Queer Japan Movie

March 28th, 2021

Tokyo Pride 2016. It was my extraordinary pleasure to be able to speak at the Tokyo Comics Showcase, where I presented my Brief History of Yuri. One of the folks there was the lovely Graham Kolbiens, who talked to me about a movie he was working on about queer life in Japan. When the Queer Japan Kickstarter launched, I was thrilled to be able to back it. As a result I have just been able to see the full Queer Japan movie and it’s absolutely fantastic.

The movie takes a look at queer life in Japan through the eyes of a number of folks – activists, club and bar owners, a politician, a plethora of artists. Life in Japan as sexual and gender minorities is presented from their perspective. Each perspective is unique. Each perspective is beautiful.

The cinematography here is pure arthouse, which suits the locations and the circumstances. And yet, these people let you into their homes, and their work and their lives. The movie provides a range of experiences from full on spectacle balanced with the every day; dressup party photoshoots with sitting in a comfy bar in Okinawa; from butoh dancer to business owners. Queer Japan is a priceless archive of these queer stories told by people whose voices aren’t heard much in the west. And it gives us any number of places to visit and art to see next time we’re in Japan. ^_^

According to the Queer Japan website, the movie is on video on demand and DVD in the US and Canada. If you or anyone you know wonder, what queer life in Japan is like for real, outside of Yuri and BL entertainment, I strongly recommend watching this movie.  I’ll now have something I can suggest to watch when someone asks me what queer life in Japan is like!

Ratings:

Overall -10

Queer Japan is an intimate look at Japanese queer lives told in their own voices.

Posted in LGBTQ | 2 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – March 27, 2021

March 27th, 2021

Yuri Manga

The cleanup of the the Yuricon Store continues! The English Manga section is about half finished, a few items are linkless as we’re trying to determine if they are in stock, but most are up to date, with current info. Of course we are still adding new items!  Here’s this week’s crop:

Nigiyau’s Yuri school comedy School Zone Girls, Volume 1, which is headed our way in May is now on the Store.

Also coming to your shelves in May is The Rose of Versailles, Volume 5, the climax of this extraordinary story! And what a climax it is.

Kaijuu-iro no Shima, Volume 1 (かいじゅう色の島) is out now, and folks overseas ought to be getting those copies in shortly.

I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 1, is headed our way in English this July. You may remember that a few weeks ago, this title was among hundred nominate for an annual “Which Manga I Want to See as an Anime!” contest run by AnimeJapan. Both inori-sensei and Ichijinsha reported yesterday that “WataOshi” made #5 on the rankings! Will that mean we’ll get an anime? I don’t know, but as the top-ranking series for Ichijinsha, I am hopeful. Take a look at the Top 10 rankings on the AnimeJapan site.

Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 4 (ささやくように恋を唄う) – as Yori and Himari begin to date, Himari’s going to have to put words to how she really feels. I just adore this story, which is out in English as Whisper Me a Love Song. Volumes 1 and 2 are up on the store, Volume 3 is slated for a June release. (As soon as we get the office English language cover from Kodansha, we’ll add it.)

We’ve added Futaribeya: Room For Two, Volume 2, by Tsukiko, out from Tokyopop.

 

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Via Comic Natalie, to celebrate WebAction’s first anniversary, they are putting a bunch of manga online for free, included U-TEMO’s Yuri-Ota ni Yuri ha Gohattodesu!, (百合オタに百合はご法度です!) in Japanese. If you prefer the collected volume, we have Volume 1 up on the Yuricon Store.

Also via Comic Natalie, there’s a new Revue Starlight anthology, called Shoujo Engeki☆ Revue Starlight Comic Anthology Nine Stories (少女☆歌劇 レヴュースタァライト コミックアンソロジー ナイン・ストーリーズ) that includes a story by, among others, Cocoon, Entwined creator Hara Yuriko.

 

Event News

Yuriten is still ongoing – thanks to the folks who hung out with us last week and did a walk through on Discord, That was fun.

Prism Comics is sponsoring a virtual WonderCon@Home 2021 panel today, LGBTQ+ COMICS AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM, online Saturday, March 27, 11:00 am Pacific Time (2PM EST), with Moderator Justin Hall and panelists Jennifer Camper, Tara Madison Avery, Trinidad Escobar, Lawrence Lindell, and Anand Vedawala.

 

Anime News

Otherside Picnic has wrapped up on Funimation. If you’ve watched it, let us know what you think in the comments!

