Happy New Year!
We’re starting off with something a little different this year. Usually I end the year with the best and start the next year with something dreadful. Instead of just excoriating an awful manga, I wanted to talk with you something very important – your own comics/animation ecosystem. The beginning of the year seems like the best time to think a little bigger and a little better about the space we inhabit in our own world.
Most fans understand (at least theoretically ^_^) that without comics creators or animators, they would not have anything to read or watch. Most fans also sort of vaguely presume that someone else ought to be responsible for the care and feeding of artists, you know, the company they do work for, or a rich patron or a day job or something.
As we actually know if we read a bit about it, comics, animation, songwriting, and pretty much every other creative endeavor pays peanuts, if at all. And the Internet gives everybody a chance to put their (or someone else’s) work out there, with the end result that the work itself has been almost wholly devalued. Which is what Scott Adams said back in 2010. But, like he said at the time – maybe it’s okay.
Right now is a terrific time to look at the full ecosystem in which we exist and start planning for a sustainable and thriving future. Obviously, this is true for the actual ecosystem you inhabit. But I’m not a life guru, today we’re just going to look at our nerdly world.
You probably have a job. A lot of us have jobs that are regularly demeaned and dismissed by people who don’t get the amount of effort that our work takes. Even ridiculously hard jobs like being a doctor – people bitch about how much money they make, not realizing that your doctor’s visit fee covers the salaries of a half-dozen people, the office space, equipment, and yes, the insurance and things you don’t feel like you ought to have to pay for.
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.
So, let’s start with artist and writers – the folks who create the work we enjoy. This is the one piece of our fan ecosystem we might acknowledge. It seems like there are a lot of artistic grants, but very few people get the money they need to live and work on a daily basis. A creator can apply for dozens of grants – all of which take inordinate hours of work – and get nothing. Just as a creator can create a beautiful work and have no one want to buy it. But creating is their work. And we, as fans, can help. We can make sure we buy their work that is available, thus indicating to publishers and distributors and galleries and merchandisers that there is an audience who will pay money for this person’s work. This is the number one thing we can do to support creators. They get to hire another assistant, so they can put out more and better work, which means that they can get more pages done, for more magazines. They buy better tools, they buy food and heat and other commodities. No matter how much we love someone, we’re not helping if we ignore their financial needs. You can also support creators through their fundraising efforts, crowdfunding initiatives and buying creator-owned series. Every time you support a creator’s work, you are contributing to the greater ecosystem.
Another part of the ecosystem is what companies and stores we buy from and how we buy. It’s harder these days to support a local book or anime or comics store, there are so few these days – and, realistically, some of them go out of their way to discourage manga business. But there are still some good local stores and even a few online places that are a person and their employees. If you’re lucky enough to be near one, I encourage you to support local businesses. It’s good for your town, as well. There’s nothing at all wrong with using a conglomerate, but when you can walk into a store and get a smile and recognition for your purchases, it feels good – and it supports the local economy with taxes and jobs (and the taxes and spending that comes from those.) I’ve mentioned them before, but the Local Comic Shop I use is Comic Fusion. A friend of mine is a co-owner and they are pretty darn friendly. Online orders are welcome and you can call them and ask them to order anything. I get some of my manga and some comics through them. ^_^
Another part of our ecosystem to consider is the folks who write about comics – call ’em pundits, bloggers, journalists, opinion-makers, reporters, what have you. If you’re a regular here at Okazu, you’ve probably spent hours reading content created by myself and others. Hours of entertainment, rage, joy and infomercials. ^_^ The equivalent of time on TV would have a budget of millions. But folks who write about comics online fly under the radar. Everyone reads them, shares their news and content, but no one’s giving them a paycheck. They have to fly themselves to the events they cover, unless they’ve got gig with Publisher’s Weekly or CBR or other “large” site. These folks often take donations. Here’s my rule of thumb for this kind of thing: If you’ve used a source/read stuff on a site for more than 10 hours in the last month, consider throwing a few bucks their way. Back in the day, we all subscribed to magazines like Animerica and Comics Journal. Now, there are fewer magazines but a *lot* more (and often better quality) sources. For 2015 – if you can afford it – pick one site you use a lot, and consider giving them the cost of one lunch per month. McDonald’s tells me that a cheeseburger Happy Meal costs $4.89 in the US. (Why would anyone get anything other than a Happy Meal, duh~ Toys!). Let’s say $5/month to one slave to the computer keyboard of your choice. That few dollars will allow that journalist to get to more events, do more interviews and give you even more info.
