Yuri Manga

My Wandering Warrior Existence, the next autobiographical comic essay by Kabi Nagata, is out from Seven Seas. This look at her relationship to sexuality, gender, and human relationships is up on the Yuricon Store!

Also from Seven Seas is Ajiichi’s Failed Princesses, Volume 5. This hits shelves in early April.

Kimi to Shiranai Natsu ni Naru (君としらない夏になる) is a wonderful story about two young women who decide that the rat race is just not for them and run away to an island together.

Doujinjo Yuri Anthology (同人女百合アンソロジー), which I reviewed here was a fun look at doujinshi life.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Tabby Wright for all her assistance with the problems that have plagued the Store in recent weeks. The short story is that one of the plugins was not adapting to PHP8. If you use the Product Retailer Plugin for WooCommerce by SkyVerge, and are having trouble with it, there is a temporary fix now on GitHub, Make Product Retailers plugin compatible with PHP8. Thanks also to Pit and Erica at SkyVerge for making this fix, so I can stop pulling my hair out. ^_^;

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Yuri Interviews

Our friend Serena over at The Lily Cat has done a wonderful interview with Yuri artist Pandesaii! Enjoy a look at the Heartwarming Art of Pandesaii. ^_^

Over on Otaku USA magazine, Danica Davidson interviews producer Koga and writer Hatsumi Shimizu for game dev teams Hublots and Sukera Sparo in Spreading Yuri Love with the Producer and Writer of Lilyka’s Games.

Yuri Doujinshi

Lilyka is releasing Seta Setas’ Yuri Wall series in 8 parts. This doujinshi series is about a literal wall that wants to encourage Yuri couples. It is kinda weird, a lot creepy, and also kind of sweet? I never reviewed this when I read it, but I did review Yuri Kagi ~ Sempai no Himitsu wo Nozoitemita~ (百合鍵 ~先輩の秘密をのぞいてみた~) by the same creator, with a similar tone.

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Yuri Literature

Okazu Patron Frank Hecker has written a book! That Type of Girl is “an in-depth exploration of the characters, plot, and themes of Takako Shimura’s manga Sweet Blue Flowers.” Take a look for free and if you like what you see, why not purchase a copy  to show your support? Links to download and buy the book on the page.

Rafe Thompson also has a GL-inspired novel out and would like you to know about it. Where Did Hanako’s Free Spirit Go? Available on Kindle and other outlets.

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Anime News

I’m pretty sure I’m announcing this for only me, but ANN’s Crystalynn Hodgkins has news and trailer for Shin Ikki Tousen, which will be out in May. It appears that most of our (my?) favorite characters will be appearing. Why do I like this series? I just really like stories that have callbacks to mythological roots…apparently no matter how shitty they are. ^_^ Is this series even Yuri anymore? I have no idea.

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Other News

The 2022 MSU Japanese Pop Culture and Transmedia Workshop Translator Roundtable is on Youtube! This was a roundup of our Michigan State University workshop this past February. Its full of great perspective and advice from translation, editing and lettering professionals, featuring: Zack Davisson, Louise Heal Kawai, Mari Morimoto, Sara Linsley, Sarah Moon, Jennifer O’Donnell, Jennifer Sherman and moderated by me. ^_^

Tor.com has an article on the characters we’ll be meeting in the upcoming next book in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series, Nona the Ninth

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Yuri Anime

Sentai Filmworks has licensed The Executioner and Her Way of Life.This means that it will be exclusive to their HIDIVE streaming service. The anime will be premiering in Japan on April 1, Alex Mateo on ANN has more details. The first 3 light novels have been reviewed here on Okazu. (Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3)

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Yuri Event

Galette magazine’s Yuri Matsuri event is being held on March 20th, but if you can’t get there, maybe you can still get yourself the 5th anniversary 2-set on Booth! This anniversary special includes an anniversary book, a signed card and an original tote bag (they are currently out of stock, but fingers crossed they get more after the Matsuri is over.)

