Yuri Anime

The big news from Anime Expo this week is Nozomi/RightStuf’s announcement of the Aoi Hana anime.

A number of people commented that TRSI also took a moment to announce a new imprint of simple, budget packaging, “Lucky Penny.” Some of you have put those two facts together and come up with a conclusion that is not far off the mark. The Japanese release of Aoi Hana was…basic. There was no boxed set, just individual, highly priced disks. There were never any physical extras, and I know that TRSI was concerned about charging artbox set prices for no-artbox sets. So, we aren’t missing anything…there wasn’t anything to get in the first place. Congrats to TRSI for this exciting license and a great way for us to feel good about buying it.^_^

Feel old – the Sailor Moon 20th anniversary event will be held on July 6, with Mitsuishi Kotono and Furuya Tohru (Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask.) The event will stream live on Nico Nico Douga.

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Yuri Manga

Mariko and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim, is now out in Japan as Girl (ガール).

Utena co-creator Saito Chiho  plans to draw a manga adaptation of the Torikaebaya in Flowers magazine. (You might remember the Torikaebaya from Mari-sama ga Miteru, where Yumi and Yuki played the the twin siblings who switch court roles in Heian Japan.)

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Other News

New interview with Rica Takashima! More insight into her work ethic and what she’d like to accomplish..

RightStuf is holding a 25th anniversary contest. People at Anime Expo this weekend can drop by their booth for a postcard on which is a code, which may lead to fabulous prizes. Or, if you’ve got an order coming in from TRSI, you’ll get a postcard with your order. For those of us neither at AX, nor with an outstanding order, you can use the entirely old-fashioned method of sending an S.A.S.E,  a Self-addressed Stamped Envelope (do folks under 30 even know what those are?), the standard of all contests of my youth, and they will snail mail you a postcard at letter rate…wait for it…so you can scan in the QR code or enter the numbers in their website! This is a level of pointless complexity that I haven’t seen since the 1980s, when I had to cut out a piece of paper to certain dimensions and write my name and address in block letters of a certain height in order to win a piece of glass that was roughly diamond-shaped. Anyway, while I applaud TRSI for coming up with a contest that rewards fans, I’m enthralled by the execution, which tries and fails to mesh 20th century policies with 21st century technology. I’ve sent my S.A.S.E. and expect to receive a piece of glass roughly shaped like a diamond in the mail. ^_^

Here’s a link that’s worth reading, even if maybe you don’t agree with all the entries. It’s focused on western comics, so we can all feel a bit bad for them, since we’ve had Haruka and Michiru for 20 years! Comics Pride: 50 Comics and Characters That Resonate with LGBT Readers

Anime Expo is happening this weekend, and SDCC next, so I’ll just post news as it lands, if anything new and exciting comes up.

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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!

Happy Pride month to everyone! We have another week of fascinating news from all corners of the Yuri Network!


In honor of diversity and doing away with labels, today, you’re just getting the news as I slapped it down on this blog. ^_^

A beautiful essay on identity, pride and Sweet Blue Flowers – a very suitable start to this week’s News Report!

Alice Austen was an early female photography pioneer. Like her Japanese contemporary, Yoshiya Nobuko, Alice bucked society’s rules and lived together with her life partner Gertude. Their house, which is in Staten Island, NY is a museum. Learn more about her here: Alice Austen House. Since I have yet to manage to make it to Yoshiya’s house, I’ll have to at least visit Alice’s.

This week ALC proudly announced a new set of Yuri manga releases in partnership with JManga!

This week JManga announced my long-hoped for model of bookstore-like purchasing. From now on, you don’t have to have any subscription plan for JManga, you can just pay as you like. To encourage people to retain their subscriptions, JManga offers discounts for people who remain on subscription. I think that’s more than fair – and kind of a little excellent, with the subscription reward. JManga has now effectively “fixed” every single thing I wanted to see changed. I couldn’t be happier and of course, I’ll do everything in my power to see that you get more great Yuri!

