Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – January 20, 2018

January 20th, 2018

Today, all around the world, 1st anniversary Women’s Marches are being held once again. However you identify, please consider taking some time to turn up and stand up for human rights and civil rights in the face of this regressive and corrupt administration in the United States (and elsewhere.)

Yuri Anime

ANN reports that Citrus is listed as a 4-volume DVD release in Japan.  The series is streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation will stream the English dub.

Also on ANN is the new Cutey Honey Universe trailer. No glimpse of Natsuko yet, but fingers crossed that this Honey has her Lestrade.

News from YNN Correspondent Verso S -tickets for the Asagao to Kase-san OAV have gone on sale in Japan  and include an extra theater listing. To celebrate, the Asagao to Kase-san official website has posted an album of the images used for the pin badges sold at the Yurimate display in Ikebukuro. (All of which I bought for this winter’s Lucky Boxes!)  They also have news of an interview with Takahashi-sensei in the March issue of Davinci magazine. Davinci is a mainstream “women’s” magazine, which has previously run lesbian manga, so clearly there is an ally on staff there.

Bruce has been validated, as ANN reviewers have confirmed that the Yuri is considerably upped in the final episodes of Girls Last Tour.

Yuri Manga

Coming in for the first use of the “all the men are dead, only women have survived (but kept all the gender roles we currently have for reasons)” award is Eden no Otome (エデンの処女), which you can read by clicking this link to it’s page on Comic Ruelle. Konohana comes to private school Shirosakuya Gakuin, which is said to have a beautiful garden. While in the garden, she sees an equally beautiful student, and finds herself on the wrong side of classmate Aoi. There are 12 chapters up online (in Japanese) for you to take a look at. 

Likewise, a few chapters of Watashi no Kobushi Uketomete! (私の拳をうけとめて！) are online at Web-ace. In this story, a woman recognizes a saleswoman at a clothing store as the girl who always wanted to fight her in school. She ends up being asked out on a date. Hilarity ensues, I guess. I have only read the first chapter so far ^_^

Another item from YNN Correspondent Verso, regarding a Chinese manhua Tamen de Gushi, 从你的名字开始 ). “Regarding the -possibly indefinite- postponement of the publication of a second volume, due to demands to omit certain scenes / censorship by Chinese authorities, a message from Tán jiǔ’ on the official publication site for the series has started circulating online. Apparently the author declined to comply with the demand to remove the confession scene between the two female leads and the publication of the second book was put on hold as a result. Series continues as webtoon, as far as I could tell.” Here is the original message in Chinese, posted on January 15.

ANN has an update on the status of Rose of Versailles from Udon Press. I can confirm that it is in process as I am involved a teeny, weeny piece of the process. (I try to not scream too much when I work on it, but fail pretty regularly.)

 

Other News

Speaking of Rose of Versailles, just this week, an interestingly awkward development occurred when Director of Publishing at UDON Entertainment, Matt Moylan, made a (now deleted, but the Internet is forever) comment about “fake diversity” (which is the new white supremacist meme) which, he felt, included LGBTQ content – and race. And gender. Uh-uh. What then does he define as “real” diversity? 

I went to ask this question on Twitter and found I had pre-emptively been blocked, which was fine with me. ^_^

Given that Rose of Versailles is, in actual fact, about a woman who cross-dresses her entire life and is shown to be explicitly biromantic, I found it ridiculous that this man is involved in a inherently non-white medium and have made a point of letting Udon know. As I said on Twitter, “The unmitigated gall of a white man being bitchy about diversity in manga, which is a Japanese media[sic], would be hilarious if we weren’t all just tired of hearing white men whine about every fucking thing.” Mind you, this came on the back of  the no-woman-version of The Last Jedi and- I kid you not – a Science Fiction Guild demanding science fiction “the way it used to be.”  I don’t have to remind readers here that both diversity and political sentiment have been part and parcel of science fiction (and indeed, all human endeavor) since the beginning.  It is no longer okay for us to just roll our eyes at this but do nothing to stop the most-represented groups in media whining that they aren’t represented enough. 

