It’s been a busy couple of days here for the tour and part of it was on the road. Having got all comfy in our hotel, we packed up and headed for Kamakura, where we visited locations that featured in Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers. We had lunch in the cafe that was the basis for the one that Fumi and A-chan ate in, and where Fumi came out. 

We were supposed to have headed to Yoshiya Nobuko’s house, but due to unexpected (and at this point, inexplicable) circumstances, we were unable to do so. Not going tolie, we were all disappointed, but lunch helped. We then headed out to Enoshima, the site of many a day trip and date in dozens of anime.

Enoshima is a volcanic island which, according to local lore, rose out of the ocean, to allow the goddess Benzaiten to alight in order to face a dragon that was terrorizing the locals. There is a shrine on the island. Several, in fact, because that’s how things work.

The onsen resort we stayed in also had a shrine to Benzaiten in the cave hot springs, which was hot as blazes. The “roman” (i.e., Victorian) bath was easier to manage and very beautiful. 

Dinner was sumptuous, and almost killed us. This was the first course of five.

The view from my room. We’ve had pretty  cloudy weather, but side from a few hot days when we arrived, its been nice.

Breakfast the next morning was lovely. I forgot to get a picture. Woops! But we did get try Enoshima’s specialty, whitebait. It was pretty great over rice, with some pickles. Honestly, that was one of my favorite things we ate.

When I say that it’s Enoshima’s specialty….I mean you can get it in a zillion ways. On burgers, raw, cooked, dried, fresh, on mochi, as crackers. etc…. Including as ice cream.

On the way back to Tokyo, we stopped at the Library of Literature in Kamakura, which was the inspiration for the design of Fujigaya girls’ school.

It was fantastic. The exhibit while we were there was honoring Kandono Eiko, creator of  Majou no Takyuubin (魔女の宅急便), which we know as Kiki’s Flying Delivery Service. She is a prolific children’s author and was recently awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

It was a delightful exhibit, in a beautiful location- well worth the visit!

With that, we headed back for something we were all looking forward to…a Halloween Tea at our hotel. ^_^ It looked so cute on the poster we just had to.

The expression on the ghosts was brilliantly apt, as they were delicious. ^_^

After the third too-large meal in a row, we needed a long walk, so we headed out to the Akasaka Hikawa Shrine, the shrine that is the inspiration for Rei’s shrine in Sailor Moon. The festival we expected hadn’t opened yet, and so we all blamed Rei’s grandfather, but we did catch up with the parade of the mikoshi.

Today we’ve got a full schedule, with a visit to Shinjuku, Nakano and we’re hoping to get back to Akasaka to see the festival.

More to come!

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Saturday was one of the most physically demanding days of my entire life. And I didn’t *do* anything! 

We started the day at the Hanazono Shrine in Shinjuku, where I waxed poetic about Hana no Askua-gumi and the girl-gang aesthetic of the 1980s-1990s. 

We then headed out to Nakano, where we got together with Kat Callahan, who is always ready to talk anime. ^_^

I don’t know what it is about Nakano, but a few hours there and I am flattened. So a couple of us headed over to the cafe which was decorated with Go Nagai images and selling goods. ^_ There is a Go Nagai exihibit in town, as well. (Thanks, Richard, for letting me know!) that I’ll try to catch this week. 

From Nakano we dumped our purchases and headed back out to Hikawa shrine for the festival that hadn’t been there the night before. Folks who arrived early said they saw a Hino Rei cosplayer in her school uniform. I can not confirm, but that would be cool. ^_^

This was accompanied by, of course, eating food, and watching dancing. By the time we crawled home late that night, we were flattened. It was a terrific day.

Sunday was our “free” day. We started it by heading in different directions. Half of us went off to explore Ikebukuro quickly, with visits to Book-Off, Tokyu Hands, and a quick walk-through of Animate. I stopped and had a “Pink” – baked apple flavored Starbuck shake. I found this at Animate and scooped it up.

We continued the theme of junk food for the mind and body with lunch- pizza-  at Mister Donut, complete with plastic-flavored Halloween donut.

