Archive for the Top Ten Lists Category


Okazu Top Yuri of 2019

December 31st, 2019

As we wrap up this year, the 100th anniversary of the Yuri genre, I like to imagine what Yoshiya Nobuko might think, if she were to spring to life and see Yuri anime, manga, novels, games…stories of women in love with women, in both fantasy and “real world” settings and bookstores around the world with Yuri titles and manga stores with dedicated Yuribu.  I’d like to think that once she got past the confusion of it all, she’d be pretty pleased about it. ^_^

For the 15th year in a row, I’m wrapping all the best Yuri people, companies, trends and titles up in one big old package and presenting it to you as the Okazu Top Yuri of 2019. ^_^ Please note there are no numbers, as this is not a countdown. Everything here is equally notable.

We’ll start with some well-deserved kudos to the pieces of the industry that set the places at which we sit and lay the feasts we enjoy.

 

Yuri Publishers & Yuribu
In this 100th anniversary of the genre, something almost miraculous occurred. Manga, anime and light novel publishers in the US and many of the major Japanese publishers are now investing in Yuri as Yuri.

My sincere thanks to everyone at Yen Press, VIZ Media, Seven Seas Entertainment, TOKYOPOP, J-Novel Club, UDON Entertainment, Kodansha Comics, Denpa, Lilyka Manga and in Japan, Ichijinsha, Futabasha, Shueisha, East Press, Seidosha, Hayakawa Shobo, Kadokawa Shoten, Akita Shoten and, at long last, Shogakukan.

Additionally, Japanese manga and bookstores have finally recognized that Yuri is a genre that does bring in business and have developed Yuri Clubs to help funnel money their way. ^_^ So thanks to Animate, Shosen, Gamers and Futabasha (again.) Toranoana has no Yuribu, but their Yuri Corner in the flagship store in Akihabara is worth noting, as well.

All these companies have recognized the potential of the growing LGBTQ and Yuri markets and responded to it with money and promotion (and in the case of US companies, care and attention,) which gives us hope for even more and even better Yuri in the year to come!

 

Yuri Webcomics
Webcomics have been an important arm of indie comics since the early 2000s and the last few years has really seen the growth in online platforms for comic artists.

Pixiv has quite literally changed the game for indie artists in Japan like Nagata Kabi, and Webtoons and Lezhin have been among newer platforms that opened up a whole new audience to the joy of Yuri manga and comics.

Artists like Ratiana Satis (Pulse) and Kuru of Color_LES (Mage and Demon Queen) have changed the landscape for how – and where and by whom – people are able to find Yuri.

I think this kind of work is very exciting and very entertaining and always look forward to more new independent artists breaking out!

 

Yuri Visual Novels/Games
I’m not going to lie, the visual novel landscape has a lot of problems, Steam’s inconsistent and obscure rule changes looming large among them.  But the industry is full of energy and creativity that is worth talking about.

In 2019, Studio Élan created a whole new game engine for putting out innovative, unique, and original work. What I have seen has impressed me so very deeply. Indie creators gather annually for the Yuri Game Jam which gives space for smaller creative teams and individual devs to work on their idea and for you to try them out. Itch.io has quietly become a significant independent resource for game and VN developers and players.

Even if I will never be the audience for them, there are some really excellent VNs and games being made and I think they absolutely deserve a place on this list this year.

 

Yuri Creators
There are so many creators of Yuri these days that it almost seems insulting to highlight a few names, but this year there has been some outstanding work by a few individuals, that I really believe it’s worth highlighting and celebrating them.

These are creators whose work has created change in the Yuri landscape: Yoshiya Nobuko (Yaneura no Nishojo) for setting in motion the creation of an entire genre by living her life and writing the stories she wrote;  Riyoko Ikeda (Rose of Versailles), for having conversation about gender presentation and sexuality 40 years before anyone else had words for them;  Takeuchi Naoko (Sailor Moon) who twenty-five years ago created characters so timeless, that we’re only now realizing just how important they are; Kabi Nagata (My Solo Exchange Diary), for her heart-breaking honesty – I know many of us want her to be healthy and happy; Takashima Hiromi (Kase-san and Yamada) for breaking Yuri romance out of high school where it had been locked for so long; Go Nagai (Devil Lady), for being a pioneer of queer women in his Devilman sagas;  Takemiya Jin (Itoshi Koishi) for walking us along the path with a young woman who wants to be out and open with her friends; Ameco Kaeruda (Sexiled), for writing a feminist power fantasy that is empowering, delightful and funny; Morishima Akiko (Conditions of Paradise) who at long last in 2020 will get the English-language recognition as a Yuri manga artist that she deserves.

Breakthroughs often pass unnoticed until long afterwards. I will note that 2020 will mark the end of one the most important decades in history for our genre, as well as the end of the first century for the genre. Some of these names created a solid foundation for us to build upon and some are among the leading lights as we head into a new decade. They most assuredly deserve our thanks and a place on this list.

 

Okazu Readers and Patrons
You, my Okazu readers, are critically important to our mission here. It is a testament to your engagement that so many of you have become writers for Okazu and a testament to your personalities that so many of you have become my friends. ^_^ My very sincere thanks to every one of you who reads and comments on and shares our content.

My very special thanks to Okazu Patrons for making it possible for me to celebrate this year with reviews and lectures and panels and events. Your financial and social support helps us pay for guest writers and reviewers. Every year you make this list, and once again this year I can say with all honesty, I could not have done it without you.

