2017 Yuri Manga in English Updated List

February 26th, 2017

Back in September, I wrote a piece about upcoming Yuri manga in the USA. Well, since then, more titles have been added and I wanted to do an update of series coming up this year. Some of these items are on the Yuricon Store, some are not yet, so I also thought it would be a good time to explain how the Yuricon Store works. At the moment,  I focus on adding new items , and every few months on a really boring day, go through to see if older links still work. I also try to NOT add items that have no cover image. It’s a pain in the butt to remember to go back and add in the images. ^_^ 

Manga companies are absolutely shitty about getting cover images up for pre-orders, because they need to get 5 million approvals from the Japanese companies before they are approved. Which means there are books that are coming out in spring with no cover images yet. So they aren’t on the Yuricon Store yet. In case you ever wondered. 

Since links on the Yuricon Store go to Amazon.com anyway, for today, I’m just going to link directly. But don’t forget that the Store is searchable in English and Japanese and if you’re not sure about an item, you can always contact me!

In any case, here is a more updated roundup of the Yuri Manga titles for 2017* with all the pre-order links that exist so far:

Seven Seas

Bloom Into You by Nio Nakatani

Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3| ongoing

This school life drama follow Yuu, a girl who does not have romantic feelings for anyone and Touko, the President of the Student Council, who falls for her. Yuu admires Touko, but is not sure of her feelings.

 

 

 

Hana and Hina Afterschool by Milk Morinaga 

Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3

Hana meets Hina while working at a (not-allowed) part time job after school. They become friends and start working together. Will they become something more than just friends? Probably, since this is a Milk Morinaga  story. ^_^

 

 

 

Kase-san Series by Hiromi Takashima

Kase-san and Morning Glories | Kase-san and Bento |Kase-san and Shortcake

A breathtakingly sweet romance series between Yamada, an average girl who loves flowers and the star of the school track club, Kase. One of the most realistic teen romances I’ve ever read in Yuri manga.

 

 

 

Kindred Spirits on the Roof Manga Complete Set by Hachi Ito and Aya Fumio

1 Volume

This set includes Side A and Side B of the companion manga to the popular Visual Novel Kindred Spirits on the Roof, with cameos from game characters. Spirits Sachi and Megumi still hope to turn Shirojo into a Yuritopia!

 

 

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata

1 volume

This manga was serialized on Pixiv, as Nagata details her struggles with depression, an eating disorder and finding friends and companionship as a lesbian.

 

 

Secret of the Princess by Milk Morinaga

1 volume

Another school life drama from Milk Morinaga. Miu thinks that, as a princess, she needs to find herself a prince. But when she practices being princessly with Fujiwara she finds that sometimes a princess doesn’t need anything other than another princess.

 

 

Viz

After Hours by Yuhta Nishio

Volume 1 | ongoing 

Emi and Kei meet at a nightclub, and spend the night together. An adult relationship story (although the art is a bit infantilizing.)

 

Revolutionary Girl Utena Manga Box SetRevolutionary Girl Utena Manga Box Set by Chiho Saito and Be-papas

 2 volume set

Every year Utena receives a mysterious postcard. This year, the postcard leads her to Ohtori Academy to look for the prince who saved her as a child. Instead she’s put in the position becoming the prince to the Rose Bride. This is the high-quality treatment that this fantasy series deserves.

 

 

Sweet Blue Flowers by Takako Shimura

Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3| Volume 4| Volume 5| Volume 6| Volume 7|Volume 8|

Fumi hasn’t seen Akiko in years, but her friend is back in town and once again they are thick as thieves. When Fumi starts dating an upperclassman at her all-girl’s school, she tells her best friend and gains strength. Shimura  drew on classic Yuri tropes for this “S”-style school romance, but with a deft touch and compelling characters drags the whole genre into the 21st century. 

 

Yen Press

A Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl by Canno

Volume 1 | Volume 2| Volume 3| Volume 4 | Volume 5 | ongoing

This ongoing school serial begins with two girls, Yurine Kurozawa and Ayaka Shiramine, who could not be more opposite if they tried and the relationship that one of them wants desperately to deny.  Later volumes follow other couples at the same school as well as circling back to Ayaka and Yurine.

 

 

 

Murciélago by Yoshimura Kana

Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3| Volume 4| Volume 5| Volume 6| Volume 7|Volume 8| Volume 9| ongoing

 This extremely adult, extremely gruesome, madcap “violence Yuri” story follows psychopathic killer Koumori Kuroko and her partner Hinako ,as they track down and kill other killers for the police. There are no good guys here. Everyone is broken, the stories are gross, sometimes with side of extra creepy and the lesbian sex is weird. ^_^ I like it, but do not recommend it.

