Yuri Manga

We’re starting today with some excellent news out of Italy from YNN Correspondent Laura C! She has these items to share: 

A new edition of Sailor Moon is being published by Star Comics. They call it Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon New Edition, in 16 volumes which should include the short stories and Sailor V. They also announced the Eternal Edition (12 volumes ), but no date has been announced.

Star Comics will also be releasing the Harmony manga next March. 

Il marito di mio fratello (Otouto no Otto) hit the shelves last week from Panini Comics. Laura believes it’s the first proper “gay” manga to be published by a major comics publisher. It will be released in omnibus in 2 softcover volumes. 

Thanks for the news, Laura, this is really terrific!

The editorial team behind Rakuen Le Paradis (楽園 Le Paradis) magazine announces two new Yuri series:  from creator Kazuma Kowo will be a reprint of her Yuri Hime story Junsui Adolescence (my review of which you can find here on Okazu) and Preparat by Shigisawa Kaya in Volume 25 and 26.

Whoa! Via Comic Natalie prolific manga creator Nakamura Asumiko is turning her sights on Yuri with a new series Mejirobana Saku (メジロバナの咲く)! Also starting in Rakuen Le Paradis, Volume 25. Guess I’m getting that volume. 

Let me editorialize here for a moment. I’d been reading Rakuen Le Paradis since it began publishing. I especially like the early volumes of this quarterly when they had a weird, uncomfortable mix of BL, Yuri and straight manga all for adult women. Since the beginning, it included comics by Nishi UKO, quite possibly, my favorite manga artist ever, and a number of other Yuri titles, including runs by Hirao Auri, Hayashiya Shizuru, Mizutani Fuuka and others. 

Once Nishi UKO’s stellar series Collectors wrapped up, I moved my reading over to Bookwalker, because I just am out of room for magazines and I won their giveaway of $100 gift certificate, so I filled my Bookwalker box up with light novels and magazines. But the next several issues had no Yuri, or BL and was basically wholly straight romance and sex. I don’t mind that, however the fetishes weren’t mine. It had sort of settled down and hadn’t settled into my niche. So I decided to drop the magazine without prejudice. The last issue I read was Volume 24. … …. And here we are 3 months later, and I’m going to have to keep reading the next volume. Seriously, what happened there? Did a metric ton of people kill their subscriptions or something? I’m not complaining, but it does seem like interesting timing. ^_^

Support Yuri News and Reviews! 

Yuri Anime

ANN has the dub trailer for Viz Media’s release of Sailor Moon Crystal 3rd season.

From Crunchyroll News, Funimation has announced the dub cast for Konohana Kitan. (As of time of publication, Crunchyroll is down, but I hope they will fix their problems quickly. Just be warned.)

LGBTQ News

Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers curated by celebrated poet and author Gwen Benaway. They are taking submissions until December 15th, so get those stories in!

The Yodogawa section of Osaka has passed a pro-LGBT ordinance. It confers no legal status, but indicates that the section of town will respect LGBT people.

Other News

If you like beautiful Yuri artbooks, take a look at Shilin’s newest offering FANTASIA.

Over on Oh No They Didn’t on Livejournal(!), Zyuranger takes a look at the 5 Best and Worst Animators on the original Sailor Moon anime.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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

Strawberry Fields wo Mou Ichido (ストロベリー・フィールズをもう一度) is a new series about a first love starring a girl who loves otome games and another girl “with a secret.” (Bets that the secret is that she voice acts in otome games? ^_^)

Eureka magazine is continuing it’s look at Yuri pioneers. After the Ikuhara Kunihiko retrospective issue in September, they are rolling out an issue looking at Aoi Hana/Sweet Blue Flowers creator Shimura Takako’s work in the November issue. (ユリイカ 2017年11月).

Support Yuri News and Reviews!

Events 

The Asagao to Kase-san team will be present at the Pony Canyon booth at the Animate Girl’s Festival on November 3rd in Ikebukuro, with original clear files and other goods. AFAIK, this is the first Yuri series highlighted at the AGF, which tends to focus on pretty boy series.  I’ve got fingers crossed they’ll have some of those clear files left when I get there a few weeks later!

I’ll be presenting a lecture on Queer Manga at Harvard on November 9th. 

The first AnimeNYC will be held November 17-19 at Javits Center in New York City. I’ll be there on Friday and Saturday as press. I have to bail on Sunday because I’m immediately heading out to….

Comitia 121 and the Kaigai Festa for international comics is going to be held at Tokyo Big Sight on November 23rd! I can’t wait! Comitia is the awesome all-original doujinshi event and I’ll be able to see a bunch of old friends at the TCAF-supported International pavilion for the Kaiga Festival.

I logged into Facebook the other day and found myself invited to a whole new comic show in Tokyo – Comic Art Tokyo 2, at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.  Well sure, why not! I’ll be there. 

If you’re interested in having me talk at your school or event, please contact me. I think we’re going to call 2017 full, but I still have room in 2018 although the spring is already filling up.