Alice had headed out to a national park from some hiking, my wife went shopping and the rest of us went to Takarazuka Theater for God of Stars, which was amazing. Think Son Goku as an Iron Chef in Singapore, who falls for a tomboy who can’t cook. It was brilliant.  The revue portion, Eclair Brilliant was equally as wonderful in its revue-y way. 

We hung out, waiting for the stars to do the walk-by. Both of the lead otokoyaku Kurenai Yuzu and Makoto Rei, the two leads, were so kind to their fans, that we liked them even more. 

Dinner was a sumptuous feast at a local duck and soba place that is now on my always-go list. (Thanks Chris for introducing us to Takadaya.)

One last crazy day for us on the tour to go!

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Well….wow. I mean, really. The final full day of the tour was a veritable feast of Yuri. 

We started the day with breakfast at a famous fruit parlor for breakfast, because ice cream and fruit is definitely breakfast of champions.

From there, we all made our way out to the Girls Love Festival, where predictably, I bought more doujinshi than I planned on buying. ^_^ We all picked up Doropanda Tours’ ShizNat 14 years later doujinshi, because hell yes we did. Two of our party had Morishima Akiko sign some English language goods, which made everyone happy.

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GLFest had something I had never seen before… Comic Zin had brought a bunch of Yuri doujinshi and books, so there was a little Yuri bookstore to buy from.

On the way out, my wife realizing we were on the back end of the Sensoji, and she wanted to take everyone down the Nakamisedori.

Because we didn’t have enough Yuri, we then trekked to Akihabara. First up was Shosen Book Tower, which has a brilliant Yuri section.

Then a quit hit at Melon Books, where I had a mission to find Hayashiya Shizuru’s newest original doujinshi…which I did! It was pretty much exactly where I hoped to find it…a small miracle in and of itself. Victory! Last stop was Comic Zin where, amazingly, I found more Yuri to buy. ^_^

Part of the tour had already headed back to the hotel. Two headed off for a dinner of monjayaki. When we all got back together, it was time for something extra special…the Sailor Moon Shining Moon Tokyo restaurant! 

I will do a full review when I get home, but let me just say…it was fantastic. Really, genuinely a load of fun for all. 

We e all shipped Minako and Rei hard. The actress playing Venus really leaned into her role. ^_^

I’ll tell you all of it in detail later, I promise. ^_^

With that, the 100 Years of Yuri Tour officially came to a close. I want to thank everyone who joined us on our adventure. It was a blast!

My wife and I are here a couple of extra days, so expect a few more days of stuff. We’re heading out to Pokewalk a bit right now, but tune in next time for more fun!

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Just back home from the 100 Years of Yuri Tour and we’re already working on the next set of events! Here is my October appearance schedule:

October 3-6, New York Comic Con, Javits Center, New York, NY

I will be on at least one panel on Sunday and will be taking a look at this year’s AnimeFest at Hudson Mercantile.

Oct 15-16 Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Tuesday, October 15, 5PM, B122 Wells Hall, MSU Campus

I will be talking about about Rose of Versailles and Sailor Moon to a class on translation. They each pose a significant set of challenges to translators and adapters. This is free and open to the public (check with the school for registration.)

Wednesday, October 16, 5PM, Rom 301 International Center, MSU Campus
We’ll be talking about 100 Years of Yuri!

Oct. 25 Diversity Con, Fashion Institute of Technology NYC, NY

This is a brand-new event that is specifically focusing on marginalized communities within comics. There’s a lot of potential and I have hope that it will be grand.

I’m hoping that I’ll be at AnimeNYC, in November as well. Fingers crossed. ^_^ Let ’em know you want me there!

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Yuri Manga

Seven Seas announced a passel of Yuri titles this week! There’s a nice variety for Yuri fans.

Starting with the manga for upcoming Yuri anime, Fragtime manga is slated for an April 2020 release in omnibus format.

Hitoma Iruma’s Yuri light novel series Adachi and Shimamura will be released in single volumes starting in summer 2020. I reviewed the first volume in 2013. There’s been 8 volumes of the series since then and an anime is heading our way in 2020, as well.