 

Light Novels & Novels
This year saw a veritable explosion of Light Novels and Novels in both digital and print. While as a genre LNs can be inconsistent, Yuri fans have been horribly spoiled by the high quality Light Novels we’ve seen.

J-Novel Club opened up their Yuri line with a salvo of truly excellent Yuri titles, including Last and First Idol,and Side-by-Side Dreamers. Seven Seas picked up what are extraordinarily good series-extension Bloom Into You, Regarding Saeki Sayaka. But the Light Novel that really blew my hair back was the totally-on-point brilliantly topical and deeply satisfying Sexiled series by Kaeruda Ameco. Those books scratched itches I didn’t know I had. If you haven’t read these, you should. Just go read them.

Will Yuri fans continue to be spoiled with top quality fantasy and science fiction Light Novels while everyone else has to deal with “the protagonist has no pants, hurh hurh” as a main plot point? I sure hope so.  ^_^

 

Now as we enter the final few of of our end-of-year roundup, I want to take a moment to note a few series that just deserve a moment of reverence and thanks for all they’ve done and all they will continue to do.

 

Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare
As I have repeatedly noted, this series is not Yuri. Instead, there is very real-world queer identity here; real problems faced by real people in the real world, which makes this series, if not unique, then at least extraordinary.

This story about self and community and creating a space in a world that isn’t welcoming…and then taking up that space and owning it, is a lot to ask of a work of fiction. Heck, it’s a lot to ask of life! Not only does Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare succeed at that, it does it beautifully.

This is the kind of LGBTQ work I hope we’ll see more and more of from increasingly open queer manga artists.

 

 

Sailor Moon Stars
Every year I joke that if there is a Sailor Moon out that year, it will find a way on to this list.  ^_^ Well this year a Sailor Moon that has never had an official English-language release is out and it so very, deeply, queer that it seems almost fantastic. Sailor Moon Stars is the final piece of the original series, and we’re looking forward to the Sailor Moon Crystal 4th season movies in the years to come.

Let me offer a toast to Sailor Moon Stars and to the permanent – and official –  partnership of Tenoh Haruka and Kaioh Michiru – and welcome to the the next iteration of Sailor Moon fandom. Here’s to cafes and night drive parfaits and anniversary albums. May we all be together once again for the 50th anniversary.

 

 

Rose of Versailles
The wait has not been in vain. It *just* squeaked onto this year’s list by having a limited release in December. Don’t be surprised to see it back again in 2020. It’s almost 50 years old but we have an official English language release of The Rose of Versailles at last and it is a truly magnificent thing. UDON has really gone above and beyond for this release.

Oscar’s struggle with gender and class expectations, with the pressures of a society in which she may not be the person she wants to be, takes us through love and loss and the overturning of an ancien regime in a story that is terrifyingly timely.

This story of the French Revolution seen through the eyes of Oscar François de Jarjayes is so very, very extra.

A classic manga just in time for our 100th anniversary. What a year we’ve had. Our Yuri shelves are already full to bursting, with even more amazing stuff to come in 2020!

 

 

Kase-san and Bloom Into You
Both the Kase-san series and Yagate Kimi ni Naru/Bloom Into You were relatively typical high school Yuri series. Both series managed to take the typical tropes of their origins and turn them into something interesting, unusual and ultimately,  original. Both had animation that went above and beyond the manga and both had a global impact.

Once upon a time, all we wanted was a genuinely happy ending for a Yuri love story, an ending that showed our characters moving into the future together. This year, we got two. Moreover, neither series is riding its fame into the sunset, yet. Takashima-sensei’s Kase-san is ongoing and we’re getting some post-series work from Nakatani-sensei in anthologies and artbooks and I desperately hope to see signs of a third Sayaka novel soon.

These series have made it onto both of the other lists and it seems only reasonable to just say this plainly – both these series were tops for 2019.

 

I’ve mentioned this repeatedly during these lists (and have to tell you, we’re not done yet…) but this year was an amazing one, for me, for the Yuri genre, for all of us. Which brings me to the very best Yuri thing this year.

 

100 Years of Yuri

Yuri Events were through the roof this year. It began with the an amazing time at TCAF and took me along, one fun Yuri-filled event to another. We did Yuri-focused Yurithon. We held the 100th Anniversary of Yuri Tour with a few like-minded friends, during which we spent time with the Sailor Senshi, and ate lunch with Fumi, flipped 500 yen coins at a shrine with Kuraku Asuka, bought Yuri goods and Yuri doujinshi and Yuri manga and glutted ourselves on food and threw money at Yuri artists at Girls Love Fest.

This celebration of Yuri’s 100th anniversary has been exhausting and amazing. I’ve met so many folks, got to meet new Yuri manga artists and see old friends and done so many presentations and had so very much fun.

The number one top Yuri thing of the year was…the year.

It’s been 100 Years since Yaneura no Nishojo (屋根裏の二) codified how we think and talk about Yuri. Thanks to Yoshiya Nobuko and thanks to all the people and companies on these lists. Thanks to all of you, my readers and commenters and my patrons.

Here’s looking forward to 2CYE (Common Yuri Era) in which the the fun is not over, as we extend the celebration into 2020 for the final 100th anniversary project here on Okazu. ^_^ Tune in tomorrow! And here’s to the next 100 Years!

