Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – September 7, 2024

September 7th, 2024

A blue silhouette of a girl with a white flower in her hair, embracing the earth. Blue block letters read YNN Yuri Network News. Art by Lissa P. For Okazu.

Yuri Events

The Girls Love Fest doujinshi market will be held in the Tokyo Asakusa/Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center, Taitokan, once again on October 6th.

ANCHOR rainbow port tokyo is running a Thai GL collaboration from September 27 through October 7 with special food, drinks and limited edition goods. Follow their Pixiv fanbox for event news!

Okazu Staff Writer Frank Hecker wants you to know about the live readings of Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright, “this millennium’s best giant robot yuri space epic,” in verse. Author Thaliarchus is doing live readings on Twitch starting today! You can also download the poem on Itch.io…and clearly…you should. We need more epic Yuri poetry. ^_^

 

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Yuri Manga

Kadokawa and NicoNico announced the Next Manga Awards 2024 and the English-language edition of Kiyoko Iwami’s My Girlfriend’s Not Here Today from Seven Seas won the Global Special Prize English Edition! Congratulations to everyone at Seven Seas!

Mejirobana Saku, Volume 4 (メジロバナの咲く), the continuation of Nakamura Asumiko’s first serial Yuri story hit JP shelves in August and I’m dying to know what happens. It’s up on the Yuricon Store!

Via Comic Natalie, beginning at the end of August in コミプレ-Comiplex- magazine is Shinni Modori Ojou ha Ikinobiru tame ni Yuri Harem o Tsukurukoto ni Shita (死に戻り王女は生き延びるために百合ハーレムを作ることにした), about a selfish princess who is executed. When she returns to life, builds a Yuri harem to survive.

Also via Comic Natalie, the September issue of Comic Cune includes a new Yuri comedy, 7-Kakan Gentei Kanojo (7日間限定彼女) about a gal and an honor student “trying out” dating for a week.

Via X, Shonen Jump magazine has announced Ichi the Witch by Osamu Nishi and Shiro Usazaki starting this Sunday in Shonen Jump! In this world magic is alive, but only women have the aptitude to wield it. Until one fateful day…  If you love “the one guy in a world of women” fantasies, this may be for you.

Headed to shelves in Japan in November is Kawaikutte Tottoi! Yuri-ple no Kaki-kata (可愛いくって尊い! 百合ップルの描き方) an anthology of how-to draw Yuri Couples by a number of Yuri artists.

Via Comic Natalie one more time, we have Volume 1 of Koroshiyasare Sankaku-Kankei ni Watashi ga Ima kara Hairu’n desuka?  by Suzuki Fumi. This is a Yuri triangle story about a girl who tries making friends and ends up with a group of murderers. I’m passing on this one, but do let us know what you think if you read it.


Yuri Games

The Yuri Game Jam is upon us! From September 30 through December 2, get your Yuri game dev hat on and submit those Yuri VNs and games! We all win when we get more Yuri work. ^_^

Studio Élan is also running an internal game Jam with Bellhouse to develop YuriVns. Check out their post on Studio Élan  Garden Variety: Dandelion Set to learn more.

A year late and probably never, Birdie Wing -Golf Girls’ Story- Golf Venus app’s production has been “put on hold.” Anita Tai has the news on ANN.

 

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Anime News

Crunchyroll has opened the flood gates! PreCure Max Heart will be added to their library, and a number of other PreCure series are on the way. Still no Heartcatch though…. ^_^; Anita Tai has this report on ANN, too.

 

Other News

Kodansha is trying something new with Kodansha House, an interactive cafe/meeting space focusing on manga, with a manga library, manga artist talks and more. Opening on October 4 in SOHO in NYC, it will be very interesting to see where this experiment goes!

This Week In Anime on ANN looks at the book banning landscape now that it has found BL manga to demonize in Banned Together. In that article, Steve mentions the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and I’ll just mention that I wrote an article for the CBLDF some time ago about the legality of reading drawn characters. That was more than a decade ago…

 

If you’d like to support Yuri journalism and research, Patreon and Ko-Fi are where we currently accept subscriptions and tips.  Our goal now, into 2024, is to raise our guest writers’ wages to above industry standard, which are too low!

