Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – August 1, 2015

August 1st, 2015

yuriconstore-banner-forweb

Super special exciting news! The new Yuricon Store is officially open!

Yuricon turns 15 this month, and Okazu is 13 years old and going strong and we wanted to do something amazing for this year’s celebration. Because emailing cake and balloons is difficult, we’ve got fun CONTESTS for you, our beloved Okazu readers and fellow Yuri fans, to celebrate our new Store! We’re looking forward to all your entries. ^_^

My heartfelt thanks to our webmaster, designer and all-round genius, Lissa Patillo  for the many many hours of work on the new Store.  And also to her and Meaghan for our lovely Grand Opening Image of Yuricon mascots Yuriko and Midori. ^_^ I am so excited to finally unveil this officially! Enjoy our one-stop shop for everything Yuri.

Now, onto this week’s news! And holy Yuri, there’s some amazing news…

Yuri Games

Mad popular Yuri game Okujou no Yuri Yurei-san has been licensed as Kindred Spirits on the Roof! I may be convinced to try this one, it’s just that popular.

ANN reports that R-INFINITY is planning a Yuri-focused dating sim game.  Go read their report and boggle at all the many horrible wonderful things promised. And remember, it’s always 1980 in Japanese dating sims, and it always will be. Happy endings and lesbians do not go together. Here’s a link to the game’s official site. ^_^;

In return, Twitter informed me that much less unhappy NenoKami: The Princess Knights of Kyoto is already licensed and may be less awful. Also licensed and heading our way is Shadows of Pygmalion.

YNN Correspondent Arca J wrote in to make sure we note that in a bold move from Nintendo, Fire Emblem will include same-sex marriage.

Guess I’ll have to open a new section on the Store, with all these licensed titles, huh? ^_^

LGBTQ Comics

Senior YNN Correspondent Erin S offers this list of LGBT Webcomics to tantalize and entertain you.

 

LGBTQ Event

Confusion SF in Detroit is specifically looking for LGBTQ cartoonists interested in participating. January 21-24, 2016, take a look at the website and contact Kurt Erichsen.

Other News

Japanese clothing chain UNIQLO is premiering a brand new line of women’s summer yukata, influenced by famous 20th century illustrator Nakahara Junichi, who we know from the elegant covers he drew for Yoshiya Nobuko’s novels.

This excellent overview of the 2015 Eisner Awards by Gina Gagliano on Tor.com,  gives one hope for comics.

 

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 Contests, Yuri Network News, Yuricon | 4 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Ohime-sama no Himitsu (お姫様のひみつ)

July 31st, 2015

ohnhmm-275x389In Morinaga Milk-sensei’s  Ohime-sama no Himitsu (お姫様のひみつ), Miu has been given some really questionable advice by her mother. Her mother has repeatedly expressed the need for Miu to care about her looks and be as pretty as possible in order to attract a prince and live happily-ever-after. Worse, as Miu attends an all-girl school, there’s no opportunity to even meet a real prince.

When cool, dashing, athletic Fujiwara-sempai is thrown into Miu’s path, she comes up with a plan to at least try out being a princess for a while, and asks Fujiwara to fake date her. It’s a great idea, only Miu forgets to account for the feelings of the students around her who admire Fujiwara-sempai, sempai’s teammates, Fujiwara herself and ultimately, her own feelings.

As cute as the art is, and as sweet as her writing is, the fundamental flaw here is the plot device I think of “I’m with you anyway, so I might as well fall in love.” We’ve seen it time and time again in romance media where two people, when placed in proximity, find themselves attracted to one another, no matter what actual obstacles could potentially arise.

What if Fujiwara was totally straight and played along only because Miu had power over her? Obviously, there would be no book, but its way more likely than the two of them falling in love just because. Is it likely at all that Fujiwara would fall in love with someone who blackmailed her into dating her? No, not really, but it makes for a more fun book than if she was sulky and resentful for 200 pages, then shed Miu like a winter coat at the first opportunity.

On the positive side, Miu starts to break out of the “must look cute to succeed” mold and starts to become more of a person mid-way through the book. It’s her best friend who lays it out for her, that by monopolizing Fujiwara, she’s effectively stolen her away from her fans. Yumi in Marimite talked about having a “fan’s pride” as well. And I think I can relate. We want to have the right to squee and bounce and maybe even glom on our favorites, but we also acknowledge the need for distance. Should someone cross that DMZ and enter our admired person’s life, we demand that it be real and not just some empty relationship. If a fan, or the admired person breaks that unspoken pledge, it hurts the other party.

Of course by the end, the relationship in this book is not empty at all. Both Miu and Fujiwara have come to realize that they actually love each other as they are and they go on to live happily ever after, after all.

A short extra story “Houkago Kanojo” is (to my eye) a fan story about Honoka and Nagisa from PreCure. ^_^ Smart nerdy girl and cool girl in science club, bond over killing bugs.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7 Problematic in the beginning, by smooths out over time
Characters – 7 for Miu, she also smooths out over time, but Fujiwara gets an 8 for being real throughout
Yuri – 7
Service – 3 bits here and there

Overall – 7

“I’m with you anyway, so I might as well fall in love,” will never be my favorite romance plot, but it is undoubtedly a popular one. If I were Seven Seas looking to do more Morinaga releases, I’d choose this over Himitsu no Recipe, definitely.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Yuri Anime: Dear Brother, Set 3, Disk 2

July 30th, 2015

DearBrother3-275x390“The tears, they will not stop.”

