Archive for the Eleanor W Category


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 18th, 2026

July 18th, 2026

A blue silhouette of a girl with a white flower in her hair, embracing the earth. Blue block letters read YNN Yuri Network News. Art by Lissa P. For Okazu.

 

Hello and welcome to a special edition of Yuri Network News brought to you from the other side of the pond by Okazu staff member Eleanor.

Yuri Anime

Over on ANN, Kevin Cormack looks back at the Spring 2026 series Even A Replica Can Fall In Love.

Yuri Manga

Two girls standing in front of the open boot of a car. The one on the right is hugging the one on the left very forcefully

Described as “A special coming-of-age outdoor girls’ story, all connected by cars!!” Tabireco’s Baby Road Trippers (Baby Shachuu Hackers/ベイビー車中ハッカーズ) has been added to Shueisha’s online service Manga Plus, reports Rafael Antonio Pineda, also on ANN. The first 20 chapters are available immediately, the series is up to 4 volumes in Japan and ongoing.

Via Okazu Japan correspodent Sasori, artist Yon has posted on Twitter that their previously published one shot “今夜、エーテルで待ちあわせ” about two women who become closer after meeting in an online game is becoming a series. As of yet, there is no English translation but the first chapter is available for free in Japanese.

Yuri Live action

A Filipino sapphic film “Open Endings” is now available on Amazon Prime but you need a VPN. Thanks to staff member Marcus for the find.

Yuri Light Novel

Two girls in uniforms stand back to back. The one one the left has long hair and is making a fireball in her hands

Via staff member Marcus again, a new Yuri Light Novel called “Soul Magic” by an author writing under the pen name “Soul” is going to be released in August. Illustrations will be handled by Tikklil, who produced the Yuri webtoon Night Owls & Summer Skies, as well as Drifting Into Summer, a sports Yuri which is being released as a Viz Original. Soul Magic generated much discussion on the Okazu discord as it seems like it’s going to clock in at well over 600 pages, but it’s apparently meant to be more like 2 standard volumes in 1.

Yuri Games

Via tazimonfire on the Okazu Discord, AstralShift’s Hell Maiden is now available in early access on Steam. The developers describe it thusly “Traverse the depths of Hell and beat its toughest demons on your way to Heaven in this horde survival deck-building game inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.”

UmaMusume news

7th Event World Tour: The Stage is coming to Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater on October 22nd-23rd. Tickets go on sale at 10am PDT on July 23rd, as per Alex Mateo on ANN. Outwith Japan, the tour will also be visiting Seoul and London. (Eleanor here: I really hope I can go to the London one…) 

As always, YNN couldn’t exist without your support. If you have any news you want to share, please get in contact with us either via email, social media or the Okazu Discord.





There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless…, Light Novel Volumes 5 & 6

July 13th, 2026

by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

The harem is assembled, Renako is officially dating both Mai and Ajisai, and Satsuki has also thrown her hat into the ring under the guise of “well if you’re already dating 2 people, why not add a third?” and Kaho is just sort of… there?
So begins Season 2 of the novel series “There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless…” the previous 4 volumes of which I’ve also reviewed here on Okazu. Like so many stories which continue after the main couple (or throuple in this case) gets together, these two volumes definitely suffer from the “what now?” problem. As cute as it is to read about happy people in love, stories without any conflict don’t tend to be very interesting.

2 girls, one with long blonde hair, the other with not quite as long light brown hair in school uniforms of white blouse and grey plaid, hugging each other and a small plushie of another girl.Volume 5 introduces a brand new rivalry with a group of 5 girls from Class B, who as far as I can remember have never even been mentioned in the previous 4 volumes. They stylise themselves as the 5-ddesses as opposed to our main characters the Quintet in Class A (for those who don’t speak Japanese, 5 is “go” so it should be read “go-ddesses”. I kept reading it as five-ddesses even after it was explained, but puns are hard to translate so…) Their leader is Takada Himiko and for reasons unbeknownst to the reader at this point, she’s declared a rivalry with the Quintet and challenges them in the upcoming inter class athletics competition. Most of the rest of this volume is dedicated to the training and competition, and I honestly found it so boring I don’t really have much to say about it.

