Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – June 11, 2016

June 11th, 2016

YNN_Lissa

Yuri Event

If you weren’t already planning on attending, get yourself down to AnimeNEXT in Atlantic City today at 3:30 for my last lecture of the first half of 2016! I’ll be talking “Yuri, Yaoi/Boy’s Love, Bara – How Fandom Made Queer Manga Possible” in Panel Room 319 at 3:30 PM. Prizes for good questions, as usual.

 

Yuri Manga

Well. Last week, we had a veritable deluge of amazing licenses from Seven Seas! They will be bringing out both Side A and Side B of the Okujou no Yurirei-san manga volumes under the western Kindred Spirits name. Both volumes were cute without being creepy, so that’s something we can really enjoy fully.

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Morinaga Milk-sensei is well represented with two new series, The Secret of the Princess (Ohime-sama no Himitsu) and her current series, Hana  and Hina Afterschool (Hana to Hina no Houkago).

Most exciting of all, they have licensed Takashima Hiromi’s Kase-san series, a series that has consistently made my Top Ten Lists and which was named Best Yuri Manga of 2014! (Here are my reviews of Asagao to Kase-san, Obentou to Kase-san and Shortcake to Kase-san.)

So kudos to Seven Seas and thanks for their continuing efforts to expand Yuri in the west. Good for them and good for us. You can be sure I’ll have links to these as soon as pre-orders are up. Now go tell friends – it’s up to us to make this a successful market.  ^_^

Yuri Comics and Novels

While we’re celebrating, let’s do a little jig at the news from Moviepilot.com that a Legend of Korra comic is coming from Dark Horse and it picks up after the series ends, Korra x Asami intact. Whee! (And btw, this site is your new best friend. Bookmark it.) YNN Correspondent Jennifer Y-D say she got the Free Comic Book Day prequel issue and it was great. This comic cannot come fast enough for me.

One more exciting publication on the horizon in English – the Steven Universe episode “The Answer”, which details the circumstances of Garnet’s origin will be made into a book, according to moviepilot.com. (I did tell you they were your new best friend.) And they have a lovely interview with Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar on why LGBTQ representation in cartoons is so important.

ANN has the news that Card Captor Sakura is getting it’s own newspaper.

And as a special for Pride month, YNN Correspondent Jennifer Y-D wants you to know that Humble Bundle has a LGBTQ book offer for Pay Whay You Want, which includes a number of graphic novels, as well as fiction and non-fiction books. This is an amazing deal – don’t miss it!

Yuri Visual Novel

A few weeks ago, we announced yet another Yuri VN coming down the pike. J. Kaplan has a new work coming out on Steam in a couple of weeks, called Highway Blossoms. Yuri Nation has an interview with J on the project. And I’ll be talking to him after I get a look at the VN! It looks pretty unique and I’m really holding out high hopes for it.

Yuri Light Novel

Paul Chapman at Crunchyroll News has the “what the what?” news of the month so far, with the scoop on Super Dash resurrecting the Read or Die Light Novel series!?!  You might remember from my reviews that the series basically crashed to a halt in Volume 8, then limped along for a few volumes, then just sort of stopped midway through an arc.  It’ll be interesting to see if Kurata can manage an ending for the epic series.

Other News

In my capacity as resident Quora expert about all things gay and animated, I wrote an answer to this question Why does everyone believe that Elsa is a lesbian just because she didn’t have a love interest in Frozen? that includes the gayest possible reading of Let It Go and the hope that we get a Disney romantic duet between Elsa and what I hope will be her dashing Princess.  ^_^

Speaking of gay media, Kitschmix.tv is a new on-demand service for lesbian movies and webseries that looks amazing. You can watch classics like Desert Hearts and brand new series like Carmilla. And it gets extra cred for the name.

Which brings me to a rewind. Someone legit asked if Kitschmix was carrying anime. No, but they don’t have to. You can already get a ton of classic Yuri anime (like Aoi Hana and Strawberry Panic) on Viewster and newer stuff (like Sakura Trick and Sailor Moon Crystal on Crunchyroll, free  – and legally.  And don’t forget company channels, like Revolutionary Girl Utena on Youtube. No need to reinvent perfectly good wheels. Nonetheless, it’s good to have a one-stop shop for live action series. ^_^

Our buddy Zan Christensen, publisher of LGBTQ comics and prose (with whom I have an upcoming project, squee!) made a splash this month with his pointed protest of Apple’s iTunes censorship of LGBTQ comics. This is not the first time they have pulled this and unless iTunes users complain, it won’t be the last.