Yuri Visual Novels

SukeraSparo has a new Yuri VN out now in Japanese. Naisho One Room ~ Sewayaki Imouto to Sugosu Kyuujitsu ~ (ないしょワンルーム ～世話焼き妹と過ごす休日～).

MangaGamer is running a White Day Sale through March 21st, with 75% off of selected titles. They are including a number of Yuri titles in the sale, so drop by the sale page!

Via Yuri Navi, Lycoris is pleased to announce their newest Yuri VN,  Uso kara Hajimaru Koi no Natsu (嘘から始まる恋の夏). You can check out the Japanese-language trailer for The Summer Begins with a Lie on Youtube.

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LGBTQ Media News

Kabi Nagata’s newest manga My Wandering Warrior Existence will be hitting shelves in English this coming week! This book delves into Nagata-sensei’s connection to her gender, and her sexuality. CW: childhood sexual assault. I reviewed this in Japanese last year.

One of the very few podcasts I listen to regularly is the Mangasplaining podcast, featuring Christopher Butcher, David Brothers, Deb Aoki and Chip Zdarsky. Last month they launched a new feature – Mangasplaining Xtra, a substack newsletter with all the show notes, extra commentary and they are publishing manga that has never been seen before in English. I was honored to have an article published there, as a companion piece to their show on Takako Shimura’s Even Though We’re Adults. In An Introduction to Takako Shimura’s Work in English, which is free to read, even if you don’t subscribe, I take a broad look her other works that are available in English for folks who might not be familiar with her.

Senior YNN Correspondent Eric P wants us to know that a new Korra comic is on the way! The Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time, will be hitting shelves this summer. With stories by series creators by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and illustrated by Heather Campbell, Jayd Ait-Kaci, and Killian Ng… I’m really looking forward to this.

Last week Ogata Megumi-san, the voice of Haruka in Sailor Moon, Shinji in Evangelion, won the Seiyuu Award for Best Actress. Ogata-san’s acceptance speech was a forward-looking hope for genderless awards, and an announcement they don’t consider themselves male or female. The speech has been translated in this Twitter thread and its worth a read. ““There is so much talk about being “genderless” nowadays and there are voice actors in the industry who have come out [as queer]. And like myself, there are people out there who go on about their daily lives mostly not thinking of themselves as women.”

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Yuri Light Novels

Great news for fans of I’m in Love With the Villainess, via her twitter account inori-sensei’s newest novel Heimin no Kuse ni Namaikina! (平民のくせに生意気な！) will be hitting JP Kindle and US Kindle in Japanese this week from GL Bunko! I expect to see a license for “She’s Such A Cheeky Commoner” in English pretty soon. This is all from Claire’s point of view – and I have to say, it’s worth reading. There’s some new content that the original does not cover…and whole new character you’ve never seen. ^_^

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Yuri Manga

Seven Seas has licensed Yukiko’s collection, Neko to Sugar Pot, which they will release as Cats and Sugar Bowls. Alex Mateo has details on ANN.

Shimura Takako’s Even Though We’re Adults, Volume 4 will be headed your way in April!

Canno’s newest manga is live on Comic Walker in Japanese! Check out Koudou Ryou no Seizana Hibi (黄道寮の星座な日々).

Mao to Yuri (魔王と百合) is a Yuri harem rom-com in which the female successor to the Demon King must choose a wife from five human women, in order to bring peace between humans and demons.

Yuri Anime

Egan Loo has the news about the upcoming Yuri anime The Executioner and Her Way of Life. I’m still reading the series, and still not sure how I feel about it, and I don’t think the anime will help, but I’m sure going to watch it. ^_^ This Yuri action/adventure/horror isekai will premiere on April 1st.

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Yuri Events

I will be at Anime Boston, from May 27-29, 2022 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. On the good side, I’m a featured panelist, on the exhausting side, they are absolute slave drivers and I’ll be on about 6 panels. You’ll have an equal chance of catching me at least once and getting utterly sick of me completely. ^_^ If you run a podcast or website and want to interview me, I’ll be scheduling slots as soon as my schedule is fixed.