Ajiichi’s Failed Princesses is a high-school romance between two students who are not friends at all. I reviewed Volume 1 of Dekisokonai Hime-tachi (できそこないの姫君たち) last spring and have Volume 2 on the to-read pile.

Ichijinsha’s Syrup anthology is on the way in English in summer 2020. I can’t find a review, so either I haven’t read it, or I did and didn’t review it. Not sure which. ^_^

Last, but not least, Seven Seas has licensed the historical drama Goodbye, My Rose Garden. Once again, I have reviewed Volume 1 of Sayonara, Rose Garden (さよならローズガーデン) and have Volume 2 to read.

Okazu News

I want to thank everyone who joined the 100 Years of Yuri Tour last week. We had an amazing time! Reviews to come this week.

Current Okazu Patrons will be receiving early access to a new chapter of the Big Book O’Yuri, a history of Yuri Events! Become a Patron and receive perqs like sneak peaks at the book, early access to research and exclusive goods.

Yuri Anime

Via YNN Correspondent Adrian O., we have the news that Sentai Filmworks is releasing a Premium boxset for the Bloom Into You anime. This will include the entire anime series, Special Book, Storyboard Book, Original Script Booklet, Art Cards (x6), Rei’s Recipe Card. This last contains Yuu’s older sister’s cheesecake recipe. ^_^

Viz Media has begun their replacement campaign for the booklets included with Sailor Moon Stars, so that Haruka and Michiru are once again partners. Check out ANN for details on how to get your replacement.

ANN reports on the cast and main visuals of the Tamayomi anime, which will debut in spring 2020.

Once more via ANN, Fragtime anime OVA announces more cast and a theme song.

Via Comic Natalie, Yuri Yuri is getting a 4-episode anime miniseries on Youtube starting this week, culminating in the release of a new OVA in November.

Light Novel News

Ojamajo Doremi is a popular magical girl children’s anime franchise in Japan that is celebrating a 20th anniversary this year. To celebrate, ANN reports a new novel for the series will be released next month that catches up with the girls 20 years later. ^_^ Ojamajo Doremi 20s (おジャ魔女どれみ20’s) will see an October release. I’m including this because in the original series, there was some indication that Ai was queer, but whether that will exist in this novel, I don’t know. I doubt it.

Kickstarter Watch

Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, artist for the award-winning Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (which I reviewed in Spring 2019) has a new book coming out, via successful Kickstarter, Don’t Go Without Me. Queer horror, scifi and drama, and it looks fabulous.

Live Action News

Via a number of YNN Correspondents, cooking manga that centers on two sisters by marriage who find common ground through food, Shinmai Shimai no Futari Gohan  is getting a live-action drama. ANN has the details.

Other News

The Library of Congress is hosting an exhibit called Comic Art : 120 Years of Panels and Pages, and I want to offer my congratulations to my friend, extremely talented comic artist Marguerite Dabaie, for having a page of her work Hookah Girl included! The exhibit is largely available online, so I encourage you to check out the link.

There’s a new Sailor Moon game available via the official Sailor Moon site. Check out Crystal Puzzle, available on iOS and Android. According to the fan club newsletter, 2020 will see a Sailor Moon on Ice event.  I don’t see a website announcement for it yet, so details TBA. And that seems like the perfect place to wrap up this week’s report. ^_^

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to all of our Okazu Patrons, who make this report possible!

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One of the several exciting events associated with our 100 Years of Yuri Tour was a visit to the Sailor Moon Restaurant, Shining Moon Tokyo. We included this, in part because Sailor Moon is foundational to a whole generation of not only Yuri fans, but also Yuri creators. (I recall a story in one of Hayashiya Shizuru-sensei’s early doujinshi on how she met her partner/assistant Makise Ren at a video rental store, as they both reached for a Sailor Moon S tape.) Also in part because I thought it sounded awesome and wanted to include it.

Shining Moon Tokyo was awesome, and I’m really glad we went. ^_^

To begin with, we were met at the door by a person who confirmed our reservation and took our dinner orders before we had set foot in the place. We then proceeded down stairs into a basement wonderland. Well…a relatively low-budget wonderland, anyway.