It should hopefully be obvious at this point that I found volume 5 rather a slog to get through. It’s much thicker than any of the previous 4, and even the author in the afterword says it probably should have been split into two smaller volumes. I would agree, either that or cut a lot of it out, which they say was also an option but they couldn’t get rid of any of it. I personally disagree, and am of the opinion that there was a lot which could have been cut out. The whole book read to me like the author wasn’t expecting the series to continue past volume 4, and now suddenly had to come up with a new external complication to try and advance the plot and relationships. If we’d been introduced to this other group or at least Himiko right from the beginning, them challenging the Quintet wouldn’t now seem so sudden and out of place, especially as we later learn that Himiko was a model when she was a child and had lost out to Mai. It just seems odd that we are now several months into the school year and they’ve just appeared out of nowhere.

2 pink haired girls, one in the foreground one in the background, making a V with her fingers against her forehead, the one in the back looks put out.Volume 6 however was more enjoyable because unlike the 5-ddesses, we have encountered Renako’s younger sister Haruna since the beginning of the story. She’s always been the opposite of Renako; sporty, extroverted, popular and fashionable. She’s the one who helps Renako change her image for starting high school, and often seems more mature, despite being the younger sister. In volume 5 she does agree to help Renako practise basketball for the inter class competition, but in volume 6 she takes a larger role. She, much like Renako did in the past, decides to stop going to school one day and it’s up to Renako and the Quintet to try and figure out what’s going on between Haruna and her friends Minato and Seira. Because she’s actually been a part of the story right from the beginning, this arc is actually interesting enough that I do want to know why the sudden change in her behaviour and how this will force Renako to grow as an older sister and support her for a change. Another mystery character called Lucie randomly appears too, and it’s not until the very end of the volume that we are told she’s claiming to be Mai’s fiancee, which just feels like it was added in as a cliffhanger to end the volume on, rather than actually being an important part of the story. This volume is the first part of the Haruna story, which will conclude in volume 7, and Season 2 itself will conclude at the end of volume 8 according to the afterword of volume 7. Volume 9 doesn’t currently exist in Japan, there are 2 side story volumes which will be released in English later this year and summer next year according to Seven Seas’ website.

Overall, if you’re really desperate to see what happens beyond the anime, give this a go but I’m of the opinion you could comfortably skip volume 5 especially and not really miss much. I hope if this arc does get animated they cut out a lot of the padding, as there’s definitely some potential under the bloat. Either that or the editor does a better job for the next volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 4
Characters – 4
Service – 8 The obligatory colour page bath illustration at the beginning of both volumes is a tradition at this point.
Yuri – 7

Overall – 5





Bad Girl!, Volume 1

June 19th, 2026

A dark haired girl wearing a blazer and tie with her mouth open and a shocked expressionby Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

Your enjoyment of Nikumaru’s Bad Girl, Volume 1 will depend entirely on your tolerance of the combination of 4-koma manga and misunderstandings so obvious that they must be deliberate. Even now, Azumanga Daioh is still the master of the genre in my humble opinion, as well as being one of the first yuri-adjacent series I ever encountered, back in the early 2000s.

Bad Girl is the source material of the titular anime adaption, reviewed here on Okazu and available streaming on Hidive. Our protagonist Yuu Yuutani has a crush on the head of the school disciplinary committee, Atori Mizutori, who’s so popular she has her own fan club. Yuu therefore decides to become the titular “bad girl” to try and attract Atori’s attention. Unfortunately for her, she has good grades, perfect attendance and has never been in trouble ever and her idea of being bad is to write in the condensation on a window. Hijinks ensue.

This series is basically “Notice Me, Sempai” the manga. Yuu’s attempts to be bad are kind of adorable, like a little kid acting out to try and get the adults around them to pay attention to them. Like all 4-koma/gag series this is like popcorn, best consumed a few pages at a time, otherwise it gets tooth rottingly sweet and outstays its welcome very quickly. Don’t think too hard about it, otherwise it all falls apart. Just enjoy the silliness.

