. Agnes remains all business tracking the spy but Louise blushes. Later, another character mentions that Agnes is scary and likes girls. Louise blushes more. That’s it. Nothing more. During the entire season, Louise is clearly in love with the other main character, Saito. If it had only been the kiss without the later comment, I would not have mentioned it. However, the random, not needed for the plot and not expanded comment about Agnes sounds to me (a huge Fanboy) like an attempt to keep GL fans interested. There is a third season but I would be surprised if the Agnes likes girls idea is explored. The plot would be greatly improved if the Agnes line was explored.”

Back closer to my world, Kanojo ha Megane-HOLIC brings together an agent, a high school, two girls and eyeglasses. It’s Light Novel that I’m tempted to read, just because it sounds absolutely idiotic. lol

Ame no Tou is a classic girl’s shousetsu about four girls and the love, hate and jealousy between them.

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Other Yuri News

In other Yuri News, there still no second season of Strawberry Panic planned and the live-action movie you thought you heard about is still actually Yoshida Akimi’s The Cherry Orchard.

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Which brings me to the end of another Yuri News Report.

I want to thank George for his lovely comment yesterday, about this being a real life version of Manako’s “Yuri Network.” That was quite touching. In reality, you wonderful people are the network – I’m just reporting the pieces. So, please write in with any tidbits of Yuri you would like people to know! It’s my pleasure to tell the world.

Have a great week next week – and here’s to even more fabulous Yuri news!

 





Yuri News This Week – May 16, 2009

May 16th, 2009

Get Okazu on your Kindle! It’s a super cheap monthly subscription and will be delivered directly to your reading device with every update. Okazu is already not the only anime/manga blog – you can also get Mangablog, Anime Almanac, Comics Worth Reading and more. If I do say so myself, Okazu looks pretty cool on Kindle. ;-)

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Yuri Anime

The website for the Lyrical Nanoha Ist movie is open – now with trailer. There was some outrage at the character designs (why fans get outraged so easily over every little thing still fascinates and bewilders me) but they appear to look pretty much on model to me. Better than the inconsistent designs of the first series, to me anyway. This movie is a “retelling” of Nanoha and Fate’s meeting, so I expect fans will be outraged at that, too. :-)

Anonymous wrote in to point out that the finale for Candy Boy aired last week, inciting as much controversy here on Okazu as it does anytime we talk about it. The ONA was extremely popular and undoubtedly a successful venture in Japan. I would be very very interested to know if that translated to good sales. Here’s a question for those of you who liked the series – would you buy the DVDs? My gut tells me that the audience here in the west is unlikely to covert to a market and thus, while the series is popular, it would not be financially successful, should it be released here.

Sean was immensely pleased to note that the Simoun box set shipped a full *month* early from Right Stuf. Sadly, the link above is to Amazon from which it has not yet shipped.

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Yuri Manga

Sevens Seas will be releasing a Kashimashi ~ Girl Meets Girl Omnibus, it looks like in two volumes. Release date is later in 2009.

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Yuri Live Action

Whenever I mention this series, controversy breaks out, because while those who think it is Yuri see it clearly, equally those who do not, have kittens. Nonetheless, a live-action version Bubblegim Crisis 2012 has been greenlighted. Since the plots of all previous series weren’t exactly examples of excellent writing, when it gets rendered down into the same one move all action movies are right now, it ought to be fine. :-) However, as it is live-action, expect no Yuri, except in your imagination.

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Did I mention you can get Okazu on your Kindle? Seriously, I’m totally stoked about that. lol

Anyway, this is a good place to stop for this week.

Just a quick reminder – do not write in to ask me *why* I haven’t written about something – write in to tell me about something you want me to write about! I can’t be everywhere, I don’t follow everything and your eyes and ears are absolutely crucial to letting me know. Be part of the Yuri News Report, drop me a line at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with Yuri news you want to share!





Yuri Anime: Lyrical Nanoha A’s (English)

May 7th, 2009

There are many, many good things about Lyrical Nanoha A’s. There are also some bad things – things significant enough that they impact not only my own, but many other people’s enjoyment of this series.

We’ll suffice to say that the lolicon in this series strikes me as problematic. It’s not cute, or sweet; it’s pandering and it is troubling. I spoke at length about some of these issues in my original review of this anime, so I won’t beat it to death again.

Instead, I would like to focus on the positive aspects of this series. Primarily to convince Bruce that bearing with the first season is, really, I swear, worth it. ^_^

This season begins with Nanoha being trained by the Time-Space Administration Bureau, and Fate nearing the end of her punishment for her crimes from the previous season. In order to foster a positive environment for Fate, and to provide her with a functional family model, Admiral Lindy Harlown has adopted Fate and is going to live on Earth for a while, along with her daughter.

While on Earth, a powerful Lost Logia appears, and burns its way through the life energy of a girl the same age as Fate and Nanoha, Hayate. The Book of Darkness, a the Logia is called, manifests four guardians who, along with Hayate, form a surprisingly functional alternative family of their own.

For reasons that are very good on both sides, the TSAB, Nanoha and Fate are placed in direct confrontation with Hayate and her Guardians.

What makes this series good is, simply, that the characters are excellent. There is not one of the Guardians that isn’t likable, honorable and respectable. Vita’s a fun bundle of righteous anger, Shamal is cool and Mom-like, Signum is awesome embodied, and Zafira’s a good dog. There is no Prescia, no Jail Scaglietti here (okay, well, there is for like thirty seconds, but it’s a dumb plot complication that is made to go away practically as quickly as it appears) – just a tremendous, tragic conflict between opponents both equally matched and equally worthy. Of course we are never REALLY in doubt that Nanoha will befriend and “befriend” her opponents…and this time we’re so very, very glad she does. In fact, I kinda wished she had defeated them sooner, so we could spend more time just playing around together.

So, Bruce, I promise, if you can just manage to make it through the first half of the first season, it gets *so* much better. And this season is miles better than the first. Plot and character-wise, at least.

Yuri-wise, this is probably the least of the three seasons, mostly because just about as soon as Nanoha and Fate have even a second together, they are hard at work saving the universe. But, delusional as I am, I see it anyway. ^_^

I still think that the best characters are the Devices, something that has not changed no matter how many times I watch this series. I just love Graf Eisesn’s enthusiasm for smashing things, Raising Heart’s gung-ho supportiveness and Bardiche’s cool competence.

Technically, I have any number of issues with the Funimation translation, but meh, don’t feel like complaining. It’s a great series with great characters and some stuff that isn’t so great.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Character – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 3
Service – 8

Overall – 8

My sincere and repeated thanks to newly promoted Okazu Superhero Amanda M! I just adore this series and cannot thank you enough for sponsoring this review of it. As much as watching it still makes me feel a little icky, I don’t care – I’m gonna keep watching it. lol Please email me at your earliest convenience to get your shiny new gold Superhero badge!