New Okazu Anniversary Video on Yuri Studio!

September 4th, 2022

Thanks to my Patrons for the idea. As a final celebration of reading, watching, and writing about Yuri here on Okazu, we have a new video up on Yuri Studio: S03 E05 Top 10 Changes In Yuri From 20 Years of Okazu!

In this video I think about all the things I’ve seen change in Yuri and Yuri fandom and celebrate each and every step forward. So join me and let’s talk about some changes we’ve seen in Yuri!

 

Your likes and kind comments on YouTube make a huge difference to the algorithm sharing my videos and are very much appreciated! I hope you’ll subscribe and get notifications, as well, because these are things YouTube judges me on. ^_^

Thank you so much to all my YNN Correspondents, Guest Reviewers, commenters and readers here on Okazu. Happy 20th Anniversary to the Okazu Family!

(Also, note the excellent new t-shirt! It’s up on the Yuricon store. ^_^ When you go to Redbubble, the image shows up blank on the page header because Redbubble won’t let me show the image with background color. Scroll down and check out the items to see the image.)

Posted in Okazu News, Yuri Studio | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – September 3, 2022

September 3rd, 2022

I want to thank everyone who participated in our Okazu 20th Anniversary Treasure Hunt! You are all Yuri Masters!

The next thing we’ll be celebrating this year is a 5000th post on Okazu. Crazy, huh? I’ll be taking suggestions from Okazu Patrons on what I should write about for my 5000th post here.

And I want to apologize, I had a technical error in my newest Yuri Studio video that was beyind my limited technical skills to fix, that meant it will be delayed a week. But hopefully, you will all get to see the video I did to celebrate 20 years of Okazu next week! In the meantime, catch up on Season 3 of Yuri Studio so far!

 

Yuri Manga

I was extremely honored to be able to assist with the English edition of Nekobungi Sumire-sensei’s new manga collection, Tokyo Nekoka Project, “Tokyo Caticization Project.” It’s a fun and interesting collection of scifi, Yuri and cats. I hope you’ll pick up a copy and let Nekobungi-sensei know if you enjoyed it!  I thought it was great and you know how I feel about cats. (-_-)

Ratana Satis’ Pulse, Volume 1 is now available from Seven Seas! I reviewed this back in 2016 and am glad it will reach a wider audience now.

Vampeerz, Volume 2 is out now from Denpa Books. I reviewed this in 2020, and while I read the next couple of volumes I stopped reviewing it in Japanese. Not for any specific reason. If you like vampires and can write limericks, I invite you to consider writing a guest review!

Chapter 29 of Tsukiritai Onna to Tabetai Onna (作りたい女と食べたい女) is up and Kasuga is shopping for Valentine’s Day chocolates for Nomoto! Ahhh!

Support Yuri Journalism & Yuri Creators
Become an Okazu Patron Today!

 

Spica wo Tsukamaete, Volume 1 (スピカをつかまえて) is up on the Yuricon Store. This is a heated school triangle about three girls who are rivals for the number one spot in school and more.

Lucky Star manga, which has been on hiatus for 8 years, will restart in Maitana magazine.

On Twitter, Nouchi-sensei announces the start of their school life Yuri series, Yukidoke to Agapanthus (雪解けとアガパンサス) running in Dengeki Daioh! (Which I would have bought, but saw that issue of Geijutsu Shincho with Rose of Versailles on the cover, on the shelf and bought that instead. ^_^)

Also from Twitter, we have Hime ha Atsuku Nigiru (姫はアツく握る) which nanaoku found and announced “It’s Yuri!”

From YNN Corespondent Pan, we have a new girls’ sports series, Tsubame Tip-off (つばめティップオフ！) about basketball, from Comic Meteor. Pan suggests it has Yuri undertones. Even without, I always welcome another sports drama featuring women. ^_^

 

 

Yuri Anime

Alex Mateo on ANN reports that Crunchyroll has Psycho-Pass 3 up for streaming now. If the lesbians are still alive, I’m open to a guest review!

Lycoris Recoil hit Japanese Trending on Twitter this morning with a spoiler from Episode 10. An admittedly not at all surprising spoiler, but spoiler nontheless, should you click.

