In the past 20+ years of writing here at Okazu, I have created several guides to shopping online for Yuri or finding Yuri manga in Japanese bookstores back when that was not as simple as looking for a Yuri section (it still is not that simple, but that is a conversation for another time). When I started there were so few Yuri blogs, that it was easy to keep tab on their news. Specialist listings, like Small Call, made it easy to know what circles were attending Comiket, for instance. 

In the years since I wrote my last version of that guide, things improved considerably.  Now there are so many Yuri new sources and Yuri news is accessible on all the larger news sources, which makes it easier to stay on top of things. Several large chains created “Yuribu” and shipping outside Japan improved and got cheaper.

Then we decided the antichrist was the best choice for world leadership and let religious fanatics bully credit card companiesin to not including certain businesses. So here we are in 2026, Yuri as a whole has taken a huge step onto the manga industry stage,  there is more Yuri than ever –  even Sanrio  Yuri collabs! – but the global economy is crumbling making it hard, yet again to find and acquire things. Whee.

I spent the first 30 years of my career as a professional researcher, so today I’ll let you in to my secret methods for finding Yuri event, pop-up stores, and signings for Okazu’s Yuri Network News reports. 

Bookmarks are your friend

Bookmarks are the oldest of old-school internet tech. We take them so for granted now, but I have a folder of “Yuri News” sources that I check regularly to see if anything interesting is happening. I mention them all the time here on YNN: Yuri Navi and Comic Natalie are my main go-to sources. I’ll get back to Comic Natalie in a second. 

But I also have Comic Walker’s Yuri section, Girl’s Line, Yuri Hub and many more imprints and publishers bookmarked, just so I can check sometimes and see if they have any news of interest. When I say “bookmarked” this also means specific companies’ primary social media accounts, but again, I’ll come back to that. 

How so I build this list? Slowly, over time. No there is no one list anymore. Yuri is too big across too many companies and creators for there to be on list, but learning to search your sources properly can make a huge difference.

Search is not, actually, dead

Like I said, I was a professional research for 3 decades and every single year of the last 20 years of that there were headlines that read “Search is dead.” No. People are stupid and lazy and companies are parasites, but understanding how to use systems to find things is eternal.

Practically every site has its own search feature. Let’s take a look at Comic Natalie. That news site covers all sorts of pop-culture news, not just anime and manga, but I’m only interested in it for one thing, so I don’t have the site bookmarked…I have my search bookmarked:  百合. This gives me every piece of news with the word 百合, though and that includes a lot of names. I’ve gotten good at scanning the search to see what is clearly just a TV show listing with an actress named Yuri, Sayuri, Yurika, etc and what is relevant news. 

Make the algorithm your bitch

Using search is possible to some extent on social media as well, but social platforms generally have ass search features. You can search through lists and feeds that other people have created. Or, of course, create your own. Which brings me to my last point. 

There have been many words spent on how awful social media algorithms are and how they manipulate you. Yes, absolutely. If you click on any old fucking thing and pay no attention, yes, you are going to end up following the Nazis who spend money to get their propaganda in front of you. So pay attention to what and where you go and how long you spend there. Make the algorithm work for you. 

Many, many, many Japanese companies, creators and news sources are still on X. Yes, it’s a shithole. For other people. And yes, X desperately wants to be a shithole for everyone. I changed the language and my location (and periodically have to change it again) to make sure it doesn’t feed me a steady stream of Nazi propaganda.  I took time to unfollow, block, mute a LOT of people, sources, and words. That doesn’t mean I never see them. X doesn’t believe in that, but I do see them much less than an unfiltered feed. 

I follow a lot of Yuri manga artists on X, especially as many of them are not on Bluesky. Sometimes they are more active on X. Of course I follow Yuri imprints, publishers and news, as well. I created Yuri lists on both X and Bluseky to prioritize those people on my feed.

Lastly, I only ever click on news of actual interest to me. No doom scrolling. If a feed item or ad pops up that is antithetical to my happiness, I mute and block it and mute words and phrases if needed. It’s not perfect, but my X feed is 80% Yuri-related with about 10% for other feminist and LGBTQ related content. Even Grok, X’s hate machine AI only gives me anime news now. I still don’t care, but it’s less irrelevant and far less gag-making than anything else.

I’m talking about X, but this goes for every and any platform I am on. Facebook and IG have no idea how old or what gender I am. But they know I follow specific creators to look for news from them. 

Which is the final step that makes it possible to find events, pop-up and similar news online…

Follow people you want to hear from

Again, we’ve been trained out of this, following everything and anything to clutter up our feeds, so we can disassociate from the daily horrors. 

I follow Yuri artists, magazines, publishers from a number of countries, and I follow them on all the platforms they say they have. Every publisher, imprint and artist has platforms they prefer. Or they may post to different platforms in different languages. Galette, for instance primarily posts to Bluesky in English and on X in Japanese. I follow them in both places. 

If you like an artist and want to know if they are doing a signing – follow them. Follow the accounts that do the events, like Animate, Girls Love Fest, Anchor rainbow port Tokyo, or even Medicos Shop. Follow the publisher and the magazine, the Yuribu, the editorial staff or the imprint. Here’s one of my secret tricks – when you are seeing people retweeting other people’s Yuri news, follow those people as well. If they share news you want, you’ll see more news you want to see.  That will fill your feed with the same announcements, but you’re less likely to miss things. I have one more secret trick, but I’ll keep that up my sleeve for now.

Take the time to look for the news you want and you’ll get the news want.

Is this easy? No. Is there one place to go to get it? Yes, here on Okazu. To the best of my ability I tell you about events, pop-ups and signings.  ^_^