Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – April 2, 2022

April 2nd, 2022

Yuri Research

You’ll forgive me for making this my headline this week. My own book, By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga will be on sale June 1! 

This book collects 20 years of articles, essays, lectures, presentations and introductions into one work, tracing the history of Yuri from the early 20th century to the present. It features a Foreword by James Welker and cover art by Rica Takashima, and is the combined effort of many of my dear friends in the Yuricon and Okazu community. It takes a village to make a book, let me tell you…. ^_^

This is the first book of it’s kind in English, I hope it will not be the last! I hope all of you will freely draw on this for your own work and I look forward to read your research on Yuri. ^_^ (If you have any Yuri research, don’t forget to contact me, so I can put a link up on the Yuricon Essays page!)

 

Yuri Manga

Viz will be publishing Mieri Hiranashi’s Girl Who Can’t Get a Girlfriend as part of their Viz Originals imprint. This is very good news for all of us who have been following and supporting Mieri as she creates her work. And, also, it shows that Viz is on board with openly queer manga. I cannot overstate how amazing this decade is already, so far. Kodansha, Seven Seas, Yen and Viz are all investing in openly queer work. That’s a huge change in this industry over less than a decade, really, but they are also promoting it as queer work. This is the world I imagined back in the 1990s and…here we are. ^_^

 

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Bookwalker is running a 40% coin back on all eligible Yuri and BL titles through April 7! Now’s a great time to play catch up!

Even Though We’re Adults, Volume 4 is on the way this week, with another volume packed full of complicated adult emotions. I recommend this series highly. It’s by far and away the best of Shimura-sensei’s work to date.

Ajiichi’s Failed Princesses, Volume 5, will be hitting shelves shortly! The school trip is over but Kurokawa and Fujishiro’s relationship is never going back to where it started.

GUNBURED x SISTERS, Volume 1 was released last month by Seven Seas. Vampires, vampire hunters, guns, questionable anatomy, prominent lingerie, Yuri….this manga has it all.

Our Teachers Are Dating, Volume 4 hit shelves mid-April, with a touching ending to this sweet series. Print listings are on the Yuricon Store, don’t know why Bookwalker is so slow to get this up.

This summer will bring us Yuri Espoir, Volume 1. A young woman spends her last year before she is married off, drawing and enjoying Yuri wherever she finds it!

Yen Press debuted the cover of Adachi and Shimamura, Volume 3 on Twitter.

If you like Alt Hanakage’s work, she is serializing this 18+ story on Bookwalker, Sexual Liberation: To Each Their Own Form of Love, Chapter 1. I think the title image is pretty clear on the sex triangle that will be the main focus of the story. Ch. 1 is 78 cents. ^_^

 

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U-temo’s school Yuri, Yuri-Ota ni Yuri ha Gohattodesu!, Volume 2 (百合オタに百合はご法度です!) is up on the Yuricon Store. A Yuri Otaku is at an all-girl’s school, but life is not as expected when a gal Yuriblocks her at every turn. But now she’s thinking about Yoshioka in that Yuri way….

Hirao Auri’s short stories have been collected into one volume, with some new content in Joshi ni ha Rekishi ga Arimashite Hirao Auri Tanhenshuu (女子には歴史がありまして 平尾アウリ短編集).

Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto desu!, Volume 10 (私の百合はお仕事です! 10) is slated for a May release. Things are getting intense at Cafe Liebe!

 

 

Yuri Light Novel and Prose Anthology News

Via Sr. YNN Correspondent Sean G., I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 5 is slated for a September release. I cannot express how amazing a novel this was. You will be blown away. I promise.

Over in Japan, the print edition of Watashi Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou. – Revolution –, Volume 2 (私の推しは悪役令嬢。-Revolution-) will be released in June. I’m making my way through Volume 1 and it’s been interesting to “re-read” this for the first time in Japanese. Thanks to Ichijinsha, I’ll have a nice edition on the shelves along with the English volumes.