 

Udon

Rose of Versailles – Still no pre-order available. I’m hoping for a Q2 release. 

 

 This manga is not Yuri, but is gay and you definitely want to add it to your  orders!

Pantheon

My Brother’s Husband – Gengoroh Tagame

Volume 1| Volume 2 | Volume 3 |ongoing

This adult life drama follows Mike Flanagan, a gay man from Canada who visits his late brother’s home in Japan, in order to learn about his childhood. He meets he husband’s estranged brother, Yaichi, who now has to deal with things he never thought he’d have to deal with, like his brother Ryoji’s sexuality. It’s a great series and I’m going badger you all into reading it. ^_^

 

And there we have it – an updated list on Yuri manga worth spending your money on in 2017!

I wanted to thank you all, because of you, we hit the 2016 Okazu Patreon goal this week. (Now on to 2017 goal – paying all our Guest Reviewers!) So I thought about how to best reward you all for your support and decided that a big chunky list of good stuff to get with pictures and links that took me hours and hours to put together was just the ticket. ^_^ Thank you again!

   

*Everything that I wish to have on this list is on the list. If you do not see a title here I did not want it on this list.

 

 

 

Posted in English Manga, LGBTQ, Yuri Manga | 22 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – February 25, 2017

February 25th, 2017

A quick data dump today. I’m out partaking of some local history before the entire National Park Service ends up being closed, now that they are part of the resistance. (Go check out their page right now as they celebrate Black history month.)

Yuri Events

You are invited to join me and publisher Anne Ishii at the Rainbow Manga talk  at Hunter College, NYC on March 10th. Please RSVP at the link above.

The 2017 Yuriten event in honor of Canno’s Anoko ni Kiss to Shirayuri wo series will be held March 18-26 at Ikebukuro’s Marui building and from there, moving to Osaka, Comic Natalie reports. Manga artists Amagure Kido and Hirao Auri will be participating.

 

***

Subscribe to Okazu with Patreon. Help us pay our Guest Writers!
Subcribe with Patreon

***

Yuri Anime

Crunchyroll has added older anime Gakuen Alice, which while not a “Yuri” anime has a lovely deep friendship and (spoilers) a dance between the two female best friends amidst some very fucked up emotional and physical abuse of little kids in a fantasy school series. It’s both a good and terrible series at once.

 

Yuri Artbook

ANN has the news about a new 50th anniversary Rose of Versailles Anime Artbook. 

 

LGBTQ Comics

We have Lumberjanes, Volume 2 up on the Yuricon Store. More camping adventures with lake monsters and ancient gods!

Also on the store, Legend of Korra: Turf Wars, Part One and Katie O’Neill’s darling comic Princess Princess: Ever After.

 

Other Readings

I so very strongly suggest reading Ijeoma Oluo‘s When A Woman Deletes A Man’s Comment Online. Oluo is not exaggerating even slightly. I’ve had guys follow me across multiple platforms to be able to keep ragging at me, as well. 

Grant Jones takes a look at a classic anime in Neon Never Fades: Thirty Years of Bubblegum Crisis.  I have a fond place in my heart for BGC, as it was (pursuant to the above article) the first time a guy followed me across multiple platforms to be able to keep ragging at me, because Priss won in our very first popularity poll on the Yuricon Mailing List. This guy was really annoyed that people thought Priss was gay and blamed me. ^_^ Poor guy.

This sounds interesting: Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters graphic novel has been reviewed by the New Yorker in A Graphic Novel Novel About a Young Girl, a Murder, and the Allure of Monsters.

 

Know some cool Yuri News you want people to know about? Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find.Emails go 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!

Posted in Yuri Network News | No Comments »


Hungry for Yuri? Subscribe to Okazu!

February 22nd, 2017

In 2015 I wrote a post called Supporting Your Local Comics Ecosystem in 2015. In that article I address the issue of the people who work on comics/manga and the people in those industries who rely on people paying for those comics legitimately.  In that article I wrote, 

“Entertainment is created by artists, but also by their assistants, their editors, the art directors, the layout people, the printers, and web developers, sales people, delivery people, all the way down to the part-time bookstore employees who shelve stuff and the post office who delivers it. I know you know this, but I want to say it:  If you have ever once thought “Hey. I want to work in comics” you might also want to think about this –  if everyone makes comics, but no one buys them – where does the money come from? When you buy something, you are contributing to a larger economic system that sustains those jobs and the people who work them”

Okazu readers overwhelmingly support this ecosystem. You buy the stuff you read and watch and listen to, you subscribe to journals, to blogs, to legitimate online streaming sites. I am so very thankful. I know that my readers are active participants in the industry they enjoy. It’s one of my greatest pleasures to know so completely that you are the market as well as the audience for Yuri.