The tables and chairs were white resin, very 1960s. The stage was small, with stair up each side to a catwalk across the top and the smallest proscenium I had ever seen, not even a meter square. There was a screen across the stage, welcoming us to Shining Moon Tokyo.

The ceiling was hung with the planets…two of which became part of the show, in a rhythmic gymnastics kind of way.

Costumes in one section of the restaurant were the only decorative items. In most other ways the space felt like a cave or a basement theater…or a kind of modern Mithraeum, where a ritual enactment was about to take place. ^_^

The screen kept telling us that the show would start shortly, but first, we were served dinner. The choices were limited, so between us, we had all three options. I had the sushi platter, with little planetoid sushi.

There was the moon somen plater.

And the moon bunny curry.

Drinks were Senshi-themed. We split between the Sailor Moon (peach), the Venus (mango and green jello)  and the Mars (shiso and some kind of berry.)

For dessert I think we all got the Silver Millennium cake.

The food was pretty good as far as it went, which is as far as microwaved platters can go. ^_^ They were served on planet symbol-themed wax paper over special Shining Moon Tokyo plates, which were a gift – after the dinner, we were handed boxes to take them home with us. We joked that if we can back a few times , we’d have enough for a service.

Just as the screen told us the show would begin shortly, I noted that the screen has English subtitles. Huh, how about that.

Then the show began. Not surprisingly, no pictures were allowed of the show, but we were encouraged to take pictures of the revue portion.

The show was the entire first season boiled down into a half-hour, with key points including the death of the Senshi kept intact. The individual fight scenes were pretty amazingly well-done. The screen functioned as some of the special effects, so Ami’s and Makoto’s attacks were shown on screen. Rei’s fight was exceptionally well done, using a large puppet for a nine-tailed kitsune and she twirled some kind of effect bar that showed up as flames – we all really liked that effect.

Even Tuxedo Mask had a decent fight scene that included lasers and smoke. “He” was still brainwashed for a bit there, but visually, the whole scene was cool.

Which brings me to Minako. We saw Abe Nanami as Minako/Sailor Venus, and we all commented that she leaned into her role hard. She was fantastic. Her fight was the most abstract, with nice use of light and shadow – and she made good use of the scenario. She also managed to dominate any scene she was in, in a good way. Additionally, as the performance wrapped up, I swore I saw a little byplay between her and Taguchi Mika, who played Mars. It was just a moment of interaction in which I was positive Rei was acting jealous. ^_^

I also want to shout out to the deathlings, played by the other set of actresses that switch off with the team we saw. My god, they were athletic. Even beyond flips and dance-fighting kicks and stuff, they did rhythmic, acrobatic, and aerial gymnastics.  These 12 young woman work really hard for this show and I want to thank them all.

And then the actresses came out to greet those of us in the audience and my suspicions about Minako were totally confirmed. ^_^ I wasn’t filming, but I did capture photos of Venus throwing a kiss at my wife, and Mars reacting with jealousy, then Venus holding on to Mars for the rest of the greet. ^_^

Here’s the photos in a time lapse video.

Of course by then, we were all ready to spend money at the shop. Belatedly, I noticed we had nothing Mercury themed. Had I realized, I would have ordered a blue drink. Poor Ami.

It was a wonderful time and we all enjoyed the heck out of it.I recommend it highly if you’re already a fan of the series or are looking for a themed cafe and show.

After watching Minako in this little scenario, I’m more than ever convinced that it’s way past time for a 21st century update of Sailor Moon, in which the full range of gender and sexuality in the characters is openly acknowledged. Haruka as genderfluid, Minako as pansexual, the Starlights as trans…I think it would be swell. ^_^

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Last summer it was my genuine pleasure to read and review a series of short Pixiv webcomics by Kurukuruhime-sensei about couples living together and sharing their lives. Yurigurashi was a fun read, that served as a nice intro to several couples’ lives. Today it is my even greater pleasure to review the English-language edition of this book, fresh from Yen Press, Yuri Life.

