Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 25, 2015

July 25th, 2015

YNN_MariK Crowdfunding News

Our friends at Sparkler Monthly are setting up for their 3rd year, and would like your help to continue publishing fantastic female-creator and female-focused comics, prose and audio dramas! Support their Kickstarter to support Josei for the English-speaking world. The price of one manga will get you an ebook, the digital desktop set and their thanks. There’s even special creator levels that focus on Yuri creators KAIJU and Denise Schroeder.

This has nothing at all to do with manga, but I’m enamored with the iBackpack, a portable comunications hub, with enough charge for you and a bunch of friends to recharge your phones,  have wifi hotspot and a number of other features that will make it invaluable on the con circuit. The Indiegogo campaign launches August 15th. Stay tuned. I think this one might be a game changer for those of us who travel and con.

 

Other News

We knew this, but here’s the confirmation doubters won’t accept anyway – creators of Steven Universe agree that the Ruby and Sapphire are a lesbian couple.

Comic Natalie reports on a new Yuri Sci-fi manga series called “Heart of the Girl” beginning in Mangatime Kirara Miracle magazine.

ANN Reports that Otome Teikoku, an “ecchi comedy” by Maka-Maka’s  Kishi Torajirou (by which I mean it’s fairly unreadable,) is getting a “petit anime.” I reviewed Volume 1 in 2011, and never looked at it again.

Sentai Filmworks has released their first Sabagebu anime collection shots. It looks damn good. ^_^

I don’t honestly expect any great licensing news out of Otakon this weekend, but Summer Comiket is coming, and there’s always treasures galore there. The circle Lesbian Erotica, for instance, is going to be selling their BDSM comic, YuriKa, (ゆり母) collected this year, after having been online for YuRibon and on LINE manga.

Transformative Works and Cultures is looking for articles for a special Queer Female Fandom Issue. The Call For Papers can be found on Fanstudies. org.

 

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 | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Okujou no Yurirei-san SIDE B Nakayoshi Quiz (屋上の百合幽霊さん SIDE B 仲良しクイズ)

July 21st, 2015

In May, I oknyyssbnqreviewed the first of two Okujou no Yuri Yurei-san manga, based on characters from the popular Visual Novel series. In Okujou no Yurirei-san Side B – Nakayoshi Quiz, we stay in the same school, but meet new characters.

We follow Hasechi Haru, who is absolutely massively wowed by the co-presidents of the Quiz Show Research Club, Rika and Natsuki. Not only are they awesome perfomers and full of knowledge, they make a great couple…she thinks. And so does the other newbie in the club, Chiharu. Haru and Chiharu are different types, but it turns out that they share a little Yurijin fetish.

In between training absurdly hard for quiz shows  – by jogging, because exercise stimulates your brain –  (unlike, apparently, writing manga) Haru and Chiharu bond over their mutual desire to be awesome at trivia and see Rika and Natsuki happy together. So, when the co-presidents do not seem happy together, the newbies conspire to make them talk it out…and they all live happily ever after.

As a little cookie for their hard work Haru and Chiharu also live happily ever after.

No, this is not going to be the Yuri manga that changes the world, but it’s cute, it completely, utterly, totally lacks creepy service of any kind and all the characters act like high school girls. Wow, weird, huh? ^_^

The dynamic between Rika and Natsuki is adorable, and I sympathize with the resident Yuri goggle wearers. It would be impossible to not see a vibe between them, and it was comfortable, rather than forced that they felt that way about each other.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Utterly pleasant.
Story – 7 Cute and harmless
Characters – 8 Likable, a little thin in development as one might expect from such a series
Yuri – 8
Service – 1 Really not. A kiss or two. Nothing creeper-gaze. What a relief,

Overall – 8

You go Hirari, giving us service-free, unoffensive, bland schoolgirl Yuri that doesn’t make me want to scratch my eyes out with boredom. This was *just* what I needed this week, as I tried to work to the sound of tile saws.

Posted in Kindred Spirits / Okujou no Yurirei-san, Yuri Manga | 6 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – July 18, 2015

July 18th, 2015

YNN_Lissa

Quick datadump this week, my brain is leaking out my ears. If you follow me on FB, you know why. ^_^

I found this month’s copy of  MdN Design & Graphic magazine that had a Takako Shimura character and a girl on the cover. It turns out to be, as translator Simona Stanzani put it so succintly, “a ‘visual collaboration’ between Shimura Sensei and the idol Rina Ikoma.” Ikoma is a current member of idol group Nogizaka46.

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Zac Bertschy of ANN has an interview with Lauren Landa and Erica Mendez, who play Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus in the new Viz dub of the original Sailor Moon anime. He jumps *right* in with the “cousins” fiasco and moves on from there. Interesting read!  And I am motivated for the first time ever to watch a dub. I’m looking forward to Landa and Mendez’ performance.

