Yuri Manga: Tsuki to Sekai to Etoile (月と世界とエトワール)

October 23rd, 2013

Takagami Yuriko’s Tsuki to Sekai to Etoile (月と世界とエトワール) follows Maisaka Yozora as she enters an elite girls’ school that specializes in musical achievement. Following the steps of her idol Umiyuri-sama and the advice of her grandmother, she decides to attend Gekkoukan Gakuin and become a singer.

What Yozora learns, when she enters, is that the elitest of the elite pair off into Chevalier – Etoile pairs in a relationship that is called an “engagement.” Umiyuri-sama’s chevalier is the appropriately knightly Towa-sama. Umiyuri seems to have favorited Yozora’s rival, Kagami, while Towa favors Yozora.

Almost immediately, Yozora is dragged into Towa and Umiyuri’s affairs, of course, and she finds herself engaged to the straight-talking, somewhat brusque Kishinabe Sekai. Sekai and Yozora decide to compete for the Etoile position, despite their newness at the school, only to have suspicious circumstances keep them apart on the competition night. Undaunted, Yozora competes alone, singing Sekai’s music unaccompanied.

Towa and Umiyuri are forced to acknowledge Yozora and Sekai will be formidable rivals in days to come. And, if I’m not mistaken, the series is on-going, so more shenanigans and secrets and ancient history will come to light.

For all that it was a lot of the same thing over again, I have a hell of a time following this story in Comic Yuri Hime. Probably because I wasn’t really motivated to do so. Important rings, “engagements,” singing battles instead of swords, a beautiful couple, Etoile, lot of high-falutin’ names: Eternity, the World, Night Sky, Stars, etc. It all seems so derivative. But I sat down and really read the story this time…it’s not going to be a go-to story for me, but it’s not all that bad.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5 (by implication, and one kiss so far)
Service – 1

Overall – 7

The elements are second-hand, but the story and art are attractive and would probably play well in a shoujo manga magazine.

Posted in Yuri Manga | 3 Comments »


So You’d Like Me to Speak at Your Event

October 22nd, 2013

As a person “invited” several times a year to events that then are confused as to what the word “Guest” entails, I wanted to explain a few things about inviting people to your event:

 

Before you invite someone to speak at your event, know something about what they do.

If you are inviting a funny, but controversial, comedian, you would attend a show first so you know what you are getting into.

If you invite me to speak, please do not assure me that the Yuri panel is all ages, until I get there and find that it has been listed as 18+ only. I do not do 18+ panels. They skeeve me. They are always the opposite of mature. Yuri is not about sex. It’s a genre with a literary history, about which I will gladly educate and engage in discussion.

I do not show videos. I guess some folks are no longer capable of enjoying a panel at an event if images are not beamed into their eyes. If you are asking me to host your zOMG sex! Yuri hentai hour, I respectfully decline. If you’re asking me for a suggestion of a decent Yuri anime to show at your event, just ask. You don’t need me there – the answer is Aoi Hana, contact rightstuf.com for permissions.

If you’ve attended a Yuri Panel or lecture by me, you have seen what I provide. I do not do something else.

 

When you “invite” someone to speak at your event, they become your responsibility.

If they are flying in they, need to know where they will be met and taken care of. If they are driving in they need to know where to park, where they will be met and taken care of.

Someone needs to be there at the airport, train station, car park, to help them through the minutiae of a strange city.

You are the host, they are the guest. Do not leave a guest to make their own arrangements for such things. Of course if you are local to me, I’m glad to handle my own arrangements, but as soon as an event outside my hour or so in the car ride radius, I’ll need you to step up.

You need to lay out what you will do to make their attendance at your event as friction-free as possible. Let them know what you are willing to do for them and what you cannot possibly do. In a sense, you are applying to them to get them as a guest.

 

Don’t assume your event is worth making an effort to get to. 

