Toronto Comics Arts Festival 2019 Day .5 and Day 1

May 12th, 2019

Like all good events, Toronto Comic Arts Festival begins and ends before and after the event itself. For me, TCAF 2019 began on Thursday when I got a message on the way to the hotel. Wait, let me tell you about my magic power – I fall through the cracks all the time. So when I got a message that said, “Oh no, we forgot to tell you that you’ll be on stage tonight at the Japan Foundation,” it was a total Erica moment.  ^_^

But before anything, I wanted to go to the Toronto Reference Library to visit the 100 Years of Yuri exhibit. They had set it up beautifully, with cutouts of lilies and scattered fake flower petals, it looked terrific.

Thursday night my posse and I headed over to the Japan Foundation for a reception welcoming Junji Ito-sensei and Hiromi Takashima-sensei, both of whom are delightful. I managed to speak semi-coherently, so phew! (YMMV. I basically made everyone tell me I did well, so I might have actually sucked.)

Friday was a light day for me, which was mostly taken up with eating food and seeing friends. But in the morning, as I went to fix a small thing in the exhibit and found that a framed piece of art had broken a glass shelf. Nothing was hurt, except RIP glass shelf. There were shards everywhere. So the entire thing had to be broken down, cleaned out and reset.  There will be glass in some of those books forever. ^_^; But as you can see, the exhibit is up again. And people do seem to be taking a look, every time I walk by.

I was very lucky to be able to accompany comics journalist Brigid Alverson to her interview of Takashima-sensei, and I learned a lot about her. She is a thoughtful and intelligent woman and gave her all in answering questions put to her.

Saturday was my big day here. The morning began with a standing room only 100 Years of Yuri panel, at which Takashima-sensei had a few moments to talk about her perception of having her work dissected. ^_^ After which the absolutely lovely folks at the Japan Foundation once again hosted Takashima-sensei, myself and, I do not want to forget the star interpreter we had, Mimmy Shen. My very real thanks to Mimm, for doing the heavy lifting.

Honestly, I’ve sat through a bunch of interviews with mangaka and done some and wow, was Takashima-sensei one of the very best. She was funny and charming and inspiring. It could not have gone any better. Then she did book signings until the sold out crowd and all the folks who lined up were full of squee.

This completed the work part of my day. I met a few folks , had lunch with translator Jenny McKeon, we *finally* walked around the very crowded sales floors, and my day ended up having dinner at the most massive buffet I have ever seen, which included a robot making “hand-made” noodles. Thanks to Erik for that feast for the senses

Today I have a spotlight with Emily Carroll, whose work I already love and more food!

 

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Yuri Manga: Transparent Light Blue (English)

May 10th, 2019

Transparent Light Blue, by Kyoko Iwami, was a collection of two multi-chapter short stories that ran in Comic Yuri Hime (and, I believe a earlier as a doujinshi. My Japanese volume is buried in the files, so I cannot check.)

The first story follows three friends, Ritsu, Ichika and Shun, as their friendship faces a severe crisis in the form of a love triangle. Both Shun and Ritsu are in love with Ichika. The tension between them threatens to pull the three of them apart until Ichika makes a decision. When she chooses Ritsu, the crisis passes and Shun accepts that his friends are now an item. The overall narrative is a bit pat, and there is a lot of service in the form of ear-cleaning, which stands in for sexual intimacy and is therefore rather more breathy and double entendre-laced than we might expect.

The second story is a messy little tale about gender, cross-dressing and sublimating sexual desire, with a shockingly happy ending. Upon re-reading I was surprised how almost-absurdly satisfying I found both endings, especially as I recall debating with myself when I read this in Japanese about even reviewing it, as we had better manga already to talk about.

But now that it’s in English, I think it’s worth taking a look at, if only to springboard from it into the vastly superior current work by Iwami-sensei being serialized now in Comic Yuri Hime, Luminous Blue (ルミナス＝ブルー). The only reason I have not yet reviewed this manga is that I cannot get a copy! It sold out almost instantly when it came out and hasn’t yet been restocked on Amazon JP.  Everything Iwami-sensei does in Transparent Light Blue, she does better in her second series.  And so, if you like to see the evolution of a  Yuri creator, I do actually suggest you read this volume, so when Luminous Blue is licensed, you will see where she came from and how far she’s come.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Drippy
Story – 7 Messy, but satisfactory
Characters – 6 Questionable choices / unreasonably positive results
Service – 6 Sexy ear-cleaning, making the cute girl cross-dress
Yuri – 7

Overall – 7

In 2010, Transparent Light Blue would have felt like a triumph. In 2019, it feels a little regressive, but still delivers a dose of dopamine if you like soap opera.

 

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Updated “100 Years of Yuri” Celebration Schedule

May 9th, 2019

Here is my updated appearance schedule for 2019’s “100 Years of Yuri” celebration!

If you would like to have me at your school, organization or event, please contact me!