Everyone tune into the Nozomi/RightStuf Panel at Anime Expo 2012  on Friday, June 29 6PM PST (it will probably will be live tweeted and live blogged on ANN) and get ready to cheer….!!

Aoi Hana, Volume 7 is slated for the end of July. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!

Yuru Yuri 9 is also headed toward bookstores. Once again, it’s being sold as a special deluxe edition or a regular manga-only edition. The second trailer for the upcoming anime is available for your viewing pleasure.

Maidens Garden 7, the Yuri doujinshi market in Kyoto, finally announced dates. It will be held on November 11. Amazingly, I was planning on being in Osaka that weekend, so I should be able to make that show and Comitia the next weekend back in Tokyo. That sounds like double the fun! (I’m tired just thinking about it….)

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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!

I honestly  cannot believe that we’re almost halfway through 2012. Wow.

Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll has announced that they will be carrying the second season of the Yuru Yuri Anime. Details of when it will air are forthcoming. Here’s a promo commercial for the series. (And you should probably watch JManga for an upcoming announcement about the manga series. Ahem.)

A new commercial for the upcoming Magical Lyrical Nanoha As the Second Movie is available for your viewing pleasure.

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Yuri Manga

The Pre-orders for Morinaga Milk’s Girl Friends in English are up on Amazon! The first omnibus Volume will be released in October, 2012, and the second volume will hit the shelves in January 2013.

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Other News

Takarazuka is doing a Legend of the Galactic Heroes musical. This is hardly the first anime or manga inspired story, but it seems there’s more of them, these days. ^_^

In a more serious vein, this week something happened that upset a great many people. It was brought to my attention that doujinshi scans had been put up for sale on the Amazon Kindle store.These were not legit, the artists have not given their permission for this and make no money on them. To many of us who have been watching scanlations devolve from a morally grey area to an outright criminal pursuit, this was not surprising, but it was upsetting. Doujinshi are an acceptable undermarket in Japan that is allowed to exist because it benefits the companies and the original right holders. Companies tacitly give permission for their characters to be used as long as their work does not impact the originals’ sales or copyright. In other words, as long as sales are kept low and niche. When a book gets too popular, it can lead to litigation.

My friend Komatsu-san contacted one of the artists, who was very upset that her work was being sold without her permission, of course. As I have said many times it is this issue of permission that is the core of the fallacy of scanlation as a noble pursuit. Scanlators do not ask for permission. By failing to do so, they simply cannot argue that what they do is ethically sound. The problem with permission is, it might not be granted, And since scanlation circles want what they want, they simply take it, without ever asking for that permission.

In this case, the scanlator managed to take that intent to the inevitable lower level – since the creator never even knew their work was scanlated, why not just sell it? They make a few bucks, no one gets hurt. Unfortunately, someone is hurt – emotionally and potentially financially, since the seller putting that scanlation on the English Kindle market means that the artist is now subject to *western* copyright laws. And the doujinshi was from a licensed series.

Okay, so it’s pretty obvious to me that no one has the right to take other people’s stuff without permission. And I think it’s obvious to everyone that selling that stuff is really over the line illegal. Unfortunately, because of the ecosystem of scanlations, a lot of people really, genuinely disagree with me about that first point. Hopefully we can agree on the second point.

I think this will be a growing problem for some time, until the new digital publishing market solidifies. Maybe then a valid scanlation translation market can develop. I think that would be nice. Until then, I think we’ll be seeing more of this issue.

The upshot of this week’s situation is that I contacted Amazon and asked that they remove the listing. I identified as a publisher, explained the language barrier and the existence of scanlations. Amazon removed the listings. Then Amazon wrote back telling me that they don’t accept takedown requests from people other than the IP holder. I wrote them again, with a long, comprehensive email about the doujinshi market and the way this situation developed, and asked them to reach out to me for a fuller explanation…and I suggested that they get used to receiving such emails from interested third parties, because this situation is unlikely to get better. I later learned that a coalition of folks for creator’s right in Japan actually was ready to bring a lawyer into the issue.