We’re going to wrap up with some exciting, if mutedly so, news from Japan. Takarazuka City is the fourth Japanese municipality to offer same-sex certificates, and the first in Kansai. I want to run “fantasy themed” wedding packages so much and I don’t even like weddings. ^_^

 

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 | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Houseki no Youna Mono (宝石のようなもの）

June 9th, 2016

HnYMMMSince we’re doing stories that are kind of cringeworthy except when they are not, this seems like a really good time to review the latest collection by Momono Moto, Houseki no Youna Mono (宝石のようなもの). This is a collection of Momono-sensei’s doujinshi in a self-published, but very highly produced volume.

The collection is mostly one-shots, but it includes two doujinshi based on her own works, Kimi Koi Limit and Rainy Song, both of which have been reviewed here on Okazu. In “Kimi Koi Limit Plus” we see that Satomi and Sono are still together and that things basically look okay for them.

It becomes obvious by the end of this book that Momono-sensei likes her attraction salty-tears flavored and her favorite form of complexity for a character is melancholy. None of these stories were bad in any way, and most of the couples end up together, if that kind of thing works for you.

The art was variable since, as I mentioned these are one-shots drawn over time, but overall, you can’t really fault her for technique. Her art is slick and you can really tell the later work vs the former, as the art is visibly more layered and tighter.

I mentioned that this is a self-published volume, but I want to highlight the high-quality of the production. This is a professionally put together book, not at all out of place on shelves with Ichijinsha or Futabasha books.

This collection fills a need that I would personally like to see more of – professional artists collecting their original doujinshi. Like Amano Shuninta’s Philosophia, this gives us a chance to see the artists, free of editorial interference…and a glimpse into their hearts directly.

Ratings:

Art – 6-8
Story – Averaging at 7
Characters – 6 I can’t ever quite *like* most of her characters
Service – 5 There are some sex scenes and nudity
Yuri – 9

Overall – 7

Honestly, I intended to be a little unkind about this book when I started the review, but talked myself into liking it about halfway. ^_^

If you like Momono-sensei’s work, I recommend taking a look at Watashi no Muchina Watashi no Michi, Volume 1 and Volume 2 (which was reviewed here, although Volume 1 never was.)

Posted in Momono Moto, Yuri Doujinshi, Yuri Manga | No Comments »


Love Live Anime, First Season (English) Guest Review by Day

June 8th, 2016

LLSIPS1O happy Guest Review Wednesday! Today we have a returning Guest Reviewer and a unique perspective on something that I know of, but have not so much as lifted a single finger to engage in. But, let’s be real….any series with a large cast of girls and a presumptive male audience will be seen as “Yuri” by some portion of that audience. So, with that in mind, please welcome back Day!

Love Live is a multimedia juggernaut of which the first season of Love Live! School Idol Project is but one manifestation. The anime’s first season tells the story of a swiftly fading girls’ high school, Otonokizaka High, which faces imminent demise due to falling enrollment. Second-year Honoka Kousaka, cheerfully enjoying her shining youth (as anime teenagers are so given to), is devastated by the news. Luckily, Honoka lives in a parallel Japan wherein there exist “school idols”, girls who are regular high school students but also amateur musical stars, and it is in this that she believes she’s found the salvation she so desperately seeks for her school. Thus, Honoka sets out to recruit fellow students to her effort.

Set aside the silliness and creepiness of the concept of school idols, and what remains is a pretty bog-standard school club story populated by archetypes who rarely manage to elevate themselves above their assigned roles. Honoka’s the energetic can-do girl, blue-haired Umi is serious and uptight, anime-chubby Hanayo loves food… And while the stakes are allegedly high, the proceedings remain largely mired in the fluffy and the asinine, even after the eight (!!) episodes it takes to get the band together.

Ultimately, what irritates me about this show is that it takes a premise that could’ve made for a good sports anime and instead gives us a mediocre slice-of-life story. From the get-go we are made aware of A-RISE, a mega-popular group who looms large over the landscape of school idols, and who our plucky cast will eventually be fated to go head-to-head with. It’s a situation ripe for intense rivalries and melodrama, but after the initial bombastic introduction, they pretty much vanish. Instead, the girls struggle through daunting tasks like deciding who should be their leader, and convincing the student council president that school idols aren’t total trash. Occasionally, there are interludes featuring polished but bland music.

