Watashi o Tabetai, Hito de Nashi, Volume 5 (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし)

December 13th, 2022

You know, it sounds kinda cool to have a bunch of youkai fighting over you for your delicious blood but, as Hinako has found out, it’s not, really. Worse, it turns out that Hinako’s blood may not actually be as delicious as she thought. So…why are the youkai fighting to get to her?

Hinako thought she had gotten used to the idea of being eaten by Shiori – one day. But, in Watashi o Tabetai, Hito de Nashi, Volume 5 (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし) when Ayame, revealed to be a futakuchi onna, returns after having been defeated by Shiori….she tells Hinako a different story. And, when Hinako asks her best friend, the kitsune Miko, if her blood will help her heal, gets the confusing confirmation that it’s not her blood that any youkai wants. Hinako’s blood is kinda gross, actually.

Shiori is avoiding Hinako, who wants to understand the truth…about her family’s death, about her own survival, about Shiori. Can she handle the truth? Shiori, the mermaid, tells her. It’s her own blood that everyone is after and Hinako was given some of it, after the accident that killed her family. Now Hinako has to decide all over again how and why she will continue to live.

I know I keep saying this, but I really love this story. It’s creepy and gross in a shivery ghost-story kind of way. The blood is for ambience, it’s not the point of any scene. I don’t much care about Hinako, per se, or Miko, or Shiori, but I do want to know where this story is going and why all these youkai seem to be drawing lines around Hinako. Which youkai will attack next and what will happen? Each chapter feels very portentous,  although it isn’t if you examine it too closely. Gimme more Yuri creepy youkai please. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 We’re setting up for something here, it’ll all ominous whole notes
Characters – 8
Service – Did I mention creepy youkai?
Yuri – ? If Shiori doesn’t want to eat Hinako…why is she here?

Overall – 8

This series remains one of my top “license this title, please” titles. Fingers crossed for 2023.

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Take the 2022 Yuri Fandom Survey!

December 11th, 2022

Over the years there has been a lot of research into Boys Love and BL fandom and it seemed time to set up something to get a feel for what Yuri fandom is like in the 2020s, now that it has an established presence in most Japanese pop-culture media.

I would like you, readers of Okazu and members of Yuri fandom, to participate in  a 2022 Yuri Fandom Survey.

This survey is about you, the fan, and by extension, the shape of Yuri fandom, but all information will ONLY be used in an aggregated or anonymized form in articles on Okazu and/or Yuricon. This survey is for research purposes, the data will definitely not be sold or shared.

Please read the intro of the survey carefully before filling out the survey – we did our best to explain our choices. When it comes to titles, I know folks think of series differently. Please use the most common/official title and I’ll do my best to aggregate similar answers

This survey will stay open until January 11th, 2023. A summary post will follow after, and further research will take place in Q1-Q2 2023, if all goes well. ^_^

I hope you’ll share this survey in your fan spaces, FB groups, Discord servers and the like, where you engage in Yuri fandom! Feel free to translate the invitation into other languages. The survey is still in English, but I’d like to get as many people to fill it out as possible.

Thanks to everyone who helped alpha and beta test the survey and to everyone who fills it out! Let’s see what we look like. ^_^
 

Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – December 8, 2022

December 10th, 2022

Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll has picked up Liz and the Blue Bird, say ANN’s Alex Mateo. I really hope you’ll watch this, if you haven’t already. It was quite good and worth watching a second time, as I mentioned in my 2019 review.

I believe I’ve mentioned this, but YNN correspondent Cryssoberyl brought it up again on the Okazu Discord and I want to make sure you are realize that Citrus is celebrating a 10th anniversary, with an memorial exhibition in the Shinjuku Marui and an 10th anniversary broadcast of the anime. Check the Citrus 10th Anniversary Website for details.

 

Support Yuri Journalism & Yuri Creators
Become an Okazu Patron Today! Just $5 makes a huge difference

Yuri Manga

We’ll start with some new items up on the Yuricon Store. ^_^ It’s still been kind of busy, but I really hope to catch up on adding items starting this week.

Yuri is My Job, Volume 10 is out and features Nene having had it with “friggin’ heteros” and I am here for it. ^_^

Yuri Espoir, Volume 3 complicates the issue of Kokoro’s “death” by marriage.

For fans of messy relationships, Uso to Kiss ha Houkago, Volume 2 (嘘とキスは放課後) is now up on the Store.

It’s been delayed a few times, but Dark Horse has finally released Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time. I’m really looking forward to reading this.

Jennifer O’Donnell and I talked about the darling Yuri series Whisper Me A Love Song from Kodansha, by Takeshima Eku on her Translation Chat podcast!

 

Tip Okazu Writers a Coffee on Ko-fi

Yuri VNs/Games/Voice Drama

Kiss The Demiurge is now available on Steam! A mage tasked with hiding magic meets three girls obsessed with finding it.

Samurai Maiden is also out on Steam, in which kisses lead to power ups. ^_^ Again via Cryssoberyl, here are all the “devoted hearts” animations, in a YT compilation by Kakuchopurei.

It’s not Yuri, but anyway, River City Girls 2, has a release date for North America and Europe, reports Liam Doolan at Nintendo Life.

