Top Ten Yuri of 2018

December 31st, 2018

Inexplicably, as I began to type this, the first few words of the song “My Way” popped into my head. ^_^ This list is definitely not a song of the end, it’s a paean to some simply fantastic work that has been done in the past year and a joyful prayer, if you will, for the future.

This final Okazu list of the year is, traditionally, a nod of thanks to the people, companies, trends of note and series that stood out in 2018 above all the rest.

I don’t want for much. I just wanted Yuri to be recognized as a legitimate genre of its own (check) and be a big enough umbrella to be applied to actual stories of queer experience (check) by queer creators (check) as well as all the fetishy crap people seem to like. ^_^ I wanted stories about adult women as well as girls in school. This year, I have gotten all this and so much more….

…so I will begin this year’s list with a complaint. ^_^

 

Where is my Sports Yuri?!?

As I have said repeatedly, 2018 has been a remarkable year for Yuri. How could I possibly want anything more? 

I want a sports Yuri series. A several-volume, honest-to-god sports rivalry + Yuri series. I’m still vexed that ice skating is out of the question, because that would have been perfect. (-_-) 2019, I’m looking at you because this gap is just intolerable. We have horror Yuri, and idol Yuri and literary Yuri. I really want a sports Yuri. Or military. That would be okay too.  ^_^

 

Yuri Publishers US & JP

I want to start off with a moment to thank the folks who put Yuri on our table and this year, we’ve got more and more companies who are adding to the pile. I actually cannot thank all the JP publishers this year, the list would be nearly endless. But I can thank a few key players who have done so much: Galette Works, Ichijinsha, East Press and Kadokawa/ ASCII Mediaworks have all contributed some of our favorite manga of the year by some of our favorite creators in Japan.

In the West, we can thank Viz Media, Yen Press, Kodansha Comics and a very serious shout-out of thanks to Seven Seas, which has made a significant investment into queer manga. Thank you all. (Fingers crossed we can add Denpa Books here next year.)

 

LGBTQ Manga

Which brings me to the first major shift we have recently seen in manga. It didn’t begin in 2018, we just saw more of it ever before. (And, I predict that in the near future we will be seeing more.) One does not need to be a queer creator to create queer manga, but, to be reductive about, it helps. More Yuri manga artists are more out, and the manga we’re seeing – even if it is not lesbian-identified – is queerer than ever. This year, we saw lesbians in our Yuri. And it was good.

 

American Kids Cartoons

Let’s all give a rousing cheer for the state of children’s cartoons in 2018!

Adventure Time gave us the happy ending we wanted for Marceline and Princess Bubblegum and normally, that final wave of the hands might be all we could expect, but no. 2018 gave us She-Ra and the Princess of Power with subtext aplenty between Catra and Adora, and in previous years, we would have been happy. But…not in 2018. In 2018, She-Ra also introduced itself with an established lesbian couple.  And 2018 gave us Steven Universe with Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding on network TV. A marriage between two female-identified characters in prime time in a cartoon for children.  Beat that, 2019!

 

Yuri Network

Every year you make this list and every year, I get misty about it. You, my Okazu readers, reviewers, commenters and patrons, you make this worth doing. One of the great joys of having done this for so long is having been able to meet and speak with so many of you. 

So thank you for reading these posts, joining me at events, listening to the podcasts, writing guest reviews, chatting with me online, correcting me when I get things wrong and generally making the Yuri Network the best community in the world. You are always one of the Top Yuri things of the year.

 

Adult Yuri

2018 is the year the Yuri world realized that lesbians don’t die after they gradate from high school, and they don’t just become straight and live happily ever after. ^_^ This year we saw the proliferation of office romance, and adult Yuri stories in both anthologies and magazines. 

Which leads me to…

 

 

 

 

 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei/ Bloom Into You

In 2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei Nanami wasn’t ever straight, she just hadn’t ever figured it out until Aoi pointed out the obvious.  And then, we’re told that Nanami, before we met her, had gone out with women. This is important – not in a “aha! gotcha” kind of way but in a very 21st century way in which we as a species are starting to realize that sexuality and gender just aren’t at all what we thought they were. I’m going to just assume most people are “*.*sexual” and then let the story play out. In Nanami’s case the story was, in part, her coming to terms with what everyone around her could see (aka, the glass closet.)