Curtain Call no Mukougawa – Geijutsu Yuri Anthology (カーテンコールの向こう側-芸術百合アンソロジー) is a JP Kindle-only prose Yuri anthology of stories about stage actresses. I really want to read this, but can’t for regional licensing reasons, so if you get it, do consider writing a review!

 

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Anime News

Viz Media is releasing Sailor Moon Season 1 as a single box set, so if you skipped the multi-part version, here’s a chance to get the whole season at once. Let me address the major question – no, the quality of the art will not be better. It is a 30 year old series that was hand-painted on the cheap for little kids on much more low-res television sets. It will never, ever, look better, because there is no better for it to look. There is no high-res master, like there are with 70mm films. I literally have several cels here in the house – this was never finely crafted. Season 1 was especially cheap because they didn’t know if anyone would like it. If you want a better render, travel back in time and convince Toei to do a better job.

 

Other News

If you’re a regular here, you know I have long joked about how lesbians do not disappear after high school. Legitimately, it has taken Yuri and lesbian literature a couple of decades to age out of school and college into the workplace…and now we’re going to see more mid-life stories. On LGBTQ Reads, author Tiffany E. Taylor talks about writing butch/femme romance for 40+ characters (and readers) in: Writing Midlife Butch/Femme Romance.

Juana Summers, Megan Lim and Mallory Yu take a look at Why Sailor Moon is beloved by so many, 30 years later for NPR!

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has teamed up with Google Arts and Culture for an online “exhibit,” The Origins of Shōjo Manga. The white text is a bit excruciating, but the art is great.

In Japanese, but you can get the point with a machine translation,  Miyake Kaho-san answers a question many have asked, Why Is Tuxedo Kamen drawn weaker than Sailor Moon? なぜタキシード仮面はセーラームーンより「弱く」描かれたのか.

 

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 2 Comments »


Mieri Hiranashi’s The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend Licensed By Viz

April 1st, 2022

Wonderful news today, as online artist Mieri Hiranashi announced that her online manga The Girl That Can’t Get a Girlfriend, an autobiographical manga about her trials as a butch lesbian trying to get a girlfriend has been licensed by Viz Media.  She’s been creating this comic for a few years, posting chapters and process posts on her Twitter and her Patreon. 

To celebrate, Mieri has posted a video on her Youtube channel! It’s in Japanese, but has English subtitles.

 

I’ve been a big fan of Mieri’s work and of course I’m delighted with more manga about – and here I quote Mieri’s Patreon page description – “Hot androgynous women.” ^_^

2022 is looking very good for both queer and Yuri manga!

Posted in LGBTQ | 2 Comments »


Onnadakara, to Paati o Tsuihousaretanode Densetsu no Majyo to Saikyou Taggu o Kumimashita, Volume 1 (女だから、とパーティを追放されたので伝説の魔女と最強タッグを組みました)

March 31st, 2022

It seems like a lifetime ago that the male leaders of Tokyo Medical University were slightly abashed for 5 seconds about their unfair treatment of women in scoring. It was merely 4 years ago when that scandal motivated Ameco Kaeruda to write a withering castigation of that school and all men who game the system so that women are held back from their full potential, in the form of a brilliant isekai novel. Sexiled, Volume 1 and Volume 2 both made it to English a year later, offering so many of us a revenge fantasy in which women helped each other, no one was hurt and a new future was conceived.

In 2021, a manga version of this series was launched online on Sunday Webry, where it is still available, with current chapters free to read for a limited time, as many online platforms are doing. A collected Volume 2 has not yet been announced, but I kind of guess it’ll be after the most recent chapter’s time has elapsed.

The setup of the first volume of Onnadakara, to Paati o Tsuihousaretanode Densetsu no Majyo to Saikyou Taggu o Kumimashita, Volume 1 (女だから、とパーティを追放されたので伝説の魔女と最強タッグを組みました) is just as frustrating as it was the first time. ^_^ Why? Because even after MeToo and KuToo it often feels like very little has changed.

