Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – August 24, 2019

August 24th, 2019

Yuri Manga

Yuri Life by Kurkuruhime has hit shelves in English. Read this cute slice-of-life story about adult women who share their lives. (You can read my review of the JP volume from last summer.)

If there is a single question I’m getting most frequently now, it’s people asking for Yuri manga with transgender characters. In English, we have a relatively limited selection for this: Wandering Son which is incomplete; Riyoko Ikeda’s classic Claudine, The Bride was a Boy comic essay. Tokyopop has picked up Caly’s French-language Yuri romance, put it out in English as Breath of Flowers. Volume 1 is on the Yuricon Store! Thanks to Amaryllis for details in the comments.

Tokyopop also has released Yuri Bear Storm, Volume 3. Now we have all of Kureha and Ginko’s story. The manga is less visually striking than the anime, but the story holds together better. (You can read all previous reviews here.)

Ah toka Uh shika Ienai Manga, Volume 2 (あーとかうーしか言えない ) just hit shelves in Japan. Volume 1 got high marks in my review.

If teacher x student is your particular fantasy, you might be interested in Ichijinsha’s Kyoushi to Seito no Yuri Anthology  (教師×生徒の百合アンソロジーコミック).

Akili, creator of popular webcomic Stretch has a new comic, Vampeerz, (ヴァンピアーズ) about…as you might guess…school girl vampires. The link will take you to Chapter 1 online (in Japanese) for free. Thanks to principeinquisidor for clarification in the comments!

Via ANN’s Rafael Antonia Pineda, we have the news that the first volume of saburouta’s CITRUS+ will get simultaneous online release in Japan, North America, South Korea, Germany, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, and Argentina in November. Seven Seas page for the series has further info. Now, if only we can get them thinking globally by language instead.

 

Yuri Anime

Yuruyuri 10th Anniversary anime will be shipping in November, according to Alex Mateo at ANN.

This is old-school and only ever Yuri-ish, but Steel Angel Kurumi, by the team known as Kaishaku (the same folks who created Kannazuki no Miko,)  is getting new merchandise for the first time in…probably forever. This series came out in the days before merchandise was a thing. ^_^

 

Yuri Events

From Twitter, there will be a Bloom Into You pop-up shop at the Shibuya Marui until October 31. There will be official original goods.

Also from Twitter, Serena says that the Yuri/GL Philippines group will once again have a booth at Cosplay Mania 2019 in Manila.

I missed this because I was away, but Ehime prefecture ran a pilgrimage based on the A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow series – the manga will be released in English in November from Viz.

 

Yuri Visual Novel

Via YuriNavi, Innocent Grey’s FLOWERS Shiki (FLOWERS 四季) will be available on Nintendo Switch.

 

Sailor Moon News

ANN’s Alex Mateo reports on the new Sailor Moon Musical, starring members of idol group Nogizaka46, which will be traveling to Shanghai in November.

Sailor Moon – Shining Moon Tokyo – restaurant is open in Azabu-Juban (the section of town where Usagi lives) in Tokyo until October 31!

 

Other News

In case you missed this – Archive of Our Own (AO3), one of the Internet’s largest fanfiction sites, run by women, won a Hugo Award last week. If you have a story on A03, you are now a Hugo Award winner. ^_^ (I do, in fact, have one story there. I recently wrote a Swan Lake fanfic because no one else has ever done the pas de deux between Odile and Odette that we deserve. ^_^) Anyway, Casy Fiesler takes a look on Slate as to Why Archive of Our Own’s Surprise Hugo Nomination Is Such a Big Deal.

Kim Morrisy on ANN has a report that Boruto’s creator Kodachi Ukyo supported LGBTQ representation in media on Twitter this month.

 

Do you have questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast, Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to!

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

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Yuri Manga: Glass no Kutsu wo Nugisutete (ガラスの靴を脱ぎ捨てて)

August 22nd, 2019

The name Kiriyama Haruka should be familiar to us by now. We’ve seen work from this author in multiple “Shakijin” working-life Yuri anthologies.

And today we are looking at a collection of stories by this creator that center working women’s lives. Or, more properly, some of the more typical tropes of working women’s lives.

It’s a pretty specific distinction, because by now we have, actually, seen all the basic plotlines of romance between women working in offices. Cool together character and disaster employee, two women get drunk, wake up in bed. Women hiding they are together in the office, women coming home from work to their partners. A year into this new subgenre of Shakaijin Yuri and I’m already looking for artists looking past the “get drunk, wake up in bed” storyline.

And most of these stories fit the bill. The collection begins with three work friends getting together for an after-hours drink and it turns out two of them are a couple.

An artist and her assistant are extremely cute together.