Why is this important? Because in Bloom Into You Sayaka gets an adult lesbian role model. These two things are related; this is the year Yuri creators started feeling more comfortable portraying adult women who are queer (in the broadest sense) in Yuri. Also, young women.  Of all the characters in all of anime, the novel Yagate Kimi ni Naru: Regarding Saeki Sayaka is the closest thing we have ever seen to a coming out narrative.

This kind of thing is a tectonic shift. It will keep changing the landscape…watch this space. I predict 2019 we’ll see even more of this  nonspecific queerness. (And I will let go some of my need for specific queerness.)

 

 

 

Shimanami Tasogare

Case in point!  This series was painful in a lot of ways, and beautiful in a lot of ways and so very real. I have always been convinced that every queer kid needed a gay auntie to guide them and this series (and My Brother’s Husband, and Bloom Into You, as far as it goes) makes the point very well.

Adult lesbians in manga. FTW.  I love the idea that we’re seeing queer adults who can provide positive role models for young queer folks more than just about anything I have seen in years. 

 

 

 

 

Galette

I long wondered what it might look like for Yuri if Yuri artists just, y’know, did their own magazine, without having to appeal to some editor’s personal preferences, disguised as Market Forces. Galette marks it’s second year –  it is just so damn beautiful. I love the aesthetic of the whole thing.  I love that they have already expanded their reach with their own doujinshi Galette Meets. I love the fact that this is crowdfunded, and one of our Okazu goals for next year is to up our support of this magnificent beauty of a magazine. I’m always excited about the next issue and the next and hope like heck to see it grow Yuri in new and exciting ways. Galette remains one of the top Yuri things of the year.

 

Which brings us to our number one Yuri anything of the year. No one  can possibly be surprised about this. 

 

 

Asagao to Kase-san OVA

There is no more emblematic series for Yuri this year than this one. Shinshokan’s magazine Pure Yuri Anthology Hirari went out of print in 2014, but this series kept on going. In 2017, that seed bloomed as one of the most delightful marketing tests, the Asagao to Kase-san animation clip. Pony Canyon put a lot of love and humanity into that clip and it showed…and it worked! Takashima Hiromi’s series was born again, moving into Wings magazine as the characters were able to move out of high school. It lacks adult role models (although I wonder about that gym teacher) but there’s still time.

Everything about the Asagao to Kase-san OVA was lovingly handled. Animation, storytelling, music, voice acting…everything was so intentional. We learned through the interviews and presentations at conventions, that they really thought all of this through. The end result is a story that works well beyond the tropes of “Yuri” and, while it had neither lesbian identity nor adult role models, it was one of the most realistic lesbian romance stories I’ve ever seen.

As soon as I saw this OVA, I knew that it was the benchmark for Yuri this year. Thank you Zexcs, Shinshokan, Pony Canyon and congratulations and thank you to Takashima Hiromi-sensei for your efforts on our behalf.

 

Asagao to Kase-san OVA was the Top Yuri of 2018.

 

“And now the end is near…”   This year on Okazu we had 8 event reports, 11 Guest Reviews, 2 essays and 279 posts!  For Yuri fans, the end  of this year is a moment before an even more amazing year to come. 

Here’s wishing you all a very happy, healthy and wonderful New Year. And here’s hoping us all a 2019 full of terrific Yuri!



Top Yuri Anime of 2018

December 29th, 2018

No YNN report this week, we have bigger fish to fry. This year’s top Yuri anime list is a tribute to both the past and to the future of Yuri. ^_^

In the early ’00s when I began Okazu, there was very little of what we would now think of as “Yuri anime.” Yuri in anime was primarily one fetish among many; maybe a side character or plot sprinkled within a larger storyline. This is still alive and well in Yuri in 2018 and is likely to stay that way as long as someones somewheres in positions of editorial power think that it’s sexy to portray lesbian affection as a “funny” or, gods helps us “romantic,” obsessive disorder.

So, to set the stage for moving forward, we’ll begin with those regressive looks at love between girls in 2018.

