Yuri Network News – April 24, 2010

April 24th, 2010

While I enjoy the delights of Pittsburgh’s Comic Con, you can enjoy the delights of *not* being at Pittsburgh’s Comic-Con!

Yuri Manga

YNN Correspondent Erin S. wants us all to know that Comic Yuri Hime will be going bimonthly. (Insert obligatory “bi” jokes” here.) This is excellent news on all levels.

And YNN correspondent Sean G gleefully points out that Adam Arnold of Seven Seas wrote about plans for Hayate x Blade and why Strawberry Shake Sweet never got over here on the Shoujoai-Archive Forums.

I’d like to take this opportunity to once again address the issue of fan paranoia. Companies are NOT out to get you, screw you or otherwise do you in. Please, I beg you all, stop assuming the worst of every company. There is no company in the western manga industry that is doing anything other than doing their *very* best – with exceedingly limited resources – to bring you manga to read. Support them, stand by them, give them encouragement. Assuming the worst of them all the time is horribly disheartening to the people who are trying hard to do the best they can. Seven Seas has been honest, friendly, approachable and their quality has been top notch from beginning to end. They are also a business, so of course sometimes they will make decisions you don’t like, but I can guarantee that are doing their best to publish what they think you want to buy. Making them your enemy is weird and delusional. (Note to the extra frothy commenters that will follow this statement – seriously, it’s you. If you are getting THAT worked up about being denied something that is a comic book…it’s you.)

I completely forget to mention that a new series started in Ultra Jump that has some Yuri-service. It’s called “Sayonara Summer” and I think the service will be a regular feature, as the female protagonist professes to like girls. And she has some serious issues with baseball, as well. It looks interesting – if it becomes something worth watching, I’ll make sure to point it out.

Erin S. also want to make sure you know that Yotsuhara Furiko’s Sleeping Beauty is available for your reading pleasure.

The third volume of Watashi no Taisetsuna Tomodachi by Hakamada Mera is also out. One of the odd things about Mera’s work is that I always forget that she’s got all these series out there and then am surprised all over again when they pop pack into the news report. :-)

And I’m sure that someone is interested in knowing that the third volume of Creo the Crimson Crisis is available.

And I’m not sure if I told you that the Shoujo Yuri anthology will be getting a second volume or not. Well, it is. And this one will include stories by Kitao Taki and Mitou Kana, also known as Sakuraike, so at least two stories will definitely be good. :-) If there was anything that might tempt me to buy another volume – that was it.

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Yuri Anime

Media Blasters is streaming dubbed episodes of Magic Knight Rayearth on Hulu. They already have Ikkitousen available on the video streaming service. Go Media Blasters! Work those properties, you sexy thangs.

I started to watch Seikon no Kwaser, but when I started tasting bile, I stopped. Guest Review fodder if ever there was.

Yuri has also reared it’s gothic head in the newest Precure property, Heartcatch PreCure. There’s definitely *something* between Dark Cure and Cure Moonlight. I like to pretend it’s a relationship. :-)

A new anime for this year, called Tamayura, has some serious potential, as well. It’s been on all the Yuri lists, has the staff that worked on Aria and Satou Junichi for a director. In a waterfront town, a girl who loves taking pictures, ends up taking a picture of a fairy-like girl and her life is changed. It sounds sweet, and the buzz is that the Yuri will be a major-ish part of the story.

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Snatches of Yuri

In Literary – Mikaze High School Literary Club, the Belles Letters club of a school includes and encourages all genres – including BL and GL. The art kind of put me off, but I think I’m going to give this one a try.

YuyuShiki, Volume 2, is a 4-koma with skinship and possible actual Yuri interest. Volume 2 seems to up the level somewhat.

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Other LGBT News

In what I think surely must win the “Whuh…?” Award this week, Archie Comics has introduced a gay character, Kevin. Just to add to the “Whuh…?” factor, he comes out first to Jughead. In my childhood, Jughead would have responded to a comment like, ‘I’m gay” with something high-larious like, “Well you sure seem happy to me!” but that’s an ancient Jughead. This one cleverly plans to use disinformation to shame Veronica. How 90210 of him.

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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 | 2 Comments »


Garo Exhibit at the Center for Book Arts

April 23rd, 2010

Garo was an experimental, independent manga magazine that ran from 1964-2002. The Center for Book Arts Exhibit covers the first decade of publication.

I attended the exhibit with manga artist Rica Takashima, who provided some interesting perspective on this influential magazine during it’s first decade of existence.

To understand where we are, it’s important to see where we’ve been. The Garo exhibit allows one to see and experience the turbulence of the 1960s and early 70s through the eyes of young Japanese artists. Intensely personally narratives, side-by-side with historical drama and tales of the eerie, provide a fascinating insight into a formative period of independent Japanese manga art.

Rica and I spoke about the magazine and about our lives as we walked around the space.

ELF: What are your impressions of Garo?