We hear this sentence at the end of of every preview, but do we listen? The tears, all the tears which have not been shed by Rei, by Kaoru, by Fukiko, and by Nanako are going to come gushing out in the most horrible lancing of a wound possible. It takes a pointless, awful, stupid, tragic death for healing to begin.

Saint Just is dead. It’s not a suicide, and that helps, but it doesn’t change that she’s gone.

All along, we were thinking that Nanako was the mascot of this series, that the story was always about the beautiful people. But in the end, it turns out that Nanako, like Yumi many years later, is truly the protagonist and that she functions as a catalyst for the lives around her, is not entirely accident.

Misonoh Nanako, who can see the symbolic moments in her life, the rain, the wind, and the doves, has always been the center around which this tale orbits and Saint-Just was just everyone’s mascot after all.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Yuri – 4
Service – 6 Bathing suits, nakedness

Overall – 9

It’s been a long time since this series ran on Japanese TV. Divorcing parents are no longer a scandal, breast cancer is no longer a death certificate. But, some things are timeless. Dear Brother is timeless.

Posted in Dear Brother, English Anime, Riyoko Ikeda, Yuri Anime | 7 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Love Desu. ~Short Story Collection~ (ラブデス　ラブデス。~短期集中連載集~)

July 27th, 2015

lovedesuAt last, a Yuri manga that was written for me! I do not care if nobody else on the whole planet enjoyed this book, because I loved it.

Love Desu. ~Short Story Collection ~ (ラブデス　ラブデス。~短期集中連載集~) by Kuzushiro follows the bad kids in school. Bad girls, who are passionately in love with each other and beat the crap out of each other to prove it. This is not a manga about abusive relationships; in this manga, the violence is a form of affection.

We’ve talked about this before, but I’ll remind readers that I am not opposed to violence between equals. And, in “Love Desu,” – which　I would translate it as “It’s Love (Death).” –  Shouko and A-ki are equals, alright. Each with murderous intent and a fondness for violence, they hash out the details of their relationship through such heart-warming tactics as a needle in the eye, or a knife through a hand. But it’s only because they both want to be the neko in bed. ^_^

In “Nikochuu,” Mai-sempai smokes and Aika has picked up her bad habit. Ultimately, what she really wants is to capture what Mai tastes like when they kiss. Yanki girls smoking on school property and being rude to the classmates around them, but  ridiculously cute in private is utter squee for me. I adore nasty women.

So, yeah, I know that this book isn’t going to appeal to everyone (maybe, anyone). But I love this manga with all my love.

Thank you, thank you Kuzushiro-sensei for this manga! It’s just about perfect. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 8
Service – For me, 10. YMMV

Overall – 10

Yuri needs more yankis.

Posted in Kuzushiro, Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Summer Reading – Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas

July 26th, 2015

81GCH6FO7nLFirst, the good news. My bathroom renovation is finally, after 9 weeks of crazy, finished.  I hope that means my life will return to normal and I’ll get back to regular reviews. (If not…oh well. ^_^)

Today I want to rave about the book that sustained me through the last few weeks, Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas, by Kazuki Sakuraba, translated by Jocelyne Allen.

The novel follows three generations of a rich manufacturing family in remote western Japan: Illiterate, clairvoyant, Manyo, a daughter of the mountain people who was abandoned as a child, her daughter Kemari, who ruled the girl motorcycle gangs of western Japan, then left it to become a famous manga artist, and her daughter Toko, the narrator of the book.

The synopsis had me intrigued. But you know I keep my expectations low, and I’ve read a lot of Japanese novels, so I’m aware of the slow-to-fast pacing that dominates their writing style. I did not expect to love this book.

I loved this book.

I enjoyed reading it so much, I did something that is unheard of for me – I stopped reading quickly. I started parsing out chapters, then half chapters, slowly, night after night, so I wouldn’t finish too soon.

The language in the book is quirky and strange. My first thought when I started reading was that the translator was a genius – how exciting for me, then to find that the translator was my friend Jocelyne Allen! What a fabulous job she did, communicating the richness of the words, the tones of the speech, and the all-out strangeness of the book. Did I forget to mention that it’s strange? It is. It’s really, really strange. Captivatingly so.

The isolated location, the overview of Japanese 20th century history as seen through the eyes of utterly unaverage, but completely sane, people, coupled with the fantastical visions, and fictionality of their lives, tied together with unnerving precision of description of humanity makes for a fascinating read. This is a super, dark, super, rich, super bitter dark chocolate of a book. The flavor is complex and delightful, but it requires an adult palate to appreciate it.

That said, I found the book especially delightful when it wandered directly into my own playground full of girl gang manga. I’m not going to lie  – those bits were extra specially tail-wagging for me. ^_^ Kemari’s manga, Iron Angels! bore a striking resemblance to Hana no Asuka-gumi, which put a smile on my face through that whole section.

But what surprised me most was how good (strange, but good) the ending was. It had been such a delightful read that I had no hope at all that the ending would be good. It was perfect. Strange, but perfect.

This is the first Haikasoru book out of Viz Media that I had ever read. If this is the kind of stuff they are putting out, I’m going to have to go browse through their catalog. This was an  amazing bit of summer reading, a great translation and a damn fine novel.

Ratings:

Overall – 10

I couldn’t have imagined a book this perfect for me to read this summer.

Posted in Novel | 2 Comments »