Which brings me to next news item – another fantastic article on Anime Feminist, this time on the search for Latinx representation in anime, Angely Mercado’s My Road to Finding Better Latinx Representation in Anime is an worth reading. You may, if you are a member of a presumed-majority group, question why anyone might look for themselves in media that you believe would not have any representation, but then I ask you to ask yourself – why wouldn’t a person do that? If I can name a Jewish character in manga, why should Angely not be able to see Latinx characters? If I know a bibliomaniac or lesbian or Taijiquan-using character, why would someone else not be able to point to Indian or Russia or any other ethnicity and expect to see characters that reflect them? That is exactly how humans consume media. (If you’ve never had once in your life to have to ask “where am I in this media?” you probably are a straight, cis white male in a western country. Everyone else does have to do this, fairly regularly.)

And, let’s wrap this up speaking of representation on a positive note… Rebecca Sugar noted on Twitter that GLAAD’s Media awards have a new Outstanding Kids & Family Programming category for LGBTQIA-positive kid’s programming! How amazing is that?!? Now if we can get them to add a Manga category.

 

 

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com with your name and an email I can reply to!

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

 

 

Posted in Yuri Network News | 11 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 7 (あの娘にキスと白百合を)

January 18th, 2018

In Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Volume 7 (あの娘にキスと白百合を), Yurine gets a new underclassman in gardening club. As a near-last act, her sempai show up and say, “Here, this kid wants in.” Haine is thrilled to be part of the club and to be near the famous Kurozawa Yurine, but. As it turns out in our story du volume, Haine is famous in her own right and she’s frankly unimpressed by her impressively talented sempai. She takes Yurine to task for not caring about anything she does and calls her life “empty.” 

Yurine, for the first time in this entire series, is deeply hurt. The idea that she’s living a meaningless life sends her, in tears, to Ayaka. But this crisis is good for her, when she comes to realize that she actually does enjoy acting and her rivalry with Ayaka. She’s not empty after all.

Final exams are on the line. Ayaka bets Yurine that she’ll beat her this time for sure. Yurine, confident that she is unbeatable as always, jokingly says that if Ayaka loses, she wants a kiss. The grades are posted. and….I won’t spoil the ending.  ^_^ You’ll be able to read it for yourself soon enough, as the English-language releases are coming out fast. 

This volume is not the first time we’ve taken a look at Kurozawa’s life, but it’s the first time the series has gone to any length to make her sympathetic in any meaningful way. Equally, this volume takes a moment to show us a Shiramine who has softened a little. As they move closer to one another, for the first time in all 7 volumes, I feel like I can root for them as a couple.

The final chapter takes a look at Itsuki and Sawa, and Towako and Yurina show up to tell us that they’ve both gotten into the school’s college, so they’ll be sticking around. I can see that this series, having taking such pains to create a bunch of couples, aren’t going to just let them go simply.

Ratings: 

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7 
Yuri – 5
Service – 1 on principle only

Overall – 7

For the look at Kurozawa’s weaknesses, this is a good volume. And a much-needed one.

Posted in Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo, Canno | 3 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Comic Yuri Hime February 2018 /コミック百合姫2018年2月号)

January 17th, 2018

In the February 2018 issue of Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫2018年2月号) “NTR: Netzuzou Trap” comes to an end. I want to talk about this for a second, because in ending, it iremains a horrible series.  It ends with “happily ever after,”  which is to say that the two female leads end up together. At no point did the story establish a good reason why we would want them together. Nor did it convince me that the guys were particularly bad boyfriends, as they were lied to and made fools of the entire run of the story. In fact, I basically feel that anyone reading the story was being made a fool of, since it was never a Yuri story in the first place. 

