Archive for the Yuricon Category


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 31, 2021

July 31st, 2021

Yuri Events

HUGE NEWS! Join us for a special Yuricon 20th Anniversary Discussion – Global Yuri Fandom, with James Welker and Verena Maser, hosted by Erica Friedman.

We are adapting our Mechademia panel, so if you missed us all presenting about our various research into Yuri fandom and how it’s changed, you’ll get your chance to hear us and ask us questions online, and free! ^_^

When: Aug 14, 2021 08:00 Eastern Time (US and Canada), 13:00 BST, 21:00 JST (Japan).

Registration is free, but there is limited space, so please register early. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. I hope to see you there!

 

Yuri Manga

Playing some catch up this week! First, we have a couple of new items up on the Yuricon Store:

Cocoon Entwined, Volume 3, out from Yen Press is now available in English and the story is becoming more compelling and creepy.

The Whole of Humanity Has Gone Yuri Except for Me is out now also from Yen Press. This is a sci-fi story in which a girl finds herself in a world where everyone is in a Yuri relationship. And yet, I bet there isn’t a single lesbian. /eyeroll./

Ami-chan no Nikki (あみちゃんの日記) is a new Galette publication. Yatosaki Haru’s school diary about the prettiest girl in school, is now a collected volume.

Asumi-chan ha Rezu Fuuzoku ni Kyoumi ga Arimasu! (彩純ちゃんはレズ風俗に興味があります!) is a Comic Yuri Hime manga about a woman who…you know what? It’s about sex. The plot is meaningless. It’s just about sex.

Meijou Shigatai Kanojo to, Ano Goro Okubyoudatta Watashi no Hanashi (名状しがたい彼女と、あの頃臆病だった私の話) is a horror series about a withdrawn girl who meets a woman who manipulates monsters.

UDON Entertainment has announced the project I just finished up, Rose of Versailles Episodes, the final 4 “new” volumes of Riyoko Ikeda’s epic. These volumes were drawn for the 40th anniversary of the series, and will be released here as a 2-volume set. They are *fantastic* and I know you will love them. ^_^

 

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Via Comic Natalie, Volume 3 of a series I hadn’t been following at all, Yuri de Naru ♥ Espoir (ゆりでなる♥えすぽわーる), a sory of a girl who draws little Yuri scenarios about women she sees, but who is herself fated to return home and marry, is on sale now and all the various stores in Japan where it can be found are selling it with special goods.

Ane no Shinyuu, Watashi no Koibito (姉の親友、私の恋人。) is, exactly as it sounds, about a love triangle between two sisters and the older sister’s friend, which debuts in Vol. 94 of Kadokawa’s Dengeki Daiouji magazine.

I haven’t had  a chance to read Volume 1 yet, but Volume 2 of the schoolgirl x mermaid Yuri, Watashi o Tabetai, Hitodenashi (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし) is on Japanese shelves.

And surely this deserve an award for squeezing in a few extra current trends, Kukkorose no Himekishi to Nari, Yuri Shoukan de Hataraku koto ni Narimashita (くっ殺せの姫騎士となり、百合娼館で働くことになりました。 ) which I am reading as “To become a female knight I am working in a Yuri brothel,” because omg, no one has lick of imagination, good heavens. <– This is me rolling my eyes so hard I strained them.

 

Yuri LNs

Via Yurimother, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 2 has hit shelves. According to RightStuf, Volume 3 is looking at a November release date.

 

Yuri Anime

ANN’s Alex Mateo has the trailer and news about the upcoming Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Walpurgisnacht: Rising– .

And Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story 2nd Season -Eve of Awakening- OP has premiered and Rafael Antonio Pineda at ANN has details.

I’m also going to draw your attention to Caitlin Moore’s review of Stellvia, an anime that was pretty big in Yuri fandom in the 00s but has been lost to time.  I reviewed it as it came out here, and there was a lot to like and some significant stuff to hate. It has long painful character arcs and the grandest coming out in anime. It’s totally worth a rewatch – and you can get the complete series from Discotek!

 

Yuri Games

Alex Mateo has the detes on Blue Reflection: Second Light with trailer, on ANN.

Via Yuri Navi, Yuri Visual Novel FATAL TWELVE is now available on Switch.

Via press release, Symbiotic Love – Yuri Visual Novel from White Dew Games and Kikai Digital, is now on Steam!