 





Okazu Top Yuri Manga of 2019

December 29th, 2019

Annually, I say to you that this is the easiest of the lists to write. In previous years this was completely true. This year however, we hit a tipping point with Yuri manga: No sooner do I discover a series’ existence, than it’s scooped up for license, sometimes before I have a chance to read it in Japanese. Last year I called it an embarrassment of riches. This year, I’m calling it too much to reasonably list! ^_^

As a result of the absolutely massive amounts of Yuri manga being put out in Japanese and English, this list begins with groups of works, rather than individual titles. When I mention a title that is currently available in Japanese and English, I’m using the English language title. ^_^ As always, please feel free to chime in with your favorites in the comments!

 

Yuri Anthologies
White Lilies, Whenever Our Eyes Meet (from Yen Pess,) Yuritora Jump (ユリトラジャンプ), Syrup (to be released in 2020 by Seven Seas,) Éclair (out from Yen Press,) Yuri + Kanojo (百合+カノジョ), there have been – and are – so very many of these anthologies this year! I’ve written about their importance in the history of Yuri manga, and I’m genuinely thrilled that they are experiencing a resurgence in this new age of Yuri.

Anthologies provide a home for established creators to publish their original work, and a place for new, up-and-coming creators to experience publishing with a company. Fans get to see glimpses of new concepts, new art, new ideas and find new artists to care about. Almost all of my favorite artists were (and often still are) avid anthology contributors. I unabashedly love anthologies, with my endless hope for really good short stories.

As a result of this new wave, Yuri anthologies make this year’s list!

 

Shakaijin Yuri
Stories about life after high school, where love between adult women can(!) exist. Nikurashii Hodo Aishiteru (to-be-released by Yen Press as I Hate You So Much, I Love You), Still Sick (out from Tokyopop,) BariKyari to Shinsou (バリキャリと新卒), Yuri Life (out from Yen,) Fuzoroi no Renri (不揃いの連理), Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana (to-be-released by Viz Media as How Do We Relationship?) and so many more that I have read and reviewed in the past year, tell stories that until recently could not have been told. Lesbians are still few and far between but we sometimes even get a rare glimpse of one in these adult life tales. ^_^

A decade ago, Yuri was firmly embedded in school life stories, and we were still being informed that girls wear bloomers (they didn’t) and were definitely being married off after graduation (they weren’t) and were never going to be able to see each other again (they could…and there are phones). A person becoming a Yuri fan today would have a chance to see relationships between adult women functioning in the real world in a way we could never have imagined. Western companies are on board with this, bringing out more and more of the adult life Yuri manga. That’s pretty damned awesome.

 

Comic Yuri Hime/ Galette

Manga magazines have such an important position in manga culture. For most creators, seeing their work serialized is pretty much the epitome of where a title can go. And for Yuri manga, it provides the closest thing to normalization that the industry has. Where anime tends to favor the lowest common denominators (or lower, depending on how uncommon a fetish might actually be,) the constant, slow, repeated application of seeing women together as couples in manga can change the world.

For that reason, I want to once again call out the two Yuri manga magazines that exist right now. I don’t like everything in them, but for their efforts in normalizing Yuri (and, I will project a bit,) relationships between women, monthly Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫) and quarterly Galette (ガレット) hold a special place in my heart.

 

Now we’re going to take a step away from the general towards specific series that, in my honest opinion, really stood out this year and did something important.

 

Goodbye Dystopia
It was easy to overlook Hisona’s 3-volume manga series from Comic Yuri Hime, Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア). It’s not flashy, there was no sex, no histrionics, no drama. Instead, it opened up a whole new field for Yuri creators…one that we hadn’t seen before; two women traveling not to get somewhere, but to leave something behind. We took the time to see old and decrepit things, and most of that time was spent in silence. I would have read a dozen more volumes of that, a Yuri story in which nothing at all was important. I was able to enjoy the feeling of wandering in an almost-empty post-apocalyptic landscape set in the middle of the modern world.

As we head into what is very likely to be the twilight of the human species, we can remember that everything comes to an end and still look forward to tomorrow.

 

Bloom Into You
I had a lot of reservations about Bloom Into You from the beginning. I’m still not quite sure why it became as popular as it did. Perhaps a mix of zeitgeist and TV animation, but more probably because of the marketing powerhouse Kadokawa/ASCII Mediaworks. No joke – if you want your series to be popular, get Kadokawa to market it. It can be purest distilled crap and they’ll polish it up and sell it for luxe prices. ^_^

The main love story was nice enough, but where this series shone, where it gleams like a beacon of frickin’ hope is in its treatment of Saeki Sayaka, a serious-minded young lesbian who meets two adult women in a relationship and finds herself. I delighted in every moment we spent with Sayaka, with her time talking to Miyako about her true self and getting to know her even better in the light novels.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that this series made this year’s list because of Sayaka. ^_^

 

My Solo Exchange Diary
I very much hope one day soon to write an article about how creator Nagata Kabi absolutely threw the doors wide open for graphic medicine in Japan. It’s not that comic essays were unheard of, but before Nagata-sensei’s brutal self-evaluation and honest autobiographical essays about the mental and physical constraints of her existence, Josei manga artists frequently entertained readers with comic essays about life as a mother or living with cats. Nagata-sensei’s work was vastly different. Casting herself as a one-woman show on a stage of her own making, she touched the hearts of millions of people worldwide, a Raina Telgemeier of Japanese mental health, covering depression, eating disorder (and alcohol-induced pancreatitis in her newest book.) In years to come, it is my belief that we will see Nagata-sensei listed as a genuine pioneer whose work changed lives and the manga industry, much as we see the Magnificent 49ers now.