The Good, The Bad and the Horsey is a “fantasy Wild West GL/WLW/yuri VN” available on itch.io from Team Bumblebee. Someone  offer to review this for us, please. It looks fun as heck. ^_^ Features of the game include Horses and “More horses,” what’s not to like?

 

Yuri Novels & Light Novels

Lots on news from Twitter over the last couple of weeks.

Manga Mogura had the news that the Adachi and Shimamura series will end with the 12th novel.

Yurimother announced that Seven Seas has licensed Qualia the Purple light novel.

douqi says that Chinese baihe novel An Endless Story (有终) are up for pre-orders on Weibo.

Via kokumura, we learn that Kimi no Kyoshitsu ga Eien no Nemurinitsuku ni Made (君の教室が永遠の眠りにつくまで) Yuri horror, mystery novel, has won the The 42nd Masafumi Yokomizo Mystery & Horror Grand Prize of Excellence award. Our little genre is growing up. ^_^

 

By Your Side News

My publisher has a roundup of some of the stuff I’ve been doing this year for my book By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga! While I’m at it, let’s do one more thing: Buy a copy of BYS as a gift for someone and I’ll make sure that you and they get a signed bookplate or digital bookplate! Just email me at [email protected] with a scan/screencap of your receipt and the addresses or emails you’d like me to send to, names and whether I’m sending a real or digital bookplate.

Because I can’t write much anymore, I apologize that I can’t write custom messages. But for hand-signed I’ll my best to get names in there. ^_^;

 

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 | No Comments »


Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 7 (おとなになっても)

December 8th, 2022

In Shimura Takako’s Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 7 (おとなになっても) a lot happens.

We left Akari and Ayano having been carefully not seeing one another for some time, as Ayano’s divorce proceeds. When they meet again, they mutually decide to begin over, but the rumor that Ayano is having an affair begins to spread.  In school, Ichika’s life has become more complicated as she’s refusing to return to class. I’m honestly way more invested in the well-being of the children than I want to be. ^_^;
Eri and Wataru are reeling as their relationships fail. Neither the adults nor the children are particularly alright.

But Akari and Ayano are doing a pilgrimage to Akari’s hometown, visiting her childhood haunts. They are taking time to talk through their lives – something they have never had a chance to do. It’s good for them. There is a particularly charming moment, when they fantasize about having gone to school together…who would they have been and how would they have related to one another? The art is especially cute as they (as adults) imagine each other as children.

When they return, they find that the rumors are picking up steam. But they have made a decision. They tell Akari’s family that she is moving out…and moving in with Ayano.

Shimura-sensei’s art is not refined in these chapters, but there’s a sense of motion, and emotion, that is subtle and intense.  When she’s good, she’s really good. This story is one of the adultest mange I have ever read. I cannot imagine being a teenager and giving a hoot about anyone in this manga for any reason. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8 I don’t think I dislike anyone…. there’s no bad guys here
Service – 0
LGBTQ+ – 6, maybe? Lives are changing while we watch

Overall – 8

Little girls and and friendship and school, adults and marriage and divorce and choices with consequences. This series would make a pretty solid live-action drama.
 

Posted in LGBTQ, Shimura Takako, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


line, by Yua Kotegawa

December 7th, 2022

One of our best supporters and dearest friends here at Okazu, Bruce, died about 5 years ago. I have been slowly working my way through all his anime and manga. Much of it has been given to a good home, some of it has been part of Lucky Boxes. Recently, I can to the last box of English-language manga in his collection…and I found something I had never heard of!

line, by Yua Kotegawa is an English-language edition put out in 2006 by ADV Manga, so this is way past just “out of print.” It’s not really Yuri in any sense, either. But after reading it, I can totally understand why Bruce had it in his collection. If he were alive, I would ask him to review it. So he’ll have to guest review from the spirit world today.

Chiko is a popular, cute girl at school. She doesn’t concern herself with the kind of class bullying that exists around her, she’s just in her own world, doing her own thing.

The book opens up as she finds someone’s dropped cell phone. She’s going to bring it to lost and found when it rings…and the person on the other end commands her to rush to a location to save the life of a student about to commit suicide. The voice explains how horrible life is when one is ostracized or bullied. Chiko arrives too late, but is seen yelling into the phone by a classmate, Bando. Bando is a quiet otaku type, but quickly becomes Chiko’s partner as they seek to find and save people about to kill themselves. The phone rings and they go running. They don’t always make it, but sometimes they do. And those people become part of the team. The suicides ramp up in frequency, until the anonymous caller has Chiko, Bando and everyone they saved, running around town saving as many people as possible. Eventually the caller kills himself and the team all lay, exhausted on a roof.

The next day, Chiko invites one of the bullied kids in her class out with her and Bando and the rest out to do something that’s no biggie…because, as she says, everyone going has got very sore muscles.

So, yeah, this is hardly a worldshaking book, but it hits pretty solidly in showing how important it is for people to not just passively accept bullying and loss. Chiko and Bando aren’t a couple, there’s never any tension between them of that kind, but the circumstance draws them together and, by extension, draws people to them. I can see all sorts of parallels to that in my life. Communities of interest are the invites out, the group of people with something in common to talk about.

ADV missed a chance to post a suicide hotline phone number, but I won’t. If you think you can’t do this any more, please call someone. In the USA, just remember 988. Please call. Someone is there to listen.

No ratings today.

Posted in Bruce P, English Manga | 4 Comments »