This is the #1 disconnect I encounter on a regular basis. Events ask me to speak all the time, but provide no transportation, accommodation or food options. (Or, possibly they offer me hot dogs and bagels in their staff room.) I am not a college student. I do not wish to spend my time and money attending your event, only to be given the option of sharing a room with staff, and eating warm yogurt in your green room. Thank you, but no. Unless your town is otherwise on my bucket list, I probably won’t come without at least a token effort on your part. Free admission to your event may not be a draw for me, if your event isn’t otherwise a must-go for me.

 

Before you “invite” someone to your event, make sure your Con Chair and the entire organizing committee is backing you.

I cannot tell you how often I am invited by Programming or the Guest Person, only to agree, clear my schedule then learn that, oh wait, the Con Chair already spent that money on some other guest. To be very honest. this has happened so many times that at this point I no longer say yes to small events unless they can confirm upfront that they are not wasting my time. “Informal” invites, are not invitations – you’re asking me to pay my own way to your event for your own entertainment.

 

Talk to your Organizing Committee, come up with a formal procedure for inviting guests.

To make your event process as smooth as possible, develop a Chain of Command on guest invites. For instance: Anyone can suggest  potential guest. Org Com. votes on it. If suggestion is approved, Guest Chair writes out proposal – Programming and Con Chair have to approve it, so they know what they will be on the hook for. Then you ask potential Guest.  Have your offers and answers ready – We’ll provide XYZ, you provide ABC.  No, we can’t fly you First class, but we can offer a plus one, etc, etc.

 

If it doesn’t work out, there are no hard feelings.

Please do not be annoyed if I reject your offer. I’m not annoyed at you, I promise. This is business. It just isn’t going to work for me to fly myself out to your event, pay for my own hotel room, so I can sell a few books and do a panel for you. Thanks anyway.

 

I know you’re doing your best to run your event. Consider this advice from someone who has been there before you and wants you to not have to reinvent the wheel. ^_^

Posted in Events, Now This Is Only My Opinion | 3 Comments »


Princess Knight Anime, Part 1 – Disk 4 (English) and a Contest!

October 21st, 2013

Disk 4 of Princess Knight continues to be more difficult for me to watch than I expected. While Knight’s adventures remain exciting, the constant – and to my mind, creepy – obsession with her sex absolutely kills any enjoyment I eke out of the story.

On the one hand, Knight is praised as being the very epitome of a fine Prince – handsome, brave, honest, kind. Glossed over that is the emphatic reminder that she is not, never will be, a Prince at all. Her mother feels terrible about “forcing” her to act as a boy, but it’s pretty obvious that she prefers to do so. And yet, when Knight is wrestled into a dress, she longs for that, as well. Destined to never be allowed to be comfortable in her own body no matter what she chooses. Poor Knight.

While watching this anime and thinking of the constant pressure Knight faces, I was looking back through my own youth and feel the need to thank my parents for making it possible for me to get boy’s clothes in my early teen years, rather than forcing me to wear girls’ clothes. That was pretty important to me, especially in retrospect.  ^_^

So, we head into the final Disk of Set 1, and thanks to the generosity of TRSI, we have two copies of Set 1 to give away!

In the comments, please put your name age and country and if you’d be so kind to register with WP, so there’s an email I can contact you at, I will announce the winners when I review Disk 5. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 4
Characters – 7
Story – 6 It just sort of starts grinding here

Overall – 6

I still like it best when Knight can just be knightly, without other people’s issues. ^_^

Posted in English Anime, Ribon no Kishi / Princess Knight | 16 Comments »


Summer Reading: Chocolates for Breakfast (English)

October 20th, 2013

cfbWell into autumn as we are, I had one last Summer Reading choice on my plate.  Back in August, I mentioned the republishing of Pamela Moore’s mid-century novel about dissipated youth, Chocolates for Breakfast. AfterEllen.com discusses the author’s life and death and reprints the censored passages in which the main character thinks about her feelings for the  English teacher on which she has a crush. These passages are still not included in the text of the book as published, but Moore’s son discusses them in the afterword.

