Giving Thanks for Yuri!

November 27th, 2025

It was a habit of mine to write a short post on what I am thankful for on Thanksgiving (in the USA,) for many years on Okazu, but I fell out of the habit when I became very ill, then lost my job just before the holiday. This year I find myself with some time and energy and I wanted to take a moment to not only be thankful, but specifically to be thankful for Yuri.

Tomorrow I’m going to write up a post on something amazing – the celebration of 30 years of Yuri manga with Rica Takashima’s Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, the first Yuri manga to be published in English and it occurred to me that Yuri manga has so profoundly changed my life for the better. I have been able to travel to world to speak about Yuri and see Yuri manga and related events, I’ve met amazing people—including so many Okazu readers!— and tons of folks in the manga and anime industries. 

It is entirely due to Yuri that I am currently able to write for Okazu, ANN, Anime Herald and have some extraordinary manga over the years. And because of Yuri I have been able to publish manga and pay writers and even launch a few  artists’ and writers’ careers.

I am extremely grateful Okazu Patrons and Supporters for everything you do for Okazu and Yuricon. Thank you all. And thanks to Rica Takashima and Yuri manga for changing my life forever. ^_^

 
 

 

 

Posted in Now This Is Only My Opinion | No Comments »


Monster-Colored Island, Volume 1

November 26th, 2025

Two girls embracing. One with black hair in short braids looks at the other girl, a blonde who looks at us, with a heavy-lidded gaze.It has been a while since we discussed this series. In 2021, I read and guest reviewer Mariko Shinobu reviewed Kaijuu-iro Shima, a mood, folkloric story that takes place on a small island of the Japanese archipelago in which two young women meet and their pasts and present merge.

This year I had the chance to review Monster-Colored Island, Volume 1 for ANN’s Fall manga guide and was interested once again in this tone-poem of a Yuri manga.

Kon is an island resident who has spent her life alone. Mostly invisible to the other residents, and rejected by the few other children, she lives an “othered” life from the rest of the community. When outsider Furuka shows up, they instantly connect, although neither really knows why. We don’t get much detail in this volume – we don’t really know whether the island’s monster exists, or is Kon is, as she seems to be, the sacrifice to it, or if it is all symbolic. But it doesn’t truly matter, as we do learn that Furuka and Kon have always known they were different from everyone around them in ways that many queer readers will understand and resonate to. 

There are some odd handwaves, especially Furuka and Kon “forgetting” how intimate they were, but these plot contrivances serve to heighten the mystery of these two girls and their meeting. It all feels very fated, and possibly more complicated than they know. 

I called this a tone poem of a manga. Yes, there is a story, but each scene is more evocative or a feeling, a sensation, rather than telling a linear tale. If you’re enjoying the heavy emotional impact of This Monster Wants To Eat Me, you might find this story to be similar in feel, if not in depth.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story  – 8
Characters – 7 
Service – There is, yes
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

I’m interested to see if this story goes somewhere specific or not.

Thank you to Yen Press and ANN for the review copy for this!

Posted in English Manga, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Paris 2025: Musée D’Orsay, The Louvre and Manga at the Musée Guimet

November 23rd, 2025

After a truly fantastic time at Y/CON, my wife and I spent the next few days touristing around Paris. We visited the Musée D’Orsay primarily because they had an exhibit of work by John Singer Sargent, who I very much like. My wife was blown away by his Smoke of Ambergris.

We also had the pleasure of learning about Brigid Riley, who took her inspiration from Georges Surat, but whose work in color and minimalist shapes and lines really spoke to me.

I found a Monet I liked. This is a first. I am not a fan of Impressionism. But, as usual, I found that looking at the paintings themselves, rather than images of the paintings, changed my impression. I have a complicated history with Van Gogh, but actually seeing The Starry Night Over The Rhone was very moving.

The next day we did the Louvre, where we went to a Jacque-Louis David exhibit. Sitting in a room surrounded by 3 Death of Marat was something, let me tell you. Also, if you are interested in David, go watch this Great Art Explained video about him, because he was 100% the radical leftist edgelord who ends up working as the propaganda machine for an autocrat. So that is, exhaustingly, eternal. Human nature does not change. 

I took 15 million pictures of Nike of Samothrace, because she is my absolute favorite piece in The Louvre.


Wednesday night, we had dinner with a new friend from Y/CON, Shane. On Thursday we decided to go to an exhibit that my wife had seen advertised in the Metro for Manga. Tout un Art! at Le musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet and wow, we were impressed! The exhibit began with a history of comics in Japan, beginning with strips in Punch magazine and other media, including a kamishibai theater on a bicycle.

The main focus of the exhibit was Shounen manga and relating famous titles to Japanese folklore and artifacts from the Guimet’s collection. Naruto was connected to the nine-tailed foxes art pieces in their collection, Dragonball to art depicting Journey to the West, Demon Hunter to yokai art and One Piece to.. a massive art board given to PM Macron by Oda himself.

Of course Tezuka rated a room and we were pleased to see an old friend in original pages of Ribon No Kishi.

