Archive for the Tokyo Journal Category


2014 Okazu Guide to Buying Anime and Manga from Japan

January 5th, 2014

glsign-aniA number of folks are asking about buying from Japan, or buying Yuri in Japan. I’ve written about this a number of times but sites close down and stores go out of business, so I’m going to do an updated guide. This is not meant to be comprehensive – any attempt at comprehensive in a rapidly changing world is doomed to fail. ^_^

I want to clearly note that this is not a definitive Guide to Shopping for Yuri. It is a guide to shopping for Japanese items; manga, anime, etc. There re no all-Yuri on one place stores in Japan, The lack of all-something-everywhere is true for any genre. There is no store in Japan that sells every BL comic, or Seinen comic ever published, either. Manga stores in Japan give store space to the new and the best sellers, just like American bookstores. (The new Yuricon store is getting closer to being just that all-Yuri-in-one-place store online! We have all the English-language Yuri anime and Yuri manga and a lot of the Japanese Yuri manga , digital manga, literature, Drama CDs, and even light novels…and we’re adding new items every day. Check out the Yuricon Store and see for yourself!)

I’ll be using Manga as the default example, so unless otherwise noted, the item in question is a book. And in Japanese. ^_^ It might be a Drama CD or an artbook or a Japanese DVD set, but it’s all the same for our purposes.

Also, this is not a guide to buying Yuri anime or manga you can get from western companies. RightStuf, Funimation, Sentai Filmworks and Seven Seas, are all available on the Yuricon Store. I trust you to be able to look those up for yourselves on the site search, or use links provided here on Okazu. You should also be able to place manga orders with your local comic book stores or chain stores, and there are any number of  respectable online websites like Anime Castle and Robert’s Anime Corner that stock all sorts of toys, anime and manga.

Before I get to the meat of this post, let me remind you of two things:

1) This is an Okazu Guide. It comes imbued with common sense and a dose of harsh reality. ^_^ Manga, Anime, Figurines and Games are Luxury Items. You do not need them. You want them. The presumption of all market forces is if you want a thing, you have to be able to afford it.

2) You can get things you want but one way or another you will pay for them. When I buy Japanese manga, one of us, the manga or I, has to travel 6500 miles to get it. Either way, it costs money. ^_^

That having been said, here we go!

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Part 0. Know What You Are Buying

Before you start shopping, I strongly recommend you learn at least a few things:

1. The actual Title of the Manga in Japanese.

It’s all well and fine to say you like “Chatting at the Amber Teahouse” but there is no manga with that name. There is only an illicit scan. No bookstore, no website can help you find that. The title of Fujieda-sensei’s manga about two women and a tea shop is 飴色紅茶館歓談. That is what you will need to have with you when you search.

2. The Author’s name in Japanese. Wikipedia, AnimeNewsNetwork and other encyclopedias are a huge help to identify this sort of thing. Put an author’s name in a search engine and you will find that Fujieda Miyabi is written 藤枝雅. For Part 2, Shopping in Japan below, you might want to print out the title, publisher and author’s names for yourself. For Part 1, Shopping Online, cut and paste will do.

3. When you plan on shopping in person, it also very much helps to know what demographic audience the book is for. This is indicated by the Publisher and Imprint. We’ll get more deeply into that in Part 2.

 

Part 1. Shopping Online

2015 Update:  We’ve made amazing progress on the new Yuricon Store. Check out the listings there first.

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We have links to major retailers (Amazon, Amazon JP and RightStuf), descriptions, links to reviews, and you can search in English or Japanese, for author, title, or publishing company. And series have been tagged by subject, so you can look at title that are about adult life or magical girl with ease.

For instance, you can search for Aoi Hana or 青い花, both of which will bring up all the English and Japanese listings – anime, digital manga, and Japanese manga. If you search Sweet Blue Flowers, you’ll only pull up the English-language anime and the English-language digital manga.

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Amazon Japan is my default for purchasing Japanese items. I choose them because 1) their selection is very good (often better than shopping in stores in Japan); 2) I am an affiliate, so every time you buy through a Yuricon Shop or Okazu link, I get a few yen to support my own habit and;  3) It is very easy to use.

Let’s say you click through an Okazu link for Aoi Hana, Volume 8. Here’s what you see:

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Everything is in Japanese, except one thing. Notice the red arrow on the right? It points to a sentence that reads “Would you like to see this page in English? Click here.”  If you click the link, the page looks like this:

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Things like this book is “In Stock” and the “Add to Shopping Cart” button turn into English. The title, the author, the publishing company do not. They don’t, because the title of the book is still 「青い花」 and the author’s name is still 志村貴子.

