Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – October 8, 2022

October 8th, 2022

Yuri and LGBTQ+ Manga

She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki is available from Yen Press! This story is about food, and learning to like one’s self, dealing with traumatic past events and the way intimacies can develop between adults. I have loved Volume 1 and Volume 2 and look forward to your comments on this series in English. ^_^

Crystalynn Hodgkins has the news on ANN that Card Captor Sakura Clear Card Arc will end with Volume 14.

Viz Media announced the license of Until I Love Myself: The Journey of a Nonbinary Manga Artist this weekend.

 

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Yuri Light Novel

I’m In Love With the Villainess, Volume 5 is coming out in print format in English this week. If you haven’t read it, please do….it’s an amazing and unpredictable ending to an amazing and unpredictable series. Inori-sensei says that the manga volumes are getting reprints, and that you can help her by voting for the light novel in the Kadokawa’s Next Light Novel Awards. Check out Sensei’s post here (scroll down for English) to find out how. Voting is open until October 14.

 

Yuri Anime

By now, you’ve probably heard that Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is Utena in Space. Well, it is, and you should at least watch Episode 1. ^_^ ANN’s Kim Morrissey has words from Gundam manga artist Koichi Tokita, in Gundam Manga Illustrator Recalls An Earlier Time When Sexism Prevented A Female Protagonist. It is all well and good that Gundam has a Yuri couple as the main pair, but…can I be honest? How much cooler might it have been if they didn’t just borrow from Utena and created an actual new couple? Like with their own creativity and imagination. Who am I kidding… these are the folks who have used Char Aznable’s style in a dozen different iterations. ^_^;

Speaking of imitation, Kim also has this amazing article: Lycoris Recoil Anime Changes Episode 11 Eyecatch Illustrations to Discourage Fans from Imitating the Poses in Real Life. We should not have to tell people to not put poisonous plants in their mouths, but here we are.

Via Comic Natalie and Yuri Navi, Hoshizuku Telepath manga from Mangatime Kirara magazine is getting an anime! This is a school club story in which a girl with social anxiety meets a self-professed alien in a rocket-building club.

 

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Yuri Live-Action

Komatsu-san over at Crunchyroll News has the details and promotional video for If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It To The Budokan, I Would Die, live action series. Have to say, this looks pretty solid.

 

Other News

Crunchyroll News’ Kara Dennison wants you to know that ZOMBIE LAND SAGA‘s Franchouchou Announces First 3D Virtual Concert! If this goes streaming, I can easily be convinced to buy a ticket. We genuinely loved their songs.

 

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Posted in Yuri Network News | 8 Comments »


New York Comic Con Event Report

October 7th, 2022

My apologies for the radio silence over the past few days. I had a guest review lined up for you all, then got busy and distracted. Mea culpa. In the meantime, I did manage to attend the Librarian and Educator day of New York Comic Con, which is happening this weekend at Javits Convention Center in New York City.

NYCC has not historically been my favorite event, (AnimeNYC is a vastly superior event and I hope that all the anime and manga companies are going to be there. I’ll do a write-up before the event itself to give you an idea who is coming) as it gladly takes money from anime and manga-adjacent companies, but gives them little respect. This year it seems like the word got out and while Toei was there, with massive giveaways, and Bandai Namco with same, the only manga presence was the usual NYC based publishing companies. More on all of this in a sec.

I was part of the Manga in Libraries panel line-up on “Defending Manga,” with Jillian Rudes, founder of Manga in Libraries, Renee Scott, Rie Ishibashi, and Joe Sanchez. We had a lively panel, followed by manga industry folks talking about manga for libraries, and that was followed by a “Best and Worst” manga panel in which I got to be timer. ^_^ They were all fantastic panels. And – this is why I am telling you all of this – not only was there a lot of talk of queer representation in manga, but also disability, mental health and more. Every panel had some discussion of the importance of manga in giving voice to folks who have been marginalized. Obviously not every librarian, but many, are on the right side of this. Talk to your public and school libraries about getting good queer books on those shelves. Manga in Libraries has a ton of resources for all ages. AND let me assure you that the industry is also on our side. Here are some upcoming picks from representatives of Kodansha, Yen and Viz – Uta Isaki’s manga about being asexual and Mieri Hiranishi’s book about being a butch girl trying to find a gilfriend were positively gushed over. ^_^ (Photo by me.)

There was a panel today on manga, as well, This Manga Is Awesome, check out the tweets on that!

So, I didn’t walk the whole floor, because I wasn’t interested in the giveaways so much, or the Golden and Silver Age comics, as I’m out of collecting, or the booths selling crap, because I have so MUCH crap here. But I did walk along the publishing aisles…because books are not crap. ^_^ I stopped by the Yen Press booth and picked up a copy of She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat (review here on Okazu) and only later learned that there was a giveaway of a measuring spoon with a 1T and 1t measurement, for that. The guy I bought it from never even mentioned it. ^_^; Joe gave me his spoon, so I do have one. BUT, if you go to table 2837, tell Yen you want your spoon!

One last thing, Bandai Namco was there with a HUGE presence and multiple booths, so I wandered over to that and Crunchyroll in vain hope of a Birdie Wing thing sneaking through the cracks. No luck. I did check to see if Aerial from Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury was available yet, because I am an otaku, but not yet. Maybe by AnimeNYC, and then I’ll have to face how *much* of an otaku am I, really. ^_^

My day at NYCC was nice and very super queer-friendly. ^_^ Next up, I am doing a talk at Hunter College and going to be at Women in Comics Con in the Bronx this month – next month, I’m a guest at AnimeNYC, where I’ll be signing my book, By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga all weekend long – buy a copy there, and get ANYC exclusive giveaways while they last! ^_^

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »


Guest Announcement for Anime NYC!

