Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – September 29 2018

September 29th, 2018

Light week this week, I think we need some distraction from the real world….

Yuri Anime

Couple of news items on the upcoming Bloom Into You anime – ANN reports that Sentai Filmworks has licensed it, which means you’ll never hear when or if they actually release it, until you remember to look next year, since Sentai is great at licensing announcements, but has no followup. ANN also says that it will be streaming on the HIDIVE network. The stream will start with a sub, then add in a dub, Jennifer Sherman reports.

 

Yuri VN

Fans of the Flowers VN series will be happy to hear that Flowers 4 Seasons (FLOWERS 四季) is getting a PS4 release, according to the YuriNavi blog.

 

Okazu News

No podcast this week. Instead, because I had my video recording equipment set up for a Secret ProjectTM, I recorded a short video, inviting you all to become an Okazu Patron and be invited to an online Okazu Patron Holiday Party/Yuri Panel Extravaganza! Because I want to do something special for Patrons, to thank you all for your generosity and kindness. If you’re not yet an Okazu Patron, you still have time to become one and join us!

 

Other News
Someone on the Okazu Discord asked if getting the Uranus/Neptune character pair made the game more Yuri. Take a look at them holding hands in the Victory pose and tell me what you think! ^_^


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! Our YNN podcast is now available, in which I take a look at some key news items this week..

Got questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast!

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

Posted in Yuri Network News | No Comments »


Okazu Patron Holiday Party Yuri Panel Extravagaza!

September 27th, 2018

Happy New Year! Well, okay, we’re about 3 months early for that, but I want to share with you a limited-time offer we’re running for the Okazu Patreon. 

If you become a patron or an are currently active Patron between now and November 22, 2018, you will receive an invitation to a Patron-only Yuri Panel Livestream Event where you can hang out with other dedicated Yuri fans, ask me the burning questions you’ve always wanted answered and chat about Yuri until the wee hours. 

Both date and format are TBA, but Okazu Patrons will be receiving a survey about that in the future. This Holiday Party Yuri Panel Extravaganza will include prizes for amazing questions, including a Lucky Box full of random stuff, plus cool folks and a whole lot of Yuri fun. 

If you’ve ever wished you could attend one of my Yuri Panels, this is the event for you. No matter where you are, no matter what level of Patronage, you’ll be welcome to attend. Come celebrate Yuri with us for the holidays!

Posted in Events | No Comments »


Yuri Manga: Goodbye Dystopia, Volume 1 (グッバイ・ディストピア)

September 24th, 2018

I love Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア) by Hisona. Lovelovelove. Of the manga running in Comic Yuri Hime magazine that I adore, this is by far and away one of the best. 

It begins with a girl waking up after having fallen asleep on a train. She finds her head in the lap of completely strange woman. The girl and the woman get off the train and start to walk together. Where? Why? Who are they?

The girl has left home, because home has left her. The other woman is a wanderer, hunting down mysteries. They walk through abandoned landscapes, find empty homes filled with other people’s possessions, and they speak of very little of importance. After they have traveled together, the wanderer tells the girl that they haven’t shared their names. She, the girl is told, looks like a “Mizuki.” And she can call the other woman “Asami.”

And, so, Mizuki and Asami travel together. They find places to sleep and eat, they take the train and shop at malls, they talk on the phone, and are completely alone with the landscape more often than not, even when there are people around them.

By the end of volume 1 we know almost nothing of substance about either of them. Except, though, that both of them have memories of women in their lives who have, we assume, broken their hearts. Mizuki seems to be running from a failed love, perhaps Asami is running from a loss. We don’t know anything beyond what we see.

Hisona’s art is the exact kind of loose sketchiness I like best, with a heavy focus on plants and overgrown roads and rails as a constant companion to the two women. 

I love that we know so little of them and that they still know so little of one another. I love that, in current chapters, Mizuki is trying to fill in the missing spaces in Asami’s story, and Asami is doing the same about Mizuki, without asking anything, without prying – without ruining what they have right now. 

And I love that, because of the title of the story and the two women’s reliance on themselves, it came as a blow to the head when we saw that phones work and net cafes exist and the mall sold fashionable shoes. Suddenly dystopia looked just like anywhere with (perhaps) more abandoned houses. 

Ratings:

Art – 9 YMMV, but this is right in my wheelhouse 
Story – 10 There is none. I love it.
Characters – 8 
Service – 0 
Yuri – 2 At the moment, it’s in flashback and memory only

Overall – 9

On shelves that are dripping with stories that look and sound eerily similar, this book stands out as truly unique. I will be content to travel with these two as long as they are on the road.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


Otona no Hattatsu Shougai Kamoshirenai!? Manga / おとなの発達障害かもしれない! ?

September 23rd, 2018

In 2017, Morishima Akiko-sensei published a comic essay in which she speaks at length about living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  Otona no Hattatsu Shougai Kamoshirenai!?  (おとなの発達障害かもしれない! ?), which translates to something like, “Is it possibly an adult development disorder!?” is a comic essay which her details her struggles working, her diagnosis, drug treatment – even family history. It’s an unprecedented look at extremely personal issues, and exactly the kind of thing that makes for a powerful and compelling comic essay. (It’s exactly the kind of thing East Press is putting out now – My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is probably their best-selling book so far, but they’ve been really digging in and publishing a lot of these personal confidentials about topics we don’t talk about – depression, AHDH, sexuality, gender, abuse, and the like.)