What that English link does do is make checking out much faster. ^_^ If you’ve ever used Amazon, you probably don’t even need to bother turning the page to English, the checkout is the same, all the buttons shapes and sizes are the same. But if you want to lessen the friction, just click that English button and it’s all words you know.

Shipping: Amazon only ships by air. You can choose that you want the items grouped or separate, but no other shipping options exist. My advice is to order about 20 items at a time, grouped into one order. That brings the shipping cost-per-item down to $4, which is totally palatable. Exchange rates will make a difference too. Shipping that might cost $100 when the exchange rate is good could be a lot more when it’s poor. If you choose “group them together” and something hasn’t been released yet, sometimes Amazon JP send it separately when it gets in stock and sometimes they hold the whole order and I have not been able to figure out what the triggers are. It’s often haphazard.

There is no Yuri category on Amazon JP. Yuri books are listed under the BL category. Book>. Comic/Light Novels/BL> Comic:  本 > コミック・ラノベ・BL > コミック You need to know your title, or your author’s name in Japanese.

Amazon JP often will not ship figurines, but to be honest, I do better in cost these days buying figurines on Amazon.com. Last year, I would have paid $45 or so for a Saber figurine in Japan, then would have had to get it home on my own. I found the same figurine for $36 with free Prime shipping on Amazon.com.

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YesAsia is a popular choice for buying Asian goods. I have not used them in probably a decade, so I have no idea how good their service is. They do offer shipping discounts for orders over a certain amount.  If you want Japanese manga, but do not know any Japanese at all, they seem like a decent choice.

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The site is in English, the dollar amounts are in USD and it looks like they still offer various shipping options, like standard mail and express. Their stock is not bad, you can search for authors and titles in romaji (English characters used for Japanese words, like “ameiro kouchkan kandan”).  The cost of the books is higher than on Amazon JP because YesAsia includes the cost of shipping to them in the cost of the item. Some books, especially newer books, might more expensive as a result. Thanks to Greg for the testimonial on them and  Laura for letting us know that YesAsia ships worldwide.

There is no Yuri category on YesAsia. You need to know your title and/or author’s name transliterated name in English.

Rinkya is a buying and bidding service. They’ve been around more than a decade. I have never used them (for entirely personal reasons that are irrelevant here.) If you are bidding on an item on Yahoo JP auctions and want a buyer to bid for you, arrange the shipping and payment (since most Japanese auctions won’t ship internationally) they can do that. Sometimes they sell stock that people never claimed from their warehouse. They do offer slow boat options for shipping. Yahoo JP auctions are like the Mandarake of online shopping. People get rid of collections, old toys, rare items. It might not be cheap, but back in the day when I shopped the auctions, I got some amazing stuff.

BK1 used to be a popular book selling alternative, but they have become honto. AudioErotica has graciously jumped in to tell us that they still do ship internationally and yes, they have slower/cheaper shipping methods available.

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Part 2. Shopping in Japan

In November 2012, I wrote a guide to Shopping for Yuri in Japan. By October 2013, some of the store-specific information was already obsolete.

But this is where the info I mentioned in Part 0 really comes in handy. I have said this with every single buying guide I’ve written:

To effectively shop for manga in Japan, you need to know three things. Books are not generally shelved by genre, but by imprint. So first you need to know what age/gender demographic you’re looking at, then publisher/imprint, then author. And once you have found one publisher’s Yuri manga, don’t think you’ve found it all. The sign above might say “Yuri”, but there could be more under a different publisher’s imprint elsewhere.

Know if the book you’re looking for is for girls (少女), boys (少年),for women (女性), for men (男子) – these  are not necessarily listed as sections in the bookstore, you just need to know who the title you’re looking for is targeted to. Then look for the publisher, (Hobunsha 芳文社, Ichijinsha 一迅社, Futabasha 双葉社) then look for the imprint (YH Comics, Tsubomi Comics, Mangatime KR Comics) then look for the author. If you are new to this, and don’t read Japanese, take a printout of the cover you’re looking for. And take a look at the spine of the books you do have and memorize the characters. The publisher is listed at the bottom of the spine, the imprint along the top. Get to know your books!

The main areas of Tokyo for manga shopping are:

Akihabara for guy-focused stuff (which includes Yuri)

Ikebukuro for girl-focused stuff (which includes BL, but you can find some Yuri)

Nakano Sun Mall for older stuff, like classic Yuri.

Shibuya for another Animate and Mandarake.