October 3rd, 2022

I am extremely pleased to announce that I will be a guest at AnimeNYC on November 18-20, 2022, at the Javits Convention Center!

This is an important event to me. A few years ago I was in the position of reporting on both New York Comic-Con and AnimeNYC for The Comics Beat and, in doing so, I was able to conclude that, as anime and manga go, NYCC was not a great con. In 2018, NYCC moved their “Animefest” to a location a rather long walk away from the main convention center and in 2019, it was a puzzling melange of Renfaire-style goods and random elements with no cohesion.

That same year, BPE, AnimeNYC was everything New York Comic Con was not able to be. I declared AnimeNYC a decisive winner in the anime con wars in NYC.

I love the con, the staff, the other vendors, and I’ve had a great time every year that I’ve attended. Last year felt especially nice as it was the first event I had been to in several years. As a result of all of this – being a guest at this con feels special. 

I’ll have a table in the Artist Alley next to my pal Zack Davisson, where you’ll be able to get signed copies of By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga – or bring your copy by and I’ll sign it.  ^_^ I’ll have stickers and postcards and pins as well. I’m participating in two panels: Writing About Japan, with Zack and Abby Denson and the Manga in Libraries Defending Manga panel.

I hope you’ll drop by, by some stuff and let AnimeNYC know that they should have me back next year. ^_^

See you at AnimeNYC!

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Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

October 2nd, 2022

Imagine, if you will, a world in which you are familiar with all the people – except the ones with whom you aren’t, and new ones you haven’t met yet – and you have lost yourself and don’t know why these people or you are in this world, except that you are, and you like it, despite the complicating factors.

It is into this story that we are dropped at the beginning of Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir, the fourth book of a trilogy that began with Gideon the Ninth, and continued with Harrow the Ninth and will, (most probably) end with Alecto the Ninth next year.

Where Gideon put us in the middle of a fantasy/science-fiction action story and Harrow stuck us into the depths of a psychological horror tale, Nona feels very much like contemporary Urban Science Fiction, until the boots begin dropping.

The thing is, from the moment the book begins, you KNOW the boots are going to drop. You don’t know how many boots, how big they are or from how high they will drop, but they are hanging there in the sky as surely as Varun is. So when they begin to fall, it’s just a matter of waiting to see how many you anticipated correctly. ^_^ There’s a certain amount of purely fannish fun in trying to identify which boots – whose boots – you’re waiting for. When you get it right you feel VERY SMART. And then, sometimes, the story makes you feel not smart at all, so you sit there, waiting for the next boot.

Once again, Tamsyn Muir has populated a world with terrible people you really want to to hang out with. Really queer people who you just know would eat your for lunch and never notice, but you’d be so delighted to have had them be the ones to destroy you. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 10

The dog is fine. No need to worry about the dog. Everyone else, though…?

Posted in Novel | 2 Comments »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – October 1, 2022

October 1st, 2022

Yuri Manga

Volume 3 of the I’m in Love With the Villainess manga has hit shelves this week from Seven Seas. Rae and Claire will face each other in their fight to join the Academy Knights!

Also out this week from Seven Seas is Tsukiko’s 18+ collection Cats and Sugar Bowls.

We’ve also added Mieri Hiranashi’s The Girl Who Can’t Get a Girlfriend. This began life as an online comic and will now be collected into a revised volume from Viz Originals!

She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat, Volume 1 hit shelves this month from Yen Press. This is a very interesting series and I’m looking forward to everyone’s opinions of it. ^_^

 

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Via Yuri Navi, we have news of a new series starting in Comic Yuri Hime, “Aishitabun Dake Aishite Hoshi i~tsu!” (愛したぶんだけ愛してほしいっ！) about a college drop-out and a hot-head.

Also via Yuri Navi, Lily & Ivy  ~ Kenka Couple Yuri x Seiai Anthology (リリー&アイビー ～ケンカップル百合×性愛アンソロジー～) includes stories by Sakura Trick creator Tachi,  NTR creator Kodama Naoko and others!

 

 

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Yuri Light Novel

The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Volume 5 is available now from Yen Press, pitting Menou against her mentor, Flare.

 

Yuri Anime

Via Senior YNN Correspondent Sean G, we have some recommended reading. Lycoris Recoil And Shingo Adachi: Turning Original Anime Production Chaos In Your Favor,by kViN on Sakuga Blog, is an interesting  – if uncritical – look at the behind the scenes changes that helped make Lycoris Recoil a barnburner this season.

From my perspective, LycoReco was less a masterwork of finesse than a really fun handwave – Noir with jokes. Most of the emotional impact was set dressing and wasn’t going to have real meaning right from the beginning, as we all recognized on the Okazu Discord. Fun, but not smart, or deep, with a million plot holes festooned about the narrative like balloons.

 

Yuri Doujinshi

New on Irodori Sakura 18+ is Pikachi’s Girlfriends Club, described thusly, “The Girlfriends Club: A mysterious association at Yamayuri Girls’ Academy and its sister schools that essentially pays you to spend time deepening your relationships with other club members. The catch? Your interactions are livestreamed to an audience of very wealthy viewers!”

If you’re fans of Our Teachers Are Dating by Pikachi Ohi, don’t miss Irodori’s translated version of Ohi-sensei’s own doujinshi about Kiyattou-sensei and her girlfriend, in Romance for Teachers.

 

Other News

Always popular with the fandom and never really Yuri, the K-ON! manga by Kakifly is now available as a single-volume omnibus collection from Yen Press!

 

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