RT: I first encountered Garo when I was about 10 years old, in a book store. Manga artist Tsuge Yoshiharu was very popoular at the time, so I wanted to try it. It was very strange and weird – which was attractive to me. I tried to read it, but I couldn’t understand it. I decided to try again in a few years. When I was in middle school, I bought a few issues, but again, I really couldn’t understand it. I tried again in high school, but at that time June magazine was beginning to be published, and I ended up reading that instead. At that time, there was a New Wave in music and also in manga. Punk and New Wave music magazines were strongly linked with manga. Like Nagai Go’s work in Heavy Metal magazine, it shifted the focus of manga into new territory.”

Standing in front of a case that showed covers of the “Legend of Kamui,” we realized that, as groundbreaking as Garo was, we had no idea that it featured “Legend of Kamui” and some of Mizuki Shigeru’s “Kitaro” stories as well as the more well-known gekiga artists like Tatsumi Yoshihiro.

“Because I was so young when I tried to read Garo,” Rica said, as we observed many pages that showed violence against women, “I didn’t understand it, but it scared me.” Even though these manga stories were meant to be seen as non-pori – non-political – as adults we couldn’t fail to see the gender politics built into them.

We looked at stories that chronicled the Vietnam War protests in universities across Japan. “Something always blew the protests up into riots. At the time, I wondered why people couldn’t just calm down a little, but there were riots all the time in the news,” Rica said, pointing out an image that an American might think showed riot police, but in Japan represented the student forces, armed with a sword and wearing a helmet with a face shield. “To me the protests seemed so weird, since the college students were angry about different things, like Vietnam and the American presence in Okinanwa, but they would become the same thing.” We agreed that it’s human nature to conflate issues and anger at change becomes anger at many other things.

There were few women who contributed to Garo and only one regular contributor who was a woman. Both Rica and I noted that sex was a prominent theme – not surprising for a magazine created by young men. But the boy’s club atmosphere began to wear on us, as we realized that stories of female experience were mostly absent. Even in scenes where pro- and anti-Vietnam arguments were presented, the absence of women in the conversation was pretty noticeable. Curator Ryan Holmgren mentions “how, despite its commitment to political activism between 1964 and 1966, its continuing sympathies with the left until about 1970, and its experimentation with form and theme, Garo was highly regressive when it came to gender and sexuality issues, more and more so in the early 70s. “

As Rica and I walked the room for the second time, we talked about how Garo was chronicling what I think of as my “shadow childhood.” These events were all happening, I said as I pointed to a copy of Abandon the Old in Tokyo, while you and I were alive. Watergate, Vietnam….but we were very young, and so while it was always there, we weren’t old enough to understand. These are the stories of the shadows behind our youth. She agreed.

Surrounded by the past, we both are of a mind that that this is the best of all possible times to live – we still have access to the roots of manga, we can enjoy the present and we can look forward to a future of new stories that have yet to be told.

The Garo exhibit was small – but the conversation we had there was huge. If you are at all interested in manga, in independent art, in the way that past and present connect through books, printing and/or art, this exhibit comes highly recommended.

Posted in Events, Yuri Network News | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: Aoi Hana, Volume 5

April 22nd, 2010

You know the 5 Stages of Death? Well, Coming Out also has certain stages. 1) First, you have to admit to yourself you are /fillintheblank/. 2) Then you admit it to someone close to you. Just one person, because your sure it’s going to turn them against you. 3) Then you admit it to someone else – sometimes a perfect stranger, because that’s safer than family or friends. 4) The biggest hurdle is vocalizing it to your family. If that stage is not horrible (and for many people it is,) you start becoming more comfortable with the whole thing, until the final stage 5) Acceptance. For that to happen you have to accept yourself. It’s a bonus if the people around you accept you too, but it’s most important that you accept yourself.

In Aoi Hana Volume 5, Fumi has made it past the third stage. And really, she’s not sure how she got there. But it’s okay, because she’s well on her way to accepting herself. And she’s also already incredibly strong, although she doesn’t yet realize it.

It’s once again time for the Drama Club to put on their play and emotions are running very high. Despite themselves, last year’s first-years are turning into rather mature second-years that are admired by the new students. Kyouko stuns people with her performance in Mishima Yukio’s Rokumeikan. (The link is to the collection of plays in which Rokumeikan is included.) Even Akira, who comes down with sudden nerves, finds herself caught up in the moment and shines on stage.

Haruka learns that Fumi, too, is a lover of women, and we follow a flashback when she learned of her sister and Hinako’s relationship. When Fumi meets Haruka’s sister, she is keenly aware – and a little jealous – of their comfort level with each other.

Even Mogi’s clandestine relationship with Akira’s brother is noted.

Everyone is growing up.

I only wish I had “met” Fumi when I was young. I could have used a media representation like her.

With vacation planned and old flames coming back into the story, Volume 6 promises to be full of fireworks – can’t wait!

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 9
Story – 9
Yuri – 5
Service – 1

Overall – 9

Does *anyone* like Chizu? The more we see of her, the less I like her.