It’s not an easy read, but if I taught a course on manga, My Solo Exchange Diary would be a fixture on the curriculum.

 

Kase-san and Yamada
I’ve said it a thousand times, lesbian don’t just disappear after high school. I say this because until recently, they kind of did. ^_^; From the beginning, the Kase-san series was never groundbreaking. It trod over well-worn paths, but it stopped a little more often to notice the flowers that lined those paths. In Volume 6 released this year, Kase-san and Yamada took their first step off that path onto new territory.

When Kase-san and Yamada left high school, readers might have assumed that the series would wrap up. Instead they moved to the big city to go to college and we went along with them to see how they handled a new environment and new challenges. It’s a pleasure to spend time with these women and a pleasure to see where their experiences will take them as they enter the adult world.

Yamada and Kase-san are no strangers to this list, having made it on several times since their debut in 2011. We welcome them back once again for this year.

You’ll have noticed that my primary motivation for inclusion this year, as it has been for many years is stories with a sense of reality; stories of couples who exist in a semblance of the world as you and I might hope to experience it. With that in mind, I give you the Okazu Top 3 Yuri manga of 2019.

 

Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru
Hayama Asuka and Terano Saki are teachers at a school who have, to their surprise, fallen in love. Everyone knows they are going out and everyone, from students to administration think they could not be more adorable if they tried. This is the major handwave of this series and I, for one, think it wholly acceptable. Instead of dealing with bullying by colleagues or angry parents, we get to enjoy Saki and Asuka loving their time with one another.

Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている) is an adult story that includes sex, but is not porn. It focuses on the the sheer joy these two women find in one another. Yes, it’s a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy I wholeheartedly endorse. This manga makes me smile. Every time. Next year you’ll be able to enjoy it as Our Teachers Are Dating! from Seven Seas.

 

I’ve never hidden my desire to see more overtly lesbian themes in my Yuri. This year, we were able to enjoy manga series that were explicitly about queer people, by queer creators, that told various stories of different gender and sexual minorities. My top two series this year are effectively tied for the position because they both are by us, and tell our stories.

 

Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare
2019 was the year we were able to read a LGBTQ manga that pulled no punches. Yuhki Kamatani’s breathtakingly beautiful and moving Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare is a love letter to Shimanami and a supportive hand being held out to LGBTQ youth at the same time. Each character’s story is unique and individual, there is no pretense to telling all queer stories ever. Every character is shown as three-dimensional, working on understanding themselves and their place in a world that won’t make a place for them.

It ends with a wedding ceremony for the lesbian characters; a symbol of change and acceptance.  The first time my wife and I had a ceremony, we never expected to be able to marry legally. And here we are with that right. Saki and Haruko’s wedding might not be legal, but their families being there for them is an important step forward. This is not “Yuri” but it is one of the most overtly queer manga I have ever seen. Like a symbolic wedding, I honestly think that is worth celebrating. It’s a step forward. I’ll hope that this holds the door open to more overtly queer stories, more stories of lesbian couples who don’t face “death or marriage” as the only possible outcomes. And maybe, just maybe, assist in changing the way people think, an important bit of groundwork for a new legal landscape for queer couples in Japan.

 

In the middle of the many Yuri tropes that exist, there is one trope that is so very common in western literature and yet is almost completely missing in Yuri – the coming out narrative. There is a series that I have believed since the very beginning would be the series to address this. I was not wrong. This series is my top Yuri manga pick of the year.


Itoshi Koishi
Hina, a senior in high school is going out with Yayoi, an older woman. Yayoi is very aware of the age difference and is waiting for Hina to move beyond school into adult life. They are good for each other, and take care of each other and their friends are supportive. Yayoi is a lesbian and has friends who are, as well.  Hina has friends who adore her and whom she adores, and she has slowly and surely been moving towards telling them the one thing she’s been keeping from them. My Christmas present arrived with the January edition of Comic Yuri Hime in the form of Itoshi Koishi‘s protagonist Hina, coming out to her friends and her friends responding with love and acceptance. Hina takes on a few old lingering stereotypes of gay couples (left over from Japanese TV shows purporting to show “real” gay people whose lives were miserable) and clears them away with a smile.

Takemiya-sensei has been leading up to this slowly, carefully and ever so gently. Itoshi Koishi (いとしこいし) is not a series of high melodrama, it is a series about two people who love and are loved in return. It shows that “coming out” may never be easy, but it does not have to be traumatic. I love this story with all my love.

This series, by this author, who combines Yuri and lesbian themes sweetly, without fantasy handwaves, is my number one Yuri manga of the year.

 

The next list will be an accounting of all the companies, the people, the places and things that have made 2019 an amazing anniversary year for Yuri!