So watching Tanya blow the hell out of the landscape so she doesn’t just level the town feels slightly less cathartic. About now, I’m ready to see some town leveling.

The art manages to be intelligent about the intended service of women’s clothes in a way that shows that – even when an outfit is intended to be pointlessly “sexy” and insulting – it doesn’t have to actively insult women’s intelligence. But it’s no less uplifting when Laplace offers Tanya armor and a sword worthy of her status as a knight mage. And, it is equally as uplifting to watch Laplace and Tanya mentor Nadine and the girls in town and give them the confidence to strive. And for that, this story will always be worth reading.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service – 7 Thoughtfully rendered.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 10

According to the Japanese Ministry of Education, who has required more transparency in statistics since the TMU scandal, in 2021, more women than men were accepted to Japan’s medical schools. I like to think that Tanya’s seeing more girl adventurers and mages now, as well.

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »


By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga on sale June 1!

March 30th, 2022

Here is the awesome full cover of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga! Available June 1 from Journey Press.

Art by: Rica Takashima

Cover Design by: Christine Sandquist

Thanks to the entire team at Journey Press for this amazing cover! This book has been a 20-year long endeavor to cover a century of literary and artistic works.  It will be available for pre-order as a digital or print book soon. You’ve all read so many of these stories, but to have them all in one place has been an extraordinary journey. I’ll hope you’ll walk by my side together as we go through the whole tale!

 

Posted in History of Yuri, Okazu News, Yuricon | 9 Comments »


MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 17

March 28th, 2022

It has been 2 years since I last reviewed a volume of this manga. Not for any particular reason, just that these two years have been full to the brim of incredible, groundbreaking Yuri and I just sort of forgot to keep reading this series. ^_^ But here we are once again, as I play catch up with the volumes I read in Japanese, and get ready to switch over to the series in English, since it has caught up to where I was when I left off.

As I pointed out in my review of this volume in Japanese, this series does not hesitate to make us feel deeply uncomfortable about our reading habits. MURCIÉLAGO, Volume 17 does something unusual in this regard. This volume introduces a new horrible human being as the bad guy, Sendou, and we are shown quite clearly his being sexually excited by his acts of violence. It is, frankly, quite unusual to be so blunt in this message, precisely because the audience is expected to be men who are sexually excited by the violence in this series. Straight men are generally very oversensitive about looking at male genitalia, as if the admission that they too are turned on by this is too much to handle. But, having been required to be audience to some extremely explicit and unrealistic lesbian sex, I think this is a good thing for the remainder of the audience. Now we can all trade stories about how this series made us feel uncomfortable. ^_^ That said, the one place in the world I’m not interested in staring is some guy’s crotch. (-_-);

On the Yuri side, there is a surprising leap in Chiyoko’s admission that Kuroko is 1) her girlfriend and 2) important to her. Who would have imagined that an actual relationship is forming the maelstrom of monstrous killers in this series? And that Chiyo-chan and Kuroko enjoy a healthy sexual relationship? Certainly, not I.  And yet, there we are. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – Because it’s gotten better, it’s actually messier than usual. More detail, means more gore.
Story – Uh….
Characters – Senpachi’s cool, emotionless old Yakuza guys are boring. Chiyo’s actually kinda cute for once?
Service – We are literally staring at this guy’s crotch constantly and it’s not serving me, I’ll tell you that. (-_ -)
Yuri – Not-ugly lesbian sex, so that’s a win.

Overall – ?

What do ratings even mean when it comes to this series? My commendation to Christine Dashielle on translating and Alexis Eckerman on lettering this weird, violent, lesbian grandchild of  HP Lovecraft fanfic. ^_^

Now that Yen Press has caught up on MURCIÉLAGO, I’ll picking these up digitally…they long ago chewed up too much space on the shelf. Volume 18 has already been released and has been added to the Yuricon Store.

Posted in English Manga, MURCIÉLAGO, Yuri Manga | No Comments »