The second half of VLAD LOVE is up on Crunchyroll, Megan’s working on a review for us now. ^_^

Rafael Antonio Pineda has the details about a new mini-anime from the Assault Lily team.

Check out this short promotional video of Athena and Alice singing Athena’s barcarolle. Komatsu-san has the details for ARIA The BENEDIZIONE on Crunchyroll News.

CR’s Daryl Harding has the news that the Penguindrum TV anime Twitter account has started a countdown. What for? We don’t know yet!

Crunchyroll seems to be putting some energy into PreCure these days, with the new series Tropical Rouge! PreCure, a higher-definition release and new regional licensing for the first series, Futari ha PreCure! Komatsu-san notes that the first two minutes of the Healin’ Good PreCure movie are online as a teaser.

The writer of Serial Experiments LAIN and Digimon Tamers, has announced that their project Desupera, delayed for years, has now been 80% funded. Honestly, this excites me, as both LAIN and Tamers have some of the best writing in anime that I can think of off the top of my head.

 

Other News

Kara Dennison at Crunchyroll News has the report of a collaboration between Rose of Versailles and the Japanese Racing Association, and I’m not sure what it means, but we’re probably all hoping for a cosplay horse race! ^_^

YNN Correspondent Evie reports in that Square Enix has announced that their character Alex Chen from the upcoming Life is Strange 3, “Life is Strange: True Colors” will be bisexual along with lesbian Steph. Yvie suggests we all sing a little Cyndi Lauper to celebrate. ^_^

 

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 6 Comments »


Girls Love of the Dead, Kioku no Kakera, Volume 2 (ガールズラブ・オブ・ザ・デッド〈記憶のかけら〉)

March 26th, 2021

In Girls Love of the Dead, Shi ga Futari wo Waka..tanai? we met Mitsuki, a young woman mourning the death of the girl she loves. In her attempt to leave her own life behind, she stumbles across a school for zombies, at which she finds her dearly departed Rin.

About 2 weeks after I reviewed Volume 1 of this phone novel, Manga Planet announced the license of several of the Yomuco/Parsola “super light” Yuri novels. I was – and am – delighted that they are giving releases to works like Between Two Guns, Lovely! along with Shodensha titles like It’s Personnel!, by leading some of the luminaries in Yuri right now. (In fact, subscribing to Manga Planet is next on my list. I just am so behind on reading that I haven’t had time. I’ll add it to our microgoals on Okazu.) When Manga Planet announced a new license – I can’t remember which one, I jokingly tweeted at them that they should license Girls Love of the Dead.

And so they have.

Yes, you will be able to read this delightfully screwy zombie Yuri love story in April! Ahh! So of course I wanted to get a jump on the story and catch up on the volumes I’ve bought on Global Bookwalker.

Which brings us to Girls Love of the Dead, Kioku no Kakera, Volume 2 (ガールズラブ・オブ・ザ・デッド〈記憶のかけら〉). Mitsuki has committed herself to attending school on her summer break. Zombie school, that is. Every night, she makes herself up as a zombie. She joins Rin’s class and proceeds to try to get Rin to remember her. Rin, who has no memory of her life, doesn’t remember Mitsuki. Mitsuki figures that, as Rin is dead, she’s got all the time in the world to achieve her goal.

Their homeroom teacher throws some cold water on this, when she explains that zombies only have a limited unlife span. After a while, Rin will not just not remember her life, she’ll move on entirely! Now Mitsuki has a deadline, oh no! We’re also presented with a bit of a mystery….how did Rin die? It seems unlikely in the extreme that she died the way they said she died, at the very least.

This series is a slightly goofy, but there are so many fun touches I can’t really single one out. Hoshii Nanao’s story movies quickly – it’s designed to be read on a cellphone, after all – and the illustrations by Morishima Akiko are charming and colorful, not at all what one might expect from a zombie story. I find it all loopy and fun (just finished Volume 3 last night, in fact!) and will happily look forward to it in English next month.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 Still goofy, but getting intriguing
Characters – 8 Some intriguing stuff is on the horizon for this, too
Service – 2 A little bathing suit service
Yuri – 7 Mitsuki’s love is true. ^_^

Overall – 8

 

Posted in Light Novel | No Comments »


Yume no Hashibashi, Volume 1 (夢の端々 上)

March 25th, 2021

Yume no Hashibashi, Volume 1 (夢の端々 上) is a story told by leaps backwards in time, of a relationship between two women that would never have been allowed to thrive.