LGBTQ Comics

Geeks Out has a high-level look at queer comix by Devin Whitlock which is worth reading. Out of the Closet and Into the Costume: A History of Queer Comix.

Marvel’s new TV series Runaways will include Karolina Dean, a lesbian character. Pink News has this article and a roundup of other queer Marvel characters, like Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarock and America Chavez, who has her own series.

LGBTQ Japan 

Here’s a nice step forward: 700 students attended a LGBT career fair in Tokyo. Companies who are trying to take steps to increase diversity actually reaching out to queers students. Awesome.

Women’s Stories Site has a series of translated interviews with LGBTQ folks from Japan to talk about life there as a LGBTQ person, accompanied by some very lovely art.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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

Well this is awesome – Kitao Taki-sensei  has put together a collection of her doujinshi from 2013-15 called, sensibly, 2013-2015 Compilation (2013-2015総集編). It’s available digitally on DLsite.com, which also has a”shop in English” feature for finding VNs and doujinshi in English, (although this collection is not on the English listings.) Amusingly, you can shop in English under tabs labeled “Males,” “Females” or “Gays.” ^_^; No lesbians, but searching “Yuri” does bring up a few items on the English shop and so does “lesbian.” No promises on quality, though. When I have $10 and a few minutes, I’ll test out the BQ download and see how it goes!

Kishi Torajirou’s Yuri situation comedy Otome no Teikoku (オトメの帝国) is celebrating it’s 12th volume by granting access to 3 chapters a day until November 21 on the Grand Jump website starting this week!

From Fumio Aya, the artist behind the Kindred Spirits second manga collection Nakayoshi Quiz, (released in English by Seven Seas as part of the Kindred Spirits on the Roof: The Complete Collection) comes a tale of good girl/bad girl school life in Watashi ha Kimi wo Nakasetai Volume 1 (私は君を泣かせたい).

Quarterly Yuri anthology Galette No. 4 (ガレット) is premiering at Comitia in November and hitting various Japanese shelves in early December. As soon as it’s available on US Kindle, I’ll share the link. This issue welcomes special guest artist Morishima Akiko…edging it ever closer to a “Erica’s best of” collection. ^_^

***

Subscribe to Okazu withHelp us Pay Guest Reviewers!

***

Yuri Anime

ANN has the details for the cast of the upcoming Citrus anime, based on Saburouta’s manga, which is now headed to Volume 8 without a single happy person!

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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!

LGBTQ Comics

It’s an exciting time to be a fan of queer comics isn’t it? Award-nominated comic creator Hazel Newlevant has just released her newest book, a bisexual, polyamorous love story, Sugar Town. You can buy it directly from the artist at the link.

And this week the news broke that blockbuster crowdfunded black lesbian love story Bingo Love, written by Tee Franklin, with art by Jenn St-Onge, and colors by Joy San has been picked up by Image Comics. This is huge news that is both good and bad. Good, because maybe mainstream comics companies are starting to understand the sales power of diverse comics, but also bad, because let’s face it the Bingo Love team had to do all the work upfront to “prove” that sales power. If there hadn’t been a blockbuster Kickstarter and massive press, would Image have cared? Think about it.

***

Subscribe to Okazu withHelp us Pay Guest Reviewers!

***

Yuri Manga

Crunchyroll News has a report that Ichigo Mashimaro will be getting an 8th volume in November. This manga has never actually stopped running. It just gets very short chapters in Dengeki Daioh magazine every few months.

Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll has added Dragonaut – The Resonance to their catalog. Check out Katie’s review of Dragonaut on Okazu to see if this older series is right for you!

Nozomi/RightStuf plans for a Shinobuden Ninja Nonsense Blu-Ray release has been pushed into the early part of 2018 according to Crunchyroll News.

Other News

Well, I am a bad obsessive otaku. Apparently Ogata Megumi went and crowdfunded a 25th anniversary album of anime songs and I missed it completely. /hangs head in shame/ But the news is still worth sharing because the crowdfunding campaign was for a world-wide release of [animeg 25th], which will include the previously-reported version of “Moon Revenge” sung by Ogata-san and Katsuki Masako, who was Sailor Neptune’s voice in the original anime. So, sorry I missed the campaign, but you can bet I’ll be getting that album when it hits. Oh, and you may wonder how I learned of it. Studio Canopus, is the circle name of the woman who draws the ultimate Haruka and Michiru art. Mizuki-san gets them righter than Takeuchi-sensei did. Mizuki-san posted the news on her blog and a bit of art she had done years ago for a Uranus x Neptune story called “Moon Revenge.”  I really just wanted you to enjoy all the exclamation points and screaming in the post. ^_^ 

Youjin Lee takes a look at the literary legacy of the creator of the Tale of Genji in Murasaki Shikibu: The Japanese lady who created romance for April Magazine.

It’s worth tipping our hats in the direction of master mangaka Takahasi Rumiko, who is turning 65 this week, as her 35th volume of Rin-ne hits the stores. Crunchyroll News has a selection of the birthday wishes she’s received on Twitter.

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? 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!