Here in 2017, we’ve been given an unprecedented number of Yuri manga releases and events. I want, of course to be everywhere, and do everything and tell you about all of it. But I can’t. I spend about 20 hours a week on Okazu now and there just isn’t enough time and money to be everywhere. 

In the past, when you subscribed to Animerica or to OtakUSA magazine, you didn’t get an ad-free experience. In fact, advertising was what paid for print journals far more than your subscription did. The subscriptions paid for the content, the ads paid for the everything else that made it possible to print a magazine.

Okazu isn’t a monthly magazine. It’s a free, 4-6 times a week, no-ad experience. I don’t ever want that to change. So why do I ask you to subscribe? To pay for the content, just like in the old days. Good writing takes time and effort and people who do it deserve to be paid. And to get you that content, human beings have to buy things and go places. Those take time and money too.

So once again, if you read Okazu regularly, I’m asking you to contribute to the ecosystem here. We’re just  very few dollars permonth off our 2016 goal on Patreon and this year it is really important for us to be able to pay Guest Reviewers. 6 more people at $5/month  ~ 6 more heroes and we’re over that mark. And, because I really  mean it when I say I care about the content, I’ll make sure Guest Reviewers are rewarded with something more than just thanks, even if we’re not at the 2017 goal yet.

Please help us get to more events, be able to review more Yuri and above all, reward our Guest Reviewers! Please consider subscribing to Okazu on Patreon. There’s week left to be entered in the Patron Contest, so subscribing now enters you in a chance to get a box crammed full of *stuff.* Who doesn’t want that?

To those of you who have already become Patrons, thank you. You are truly my Heroes!

 

Posted in Okazu News | No Comments »


LGBTQ Manga: Collectors, Volume 2 (コレクターズ)

February 21st, 2017

On Yuricon, we have an intentionally very broad definition of Yuri.

Yuri can describe any anime or manga series (or other derivative media, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience. In short, Yuri is any story with lesbian themes.

This is intentionally broad to allow fans’ perspective take the driver’s seat. In essence – if you (or I, or anyone else) think it’s Yuri, it is. 

Here on Okazu, we have a slightly less broad concept around how I, personally identify Yuri vs something that I might identify as LGBTQ.

“Yuri is lesbian content without lesbian identity”

As I see it, once the character (or the characters around them) see the character as lesbian, that’s a door that can’t be closed. Any story I write about a woman who identifies her romantic partner as “her wife” is, by it’s nature, going to signify them as lesbian because, as we’ve learned in the last decade marriage is most definitely a political act for a same-sex couple. It’s political because, even if the country where it takes place doesn’t recognize the partnership, it forces everyone around the couple to related to them as a couple.

If I tell you I have a housemate, you may decide on our relationship to fit your level of comfort. When I say I have a wife, I have defined that relationship for you and now you must figure out how to deal with it.

All of which is to say that while Collectors, Volume 1 was a terrific Yuri manga, Collectors, Volume 2 (コレクターズ) is a terrific LGBTQ manga. In my review of Volume 1, I praised the series being grounded in reality, and especially in the reality of a relationship. As I said, “Life. What could be funnier, more poignant or more interesting?” In Volume 2, we get something more…something that I knew I was missing, but didn’t want to be demanding and ask for. We get lesbian identity.

Typical of creator Nishi UKO, the identity issue is integrated seamlessly into the narrative. No awkward Marvel-esque “She likes girls” banners, just a co-worker who casually notes that Shinobu and Takako are a couple, then talks away an acquaintance’s immature perspective on that fact. So Shinobu is out to at least this coworker or he’s smart enough to see the obvious.

But what actually lifts this book out of Yuri into LGBTQ (oh, nice hierarchical slam there Erica. Sheesh, elitist much?) territory is the entirety of the final part of the book. As Shinobu and Takako consider, not for the first time, moving in together, they have a fight. Not a snarky, bickery fight, but a real fight. Takako is insensitive, Shinobu is rude, Takako throws the contents of her glass at Shinobu and leaves, then leaves town to go to her family’s home.  I cannot for the life of me remember any other chapter of any Yuri manga that so accurately portrayed a real fight between a couple, and I’m hard pressed to come up with too many other manga that have done so. (And now that I think about it, all of them are Josei.)