The lighting was very bright, so everything is a little wonky, so it wasn’t all glare and shadow.

There was a room of Shoujo manga among all the Shounen, and that presented me with yet another old friend, one that you might expect to see in France of all places…The Rose of Versailles.

And, relevant to my recent review of Witches Of the Orient, a few pages of Attack. No. 1 in Margaret Magazine. 

This made us incredibly happy, as you can imagine! Interestingly, Marie Antoinette owned several piece of her toilette that were in Japanese style. This was one of those “oh, right, cowboys and samurai were contemporaneous” moments. ^_^ This portion of the exhibit ended with manga-inspired fashion.

I’ve uploaded all the (unedited) pictures I took to this Gallery.

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The exhibit continued on another floor with more of the museum’s permanent collection, of literary scrolls that depicted popular stories, then early commercial books in Japan.  

We ended up in the museum cafe overlooked by art depicting the Koream tiger and magpie motif we now call Derpy and Sussy, thanks to K-Pop Demon Hunters. ^_^ You have watched that, haven’t you? You should. It was very good. Not Yuri, but worth a review one day. 

And that was the end of our trip to Paris! It ended as it began, with manga and anime that we love.

Thank you again to everyone at Y/CON, and Paris for being a lovely place to visit once again – I look forward to vising again soon.

Posted in Events | 1 Comment »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – November 22, 2025

November 22nd, 2025

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. So much is happening this week in Yuri news!

Yuri Manga

Tokyopop’s LoveLove imprint has announced three titles of interest for us! Via multiple YNN Correspondents, we have news of How My Cute Girlfriend and I Started a Love Story by Nomiya Rion, There, Beneath the Water by Fuyumushi Kaiko and Knight-Type Girlfriend by Suzumiya Kiriha.

YNN Correspondent gqll also notes that The Comics Beat’s Ollie Kaplan has an Interview with Lena Atanassova on LoveLove’s inclusive vision and bringing UNNIE, I LIKE YOU! to print.

Seven Seas has licensed The Death Defying Princess Creates a Yuri Harem to Survive by Akashiro Aoi, Kouji Moromi, Murata Shinya, and Yanai Nobuhiko. I’m gonna have to read that.

Yen Press has an interview with Unni, creator of I Love Amy. I reviewed that for ANN’s upcomingwinter manga guide, but really, cannot recommend it here. CW for manipulation, torture, kidnapping and general horribleness. But if you like very toxic Yuri, have at it.

Via YNN Correspondent Manga’Albine, Natsuo Mutsumi’s Yuzuki doesn’t think! which won a Shueisha Newcomer Manga Encouragement Award in 2021, is available for free on their Tomboys site.  This is a story about a butch and tomboy working in a men’s clothing cafe. ^_^

Galette No. 36 is hitting inboxes shortly for members of the Galette Fanclub. Galette Special English Edition. No. 4 backers have been contacted with the price of shipping and tariffs. For my backing level, I’m paying +60% on the cost of the item. In no way do I blame Galette. Contacting our Congress members  and letting them know this is not okay is something we can do.

Love Bullet is out digitally and headed for shelves in print in a few weeks. inee’s remarkable manga is getting a special Kinokuniya pre-order variant cover, for folks who like that kind of thing!

New chapter of Hitorimi desu. by Morishima Akiko, is up on Kadokawa’s highly lesbian CandleA imprint on Comic Walker. ^_^ We meet Sachi’s ex-lover and her cat. 

 

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Baihe

Seven Seas’ first Baihe release, The Beauty’s Blade: Mei Ren Jian is out now! This has a standard cover and a Crunchyroll variant cover, as well.

Sr. YNN Correspondent Frank says “The Baiheverse folks are on a roll: They just announced a license for the baihe manhua I Got Blackmailed by the Fake Bitch in Class, another entry in the “opposites attract” schoolgirl yuri genre. (It’s not yet up on their site yet though.)”

 

Events

If you are in the NYC area, don’t miss Rica Takashima’s exhibit at hetLabo in Brooklyn to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the First Yuri manga ever published in English, Rica ‘tte Kanji!?

While I was in Paris for the wonderful Y/CON 11, I also had a chance to visit Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet for the Manga. Tout un Art! exhibition. Highly recommended and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. ^_^

The Kase-san series is 15 years old! To celebrate, creator Takashima Hiromi is doing a web sign event with Shosen book stores. According to their post on X, if you apply to the online event, you’ll get a bonus.

Animate is selling tickets to a Comic Yuri Hime 20th anniversary event/shop. If anyone is going, please let me know and take lots of pictures, because Hayashiya Shizuru-sensei says that there will be Strawberry Shake Sweet illustrations and…I wannnttttt to seeee them!

 

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Yuri Light Novel

Fantasia GL has a three- part Japanese audio rendering of scenes from the LN Eh? Watashi Socchi Nanno!? (「え、私がそっちなの!?)   Confession, Lap Pillow, and Recall voiced by Tomoha Takayanagi and Akari Kito.

 

Other News

Sr. YNN Correspondent Sean Gaffney suggests ANN’s This Week in Anime in which Coop Bicknell & Steve Jones say Bring Out the Big (Girls with) Guns! Many of our favorites are included.