 

Umamusume/Kakegurui/ Miss Koizumi Loves Ramen

Tied for 9th are three anime that all hit the same score for Yuri in their respective reviews here on Okazu. Yuri in these series was not a plot, it was a stand-in for characterization. Don’t know how to write a character with a personality? No worries, make her an obsessive lesbian! There, done and dusted. 

Yuri in these anime were a fetish, plain and simple. If this is the kind of anime you like, it works well enough.  Never quite good, but not intolerably bad, old-school Yuri makes a return in 2018. ^_^;

 

Magical Girl Ore

Take magical girls, add music idols, sprinkle every fetish we can cram into a parody of all of the above and hit “blend” and see if it’s palatable. 

It was, actually, palatable. The Yuri wasn’t going anywhere, it was always meant to be another piece of lace trim on the maid’s costume of a plot, but Mikage’s love is not questioned, or questionable. Its’s just that everything else in the series is. ^_^

 

Love To-LIE-Angle

If this series got out of it’s own way, it might be good. Unfortunately, the entire thing centers on the fetishizing of girls’ dorms, girl’s crotches and girl’s affection, turning it all into “humorous” and “sexy” sexual assault. Which makes it hard to sometimes remember that it is actually based on a Yuri manga from Comic Yuri Hime. Buried in the middle of a sexual harassment sandwich, with lot of creepy stuff for creepy folks as flavor-enhancers, there is a romance story, can you believe it?

 

Cutey Honey Universe

There is literally nothing older-school this year than Cutey Honey Universe. From lesbian shenanigans at Saint Jogakuen to Genet’s seduction of Natsuko, to Natsuko and Honey’s love for one another, this anime covered the whole gamut of Yuri. In keeping with the retro feel of 2018,  sweet  romance was paired with a massive dose of creepy fanservice and violence as one ought to expect with anything touched by my hero role model Go Nagai.

As an animated version of the original Cutey Honey manga, Cutey Honey Universe is, honestly, quite excellent. Even if it is eye-rollingly regressive.

 

Citrus

Speaking of of someone somewhere in positions of editorial power, there is nothing that says “happily-ever-after” like a vaguely incestuous relationship, filled with emotional abuse and sexual harassment. The melodramatic highway pileup that was Citrus was massively popular as both a manga and an anime. I won’t lie and tell you I liked it, but lots of other people did, and for that, this anime makes this year’s list. ^_^

 

Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3

To round out this year’s look backwards, let’s stop and once again admire the wonderfulness that is Haruka and Michiru  – this time the manga version, animated in Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3. 

This iteration of Haruka is way more manipulative of Usagi, using the younger woman’s infatuation against her, but her tender moment with Michiru is lovely – it will always be the first time so, so, so many young women saw affection like that represented in media. I am fascinated by how I just cannot like the Outers in this season…and really hope we’ll get the future seasons which will go a long way towards fixing that.

Happy 25th anniversary to a series that I’d never defend as “good,” but which changed my life forever. ^_^
 

Enjoying the Okazu End of Year Lists?

And now, we’re going to step away from the past with no regrets, and a final nod of thanks for the fun. Now it’s time to look to the future and see what we need to strive for.

 

Steven Universe

Yes, this is not anime, but it is so anime-inspired I feel it has a welcome place here on Okazu any day. This year Steven Universe premiered an episode that Rebcecca Sugar said had been in her sights since the very beginning…an episode about love. Sapphire and Ruby’s wedding was everything we’d hoped it could be. This cartoon has literally carried me through some of the darkest moments of the year. I am pleased as punch to name Steven Universe my #3 Yuri anime of 2018.

 

Bloom Into You

What can I actually say about this anime that I haven’t already said? (I’m not sure, but I better figure it out for my end of anime review! ^_^)

I have a complicated relationship with this series as a manga; no one was more surprised than I how far the anime went to alleviate some of my concerns.  Nicely animated, exceedingly well-voice acted, the characters worked so much better as an anime than I could have expected, it was quite remarkable. It’s not the best Yuri anime of the year, but in any other year, it absolutely would have been.

This year, however, we had….

