Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – April 16, 2016

April 16th, 2016

YNN_MariK

Yuri Events

If you are in the NYC area, do check out the Alt Sex Manga Panel  at LaGuardia College on Monday, April 18th, with me and Anne Ishii of Gay Manga and Prof. Ting Man Tsao (English) & Terena Tsao. I’ll be providing history and background, they’ll be talking sex and shipping and fanon. ^_^

Only a few weeks more until  I give a (very) brief history of Yuri as part of the Tokyo Comics Showcase. This is going to be an amazing event, so I hope you all come!

Kotaku has a glimpse inside the Sailor Moon Art exhibit in Roppongi. It looks kinda squee-making. ^_^

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Yuri Game

Soul Jazz Soldier has provided a teaser image on Twitter for the upcoming Yuri Game based on the Ririkuru (Lily Cycle) Yuri Drama CDs, Ririkuru Rainbow Stage! They have a Youtube channel for PVs.

Razz, the creator of Yuri Visual Novel Starlight Vega has been kind enough to let us know that it is now available on Steam and that it has multiple routes. Take a look and let us know what you think!

If you have an Android device, the popular gem-matching game Sailor Moon Drops is available for the first time in an official English version. If you want to friend me, drop me a line and we’ll share IDs. ^_^

 

Yuri Manga

ANN has the news that the Yuri Kuma Arashi manga will be wrapping up at the end of this month. Thanks to the multiple YNN correspondents that wrote in to let us know!

Kuzushiro’s Heian gag manga Kimi no Tamenara Shineru, Volume 6 (姫のためなら死ねる) is hitting shelves in May. Volume 6, wow.

Yagate Kimi ni Naru Volume 2 (やがて君になる) will make its debut at the end of this month.

 

Other News

You’ll want to take a look at these Sailor Moon Major Arcana Tarot cards by Sillabub429 on Deviantart. Fun art and some good choices.

 

LGBTQ News

Tagame Gengoroh’s delightful story of a Canadian visiting his late husband’s brother, Otouto no Otto (弟の夫) second volume went on sale earlier this year.

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 »


Nari x Yuki Living Manga, Volume 1 (なり×ゆきリビング)

April 13th, 2016

51cGtZKcFOLNonoka Tatsu’s Nari x Yuki Living, Volume 1  (なり×ゆきリビング 1) is an ant-farm of  manga. The entertainment is watching these two go about their lives in which nothing particular happens. It’s not that it’s not entertaining, just that you have to scale down your expectations in order to find it enjoyable.

Shinomine Kanari is a bit helter skelter, while Sato Yuki is very reliable. Sato is the section chief, at Shinomine’s workplace. When Shinomine, after  a workplace drinking party suddenly asks Sato if she can live with her, as Sato lives so much closer to the office, Sato says yes. And so Yuki and Nari begin their life as roommates. Their life is predictable and fun in it’s own way. They work, they come home, have dinner, go shopping or go out drinking, rinse repeat. Normal lives lived normally.

The manga is a typical 4-panel strip comic, with occasional bursts of actual humor, almost all of which has to do with the other employees at their mutual workplace. In particular, there is a meaningless gag having to do with the similarity between Shinomine’s family name and another employee named Shinomiya. A mistakenly routed phone call sets off an avalanche gag in which the two become become the “Mine and Miya combo” and ultimately end up as “Shino Red” and “Shino Blue.” The gag has nothing to do with the main story, but still ends up being the funniest bit. Without this gag, we’re left with Sato being blind without her glasses, or their next door neighbor eavesdropping. … Hah.

While there is certainly plenty of set up for Yuri between Yuki and Nari, none manifests, not even with all their drunken evenings. Lots of sloppy hanging on one another and blushing, but they barely know one another at the beginning and by the end have just started becoming friends.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Sloppy, sketchy and lazy, but kind of cute
Story – 6 Same
Characters – 6 Likable, even if they just keep going back and forth along the same tunnels.
Service – 4 Sadly, there is some.
Yuri – 1 Sadly, there really isn’t any.

Overall – 6

It’s not a terrible manga, although it is a bit one-note. But, like an ant farm, I kind of can’t stop watching to see what happens…which is ridiculous, as the answer will be “mostly, nothing.” But still, we watch.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »


The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle

April 10th, 2016

41LzX65WdILIf there is one book that I would suggest everyone read in 2016, it is Lillian Faderman’s epic history of LGBTQ rights in the United States, The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle.

Many of us are familiar with the Stonewall Uprising, and the subsequent Christopher Street Liberation Parade that birthed a hundred Gay Pride events worldwide, but fewer of us truly understand the events that lead up to it.. or to a similar “uprising” at a bar in LA before that, or the systematic destruction of gay lives before that. This book put into perspective the reaction of feminists to the “Lavender Menace,” and LGBT reaction to Anita Bryant‘s virulently anti-gay campaign and the importance – both bad  and, almost counter-intuitively, good – of the AIDS crisis.

More than anything, it puts into perspective the setbacks we’re struggling with now. As one reads, it becomes obvious that any progress is met with an irrational anger and attempts to send us back into the closet. And those angry attempts gain traction, which galvanizes our community and allies and we push back harder and make more progress. Again and again, the same scenario plays out, the destruction of lives, followed by the reversal of the law that enshrined bigotry. It’s almost said how predictable it becomes, honestly.