In among all this dull material, there are some items of note. The aforementioned student council president’s issue with the whole idol business is related to her own failure as a ballerina several years prior, which was a decent change from the generic “they’re a wet blanket” explanation for no-fun student council presidents. (Unfortunately, once she accepts that it isn’t a bad idea, her edges are totally sanded down and she ceases to be at all interesting.) One of the cutesier girls turns out to be the only one who has a part-time job and goals for her post-high school life. But best of all is twin-tailed Nico, who also happens to be the only fully-rounded character in the show. Nico is oft-scheming and oft-thwarted, initially stand-offish, given to bouts of duplicity, and the only one who seems to harbor no illusions, other than as regards her own ego. She’s frequently *terrible*. She’s great and I’m still shocked that something like series this would manage to produce something like her.

Now, of course, I wouldn’t be writing about this show at all if there wasn’t *some* Yuri angle to be found. But while the franchise writ large has been happy to proffer Yuri goggles for ages, and the fandom for Love Live has been merrily churning out Yuri fanworks, the evidence is nearly nonexistent here. Watching it, I myself felt mildly puzzled at the general absence of fuel; other than the obligatory breast-groping character, this seems to be shipping fuel for people who think two girls being within two feet of each other is reason alone for romance.

At the end of the day, I label the first season of this anime “eminently skippable”, unless you really enjoy low-stakes after-school club shows.

Art – 7 (it’s bright and colorful, and the girls are cute and don’t look like they’re eight years old)
Story – 4
Characters – 5 (I only hated one of them!)
Yuri – 1
Service – 2

Overall – 4 (a complete waste of time)

Erica here: Well, this sounds like perfect late night fevered watching, but I think I’ll continue to largely ignore its existence. ^_^ Can’t wait for your Season 2 review!

Posted in Day, English Anime, Guest Review | 8 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Swap⇔Swap, Volume 1 (すわっぷ⇔すわっぷ)

June 6th, 2016

swap^2You may recall that I recently reviewed Only ☆You~Anata to Watashi no Futari Bocchi Keikaku in which a reasonable premise went south almost instantly.

Today, we’re going to talk about Swap⇔Swap, (すわっぷ⇔すわっぷ), Volume 1, by Tomekichi in which a horrible premise manages to almost not go bad until the last few pages.

Ichinose Haruko is the dark-haired girl on the cover with the weird eyes. Nikaido Natsuko is the blonde. They have vaguely similarish names and are in the same class. Haruko keeps to herself and is a good student. Natsuko is fashionable and garrulous. And, quite suddenly and inexplicably, when they bump into one another lip first, they…switch bodies.

I know, I know. It’s a totally cringe-worthy plot device. And worse, when we learn that Haruko is also quietly obsessed with girls with large breasts, and they switch back and forth by kissing, one immediately starts to imagine where this is going. Only, it doesn’t. Not really. Not yet.

Neither Natsuko nor Haruko are particularly put out by their relationship. And they seem to have a solid grasp of where the “no-go” zone is. When Natsuko wants to switch in order to have Haruko take a test for her, Haruko puts the brakes on switching and instead studies with Natsuko to get her grades up. In return, Natsuko introduces Haruko to her friends and they all go out shopping and to the pool and other average fun. Most importantly, Haruko and Natsuko tell their friends about their weird relationship, and their friends…accept it. It’s  a normal slice-of-life comedy, in which they kiss to switch bodies and switch back. It peaks when Haruko switches bodies to give allergic Natsuko the chance to play with a kitten and everything is just kind of sweet and cute.

All is well, with mild humor and goofiness until we meet a second couple who can switch bodies. And suddenly, the editor demanded more service. What was a readable, mildly silly gag comedy becomes a breast-fetish gag comic without humor, for the last 10 pages. And then it abruptly stops. Presumably, there will be a second volume.  But I’m not sure if the thin veneer of Yuri in Haruko’s sort-of burgeoning interest in Natsuko will be developed more than the breast fetish, so I’m on the fence about continuing.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Not quite dreadful, but Haruko’s weird eyes help you know who is in which body.
Story – 5 There is no story, only a premise
Characters – 8 Actually kind of decent, which is surprising
Service – 2, rising to 5 by the end.

Overall – 7

I’m not going to say this was spectacular, but it wasn’t terrible, either. And if the Yuri is developed, it has some potential to be good. If the breast fetish is developed instead, it has potential to be dire.

Posted in Gag Comics/4-koma, Yuri Manga | 5 Comments »


No YNN Report this week

June 4th, 2016

It’s kind of ironic that, on a week I’m off for a little R&R, we’ve had a ton of amazing news. Check out this week’s posts for all the main news and I’ll be back to summarizing when I get back!

Posted in Yuri Network News | No Comments »