 

 





Okazu Top Yuri Anime of 2019

December 27th, 2019

Hello and welcome to the 2019 Edition of the end-of-year lists here on Okazu! <pausing for applause> As usual, I will be splitting the lists of things I consider notable, interesting, worth mentioning into three. We begin, as we always begin with anime of the year that I consider worth noting. Also as usual, I will be bending the laws of relativity around words like “anime” “year” and “worth.” ^_^ I’ll do my best to note where and/or how you can watch this series on the list. Because it is possible this year, every single series on the list is available legitimately streaming and/or with an English-language release on DVD or Blu-ray.

These are all inherently my opinion and may therefore necessarily not reflect yours. ^_^ I invite you to write your top lists in the comments! I’d love to see what you consider best of the year.

 

Honorable Mention: Devilman Crybaby

This was explicitly a 2018 series, but I did not watch it until 2019, so could not include it last year, which was a huge failure on my part. Oh well. ^_^

Devilman Crybaby is also not “Yuri” per se, but it is queer as fuck and arguably the best anime I watched all year.

So here we are, starting off with this collaboration for Go Nagai and Masaaki Yuasa in one of the finest anime I have ever seen. Devilman Crybaby is a masterwork and deserves recognition for its mastery.

Streaming on Netflix.

 

 

 

Revue Starlight

It’s not as Yuri as I’d hoped, but there’s plenty of Yuri drama in between what is largely incoherent plot points. But who needs coherence when you have songs! and fights! and a giraffe!

For Futaba and anyone not Kaoruko, for Banana and Junna and above all, for Maya and Claudine, this series definitely deserves a place here.

Streaming on HIDIVE, coming out in 2020 on “home video” as they say, from Sentai Filmworks.

 

 

Steven Universe

I know and you know that this is not anime. It is, however so *deeply* inspired by anime that I hope I don’t even need to mention that it’s a child of Revolutionary Girl Utena, it’s just that obvious.

It tells us deeply difficult stories in a way that actually address all of the problematic bits, and it give us multiple queer characters seen from multiple angles. Both allies and enemies are sympathetic and unsympathetic in turn.  And it gave us so much music that gets stuck in my head. The series climax was brilliant, the movie finale was a Takarazuka tribute and “Future” gave us time to consider where we go from here. As long as there’s a Steven Universe. It’ll quite likely end up here on my Top list eventually. ^_^

Broadcast on Cartoon Network, streaming on Amazon Prime, available on DVD.

 

 

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Yep, also not an anime. But super duper gay, so yeah, it’s on here. It’s a little darker, a lot more complex than kid’s cartoons were in my youth, but the gay characters’ relationships are noted as such. There’ll be no segment of fandom trying to rewrite what they are told here – Netossa and Spinarella are a couple and so are Bow’s parents and that is that. I genuinely love how I am not the target audience for this series and how very obviously little kids are, without the tiresome blatant marketing + faux morality that was foisted upon cartoons I grew up with.

She-Ra and the Princess of Power is a damn fine animated series and you should at least give it a try.

Streaming on Netflix, available on DVD.

 

 

Sailor Moon Super S

Upon watching the Sailor Moon SuperS Special, one might find oneself inclined to become very gay indeed. (Also one might wonder about the ferociousness of Michiru without Haruka to keep her tempered.) For such a short special, it packs a really gay punch. And this is the first time its ever had an official English-language release!

SuperS starts off with a surprising amount of queerness, but it all gets set aside for the second of Chibi-Usa’s questionable love choices. Nonetheless, the SuperS Special makes this whole season worth existing and is the sole reason that it is on this list.

Streaming on Viz.com, available on Blu-ray from Viz Media.

 

 
 

Sailor Moon Stars

Where SuperS starts off queer, but ends back in boring old straightsville, Sailor Moon Stars starts queer and just keeps on going for a long, long while. It has the largest collection of non-cis and not-straight characters of all the seasons and Haruka and Michiru get some pretty intimate lines between them. When you remember that this is a 25 year old series for children, and you reevaluate some of their scenes, you might feel at least a little bad for those folks positive in their conviction that they were not women and not in love. Because they are so obviously, definitely two women in love any argument to the contrary seems utterly ridiculous.

For at long last, giving us the best possible version of Stars, Viz gets two thumbs up and a place in this year’s top three.

Streaming on Viz.com, available on DVD and Blu-ray Viz Media.

 

 

Kase-san and Morning Glories

It was sweet, it was charming, it was beautifully, lovingly animated. And now that it is available in English as a sub and a dub, it’s one of the best buys of the year! Yamada, who loves plants and struggles quietly with her sense of self-worth, and Kase-san, a beloved star athlete of the school, fall in love and it’s all…delightful. They have things to work through, and things they need to say out loud and things that they need to do for themselves, but they are there for each other, moving forward in life and love, together.

Their story is ongoing, but this anime can be watched as is without any explanation as a slice of two lives that are coming together as one.

Available on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks.

 

The Kase-san OVA has been my #1 of the year before, and I honestly expected it to be again this year, but then some things happened. First, something old and wonderful came back to us after years of being obscure.

 

Go Nagai’s The Devil Lady

A bit of a late entry, because I had no idea it had come back into circulation, but Go Nagai’s The Devil Lady, the early 2000’s ADV (now Section 23) release of Devilman Lady is….fantastically gay and deeply Yuri. It’s violent, and trashy, as all Nagai works are, and it’s full of mutating people and death and misery and sexual desire and even love.