The book begins in 2018, as Kiyoko, who is 80 years old, lives with her daughter and granddaughter. She is visited by an old friend, Mitsu. They talk about what might have been and part, promising to meet again. Some short time thereafter, Kiyoko learns that Mitsu has been killed in an accident.

From there on, we look backwards at their lives; specifically, at the points where they might have been able to make something happen, but couldn’t, and at one passionate night spent together. Kiyoko – who sees no other path possible for herself – marries. Mitsu who decides on a career, deals with all the obstacles for a woman who decides to have a career rather than a family.  This volume ends in 1961, but that is not where the story begins. 

This is the first of a two volume set that will end where the relationship began, with two young women who could not be together. It’s historical, and sad, and interestingly, rather than beautifully drawn, with deep emotion covered by banal words. Volume 2 will plumb the depths of their relationship and the choice that sets the events of volume 1 in motion.

It’s not a happy story, as you might imagine, but one I think is worth reading, particularly if you are younger and never experienced the almost-complete inability to maintain a same-sex relationship that existed in the 20th century for most women. We celebrate those people who manged it, but for many – probably most – it was not a tenable solution. Women were not allowed to have credit cards without a male signatory during my lifetime. Even if they worked. This reality might seem unbelievable, and that is exactly why this story ought to be read.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – This is tough to score. It’s told well, but is painful to watch. 7?
Characters – 7 Kiyoko is mopey, but we understand why
Service – Not really
Yuri – 7

Overall – 7

While we in 2021 look forward to a new world in which all of this is alien and inconceivable, it’s important, I think, that we remember what those who oppose our existence would like to return to. This world may be imperfect, but it would have been kinder to Kiyoko and Mitsu than the one they had.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Otherside Picnic, Volume 4

March 24th, 2021

At the end of Volume 3 our protagonists, Sorawo and Toriko have managed to free themselves from the clutches of an Otherside cult centered around the figure of Toriko’s mentor, Uruma Satsuki. In doing so, they uncover the cult headquarters, a remote building complex called The Farm.

Otherside Picnic, Volume 4 begins with Toriko and Sorawo accompanied by members of the DS and military contractors to clear the Farm of cult-built gates to the Otherside. This gives us a lot of space to encounter weird and threatening situations, and the general aura of not-rightness that contact with the Otherside brings. Sorawo asks DS to gift them the Farm, so they can manage it – and not incidentally, have a salary for doing so. She and Toriko provisionally get control of the Farm, and they hatch a plan.

But first, there some stuff going on that they have no idea what to do with, so they are avoiding what is happening to them…and what is happening between them. First and most pressing, it has been more and more obvious to me and to Sorawo, that the Otherside is targeting her, personally. Originally, she thought it was because of Satsuki, but she’s gone and it hasn’t gotten better. More phenomena are directed at Sorawo, specifically, and it’s clearly linked to her past. Every moment we get more of Sorawo’s backstory, everything about her makes more and more sense. And holy shit.

The second matter is no less pressing. As Sorawo and Toriko relax at a hot spring resort, they get very close to addressing what is building between then, but an Otherside phenomena occurs – a scene which is in my opinion, one of the very best in the books to date. Great use of everyday creepyness to create the Otherside’s signature threatening aura.

At last it is time to put their plan into action – Toriko and Sorawao plan an overnight trip on the Otherside. The preparations were actually quite interesting; soothingly banal, which was was a perfect setup for the final scene of this book in which all of the many issues mentioned here collide in an eerie grand finale. With the sole exception of Japanese writers’ newest grotesque body fetish – which I can live without ever encountering ever again – this ending was as least as least as strong as the Kotoribako and, like that ending, will undoubtedly send us into a whole new direction with the story. Miyazawa’s narrative arcs are tight here. shirakaba’s art in this book is way less goofy and much more moody…I like it. Translator Sean McCann and editor Krys Loh do a fantastic job of communicating unreal, not-things in a way that are the right kind of inexplicable. 

Ratings:

Story – 9
Character – 9
Service – 7 – Onsen bathing and /spoilers./
Yuri – 7

Overall – 9

Now this story is really ready to begin. Otherside Picnic is a beguiling tale of personal trauma intertwined with paranormal horror.

Otherside Picnic is available on Kindle, Global Bookwalker and wherever J-Novel Club books are sold. ^_^

Posted in Light Novel, Otherside Picnic | 4 Comments »