Each story in this collection is a short slice-of-a-couple’s-life together. We learn enough about the women to get a sense of their personalities, their foibles and the nature of their relationship. There’s little complication in the chapters, and almost no conflict beyond communication misfires and personality clashes. But that doesn’t meant there isn’t room for whimsicality and weirdness. ^_^

There is no lesbian identity here,  and I’m not entirely sure there’d be a place for it, as the scenes tend to focus on domestic moments…and it’s not like an established couple has to reaffirm their queerness to one another all that often outside bed. ^_^

Taylor Engel’s translation is comfortable and enhances the ease of reading, Likewise, letting by Alexis Eckerman helps ensure this volumes is the authentic manga reading experience fans are looking for. The color palette of this manga is very appealing and adult.  Kurkuruhime-sensei’s art is likewise appealing, with that slight sketchiness I quite like. I consider Kurkuruhime to be an artist worth following. I’m looking forward to future work from them – and indeed, have something new on my to-read pile!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – N/A
Characters – 8 Are all presented as likable, even the grouchy OL
Service – 3 some nudity, but nothing salacious or sleazy
Yuri – 10

Overall – 8

As a series of entertaining slice-of-life webcomics that feature adult women living lives with the women they love, you can’t really beat Yuri Life. (Actually, as an enteritaining life, you can’t really beat living the Yuri life, but that’s a whole other story…. ^_^)

Thanks to Yen Press for the review copy! This was a book I’ve looked forward to for a year and it was everything I hoped it would be. ^_^

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We all make mistakes, of course. And we all live with the consequences of those mistakes. But, how are you supposed to be accountable for mistakes, when you don’t understand what mistakes you made..or how they were even mistakes at all? In Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu, Volume 5, Yano Mitsuki is plagued as the specter of her past invades her present. Hime struggles to understand where the disconnects are, but…

It begins so nicely, too. Hime and Kanako spend a day shopping together – a “date,” Hime says. While Kanako puzzles the meaning of the word “date,” Hime buys some presents for everyone in the salon, including a matching set for her, Kanako and Mitsuki. But when she tries to give the present to Yano, its rejected with some force. Hime has no idea what she did wrong, this time. But this time, she’s not at fault. Instead, it’s Mitsuki’s inability to read the humans around her that’s the problem. And she knows its a problem…and she’s really trying, but she simply cannot understand what she cannot understand. She doesn’t want to make the same mistakes, even as she can see that she is…but what those mistakes are, are still beyond her grasp. She’s especially struggling to understand Hime.

I resonated with this volume for a lot of reasons. Its really hard to know what to do to fix a problem when you don’t understand what the problem is. And when the “problem” is human relationships, fixing it might not even be an option, even if you do know – but not knowing is maddening. Watching all four of the cafe employees struggling to understand how they were messing up because of their limited understanding of each other’s reactions was powerful. I know a lot of people, (including myself) who struggle with various aspects of this kind of thing daily. I have friends who drive themselves into a tizzy, just as Mitsuki does here, trying to make head or tails out of what others can see are random and inconsistent reactions – and I’ve certainly been in similar situations where, like Kanako, I struggle to understand the implication of something someone else may have said casually or thoughtlessly.

As a result, I’m suddenly finding many thing to like about Hime. She’s patient with Kanako, explaining what she means when she says something and why it may not match with her actions. Her outside image may take the blame, but she’s honest about how words work when she speaks privately to Kanako. Props to her for that. Hime is also surprisingly persistent in being nice to Mitsuki even though she doesn’t understand the other girl entirely. Sure, its for her social reputation and outward appearances, but that doesn’t explain it all away.

So this volume struck me as hard to read emotionally, but a necessary logjam that will require an explosion to clear it.

Now that the series has moved past all the role-based conflicts and we’ve settled into it being a log-term story, Miman-sensei has time to actually take the story below the surface. Forget cake set names…the story here is in the shifting boundaries between characters. Until recently, I would never have imagined that this story was really going to manage a romance, but I kind of see where this is going now and its going to get ugly before it gets better. But it will definitely get better. ^_^

The art has ramped up, as well. There’s been such visible improvement  even in the 5 volumes of this series. The writing is getting stronger, too. All in all, an excellent volume of  story I find I’m enjoying beyond the silly premise.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Service – 3 Nothing salacious, but the premise is service
Yuri – ????? I can’t even There’s a lot and very little at the same time.