Also on ANN, I take a look at vaguelishly Yuri, two kinda girls travelogue-esque tale of post-destruction Japan in Touring After The Apocalypse, Volumes 2-3.

Anime Herald Magazine is available now in print and digital, or as a print/digital bundle. This is the perfect gift for your otaku friends and family, with in-depth looks at people, series and historical trends by writers like ANN’s Lynzee Loveridge, Red Bard and others, Anime World Order’s Daryl Surat, myself, Anime Herald’s Samantha Ferreira, Yatta-Tachi’s Katy Castillo and many more!  It’s an amazing magazine and you don’t want to miss it! If you’re one of us olds, who miss the days of print anime magazines, then this is a perfect gift for yourself. We’re all hoping that it does well enough to get a second issue for next year.

No Straight Lines, Vivian Kleiman’s documentary about queer comics and comic artists will screen free during the month of December on Pbs.org. If you haven’t watched this, don’t miss it. It’s a very moving discussion of the beginning of modern queer American comics. We’ve lost a number of the featured artists already, so this was so critical a work. I reviewed this movie in 2021, and the comic anthology that spawned it and the Queer and Comics events, in 2013.

 

Your support for Yuri journalism and research has never been more important. Patreon and Ko-Fi are where we currently accept subscriptions and tips.  Our goal now, into 2025, 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 | No Comments »


The Secret of Girls

November 19th, 2025

Promotional poster for the Chinese baihe drama The Secret of Girls, showing the four main characters.Baihe (Chinese yuri) is having a mini-moment. Seven Seas Entertainment just released its first baihe novel, the Baiheverse site is making steady progress on its project of licensing baihe manhua, novels, and other works (including the short film When We Met), and enough other works are being teased for licensing that what has been a mere trickle of official English translations promises to become a growing stream (albeit nowhere near a flood).

Unlike baihe novels, which (like their danmei/BL cousins) mostly seem to traffic in historical fantasy, The Secret of Girls (original title 如果有秘密) is a realistic contemporary baihe drama, now available on the GagaOoLala premium service. As it begins, young Xu Jingxi (He Lei) is laid off from her job, decides to go traveling (for a reason that the GagaOoLala synopsis spoils, but I will not), loses her wallet, ID, and phone while helping another woman, and ends up prevailing on older hotel employee Wen Shan (Sun Cailun) to let her have a room in exchange for working at the hotel.

At first glance the setup is reminiscent of many other yuri works: a free-spirited extrovert who’ll end up softening the frosty exterior of an introverted tsundere. However, Xu Jingxi’s outgoing persona is a cover for her suffering, the nature of which is slowly revealed as her romance with Wen Shan progresses. But the series is about more than the ills of one woman: the back stories of both Xu Jingxi and Wen Shan, and their relationships to their mothers in particular, form a sharp critique of a patriarchal society that demands that daughters show filial piety but offers them little or nothing in return.

Suffice to say, The Secret of Girls is not a series with a “happily ever after” ending, but it’s far from being “tragedy porn.” This is in large part due to the performance of He Lei, who takes what could have been a simplistic character and makes her richer and more complex. (As it happens, He Lei also starred in When We Met, another tale of a younger woman winning the heart of an older one.) Sun Cailun is a worthy companion to her, portraying Wen Shan’s slow and subtle opening up to friendship and then love. I should also mention Li Keyi and Wang Miao, who play hotel owner Ling Yung and bar manager Qin Bei respectively. Their characters support Xu Jingxi and Wen Shan in their evolving relationship and contribute a more light-hearted tone and a very sapphic vibe: The two women live together and are clearly in a relationship of their own, and Qiu Bei’s bar “Her” is advertised as being “Where Ladies Meet.”

My main complaint with The Secret of Girls is with its packaging: It was originally released as 24 five-minute episodes on the WeChat app, and the amount of actual content is such that it could have been (and I think should have been) released as a feature film. However, GagaOoLala is presenting it as 16 episodes, with multiple minutes in each episode taken up by a lengthy OP (which spoils many of the scenes in the series and is untranslated to boot) and even more time taken up in several episodes by an equally lengthy credits sequence. Regarding other aspects, the GagaOoLala version has at least one scene that was almost certainly excised for the Chinese domestic audience; it makes explicit what was already very much implicit in the portrayal of Xu Jingxi and Wen Shan’s feelings for each other.

Rating:

Story – 7 (a potentially clichéd and maudlin plot redeemed by the writing and acting)
Characters – 9
Production – 6 (points deducted for chopping up the material)
Service – 3
Yuri – 10
LGBTQ — 5 (not explicit but very queer-coded)
Overall – 8

The Secret of Girls is not an easy watch at spots, but it’s definitely recommended for viewers who are tired of relatively superficial or melodramatic yuri series (looking at you, Thailand) and want to see a more realistically emotional human drama. It also marks a welcome second outing for He Lei, whom I hope to see more of in future baihe series.

Posted in Baihe, Frank Hecker, Live Action, Staff Writer | 2 Comments »