Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Yuri Manga: Galette No. 4 (ガレット)

December 19th, 2017

Creator-owned and crowdfunded, quarterly Yuri anthology magazine Galette (ガレット) is a success. How can I say that with such confidence? Keep reading and find out. ^_^

This is the 4th volume of this Yuri quarterly, rounding out their year with the addition of Morishima Akiko-sensei to their already star lineup. Stories range from first loves to failed loves and lots of school stories, with room for adult life narrative…and now the magazine is allowing room for more complicated and sometimes unpleasant or unhappy stories. I like that some of the work here is emotionally challenging. I want more from Yuri than Story A.

But above all other things, what I actually love best about the magazine is the design. The cover art for this issue is sublime. It’s not just that the art isn’t moe, it’s that the design elements are design elements. The magazine looks professional, and not just slickly printed. This is a magazine for adults who love Yuri, made by adults who love Yuri…even when the stories are set in school. 

I bought this issue at Comitia, (where I also picked up a couple of extra copies for the New Year Lucky Boxes. ^_^) and was able to get a Galette 2018 calendar, with the cover images and other color interior art. The other pictures are nice, but sign me up as a fan of Pen’s cover work.

This issue is available in print, as a Kindle release in the USA (in Japanese, coming in at #79 in the Foreign Language>Japanese>Comics & Manga category) or in Japan (where it comes in at #43 for the Comic>Light Novel -BL>Comic category*, and at fine manga bookstores across Japan and at selected events. Which brings me to why I said it’s successful. With crowdfunding patronage through Enty, the book is bring in more then $5000/month, which puts $15,000 into every issue before a single sale. Japanese manga is able to sell through more than one stream, as I’ve previously noted, like making the book available on non-JP Kindle.The price point of $23/print issue seems like a lot, but when you remember that people are being paid for their work at every level, as opposed to manga artists subsidizing the work until collected volumes, and for 300 pages of top-notch work beautifully put together, it seems good value for the money.

Ratings:

Overall – 9 (and only because I’m holding out for a few artists to join the team.)

I’ve been on the publishing teams of magazines and manga anthologies. Quarterly publishing takes a lot of resources and Galette seems well-positioned to continue if they keep on as they started. That’s why I call it a success.

*Amazon has no Yuri category in either Japanese or English. Please feel free free to contact them to ask them to add it. I have done so more than once.



Ichigo Mashimaro Manga, Volume 8 (苺ましまろ)

December 17th, 2017

Barasui is consistent, I’ll give him that. The last volume of Ichigo Mashimaro was 4 years ago, and the previous one was four years before that. Nice work if you can get it.

Unfortunately for us, a lot of what made Volume 7 so brilliant is gone in Volume 8. Miu has stopped playing to Chika’s intelligent straightman and has returned to playing to Matsuri’s tiresome gullibility.  I’m not sure why Ana just doesn’t get up and walk way at this point. Chika can’t, they’re in her room, and she clearly likes the background noise.

In Volume 8 of Ichigo Mashimaro, we have Miu pretending to be an alien, and Chika subtlely undermining her, but it’s mostly Miu saying ridiculous stuff and watching Matsuri being amazed. This wears thin in a short time.

The best chapter by far is one that begins with Nobue face down on the ground.  Miu concocts a complex and fascinating series of rebuses that send the other four on a quest for something. The puzzles are complicated and erudite, which meant that it was Chika and Nobue doing the heavy lifting. It turns out that the something in question is Chika’s diary. Nobue shows us that cruel streak she occasionally has and reads passages out loud until Chika snaps and knocks her lights out. It wasn’t a feel-good story, but once again, I find myself on team Chika.

The final chapters hinge on the classmate who is always being sent out to stand in the hallway and his particular forms of cluelessness, and a Q&A game played by the gang while at a hot spring. 

Not the funniest issue, but possibly the most emotionally complicated. The best thing to come from it were definitely the t-shirts I got in Akihabara.

Ratings: 

Art – 7
Story – 6
Characters – 5 for everyone else, 100 for Chika
Service – 6 Not as much, but still….

Overall – 7

Amusing rather than funny. I think Barasui’s a little tired of doing this.



Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – December 16, 2017

December 16th, 2017

Yuri Anime

Having found success with the most exploitative series in Comic Yuri Hime, Ichijinsha is trying again with Tachibanakan To Lie Angle (立花館To Lieあんぐる). This perve-fest of cameltoes and breast shots is getting an anime according to Comic Natalie. As with NTR, I won’t be watching or covering this here. It’s another series that is physically repulsive to me. (I’ll point out only that Comic Natalie also basically calls it a “perve-fest.”)

Tomoyo is her usuall over-excited self in anticipation of the new Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc anime in this promotional video.

Via Crunchyroll News, Funimation has announced simuldubs for both Cardcaptor Sakura and citrus . Crunchyroll will be streaming citrus with subtitles. I didn’t see news that they are streaming CCS, but I’d assume so, in any case.

***

Be Part of the Okazu Family!

***

Yuri Manga

Viz has a lovely video in honor of the release of Shimura Takako’s Sweet Blue Flower series. 