Stores change their location, stock, layout and focus all the time, so check out other resources for what is open and what isn’t. Every large city in Japan has its own geeky area. Check current travel guides or look for Animate store locations as a orienteering hint.

There are, as of October 2013 no Yuri-only stores anywhere in the world. You’re going to have to shop the old fashioned way.

**New as of October 2014** – Toranoana in Akihabara has a multipublisher Yuri section. So does Comic Zin in Akihabara, although it’s fairly small. This is a major, massive change. Never before has there been a section that was really “Yuri”. It was amazing to see different publishers side by side.

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Part 3. Shopping at Conventions and Bookstores

If you live near or within travel distance of a large city, you probably have two possible old-fashioned fan choices to shop in, that you’re not using.

Anime Conventions used to be the ONLY place a fan could go to get toys, anime and manga. Because it is so much easier to shop online, a lot of fans forget that cons are still a good place to go to find stuff. But they are. ^_^ What cons aren’t any more is…rare. So the old wheeze that if you shop on Sunday as people are packing up, they’ll give you a good deal doesn’t apply much. What the dealer doesn’t sell this weekend goes with them to the next con and the next, and the next. If you have a local con and you haven’t been in a while, drop by…you never know what you’ll find. But…fashion and media still go hand in hand. If you’re looking for old school items, don’t be surprised when all the vendors are carrying the new, the hot, the hip. They want to sell stuff. Carrying that girl-type Ranma 1/2 figure around for a decade until you decide you’re ready to buy it isn’t really cost efficient, when they can sell 1500 Attack on Titan things instead. ^_^

Japanese bookstores. Kinokuniya and Sanseido are two large Japanese bookstore chains that have US locations. They will order books and magazines for you, but you still need to know the publisher and title. (Bring along a print copy of, say,  コミック百合姫、一迅社, to let them know you want Comic Yuri Hime put out by Ichijinsha.) If you’re in a location near or within travel distance of either store, it’s worth a visit, so you can see how the manga are arranged by demographic/publisher/imprint/title. (English manga is arranged alphabetically by title, and who can blame them?)

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Conclusion

Shopping for Yuri is still challenging, but do not despair! The hunt is part of the fun.  Take this opportunity to learn a bit of Japanese, and you’ll find that you’ll be able to understand more of what you’re buying, as well.  ^_^





Event: Manga Lecture in Yokohama

October 7th, 2013

Tomorrow you can find me at Kanagawa University, talking about LGBTQ audience and comics and manga.

The program is open to the public. The lecture will be in English.

Weaving Our Stories Through Manga and Comics: LGBTQ audiences and Re-telling Stories
October 8, 4:20PM – 5:50PM
Building 20, Room 109
Sponsor: James Welker, Department of Cross-Cultural Studies
Kanagawa University

マンガとコミックを通して私たちの物語を織る
１０月８日、 16:20 to 17:50
ビル20、 109室
スポンサー: ジェームズ・ウェルカー、学部国際文化交流学科
神奈川大学





Paying My Respects to Yoshiya Nobuko

October 5th, 2013

There will be no Yuri Network News today. Instead I want to tell you about my day. Because today I was able to make a pilgrimage to the Yoshiya Nobuko Memorial Museum.

220px-Yoshiya_NobukoYoshiya Nobuko is the creator of Yaneura no Nishojo, Hana Monogatari (after which we named our Yuri Monogatari) and Wasurenagusa.

I have long considered her a grandmother of Yuri and an honored ancestor of a sort for myself. I was very excited to be able to make this trip.

Accompanied by my wife, Bruce, and Prof. James Welker of Kanagawa University, and his husband Jotaro, we made the trek down to Kamakura and from there, the Enoden to Yuigahama, a small station in a quiet residential area. A few minutes walk brought us to her home. 

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Set back from the road by a gate and walk up along the garden, the house was surrounded by well-tended, just slightly wild trees, lawn and tons of greenery.

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With the screens open, it was very easy to imagine the two of them sitting there, enjoying the breeze flowing through the house.

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There was a small display of her books and original furnishings in her study.

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It was a lovely place, despite the lack of personal memorabilia. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t, as James joked, see her pluffy bed each with a picture of the other on her nightstand, but I still felt it was possible to imagine them smiling at each other and saying “You know what? This is our house!” as my wife are still wont to do. ^_^

I’m so glad I was able to make this visit. I owe a lot to Yoshiya-sensei, I appreciate the chance to thank her personally. ^_^ And thanks to James and Jotaro for a really wonderful afternoon!

