Archive for the Yuricon Category


A Pictorial History of Yuricon and Okazu in T-shirt Design

May 23rd, 2021

In the late 1990s a bunch of folks were chatting about cool f/f couples in anime and manga on Usenet. I decided to have a t-shirt made up for a bunch of us who were going to meet at Otakon in 2002. That shirt had a logo designed by Kat Williams and a motto that we used for another decade. But look at that URL! ^_^ This was in the very early days, when we were all on Angelfire and Tripod and Welcome.to.

We had an earlier tee that included the phrase “Shoujoai Counselor” which we did because we thought it was funny but, by 2002, I was moving away from that. Our website was, at the time, Anilesbocon.

I was straightening up this week and thought that I’d get that shirt out and, as usual, the ball rolled down that hill fast. ^_^

 

 

I don’t seem to have a high-res version of Kat’s logo design, but it was a lot of things. “AniLesboCon in English and Japanese, and the motto around the bottom rim.

 

In 2003, we had a full three-day event for the now-renamed community. Our logo was the version of our mascots Yuriko and Midori drawn by Merisusan and colored by Kelli Nicely.

 

 

I still love that picture. You can still get our beloved mascots, Yuriko and Midori, in t-shirt form, but not in pink, I don’t think.

In the early 2000s we were visiting cons like crazy, selling ALC manga, doing panels, promoting Yuricon. We were using an image by Kat Williams again as our character image.

 

 

 

By 2003, we had redone the website completely and now hosted our own domain.

 

 

Kelli Nicely designed our first “I Love Yuri” t-shirt in the mid-2000s. This is my 3rd or 4th version of it. We had them originally printed at a t-shirt place by custom order, then had a Cafepress shop for a while, but they honestly sucked. Now we are with Redbubble and while their ethical standards for artistic integrity are questionable…they have lovely tees.

 

 

In 2007 we did a one-day event. I was writing the second Yuriko novella, Saiyuu no Ryouko. My wife designed this shirt and Zeromus One did the art, reflecting the events of the story, in which our mascot Yuriko is heading out on her first world tour, with a co-star who hates her. ^_^   Yuriko’s name is written in hiragana for a reason, which is covered in the original story, Shoujoai ni Bouken. I’m working a 3rd novella now, in between everything else I do. ^_^

 

 

The late 2000s, we once again hit the road and visited every single event we could. When I say “we” I mean Kelli, Donna, Serge, Bruce, Sean, and folks that met us at all the events we tabled and paneled at. Again, I had updated our website look and I had plain white staff shirts done for those of us who were tabling and paneling. I got rid of this shirt and have regretted it ever since. ^_^; After I tossed I realized that these were a kind of archive of the community and stopped doing that.

Once again updating the website, this time with the help of a new webmaster who also designed us new character mascots for Okazu! This is again, the second edition of this shirt, as I wore the first one out. This “Okazu Mascots Love Yuri” design is still available on the Yuricon store.

Note on Redbubble: It’s not the most well-organized store, but if you scroll down on any product page, there is a carousel of other apparel and goods that logo is available on. So if you see a hoodie and you don’t want that, scroll past it, and find the other styles below the main image under “Also Available on.” If you can’t find something you want, let me know.

 

We did a contest for some new designs in the mid 2010’s and Ali Khan gave us this lovely image! It looked amazing in purple and again, I wore it so many times that I’m due for a new one. ^_^ “I Love Yuri” Rainbow Lily by Ali Khan.

 

 

Althea Keaton also contributed a terrific design in both English and Japanese! I’m showing it in red here, because that was what I got myself and it looked great. Again I wore these out. “I Love Yuri” Comic Panels by Althea Keaton in English.

 

And “I Love Yuri” Comic Panels in Japanese, by Althea Keaton. I had one each of these and wore them for years. In 2019, I was taking a tour to Japan for the 100 Years of Yuri Tour, and these came with me, but did not come home. Time to restock. ^_^

 

 

In 2019, Lissa pulled out the stops for this darling design, using our Okazu mascots! She and I worked on a two-color version for the folks on the Tour and I adapted it into this one-color version for anyone who wanted to celebrate 100 Years of Yuri. ^_^ “100 Years of Yuri” t-shirt looks great in pretty much every color available on the “classic tee” chart, except white and beige. ^_^

 

 

 

This is the two-color version that the folks on the tour got. This isn’t available to the general public, but it’s a really nice shirt. ^_^ If you don’t care that Redbubble’s tri-blend shirt come in limited colors, and are more expensive, I recommend them. They are super soft. I love this design, honestly. Lissa did a brilliant job converting the mascots’ hair color into their whole body. And we addressed an issue that had been bothering me for some time…..