I and many others see this as a natural, inevitable devolution of the moral compass of scanlators, who have convinced themselves that they do something important, that their wishes are more important than creator’s rights and that they *own* their work in some legitimate way.

It’s long past time that we, as fans, hold other fans to a standard of decency. Even if you continue to read scanlations, surely you can see that selling them is beyond tolerable.

If you see a listing for an illegal sale of scanlated work, please report it to Amazon ([email protected]) or tell me, and I will. Thanks.

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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!

Look at the exciting things that came my way this week!


Yuri Game

By email from Rinnne Aokaze, who is a scenario designer for games in Japan. He wants us to know about a Yuri 18+ game that has just launched 「彼女と彼女と私の七日」- Her and Her and Me – Seven Days With the Ghost. They are on Twitter here, if you want to chat with the circle who created it. Those of you who buy and play ero-games, I hope you’ll try this one and maybe write up a review, huh?

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Yuri Manga

Comic Yuri Hime has a few new titles coming soon: Kanojyona Maid  (かのじょなメイド) and Takemiya Jin’s newest,  Koi no Kaori (恋のカオリ) among them.

Hakameda Mera’s Salomelic (さろめりっく) from Hirari is slated for a July release and so is Asagao to Katou.

Itazura Choucho (悪戯ちょうちょ) looks Yuri, but it looks depressing as hell, too. At least the mope on the cover does little to convince me it is full of light and joy.

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Other Yuri

From Twitter: Yuriko, Das Vidanya, a movie set in the Taisho period about a married woman who has an intense relationship with her husband and with another woman.

Here’s a timesink for when you’re bored, Yuri Yuri Douga, a blog of Yuri-ish themed videos from Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga.

Lily Friend  (リリィフレンド) is listed as a “Yuri Novel,” but as the main character is a guy who has a sis-con, I’m not convinced it’ll be a “good story.”

Katherine Hanson has an interesting look at Yuri characters who are out to their families in Manga on her Yuri no Boke blog.

Vertical is taking votes for license requests and Aoi Hana is on the list. If you’re on Facebook, let them know you’re interested!

Don’t forget to let JManga know you’re interested in Yuri from Hobunsha, while you’re at it. Drop by their free previews page and “like” Himitsu by Otome Megane. Read the free preview, while you’re there!

Last and totally least, Okazu has won the next round whatever Aniblog Tourney totally pwning Reverse Thieves. Thank you to everyone who voted! Next round will be against some other blogs, because this kind of thing is as endless as the NCAA tournament. In my imagination, Okazu and Yuri no Boke go head to head for the championship and then we’ll see who is loyal or not………….. (^_^)

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Other News


The Japanese government is soliciting overseas entries for the 6th International Manga Awards. The site is in English, so if you are an aspiring artist, give it a try!

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That wraps it up 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.

Yuri Manga

The third and final volume of GUNJO by Nakamura Ching is on sale! (羣青 下 ). This series still remains the most amazing manga I have ever read. I hope you’ll support the artists and buy the book.

Fujieda Miyabi’s Twinkle Saber Nova, Volume 4 (special edition) is up on Amazon.JP. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even realize this was continuing!

Distressing news from Tsubomi, Higashiyama Show’s Prism is suspended for the moment because of concerns about plagiarism from photos on the Web.

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Yuri Anime

Okazu Superhero Eric P. wants you all to know that the trailer for Funimation’s reissue of Yoshitoshi Abe’s Haibane Renmei is live on its own webpage, along with episodes available to watch online. (You’ll need to have registered and endured their horribly slow site, but for free streaming, it’s a decent deal.)

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Other News

We have a winner of the Revoutionary Girl Utena Apocalypse Arc Box set contest on Yuricon! Thanks to Nozomi/RightStuf and to winner JoAnne S.  – and to all of you for participating!

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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!