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!

Become a part of the Yuri Network, by being a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share with us.

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Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 4 (山田と加瀬さん。)

September 5th, 2024

As you age, one of the absolutely weirdest things is watching the people you knew as children growing up, maturing, starting their own lives. You never know what they’ll turn out like but it is an interesting process and a reminder of our mortality. (When you get to some point, practically everything is a reminder of our mortality, really.)

We, as a collective, have been watching Yamada and Kase-san grow up now for more than a decade. My first mention of them here on Okazu was in 2012. It always makes me happy to see the Hirari Comics imprint on the spine, in fact. The magazine isn’t completely gone as long as we have that. In those years, they have a long road, but they graduated high school, and have moved to the big city to pursue their college degrees. There has been a lot of relationship stuff they needed to work through – Yamada’s low self-esteem, Kase-san’s jealousy. Some volumes felt like there was no progress at all. But here we are at Yamada to Kase-san, Volume 4 (山田と加瀬さん。) and they are all grown up. The kids are okay. ^_^

Yamada has really grown into herself. She’s good at her chosen career, and has a lot of options in her future. She likes her job and is making friends in school and at work. Kase-san, the star of her high school track team is the more fragile of the two and has to work much harder, but is up to the challenge. The two of them plan to move out together when the next school year begins.

At which Fukami, Kase-san’s roommate, snaps. We’ve seen this coming for a long while, but it was good to get it out into the open. Fukami, having fallen for Kase-san in the most toxic and possessive way, demands Kase-san race her to see if she’ll be “allowed” to leave the dorm. Of course this is ridiculous. But Kase-san is at heart a kind person and not very confrontational outside competitive running.

Yamada ends up getting a smaller, less ideal apartment than she had hoped, but finds a place in Mikawacchi’s building, which means our three school friends are reunited. Kase-san races Fukami, says she hopes they can stay friends and is generally the big-hearted and kind person she always is…and, at last, comes home to her girlfriend in their new home together. Squee.

They’ve come so far. Yuri has come so far. We’ve come far together.

Kase-san and Yamada are going to be okay.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 2
LGBTQ+ – 4 Kase-san has to come out for real for the first time
Yuri – 10

Overall  – 9

This was the volume that I was waiting for from this series.  I look forward to more of their adventures “playing house” together.

Posted in Kase-san Series, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


A White Rose in Bloom, Volume 3

September 2nd, 2024

Girls in green dresses with white puffy-shouldered sleeves pass on a brick walkway. A girl with long pale hair walks with a classmate, but looks back at two younger girls, one with blonde pigtails and one with short dark hair as they argue.Content Warning for off-screen violence and implication of intended sexual assault.

We have thus fa, been paying attention primarily to Ruby Canossa, that breath of fresh air that has come into her staid school that has many secrets, and “Steel” Steph the enigmatic and secretive older girl with a disability. In this volume we belatedly pay attention to Liz, Steph’s sister who is very possessive of and resentful about the older girl. In A White Rose in Bloom, Volume 3 we learn why and…phew, it is a lot.

Liz is, exactly as she seems – attention-starved and spoiled, but trying so hard to find love that she very nearly finds herself assaulted by a tutor. This explains her forcing herself on Steph in turn when she sees the older girl as a savior. It’s clear Steph cares for her sister, but has a lot of baggage with her own life to deal with and little energy for Liz. They both gain our sympathy once again, and now we’re hoping even more that Ruby can form a healthy bond with Liz.

Then we turn back to life at the dorm. A thief, a ghost, dire fortunes and a real-life mystery fill up the pages of the second half of the volume. What is the story of the missing items? Luckily, Volume 4 of Mejirobana Saku,  (メジロバナの咲く) came out last month in Japan (what timing!) but we’ll be waiting until next year to see it in English.