ANN also follows up on our big question about Sailor Moon Crystal with a look at the “See You Soon!” message at the end of the final “Black Moon” arc episode. Will we get a third season? We don’t yet know, but there’s still hope.

We’re only a few weeks away from the Yuricon Store Grand Opening. We’re going to be doing some contests as part of the celebration. One of them will be for Okazu Patrons only, so if you have *ever* though about subscribing to Okazu, now would be a swell time. You’d be getting us closer to our launch goal and give yourself an extra chance at winning a contest!

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Rica Takashima’s article for Eureka magazine’s “Current State of Yuri Culture”, Japan: Fertile Ground for the Cultivation of Yuri, is live for all on the Yuricon Essays page! It’s thought-provoking and a completely different perspective than we might expect. If you do any writing on Yuri, please let us know the citations, or let us have a copy of the article, so we can keep Yuricon the most  comprehensive site for Yuri research!

Comic Natalie writes that the September issue of Comic Yuri Hime will have a 10th anniversary special “petit” Comic Hime edition application. I find this to be a bit wanky. For the last bunch of years, they’ve sold their “Saiyuri Hime” book at Comiket, and now they are just selling the same thing as a 10th anniversary special. Way to be uncreative, folks. If it were me, I’d do a retrospective of the last ten years with all the artists contributing a comic or a message…but it’s not me.

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 | 1 Comment »


Akuma no Riddle Manga, Volume 2 (悪魔のリドル)

July 17th, 2015

AknRd2In Volume 1, we met Haru who is being targeted by her classmates who are all assassins and Toukaku, the assassin who becomes her bodyguard. In Volume 1, none the questions we have were answered. This continues to be the case in Akuma no Riddle, Volume 2 (悪魔のリドル).

I have not done a word-by-word comparison of the manga and the anime, but they are extremely close enough for me to say, this is a manga adaptation of the anime, rather than a story on it’s own.

By the end of Volume 2, we have little insight into the school, the class, the reasons for targeting a student or Toukaku’s motivations. We do, however, have a few more poignant stories which highlight the motivations of the classmates targeting Haru. Some stories are ridiculous, others melodramatic, but this manga is never about Haru,  just as dog racing isn’t about the rabbit. We’re supposed to be paying attention to the hapless assassin members of Class Black and feel bad for them.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – If you like sympathizing with killers – 7, if not  – 4
Characters –  7 The violins are heavy here
Service – 2
Yuri – 1  We are told that this is a “Yuri” series but, like the anime, it’s hard to see

Overall – 7

In actuality, the only character I feel bad for is the teacher. He’s a simple creature and all this confuses and upsets him.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »


Sailor Moon, Season 1, Part 2, Disk 1 (English)

July 15th, 2015

SMS1P2At the end of a long day of tile cutters and sanding and drilling and sawing in my home,  I really want to chill with a relaxing TV show. Sailor Moon, Season 1, Part 2, Disk 1 is not that show. ^_^

Usagi is, as the intro of the show now states, “figuring it out.” But this disk starts in a brutal place, as Nephrite, who is showing signs of being a decent being, is killed. Killed, horribly and pointlessly, although not quite *as* pointlessly as Jadeite.  This means that Naru becomes the focus for a little while, as Usagi does her best to be a good friend. Remember, it is this friendship that gives Usagi the first real taste of what being a “soldier for love and justice” means, so Usagi hanging on and being there for Naru while she works through everything, is critical to us being able to like her.

At last, we add Sailor Jupiter. It’s always hard for me to pick an Inner Senshi I like best, but Makoto is usually my first choice, then I say, “well, Ami’s adorable and I like Rei, and Minako’s a goof” in that order. So, yeah, she’s  my fave. ^_^ Her appearance is steeped in the tropes of the gang-girl yanki she was originally meant to be. All that was shed in favor of the uber-girly flower shop, or perhaps bakery, owner she turned out to be. But still I love Makoto’s first few minutes on screen. ^_^

Now we’re up to four Senshi, but it’s not getting any easier…and Zoisite seems to be slightly more intelligent than his predecessors. We also get a hint of his and Kunzite’s relationship. We’ll never see it without kid’s anime filters off, but it’s obvious to all of us even the bad guys know some kind of love.

We’re about to head into what I think the slowest bits of the season, but when Usagi and Rei aren’t bickering, she doesn’t whine quite as much. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 5  I didn’t say “god, look at that art” as often this disk
Story – 7 Nephrite ftw
Characters – 7 They are starting to seem more like “friends”
Yuri – 1  Makoto is a girl magnet, even if they never show that. ^_^
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 7

The monsters of the day designs are so 1990s.

Many thanks to Viz Media for the review copy. Despite my first sentence, it is a pleasure being able to rewatch this series.

Posted in English Anime, Sailor Moon | No Comments »