I am not the kind of person who asks people to do what I will not. So to give you some ideas and let you know what *I’m* supporting in 2015, here’s a short list of the folks whose ongoing work I will be supporting through Patreon or other donation platforms. This does not include any crowdfunding projects I give to. In 2014, I gave to about half a dozen crowdfunded projects. I hope to do the same this year.
Sean Kleefeld’s Fanthropology – Sean has been writing about comics a long time, Like me, he’s neck deep in the creation and fandom of the things. He writes a balanced and empathetic blog on the fraught world of comics fandom and creators and all the many places they intersect. Sean is officially launching his Patreon campaign today and I have already pledged my Happy Meal a month to support his work. ^_^
The Comics Beat by Heidi Macdonald has been one of my go-to sources for (mostly Big 2) comics news for years. Heidi herself is a pleasure to speak with and her coverage is honest and timely, without the drooling sycophancy of many “comics” sites. (You know, now that I think about it, not one has ever accused comics/manga journalism of a lack of ethics. You want to know why? We’d all die laughing if anyone ever said that. The first person to recover their breath would order another round of cocktails and it would blow over in a second.) Anyway, Heidi’s been getting a Happy Meal’s worth of love from me a month for a while. Totally worth it too.
Rica Takashima’s Aliens in NY Art Project – I believe in this art project with all my heart. New York is a city full of aliens and Rica is telling each story, one at a time, with peekaboo boards, and comics and interactive art at events. Her project is taking donations through the New York Foundation for the Arts, and if you pledge any amount over $2 to her, at the end of the year you get her annual report. The first annual report was so good, the NYFA featured it in their annual report! This year’s report continued the story and made for some compelling, amusing reading. You’ll never look at the Statue of Liberty the same again, I promise. Read this again – Rica is drawing her annual report as a serial comic and it’s amazing. Even if you don’t get to one of her events, this is worth the price of a Happy Meal/month. You can see some of the pages and follow the project on the Aliens in New York Facebook page, as well.
One last note. When you’re done with your manga, graphic novels, anime and the like, don’t just throw them out. You local library might be able to use them – or sell them through their “Friends of the Library” foundations to support core services. (Remember in the beginning when I spoke about jobs that are regularly dismissed? Your local library has to fight like a banshee for the maybe 60 cents per person they get in local taxes. Not per person/per month – 60 cents per person/per year. Your local taxes do support the library, but very very little of it.) Most libraries love donations – if they can’t use it, they’ll sell it or just plain give it away. Do be smart – call them first and ask if they take donations – and give them stuff they can actually use. Your old hentai probably can’t go on the shelves. I stick to giving them YA manga. Sometimes I buy a comic with the specific thought that they’ll get it when I’m done with it. While you’re at it, if you want to give your library a small donation, you can ask them to put it towards a specific collection, although they can’t always guarantee that’s where it’ll go.
Of course, I will continue to support crowdfunded projects, buy as much anime and manga, live-action and novels and attend as many events as I can in the upcoming year as well. Because I want to support my comic ecosystem too!
If we each pledge one Happy Meal a month to supporting part of our ecosystem, comics, manga and anime will have a chance to survive and thrive. I believe 2015 is the year when we find that, when everyone pulls together, even the impossible comics economy is sustainable.
This is not a thing, per se. I’m not talking about the anniversary event, or any specific moment. But I thought it interesting and important enough to note that – despite not being Yuri specifically – this series has, for 15 years, made us all so very happy. And with the final period of the final novel it is officially over, so now is a great time to dig out the DVDs and novels and start all over again! For Sachiko, Yumi, Touko, Shimako, Noriko, Rei, Yoshino, Nana, Youko, Eriko (and, let’s be honest, especially for) Sei, let’s raise a toast to the 15th Anniversary of Maria-sama ga Miteru.