This is not the first comedy-turned-drama that we’ve seen here and, like Whispered Words, I think it’s going to be worth it. Volume 6 is going to be explosive when we get there.

Tachibana-sama makes a return visit to the cafe. I still want to know why she gets a face and a name.

Yuri is My Job, Volume 5 will be hitting shelves in English in December, so you don’t have much of a wait until you can watch the collision build up slowly enough to not ruffle collars or stir skirts at Liebe Gakuen.

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Cinnamon Nonhuman x Human Yuri Anthology ( シナモン 人外×人間百合アンソロジー) was so much more fun than I expected, I bumped it up the review pile just to be able to tell you about it. ^_^

The premise of Cinnamon, one of the recent crop of Ascii Mediaworks / Kadokawa anthologies, is that humans and non-human creatures can and do find love together. Like it’s sister publication, Vanilla, which featured all non- and demi-human protagonists, how they get there is really tangential to the romance itself.

The first story by Neji, sets the tone of “oh, okay” when a young woman is out walking the mountain paths and meets a beast woman with whom she falls in love. There’s not enough time to delve into the hows or whys, but there’s plenty of time to kvell for their potential happiness.

The next story, by Asagao, follows two sisters whose deep connection continues on even after one becomes a zombie. This story has not one thing in it that ticks off a box for me, but I liked it anyway. ^_^

Several artists took a look at schoolmates who turn out to be something other than human, notably Takemiya Jin, whose look at “onigokko” (hide-and-seek) takes a dark turn when one of the girls turns out to be a real oni who will eat the loser. I don’t much care for animal ears on girls, but I quite like horns, as it turns out.

My favorite story is by Sekihara – once again, because I think I’ve liked their work in several recent anthologies. This story follows a woman who has moved into a new place to live, and found it inhabited by an Edo period Oiran, the ghost of a courtesan. They make it work. ^_^

The art and storytelling were both pretty strong for an anthology. I was glad to see mermaids and yokai included with the usual crop of animal-featured girls.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

I had pretty low expectations for this collection, but found it genuinely entertaining. I could easily see this being picked up by Yen Press.

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Getting tickets to a live Takarazuka performance is one of the great gambles of the universe. It could be breathtakingly fabulous, as was my first experience, Elizabeth, or it could be dire, or anywhere in between. But regardless of whether the show is itself good, the spectacle is always entertaining. It was for the spectacle I wanted a Takarazuka show to be part of the 100 Years of Yuri Tour.

We had been informed that tickets for this show were incredibly difficult to get. Ultimately, we learned that both lead otokoyaku, Kurenai Yuzu and Makato Rei were retiring after this performance, and this was one of the last performances for the top musumeyaku, Kisaraki Airi, as well. As a result, it was a miracle we got tickets at all. It was so worth it. God of Stars / Éclair Brillant  was an amazing show, good enough that I’ll totally get it when it comes out on disc.

To begin with the story was ridiculous and fun. We meet a celestial being Red Boy, the God of Stars, who is beloved in heaven in an opening number extravaganza.

Then, suddenly, we’re in Singapore in the present, watching an Iron Chef-like show, the star of which is obviously a reincarnated Red Boy. Hong Xing-Xing is the masterchef of the show, with a grand plan to uproot the small restaurants of a dockside area. He’s attacked on the set by Eileen Chow, a tomboy who loves cooking, but can’t herself cook. Hong storms off and the sponsor decides that he’s a liability, so sets him up for a fall, by implicating him in a crime. Hong finds himself bankrupt and alone in Eileen’s section of town. Together they decide to rehabilitate Hong’s reputation with a cooking contest between Hong and the new master chef Dragon Lee.

