Yuri Anime

So weirdly, I was looking around my shelves of anime the other day and thought, “wWw, another whole new generation of Yuri fans will have no idea who Shizuru and Natsuki are when I use them as an example of something in my book.” And lo and behold! Funimation has announced a new home video release of Mai HiME and Mai Otome. No excuses for you then. I think they are worth watching but probably for none of the reasons the anime production company thought so.  ^_^ (When they came out the first time, I spent a lot of time writing about them. Check out the Mai HiME and Mai Otome categories here to see what I mean.)

In case you missed it, we now have official news that 2018 will see a Asagao-to Kase-san OVA!

The Girls Last Tour anime will be simulcast on the Amazon Strike subscription streaming service.

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Yuri Manga

ANN has a report on two more new chapters of Rose of Versailles focusing on Rosalie.

Rachel Matt Thorn has asked for LGBTQ folks on Twitter to please contact her with their opinions of Shimura Takako’s Sweet Blue Flowers.

While we’re on the topic of Shimura-sensei’s work, YNN Correspondent Verso S also noted that Rachel has recently done a podcast with the Anime Feminist blog on trans issues in Shimura’s Wandering Son series, along with ANN’s Jacob Chapman and Youtuber Cayla Coats. Ohta Publishing is talking about a 20th-anniversary artbook of Shimura’s work. And Eureka magazine is also putting out an issue on her work.

Don’t forget that Kase-san and Shortcake hit shelves this month in English. Yamada and Kase-san are looking at the future and wondering if they can face it together. And, while we are getting Kase-san and Apron in February, we won’t be getting a deluxe version with the animation clip. This isn’t surprising, as Seven Seas really doesn’t involve themselves in animation licensing. The folks involved in the making of the animation,however, will be participating in the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival this week.

Keep your eyes open for Red As Blue, an upcoming LGBTQ YA graphic novel by Ji Strangeway with art by Juan Fleites. Here is the official description: 

15 year old June Lusparian is an outcast caught between worlds. Half Mexican and half Armenian, June hovers on the border of adulthood, searching the streets of Paradise and the halls of Paradise High for signs of redemption – symptoms of life.  She longs to carve open her own space to find a beating heart in a barren world. Only her secret gift for music offers a hint of hope. When she falls for blonde, cool girl Beverly, captain of the Spirit Girls cheer squad, June hopes she may at last have found that one true thing. But as their nascent romance grows, June learns true connection requires more than a bond of pain and the ache of desire. Paradise is more than an idea, more than a town. And forgiveness never falls from heaven of its own accord.

Kuzishiro-sensei’s zodiac animal Yuri gag comedy Inugami-san to Neokyama-san (犬神さんと猫山さん) wraps up in volume 6.

Don’t forget that adult-life drama by Ohsawa Yayoi,  2DK GPen, Mezamashitokei., Volume 5 (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) is out now and Volume 6 will be on sale in November. 

Live-Action

Via YNN Correspondent soulassasin, the Le Souvenir Cafe will be running a Maria-sama ga Miteru cafe  with actresses playing the roles of the Yamayurkai in November in Akihabara, Tokyo.

The live-action of Saki Achiga-hen announced cast and has pictures of the actresses in costume.

Other News

Via YNN Correspondent David M, check out this fascinating story about the Bluestockings of early 20th century Japan. The Banned 1910s Magazine That Started a Feminist Movement in Japan.

If you’re around New York City on October 13, consider hitting up the Manga University event, at which Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase will be speaking on the seasonally appropriate “Mother Horror in Japanese Shōjo manga.”

Outo is a new collective of queer feminist comic artists from Finland! Check it out on Facebook. 

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 Anime

ANN has a couple of relevant items about the upcoming Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc anime. Fittingly, a classic singer, Sakamoto Maaya, is returning to do the theme. That’ll please all the older fans. ^_^ And announcements have been made on new character casting, as well.

Yuri Foxgirl anime Konohana Kitan is going to be on Crunchyroll this October. Check out Crunchyroll’s promotional video for the series.

Girl’s Last Tour, a post-apocalyptic series with cute girls, has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks. That it has an anime at all is amazing. ^_^ Check out the trailer on Youtube.

Okazu News

I know I do keep going on about this, but with the help of all of our amazing Patrons – and with humble thanks to our first God-level Patron, Ivan – Okazu is within spitting distance of being able to pay Guest Reviewers. I feel kind of strongly about this. Writing is hard work and it takes a lot of time and effort. I try to get you 4-6 posts a week here and it’s important to me to be able to pay our guest writers for their efforts. Sometimes a single paid gig can make the difference in a resume. 