I always like to take a moment to thank the publishers who bring us the Yuri Manga we love and which become the anime we love. There are fewer Yuri anthology magazines than there were a few years ago, but we have more publishers than ever before.
This was something totally new for this year. I loved reading the auto- or semi-biographical comic Yuri essays that popped up in bookstores throughout the year Advice on being gay and confident from Makimura Asako, coming out letters from lesbian and gay people to people they care about, a Japanese TV talent who wants the world to know that she’s lesbian, an essay about the lesbian wedding in Disneyland – these tales tell the stories of real people who just want to be accepted for who they are by their friends and families and fans and government. These essays are everyday people talking to other everyday people. I’m loving them – and the hope they represent for LGBTQ folks in Japan.
Just out of curiosity, I took a look at past Top Ten Lists to see what I was thinking in 2004. It was entertaining, but not surprising, to find that I listed Yuri doujinshi artists on that first list. ^_^ Doujinshi has always been the breeding ground for good Yuri. Unfettered by publisher requirements, censors, limitations of audience or genre, artists are free to tell the stories they want to read.
This lady. I mean it. She’s got a load of work right now, with multiple series in Comic Yuri Hime and you know, everything I’ve read by her…I like. Her art hurts my eyes and her sense of humor hurts my brain, but she draws gag comedy that is incredibly smart, even as it’s incredibly dumb. It’s really time we give her the respect he deserves what with her cranking out all this stuff we’re enjoying and having a successful anime and all. Thanks Kuzushiro-sensei!
HOW COOL IS THIS? Answer: Very cool. Morishima Akiko is an artist I have been following for a ridiculously long time. To see her working with someone whose contributions to Yuri are indescribably weird and timeless and mindblowing is both unexpected and delightful. I have no idea if I’ll enjoy what comes out the other side, but it’s going to be interesting, that’s a given.
We’ve been collecting (and creating) writing about Yuri as a genre for about a decade here on Okazu and on 
This collection from Team Pärvelö had so many qualities that I liked. Variety in art, and story and setting – protagonists of color in a queer manga anthology, how wonderful is that? (Finland seems especially good at diversity in representation.) Refreshing, delightful, fun, smart. Lepakkoluola is the kind of thing that gives me hope for the future of Yuri. I know Hanna-Pirita’s gonna have a heart attack when she reads this, but Team Pärvelö – you did good. Your collection is #10 on this years’ list. ^_^ Please keep drawing and writing!
I wasn’t really sure that this was even a Yuri series after the first volume, but I liked the energy, and the characters and the use of the setting to tell some real, not always all that pleasant, stories about girls’ lives. And then it ended up being Yuri after all. And Morinaga Milk was once again able to draw girl cops. ^_^
Tanaka Minoru’s Rock It, GiRL! was different. The art was intentionally ugly, the characters, too, and the story never went where one might expect. And in the end, it was a loopy, quirky, and kind of charming look at nothing anyone of us would ever see. This isn’t cute idols or meteoric rise to fame – this was a story about blood and guts and singing your heart out and hoping like hell someone might listen, then being told you’re not good enough. I liked it precisely because it wasn’t the same story we’d seen time and time again.
This story was a bit of a dark horse this year. I figured it was a one-shot, lame Maria-sama ga Miteru clone, with no real meaning, but I was dead wrong. Not only was it delightful, it continues!
Amano Shunita’s Philosophia is, as I mentioned in 
I’ve raved about Takemiya Jin’s work a million times. I love, love, love her characterization, and she captures shocked realization in a way that I adore. What really sets this volume of her manga apart, is her unrestricted and unrepentant embrace of not only lesbian culture, but also otaku culture. This book is about us, with our fetishes, and our obsessions, our lusts and loves. Reading game is like looking into a disturbingly accurate funhouse mirror at ourselves, the otaku-rezu who read (and create and write and talk about) Yuri. ^_^;
From volume to volume I had no expectations for this series. I never knew where it might take me. And right to the very end, I had no idea whether it was going to string me along and dump me, or lift me up. As an emotional roller coaster, it was pure brilliance. The art, the story telling and the tension all combined to make this series one of my favorite manga of the year.