Also, great news – Yuri Mother herself will be joining me for at least one panel! (I say “at least,” because I am well known to recruit others into a lot of my panels… ^_^)

Tonight several Vtubers are planning a Yuri symposium – check out Honeymelonhime, Lirie and Pia on Twitch.. I know nothing about any of them, so you’ll have to let me know how it goes. ^_^

Yuri Essays

Helen McCarthy takes a look at Revolutionary Girl Utena for All The Anime.

On Tor.com, James Davis Nicoll takes us on a walkabout through Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which has at last been licensed. Thank you Seven Seas!

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Other News

ANN’s Adriana Hazra reports that Star Fruit Books is launching an indie manga magazine in English, Comic Bright. I’m super looking forward to this. I read The Blood Red Boy by Minami Q-ta from them and it was the best $2 I had spent that month. You can check out the Mangasplaining crew talking about that story, as well.

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Yuri Manga

Top news this week is Seven Seas’ license for Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou!

This incredibly gentle and sweet story takes place during the twilight of the human race, as advanced companion androids outlast their masters. One such android, Alpha, runs a coffee shop in what used to be the Yokohama metro area, but is now a windswept grassy plain. This series, also known as known as Yokohama Shopping Log went for 14 volumes. It had 2 anime OVAs, which have extraordinary animation, an artbook, and several Drama CDs, some of which I have reviewed over the years on Okazu in it’s own category, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. There are sporadic manga reviews, as nothing happens for most of the manga. Alpha will sit and watch the wind blow the grass for pages on end. Then she’ll take a ride on her scooter. It’s definitely an iyashikei-style manga, except for the idea that humanity is over. And even that seems okay. Seven Seas describes it as “quiet and bittersweet,” and I would add, just like Alpha’s coffee blends.

This has long been on my list of manga I have wanted to see licensed. My thanks to everyone who reached out to tell me – apparently everyone in the manga world knew how I felt about this series, because I received a *lot* of messages. ^_^

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We had some issues with the Yuricon Store this week, due to a conflict of a plugin and a PHP upgrade. That was fun. ^_^; It’s fixed and  we did manage to get Tamifull’s Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana, Volume 8 (付き合ってあげてもいいかな)  and Bloom Into You Anthology, Volume 2 up.

It looks like Ikeda Takashi’s Futari ha Daitai Konna Kanji will be ending next month. Rafael Antonio Pineda has the news at ANN. But you’ll be able to read this in English as The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This (a title I absolutely adore, btw,) this summer.

Viz will be releasing Look Back, by Tatsuki Fujimoto as a print volume. Alex Mateo has the news on ANN. I reviewed that recently, and sobbed my way through it. It’s a brilliant and compelling book.

Hayate x Blade creator Hayashiya Shizuru has a new title that she is selling on Japanese online 18+ manga platform Fanza, ULTIMATE-MAMA. This series has all her hallmarks – lots of bloody gags, tons of fighting, and a woman with ripped abs. Lesbian sex. The synopsis reads “Manatsu, an ordinary school girl, is attacked by a monster one day. It’s a female warrior with a child who saves her?  The next day, Manatsu learns there is transfer student at the school. It’s the daughter of that female warrior–“

You *know* I’m getting this. ^_^

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Yuri Visual Novels

Via YuriMother, we have some Yuri VN news! She reports that “ebi-hime’s Yuri visual novel Blackberry Honey was released on PlayStation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch. The game is ported and published on consoles by Ratalaika Games.”

Yurimother also wants folks to know that Heart of the Woods by Studio Élan is being released on PS4 and PS5.

Yuri Doujinshi

Via Lilyka, Senpai no Kouhai, Part 2 by Alt Hanakage is now out. This concludes the series and now I hope we’ll get some of her beefier doujinshi. ^_^

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Yuri Web & Digital Comics

Via her Facebook page, Kuru, aka Color_LES, has announced that Mage & Demon Queen will conclude this year. Of course I will miss this wonderful Yuri comic. I’m thrilled for Kuru that she’ll be see it through a final arc – and I’m looking forward to what she does next!