It’s fascinating, too, to realize that as bad as the current bathroom and freedom to discriminate laws are, the playing field is different. The law of the land no longer considers gay people criminal or crazy. It’s these discriminatory laws that are on the defensive now. They will be overturned. And the next step will give rise to other irrational laws that attempt to enshrine hatred and those too will be overturned. The cost, of course, is real lives thrown into chaos. But the arc of the universe continues to bend towards justice.

The other significant lesson one can take from this book is a primer on organizational lifecycle. Faderman tells the story in cycles, rather than purely chronologically, detailing the people, the organizations and the circumstances of specific battles such as the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, the decriminalization of “being gay,” the repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and so on. In each cycle we see people banding together, and breaking apart, over and over and over. Every group pushed forward, then is overtaken by a groups of younger, more radical protesters who demand more. It’s an honest and fascinating look at how hard it is to keep people focused – even when their lives are at stake.

Faderman, best known as a historian of lesbian history and content in books such as Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, takes on a long and dark history in this book…and she does a very good job of it. But she doesn’t make too much of an attempt to remain an unengaged observer. It’s not hard to tell, for instance, in her chapter on gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, her unbridled contempt for California politician – now Senator – Dianne Feinstein. While in an academic look at history this kind of personal emotion is discouraged, it is exactly this personal passion for the topic that makes The Gay Revolution such a compelling read.

At 650 pages of content and another 150 of notes, the book appears too large and intimidating to tackle. But I blew threw it in mere days, and kept making time to read “just a bit more” until I was done. It was that good a book.

Ratings:

Overall – 10

This is our history. These are the names and places we need to remember.  You should really read this book. Consider it your summer homework.

Posted in LGBTQ | 4 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – April 9, 2016

April 9th, 2016

YNN_LissaYuri Manga

YNN Correspondent Jocelyn B wants to make sure you know that award-winning writer Mariko Tamaki is teaming up with Lumberjanes‘ artist Rosemary Valero-O’Connell to bring us a after-the-happily-ever-after story of queer teen romance and dysfunctional relationships, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. The LA Times has a terrific interview with them on the needs for after the coming out/romance story and why teens deserve a story in which love isn’t a many-splendored thing.

Ichijinsha has a pile of new volumes coming out next month:

The July issue of Comic Yuri Hime, (コミック百合姫2016年7月号)

Saboruta’s Citrus, Volume 5

The 2nd volume of Kawai Roh’s horror manga Shoujo Shikaku (少女失格);

Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san Volume 5 (犬神さんと猫山さん)

Kururi’s Momoiro Trance, Volume 1 (桃色トランス)

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Yuri Events

Girls Love Festival will be returning to the Pio Building at Kamata Station, Tokyo on June 5th!

If you missed me at Baruch College this week, you can catch me talking about Queer Manga at LaGuardia College on April 18th.

Yuri Anime

YNN Correspondent Mariko has this surprising news, “Yurikuma Arashi is available as a BD/DVD set for preorder on Funimation’s site.” She (and I) hadn’t seen any news about it, but there it is!

ANN takes a look at the art for the first Blu-Ray disc for Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3.
Crunchyroll is streaming the exceedingly moe cute girls making and eating sweets bakery series, Pan de Peace! from Comic Cune.
The also ever-so-slightly-Yuriish-if-you-don’t-blink series Yuyushiki is getting a new anime episode, ANN reports.
Komatsu-san at Crunchyroll reports that the next volumes of Amano Kozue’s  series,  Aria perfect edition and Amanchu! will be bundled with collaboration Drama CDs. And Paul Chapman also at CR, has the scoop on the Amanchu! anime cast and schedule.

Yuri Webcomic

Senior YNN Correspondent Erin S points out this “sweet, short f/f sci-fi comic,” by Bee.

 

Other News

GLIMP! is a queer art newsletter from the Netherlands that is available online for free. Check it out on their website, Stichting Quast.

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 | 3 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Like a Cinderella, Perfect Edition (この靴しりませんか?)

April 8th, 2016

KKSPE-e1459611124613Mizutani Fuka’s Kono Kutsu Shirimasenka? was a sweet little collection of modern fairytales with Yuri frosting. There wasn’t much to dislike in 2011 when it was released by Hobunsha as a collected volume.

Now Hakusensha has re-released it as Like a Cinderella, Perfect Edition (この靴しりませんか?). The stories from the original work are reproduced intact with no changes. The major change is a short epilogue in which all the characters cross each other’s paths and we pair everyone up neatly…even the nice lady at the Information Desk.

Mizutani’s art is a little less practiced than what we’re used to now, but her distinctive style is visible.

As a reissue it’s lovely and the new content is both forgivable handwavery and kind of cute. In fact, I think I like the stories a little better now that I did 5 years ago.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – Variable, but average 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 7
Service – 1

Overall – 7

As I said in 2011, “This fairy tale collection is good for a smile, something we can all use from time to time.”

Posted in Yuri Manga | No Comments »