In this volume, we begin with Morishima-sensei’s description of concentration issues, energy highs and lows and other behaviors symptomatic of ADHD. After she did some research on the disorder, she researched clinics, until she found one that seemed like a good choice for her. Once she had her diagnosis, she then embarks on drug and behavioral therapy. More difficult, she moves in with her injured mother, as she’s attempting to work out a dosage schedule that suits her work and her body. Living with her mother makes her aware that her developmental disorder comes from a family medical history of this and similar issues. 

Much of the book is taken up with Morishima-sensei looking at episodes from her childhood with fresh eyes and realizing now what drove her behaviors then. There is a touching part where she “outs” herself as a Yuri manga artist and admits to loving drawing girls so very much.

Luckily for Morishima-sensei, she has two friends with children who have ADHD and are able to provide her with perspective and common ground (and a much-needed sense that whatever-this-new-thing-is is not abnormal.)  By the end of the manga, she’s reconnected with friends, as well. In one of the most encouraging endings to a comic essay I’ve seen, we see her at her drawing table, approaching her work one panel, then one more, then another.  

This is, without exception, the cutest book about ADHD ever. I originally picked it up because I like Morishima-sensei, but it was such a good book that I couldn’t put it down. I’m going to add these two panels to my screensaver to remind me of her resolve and re-engage my own.

 

Ratings:

Overall – 9

It was my very genuine pleasure to be able to spend a few hours once again with Morishima-sensei last spring and she looked great. (Which has nothing to do with health, as we all know.) I wish her all the very best. Once again, an impressive manga from the pen of Morishima Akiko-sensei.

Posted in Comic Essay, Morishima Akiko | 3 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – September 22, 2018

September 22nd, 2018

Yuri Manga

Exciting news for Yuri fans this week! Seven Seas has licensed two new Yuri titles. First up, EVE x EVE by Nagashiro Rouge, as part of their manga for mature audiences line – as I pointed out on our Yuricon Facebook group, I haven’t read the original Japanese volume of this yet, so I am cautiously optimistic. 

Also announced this week was a manga I reviewed last week – Kodama Naoko’s Oya ga Urusainode Kouhai (♀) to Gizoukekkonshitemite (親がうるさいので後輩(♀)と偽装結婚してみた。) as I MARRIED MY BEST FRIEND TO SHUT MY PARENTS UP. I suggested “I Fake-Married My (Female) Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up” might have been a bit more accurate, but maybe less funny? ^_^

Kodansha is releasing the Sailor Moon Perfect Edition, and Deb Aoki and editor Lauren Scanlan talk about it on the ANNcast this week!

Ultra Jump editors on Twitter announced Ultra Jump‘s very first Yuri anthology! Yuritora Jump (ユリトラジャンプ) will be available in Japan in mid-October. This will include the recent story by Hayashiya Shizuru, “Tanerabo manga do it!” I’m not bouncing out of my skin, you are. (This is not to be confused with the Kindle story Yuri-couple vs Bengal Tiger (百合ップルvsベンガルトラ) that exists in the real world. Why?!? Someone with 300yen and a JP Kindle account needs to get it and tell us what it is. ^_^ The description is hilarious – a ship full of Parisian girls sinks and a tiger is eating the girls. OMGWTFLOLBBQ.)

The first volume of Hisakawa Haru’s Yurikon (ゆりこん) serial about female couples who get married, has hit JP shelves.

 

Yuri Anime

A second, longer promotional video for the upcoming Yagate Kimi ni Naru (Bloom Into You) anime has been released on Youtube.

Still not Yuri, but still of interest, Aria the Origination has been added to the Crunchyroll catalog, according to ANN. ^_^

 

LGBTQ Comics News

For folks in the New York area, the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, NJ is running an exhibition of art from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For comic. Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel will run through December 30, and Bechdel will be there to do a talk on October 10. I love the Zimmerli and recommend it highly. 
 

Other News

Cartoon Network is running a Storyboard Training Academy. Applications are open. Definitely read the FAQs, because it is a form of paid internship at CN, but you’d be responsible for your travel and room.

A group of Maine pastors with no sense of irony attempted to get a copy of My Lesbian Experince With Loneliness pulled from a Banned Books display, ANN’s Lynzee Loveridge reports.

Over on Crunchyroll, Nicole Meijas reports that Akiyo Nagano, Atsuko Ishizuka, and Akira Himekawa Discuss Being a Woman in the Anime and Manga Industry.

Nippon.com has a tidy little article about the spread of LGBTQ acceptance in Japan beginning with Shibuya’s offering same-sex partnership certificates.

Catch my discussion of this week’s news and some other items of importance on the YNN Podcast on Patreon! I did the audio editing myself this week, so don’t blame Ashley for it. ^_^

 

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! Our YNN podcast is now available, in which I take a look at some key news items this week..

Got questions about Yuri? Write in and ask and I’ll do my best to address them on the Okazu YNN Podcast!

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

 

Posted in Yuri Network News | 3 Comments »