One more week of random news dumping. ^_^ (There’s a reason why I’ve been doing this – I’ll let you know as soon as I can, promise!)

Random Yuri News Items

ANN mentions the Rose of Versailles Beauty Drink that’s debuting in Japan. Don’t be terribly surprised – there’s been a line of RoV beauty and skin care products for years. I have all the RoV face masks, for the packaging: Oscar and Andre, Oscar and Marie and my favorite, Oscar embracing Rosalie. ^_^

Prism Comics is once again announcing it’s annual Queer Comics Grant The submission is open to anyone who is creating a comic that is of interest to the LGBTQ community. Go! Apply!

Barnacle Press has a website featuring an early 20th century comic called Lucy and Sophie Say Goodbye. In the middle of chaos, these two passionate friends say goodbye – sometimes quite passionately. This is a wonderful little comic you really need to see. Thanks to YNN Correspondent Sean G for the tip!

Here’s a fun little item for our friends in Tokyo – Shibuya cafe gossip cafe bills itself as a gay culture space, with a collection of LGBTQ books to read and buy. I’ll try to get over there when I’m next in town. It looks very pleasant.

The Comiket Market Catalog is being put online starting with Winter Comiket 2012. It’s been offered on CD for some years so this is a very natural progression. When you go to Comiket, the catalog acts as your map. (It also acts as hours of entertainment as you page through it, for the days preceding the event.) Nowadays, it’s easy enough to keep track of your favorite circles through their websites, Twitter (where many circles list their location and day for upcoming events in their bios or descriptions) and through applications like Twitcmap, which automatically updates circles who add their info to the Twitter info. (For instance, here is a link to the location and info for Circle UKOZ, via Twicmap.) The online version is unlikely to be free, since sales of the catalogs are Comiket’s main income, along with selling tables, but I’ll probably be getting it, just for the entertainment value. ^_^

YNN Correspondent Anon-kun wants you to know that Sanada Ikki, creator of Rakka Ryuusui, has a new series – Inpro (インプロ). Here’s what Anon-kun says about it: It’s “about a popular girl who intends on living her youth to its fullest, joins high school drama club that her good friend belongs in…. It’s a Yuri work as usual for Sanada Ikki; possibly on par or close to that of Rakka Ryuusui (which has been becoming more and more Yuri-riffic as the volumes progress). The Yuri content started out higher than Rakka Ryuusui did initially, though – with multiple characters being paired up in the first volume alone (main character Yuuki and the drama club veteran Tobari, club president Saya and Yuuki’s friend Nao), compared to the initial single pair in Rakka Ryuusui for its first 2 volumes.”

And from new YNN Correspondent, vero in Paris, this is a neat piece of news – French gay magazine Tetu has an article on Yuri manga and lesbian comics, featuring some of the titles that were licensed for French-language release this year. Thanks, vero, for the lead! The article and comments are in French, but “woohoo!” doesn’t look that different in French than it does in English. ^_^

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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

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

All*sorts* of random news this week!

Random Yuri-ish Sorts of Things

A Japanese blog conjectures about possible Yuri in the game Dragon’s Dogma. Via Anonymous in the comments section: it does sorta have Yuri, in that it: (A) Has sidequests that are romance-flavored much like how Yuru Yuri is Yuri-flavored (although to be fair you DO actually get to sleep with the Duchess), and (B) Makes no distinction between male and female player characters, which is 100% due to the programmers being too busy to make multiple versions of cutscenes or dialogue. The effect is both sorta weird and sorta progressive, since basically all characters are treated as if they’re actively bisexual. 


Regardless, this is basically Monster Hunter meets Skyrim: fun, but you’re not going to be playing it for silly things like “story,” “dialogue,” or “characters.” 

 Japanese artist Raita announces a doujinshi anime Blu-Ray to be released at this month’s Summer Comiket with the following “6 degress of Yuri” voice cast:

Mamiko Noto as Kotone Sasaki
Rie Tanaka as Misae Suzuhara
Ayako Kawasumi as Erika Kuramoto
Ai Kayano as Yui Niita

I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say this will sell out quickly, so get on line early!

Tickets for the October Smile! PreCure movie have already started to go on sale. Here’s a trailer for your viewing pleasure.

In Vietnam, two women went through with a wedding ceremony. “Concerned members of the community” called the cops on them, but the police arrived too late and the whole thing was over. Here’s an article in Japanese about the events, and a video of the happy couple.

Black Rock Shooter and Wandering Son anime both won awards from the Motion Picture and Television Engineering Society of Japan for technical achievement.

Here’s something of interest – the Women in Comics Wiki. Join, add, participate!

This week I said good bye to the folks at Hooded Utilitarian. Bye HU folks, it was fun!

And I waxed rhapsodic about Japanese manga magazine Young King Ours at Magazine no Mori.

