Yuri Network News – February 19, 2011

February 19th, 2011

Every week, as I type up a YNN report, I’m reminded just how fast time goes. It’s already mid-February!

Yuri Manga

Our top story this week is from YNN Correspondent Jennifer M. French publisher Taifu has released the first chapter of their French-language edition of GIRL FRIENDS by Morinaga Milk as an online preview. Go take a look, even if you don’t read French. And if you do, please support Taifu as they takes they first steps into the Yuri market!

This past Valentine’s Day, LGBT Comics Consortium Prism Comics was kind enough to feature our own Rica ‘tte Kanji!? for a review.

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ALC Publishing

Speaking of Rica,  I would like do a special shout-out today to Komatsu-san. Because of him, our ALC Publishing manga is going to become part of the permanent collection at the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Komatsu-san is a valuable member of our staff and a good friend. And a really nice guy! ^_^ Thank you so much for all your support.

Right now, all of us at ALC are working hard on the new Rica ‘tte Kanji!? Omnibus. ^_^ Along with the original chapters, and the “More Rica” chapters from Yuri Monogatari, we’ve got a previously unpublished story and some brand new work from Rica. It’s going to be amazing!

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Yuri Radio

In Japan, Simoun has kicked back into life, as the Emotion The Best Simoun box set edition hits the shelves. To help promote that, there is a new Simoun Radio show, Simoun Electric Wave DE Remersion.

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Other News

Director of Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Ikuhara Kunihiko, has announced that he will be directing a new TV anime this year. He was notably involved in the creation of the opening sequence of Aoi Hana in 2009. The only details he’s given about the anime so far as that it will star a high school girl – a piece of information that actually made me laugh out loud. It instantly reminded me of this Dilbert comic.

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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 ALC Publishing, Morinaga Milk, Yuri Network News | 4 Comments »


UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie OVA Collection, Season 4 (English)

February 18th, 2011

UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie: Seasons 3 & 4 (The OVA Collection)Season 4 of UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie is comprised of 2 OVAs, both of which are, well, kind of sweet.

In the first OVA, through a stupid plot complication, Kazuto’s family bathhouse is the location for Valkyrie’s class reunion. This allows us to see a million new Princess character designs and then see them bathing. It also allows us a little Yuri in the form of classmate crushiness on Pharm, Hydra and Valkyrie.

The second OVA was positively…funny and nice? WTH? Through the next stupid plot complication Akina is named the priestess who will do a super important festival dance on behalf of the royal family of Valhalla. Akina, Kazuto and Valkyrie are required to make super-secret wishes as part of the festival and then Akina does the dance – beautifully. Had this been the only episode ever made of this series, one would have cause to not believe that the series was a Kaishaku creation at all.

I’m very vexed at the fourth season. For a series that existed entirely to pander to the Lowest Common Denominator to end with grace and beauty is just…wrong. It’s like giving the most obnoxious kid in the class an ice cream cone for just sitting down and shutting up. It’s. Just. So. Annoying.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 5
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4 for classmate crushiness
Service – a shockingly low 8

Overall – A very vexing 6

All I can say is, I hope it annoyed the heck out of Kaishaku too, since by the end it had no resemblance at all to their vision.

Posted in English Anime | No Comments »


Aria Manga, Volume 6 (English)

February 17th, 2011

Aria Volume 6 (Aria (Tokyopop))Among the many lessons in the Aria manga, there is one that is quiet, softly tucked in among the all the others. But of all the lessons within Aria, it is quite possibly at the very core of this manga’s value system.

In Volume 6, we learn what kind of adult Alicia wants to become, what a Master means to a student, what kind of person Athena is, what Alice doesn’t want anyone else knowing about her and what the secret behind the late night train whistle that runs through town is.

But more importantly – most importantly – we learn once again that everyone is good at…something. And in that simple fact, we’re reminded to appreciate the people around us for that thing, and by extension, appreciate our time with them, and our time in the world. In fact, if we learn anything from Aria, it should be to *appreciate* the life we have, because for each of us, it is unique and wonderful.

You could, of course, be reading Aria for whatever Yuri you may have made up in your head. And that too will be valid – as long as you appreciate it.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 0
Service – 1

Overall – 8

I am absolutely thrilled to say “Thank you, I appreciate it!” to brand-new Okazu Hero, Kayden L! Thank you for the sponsorship of today’s post – and for the lovely note that came with the book. I truly appreciate the kind words. Please email me  to receive your Okazu Hero badge, suitable for use on websites, social media profiles and other flat surfaces!

I would also like to express sincere appreciation to Tokyopop for continuing to put this series out, despite the fact that it will never have the hordes of fans it deserves.

I very much appreciate Amano-sensei for writing this series. I’m able to appreciate it anew with every volume.

And while I’m at it, I just want to say once more how much I appreciate you for reading this review.

Posted in Aria, English Manga | 2 Comments »


Yuri Manga: GIRL FRIENDS, Volume 5

February 16th, 2011

After a rollercoaster ride of emotional growth, we have at last arrived at Volume 5 of Morinaga Milk-sensei’s definitive work, GIRL FRIENDS. And it is good.