 





Yuri Network News Special Report on Shopping for Yuri in Tokyo, November 2012

November 24th, 2012

One of the questions I get the most emails about is something along the lines of “I’m going to Japan, where can I get Yuri?” The answer is not as straightforward as “go here” or “nowhere.” It’s important to remember that things change all the time in manga stores in Japan, just as with any store. They move stuff around, highlight different things, close stores, move locations, etc. So what I experienced last year in Tokyo is likely to have changed when you go next spring. In fact, things have changed quite a bit since I was in Tokyo ten months ago.

I’m going to focus on three sections of the Tokyo Metropolitan area in today’s report: Akihabara, Ikebukuro and Nakano, because those three areas have well-developed personalities.  None of this may apply outside Tokyo, even in chain stores, except for this, which is is pretty universal in all Japanese book stores:

To effectively shop for manga in Japan, you need to know three things. Books are not generally shelved by genre, but by imprint. So first you need to know what age/gender demographic you’re looking at, then publisher/imprint, then author. I’ll explain more about this in a bit.

Ikebukuro has changed quite radically in the past year. The Animate has moved, is much larger than it used to be and is much more strongly focused on female consumers.  That meant that they really didn’t have any Yuri manga at all, not even in publisher sections. The goods were largely the same, but it was clear that the fujyoshi was the focus (you could tell – the store had way bigger, nicer, bathrooms). 

Because of this new dedication to the buying needs of female fans, even with a familiarity with publishers/authors, Ikebukuro has been basically shorn of any Yuri. On the day Yuri Hime Comics was released, we had to go to Akihabara to get the new books. And Toranoana in Ikebukuro has moved from its location to a much smaller space nearer the train station,  only selling BL doujinshi and a small section of mostly straight, loli porn. This was a huge disappointment for us, as the Ikebukuro Toranoana was previously our favorite store.

2013 Update: This has changed again. You can find Yuri once more. I guess enough of the customers requested it. Not as much as in Akihabara, but it’s there.

The different K-Books stores are still on Otome Road, but are rapidly converting to more space dedicated to BL, and the old Animate space is going to re-open as something “for girls”. Unfortunately for us, Japan’s obsessive gendering of everything is turning Ikebukuro into a BL-only section.

So, for the first time, we had to go to Akihabara to shop.

Animate in Akihabara has a Yuri section:

…actually most of their Yuri was shelved elsewhere, by publisher, as always. Most of what’s under this sign is Mangatime KR comics. One needed to find the Ichijinsha/Hobunsha section to find the rest:

And that’s the way it goes – know if the book you’re looking for is for girls (少女), boys (少年),for women (女性), for men (男子) – these  are not often listed as sections in the bookstore, you just need to know who the title you’re looking for is targeted to. Then look for the publisher, (Hobunsha 芳文社, Ichijinsha 一迅社, Futbasha 双葉社) then look for the imprint (YH Comics, Tsubomi Comics, Mangatime KR Comics) then look for the author. If you are new to this, and don’t read Japanese, take a printout of the cover you’re looking for. And take a look at the spine of the books you do have and memorize the characters. The publisher is listed at the bottom of the spine, the imprint along the top. Get to know your books!

The same is true for Toranoana in Akihabara. There is a Girls’ Love sign, but most of the Yuri books are near, next to, around it, or across the store in another section.

And this, in a nutshell, is why we’re not going to see any anime for Yuri manga I like. Yuri is sold in Akihabara to guys. So, since guys are the audience for anime, not women, ever, we’ll never see an anime for Morishima Akiko’s moe, but awesome and about adult women, Renai Joshi series. Anime is for man-boys who obsess about school-age girls.

Proving my point, Animate had a metric ton of Yuru Yuri goods, but the only figurines were in bathing suits. Of course.

Interestingly, despite the series’ insistence that Kyouko is the lead character, everywhere we went, Yui goods were the most sold out.

Animate is still the best for goods. It was ramping up for the release of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s The Second movie (and, there are three Nanoha manga series running concurrently right now: Vivid, Innocent and Force), so there was a great deal of Nanoha goods on shelves.

Including this fascinating bit of papercraft.

And there was a fair amount of Fate/Zero stuff hanging around.

I don’t have pictures, but let me conclude with a paragraph on Nakano Sun Arcade. Up until last year, it was the place to go for older, obscure items, things you couldn’t get any more. It was awesome – but not cheap. Now, if you’re looking for figurines – go there first. We saw figurines there a good $40 cheaper for the same exact item than in Rashinban (which has never been a cheap store, but still!) Don’t buy in the first store you see, either. I saw a Mawaru Penguindrum Princess of the Crystal figurine for $48, then $30, then $25 and finally $13.00. I didn’t get it, because it was quite large, and I have nowhere to put it, but at $13.00 I thought about it hard. If you’re looking for really old stuff, Mandarake in Nakano and Shibuya are like rummaging through someone’s attic. Yes, you can find the Sailor Uranus and Neptune henshin wands there with their original lip gloss – for $1000.