In a year when queer horror is having the renaissance it deserves, and in Go Nagai’s 55th anniversary of his debut year, I can’t think of anything that makes me happier than to see one of my absolute favorites come back into the limelight. Fingers crossed for a license of the remastered Devilman Lady which ought to be out next year for a 20th anniversary. (And I’ve already asked Seven Seas to consider the manga which was deeply fucked up. ^_^)

Streaming on Amazon Prime.

 

When it comes to “something happened,” my number one pick of the year doubled down.

 

Bloom Into You

The first thing that happened was that – very unusually – the anime really added layers of depth to the manga and ended up being better than the source material.

With insightful voice acting in both English and Japanese, the anime took a few early volumes of the manga and made them seem far more compelling than the comic had. That’s rare in and of itself.

But what really catapulted this series into the top spot was that the home release actually fixed the problems with the broadcast/streaming animation, and added in a pile of physical extras on top of that. For once, it was really worth getting a Premium box set.

Considering that the story is chock-a-block full of typical Yuri tropes, the fact that the Bloom Into You Premium box set from Sentai Filmworks/Section 23 is so incredibly good, it is my number one Yuri anime pick of the year.

Streaming on HIDIVE, available on Blu-ray.

We didn’t have a lot of Yuri anime this year, but what we had was pretty amazing! Next up, the unbelievably difficult Yuri Manga list. (Holy cow there was a lot of good Yuri manga this year.)





Top Ten Yuri of 2018

December 31st, 2018

Inexplicably, as I began to type this, the first few words of the song “My Way” popped into my head. ^_^ This list is definitely not a song of the end, it’s a paean to some simply fantastic work that has been done in the past year and a joyful prayer, if you will, for the future.

This final Okazu list of the year is, traditionally, a nod of thanks to the people, companies, trends of note and series that stood out in 2018 above all the rest.

I don’t want for much. I just wanted Yuri to be recognized as a legitimate genre of its own (check) and be a big enough umbrella to be applied to actual stories of queer experience (check) by queer creators (check) as well as all the fetishy crap people seem to like. ^_^ I wanted stories about adult women as well as girls in school. This year, I have gotten all this and so much more….

…so I will begin this year’s list with a complaint. ^_^

 

Where is my Sports Yuri?!?

As I have said repeatedly, 2018 has been a remarkable year for Yuri. How could I possibly want anything more? 

I want a sports Yuri series. A several-volume, honest-to-god sports rivalry + Yuri series. I’m still vexed that ice skating is out of the question, because that would have been perfect. (-_-) 2019, I’m looking at you because this gap is just intolerable. We have horror Yuri, and idol Yuri and literary Yuri. I really want a sports Yuri. Or military. That would be okay too.  ^_^

 

Yuri Publishers US & JP

I want to start off with a moment to thank the folks who put Yuri on our table and this year, we’ve got more and more companies who are adding to the pile. I actually cannot thank all the JP publishers this year, the list would be nearly endless. But I can thank a few key players who have done so much: Galette Works, Ichijinsha, East Press and Kadokawa/ ASCII Mediaworks have all contributed some of our favorite manga of the year by some of our favorite creators in Japan.

In the West, we can thank Viz Media, Yen Press, Kodansha Comics and a very serious shout-out of thanks to Seven Seas, which has made a significant investment into queer manga. Thank you all. (Fingers crossed we can add Denpa Books here next year.)

 

LGBTQ Manga

Which brings me to the first major shift we have recently seen in manga. It didn’t begin in 2018, we just saw more of it ever before. (And, I predict that in the near future we will be seeing more.) One does not need to be a queer creator to create queer manga, but, to be reductive about, it helps. More Yuri manga artists are more out, and the manga we’re seeing – even if it is not lesbian-identified – is queerer than ever. This year, we saw lesbians in our Yuri. And it was good.

 

American Kids Cartoons

Let’s all give a rousing cheer for the state of children’s cartoons in 2018!

Adventure Time gave us the happy ending we wanted for Marceline and Princess Bubblegum and normally, that final wave of the hands might be all we could expect, but no. 2018 gave us She-Ra and the Princess of Power with subtext aplenty between Catra and Adora, and in previous years, we would have been happy. But…not in 2018. In 2018, She-Ra also introduced itself with an established lesbian couple.  And 2018 gave us Steven Universe with Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding on network TV. A marriage between two female-identified characters in prime time in a cartoon for children.  Beat that, 2019!

 

Yuri Network

Every year you make this list and every year, I get misty about it. You, my Okazu readers, reviewers, commenters and patrons, you make this worth doing. One of the great joys of having done this for so long is having been able to meet and speak with so many of you. 

So thank you for reading these posts, joining me at events, listening to the podcasts, writing guest reviews, chatting with me online, correcting me when I get things wrong and generally making the Yuri Network the best community in the world. You are always one of the Top Yuri things of the year.

 

Adult Yuri

2018 is the year the Yuri world realized that lesbians don’t die after they gradate from high school, and they don’t just become straight and live happily ever after. ^_^ This year we saw the proliferation of office romance, and adult Yuri stories in both anthologies and magazines. 

Which leads me to…

 

 

 

 

 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei/ Bloom Into You

In 2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei Nanami wasn’t ever straight, she just hadn’t ever figured it out until Aoi pointed out the obvious.  And then, we’re told that Nanami, before we met her, had gone out with women. This is important – not in a “aha! gotcha” kind of way but in a very 21st century way in which we as a species are starting to realize that sexuality and gender just aren’t at all what we thought they were. I’m going to just assume most people are “*.*sexual” and then let the story play out. In Nanami’s case the story was, in part, her coming to terms with what everyone around her could see (aka, the glass closet.)