Posted in Aoi Hana/ Sweet Blue Flowers, LGBTQ, Shimura Takako, Yuri Manga | 6 Comments »


Aoi Shiro Drama CDs

April 21st, 2010

Thanks to the generosity and kindness of Japanese blogger, Okazu Hero and my friend, Komatsu-san, I had the pleasure of listening to two of the Aoi Shiro Drama CDs – “Glass Shoes” and “Engage.” These CDs are not available for purchase – they were probably included in magazines as extras.

Both disks are more similar to the Yuri Hime version of the story than the Jive Comics version. The emphasis is on character and “fated meetings” rather than on plot or game elements.

In the first CD I listened to, “Glass Shoes,” we meet Shouko through the eyes of Momoko, much as we do in the YH comic. In “Engage” we get both Sawacchi and Shouko’s thoughts as they find themselves attracted to one another as if they were meant to be together.

Through no fault of anyone’s, I kept imagining frail Sawacchi as Hyatt from Excel Saga. It completely ruined the dramatic tension for me.  ^_^;

Much more than either of the manga series, these Drama CDs dwelt on the gravitational pull these women have on each other. Shouko’s thoughts are the closest to something that approaches falling in love.

Both Drama CDs are short – about 25-30 minutes, and neither would need prior knowledge of the series, although it definitely helps.

Ratings:

“Glass Shoes”
Overall – 7
Yuri – 3

“Engage”
Overall – 7.5
Yuri – 5

Of all of “other” media I’ve seen for this particular Visual Novel/game, I think I actually liked this one the best. The Jive comic was utterly choked by it’s own sense of destiny, while the YH Comic was scattered and didn’t really tell a story. As prologues go, these CDs weren’t too bad.

Posted in Drama CDs & Audiobooks | 1 Comment »


Yuri Manga: Yuri Hime S, Volume 12

April 20th, 2010

I will continue to do what I started with last issue, and only address the stories I felt were worth reading. The rest do not appeal to me for one reason or another and I don’t want to waste my time even so much as synopsizing them.

So, for me, the first story in Yuri Hime S, Volume 12, is “Fufu.” Let me be very clear – this story is *important.* Some people, after having read my glowing review of this story from the last volume were disappointed because nothing happens. The first chapter is just about two women who sit around talking. This is followed by this volume’s chapter in which they go out shopping for a bed. That’s it. But that’s precisely why it’s important. This story is about the little moments of domestic bliss that are the majority of time spent in a marriage. On 2chan, the response was, “why should I care?” and a lot of derision about lesbians and why they don’t want lesbians in their Yuri. That’s why this story is important. Because, no, Yuri fandom, especially the male half, are not more open-minded and accepting. If anything they are usually less – sexually immature sometimes, sexually conservative frequently. Otaku in Japan are rarely socially liberal. Social and political equality for gay couples is not even in the playbook, much less a priority.

So when “Fufu” covers this territory, gently, adorably forcing this audience to repeatedly confront the fact that lesbian couples are happy without a man, and would like to have words and laws that protect their status absolutely – it is important. I remain thrilled with Ichijinsha’s decision to run this series in Yuri Hime S.

Above all…c’mon…the story is about getting a big pluffy bed! As a proud owner of one of those, I say without reservation that this is the greatest story ever! lol

In “Okkake x girls” Amami-sempai and Koyanagi-sempai had a smoking hot kiss in the last scene of the school play and it’s inspired some of the other students to try it out. This series gets points for having Amami accepted into the “Sakarazuka” school where she’ll become a real prince.

In “Kaichou to Fukukaichou” the Vice President is starting to come to terms with what she feels is a hopeless love for the President, only to encounter the President in tears over a difficult family situation. She offers comfort in the form on an embrace and lets the girl she loves cry in her arms.

“Marriage Black” tells the tale of two daughters of opposing crime families, mixed in with a little “The Graduate” and a little murder. I kind of wonder where this one is going.

Hiyori Otsu’s “Orange and Yellow” covers the well-worn territory of a girl and the moron she loves. ^_^

“Shinagami Alice” avoids explaining anything by adding a sadistic Loli who kidnaps the lead, so we don’t notice there’s no plot.

The plot takes a turn for the irrelevant when the male lead of the play disappears just before the school festival in “Konohana Link.” I’m once again of the mind that this will all make more sense once I get all the chapters together, because right now, it’s too scattered for me to follow.

The memes are flying thick and fast with no sign of an actual story in “Zettai Shoujo Astoria” No one’s gonna complain that this story moves slow – it’s on a treadmill to nowhere at full speed right now. Even the characters run around the campus a lot.

Anna’s doll talks and she’s still in love with Elza. Elza asks her to be her disciple, and kind of misses the fact that she’s in love with Anna, too. It’s okay, it’s not like we expected genius from “Cassiopeia Dolce.”

And while that’s only about half the volume – that’s the half I read. There’s other stuff, both adequate and bad, and I’m sure some of you will like it very much, so let me remind you that only buy *buying* Yuri can you support it. Otherwise, you’re just stealing from the artists and the publishers. If you follow a series regularly, consider purchasing the magazine to pay the bills of the hard-working men and women who create these stories for you!

Ratings:

Overall – 7

Posted in Comic Yuri Hime, Yuri Manga | 12 Comments »