 

Asagao to Kase-san OVA

The theatrical release of Asagao to Kase-san was a miracle. A small, relatively unknown series from an out-of-print magazine was transformed into the most beautiful little animated music video that grew into an astoundingly lovely movie. This movie, which could easily have been in and out of theaters in a week, just took up space for the entire summer in Japanese theaters, confident, and cool like Kase-san, while  we all bit our nails and watched, like Yamada.

And…there I was at AnimeNYC, while the male director and producer gently demanded we all understand this as a story about two people; a story of the development of a relationship, how these two girls in love learn to communicate, and deepen their bonds. This isn’t a “Story A,” it’s not melodramatic. It has less service and less drama than one could possibly have expected. Its lovingly made by people who clearly love the characters.

The Japanese Blu-Ray and DVD releases have English subtitles so you, too,  can enjoy this lovely story.

Asagao to Kase-san/ Kase-san and Morning Glories is…beautiful. It is touching. It is real.

Asagao to Kase-san OVA is the best Yuri anime of 2018. 

 



Top Ten Yuri Manga of 2018

December 28th, 2018

Well, my friends, that time of year has come upon us once again. 2018 is coming to a close and I have never before had so many riches to work with. This has been the most remarkable year for Yuri I have ever seen in 20 years of obsessing about it. ^_^

I say almost every year, “may our tribe increase” and this year our tribe has surely increased by many fold. My Top Ten list will be as personal, capricious and enraging as always – I will forget things and not mention stuff you liked, some of which will have been there and been taken away multiple times  and some of which wouldn’t have been put there at all – so I welcome you all to add your thoughts in the comments! Which Yuri manga do you consider your top Yuri manga of the year? 

Note on titles: If a series has been released in English, the English title is being used. If not, the Japanese title is the one you see.

 

Sweet Blue Flowers/ Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl

Sweet Blue Flowers, this new classic of Yuri, wrapped up in 2018 and was already kind of dated a mere 14 years after it premiered in Japan. ^_^;  But this year we saw the completion of a definitive edition by Viz Media. This edition had solid translation and well-researched notes that enriched readers’ understanding of the context; which is just exceptionally important in this series, with its many literary homages and references. Now that we have this in one lovely, complete and exceedingly well-done collection, we can set it firmly on the  “Yuri Classic” shelf where it belongs and move forward into a new age of Yuri.

Kiss & White Lily For My Dearest Girl is the exact opposite story – taking all the classic tropes, creating a few new ones and carefully crafting a story about people we care about out of them. It will end shortly in Japan, but we’ll have it here in the west for some time to come, so settle in and wait to see how it all pans out for Ayaka, Yurine and their friends and peers .

 

Yuri Anthologies (Éclair, Yuri +Kanojo, OL Yuri)

I’ve talked a lot this year about the important place Yuri anthologies had in the development of the genre. I quite like anthologies for the same reason most people dislike them: Anthologies give you a small taste of many different stories, art styles and concepts. The downside is when you really like a creator and the story ends, but the upside is you have someone new to follow! And these, days, with social media, you can literally follow them and see what they are working on right now.

I want to especially call out the new trend of grown-up Yuri anthologies; collections focusing on relationships between adult women. Yes, please!

 

After Hours

I adored this story when I read it in Japanese and am just that happy with it now that it is in English. It’s not something we see much – a whimsical and fun romance story about two women who live on the fringes of normal life without being outcast, or broken or weird. They just live their own lives. This story is overtly about building something together – a life, a rave, it’s all the same when you think of it, and you know I believe that with my whole heart.

 

My Solo Exchange Diary

I’ve never cared so much about a complete stranger as I do Nagata Kabi. I want to support her in her ongoing struggle to live a life with the very real problems she has has freed so many people, both in Japan and in the west, to speak more openly about. Graphic Medicine is, in actual fact, one of the fastest-growing genres in comics and manga. I think it’s important for a lot of reasons, the most important of which is (like coming out of any kind) to let people know they are not alone. Narratives like this remind me how lucky I am every day that I can wake up, work, play online, and write for Okazu. I’m literally one myelin sheath away from having all of that taken from me every day. 

For being one of the manga that has helped define a space where we can be more than one thing at once and still be seen as human, and also for making me hope that Nagata-sensei gets to live her life, My Solo Exchange Diary makes this list easily. 