Now that Kodama Naoko-sensei is free of it, I hope we’ll see a much less unpleasant series from her. I really like her art and her characters, generally, so this  story about unlikable people being unlikable was not all that enjoyable for me. 

Honestly, I’m just glad that’s over. 

In the meantime, Ohsawa Yayoi’s “2DK, GPen Mezamashitokei” continues (thank the gods!) and has veered into once-again uncomfortable territory. Both Kaede and Nanami have been invited to Aoi’s wedding, but Kaede has a deadline, so Nanami is shoved into the role of Aoi’s confessor. And confess she does. I can’t be the only one wondering why Aoi is marrying this guy at this point.

A lot of the established stories are taking strange turns in this volume, “Shiori wo Sagasu Page-tachi” and ” Watashi no Yuri ha Shigoto Desu” both shift towards more serious confrontations. Natsu-fuji’s “Kima ha Shoujo” seems pretty well-worn and comfortable by comparison.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

It was a pretty chunky issue and I think I read more than I didn’t for a change, even if “Yuri Yuri” is still limping along making old-man puns. The March issue goes on sale this week in Japan.

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Magazines, Yuri Manga | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Strawberry Fields wo Mou Ichido ( ストロベリー・フィールズをもう一度)

January 16th, 2018

Akira is pretty much a loner. With her gaming system and her headphones, she prefers the company of otome games to other people. So when an attractive new transfer student, Pyua (pronounced the way “pure” is in Japanese, pyoo-ah) tries to befriend her, she’s not that interested.

Pyua keeps at it, and, when she finally manages to get Akira alone, tells her that in 7 years, they will be lovers. She’s traveled back in time so they could see each other as high school students. Causing this reader to wonder if Pyua knows what the Boostrap Paradox is. Probably not.

Strawberry Fields wo Mou Ichido ( ストロベリー・フィールズをもう一度) Volume 1 is that ever-so-popular fantasy of one member of an established couple trying to get the other one to fall in love with her again, only without the established couple part and with added time paradox, because if Pyua had done this seven years in the past, then does Akira ever really fall for her in the first place? This paradoxical question is not at all addressed by anyone in the story. But that’s not the only thing left unattended in this narrative. 

When Pyua learns that Akira lives with her shut-in brother after their parents died, she’s shocked and appalled. Why? How is it that she doesn’t know this already? 24 year old Akira just, you know, never mentioned once that she effectively lived alone, while taking care of an emotionally crippled brother to her lover? That seems likely.

Nor is it ever really a concern whether meanie Akira will ever really fall for Pyua. Akira, on the other hand has some valid concerns about this stranger telling her her future as an adult. So while she’s supposed to be equally emotionally crippled, and we’re supposed to root for Pyua to break through her icy exterior, I kind of respect Akira’s choices, her caution and think Pyua damned lucky that Akira does indeed fall for her.

Ratings: 

Art – 7
Story – 7
Character – 7
Service – 3
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

The story continues is supposed to continue in a future Volume 2, although what could possibly happen, really? ^_^;

I first encountered news of this series on Twitter, where a Japanese Yuri fan had posted the news with a confused musing as to what the connection between Yuri and strawberries were. It surprised me, because with the endless succession of Yuri series that utilizes Victorian flower language and the obvious connotations of springtime, sweet juicy fruit and purity to young women seemed rather, well obvious, to me. Is there a nickname for the paradox of every generation of new fans never having heard of old, established tropes before and being completely confuzzled by things well-established for 100 years? There ought to be. Let’s call it the “Strawberry Paradox.”

Strawberries, by the way, mean “perfect goodness” in the language of flowers. Just FYI.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 4 Comments »


2018 Okazu Patreon Campaign

January 14th, 2018

8 events, 5 posts a week, 40% more patrons – we’re now able to pay Guest Reviewers – 2017 was amazing year for Okazu!

And we expect an even better 2018, with new goals and a new reward for all patrons on Patreon!


 

 

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