Via YNN Correspondent M, take a look at this conversation between Bloom Into You‘s creator Nakatani Nio and Takemiya Keiko about expressing love and gender in manga. (Clearly something I need to read after my thoughts in yesterday’s review!)

 

Kickstarter News

Great news from our friend Niki Smith. Her serial Crossplay is being Kickstarted (already more than fully funded with days left) to be collected into a full-sized Erotic Graphic Novel from Iron Circus Comics. This is a bandwagon worth jumping on!

 

Other News

For something fascinating and tangential to us here, this video of Keridwen N. Luis, Naked Among the Karma Eaters: The Body Politics of Women’s Lands presented at the Boston Athenæum, on Dec. 5. 2017 is full of interesting discussion of body politics among women’s groups.

Kakinouchi Narumi is going to resurrect (see what I did there?) Vampire Princess Miyu in a news series, Vampire Princess Miyu – Saku, according to Crunchyroll News’ Paul Chapman. Whee! That was a great, creepy, occasionally super gay series of the 1980s and 90s.

 

Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.

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



Yuri Manga: Bloom Into You, Volume 3 (English)

December 15th, 2017

As I read Nakatani Nio’s Bloom Into You, Volume 3, I get to experience a vast range of emotion, much of which I find hard to put into words. I can’t help seeing the narrative through my own lens, even when the characters tell me that my interpretation is wrong. ^_^;

In Volume 3, Yuu is at great pains to explain her feelings about Touko. She acknowledges confusion about what she and Touko want and also that their needs are only partially compatible. But what is not acknowledged is that Touko’s needs and desire from Yuu are mutually exclusive in and of themselves. On the one had, she needs Yuu to never fall in love with her, but she also wants Yuu to want her. Yuu, as always, has a different story in her head. She kind of reminds me of a person I knew who was waiting for some kind of spiritual awakening. She did all kinds of different spiritual practices, but never felt that “aha!” she was looking for. I keep wondering if Yuu is just missing what she’s actually feeling, while looking for something else.

In the meantime, I give all my attention to Sayaka and the cafe owner, their teacher’s lover. The cafe owner has good gaydar, (and again, I crow about the important place of adult role models in teen narrative.)

But, back to me and my feelings. I am exasperated with Touko, and her pushing Yuu for whom I feel sympathy but no empathy. Before I began writing this review I asked myself if I would have less frustration if I knew that Nakatani-sensei were either queer herself or was, in actual fact, attempting to portray a complexed, nuanced queer narrative. To be honest, the answer was yes. As it is, I’m taking the narrative as it’s presented, which means I’m as at a loss as Yuu. I can’t help but compare this to Shimanami Tasogare. While equally fraught, the situations in Kamatani-sensei’s story are more realistic and I believe we can trust the creator to tell us a strong LGBTQ story, neither of which is true for Bloom Into You.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Generally good, with a few lazy panels
Story – N/A I have no idea. Is it good? Is it going exactly the way the creator wants it, or not? I can’t tell!
Character – Erm, um, 3? I can’t get a bead on who/what Touko is, and as she’s the main plot driver….. +3 for adult lesbian couple
Service – 5 Yes, see below
Yuri – 8 Yes, despite narrative (and/or overthinking reader) confusion, there’s plenty of Yuri.

Overall – 7, with me waffling back and forth throughout from good and nuanced to argh.

Volume 4 will be hitting shelves in February 2018. It’s not going to resolve any of my conflicted feelings



LGBTQ Comic: Bingo Love

December 13th, 2017

Sometimes, all you really want to read is an adorable story about a timeless love winning over intolerance and other people’s opinions. On days like that, I heartily recommend Bingo Love, the triumphant graphic novel by Tee Franklin with art by‎ Jenn St. Onge ,‎ Joy San and‎ Genevieve FT. 

Hazel and Mari met at a bingo night back when they were young. Although they fell in love, they were separated by family and society not ready to accept them for who they were. Decades passed and they each went on to marry, have children and support their families, but when they are reunited, their love rekindles. Whether society – and more importantly – their families, can accept them as they are, is the body of this story.

There are many things to like about Bingo Love. Available in print and as a digital comic, this story about two black American women, living lives with roots in church and family, finding true love despite everything, is something that the world of graphic novels was ready and waiting for. That Bingo Love is also a real-life success story of a team of women of color, who built the book through crowdfunding, eventually licensing it to a large national publisher, is worth celebrating. This is the money that mainstream comics companies are passing over in favor of retread Batman and Avengers narratives. It’s worth saying this and, if we care about comics, it’s worth listening to. These stories, these creators, deserve the limelight and deserve our support.

Even more importantly for us here at Okazu, Bingo Love gives us something we rarely get a chance to enjoy – the after “happily ever after.” It’s a rare look at adult women in love, dealing with real-world issues that queer women actually have to deal with. For that, this would be a must-read, but Bingo Love is so much more.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Utterly squee
Story – 9
Characters – 8 Even the ones that make you angry, you can’t really hate.
Service – Not really
LGBTQ – 10

Overall – 9

In this holiday season, there’s no better idea for us to highlight and support women of color creators telling the stories they want to tell. And in return you’ll get a sweet love story that spans American history and looks forward to a better future for all the Hazels and Maris out there.