Lucas DeRuyter has written an interesting perspective piece on Birdie Wing, from the point of view of someone who lives and breathes golf. Whiffs and Aces: Birdie Wing’s Mixed Depiction of Golf is over at ANN. h/t to Sr. YNN Correspondent Sean G for this!

 

Tip Okazu Writers a Coffee on Ko-fi

Yuri Doujinshi

25% off everything on Lilyka for the US Labor Day holiday. Check out with code, “Labor.”

 

Other News

No Yuri manga won this year’s NicoNico Next Manga awards, but Bookwalker is offering free previews of all the nominated books, which include several Yuri titles. Take a look! 

The Lily, the Washington Post’s women-focused newsletter, features an amazing comic by Sólveig Eva about how women’s work is devalued and made invisible.

LGBTQ Nation has a discussion of LGBTQ Slang and how it’s changed over time. Check out LGBTQ slang: Exploring Outdated & Modern Queer Slang.

 

If you’d like to support Yuri journalism and research, Patreon and Ko-Fi are the ways we currently have  \active to accept subscriptions and tips. Your support goes straight to paying for Guest Reviews, folks helping with videos, site maintenance, managing the Yuricon Store and directly supporting other Yuri creators. Just $5/month makes a huge impact! Become part of the Okazu family!

Thanks to our Okazu Patrons and Supporters 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. ^_^

Posted in Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »


Comic Yuri Hime, September 2022 (コミック百合姫2022年9月号)

September 2nd, 2022

Comic Yuri Hime, September 2022 (コミック百合姫2022年9月号) offers some dramatic Yuri as the seasons turn.

In “Kimi to Shiranai Natsu ni Naru” by Kiiyang, our protagonists suddenly are confronted with the fact that summer doesn’t last and neither do summer jobs. What will they do for money during the off-season?

In “Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou.,” Rae is confronted by the fact that, even with her power levels and skills, she’s no match for Manaria. Will she lose Claire to her rival?

The SS Girls get together for a strategy session, (but it’s more like therapy, amirite?) in “Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau.”

In “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” Nene has had it with the straight-girl combo of Sumika and Kanako. And, frankly everyone has had it with Kanako…except Hime who is increasingly worried about her friend. The boot is about to drop, and damn is it gonna be an ugly one.

Sora and Ayaka spend a last high school summer festival together in “Lonely Girl ni Sakaraenai” and it dawns on us that this story is over and we’re just lingering….which is fine by me, because I don’t want to say goodbye, either.

“Hibiku Koe” by FLOWERCHILD is a meet-weird about two coworkers, one who is masked all the time, and their encounter that takes them to bed together.

A traditional crisis has appeared in the form of a friend with a previous, tenuous, and grasping claim on Ruriko’s affection in “Onna Tomodachi to Kekkonshitmita.”

In “Natsu to Lemon to Overlay” our aspiring voice actress and the woman who has hired her to read her final wishes go on a date…and it is as confusing to Yunimaru as it sounds to us.

Inui Ayu’s “Kyou mo Hitotsu Yane no Shita” wraps up the final chapter and what will be a second volume, as Inui-sensei and Kon-san go to buy matching rings. Congrats to them; my tears are not because I cry at weddings, but because I will miss these fun little snippets of lesbian life. ^_^

As usual, there are many other stories I have read in this volume. It’s a very solid volume with something for folks who like the cute, the sweet, the strange and the adult!

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I have the October 2022 issue right here and am cracking it open tonight! Can’t wait to see what happens in several of these stories. ^_^

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Magazines, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 3 ( 山田と加瀬さん。)

September 1st, 2022

Kase-san and Yamada moved to Tokyo last spring. Now winter is ahead of them and they are settling in, mostly.

As Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 3 ( 山田と加瀬さん。) begins, Yamada has taken massive strides towards building a new life. It’s true that, as a first-year, she lacks some confidence, but her bouts of low self-esteem are much rarer than before. She’s learning a lot, working hard at her job and making friends. And this year, as the school festival approaches, she’s honored to take part in a special edition of one of her favorite gardening shows. The gardening club is working with their favorite teacher to do a live performance, with a special guest – a famous voice actor.