 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) 

By now, you’ve probably realized that this list is going to have more adults on it than it ever has since I began doing this in 2004. 

2DK, G Pen, Mezamashitokei told a slow-developing romance story, abut two adult women living realistic adult lives in a real world. We saw Nanami pull long hours at the office and Kaede burning herself out building a career in manga, as well as quiet moments of eating food and seeing friends. There was enough fiction to make the real stuff work and enough real stuff to make the fiction fun. I am so happy that we have 8 volumes of this manga, making it the longest-running manga about adult women from Comic Yuri Hime. There was never any doubt in my mind that it would be on this year’s list. ^_^ 

 

Terano-sensei to Hayama-sensei  ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている)/ Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア)

I’m gonna keep talking about these two titles in the coming year, so get used to hearing about them. ^_^

Goodbye Dystopia is an apparently aimless wander through somewhere by two people for some reasons, very little of which has been explicated after two volumes. I love the art, the timelessness and placelessness of the story and would like it to never end. Imagine Thelma and Louise at walking pace, without any end in sight. Awesome.

Terano and Hayama are just the absolutely cutest things in the world. Two teachers at a girls school are dating and the girls think it’s cute, the administrator thinks it cute and I think it’s cute! I want them to be happy together forever.

 

Galette (ガレット)

If you’re a regular reader of Okazu, this cannot possibly be too much of a surprise. This crowdfunded, creator-owned collaborative effort by so may excellent Yuri artists is always exciting to read, to see what has been done and by whom. As it wraps up its second year of existence, it’s giving space to great established artists and finding space for new pros and I cannot wait to see what it will do in the future.

 

Enjoy the Okazu Top Ten Lists?

I always pause here, because as capricious as I am for my likes and dislikes, the top three always are put here for a reason – they are special. This year’s top three positively encapsulate Yuri for 2018 with their breadth of storytelling, style and intent.

 

Bloom Into You

Sometimes a series just hits the right note. For better or worse, this is Bloom Into You‘s time. With an anime that has done the spirit of the manga a good turn, a novel (which I am reading and it is nailing Sayaka’s inner tone, so that’s good) and an ongoing manga which is shaping up to be much better than I could have ever expected, really, it deserves our attention.

It’s time for me to give Nakatani Nio the credit she deserves. Bloom Into You is my #3 manga for 2018.

 

 

 

 

Kase-san Series

I always refer to this series as the “little series that could” because of it’s irregular past, but it has become something much bigger than itself with the jump to animation. The manga continues, and it continues to grow, to change, to lead by example. It’s done so many important things including moving people to see it as more than a “love story between girls.”

This series has and is still dealing with things like body issues and self-esteem and friendship. Kase and Yamada are facing the adult world together which is both terrifying and remarkable in a Yuri manga.

Reading the Kase-san series has very much been like watching real people grow up. Yamada’s journey from being someone who did not believe in her own future and whom the people round her thought of as plain old Yamada, has been so much like watching a flower bloom that the analogy becomes a “duh” moment. The series is called “Kase-san” but we – and Kase-san – are always watching Yamada. And it’s been very rewarding watching her grow.

In other years, the Kase-san series has been number 1, but this year comes in second to…

 

Shimanami Tasogare (しまなみ誰そ彼 ))

So, yeah, I’m spoiling the heck out of this series for you, but I want you to understand just what we’re in for. ^_^

This is not a Yuri manga. It is an LGBTQ manga. It is fully, wholly, 100% grounded in the real world in which kids who even slightly kind of think they (or, who other people think) are not cisgender and heterosexual, deal with very real consequences. This is a manga in which people spew harmful stereotypes and have to be educated over and over and over again, until they, maybe, get it, a little. It is a manga of confrontation, of accepting one’s self even when others don’t. It’s a manga with adult role models, some of whom will never be able to get a happy ending – and how important it is, for those of us that do get that, to share it and let the seeds of it grow.

I am so excited that you’ll all be able to read this in English next year, which is why Kamatani Yuhki’s Shimanami Tasogare is my top Yuri manga of 2018!