In the meantime, let us again revel in the first full-length serial Yuri from Asumiko Nakamura (creator of Classmates) and how she manages to keep us on a string with a sense of furtive feelings and cryptic histories, even as we delight in the change Ruby brings to the school, and how she forces the people around her to open up. Jocelyne Allan’s translation really manages to capture the dark shadows behind light words that match Nakamura-sensei’s art perfectly. Alia Nagamine’s letting is top-notch retouch for that authentic reading experience. Great work all the way down for the Seven Seas team.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 5 Predatory behavior and gaslighting is gross
Yuri – 7

Overall – 9

This series is probably flying under the radar – but it shouldn’t. It deserves a few soapbox rants, because it is an excellent edition of a fantastic story by a master story-teller.

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – August 31, 2024

August 31st, 2024

In black block letters, YNN Yuri Network News. On the left, in black silhouette, a woman with a broad brim hat and dress stands, a woman in a tight outfit sits against the Y. Art by Mari Kurisato for OkazuIt’s been a long two weeks since the last report and there’s a bunch of great stuff to talk about. The top story at AnimeNYC has got to be the surprise license of Stop! Hibari-kun by PEOW2. This license came as a complete surprise to most of us. I spoke with PEOW2 a bit and will get back to you with that as soon as I have a second. Anita Tai at ANN has details.

But…seriously, wow. Eguchi Hisashi’s 1980s shounen romantic comedy manga about a trans girl is absolutely a welcome license! I reviewed Volume 1 of the Complete Edition here on Okazu in 2020.

 

Yuri Manga

At AnimeNYC, Seven Seas announced omnibus collections for sono.N’s SHWD and Black & White by Sal Jiang. Honestly think those are good choices and will do better as collections than as separate volumes.

Yen was pushing pre-orders for The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All with a huge display at their booth. I’ve said this before, and will continue to say – this title is being set up for success.

Yen also announced three Yuri licenses, Anemone wa Netsu wo Obiru by Sakuragi Ren as The Anemone Feels the Heat and light novel Watashi no Yuri mo, Eigyou da to Omotta? by Asakura Neru as Did You Think My Yuri Was a Sales Pitch?. They also licensed Merryhachi’s Zenbu Kimi no Sei da as It’s All Your Fault. (Thanks to Katgrrl for reminding me of the third.)

Sales of Yuri manga was a topic of much discussion the convention. Ultimately, it seems like Yuri fans are more discriminate than BL fans – which is not to slam BL fans at all. There more of them and their genre has been around longer, so they have more to choose from. But, my experience in Yuri leads me to believe that Yuri fans – especially queer fans, who are looking for stories with representation – are more likely to ignore stories that don’t speak to them, directly.

Which brings me to the other side of that. This month we have had (and still have a a few hours left of two) several amazingly successful Yuri Kickstarters!

Galette Magazine in English has a little more than a day as I type this, and has significantly surpassed its final stretch goal and is heading towards making 400% of the initial goal. More than 500 backers have made this possible.

Aneido’s No One Lurks Beneath The Snow, an 18+ erotic horror also nearly hit 3x the initial goal, with almost 500 backers.

Yorita Miyuki’s Her kiss,my libido twinkles has passed 4x the initial goal with nearly 400 backers.

So, where is the gap? How can Yuri kickstarters do so well when sales of Yuri manga is so variable? The answer is in the nature of crowdfunding itself. I think this might be a topic for an essay, but Tl;dr – fewer people can make a bigger impact by backing/supporting at higher levels with crowdfunding, where sales of manga are…sales of manga. The same 500 people buying a manga is low sales numbers. When I was publishing I had a break-even point for making a manga profitable. Crowdfunding doesn’t have that limitation.  Definitely a topic to digest later.

Azuki the manga reading app, has announced the addition of Kotonoha by Kisugae about a lost love reclaimed. I read and reviewed the first volume of this back in 2018 and now you can get it on Azuki!

Notably Hana to Yume magazine in Japan promoted the series Sono Urawashiki Hito ha, (そのうるわしきひとは、) as their first Yuri series in many years! This one-shot school life mystery sounds intriguing.

 

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Yuri Light Novel

Yen has released My First Love’s Kiss by Hitoma Iruma, illustrated by Fly. I love Fly’s art, but historically have a very hard time with Iruma’s writing. We’ve got a reviewer who is looking at this volume for Okazu, but if you want a quick overview, check out Sean Gaffney’s review. He expertly notes the weaknesses in this Yuri light novel.