 

 

When we were working on a 100 Years logo for Okazu, it had been bothering me for some time that both characters were light-skinned. There are so many reasons why that never made sense, except…systemic racism. It seemed like it was time to fix this. We rebooted the mascots and I’m way happier with the way they look. But the T-shirt had never gotten the upgrade. Now I have recolored the Okazu t-shirt design. Again, I bought myself of the new version of  “2021 Okazu Mascots Love Yuri” this is the color I picked. ^_^

We stopped tabling after ALC Publishing was shut down, although we still have some of our books available. So the current version of the Yuricon logo has never gone on a t-shirt. ^_^ But, this summer is the 20th anniversary of Yuricon,  the 20th anniversary of Okazu is next year and 2023 will see the 20th anniversary of Yuricon 2003, and I’m thinking we’ll need some new designs and updates. ^_^ Keep your eyes peeled for contests and, of course, if you have an inspired idea for either of our mascot pairs Yuriko and Midori or the Okazu mascots (who have no official names…yet), let me know and I’ll be glad to consider them!





New Episode on Yuri Studio!

May 13th, 2021

I saw a Twitter meme and decided to make a Yuri video! ^_^ In this episode I look at a few key tropes of Yuri and how the genre is evolving.

S02 E02 Yuri: How it Began – How It’s Going

 

Here’s the value-add for today’s post: Why You Should Click “Like” on Every Video You Watch and Actually Like

If you’ve watched any videos on Youtube, you’ll see folks exorting you to click “like” and subscribe. There’s a reason why. Youtube-oniisan judges all videos pretty harshly. If a video goes up and doesn’t get likes along with its views, YT-oniisan thinks the video is a loser. It won’t tell it’s cool friends about it, and even if you tell folks, it won’t share the news.

I’ll give Youtube props, all creators get links to their explanation of the algorithm, so it’s not like this info is buried. The bottom line is, if you watch a video, but don’t also “like” it, YT considers that a “meh.” If you react and comment, YT considers that a thumbs up and your video gets on that queue of suggested videos on the right on a watcher’s list. If you watch tons of videos on a topic, the other videos by the people you have already liked are bumped up onto your suggestions. If folks click on your videos from their suggested video list, they get more like that. (It is true that if you click often enough you’ll start to see angry shouty men and weird kiddy cartoon snuff, but if you carefully cultivate your actual clicks and block that shit it will continue to give you the Sailor Moon theme Moonlight Desetsu on koto.

When you click like on a video – and, even better, add a comment – Youtube-oniisan grudgingly admits that, for a kid, you’re not bad. That’s why YT doesn’t care if the “comments” are high quality or not. It’s your bro, a grunt of acknowledgment is as good as a well-thought out response.

Youtube validates that video in the algorithm, more people see it. And here’s the point  – to make money on Youtube folks need a minimum number of subscribers and watch hours, so people who do YT for money need those new eyeballs. I had asked for subscribers last year to enable auto-subtitling. Once I got it, I don’t care so much how many subscribers I have. (Of course, if I ever do have 6 figures worth of subscribers, that’ll be a whole new story.) Right now Yuri Studio has about 1/8th the number of watch hours it needs to be monetized so that’s also not super high priority, but one day, maybe, who knows.

All of this is to explain to you just why, when I ask you to please “Like” a video on Youtube, it’s because that really makes a difference! Subscribe to the channel if you want notifications of new videos, obviously and support us on Patreon, because our Patrons make these videos possible!

Thank you for your watches and your likes, and your questions and comments! I’ve got the next video topic all lined up so I’ll see you next time on Yuri Studio!





Yuricon Store Update and Yuriten Walkthrough on Discord

March 16th, 2021

We have two wholly unrelated pieces of news today that have only one thing in common.  ^_^

We are doing a spring cleaning at the Yuricon Store! This is a work in progress as we update categories, reset broken links, fix tags, and otherwise tidy up for what will be an eventual move to a new theme, but do drop by – the pages are linked to Yuri anime, manga, LNs, VNs, apparel and more!
 

On the other side of the world is the Yuriten Exhibition and we’re going to be doing a walk through”tour” on the Voice channel on the  Okazu Discord on March 20, 1PM EST US time. I’ll be paging through the exhibition and we can chat about the pretty art. This is a low-key get together, just for fun. Joins us if you can!

 





“Why Is There More Boy’s Love than Yuri?” on Yuri Studio

March 5th, 2021

Welcome to the new season of Yuri Studio – we have a new look and a new video to start off the new year! This is another question I get all the time.

So,  in our first video for 2021, I answer Why is There More Boys Love than Yuri?

 

 

I hope you will give this video a “Like” on Youtube and subscribe to the Yuri Studio channel. Because YouTube-oniisan watches over us, these things are very important to helping the video be recommended and shared. ^_^;

If you’d like to ask questions that we’ll consider answering on future videos or support more videos, become an Okazu Patron. We’re only a handful of people away from passing 100 patrons and that would be a huge benchmark for us! ^_^

I hope you enjoy this video. I really enjoyed making it. Ad a quick shout out to Louise for editing and Pattie for the design.

Give this a watch and let me know what you think in the YT comments!





Coming Soon: Season 2 of Yuri Studio

February 21st, 2021

Please enjoy this teaser I made for the first video of Season 2 of Yuri Studio. It took much longer than it should have but the fade out was being a pain in the butt. ^_^;