Hello and welcome to this week’s Yuri Network News Report. I want to start with some news from within our community. Please take a look at this logo for YNN. The artist behind it is Mari Kurisato, a queer, indigenous artist, writer and activist…and Yuri lover. She’s one of the folks we support on Patreon.  She needs some help. Her computer is dying and lucky her, she’s here in the US where we don’t have a reasonable healthcare system. If you have even $5 to toss her way, you’ll help get her out of a hole of medical debt and computer problems. I know we’re all tapped out. I know we’re all being asked to give every second. But there are folks who really need help and Mari is one of us. I’m not asking you to give up money you need. But if you have the money for a couple of Ventis at Starbucks, maybe give one up for her. Thank you.

Yuri Manga

Have a bunch of stuff today that I’m not entirely sure will end up on the Yuricon Store or not, but you should know about!

Tadokoro-san (田所さん) is a school life story by TATSUBON, that looks nice. If you want to check out a few pages or take a look at the doujinshi that it sprang from, Lilyka has you covered. ^_^

Ichinjinsha has another adult drunk Yuri anthology, Alcohol Yuri Anthology Strong! (アルコール百合アンソロジー・ストロング! ) I have found this current series of Ichijinsha anthologies to be lackluster, YMMV of course.

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Today on the Yuricon Store!

Goodbye , My Rose Garden Volume 2 is on the way in print and on Kindle next month from Seven Seas.

I’m in Love With the Villainess, Volume 1 will be available in in print in November and on Kindle in September.
 
Éclair Bleue: A Girls’ Love Anthology That Resonates in Your Heart has arrived on my doorstep and will arrive on yours in two weeks. ^_^ The Kindle edition of Éclair Rouge is already up on Amazon for a September release.

This seems a good time to remind you that most, if not every, Yuri book coming out in English, is also available digitally on Kindle and Bookwalker  – and often sooner than the print. So if you, like me, are neck deep in books, this is great way to keep supporting and reading Yuri manga that may not actually be something you want to keep.

I also want to note that, while I am promoting Kindle and Bookwalker, I am aware that many of these titles are also available on Nook. Barnes & Noble recently announced that they are stopping support for their Nook app, rendering the ecosystem for Nook readership back down to people who own a physical Nook. And, you might guess, I don’t have a referral account with B&N, since they have a history of resisting both manga and y’know, readers, being able to access their digital offerings. So if you have a Nook, do check for those titles, I’m just not linking to them.

Queer Media Reference Tools

So let’s say you’re listening to me at a panel and I say, “read queer comics, too, not just manga,” and you think, “But, where do I go to learn what queer comics there are and what they are about?” Start with the Queer Comic Database. Via YNN Correspondent, Victoria R, this was begun as a project out of University of Washington and has plenty of useful filters. You can find online comics, print, even free comics and yes, they take suggestions!

The Complete Yuri Movie Guide (「百合映画」完全ガイド) definitely looks like something…this Japanese-language book says it looks at 300 “Yuri” movies and asks questions like “How did this movie describe women?” Sadly, it is not shipping to my location, so if you get a copy hit me up and write a review for us.

Other News

A number of manga and manga studies books have been nominated for an Eisner Award this year, including Kabi Nagata’s My Solo Exchange Diary. Jennifer Sherman does the breakdown on ANN.

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! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an essential part of the team!

Editorial: Online Events, Representation and Accessibility

This will be a summer of virtual events in the anime world and I want you to think about this before we do any thing else:  Because panels and guests are moving online, there will be a tendency for event programming to have less diversity than usual, as organizers talk to people they already know about, for content. Take a moment and write organizers to remind them to seek out panelists and presenters from marginalized groups. Representation and accessibility ought not to be afterthoughts.

If you’ve been following me anywhere, you saw the most amazing thing over the last couple of days. I’ve been trying to ensure that the Online Yuri Panel will have automatically generated closed captions available. YouTube does not offer these for Livestreams unless an account has 1000 subscribers. I had no idea how many subscribers we had on Yuri Studio, for many reasons. Back in 2009, I was just uploading some of the Yuri AMVs we had from our events, and then a few of my lectures and presentations. As it turned out we had 420 subscribers.

So I asked the Internets for 600 more subscribers so YouTube might listen to me and grant me auto captioning. In two days, and people clicked that button. I’m very mindful of the reason *why* they clicked that button – not for me, but so people can get closed captioning. I don’t trust YouTube to turn on that feature for me, so I found a good option, Webcaptioner. It only works in Chrome but it works and it’s free (donations welcome on the site, click and you’ll see.) I tested it to see if it works while watching a Youtube stream and even with an accented voice speaking at normal speed it did well enough.

My point here is, please write these online events and gently remind them to seek out queer and PoC and disabled folks for their panels online and to make sure that closed captioning is available.

I’ve written to Funimation and Anime Expo to ask that they consider these issues for their upcoming events. I hope you’ll write the events you plan on attending. As fans we can and ought to make fandom more welcoming and open every chance we can. ^_^

Having said that, I invite you all to join me tomorrow, Sunday May 31, 2020 at 5PM Eastern US time (with my apologies to folks in Japan for who it will be 6AM)  for the 2020 Online Yuri Panel Livestream on Youtube. I hope to see you all there.

Yuri Manga

Kaishaku’s Kannazuki no Miko spin-off manga Himegami no Miko (姫神の巫女), is beginning serialization,.Yuri Navi has sample pages from the first chapter in the July issue of Dengeki Mao. You can get it digitally on Global Bookwalker.

ANN’s Rafael Antonio Pineda has the news that spin-off manga Murciélago Byproduct Araña will be coming to an end with the 5th volume. I’ve reviewed Volume 1 and Volume 2 here.

Other News

In one of the few delightful moments of a dark week, Stjepan Seijic offered up this piece of fanart of Color_LES’s webtoon Mage and Demon Queen. ^_^

Global Bookwalker is doing a huge “Stay Home, Stay Safe and Read” campaign with up to 50% coin backon loads of J-Novel Club and Seven Seas Titles.

You may remember my adoration for the novel Gideon the Ninth. A free e-book preview of the upcoming sequel Harrow the Ninth is available on Kindle. /jubilant shouts of joy/ I’m re-reading Gideon right now, because holy heck it’s a brilliant book.

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! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an essential part of the team!