 
Yuri Visual Novels

Incredible news from Studio Élan – Japanese visual novel company SukeraSparo has licensed their VN Please Be Happy! for Japanese  language release!

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Anime News

Whisper Me A Love Song is still getting the short end of the stick, with new delays announced for the Blu-ray and no word at all on the last two episodes. Rafael Antonio Pineda has details on ANN.

There’s a ton of PreCure news: Rafael Antonio Pineda wants you to know that Crunchyroll has added Futari wa PreCure Splash Star, and that Witchy Pretty Cure!!: Mirai Days has added visuals, staff and announced the musical artist for the theme. Joanna Cayanan has news about new cast additions to Wonderful Precure! The Movie.

ANN’s Anita Tai has the news that Girls Band Cry is getting a game.

 

Other News

Via YNN Correspondent Patricia Baxter, Why Is Shoujo So Gay (Even when it isn’t?) is a YouTube video by Colleen’s Manga Rec’s that explains a lot about the genre. Colleen is always worth a watch.

Bela on X has a nice little thesis on The Evolution of Safe Spaces in Yuri: From Greenhouses to Aquariums. I’ve asked them to flesh it out to an essay for us here!

 

If you’d like to support Yuri journalism and research, Patreon and Ko-Fi are where we currently accept subscriptions and tips.  Our goal now, into 2024, is to raise our guest writers’ wages to above industry standard, which are too low!

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!

Become a part of the Yuri Network, by being a YNN Correspondent: Contact Us with any Yuri-related news you want to share with us.

Posted in Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »


This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Volume 2

August 30th, 2024

Surrounded by the dark, with only festival lights strung above them, a girl with light hair wearing a long-sleeved dress over a white blouse, turns to look at us over her shoulder, while a girl with long black hair and barrettes, in a pale shirtwaist frock looks at us directly, as they hold hands.In Volume 1, we meet Hinako, a girl who has lost almost everything and, as a result, doesn’t mind entertaining the thought of death. She is befriended by Shiori, a mysterious creature of the deep ocean, a mermaid, who assures Hinako that she wants the girl to live happily, so that she can eat her later.

Hinako’s only other friend, Miko, does not like Shiori and, in This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Volume 2, by Sae Naekawa, we find out why.

But first Shiori asks Hinako the question on all our minds, why is she is such a rush to die? Hinako looks back at the loss of her family and, again, prompted by Shiori, at her history with Miko. Shiori is really a monster, but she seems to think Miko is one, too?

In this eye-opening volume, in which much of what we were told turns out to be half-truths or full lies, Hinako will continue to reevaluate all her choices. When I read this in Japanese in 2021, I commented that it was a “freakin’ brillant volume of a manga” and I stand by that with this English edition. There is an underlying tension to this series that just fills one with foreboding, even when nothing in particular is happening. When the truth is uncovered, it is both a huge relief and a new chill on one’s spine.

This series is just the best summer horror tale with chills, thrills, a little blood and darkness, thus far rooted wholly in Japanese youkai – what lurks in the shadows in Japanese folklore. Caleb Cook once again brings a fantastic, nuanced translation. You can tell who is talking by how they talk. I can “hear” every character clearly. Bianca Pistillo’s lettering is good. I wish she was able to be amazing, but Yen’s house style of subtitling the sound effects is their style and I will just always whine slightly about it. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 Ominous and compelling
Characters – 8 The more we know, the less we know
Service – Blood. Violence. Monsters From the Deep. Secrets. More Monsters.
Yuri – Miko is possessive, Shiori is infatuating

Overall – 8

This volume is headed your way in mid-September. Don’t miss out on this fantastic low-key horror book. It takes all the mortifications of school life and gives it extra claws and fangs. ^_^

I have Volume 8 of Watashi o Tabetai, Hito de Nashi (私を喰べたい、ひとでなし) siting here on my to-review pile and I’m once again hyped to re-read and review it.

Thanks very much to Yen Press for the review copy! This is such a fantastic series, I always can’t wait to read it. ^_^

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »