Yuri Network News – April 16th, 2011

April 16th, 2011

Other News

Top News this week is the shuttering of the US publishing division of Tokyopop. This seems rather inevitable after the recent layoffs there. A few years ago, this may have been cause for alarm, but Viz’s Shoujo line and Yen Press remain pretty strong. Dark Horse has been putting out some classic manga and Kodansha USA will soon know whether the US market is robust enough to support manga sales. So, while this is a sad day for those of us reading The Secret Diary of Lady Kanako, it’s not yet the end of the world here. Tokyopop is keeping the German office open, so Europeans will still have access to those licenses.

Discussion of Tokyopop on Twitter led to a side discussion with someone whose comment was “what about digital manga?” I pointed out that Viz, Yen, Square Enix, DMP and other publishers had come up with digital options, and had been announcing them. Since this person didn’t follow any of the many news sites out there, they were unaware of the state of digital manga. I said this to them and I will repeat it to all of you – there is no way that companies can beam their news directly to your frontal lobe. You do have to make at least a little attempt to read news sites to find out what is going on. (Realistically, if companies *could* beam news directly to your brain, it would be very annoying, I have no doubt. ^_^) I reminded this person that, just because they didn’t pay attention, doesn’t mean a company is doing nothing. ^_^

Of course, what is not yet in existence is a portable, scalable, non-proprietary solution so a reader can read any manga they want from any publisher in the format that works best for them and on the device they choose. But I still believe that that will happen. Which brings me to….

Negima and Love Hina creator Akamatsu Ken is taking a fantastic, out-of-box approach to the idea of legitimizing downloaded scanlations. I love this idea and hope that this can be eventually expanded to include the global market.

Now, for something completely different!

‘Strawberry Marshmallow manga characters give Shizuoka taxis a soft touch.’ A Shizuoka taxi company is offering “special tours” (I read that as meaning “outrageously expensive tours for obsessive moe fans”) with a commemorative card by Barasui. Amusingly, the title for the Japanese article is significantly different and mentions “moe-taku,” so I think my reading of “special” was right. ^_^

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Yuri Manga 

New YNN Correspondent Jeffrey T. did some investigative journalism and contacted DMP to find out the status of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS manga and was told that the manga had been canceled. No real surprise, I’m sorry to say. Western Nanoha fandom had already proven that it was only “fans” of the series when they could get it for free. This series is a perfect example of the ongoing problem with western fandom; lots of “fans” – not so many people who actually buy the books and DVDs. Which once again leads to me to thank all of you Okazu readers, because I know you do pay for what you watch and read. The industry appreciates it…and so do I. ^_^

Not necessarily Yuri, but of interest, Aoi Hana‘s Shimura Takako is launching a new manga about girls in an opera school. Hints have been dropped that some of the Aoi Hana characters will make cameos. My wife suggests that this would be a perfect venue for yet *another* manga version of Der Rosenkavalier, which, if you care, has already been covered in Pride, Volume 11, by Ichijou Yukari.

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Yuri Anime

Sentai Filmworks has licensed and Anime Network is streaming Maria+Holic Alive.

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Yuricon Site Update

I keep saying this, so feel free to roll your eyes…

Now that we have the new Yuricon website /rolleyeshere/, we can get back to doing some interesting stuff. First up – Contests!

I’ve opened two polls, where you can tell me which kind of contest you are more likely to enter:

On the Yuricon Mailing List and on the Yuricon & ALC Facebook group.

Now, here’s the thing, the new Yuricon is going to be more interactive, less passive. My goal is getting as many of you to *participate,* rather than waiting for others to entertain you.

So, don’t pick what you want to see as a Yuricon contest – pick what you want to participate in!

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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 | 22 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Tsubomi (つぼみ), Volume 10

April 14th, 2011

Earlier this month, I wrote a review of “Story A” for Hooded Utilitarian. In many ways, Story A is like a music hall song. You know music hall songs – these are songs that you know – at least the chorus. When music hall was a common entertainment, popular songs were sing-a-longs, with songs like “A Bicycle Built for Two.” (By Blur. Because music hall music is timeless.) Don’t know the lyrics?   Performers would display the lyrics as they were sung, so *everyone* could join in.  My wife’s favorite music hall song is “Let’s All Go Down The Strand” (also by by Blur, because why not)  which is a very singable song. Try it, go ahead, you’ll have fun. Here’s the lyrics, so you can follow along. The Strand is a large street in London, like 5th Avenue in New York City, with a lot of stores and museums and Trafalgar Square. Popular place to go and “be seen.”