Elise Schuenke wants you to know about her comic Love Rumble, a rival to lovers comic that has been submitted to the Bitter x Sweet artzine.

Via Natsuo Mutsumi, the host of the Boyish² butch x butch anthology, we have news of Electro Magnetic Bottle Rocket, which they praised as “Aliens, Mysterious Technology, and Childhood Memories: …… I’m so excited! Here was the romance I was looking for!” This is available on Gumroad.

Which brings me to two things I need to say, given some stuff that has happened in the past weeks in the comics industry:

In order to support comics creators that still use Kickstarter, I will continue to linking to projects, but I will no longer be supporting Kickstarters myself. I genuinely believe blockchain is wasteful and stupid, NFTs are exploitative, harmful to the environment and only appeal to suckers or the con men who rip them off.

Likewise, I will not be purchasing work on Gumroad, after the handler for their Twitter account attacked NFT critics with some deeply unpleasant comments and what came very close to doxxing.

Comics are hard enough and right now we need people who are not exploitative or harassing at the top of the systems we use. I will not condemn anyone for using what they use (I know I’m worried about Patreon going crypto, as they have been threatening to do for a while now,) but I can choose to not support it. Spike Trottman, founder of Iron Circus Comics  pulled all her content from Gumroad, and resolved to not use Kickstarter (a system she largely validated with her hugely successful campaigns.) Going forward, she’s created her own crowdfunding platform.

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Yuri Manga

Seven Seas is doing their annual #yuriVday giveaway on Twitter. Drop them a tweet about your fave Yuri, use the hashtag #yuriVday and be entered to win some of their new titles! They are also running a giveaway on TikTok, if that’s more your style. ^_^ They’ve got a lot to celebrate, too, as there are 9 new Yuri titles out just this month from Seven Seas, 5 ongoing series *and* RightStuf is running a sale on all their titles.

Yuri Light Novel

Seven Seas continues their domination of Yuri licensing with both the manga and the light novels of a decade old series, Qualia the Purple  – about a girl who has the ability to “evaluate” the bodies of the people around her. I never read any of this originally, although I remember being told about it. To be perfectly honest, those people who were most into it had tastes that did not align with mine, so I gave it a pass.

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Yuri Anime

Via Senior YNN Correspondent Mariko Shinobu, we have a fun tidbit – Paste Magazine published a list of their “30 Greatest Anime.” Mariko wants you to note that Utena is #4 and Sailor Moon is #11. I also notice that a few other Okazu classics are in the list, notably Serial Experiments Lain, Wandering Son, and .hack/Sign.

Egan Loo at ANN has the news that Black Rock Shooter is returning with a new anime, Black Rock Shooter Dawn Fall. I doubt it will go back to it’s Yuri(ish) roots, but I can hope. ^_^ Looks like we’ll get Mato, Yomi and Yu, but a whole different set-up. Check out the trailer on Youtube!  Komatsu-san has a related report about Kanako Takatsuki (a member of Love Live!‘ s Aquors) who is singing the ED for the new BRS anime.

Egan also has the news of a new anime by Tsuzuki Masaki, creator of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Extreme Hearts, which looks like a serious sports anime. I’m…hopeful, primarily because of this quote, “This is the story about how we met our greatest friends.”  Sports and yuujo and girls. I’m in. ^_^

Kara Dennison over at Crunchyroll News has the very scoop that GKIDS is teaming up with Tubi to release great anime. Among the first batch is Liz and the Blue Bird, so if you haven’t yet seen it, do! You may recall that I thought it outstanding.

Other News

Crunchyroll is doing a series for Black History Month, in which they are highlighting black talent in the anime industry. I hope you take a look! Week 1 | Week 2. Week 2 includes a profile of our own Okazu family member, Meru Clewis, who has recently become part of the LN staff at Seven Seas. We’re so proud of her!

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