Yuri Manga

Seven Seas has announced the license for the Bloom Into You manga anthologies (both of which have been reviewed here on Okazu: Volume 1 and Volume 2). They were a fun way to spend more time with the characters.

Manga Planet has announced some Jousei Yuri licenses from Shodensha, including several of my favorites! Teiji ni Agaretara by Ayu Inui, Hitogoto Desu Kara! by Yuni and Tsuki to Suppin by Yu Akegata have all been reviewed here on Okazu and I am absolutely delighted that you will be able to read them in English.

Heading our way his month from Yen Press is Strawberry Fields Once Again, which is a three-volume school romance, that has a hell of a twist ending. I reviewed all three JP volumes here, but don’t read the reviews unless you want to be spoiled! Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3

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Yuri Anime

Sentai Filmworks will be releasing Happy-Go-Lucky Days, the anime based on Shimura Takako’s manga. I reviewed this anime very recently and found it to be worth a watch.

While I still am in no way convinced that a slapstick anime about vampires can at all be serious, Mamoru Oshii insists that he wanted VLADLOVE to do “Girl Meets Girl” in a serious way in this interview covered by Komatsu-san on Crunchyroll. I kind of liked the “Mai” version of the opening. I’m always partial to harder rock used in anime and characters animated to be performing the theme. So here I am mentioning it again, despite my insistence that I wouldn’t any more. ^_^
 
Crunchyroll has added Yamibo:  The Darkness, The Hat and the Travelers of the Books to their catalog. Jennifer Sherman has the report on ANN. I’ve reviewed it about a zillion times here and it’s not gotten any less annoying ^_^; The thing is…it had potential, then just squandered it. This is one of the earliest anime based on a Visual Novel I can think of off the top of my head.

Crystalynn Hodgkins has the news for the upcoming Otherside Picnic anime on Anime News Network.

Yuri Light Novel

J-Novel Club is putting out scifi Yuri LN Otherside Picnic in print ahead of the upcoming anime release!

The third volume of Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka is headed our way in a few weeks!

Sailor Moon

The trailer for Sailor Moon Eternal is on Youtube and it looks amazing!  I vote Chiaki Kon for handling all things Sailor Moon forever.

Clearly I am not the only one, as Twitter fandom is celebrating with an “All Sailor Moon” hashtag (#全セーラームーン). I’m wearing my Sailor Moon Super S t-shirt today and Sailor Venus socks (which are probably legitimately antique now!) in solidarity. ^_^

Other News

Anime Feminist has this terrific look by Karleen: Art as Discovery, Art as Hope: Kamatani Yuhki, x-gender and asexual mangaka
This is very timely, as I’m pushing to get out a new video on Yuri Studio this month on queer creators who create queer manga.  ^_^

ANN’s Kim Morrissey has a write-up of the demographics among English translators and letterers in manga, from tweets by Phil S. Christie. There’s a small majority of women in the field (but it would be interesting and important to know how income falls along those lines, as well.

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Yuri Manga

On the Yuricon Store, we’ve got a couple of new items!

Whisper Me a Love Song, Volume 2, will be hitting shelves next month.

Yamada and Kase-san, Volume 2 (山田と加瀬さん。). I can’t wait to read this! Because I haven’t gotten to Japan at all this year, I feel so behind on this series ^_^

Also super high on my looking forward to reading this list is Akuyaku Reijou desu ga, Heroine ni Kouryakusaretemasu wa! (悪役令嬢ですが、ヒロインに攻略されてますわ! アンソロジーコミック) This anthology has five stories in which the Villainess gets a HAPPY END with the Heroine. ^_^ The description was so exuberantly otakuish I laughed.

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Kodansha has licensed a merely Yuri-adjacent manga, called Will It Be the World or Her?. You can get the details from ANN’s Adriana Hazra.

From Wings magazine, we have a two-part OL and witch story, Mi-chan to Airi (みーちゃんとアイリ). Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available in Japan.

Also in two-parts, Yume no Hashibashi (夢の端々), Volume 1 and Volume 2, tells a story about a school love that manages to survive over 70 years and lifetimes of obligations.

For those of you still reading, Akili’s Vampeerz, Volume 4 (ヴァンピアーズ) is out in Japan.

Mikanuji’s Fuzoroi no Renri (不揃いの連理) has a new chapter up on Web Newtype and a voiced comic promotional video! I enjoy those so much. ^_^

Yuri Light Novels

Otherside Picnic, Volume 4 will be out on Kindle or Global Bookwalker at the end of December.

Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Volume 3 is also hitting shelves in December.

Wow, there is a new edition of the Cream Lemon: Escalation novel, Escalation (エスカレーション). Much nicer cover than the original!

Doukyusei no Oshi Sakka ni Yuri Mousou ga Bareta Kekka (同級生の推し作家に百合妄想がバレた結果) is a cute story about a girl whose classmate is her favorite writer. Read it for free in Japanese on Sai-zen.