Takako disrupts her younger brother, Takeyuki’s, life by sticking around. He’s been clued in for a while that she has a lover, but has no idea who it is. When he sees the number calling her over and over on her phone, he calls back, surprised to find that it’s his sister’s friend Shinobu. He tells Shinobu he thinks his sister has had a fight with her lover. Shinobu says she’s on the way. The scenes of Shinobu taking the late train are some of the best panels I’ve ever seen in manga.

When Shinobu arrives, Takako comes outside to speak with her and, at last, the penny drops for Takeyuki. Although Takako has never said anything, Take and Dad take in the fight, the body language and the whole thing becomes clear.  While they do not say, “I am a lesbian” at all during this, there is recognition of them as a couple by Takako’s father and brother and that, specifically, sets this manga apart.

This is followed by a touching ending. The final words of the series are “Let’s live together” with furigana that says it louder for the folks in the back -“Let’s get married.” ^_^

A magnificent end to one of the most deeply satisfying manga about adult women ever, by one of my favorite artists. 

I look forward to whatever Nishi UKO-sensei has planned next, but for now, I’ll just bask in the glow of my choice for top manga of 2016 for all the right reasons.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 10 
Characters – 10
Yuri – 10
Service – 1

Overall – 10

Collectors was perfect. Thank you.

Posted in LGBTQ, Nishi UKO, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


Benten Botan Manga, Volume 1 (弁天ぼたん)

February 20th, 2017

Q: How do you know a manga is considered really good around here? A: When I wake up and send a ridiculous tweet the the manga artist in bad gang patois saying that it’s awesome!

Benten Botan,  Volume 1 (弁天ぼたん) by Saida Nika is awesome.

It’s been a while since I had a chance to read something by Saida-sensei, creator of Cirque Arachne (which fixed the biggest problem of Kaleido Star). When I saw that Saida-sensei had a new manga about a gang-girl, I knew I needed to read it.  ^_^

Bentenshima Botan has all her life been told about the awesomeness of the gang girls of Japan, by her late mother. When her father decides to leave their home in the Himalayas and return to Japan, Botan could not be more excited. She arrives at her her new all-girls school and announces that she’s willing to take on all comers. Instead of a challenge, all the girls go gaga over the tall, attractive newcomer. When she turns out to be good at sports and smart, too, she has an instant fanclub. 

She asks one of the girls where the local banchou is, but cute classmate Sumire informs Botan that that’s ancient history. Bummed, Botan heads off home. On the way she spots an obvious sukeban-type and she and Midori butt heads – literally – for the first time.

The school principal confronts Botan and challenges the young girl to bring it on, but Botan is nowhere near as strong as the principal, who is clearly one of the old-school sukeban her mother admired and, it becomes plain, who admired her.

Sumire confides to Botan that while she has a boy’s body, it was always her dream to go to a girls’ school. Botan promises to protect Sumire and her secret and almost immediately has a chance to insist that Sumire-chan be treasured as is. Midori recognizes that Botan and she share more than just love for the sukeban life and she softens a bit

Sumire, Midori and Botan become friends, which amazes and confuses Midori as, up until now, as the only girl in her household and engineering school, she’s never really has had girl friends, except Sumire. But she learns to like it pretty quickly and Botan’s disarming naivete’ even makes her laugh out loud.

At her grandmother’s bathhouse, Botan encounters a former boy gang member who takes her out for a ride on his bike, and kisses her. She loves the bike, find the kiss interesting and thinks he might be a good guy, until one of Midori’s brothers let her know that he really isn’t. And, as the book comes to a close, we can see Take-chan has some not-good designs on our heroine. What they are we don’t yet know.

In a final chapter we see that along with her fan club at school, Botan has the complete attention of her teacher who has developed a crush on her. But Botan breaks her heart when speaking to her classmates she says she likes Mizuki-sensei – she reminds Botan of her mother. Mizuki works on making that okay in her head while the principal sulks that Mizuki’s nothing like Botan’s mother.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8 
Characters – 9 There’s no one unlikable
Yuri – 1, LGBTQ – 4
Service – 2 A little, but more artful than gross

Overall – 8

This manga was just a ton of fun in every direction! It runs in Hibana magazine along with After Hours and My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness both of which have been licensed by Viz and Seven Seas, respectively and Shimanami Tasogare, so clearly I am going to have to get this magazine now. You can read a sample chapter of Benten Botan on the Hibana website. I hope you find it as entertaining as I did.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 6 Comments »