 



Yuri Manga: Galette, No. 8 (ガレット)

December 27th, 2018

Galette No. 8 (ガレット) is here, full of Yuri goodies, as always, and some interesting treasures buried inside! Yay! ^_^

There are a lot more color pages than previous issues, which keep surprising me, no matter how many times I read through the volume. (I usually give it at least two read-throughs before a review.) The volume is also somewhat smaller than previous issues, and the Petite Galette is incorporated into the larger magazine. This is not as surprising as it might be…one of the remarkable things about Galette is that in it’s mere two years a number of the artists have been picked up elsewhere by magazines, worked on  (the increasing number of) Yuri anthologies, are working on collected volumes with Galette and/or other publishers. In other words,  Galette‘s been good for the Yuri business. 

There are always a few series that stand out to me.

“Liberty” has moved past it’s first main crisis to a relationship that might, possibly work, except that we know that stories run on conflict. ^_^ Nonetheless, Liz has decided to wear those guitar earrings after all.

In “Motto Hanjuku Joshi” Morishima-sensei gets to give Yae something very few people get in real life, closure. Yae is able to close the book on her first love with a much better ending for all concerned than we might expect.

 The centerfold is a bit of an easter egg – it’s by Akiyama Haru, featuring the characters from Octave!  A nice blast from the past. ^_^

Amano Shuninta’s “Toma-kun” has yet another outside perspective. This time a little sister tries to understand what her older sister sees in this strange girl.

Many of the stories are ongoing, and this issue has ads for a couple of collected volumes coming out, oh, today, at Comiket and one at Comitia in February (which means they will have a table there, which means I will be buying extra copies for Lucky Boxes…!) 

I’m always torn between reading Galette first when a new order comes in, or saving it for last. This time, it was first. It’s a relaxing place to visit, with some of my favorite artists. 

Ratings:

Overall – 8

Reading an issue of Galette is like a day ticket to the Yuriland theme park. ^_^



Yuri Manga: After Hours, Volume 3 (English)

December 26th, 2018

I was genuinely delighted that Viz picked up this lovely short series about two women who meet each other by chance at a live show. Now that the series is completed, I want to reiterate that I really enjoyed the heck out of it. I state that plainly, because there is a rant I need indulge in. But we’ll get there. Be patient.^_^

But first, let us recall where we left off in Volume 2. The rave created by Kei, Emi and their crew is on. In After Hours Volume 3….that rave is fantastic. Despite setbacks, including Kei’s record collection being stolen and broken, their rave is wonderful. Their crew, After Hours, comes together and the event is a success.

And then everything falls apart. Emi goes home to spend some time with her folks and comes back to find Kei gone, with nary a word. Kei’s not responding to texts or calls. Emi gets the team together once more to talk this over and they decide to track Kei down. 

Kei, it turns out, has gone home, as well. Home as in a small fishing village in the middle of nowhere, where she is cleaning up some family business. Emi decides she has to follow Kei and find out what the hell just happened…so she does. 

Emi takes an overnight bus to Kei’s location, where she learns Kei’s reasons for not coming home.  Kei’s explanation for her disappearance is pretty banal, honestly.  Emi tells Kei she has a year to clean up her family mess, then she has to come back. They agree on a year and part. The end. 

This is where my rant kicks in. This entire end makes no fucking sense.

Emi took an overnight bus to where Kei is, and the train back. Kei is not that far away. All they had to do was agree to get together every once in a while. It’s not like Kei is across the globe…she’s a bus ride away.  An inconvenient bus ride, but still.

This is compounded in its utter ridiculousness by the ending in which neither just says, “we can text or call any time.” I mean, really. WHAT? It’s just total nonsense that lovers would part in the 2010s, with phones that can communicate just about anywhere in the world (and be used to track one another down, mind you) and act like they’d be on different planets. If a woman wrote this, at least one of them would have been sobbing over their phone, “I’ll call you every day…!” But..no.^_^

In any case, this was a great little story about two women who were not office workers or school girls, who lived lived on the fringes of society. I really liked it…

Ratings: 

Art – 7 
Story – 8 
Characters – 9 
Service – 2 
Yuri – 9

Overall – 8

…but kids, we have to acknowledge that “can’t speak to you for a year” does not work anymore. Phones, y’see, taken all the finality out of separation. Let’s come up with a new plot, please.^_^;