A woman who works for an insurance company ends up meeting the online video idol she admires. (Yes, shades of Risou to Koi.)

The best story in my opinion was a story of a couple, struggling with their idea of what they want from their relationship right before they get married. I liked the recognition that commitment can cause friction in even a strong relationship. This one also felt very realistic.

And in a lovely final story, a woman whisks her lover away on a much-needed overnight vacation to restore balance to her beloved and to them as a couple.

Ratings:

Art – 7 sometimes a little sloppy
Story – variable 8
Characters – 8
Service – 2 Very mild partial nudity
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8

It was all very pleasant, easy to look at and no one I wanted to strangle. ^_^ More importantly, there were a couple of stories with some good real-world touches.

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Yuri Manga: Risou to Koi (理想と恋)

August 20th, 2019

We are interrupting today’s planned programming to review a manga volume that has hit two benchmarks in Okazu’s history. Both good. ^_^

Risou to Koi (理想と恋) by Hino Youhe is a collection of several stories of adult life manga – of which I liked every single story. I do not believe this has ever happened before.

The entire concept of the volume is lovely, in fact. “My Ideal, My Love” is the English subtitle and that is pretty much what it’s about. A woman falls for someone who is her perfect ideal, and find herself learning about the person behind that ideal…and then falling in love with the person. In every case, the journey is mutual.

In one story, a woman who works for a delivery company realizes that’s she’s delivering packages to her favorite pop idol. The idol realizes that’s she fallen for the delivery person when an injury forces the company to send someone else. They bridge the distance when they recognize their feelings are mutual.

And every story is pretty much like that. A baker is attracted to a clothing designer, who is forced to admit that she’s a starving artist and cannot go clothes shopping. The two start going out, but stick to things that one can do for free, like picnics.

The final story is multi-chapter, taking up the second half of the book. A woman attends a local theater production and become smitten with the lead actress.  She joins the theater group, where she has to really think about her life and what she wants out of it. This story has the second benchmark moment – an actual coming out scene. The troupe leader mentions that he’s gay, to which Mayuko grudgingly admits that she is not interested in men. But later as she speaks with the lead, Ruri, who is pressing her on what her ideal is, Mayuko says that she is gay…and that she wants to be ordinary. Immediately after which, Ruri continues to encourage Mayuko to see her own talent and the walls she’s built around herself. Ultimately, Mayuko confesses her feelings and is feeling all lost in self-loathing, but Ruri is there to catch her and support her and we suspect that Ruri is a very good thing for Mayuko and vice versa.

This was a really nice book to read. Every story left me feeling hopeful. The obi reads “Rave review from Morishima Akiko-shi!” and to that, they could, if they want, add “rave review from Erica Friedman!” because there was nothing about this volume I didn’t like. Art was adult and cute and clean, the stories were solid, all the characters were likable and the conflicts were real-world issues, that were handled with kindness.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 9
LGBTQ – 8
Service – 1 on principal only

Overall – 9

A very strong volume by an author from whom I hope to see more.

 

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Yurithon at Otakuthon 2019 Event Report

August 19th, 2019

Once again, I had the genuine pleasure to attend and panel at the Yurithon programming track of Otakuthon, in Montreal, Quebec.

Otakuthon is a large general anime convention, held in the Palais des Congrès in downtown Montreal. For people like myself, who enjoy touristing in a city as well as attending the event, Montreal is near-perfect. (With one exception – the construction is ridiculous. Whole streets in what is meant to be a walkable town are ripped up and blocked off. On Gay Pride weekend, while Otakuthon is on, in the middle of tourist season in August. Great idea, Montreal.)

My wife joined me on two panels, the amusing “Yuri Court” game, where we prosecute or defend Yuri series and the traveling to Japan as a Yuri Otaku panel. For the History of Queer Manga, we has Historian James Welker, who was absolutely brilliant and fascinating. And of course I ran my Must-Read/ Must-Watch panel, letting folks know about good stuff coming out right now that they should be reading. (I will try to get this up some day in the near future, but I make no promises.)

I tried to sit in on the Queer webcomics panel but no one arrived to run it. I briefly considered jumping in, but thought it wouldn’t be fair to the folks looking for gay content, as it’s not really in my wheelhouse.

4 Panels over 3 days is perfect. Enough to keep me busy, to provide a chunk of programming, but also give me time to shop! The real benefit of the Otakuthon Dealer’s Room, is that it is very large, with a big Artist’s Alley. I always meet new folks there. This year we spoke with Koyamori, Lollipop Sisters, both of whom had really unique art.

This year we bought one piece of original art by Kelli Kiakas, from her Giggly Game series in which she draws the childhood games we played in the style of 1930s comic/animation art. We bought “Marco Polo” because it made us both laugh.