Ratings:

Art – It’s definitely cute. The colour pages at the beginning are nicely done.
Story – What story? It doesn’t need one though.
Characters – A lot of silliness
Service – n/a
Yuri – Mostly just an unrequited crush at this stage.

If you like your cute girls doing cute things with a yuri flavour you’ll probably enjoy this series. Volume 2 is scheduled to release in English later this summer, and the series is up to 5 volumes in Japan. I am curious as to how much story we’ll actually get out of this premise, so I will at least stick around for volume 2.





Roll Over and Die: I Will Fight For an Ordinary Love With My Cursed Sword, Episodes 4-12

May 4th, 2026

Main visual for Roll Over and Die anime: 2 girls are in the foreground, the one on the left has apricot coloured hair, the one on the right has silver hair and is wearing a maid's uniform. Other characters appear in the background

By Eleanor W, Okazu Staff Writer.

This review contains spoilers.

When we left Flum and Milkit at the end of episodes 1-3, reviewed here on Okazu , a man called Leitch has asked them to retrieve some illicit herbs to turn into medicine for his sick wife. Remembering that the Church has outlawed such magic, they are joined by Sara, a nun who is willing to defy Church law. While searching for the herbs in a cave outside of the city, our main antagonist Dein, (the man who tried to trick Flum and kill her when she first came to the Adventurer’s Guild looking for work) collapses the entrance, leaving Flum and Sara trapped inside.

If you didn’t enjoy the first 3 episodes, then there’s nothing here for you. As I suspected in my previous review, there is more to the Church than meets the eye, but I was pleased to see it built up in such a way that we gradually learn more as the show goes on, rather than just a massive infodump all at once. An abandoned underground laboratory proves to belong to them, and Flum’s name appears in the papers left behind. Flum reunites with Eterna, a witch from the Hero’s party who quit after an argument with Jean, and is furious when she learns that Jean secretly sold Flum into slavery. Dein and his men continue to pursue Flum, and a new character, a blind girl named Ink, joins the group, as well as some other former members of the hero’s party.

Dein is not the greatest antagonist ever created. He is revealed to be a pawn of the Church and gets a disproportionate amount of screentime for how ultimately inconsequential he is as a character, before he is finally killed by Flum in episode 11. I feel the show would have been much more interesting if Flum and the group had gradually built up to fighting Origin as the final boss, but it may be that the anime just wasn’t able to do this in the 12 episodes available so I don’t want to judge too harshly on that basis.

Artwise, the same dark moody colour palette as in the first 3 episodes prevails. Some character designs are more interesting than others, and most of the budget seems to have gone on the gore, particularly (CW) the torture scene at the beginning of episode 12.

There’s lots of potential directions the story could have gone in, but ultimately I did enjoy this version of it, including Flum and Milkit’s relationship. I liked that the show isn’t shy about making their feelings for each other clear. This is about two girls who desperately need each other and desperately want to protect each other and that’s what they do.  Whilst it does lean on the ick and gore a little too much in places, the setting is still interesting enough that I’d watch a season 2 if it gets made (there were potential threads left dangling to set one up) and I’m curious to read more of the novels too.

Overall, if you’re looking for something in the “kicked out of the hero’s party and wants revenge” genre that’s a little different from the norm with some genuinely nice relationships between the characters, I’d recommend giving this one a go as long as you can deal with the gore.

Ratings: 

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 6
Service – 8 if you enjoy gore, 5 if you don’t care for it.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 7

Eleanor has been a fan of anime and manga for over 20 years, and has several thousand volumes to prove it. Since discovering the original Seven Seas translation of the first 2 Strawberry Panic! light novels back in the early 2000s, they fell down the Yuri rabbit hole and never looked back. They can be found around the Internet under the handle st_owly, and live in Scotland with their wife and 2 cats.