Why is this important? Because in Bloom Into You Sayaka gets an adult lesbian role model. These two things are related; this is the year Yuri creators started feeling more comfortable portraying adult women who are queer (in the broadest sense) in Yuri. Also, young women.  Of all the characters in all of anime, the novel Yagate Kimi ni Naru: Regarding Saeki Sayaka is the closest thing we have ever seen to a coming out narrative.

This kind of thing is a tectonic shift. It will keep changing the landscape…watch this space. I predict 2019 we’ll see even more of this  nonspecific queerness. (And I will let go some of my need for specific queerness.)

 

 

 

Shimanami Tasogare

Case in point!  This series was painful in a lot of ways, and beautiful in a lot of ways and so very real. I have always been convinced that every queer kid needed a gay auntie to guide them and this series (and My Brother’s Husband, and Bloom Into You, as far as it goes) makes the point very well.

Adult lesbians in manga. FTW.  I love the idea that we’re seeing queer adults who can provide positive role models for young queer folks more than just about anything I have seen in years. 

 

 

 

 

Galette

I long wondered what it might look like for Yuri if Yuri artists just, y’know, did their own magazine, without having to appeal to some editor’s personal preferences, disguised as Market Forces. Galette marks it’s second year –  it is just so damn beautiful. I love the aesthetic of the whole thing.  I love that they have already expanded their reach with their own doujinshi Galette Meets. I love the fact that this is crowdfunded, and one of our Okazu goals for next year is to up our support of this magnificent beauty of a magazine. I’m always excited about the next issue and the next and hope like heck to see it grow Yuri in new and exciting ways. Galette remains one of the top Yuri things of the year.

 

Which brings us to our number one Yuri anything of the year. No one  can possibly be surprised about this. 

 

 

Asagao to Kase-san OVA

There is no more emblematic series for Yuri this year than this one. Shinshokan’s magazine Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari went out of print in 2014, but this series kept on going. In 2017, that seed bloomed as one of the most delightful marketing tests, the Asagao to Kase-san animation clip. Pony Canyon put a lot of love and humanity into that clip and it showed…and it worked! Takashima Hiromi’s series was born again, moving into Wings magazine as the characters were able to move out of high school. It lacks adult role models (although I wonder about that gym teacher) but there’s still time.

Everything about the Asagao to Kase-san OVA was lovingly handled. Animation, storytelling, music, voice acting…everything was so intentional. We learned through the interviews and presentations at conventions, that they really thought all of this through. The end result is a story that works well beyond the tropes of “Yuri” and, while it had neither lesbian identity nor adult role models, it was one of the most realistic lesbian romance stories I’ve ever seen.

As soon as I saw this OVA, I knew that it was the benchmark for Yuri this year. Thank you Zexcs, Shinshokan, Pony Canyon and congratulations and thank you to Takashima Hiromi-sensei for your efforts on our behalf.

 

Asagao to Kase-san OVA was the Top Yuri of 2018.

 

“And now the end is near…”   This year on Okazu we had 8 event reports, 11 Guest Reviews, 2 essays and 279 posts!  For Yuri fans, the end  of this year is a moment before an even more amazing year to come. 

Here’s wishing you all a very happy, healthy and wonderful New Year. And here’s hoping us all a 2019 full of terrific Yuri!





Top Ten Yuri Manga of 2018

December 28th, 2018

Well, my friends, that time of year has come upon us once again. 2018 is coming to a close and I have never before had so many riches to work with. This has been the most remarkable year for Yuri I have ever seen in 20 years of obsessing about it. ^_^

I say almost every year, “may our tribe increase” and this year our tribe has surely increased by many fold. My Top Ten list will be as personal, capricious and enraging as always – I will forget things and not mention stuff you liked, some of which will have been there and been taken away multiple times  and some of which wouldn’t have been put there at all – so I welcome you all to add your thoughts in the comments! Which Yuri manga do you consider your top Yuri manga of the year? 

Note on titles: If a series has been released in English, the English title is being used. If not, the Japanese title is the one you see.

 

Sweet Blue Flowers/ Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl

Sweet Blue Flowers, this new classic of Yuri, wrapped up in 2018 and was already kind of dated a mere 14 years after it premiered in Japan. ^_^;  But this year we saw the completion of a definitive edition by Viz Media. This edition had solid translation and well-researched notes that enriched readers’ understanding of the context; which is just exceptionally important in this series, with its many literary homages and references. Now that we have this in one lovely, complete and exceedingly well-done collection, we can set it firmly on the  “Yuri Classic” shelf where it belongs and move forward into a new age of Yuri.

Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl is the exact opposite story – taking all the classic tropes, creating a few new ones and carefully crafting a story about people we care about out of them. It will end shortly in Japan, but we’ll have it here in the west for some time to come, so settle in and wait to see how it all pans out for Ayaka, Yurine and their friends and peers .

 

Yuri Anthologies (Éclair, Yuri +Kanojo, OL Yuri)

I’ve talked a lot this year about the important place Yuri anthologies had in the development of the genre. I quite like anthologies for the same reason most people dislike them: Anthologies give you a small taste of many different stories, art styles and concepts. The downside is when you really like a creator and the story ends, but the upside is you have someone new to follow! And these, days, with social media, you can literally follow them and see what they are working on right now.