In conclusion, we’re both in a better place and a worse that we were last year. Yuri is more plentiful, but more segregated. Yuri, in Japanese publishers minds, is for guys. We are now required to shop in Akihabara, rather than our beloved Ikebukuro, (instead of it being a nice-to-do) but on the good side, there’s a a lot more Yuri to shop for!

Remember, things change all the time in Tokyo, so this guide will probably be useful for 6 months, then not any more. Don’t assume that anything you know from last year is true now. But if you learn one thing – learn your publisher, imprint, author and title, and you’ll be able to find what you want to buy. ^_^





Maiden’s Garden 7 Event Report

November 23rd, 2012


One of the motivating factors for me to get to Japan is to attend various doujinshi events. This time, we were able to get to two separate (and vastly different!) events. The first was the 7th Maiden’s Garden Yuri-only doujinshi event in Kyoto.

Although the event was in Kyoto, we stayed in Osaka.  We had a nice view of Osaka Castle from our hotel window, and took the opportunity the night we arrived to walk around town and get reacquainted with (and introduce my wife to) Osaka. Bruce and I were amazingly, able to remember a great deal from our visit in November 2010 (to see the Maria-sama ga Miteru Live-Action Movie.) Later, that night, walking back to the subway from the Shinsaibashi, the wife spotted Oscar on a salon sign:

 

The day before the event, we had the unparalleled pleasure of accompanying our friend Komatsu-san and the lovely and talented Ransui-san around Kyoto, on a singular tour. You see, in Smile Precure, the five main characters do a whirlwind tour of the city and see all the sites. Ransui-san decided she was going to recreate that episode. So accompanied by Cure Happy, Cure Sunny, Cure Peace, Cure March and Cure Beauty, we started at the bus station and saw the Kyoto Tower, visited Yama Arashi Park where we ate green tea ice cream,  and went to the Kinkakuji – the famous Golden Pavilion. We then left Komatsu-san and Ransui-san to go out to Kiyomizu temple by themselves, while we headed back to our hotel. We had a fabulous time tagging along . Thank you Komatsu-san and Ransui-san for letting us join your tour!

The Kinkakuji is a magnificent postcard – totally worth seeing, with every angle carefully cultivated for maximum artistic impression.

Bruce, the wife and I spent a short time wandering Osaka and eating as much as we could there. We did manage okonomiyaki for dinner one night. ^_^

The next day it was raining pretty steadily, but we headed back to Kyoto for Maiden’s Garden. The event was grouped with several other events in the same space, including a PreCure event, one for Madoka, Nanoha, Strike Witches, and even a Mai HiME/Zhime event. Here’s a pdf copy of the MG7 catalog pages – the table rows were split into Black Lily, White Lily and Mountain Lily, which I found kind of cute. You can see the tabs for the other events in the catalog along the side. To get into the event, you buy the catalog (which contains the circle listings for all the events taking place.

So while MG7 was small, all the events grouped together meant we had a fair amount to look at. First we went over to Fantastic Yuri Rhythm, Ransui-san’s circle and picked up her new books. She’s amazingly talented.

It was pretty gratifying to see so many circles I knew well there. even some I hadn’t seen in years, like CHC.

Here’s some of what I picked up at the event, starting with this spiffy Mouretsu Pirates coffee travel mug:

I followed this up with a trio of my fave circles – Sakuraike, UKOZ and Raku-Gun.

I bought this thing totally and only for the cover:

I was pleased as punch to find something new (and not obviously porn) by Pen-Pen Gusa Club, along with this Lyn/Jenny thing I couldn’t pass up from the not-series specific, but all anime parody/totally 18+ section of the event.

And I bought this one because of the title:

I told the guy at the table that I am a researcher, but I don’t think he believed me. He had “ewww, creepy foreigner” face on. ^_^;; I also bought a fabulous “Promises are forbidden” (約束禁止) Kyuubey strap, but it self-destructed before we got back to the hotel, so I’ll have to make myself a new one.

Overall, while on its own Maiden’s Garden is small, grouped with the other events, it makes a good afternoon’s entertainment. And it’s a great way to meet Yuri artists. ^_^ I wholeheartedly recommend MG, if you find yourself in the Kyoto area when they next hold an event.