 

 





The Elegant Courtly Life of the Tea Witch, Volumes 1 & 2

April 15th, 2026

Two women sitting opposite each other at a tea table. The one in front has a short red bob and is wearing a maid uniform. Opposite her is a younger girl with long pale hair. I’m a big tea snob, I’ve got an entire kitchen cupboard full of assorted loose leaf teas and more teapots than one person could reasonably ever need or use. The Elegant Courtly Life of the Tea Witch therefore seems right up my alley, and the fact it’s written by one of my favourite authors just makes it even better. Ameko Kaeruda, perhaps best known in the English speaking word as the creator of the excellent Sexiled, both volumes of which were reviewed here on Okazu by Erica when it was first released. This series is also based on a light novel, but as yet there is no sign of that being released in English. Why Titan Manga decided to pick this up as one of their first releases I’m not quite sure, but I’m not complaining either.

In Volume 1, we meet our main character, Remy,  who just wants to be left alone to get on with her job as a tea witch, whose main job is “making a delicious cup of tea” for the king and court. Unfortunately she attracts the attention of the king’s first daughter, Princess Stella, who thinks she’s the coolest person in the world and is desperate to be friends with her. For Remy, who is desperate not to draw attention to herself, this is her absolute worst nightmare as she’s pulled into the princess’s orbit.

A woman in a maid uniform is in the foreground with a spilled cup of tea. In the background there is a topiary arch and two people sitting at a tea tableThe world building is solid, with references to a past conflict and the fragility of the resulting peace. We are introduced to another court mage, Alicia, who gives off very androgynous vibes, confirmed later on when their gender is described as “unknown.” When Remy learns that Stella is set to be married to another (male) court mage, she realises that this isn’t the world she fought for and vows to protect her, despite her outward annoyance with Stella’s insistence on being her friend.

Remy, as it turns out, is more powerful than she would like anyone to know. As well as controlling the tea she brews and being able to perfectly match it to the person she’s making it for, she can also use it as an antidote, a poison and a weapon, amongst other things. She’s essentially a magical herbalist. This power naturally of course ends up with her being assigned as Stella’s bodyguard, much to the chagrin of Stella’s wannabe fiance. Volume 2 covers a lot of Remy’s backstory, which according to the author’s afterword, wasn’t covered in the original novel, but I think it really adds to her as a character and the world building. She was a child soldier, and is clearly still bearing that burden, so I interpret her wanting to protect Stella as saving her from the same fate. Stella meanwhile is pragmatic enough to understand that her arranged marriage is a duty to protect the kingdom and the peace, so whilst she doesn’t really want it, she realises it’s for the greater good. Fortunately she isn’t written as an annoying child prodigy which is one of my least favourite tropes in fiction, along with amnesia.

In doing some research for this review I came across some Online Discourse with people saying that Remy and Stella’s relationship is inappropriate because Stella is only 12 years old. My personal interpretation is that this is more like a Class-S relationship and Remy cares for Stella more like a big sister would. In volume 2 we get some numbers, the man is said to be twice Stella’s age, so 24 and is older than Remy, who gives the impression she’s in her late teens/early 20’s. Yes, they go on a “date” but it’s just Remy indulging the whims of the younger girl, who is also a princess she can’t really say no to. Nothing untoward happens between them, the only kiss is Stella pecking Remy on the cheek because she’s read that this is what you do on a date.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by these two volumes. There’s more depth than I expected from what at first seemed like a fairly generic fantasy setting. Stella and Remy’s relationship is really open to almost any interpretation the reader chooses at this point, and it’s a good reminder to ignore the discourse and make up your own mind about something. Volume 3 is set to release at the end of April 2026, but as of writing, the 4th and final volume does not appear to be listed anywhere, not even on Titan Manga’s own website (neither is volume 3 so we’ll see how that goes). Hopefully we will eventually see it in English, along with the original novel.

Ratings: 

Art – 7 – the artist mentions at the end of volume 1 that this is their first serialisation, so I was pretty impressed when I read that
Story – 7
Characters – 7 we love a casual non binary/genderqueer side character
Service – 1
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7