Despite those passages, perhaps because of them, I would not call this book a “lesbian” novel in any meaningful way. The crush is exactly that – a crush. It’s ephemeral, a fantasy of time and place, and lack of other stimulus.

However, in every way this book is something that should be read. In the same way we are asked to read The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye, Chocolates for Breakfast stands as a piece of classic American literature, with insight to a time and place that was never quite real even when it was. For those of you still in school, being asked to read either of toese books, I’d suggest reading Chocolates for a unique subject for compare and contrast.

Trying to tell you what Chocolates is about is more challenging than you might expect. It’s a tale of dissipated privilege; the sex, drinking, and hopeless ennui than comes with having too much of everything and too little of anything with meaning. But don’t let that get in your way of enjoying it. ^_^ In fact, despite the fact that my childhood was nothing at all like Courtney’s, I was able to deeply sympathize with her disassociation and feelings of frustration at 15 that the adults around her were less mature than she. In many ways, we are all Courtney at some point, whether we were kids in the 00s or the 60s.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

My next “Summer reading” book will be Hild by Nicola Griffith. Feel free to read it as well and give your opinion in the comments! No deadline, I probably won’t get to it for a bit. ^_^

Posted in Queer Fiction | No Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – October 19, 2013

October 19th, 2013

YNN_MariKIt’s been a while since the last YNN, what with me being in Japan and at NYCC. Well here we are once again. Let’s take a look what’s happened in the last few weeks! We’re going with “Random data dump format” as I play catch up.

YNN Correspondent Joel K wanted to bring this fact to your attention: Disney has announced that the character of Mulan in their Once Upon A Time series is bisexual. Yes, that Mulan and that Disney. The article and clip contained within are worth your time.

Prism Comics announces their Queer Press Grant recipient for 2013 – Hazel Newlevant‘s Dance the Blues, and If This Be Sin, which look at queer women expressing themselves through blues music.

This video is not comics, manga or publishing related, but this spoken word piece Shrinking Women by Lily Myers probably best expresses the one thing I want to teach girls  – every girl should take up all the space in the world that she needs to thrive and never once apologize for that.

There was one LGBTQ-themed panel at NYCC, hosted by GeeksOut. Here’s Bleeding Cool’s report on the panel.

There are 3 weeks remaining to fund Dear Brother on AnimeSols. Let’s make this happen, shall we?

Dallas Middaugh of Kodansha USA confirmed that the new Sailor Moon anime will be streaming the winter on Nico Nico Douga (registration is required) and will appear subtitled in 10 languages. Now that we know we can all see it…all we have to worry about is everything else. ^_^

I can’t be sure, but I think I saw this – Bandai has a grown-up (i.e. expensive) version of Sailor Moon’s 1992 moon stick, the Proplica, with Mitsuishi Kotono’s voice as Sailor Moon. Okay, here’s my thought on her voicing Usagi. She’s now done this and the commercial for the S.H. Figuarts figure. If you were her and they asked you to voice the toys, but not the actual character, you’d say “stuff it.” wouldn’t you? I think she’s in. ^_^

Get out the tissues…Media Blasters has delayed Rio Rainbow Gate until 2014. And it looks like Funimation has picked up Ikkitousen: Great Guardians in their place. I quite liked GG, especially when I ignored the entire story and rewrote everything I was watching to suit my own needs. Otherwise it was pretty terrible. ^_^

Go Nagai’s Cutey Honey vs Devilman manga is wrapping up and I totally, completely, forgot to look for it while in Japan. OTOH, I’ve retained what’s left of my soul by not buying a Champion magazine, so phew.

Bandai is selling Sailor Moon and Madoka Magica chocolates for the otaku in your life.

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That’s a wrap for this week! 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 »