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If you enjoy these weekly Yuri Network News reports, the reviews of Yuri anime and manga and lesbian novels and the guest reviews of Yuri VNs and games and anime, please consider subscribing to Okazu on Patreon. Even a dollar/month can make a difference…that dollar will go to rewarding a Guest Reviewer for their time and energy, and help us get to events of interest, do interviews with people you care about and for us to be able to tell you about all the great Yuri  news happening in this time of amazing things! Thank you very much for being part of the Okazu team!

Yuri Manga

I didn’t keep on reading it, but heavily supernatural-influenced Comic Cune had a lot of Yuri and Yuri-esque series. Comic Natalie reports that vampire story Kyuugetsgi-chan x Kouhai-chan (吸血鬼ちゃん×後輩ちゃん) is getting a collected volume and vampire x vampire hunter story Killing Me! (キリング・ミー！)  is starting in the November issue. I might have to take another look, despite my disinterest in vampires. ^_^

Comic Natalie also says that from the folks at Kadokawa’s web site magazine, comes Yuri Natsu – Minshokugaya (ゆりなつ-民宿かがや-」) a Yuri Twitter comic by  Nao Mochi-aulait. This series will start in October and I’m going to keep my eyes on it.

Equally, I’m not going to be reading Yuri “comedy” Akarui Kiokusoushitsu (明るい記憶喪失), Volume 2. “cheerful amnesia” is just a big no for me. ^_^

Yuri Visual Novel

YNN Correspondent Brendan B want you to know about “a cute looking Yuri visual novel called Butterfly Soup that was released this week.” This is an indie VN and is a free download. If you plan on reading it let us know how it is!

Live-Action

Also via Brendan, “Fun Home is getting a Japanese production, with former Takarazuka star Jun Sena playing adult Allison.” He said,  “That’s some casting!” and I was too busy screaming to reply coherently other than yah, it is. ^_^ It’s being performed while I’m there, but I make no promises. If I manage to see it, I promise to scream incoherently for a whole review. ^_^

Other News

ANN reports that Fukami Makoto is launching a manga about writers and I just bet that it’ll have lesbians in it. He loves his lesbians.

If you’re in or near Tokyo on November 18 and are interested in literary translation, why not attend Strong Women, Soft Power Symposium #1: Towards a Community of Practice in Japanese Literary Translation?

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

Seven Seas has licensed a kind-of-Yuri manga-ish title, Hungry For You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night by Flowerchild. It’s a Young King title, so I feel not particular hopeful that it’ll be good, but I’ve been wrong before. ^_^

Kusanagi-sensei ha Tamesareteiru. (草薙先生は試されている。) is a Yuri 4-koma gag comic that follows a teacher, whose school love’s daughter falls in love with her when she’s in Kusanagi’s class. You can read at least some of it online (in Japanese) for free.

Comic Natalie has the news of a Onee-loli Yuri anthology with familiar names like Namori, Itou Hachi and Takemiya Jin called Parfait. (パルフェ おねロリ百合アンソロジー)

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Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll has added the first of Bee Train’s “girls with guns on the run” anime trilogy, Noir and circus-themed Kaleido Star to their catalog.

Card Captor Sakura – Clear Card Arc will be premiering on Japanese TV in January, Crunchyroll News reports. Check out the promotional video.

CR News also has a report on some speculation about a Gai-Rei-Zero animation in celebration of the anime’s 10th anniversary.

Events

Tomorrow in Tokyo, Japan will be 2OL, an event for Yuri starring adult characters. Keep an eye on the Twitter hashtag #2OL for related posts.

I’m doing another lecture up at Harvard on October 26. Not sure if this will be open to the public or not. Check back for details.

I expect to be attending Anime NYC as press. This is this event’s first year and I’m very hopeful it will be successful. It’s a general “anime’ event, so I don’t expect anything of Yuri interest. November 17-19, 2017, Javits Convention Center.

And Comitia is coming up on November 23 at Big Site in Tokyo. I am very much hoping to be there.

Live-Action News

YNN Correspondent Brendan B wants you to know that “Apparently Fun Home is getting a Japanese production, with former Takarazuka star Jun Sena playing adult Allison. That’s some casting!” That will be amazing, yes. ^_^

Ciara Pitts wrote up a list of New And Upcoming Lesbian Movies Out In 2017 And Beyond which, sadly, left out the one movie I’m looking forward to the most – Signature Move, which will be coming to Amazon Video in 2018.