 

Other News

Tor has announced the next book in the Locked Tomb Series, Nona the Ninth in 2022, followed by Alecto the Ninth in 2023.

The California College of the Arts is doing a video series called Comics in the City, featuring folks like Alison Bechdel, the team known as Akira Himekawa, and Emil Ferris.  The videos for this year’s series are online now and I highly recommend them to you.

Folks in Yokohama will be able to enjoy the first Aria art exhibition, Aria the Memoria in late August. Komatsu-san has the details on CR News!

 

Thanks to our Okazu Patrons who make the YNN weekly report possible! Support us on Patreon to help us give Guest Reviewers a raise and to help us support Yuri creators!

Become a YNN Correspondent:  Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share and be part of the Yuri Network. ^_^





New Video on Yuri Studio!

July 19th, 2021

We have a new video up on Yuri Studio! In this video I talk about Yuri anime that helped create Yuri fandom and, once it was created, brought new waves of people into that fandom. Yuri Studio S02 E03 – Gateway Yuri Anime Part 1: The 1990s.  The is the first part of 3, Part 2 will cover the 2000s and is in process right now. I’m working on the script for Part 3 this week.

 

 

All of this will lead into our exciting Yuricon community 20th Anniversary Event about Yuri Global Fandom. Stay tuned for news about that.

In the meantime, thank you for your support of Yuri Studio. Even if you watch all the way through here, please remember to give the video a like on Youtube, and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already. Subscribers, especially, make a massive difference in how Youtube treats me. ^_^

Thanks once again to my Okazu Patrons, for their help with this video and for their support! I you enjoy this video and would like to see more, please  become an Okazu Patron. Even $5/month makes a big difference and allows us to do so much more! (We’re only a few patrons away from meeting a new microgoal – supporting another queer creator and raising our rates for Guest Reviews for Okazu.





Save the Date for a Yuricon Community 20th Anniversary Event!

June 18th, 2021

Back in the day, there was a brand-new online community for fans of lesbian characters and stories in Japanese comics and animation. That group was named AniLesboCon mostly as a joke1. By 2001, I was transitioning that name to a new name, one that I hoped would re-connect this new genre to its ties to Japanese lesbian history. In August 2001, I relaunched our website as Yuricon2, a virtual convention and community for fans of what we were now calling “Yuri.”3. Here we are, 20 years later, and still going strong! If anything, we’re stronger than ever, with more Yuri manga and anime coming out in Japan and being translated for a global audience. (Okazu followed a year later, also in August, and I’ve got some ideas for next summer, too.)

Clearly, a 20th anniversary calls for a celebration.

As you may know, I was part of what I believe was the very first Yuri-focused panel at Mechademia this year, at which I was joined by Prof. James Welker and scholar and translator Verena Maser. It was a tremendous honor and a lot of fun. But, because to attend you had to register with Mechademia, we ran into a lot of limits – we had limited access and we couldn’t record the panel. And so, to celebrate the Yuricon community’s 20th anniversary, I invite you to save the date for an exciting event:

Saturday, August 14th, 2021, 21:00 JST (8 AM US EST, 1PM BST) I will be joined once again by James and Verena for a live panel on Yuri!

We will be recreating our panel from Mechademia, Transporting Yuri Across Borders. This panel focuses on challenges and opportunities in the evolution and transformation of Yuri as it is transported across chronological, geographic and linguistic borders. This time we will be able to discuss things more leisurely, take more questions and, hopefully, record the session to be able to post on Yuri Studio later, for folks to watch the whole thing.

Registration will be free, but there will be limited space available. Okazu Patrons will get early access to registration and be able to send in questions beforehand. I want to apologize to folks on the West Coast, this timing is the best we can do to not drag into super late hours for Japan and still be accessible for me on the East Coast. Hopefully some of you early birds will still be able to attend.

I hope to see many of our friends and Patrons there! Links to registration will be posted to Okazu Patrons in July, followed by general registration in August. So, save the date and we’ll see you on August 14th at our Yuricon anniversary event!

***

1Named after the fictitious Animated Lesbian Convention (AniLesboCon) from Dreiser’s fanfic, Scenes From An Elevator.

2This was followed in November by YahooGroups nuking the ALC community in a Yuri/BL/Queer/Porn purge and me re-starting it as Yuricon, a group that survived into late 2010s.

3https://www.yuricon.com/what-is-yuricon/#whatisyuri

 





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!