Whispered Words marks two major developments in English-language Yuri manga. A new publisher, One Peace Books, is setting up shop on the block and a major Yuri series that I didn’t think we’d ever manage to get over here is here! Sasamekikoto explores every possible Yuri trope all at once and manages to be sad and moving and funny and wonderful. And now we have it. I can guarantee that unless something *amazing* comes out in 2015, Volume 3 will be my top slot next year. ^_^ The ending is just that good.
I’m unabashedly besotted with Nishi UKO’s artistic sensibility. Her people are people – okay, ridiculously beautiful people, but people, nonetheless. They can be petty, snarky, obsessed, in good moods and bad, hungry, lonely, and she communicates these emotions with simple, short stories, exquisite art and a mature aesthetic that is rarely found in manga, much less Yuri.
lete and real and in our hands and on our shelves. At last!
manga. Now for us to have and watch and enjoy whenever we feel like it. The combination of Riyoko Ikeda’s timeless writing and Dezaki Osamu’s sharp eye for dramatic visuals have changed the way we view anime forever.
Squee. You may not remember why you liked it, it was so long ago. You may have made up stories in your mind about how good or bad it was. You probably forgot the dinosaurs and some of the worst Monsters of the Day ever. But when you watch the original anime and re-meet Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako, you’ll remember all over again why you love them. ^_^
It’s silly, it’s stupid, it’s full of painful gags and a duck that looks like a platypus, dumb service (especially for a shoujo manga) and made-up violence scenes that are pretty bloody (especially for a shoujo manga). But it has Yuri and if you can just take your brain away for 20 minutes at a time, it’s actually enjoyable in it’s own way. Urara and Momoka aren’t a real couple, but that’s pretty much a relief. ^_^
The Puella Magi Madoka Magica movies came out in theaters in the US and on DVD, thanks to Aniplex being so willing to keep up the high-saturation level of the series. They were an interesting alt-story to the Madoka TV anime, and had great visual impact…and, even if the story didn’t play out as positively as the TV anime, that was a good thing, too. This series is showing surprising longevity in Japan, so I’m not entirely sure if we’re saying goodbye to it just yet.
Rewatching this series was a real eye-opener for me. I had forgotten just how Yuri and BL this series was, and wow, does the action and art hold up well. As much as Tomoyo was the Yuri torch-bearer to generations of Yuri fans, she can barely hold a candle to her mother, Sonomi. This is one of the best “magical girl anime made for girls” series ever, really.
Riddle Story of a Devil was was a “Yuri” anime because we were told it was, but there was some interesting sexual tension and random partnering to make up for the lack of affection. The action was good, the plot full of holes, but as a modern version of Seraphim Call-like character scenarios tied up by a ribbon story, it was entertaining. It’s not timeless, but we looked forward to it being on air and enjoyed the heck out of it while we watched it. That’s a good enough reason for me to include it on this list. ^_^
I know you know that I didn’t much care for the anime. But setting that aside, it was a fairly significant series – a Yuri romance anime, nuthin’ else but Yuri. No gimmicks, no pretend drama, just straight up “Story A.” While I did not care for the thigh-staring, and the creepy male gaze of the camera, there is no doubt that Yu loves Haruka, Haruka loves Yu, they love each other. The end.
I toyed with making this my number one choice for the year. Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san was, to me, the most enjoyable advertised-as-Yuri anime of the year. It was silly, and actually funny in places, and light-hearted and goofy. There are any number of potential pairings and a few actual couples, but the anime kept the Yuri mostly in the imagination of the leads…and I enjoyed it. From the insanely adorable opening theme, right to every stupid animal pun, Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san made me smile.
I watched Book One of this series back in winter 2013, and marathoned Books 2-4 over the past few weeks and I have to say…this may well be one of the greatest animated series ever made. It blasts through the Bechdel Test and the Friedman Addendum…and it’s an awesome ride all the while. Legend of Korra has everything I’ve ever wanted in an animated series – amazing characters, great action and lovely animation and a female lead who has a life and family and friends and complexity and morally ambiguous bad guys. The stories are well written, the dialogue sounds human. And in Book 4 we got something else. We got the ‘ship we’d been keeping one eye on the whole time. We got Korra and Asami.
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