The second volume of Kuzushiro’s Heian Period Yuri gag comic, Kimino Tamenara Shineru is this week’s best seller at JManga.com! (In fact, 5 of the 8 on the best seller list are Yuri.) Thank you all for your support and keep up the pressure, so we get more Yuri! More is on the way, I promise. ^_^

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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

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

Yuri Manga

JManga has released the second volume of Heian period gag comic Kimino Tamenara Shineru by Kuzushiro. If you buy your copy this week, you’ll be entered in a contest to win a copy of Sei Shonagon’s classic The Pillow Book. I hope you all enjoy this – it was a lot of work, but it came out pretty great. ^_^

The September volume of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫) and Yuru Yuri (ゆるゆり) Volume 9 just came out this week.

Tsubomi, Volume 19 (つぼみ) is getting an August release.

Aoi Hana, Volume 7 ( 青い花 ) is having a special festival in Kamakura this weekend, in conjunction with the Enoshima Electric Railway. Yuricon staffer and Okazu Superhero Bruce P is there and will report back. ^_^

Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari, Volume 8 (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) sports a cover by Hakamada Mera.

Hachimitsu Darling (蜜味ダーリン) by Haneda Ibuki is a dark horse Yuri story I know pretty much nothing about except that it’s about college age women and looks soap opera-y.

Asagi Ryuu’s  Koi o Hisokani Minoraseru Mono shows that Yuri has not escaped the incredibly long title trend that is currently clogging up Japanese bookshelves. (恋は秘かに実らせるもの).

Also following this trend is Amano Syuninta’s newest soap opera-y series about college age women, Watashi no Sekhai o Kousei Suru Gomi no You na Nanika (私の世界を構成する塵のような何か)

And just in case you were worried that there was a lack of baby-faced school girls for your Yuri reading pleased, here’s Icoru’s Musunde Hiraite (むすんでひらいて).

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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

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

It has been a very long week, so you’re getting another random dump of news items.

San Diego Comic-Con is on this weekend and we have a few announcements trickling out of the event:

Jmanga has announced that their iOS and Android apps will be available in October.  They officially announced manga titles from Ichijinsha’s Comic Yuri Hime, Gateau and Comic Zero Sum magazines. The Comic Yuri Hime titles are Yuru Yuri by Namori, Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu by Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki and Sora-iro Girlfriend by Rikachi. ALC is working with JManga on these titles, so look forward to them! (I’m hoping if they do well, we’re likelier to get some of the titles we want next round. ^_^) Jmanga is also hosting a translation contest – top prize is a trip to Japan, runners-up get an iPad. If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at translation, give it a shot!

Also from SDCC, artist Colleen Doran has this to say on Twitter: Advice no one in Artist Alley ever seems to get: you don’t chase Hollywood. If Hollywood’s not chasing you, it ‘aint happening.

UDON Entertainment is putting out a whole line of artbooks, including a R.O.D Official Archive.

Japan’s NHK Network ran a segment on Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends last night on their art and culture show MagNet, as part of their “Girls Manga” discussion.

Kashmir’s nonsense manga Yuriseijin Naaoko-san (Alien from the Yuri planet, Naoko-san) is getting an “animation novel” – what we used to call an OVA.  There is some mild Yuri in the series – it’s all gags and nosebleeds, mostly.

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That’s a wrap for this week!

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

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

It’s *all* top stories this week!

Yuri Anime


Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Sailor Moon and, in an anniversary event, a New Sailor Moon anime was announced. Squee!  No major details as of yet, we don’t know if the original voice actresses will be returning, but everyone is still in the business, except of course, Seiya’s voice actress, Shiho Niiyama, who passed away in 2000. There are plans for the series to have simultaneous world-wide release, something that made me sigh in relief. Right now they are angling for a summer 2013 release date. Personally, if it were me, I’d just start with the whole team, say two years later, and start in on a new series, new bad guys, etc.

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Other News

From YNN Correspondent Yaritza H., we learn that the “to commemorate the release of Aoi Hana Vol. 7, they are going to hold an exhibit with the Enoshima Electric Railway. The information comes straight from the Manga Erotics F website.”

About.com’s Manga doyenne, DebAoki interviews JuYoun Lee on Yen Press’ Talent Search, plus loads of tips for would-be manga creators  This is a must-read for aspiring artists.

JManga will be doing a Panel with Publisher’s Weekly’s Calvin Reid and Deb Aoki and JManga’s own Robert Newman at San Diego Comic-Con on the ‘Future of Digital Manga’. They are giving away prizes and making announcements about this summer’s Yuri projects and, I am totally guessing, but, probably about their iOS app. The Panel is on Friday, July 13 at 11:00-12:00 in Room 25ABC. Prizes will be goods from Akihabara, JManga points and a new iPad! I think this panel is definitely a do-not-miss if you can make it, do. Report back.

And, if you missed me on the Huffington Post’s discussion “Is Coming Out Passe’?”, here’s the link to the recording. I come on at about 12:30.

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That’s all the excitement I can take in one week.

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

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