Toronto Comic Arts Festival – May 11-12, Toronto Public Library, Toronto, ON, Canada
On Saturday, May 11, I’ll be presenting “100 Year of Yuri” at the Toronto Reference Library Learning Center, followed by a guest spotlight with Kase-san creator Takashima Hiromi. On Sunday I’ll be at the Marriott with lesbian horror comic creator Emily Carroll.

Queers & Comics – May 17-18, School of Visual Arts, New York City, NY, USA
Two full days of LGBTQ comics creators, scholars and more! On Saturday, My 18, I’ll be joined by Fujimoto Yukari, Nagaike Kazumi, James Welker and Rica Takashima for a panel on the history of Queer Manga!

AnimeNEXT – June 7-9, Atlantic City Convention Center, Atlantic City, NJ, USA

Yurithon – August 16-18, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montreal QC, Canada

Crunchyroll Expo – August 30 – September 1, San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA, USA

100 Years of Yuri Tour! – September 8-17, 2019, Tokyo, Japan

 

University of Michigan and Michigan State University – October, Dates TBD

Anime NYC – November 215-18, Javits Convention Center, New York City, NY, USA

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Yuri Manga: Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 7 (やがて君になる)

May 8th, 2019

Since the first volume, I have been cautious.

“All this having been said, I need to bring up two important issues I have with this manga. The first is that it is presented as a romance. The story is apparently that we’ll side with Touko as her sincere feelings for Yuu are eventually returned. ”

I have repeatedly pointed out a glaringly obvious problem with this series.

“I’m still not sure if Yuu is supposed to be confused because she just hasn’t had an “a-ha!” moment or because she’s genuinely asexual. I don’t think the mangaka knows, either and I’m positive Yuu herself has no idea.”

“Which leads me to the, I think, obvious conclusion abut Yuu. What if she’s asexual? If so, she’s never going to have those feelings for Touko or anyone. She might come to love Touko and continue to admire and like her, but never have sexual interest in her. So, then I can’t help but see Touko’s coming on (to be crude) to Yuu as another burden, rather than a blessing.”

“Both these things nag at me while I read this manga. And I worry that Yuu’s agency will be stripped from her as the narrative continues.”

“Where they will end we cannot say (well, okay, obviously we can. It was abundantly clear from the first page of this series it was meant to be a romance. As I noted in my review of the first volume back in 2016…. So, yeah, obviously it has been heading in this direction from the very beginning. Which I’m still kind of sad about. I would really have preferred to have Yuu as a rare aromantic manga protagonist. Oh well.”

And so on…. every volume has been problematic.

Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Volume 7 (やがて君になる) is not helping. ^_^;

That said, there is a lot to like in this volume. We get another moment when Sayaka sits down with Miyako and really talks about the thing that they have in common; a thing Miyako has largely dealt with, but that Sayaka has not, yet. We also get a chapter backstory for Miyako and Riko, in which we see how they met and came to be a couple. Those are both wonderful moments. And, continuing on, we see Sayaka take an important step forward in her own growth. For all of this, this volume is very, very good.

But the big glaring problem does not get smaller here. Yuu is going to have deal with how she feels about Touko – – which is not the glaring problem. The big glaring problem is how her being set up as an aromantic is going to be dealt with. I do not want to spoil a thing, but… I did was neither surprised, nor impressed by the way it was handled. The way it was handled is the big glaring problem. When the series is complete in English, we’ll talk about it. Until then, I look forward to spoiler-free comments from you!

Ratings:

Art – 9 It is palpably better in this volume than it has ever been
Story – If the point of art is to create a reaction in its viewer, then this is a 10, for both good and ill
Characters  – 10
Service – Nothing salacious, buy Miyako and Riko getting ready for bed was a kind of service. ^_^
Yuri – 10+

Overall – 9

It was very “aauuggghhhhh!” and very “yay!” and I need you all to read it asap so I can *talk* about it! You will have the chance to read it in December, while Volume 8, which will hit shelves in autumn in Japan, will be the final volume. When this all over about a year from now, we shall sit down and have a good long talk about this series. ^_^;

Posted in Bloom Into You / Yagate Kimi ni Naru, Nakatani Nio, Yuri Manga | 8 Comments »


“100 Year of Yuri” T-Shirt on the Yuricon Store

May 7th, 2019

Join the folks at Yuricon and Okazu as we spend a year celebrating the Yuri genre’s 100th Anniversary with our “100 Years of Yuri” T-shirt.

From Yoshiya Nobuko’s “S” novels of the early 20th century, to stories of lesbian life and love, Yuri has changed lives and brought a fandom together. This t-shirt include the Okazu mascots, sharing a moment over their favorite Yuri! We hope you will join then…and us in this anniversary year!

Check out Yuricon News for 100th Anniversary events.

(Women’s shirts view on Redbubble are currently defaulting to white, we are hoping to change that going forward. The design is white and will work on a color shirt only.)

Posted in Yuricon | 2 Comments »