Kase-san’s school festival is on the same exact day. How they balance the schedule, Kase-san dealing with one last (and for once, rather amusing,) round of jealousy and what becomes of them when the voice actor turns out to be a good gardener, a decent person and an adult who provides good advice, is the bulk of this volume.

The other half of the story is the inevitability of a coming crisis with Kase-san’s roommate. Kase-san’s old rival from high school confides that she knows Kase-san has a lover. Fukami is trying very hard to not care, but…she cares. It is becoming harder to ignore that her feelings for Kase-san are not roommate-y. What will happen with them? We don’t know and it may be moot – because Yamada and Kase-san start talking about the next year and maybe living together.

I like that this manga is moving at a pace that is slow, but somehow feels real-ish.  That is to say, we’re not hitting multiple festivals per volume, which means that we have time to look at both Yamada and Kase-san and see how far they’ve come. Even the art invites us to see both of them as more adult. Yamada, especially. They have distinct personalities, and styles. It’s been half a year, Kase-san is finally dealing with the jealousy thing, Yamada’s low-self-esteem has really changed from her days in high school. Our little girls are growing up and it’s…nice. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – Not really, this volume.
Yuri – 10

Overall – 9

There’s no date yet for Volume 3 in English, but I bet it’ll be out in 2023!

Posted in Kase-san Series, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Otherside Picnic Manga, Volume 2 Guest Review by Sandy F

August 31st, 2022

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday on Okazu! Today we welcome back Sandy F, for continuing coverage on the Otherside Picnic manga from Square Enix. Please give him your kind attention and take it away, Sandy!

After quite a wait we have Volume 2 of the manga version of Otherside Picnic, with the conclusion of ‘Surviving the Eight-Foot-Tall Lady’, a large chunk of ‘Station February’ and a bonus original story ‘Late-night Chicken and a Gorilla’. It is worth the wait. I wonder if it this volume should have been titled ‘Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire’ as we follow Sorawo and Toriko surviving by the skin of their teeth. They celebrate their survival but afterwards wander into more trouble where they confront different Otherside Entities and just as dangerous, stranded US marines.

In ‘Late-night Chicken and a Gorilla’ Kozakura muses on how the mirror cube offers a different perspective on how to perceive the world, and I find that the manga does something similar in how it tells the story of the Otherside when compared with the novels. For example, in the novels everything is told from Sorawo’s perspective and her responses to what is happening around her. However, in the manga although Sorawo is the narrator, through the artwork we don’t have to rely upon her perception of what is going on. So, we witness Toriko’s growing feelings for Sorawo that challenges Sorawo’s ‘why would Toriko want to be with me’ mode.

The artwork continues to be effective in conveying why I enjoy this series so much. The ability to shift from the goofiness that is Toriko, the sullenness that is Sorawo to the insanity inducing visions of the Otherside is amazing. The artist does a wonderful job of conveying the ‘bloody hell’ moment when Sorawo and Toriko realise that they have unexpectedly arrived in the Otherside at night-time.There are some neat moments when we see Sorawo and Toriko strengthen their bonds as accomplices both in enjoying a drinking party and the terrors of the Otherside.

With ‘Late-night Chicken and a Gorilla’ we hear Kozakura’s voice. From wondering why she ate so much KFC, to an analysis of her thoughts on the nature of the mirror cube and what can she do about those meddlesome kids Toriko and Sorawo who are intruding in her life. With this story we see glimpses of Kozakura as a more complicated person than, for the most part, we see in the main novels.
All in all, a great read and now the wait begins for the next volume.

Story – 9
Artwork 9
Character – 8
Service – 4
Yuri – 5

Overall – 9

Erica here: Thank you Sandy! From my perspective what makes the manga so worth my time is that the art is quite good at capturing the qualities that make the Otherside creepy or scary, while also showing us the still-inexplicable, (sometimes less terrifying, occasionally more,) things that Sorawo can see with her blue eye. This adds an extra layer of confusion and fear to every story without being gross or, as the anime played it, boo!-scary.

I especially like the conclusion to the Eight-Foot Tall Lady story. That has stuck with me since I read it the first time. It’s going to have repercussions for volumes to come. The art here really captures the sights and feel of the Otherside in a way the LN art really had no chance to do. Looking forward to Volume 3, which will be heading our way in December!

Posted in English Manga, Guest Review | 2 Comments »