Last week I wasn’t sure we’d have enough news for a report. This week, we have tons! LOL We’ve got news from all over the Yurisphere this week, so here we go.

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Deb Aoki editor of About.com’s excellent Manga section, will be publishing an interview with me, about, you guessed it – Yuri. The interview is slated to go up on Girl’s Day, March 3rd, so keep an eye out for it! The questions were all “basic,” so of course they were massively complex and I answered yes and no to most of them. If you’re a long-time Yuri fan, you won’t learn anything new, but if you’re new to the genre, or have some friends who pester you with questions about the history, nomenclature, audience, etc, send them that way. I’ll post the link here when I get it. Thanks Deb!

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From a couple of folks, we received a link to Wai Wai’s translation of Mainichi’s interview with Nakamura Saytaro about Yuri Hime magazine and Yuri in general. For fans, the most amusing bit has to be the summary of Maria-sama ga Miteru as a series about girls who see visions of the Virgin Mary. (I suggested that the author of the article had confused the series with “La Vierge de la Guadalupe en Regarde,” but no one else thought that was funny… lol)

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And while we’re on the topic of Yuri Hime, according to Light Novel.org, Ichijinsha will be publishing two new light novel lines, one “for boys” and one “for girls” which will include series from Comic Rex and Yuri Hime magazines. Good news and something to look forward to!

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I don’t want to forget this – the 2008 Yuricon Poster Contest submission rules are up and we’re accepting submissions any time until April 30! We’ve got some amazing prizes lined up, so get those posters in!

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Last week, one of our alert readers noticed that Animate.tv has announced a third Hayate x Blade Drama CD. I can’t find the direct link, but scanning Animate.tv is enough to make an otaku drool, so have fun looking for it on your own. lol

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I know that no one but Serge and I care, but a new series of Ikkitousen has been announced. Ikkitousen: Great Guardians is going to be a completely new series, with no relation to the previous characters or the manga. So no more Ryofu or Kanu, but we’ll hope that the trend of inserting random lesbian characters into the “story” continues.

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Today’s last news item isn’t “Yuri,” but it is relevant to our interests. Malinda Lo, Managing Editor of Afterellen.com, has received a book deal for a fairy-tale type story which is similar to Cinderella, but she assures us that the girl Prince will get the girl. So Princess Knight, Utena, Rose of Versailles fans have something to look forward to. :-)

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I’m fairly certain there was something else I wanted to mention today, but I didn’t write it down and now I can’t remember…. Oh well, if I do remember, I’ll be sure to add it! In the meantime – thank you alert readers and “friends of Yuri”! Keep up the good work and remember if you know of events, news or other items of interest, send them to me at anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Thanks!

Once again, we get some fun news from Poland, this time from Sylwia who says that in the newest issue of Polish feminist magazine Zadra, readers have chance to read about lesbian in comic books from all over the world. Sylwia wrote about the American, European and African markets, including Yuri. :-)

Yuricon and ALC Publishing is pleased to announce our first con of 2008 – Anime Boston. We’ll be at Table 419 in the Dealer’s Room and will be running a Yuri Panel at 3PM on Saturday, March 22nd! This will be our first time at ABoston in 6 years, and we’re looking forward to being part of it once again. See you there!

And in preparation for the next round of translation into Japanese, the Site Map and Links pages on Yuricon have been updated. We’ve got some shiny new links up to both English and Japanese sites. :-)

Here’s a few tidbits of Yuri news that have been floating around my inbox for a few days:

From Poland – Yuricon ML member Grisznak has had a History of Yuri published at the biggest Polish manga and anime portal, anime.com.pl Grisznak will also be involved in several Yuri and Yuri-related panels at Polish cons in 2008 – check out the Yuri Events Page on Yuricon for details. (And if you are running or know of a Yuri-related panel or event anywhere in the world, please email me so I can add it to the Events Page!) The Polish Yuri community is amazing – go Polish Yuri fans!

From Japan – Rica Takashima says that she intends on drawing more Rica and Miho for us! \o/ I’m not above using evil means to pressure her, so we can do a sequel to Rica ‘tte Kanji!?. So, in the comments field, please put your wishes for more Rica and Miho, and I’ll collect them and forward them to her. lol

From US – Yuricon has been updated with new items on the Shop, new events and starting this weekend, we have a new Japanese-language home page. Most of the interior pages are in English as of yet but, little by little, we’ll be converting as many as possible to Japanese. This is a very exciting first step forward on something we’ve wanted to do for some time. Many thanks to Katey, our website translator!

(I’m going to try my best to post Events in their native language going forward as well, so if you are sending in an event or panel, please include the information in your native tongue as well. This is all part of our plan for total world domination. LOL)

If you have news you want to share about events or Yuri anywhere in the world, email me – Yuri fans want to know. :-)