Takarazuka is gearing up to do Moto Hagio’s Clan of Poe and the first look at the lead is absolutely grin-making.

Check out the digest video of the the final Sailor Moon Musical ~Le Mouvement Final~.

Saki – Achiga Hen will be getting a live action drama and movie. About girls playing mah jong. Riveting stuff, eh? ^_^

The live-action Futari Monologue is not Yuri, but definitely looks interesting. It’s streaming on Youtube according to ANN.

Other News

The Center for LGBTQ studies of NYU have open Fellowships you can apply for. If you are creating work with LGBTQ themes or doing research on those works, take a look!

Yesterday on Twitter, Tagame Gengoroh-sensei, creator of My Brother’s Husband, tweeted that he’s done a second jacket cover for the BD/DVD edition of Oscar-winner movie Moonlight, for the Japanese release. Check out his tweet for the image!

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

Via YNN Correspondent Jin H., Seven Seas has announced a new Yuri manga license! Mushroom Girls in Love by Morayama Kei is exactly what the title says. In fact, we have a guest review by Bruce P to prove it to you. Take a look at his review of Kinoko Ningen no Kekkon  (きのこ人間の結婚) – which would translate to The Mushroom People’s Wedding, which wouldn’t tell you how gay it is. So there you go.

Also out this month are two do-not-miss manga: From Seven Seas is Kase-san and Shortcake by Takashima Hiromi, the third of this excellent schoolgirls-in-love series.  Volume 1 of Viz’s edition of Sweet Blue Flowers, is  heading for American shelves this week, as well. This will be the third translation of this same volume I’ve read. I wonder what I’ll think about it!

Some more exciting news from Seven Seas…ANN reports that they have licensed the original Cutey Honey manga! This is so full of wtf, ugly art, naked women, and extraordinary violence, you’ll either love it or hate or, more probably, both at the same time. This news comes on the tail of a release of the best version of this mythos.  Cutey Honey-a-Gogo is, in my opinion, the ultimate manga version of the Cutey Honey story. With art by Shimpei Itou and story by Go Nagai, I love this manga so much. Cutey Honey was the first magical girl who didn’t need a man, and this version presents us with a butched-up Na-chan for our viewing pleasure. It’s not “Yuri” per se, but it rides the line closely and I love it. ^_^ So, we’re getting the oldest and the newest in the franchise. If Seven Seas is smart, they skip any other versions and stick to the two good ones they have.

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Yuri Anime

The anime based on Amano Sakuya’s Konohana Kitan, which originally began serialization in Comic Yuri Hime S, but has since moved to Birz comics, has announced new cast and staff. members Among them Ogata Megumi announced that she’ll be playing the landlady in the upcoming production. The anime will premier on 9/24 in Japan. This is a Yuri story that stars fox-girls at a hot springs, so expect very high fanservice ratings on this. I made the mistake last week of bitching that Ichijinsha was at fault putting this anime out. I was mistake –  the publisher is Gentosha, but perhaps you’ll forgive me when you realize that Itou Hachi is currently drawing a *different* moe kimono-clad fox-girl manga called Tsuki ga Kirei desu ne for Yuri Hime magazine right now – I have to be honest they looked the same to me. I never even noticed that it wasn’t Amano’s story, but a wholly different identical concept. Guess the editor-in-chief has a(nother) fetish. 

Crunchyroll has added Kurau Phantom Memory, an anime that I loved and hated and finally came to like. Here are all my reviews of the series.

Over on Anime Now, Kat Callahan has a look at the Yuri in the anime A Centaur’s Life in A Centaur’s Life’s Low-Key Lesbian Relationships Add to Positive LGBT Representation In Japan.
 

Event News 

For folks in or near Tokyo on September 24, 20OL is an all Yuri-about-adults comics event. Don’t think I haven’t thought about just flying over for the weekend to go to this. In fact, my fingers hovered over the button for hours last night. If anyone is able to go, please do report back! If (it doesn’t blow and) they hold a second one, I’ll add it to my schedule. ^_^; 

Other News

The Powerpuff Girls are getting a new addition to the team, and the folks at Pink News note that she’ll be voiced by South African lesbian singer Toya Delazy.  

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 Anime

YNN Correspondent, Beatriz M. wants you to know that she recently hosted a Revolutionary Girl Utena podcast about which she says, “We get deep, we get gay, and we continue to ask, “What does this mean, Ikuhara?”