The point is – when you know what to expect, sometimes it’s more fun, because you can just relax.

In Tsubomi (つぼみ), Volume 10, we can just relax and sing the chorus, because we already know the story: There is a girl, she likes another girl, the girl likes her, the end. Like a good music hall song, there’s nothing unpleasant about repeating this refrain over and over because we enjoy it.

Sometimes, there’s even a new verse or two.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Posted in Tsubomi, Yuri Manga | 2 Comments »


K-ON! Manga, Volume 2 (English)

April 13th, 2011

K-ON!, Vol. 2Slices-of-life, like reactions, and opinions, are subjective.

Slice of whose life? If it’s not yours, then there has to be a hook for you, otherwise you will stare at the antics of a bunch of high school girls and think, puh-leeze….no one does that. Or you will turn page after page as a humanoid android watches tall grasses blow in the wind in a post-apocalyptic world and think, god, this is boring. Or you will watch as a bunch of girls are amazed as a new incarnation of Venice continues to be wonderful day after day and….

I read a review this week by someone I like personally, but have never once agreed with a review they wrote. Our reading tastes are just that different. Their review of K-ON!, Volume 2 was something to the effect of “who is this for?!?” Well…it appears to be “for” me. ^_^

Last night friends and I were discussing our linchpin books and how awful it is when you lend someone you consider to be a close friend a book you consider to be one of the best you’ve ever read – and they hate it. Or can’t read it at all. This is basically what happens 99.9% of the time when people ask me to read book that they love. I’m not them, and I don’t love it. Often I hate it. And, as a result I don’t ask people too often to read a book. Whether it’s GUNJO or Sailor Moon, I presume my connection to it was personal and, as they are not me, they will not have that connection.

As an example, I loathe with every fiber of my being, Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding. It is largely considered to be a work of genius.  It offends my every sensibility. There is quite literally nothing about that painting I like. If I were not sane, I would gladly render it to shreds with a boxcutter.  My wife loves it. We’re both “right.” My tremendous dislike for Maria+Holic is the same – I understand it perfectly fine…I just hated it. That’s okay in the real world of grown-ups, where we can disagree without having to prove the other person wrong. Opinions and reactions are, like slices-of-life, in the eye of the beholder.

So I sympathize with this reviewer. I would not, under any circumstances, try to educate them or tell them that they didn’t “understand” it (which is the most common unbalanced fan comment we bloggers get.) Of course this person understood the book – they just didn’t LIKE it! They are allowed. If we’re not insane, we shrug and pick a different topic to discuss.

When a fellow blogger pans K-ON! my reaction is, “oh, gee, I guess I’d better blog about it, because I liked it.” And here we are. See – no reeducation or ‘splaining needed. We all “understand” it just fine, whatever our reactions to it. ^_^

In K-ON!, Volume 2, Yui and her friends slack around instead of practicing. Yui is an idiot savant about music, which in many other manga is enough to make me stabby, but the songs were so much fun in the K-ON! anime that I forgive it in the manga. Yui hugs and pokes and cuddles the new first-year Azusa because she’s cute and the kind of people who interpret that as Yuri interpret that as Yuri. I like Mugi best, even though she has about 6 lines in the whole book. Mio is more interesting to me as a lyricist than as a creature of fanservice and Ritsu…is Ritsu.

For whatever reason, this manga is close enough to a slice of *my* life that I find it appealing. Yes, I’d gladly lose the fanservice because not only is it unrealistic, it’s just boring, but apparently there is a swatch of the audience who cannot tolerate fun slice-of-life stories without getting glimpses of girl’s underwear. Don’t you feel bad for them? I do. I don’t think they “understand” girls much…maybe they need it all explained to them better.

In any case, nothing happens and most of that nothing is stupid beyond belief, but I like it and there’s basically nothing that will change that. Even when Yen, who had ample room in the notes inexplicably does not include a note that “Japanese cats say ‘nya’ so Azusa’s nickname Azu-nyan comes from that,” and instead creates the awkward “Azu-meow.” Even that doesn’t make me like K-ON! any less. Because I’ve decided I like it. It’s my kind of slice-of-life.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – There is none, but I’m still giving it an 8
Characters – 10, this is a completely character driven series
Yuri – 0
Service – 5

Overall – 8

Posted in English Manga, K-ON | 6 Comments »


Yuri Manga: GUNJO, Volume 2

April 11th, 2011

There will be massive spoilers in this review. I cannot discuss how powerful the story is or the reactions I had without them. If you object, skip to the ratings.