I want to especially call out the new trend of grown-up Yuri anthologies; collections focusing on relationships between adult women. Yes, please!

 

After Hours

I adored this story when I read it in Japanese and am just that happy with it now that it is in English. It’s not something we see much – a whimsical and fun romance story about two women who live on the fringes of normal life without being outcast, or broken or weird. They just live their own lives. This story is overtly about building something together – a life, a rave, it’s all the same when you think of it, and you know I believe that with my whole heart.

 

My Solo Exchange Diary

I’ve never cared so much about a complete stranger as I do Nagata Kabi. I want to support her in her ongoing struggle to live a life with the very real problems she has has freed so many people, both in Japan and in the west, to speak more openly about. Graphic Medicine is, in actual fact, one of the fastest-growing genres in comics and manga. I think it’s important for a lot of reasons, the most important of which is (like coming out of any kind) to let people know they are not alone. Narratives like this remind me how lucky I am every day that I can wake up, work, play online, and write for Okazu. I’m literally one myelin sheath away from having all of that taken from me every day. 

For being one of the manga that has helped define a space where we can be more than one thing at once and still be seen as human, and also for making me hope that Nagata-sensei gets to live her life, My Solo Exchange Diary makes this list easily. 

 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) 

By now, you’ve probably realized that this list is going to have more adults on it than it ever has since I began doing this in 2004. 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei told a slow-developing romance story, abut two adult women living realistic adult lives in a real world. We saw Nanami pull long hours at the office and Kaede burning herself out building a career in manga, as well as quiet moments of eating food and seeing friends. There was enough fiction to make the real stuff work and enough real stuff to make the fiction fun. I am so happy that we have 8 volumes of this manga, making it the longest-running manga about adult women from Comic Yuri Hime. There was never any doubt in my mind that it would be on this year’s list. ^_^ 

 

Terano-sensei to Hayama-sensei  ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている)/ Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア)

I’m gonna keep talking about these two titles in the coming year, so get used to hearing about them. ^_^

Goodbye Dystopia is an apparently aimless wander through somewhere by two people for some reasons, very little of which has been explicated after two volumes. I love the art, the timelessness and placelessness of the story and would like it to never end. Imagine Thelma and Louise at walking pace, without any end in sight. Awesome.

Terano and Hayama are just the absolutely cutest things in the world. Two teachers at a girls school are dating and the girls think it’s cute, the administrator thinks it cute and I think it’s cute! I want them to be happy together forever.

 

Galette (ガレット)

If you’re a regular reader of Okazu, this cannot possibly be too much of a surprise. This crowdfunded, creator-owned collaborative effort by so may excellent Yuri artists is always exciting to read, to see what has been done and by whom. As it wraps up its second year of existence, it’s giving space to great established artists and finding space for new pros and I cannot wait to see what it will do in the future.

 

Enjoy the Okazu Top Ten Lists?

I always pause here, because as capricious as I am for my likes and dislikes, the top three always are put here for a reason – they are special. This year’s top three positively encapsulate Yuri for 2018 with their breadth of storytelling, style and intent.

 

Bloom Into You

Sometimes a series just hits the right note. For better or worse, this is Bloom Into You‘s time. With an anime that has done the spirit of the manga a good turn, a novel (which I am reading and it is nailing Sayaka’s inner tone, so that’s good) and an ongoing manga which is shaping up to be much better than I could have ever expected, really, it deserves our attention.

It’s time for me to give Nakatani Nio the credit she deserves. Bloom Into You is my #3 manga for 2018.

 

 

 

 

Kase-san Series

I always refer to this series as the “little series that could” because of it’s irregular past, but it has become something much bigger than itself with the jump to animation. The manga continues, and it continues to grow, to change, to lead by example. It’s done so many important things including moving people to see it as more than a “love story between girls.”

This series has and is still dealing with things like body issues and self-esteem and friendship. Kase and Yamada are facing the adult world together which is both terrifying and remarkable in a Yuri manga.

Reading the Kase-san series has very much been like watching real people grow up. Yamada’s journey from being someone who did not believe in her own future and whom the people round her thought of as plain old Yamada, has been so much like watching a flower bloom that the analogy becomes a “duh” moment. The series is called “Kase-san” but we – and Kase-san – are always watching Yamada. And it’s been very rewarding watching her grow.

In other years, the Kase-san series has been number 1, but this year comes in second to…

 

Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼 ))

So, yeah, I’m spoiling the heck out of this series for you, but I want you to understand just what we’re in for. ^_^

This is not a Yuri manga. It is an LGBTQ manga. It is fully, wholly, 100% grounded in the real world in which kids who even slightly kind of think they (or, who other people think) are not cisgender and heterosexual, deal with very real consequences. This is a manga in which people spew harmful stereotypes and have to be educated over and over and over again, until they, maybe, get it, a little. It is a manga of confrontation, of accepting one’s self even when others don’t. It’s a manga with adult role models, some of whom will never be able to get a happy ending – and how important it is, for those of us that do get that, to share it and let the seeds of it grow.

I am so excited that you’ll all be able to read this in English next year, which is why Kamatani Yuhki’s Shimanami Tasogare is my top Yuri manga of 2018!