YNN Correspondent Megan shares this gonzo piano Yuri comic, Kizu-darake Piano Sonata (傷だらけのピアノソナタ), which you can read on Shonen Jump Plus, in Japanese.

Anime News

Komatsu-san at Crunchyroll news has a bunch of reports this week:

WATATEN! An Angel Flew Down to Me launches a new project.

Toei announces the next PreCure series, Tropical-Rouge! PreCure.

And the first 6 minutes of the 20th anniversary Ojamajo Doremi project Majo Minarai wo Sagashite is up on Youtube for us to enjoy. I have the Ojamajo Doremi 20s novel sitting here. I’ll get to it one day. ^_^

VLADLove trailer is up and as if it is determined to keep me from watching, it’s not just going to be old guys/young girls vampires…it’s going to be slapstick! Ah. hah. Paul Chapman has the details on CR.  YNN Correspondent Megan also dropped some more VLADLove news: There will be a “Vlad Love advance screening event on Dec 28th – event will also feature a talk with Oshii and other staff.

There’s also a casting interview up on the official Youtube, plus cast announced for the dads of the main characters – I suppose Oshii wasn’t exaggerating with how this anime only has bishoujo or Ossan characters and nothing in between.”

I think there’s an ever-decreasing chance for this to be Yuri. ^_^;

 
Other News

I’m delighted to hear that India is getting their own legal streaming site, Animei TV! It should launch in 2021 if all goes well. That’s a huge market, so if there is a legal option for the subcontinent, that’s all to the good!

Via YNN Correspondent CW, Waseda University’s queer group, GLOW, has a wonderful interview with Morishma Akiko-sensei! This was a great read. ^_^

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Yuri Visual Novel

Via Yuri Mother, Yuri Visual novel Forest Guardian has launched on Nintendo Switch from Top Hat Studios.

Mangagamer has released a new Yuri VN, Wanting Wings, by BaseSon.

Yuri Manga

Out now from Yen Press, is the fifth  – and so far, final – anthology volume Éclair Orange. I’m hoping they churn out one more for an Éclair Violet.

Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 2, (山田と加瀬さん。), the continuing story of one of our favorite Yuri couples navigating college life and relationships in the big city together, is on sale this week in Japan.

Queer  Comics

Creator Jessica Jimerson wanted you all to know about their cool queer comic Winter Cabin! You can read Issue #1 on DeviantArt.

YNN Correspondent Megan wants you to know about a LGBT+ novel titled Hige to Napkin (ヒゲとナプキン) “written by Ototake Hirotada…. The novel was written in collaboration with and modeled on the life of Ototake’s old friend, trans rights campaigner Sugiyama Fumino, and is about a 28 year old trans man.” For more details about this novel, read Megan’s whole comment.

Natsuo Mutsumi is a Yuri artist who draws bois, butches and boyish Yuri. ^_^ Check out their work on Twitter!

Shilin has their shop up and running and I highly recommend taking a look if you want to pick out some stylish queer comics.

Other News

Riyoko Ikeda Production responds to fashion brand Moschino’s apparent copies of Rose of Versailles art in this fantastic ANN article by Kim Morrisey and Lynzee Loveridge on what looks to many of us to be blatant copying.

This news is far afield, but I absolutely LOVED this typeface. Kachi-Buwa, by Emi Takahashi. Jyni Ong takes a look at it on It’s Nice That, in Kachi-Buwa is a variable Katakana typeface expressing Japanese onomatopoeic expressions. Check out the article then take a look at the font.

From YNN Correspondent Michael V, the New York Times has a Book Review of Lisa Selin Davis’ Tomboy: The Surprising History and Future of Girls Who Dare to Be Different.

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Yuri Light Novels

Manga Planet has announced an exciting new license for 7 “Super light” Yuri novels from Parsola, featuring art by popular Yuri creators Akiko Morishima, and Hiromi Takashima, as well as Kitao Taki and others. These all were serialized on the Yomuco platform. These super light novels are formatted for mobile reading, with a few lines of text on every page, and color illustrations. I recently reviewed – and enjoyed! – the first “volume” of Girls Love of the Dead, here on Okazu.

Nio Nakatani (Bloom Into You) and Hitoma Iruma (Adachi and Shimamura) are teaming up again for a new LN called End Blue (エンドブルー) about two former lovers who meet for a second time. It’s very cool to see them teaming up again. Their work on the Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka light novels was pretty terrific.

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Yuri Anime

Via YNN Correspondent Megan, Vlad Love creative team interviews are going up on Youtube.

We’ve got the Battle Athletes Complete Collection up on the Yuricon Store. This classic series is awkward and often servicey…and it contains some obnoxious stereotypes, but the primary Yuri love triangle is right out in the open and  Mylandah and Lahrri’s burning desire for one another might be worth it. YMMV.