"Marco Polo" Giggly Games Series, by Kelli Kiakas http://foolishcaptainkia.com/site/

We had multiple amazing meals, including a poutine at a fancy French restaurant. It was reallly gooood poutine. Best we’ve ever had. Yes, there can be a “best.” ^_^ Here’s a rundown of the weekend’s food:

Biiru
Japanese izakaya(ish) featuring what James named “wafusion”. Exceptional.

Bistro Boris
French, beautiful garden seating, amazing food. Very, ridiculously dark. We needed phone flashlights to read the menu. The poutine we had here was the best we’ve had. Pattie had foie gras, I had duck risotto.

The cafe at Le Westin Hotel (we can’t find the name. Not the Gazette, but the cafe by the Saint-Antoine Tower elevators) has good coffee and croissants and were super friendly. The vegetable tartin was spectacular.

Reuben’s
Montreal’s version of Junior’s. Smoked meats, yum.

Now the fun part, where I will assuredly skip someone and break their heart. Many sincere thanks to everyone who made this event an absolute blast: Meggie and Kim, once again gracious and cute conrunners. James for joining me on panels, for the first and, I hope, not the last time. Fujimoto Yukari-sensei for coming to the panels and to dinner and just being a delightful person to speak with. Mark for being a great laugher and long-time Okazu friend. We look forward to more French-language manga reviews from you! Nick T for being someone I was delighted to meet in person. I had been on his Nickcast some months ago and we had so much fun. It was a genuine pleasure to put a face to the name.  Special thanks to Severine, for conveniently being in Montreal while I was there; dragging you into the colorful world of anime fandom and shiny cosplay was a delight (and smoked meats are always a good thing.) I want to shout-out to Sam Pinansky of the J-Novel club, who are putting out a bunch of Yuri novels! And of course, my wife who is brilliant and funny on panels and all the time.

If you attended any of my panels, thank you! The audiences were great. I forgot to remind people to not ask my opinion of series in the Must-Read/ Must-Watch panel and, since it was my fault, I gave my opinions. I expect some of those people will be recovering for a while and I’m sorry, but not really. If you will insist on asking me what I think, I’m going to tell you. ^_^

I basically come to Yurithon to give away candy and books, and eat smoked meats (Montreal’s version of pastrami, essentially) and at Biiru, so all objectives were achieved.

During the very same weekend, New York City hosted Flamecon and I hope we’ll be getting a report on that later this week, too. I can think of worse ways to spend my Augusts, alternating between Flamecon and Yurithon. ^_^ I hope to see more of you in both places~!

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Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – August 17, 2019

August 17th, 2019

Yuri Events

You will find me this weekend in Montreal, talking about queer manga, and Yuri and traveling to Japan at Yurithon! Do join us for fun and laughs and candy and prizes!

The remainder of my schedule is:

 

Saturday: 15:00-16:30 in 513D: Must Read/Must Watch Yuri: 2019 Edition
Saturday: 18:00-19:30 in 513D: History of Queer Manga with James Welker
Sunday: 10:00-10:45 in 513B: A Yuri Otaku in Japan

Next month, I will be doing too much in a short time with the 100 Years of Yuri Tour!

 

Yuri Anime

Sentai Filmworks has released a trailer for the dub of Kase-san and Morning Glories dub.

 

 

 

Yuri Manga

We’ve added absolute piles of Yuri Manga to the Yuricon Store! In English:

Cocoon, Entwined, Volume 1 is already available.

tMnR’s If I Could Reach You, Volume 2, will be available in November.

Yuri is My Job, Volume 5 hits shelves in December 2019.

 

In Japanese:

Still Sick, Volume 2 continues the story of the otaku and the former mangaka.

Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteru, Volume 2 (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている) is available now.

The adorably sweet, Sasayakuyouni Koi wo Utau, Volume 1 (ささやくように恋を唄う) is out now, as well.

Also quite sweet, Pixiv tale Jyoryusakka to Yuki (女流作家とユキ) continues in Volume 2!

In Strawberry Fields wo Mou Ichido, Volume 3 (ストロベリー・フィールズをもう一度) Akira finally comes to terms with her feelings about Pure.

 

 

Sailor Moon

 

Not really Yuri, the trailer for the first movie of the 4th Season of Sailor Moon Crystal, Sailor Moon Eternal  is up on Youtube.

The Sailor Moon show and cafe, Shining Moon Tokyo is on and it looks like I’ll be able to make a show! I’ll report back. ^_^

For 2020, Tokyo is creating a miniture cityscape called Small Worlds, which includes a teeny little Crown Fruit Parlor and Tuxedo Mask watching over Azabu-Juban. ^_^

 

Do you have questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast, Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to!

Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!

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