Yuri Manga

We’ve added the upcoming and much-looked forward to Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon, Volume 1 by Shio Usui to the Yuricon Store. It didn’t make the Okazu Gift Guide this year because it won’t be out until 2021, but I’m just saying if you’re a betting person, you’ve got a sure bet on this making my Top 10 Yuri Manga of the Year. ^_^ And, if you’re looking for last minute holidays gifts for yourself or the Yuri fan in your life take a look at the Okazu 2020 Gift Guide! This gives you some current faves to enjoy and share!

Our Teachers Are Dating, Volume 2 is also heading our way in the New Year. Volume 1 is already available. This series by Pikachi Ohi, is an adorably sweet and sexy story about two adults who find love for the first time.

ANN’s Rafael Antonio Pineda has news that Sukeban Deka is getting not one, but two new manga series. They kind of sound fun and are at least not reboots of the original, which would probably piss off Wada Shinji’s spirit.

Yuri Web Comics

Opium is an 18+ historical Korean Yuri webcomic on Tapas.io that I am finding very intriguing.

Yuri Navi reports on Oshi ga Tonari de Jugyou ni Shuuchuu Dekinai!; a three-way love story about a girls’ beloved idol going to school  in her class.  You can read a sample chapter or two on Comic Days, in Japanese.

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Interviews

Lilyka has an interview with Yuri creator mintaro!

For those of you interested in Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!, Mikan-sensei and Mikami Teren-sensei, creator of Moshi, Koi ga Mietenara,  chat a bit on Yuri Navi! (In Japanese, but what a great way to practice your Japanese, or failing that, you have Google translate and that ought to give you the main sense of it.)

Yuri Light Novels

J-Novel Club has gathered Volume 1 and Volume 2 for the Otherside Picnic Omnibus, Volume 1. I really like this series, and am certainly considering getting this in print.

Yuri Anime News

Crystalynn Hodkins has the details of the new Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight movie, which has a spring 2021 release date.

Via YNN Correspondent NaraMoore, Otherside Picnic anime is being streamed by Funimation in January 2021!

You’ve probably all heard the news that Funimation has bought Crunchyroll. I am not and never have been a fan of Funimation’s efforts in streaming and I hope to high heaven they use CR’s platform, rather than shutting it down, and forcing us to use theirs.

Live-Action News

Hirao Auri’s Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu is getting a live-action adaptation, reports Rafael Antonio Pineda on ANN. As much as the series (like all of that creator’s series,) makes me feel a little crazy, I think this is a very good candidate for a live-action. And, legitimately, I though Ai Farouz did a stellar job as Eripyo in the anime version.

Sailor Moon News

Every year Sailor Moon fandom is asked who their favorite Senshi is and for the first time ever, Sailor Uranus gets top billing as favorite. Lynzee Loveridge takes a look at this expression of obvious fact (^_^) on ANN. Excuse us while all all of us long-time fans gloat a bit.

Other News

Absolutely worth taking a look at is Lynzee Loveridge & Matthieu Pinon’s article on ANN, A Profile of the Sparkling Life of Shojo Manga Pioneer Eiko Hanamura.

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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.

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 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!