Adventure Time : Distant Lands – Obsidian is absolutely the Marceline x Princess Bubblegum story we need! It’ll be running on HBO Max. Give the trailer a look – it actually tempts me to add yet another stupid streaming service just for that.

HIDIVE is streaming Yuri anime Fragtime.

Via Chris Beveridge at the Fandom Post, ARIA The CREPUSCOLO‘s first trailer is on Youtube.

Yuri Manga

New on the Yuricon Store is  Hana ni Arashi, Volume 7 (はなにあらし), the ongoing charming romance of Nanoha and Chidori may have finally hit a snag with a rival for Nanoha’s affection!

Via Comic Natalie, Yuri manga Yume no Hashibashi (夢の端々),  Volume 1 and Volume 2. YNN Correspondent Megan has this to say about this two-vol historical Yuri series: “…this one follows two young women in post-war Japan up to the Reiwa era. The story begins with one of the women, now an old lady, visiting the other at home, though she doesn’t seem to remember her. Back in the 70s as teens, the girls attempted a 心中 (lover’s suicide) together. Later, one of the girls is entered into an arranged marriage, while the other girl arranges one last trip for the two of them before the marriage.”

Via Yuri Navi, we have news of a Yuri android manga, Tengoku no Nakoniwa, by Hirono Tsukiko. You can read the chapter on Comiplex, in Japanese.

Reminder that you can still get a piece of Yuri manga history! Grab WORKS, by Eriko Tadeno and Yuri Monogatari Vols. 3,4 & 6 for $25 – with free US shipping, from our friends at Cheapmanga.com with the code ALC2020!

Yuri Visual Novel

Curse of Kudan, fully voiced, available in English, Chinese and Japanese, is up on the Yuricon Store. This occult-ish Yuri story from SukeraSparo looks interesting, I’m reading the manga as it runs in Comic Yuri Hime.

Yuri Event

Girls Love Fest looks like it’s going ahead in February.

Other News

Once again via Megan, we have the pretty spectacular news about Kodansha’s licensing Boys Run the Riot, a story about trans kids by trans creator Keito Gaku. Adriana Hazra has details of the story on ANN.

Translator Jocylene Allen talked to the folks at Manga Mavericks about her work on Shiminami Tasogare: Our Dreams at Dusk.

Via the Yuri/GL Phillippines group on Facebook, namori-sensei posted this delightful reaction to seeing Yuru Yuri characters plastered around Shinjuku, advocating for social distancing measures.

Seven Seas has teamed up with Bookwalker Global for this month’s licensing survey. Make suggestions and get a coupon for Seven Seas books on Global Bookwalker! Do Yuri, get a coupon! ^_^

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for helping us reach our 2020 goal of giving guest writers a raise and helping us support queer creators!

Yuri Manga

Akiko Morishima’s The Conditions of Paradise: Our First Time is a prequel for Sumi and Sabrina’s relationship in The Conditions of Paradise, coming to you this month from Seven Seas!

Our Teachers are Dating, Volume 2 will be here at the end of January.

Takako Shimura’s Even Though We’re Adults, Volume 1 is heading our way from Seven Seas next February,

Yen Press has Kujira’s A Witch’s Love at the End of the World, Volume 1, coming our way this month!

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Yuri Anime

RetroCrush TV has added Yamibo: The Darkness, The Hat and the Travelers of the Books. ANN’s Jennifer Sherman has details.
This rather mediocre anime has had ridiculously long staying power. It’s quite befuddling.

RetroCrushTV also has announced that they have the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA, which is wonderful. I hope they get the TV series, because it fantastically queer and creepy.

Via YNN Correspondent Megan, Takarazuka-esque revue troop story, Kageki Shoujo, is getting an anime. While not Yuri, it’s a really great story, I hope you’ll enjoy it. Seven Seas has the manga as Kageki Shoujo: The Curtain Rises!.

Otherside Picnic anime gets some key visuals and frankly, I’m a little disappointed at the service. Rafael Antonio Pineda has the details on ANN.

Yuri Light Novels

We’ve added I’m in Love With the Villainess Vol. 2 to the Yuricon Store. It has a January release date.

And ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight for an Ordinary Life with My Love and Cursed Sword! is now out in print!

Other News

The fabulous Stitch has written about rap artist Megan Thee Stallion’s love for anime and says, clearly, “No one gets into anime for clout.”,  for Teen Vogue. (Lizzo, whose chanteuse voice and flute playing charmed me, is also is a fan of Sailor Moon and that’s just one more of a zillion reasons to love her.)

Legendary composer Yoko Kanno is collaborating with Takarazuka for an upcoming work about the Silk Road, reports Sora24’s Casey Baseel.

The Yagate Kimi ni Naru live-reading of the stage play is happening in Japan, in two parts. Streaming is available for purchase for an earlier version and they have an English language page, which I presume means they allow overseas viewers.

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