Mari and Akiko have only a few more things left to deal with before they can face the world as a couple. One of these things is the physical component of their relationship, which is played for both laughs and “aww”s and is a sweet, rather than salacious, moment in their journey.

Of course their high school life is another thing they must deal with, and the hurdle of what will they do after they graduate takes up a large portion of this volume. It’s resolved satisfactorily on all sides. Akiko and Mari graduate without problem and in a giant handwave get to live happily ever after – at least as far as into the next stage of their lives.

And, despite the big stick o’happily ever after being applied liberally to the end of this series, I find myself not as satisfied with it as I had hoped to be. Bear with me as I explain why.

There are, IMHO, three obvious and perfectly legitimate reasons why the ending was given to us in an amorphous ball of “and they lived happily ever after,” rather than in any detail. Please allow me to indulge in a bit of overthinking here. These reasons might have been:

1) The author herself is clearly a specialist in the space between realizing “I like you” and getting together as a couple. It may be she has no interest in portraying anything after that.

2) The editor may have suggested that the audience isn’t terribly interested in the non-high school hurdles a gay couple has to face, or that the frisson of first love/first lust is sexier and more appealing to them than the domestic minutiae of buying furniture

3) Since all romances are, in some key ways, fantasies, the author may have wanted to portray a perfect world in which a couple of women, having decided to build a life together actually can, without pressure or difficulty from family or discrimination in housing or employment.

As I said, all three of these reasons are absolutely perfectly acceptable. And yet I remain unsatisfied. Why? Because for 4 volumes, Morinaga-sensei had constructed what I consider to be an incredibly realistic look at two young women in love. No, I absolutely did not need to see Mari and Akiko stressing over coming out to their families, but one handwave to wipe away all the many, many obstacles a young lesbian or gay couple faces was slightly irksome in the face of spending 4 volumes delving deeply into that very thing.

When you are part of a young gay or lesbian couple, your life is never truly private. Every act you do as a couple is a political statement, demanding recognition. As David Welsh of MangaCurmudgeon so brilliantly put it, every time he goes food shopping with his husband it is a subversive act. Constance McMillan never set out to make a political statement – she just wanted to take her girlfriend as her date to their senior prom. But the adults around her immediately turned that perfectly average desire into a divisive political declaration. For those of us who are LGBTQI, this happens every day.

So, when all of that is simply skipped or ignored, after 4 volumes of dealing with every single possible emotional hurdle between two girls and a life together as a couple, I found it to be disappointing. Had Mari at least thought, “Well, we still have a lot to deal with,” as she considered their life together in the epilogue, I would have been 100% satisfied. As it is, Morinaga-sensei gives away a little of the issue with the wrap-up in which we are told that Mari and Akiko still remained friends with Sugi-san and Tamamin and the others. This was never really a story about Mari and Akiko as Girlfriends. For Morinaga-sensei and her readers it was a story about Girls and their Friends. And in that story was a very sweet romance between two of those girls.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 10
Service – 4

Overall – 8

This series, at a comfortable 5 volumes, would be an excellent candidate for a American manga company who wanted to take a chance on a “Yuri” manga.

Posted in GIRL FRIENDS, Morinaga Milk | 13 Comments »


Hayate x Blade Mini-Drama CD

February 15th, 2011

If you bought the deluxe version of Volume 13 of Hayate x Blade, you received a Mini-Drama CD. As with most of the other HxB Mini Drama CDs, this one has a pervasive feel of fourth wall destruction and chaos.

Hitsugi has once again decided to record a Drama CD and to that end, she has gathered together the main characters of the story so she can inform them of her decision. This gives an opportunity to become reacquainted with the character’s voices – and to acclimate to the new voices in the cast, most notably Ensuu, Mei, Sid and Nancy. In all honesty, this CD could have ended after Sid and Nancy are introduced and I would have been happy, but no…Hitsugi has a much, much more diabolical plan, erm, planned.

For it is Tatewaki Hikaru who is called upon to step to the front and upon whose broad shoulders Hitsugi-sama places the important task of writing the script for the next Drama CD! Which is to say, she leaves Tatewaki alone in a room with some crackers and tea and a computer and tells her to clean up when she’s done.

And this, my friends, is the most amazing thing ever. Asano Mayumi has forever changed my impression of both Tatewaki and voice acting in general. The next scene, as Tatewaki bemoans her fate, mutters crazily to herself and chortles – not just chortles, but does the BEST CHORTLE EVER – alongside of dialogue recitation as she types, I considered myself schooled in the ways of voice acting by a Master.

The next scenes are a series of odd couple pairings, presumably in the scenes Tatewaki was composing. The wrap-up allows Hitsugi to be mean to her once more.

Then came the Bonus Track. Apparently I was not the only one impressed by Asano-san. The theme was “what character would you like to be,” and without hesitation several of the actresses stated that they wanted to be Asano Mayumi – to which I replied, “Agreed!” This despite the refrain from everyone else pointing out that Asano-san was not, in fact a character, but a real person.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

All I know is that the star of this Mini Drama CD was Asano Mayumi-san. The manga is totally worth getting – this CD is worth moving both heaven and earth to get.

Posted in Drama CDs & Audiobooks, Hayate x Blade | 1 Comment »