Yuri Anime

Last week I took a moment to wax poetic about my favorite lesbian couple in anime, Haruka and Michiru on Quora. This week you can learn to love them too, as Sailor Moon S is now available streaming on Viz’s Neon Alley, subbed – the dub is slowly catching up. I’m looking forward to the S dub for the first time in ever.  ^_^

Yuri Manga

New on the Yuricon Store this week!

One of the new re-prints from Ichijinsha, Rokuroichi’s Kuchibiru ni Saketa Orange Special Edition (くちびるに透けたオレンジ 新装版). They are also putting together a special edition reprint of Saburouta’s Citrus 1 Special Edition (Citrus 1 新装版).

Kuzushiro’s Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san gets a spinoff volume, Ryuuzaki-san to Torao-san ~ Yuri Hime Short Story Collection (龍崎さんと虎生さん ～百合姫短編集～).

And we now have the much-anticipated English translation of sci-fi lesbian Bande dessinée,  The Infinite Loop. We definitely need more Yuri sci-fi and I’m very much looking forward to reading this story.

Yuri.pl on Facebook reports that the fifth and final volume of the Polish edition Morinaga Milk’s GIRL FRIENDS is hitting shelves today!

Comics Alliance had me screaming in joy with the news that Lumberjanes To The Max hardcover volume is coming in November! Aaaaaaahhhhh!

Yuri Live Action

Did you enjoy the creepy/funny/fanservice-y Innocent Lilies? Well, Denpa-gumi is back with Innocent Lilies 2 – White Witch Academy streaming on Viki.com. Expect slightly higher budget for costumes, zero extra budget for plot or scripting. ^_^

Event News

TGIF/F,  “a gal pals convention”, celebrating femslash is being held in February 2016 in Los Angeles. If you’re going, do let me know and I’ll deputize you to write up a event report for us!

Other News

Brigid Alverson on Comic Book Resources, has filed her report on the Creating Unique Gay Characters in Alternative Comics panel at San Diego Comic Con.

Slate has an interesting article and video on Polari, the underground slang of gay men in the UK before it was  decriminalized in 1967.

Mizoguchi Akiko, a leading BL researcher in Japan, has just published her first book. Book and author are profiled on the Japanese-language LBGTQ site 2chopo. Congrats to Mizoguchi-san!

PrideSource has a report about an LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed book for young people, Sex is a Funny Word.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Crowdfunding News

Our friends at Sparkler Monthly are setting up for their 3rd year, and would like your help to continue publishing fantastic female-creator and female-focused comics, prose and audio dramas! Support their Kickstarter to support Josei for the English-speaking world. The price of one manga will get you an ebook, the digital desktop set and their thanks. There’s even special creator levels that focus on Yuri creators KAIJU and Denise Schroeder.

This has nothing at all to do with manga, but I’m enamored with the iBackpack, a portable comunications hub, with enough charge for you and a bunch of friends to recharge your phones,  have wifi hotspot and a number of other features that will make it invaluable on the con circuit. The Indiegogo campaign launches August 15th. Stay tuned. I think this one might be a game changer for those of us who travel and con.

Other News

We knew this, but here’s the confirmation doubters won’t accept anyway – creators of Steven Universe agree that the Ruby and Sapphire are a lesbian couple.

Comic Natalie reports on a new Yuri Sci-fi manga series called “Heart of the Girl” beginning in Mangatime Kirara Miracle magazine.

ANN Reports that Otome Teikoku, an “ecchi comedy” by Maka-Maka’s  Kishi Torajirou (by which I mean it’s fairly unreadable,) is getting a “petit anime.” I reviewed Volume 1 in 2011, and never looked at it again.

Sentai Filmworks has released their first Sabagebu anime collection shots. It looks damn good. ^_^

I don’t honestly expect any great licensing news out of Otakon this weekend, but Summer Comiket is coming, and there’s always treasures galore there. The circle Lesbian Erotica, for instance, is going to be selling their BDSM comic, YuriKa, (ゆり母) collected this year, after having been online for YuRibon and on LINE manga.

Transformative Works and Cultures is looking for articles for a special Queer Female Fandom Issue. The Call For Papers can be found on Fanstudies. org.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.
Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

Quick datadump this week, my brain is leaking out my ears. If you follow me on FB, you know why. ^_^

I found this month’s copy of  MdN Design & Graphic magazine that had a Takako Shimura character and a girl on the cover. It turns out to be, as translator Simona Stanzani put it so succintly, “a ‘visual collaboration’ between Shimura Sensei and the idol Rina Ikoma.” Ikoma is a current member of idol group Nogizaka46.

Zac Bertschy of ANN has an interview with Lauren Landa and Erica Mendez, who play Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus in the new Viz dub of the original Sailor Moon anime. He jumps *right* in with the “cousins” fiasco and moves on from there. Interesting read!  And I am motivated for the first time ever to watch a dub. I’m looking forward to Landa and Mendez’ performance.

ANN also follows up on our big question about Sailor Moon Crystal with a look at the “See You Soon!” message at the end of the final “Black Moon” arc episode. Will we get a third season? We don’t yet know, but there’s still hope.

We’re only a few weeks away from the Yuricon Store Grand Opening. We’re going to be doing some contests as part of the celebration. One of them will be for Okazu Patrons only, so if you have *ever* though about subscribing to Okazu, now would be a swell time. You’d be getting us closer to our launch goal and give yourself an extra chance at winning a contest!

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Rica Takashima’s article for Eureka magazine’s “Current State of Yuri Culture”, Japan: Fertile Ground for the Cultivation of Yuri, is live for all on the Yuricon Essays page! It’s thought-provoking and a completely different perspective than we might expect. If you do any writing on Yuri, please let us know the citations, or let us have a copy of the article, so we can keep Yuricon the most  comprehensive site for Yuri research!

Comic Natalie writes that the September issue of Comic Yuri Hime will have a 10th anniversary special “petit” Comic Hime edition application. I find this to be a bit wanky. For the last bunch of years, they’ve sold their “Saiyuri Hime” book at Comiket, and now they are just selling the same thing as a 10th anniversary special. Way to be uncreative, folks. If it were me, I’d do a retrospective of the last ten years with all the artists contributing a comic or a message…but it’s not me.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

I promised to let you know if there was any more good news out of San Diego Comic-Con…and there was!

First, many congratulations to the folks who work on The Lumberjanes, for their well-deserved Eisner awards. Yes, plural. The Mary Sue has the story. I’m gonna say it…if you are an Okazu reader, definitely, positively, check out The Lumberjanes. It’s wonderful and wacky and magical and adventure and gods and monsters and bears and summer camp. In other words, it’s great. ^_^

Also squee-worthy, and also from TMS,  is the announcement of a Legend of Korra comic from Dark Horse Comics that will be focusing on Korra x Asami. I’m gonna swoon.

Lastly, not a SDCC news item, but extremely exciting, on Yuricon we have a third article from Eureka magazine’s “Current State of Yuri Culture” issue – Rica Takashima’s Japan: Fertile Ground for the Cultivation of Yuri. This pointed and grounded perspective on the origin of “Yuri” is unlike anything else you’ll read. Now available to the public, it can be accessed by anyone!

Doing your own Yuri research? Check out the Yuricon Essays page for all the available English-language research on the topic. And if you’ve written your own, do let us know, so we can add it to the citations!

And that’s a wrap for the news this week!