Today, we speak of desperation.

In my interview with Nakamura-sensei, she called GUNJO (羣青 ) a story about the “profound loneliness of a lonely person.”

In Volume 1 (上), we learned why the brunette would be driven to desperate acts, as a way to escape a life of despair and pain. She had nothing to lose. And we can understand that, we can forgive that. Abused women fighting back makes sense to us.

In Volume 2 (中), we are forced to deal with the other half of that act…executed by a woman who had everything to lose.

The beginning of Volume 2 starts with the chapter that made it impossible for me to continue to write chapter-by-chapter reviews of this story. This is when I began thinking of reading GUNJO in terms of “eating the most delicious razor blades you’ve ever had.” Each chapter hurts so magnificently, it has become my equivalent of cutting. I read a chapter to see how low into despair I can sink, how intensely I can feel their loneliness, how miserable they can make me feel. I read this every month to see if I can still summon hope.

In Volume 2, we do the most absolutely emotionally draining thing possible, we stop watching the main couple, with their dysfunctional relationship and dangerous dynamic, and take a step aside to really understand everything the blonde has thrown away. I don’t believe I’ve ever shed so many tears over a book as I did in these chapters. Watching the blonde’s ex re-create her life, find out how close they were to making it permanent (or, as permanent as possible for two gay women in Japan in the present), watching as the loss of her lover forces the ex to come out to her parents, and express how she *would* have spent the rest of her life with that woman. And then, when it all seems like she’s put it behind her and is ready to move on, we watch her give up completely…and kill herself. The blonde, who has everything to lose, has lost everything.

Then, when we think that we can put that behind us and we can move on, the ring her lover had bought her….the ring with which she was intending to propose…is given to the blonde, along with the story of her lover’s death. Now she has to deal with new loss on top of old.

But the book doesn’t end there. Profound loneliness has no cure. It wants no cure. The brunette, a woman who has run until she has been cornered by life, has new ammunition to make the one person who cares about her hurt. So she does. She batters the blonde with emotional torment until the blonde throws away the very last relics she has of her former life, 550 yen….and the wedding ring.

Ratings:

Art – 10
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Lesbian – 10
Sevice – 1

Overall – 10

There is no respite here. There is no moment when we can breathe a sigh of relief.

All we can do is feel the desperation and the loneliness of despair. And wait. For Volume 3.

Posted in Gunjo, LGBTQ, Nakamura Ching, Yuri Manga | 6 Comments »


Maria-sama ga Miteru: Are You Ready?

April 10th, 2011

Last November, it was my great honor to be able to see the Maria-sama ga Miteru Live-Action movie when it opened in Japan.

As part of the commemorative ticket package (thank you Komatsu-san for picking that up for me!), I received a spiffy clearfile with the Hibiki Reine character designs of Yurmi and Sachiko on one side, and the live-action Yumi and Sachiko on the other, postcards, signed photos and, of course the commemorative ticket itself.

The package also included a little pamphlet with a bonus story by Konno Oyuki-sensei called Maria-sama ga Miteru: Are You Ready? (マリア様がみてる Are You レディー?)

This story takes place during the Sports Festival of Yumi’s first year. This is just before preparations for the School Festival would begin, so, a prologue to the first novel.

During the Sports Festival Yumi who, as a student in the Peach class is on the Pink Team, can’t take her eyes off the Green team area and one student there in particular. Katsura asks why she doesn’t just confess her feelings to Sachiko-sama, but Yumi has no intention of doing that.

When she sees Sachiko’s oneesama, Youko, Rosa Chinensis, Yumi is captivated by the two sisters together. And Tsutako, ever sensitive to Yumi’s moods, captures a perfect moment between the two of them, with Yumi in the frame, but apart.

The epilogue of this little short follows Sachiko’s much later discovery of the print, and ends with the narrative voice mentioning that in only a few weeks, Yumi’s life would change forever. Are You Ready, Yumi? the author asks, as it draws to a close.

The pamphlet is only 16 pages, but it gives us a glimpse of Yumi as she is at the very beginning of the series – a fan of Sachiko but, as she reminds the Rosas after she turns Sachiko down, she has fan’s pride and will not, in her own way, let that pride be trampled – thus setting into motion the completely remarkable retraining of Ogasawara Sachiko.

No, Yumi was not ready, but she was the perfect choice. ^_^

Overall – 9

Posted in Maria-sama ga Miteru | 4 Comments »