And then the story gets weird. ^_^

Both Hong and Eileen have absentee parents. With help, Eileen tracks down her mother, who has become a famous architect in Shanghai, and Hong, while studying Buddhist vegetarian cuisine at a mountain temple (with the name 小林寺, Kobayashidera, for a fabulous visual pun on Shaolin Temple’s name,) discovers Eileen’s father. Hong’s own celestial parents arrive to watch the final contest with Lee. And we all live happily ever after. Of course.

I cannot express how fantastic the show was. Funny in all the right places, the excess of Takarazuka really worked to this show’s advantage. Kurenai Yuzu and Kisaraki Airi had good energy, but were not particularly sexy together. Makoto Rei was STUNNING as Dragon Lee and we all enjoyed the heck out of Maisora Hitomi as Christine Chang, the top Hong Kong singer.

There was a surprising variety of musical numbers, from boy band hysteria and Christine’s HK idol song, to larger more ebullient full-stage numbers, like God Of Stars, and the inevitable love duet between Hong and Eileen. They were all good numbers, a few of them incredibly catchy.

This was followed by the revue portion of the show, Éclair Brillant, with its typical glittery fabulousness. It apparently “portrays a young man who floats down from space to earth, and sings and dances across the globe.” I did not get that from the revue itself, but can certainly understand that that’s what I saw, now that I read it. ^_^

The final song was the usual repetition of the word “love” 7000 times and was so sticky, I ended up singing it for a week, so that was pleasantly irritating. ^_^

Ratings:

Music – 8 Really good
Story – 10 It was so over the top
Characters – 10 Every character was perfect
Yuri – 1 Yes, Hong and Eileen get together, but the actresses had no real sexual tension. Nonetheless, they were so wonderful as their roles, I really can’t ding them.

Overall – 9

An incredible show, with stellar performances, and fantastic contemporary musical numbers and a classic Takarazuka revue portion. I recommend it highly.

After the show was over, and although we were all ravenously hungry, we stuck around to watch the actresses come out and address their fan clubs. It was really quite sweet.

This one I’m sharing because of the general fabulousness of the presentation.

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Yuri Manga

Couple of new titles up on the Yuricon Store!

Kadokawa has a new anthology: White Lilies in Love Akanesasu Koigokoro o, Akaku Somete Hoshī no Anata ni (茜さす恋心を紅く染めてほしいの貴方に。 社会人百合アンソロジー).

Ahead of Seven Seas’ license of Goodbye My Rose Garden, Sayonara Rose Garden, Volume 2 (さよならローズガーデン) is available in Japanese (and on my to-read pile.)

In Strawberry Fields, Mou Ichido, Volume 3 (ストロベリー・フィールズをもう一度) looks like the romance is ramping up for real.

Fukami Ken’s Haru to Midori, Volume 2 (春とみどり) gets intense as Midori must sort through her mother’s things, forcing Haruko to really deal with her feelings.

Nakamura Asumiko’s school life Yuri drama, Mejirobana Saku, Volume 1 (メジロバナの咲く) hits shelves in Japan in mere days. This high-tension Yuri drama from a popular BL creator has definitely been worth reading so far.

Via Miman’s Twitter account, Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu! is now out in German from Tokyopop as Cafe Liebe, translated by Yuri scholar and all-around fascinating human, Verena Maser! We’ll be talking with her about it later this autumn.

Yuri Anime

Funimation has added Aoi Hana / Sweet Blue Flowers to their streaming offerings via Alex Mateo’s reporting on ANN.

From October 5 through December 22, if you’re in or near Okayama check out the art exhibition, idol performances and talk events in honor of the upcoming anime release, based on Hirao Auri’s manga Oshi ga Budokan Ittekuretara Shinu. Details on Comic Natalie.

Via YNN Correspondent Yoko, a pleasant little clip of Yuri animation by kaynimatic on Twitter.

Bloom Into You News

Via Yuri Times on Twitter’s translation of the Dengeki Daioh report, we have news of 7 new Yagate Kimi ni Naru / Bloom Into You projects planned:

The final volume of the manga will be released in November, an art book by Nakatani Nio-sensei, a short stories book by Nakatani-sensei, a second volume of a comic anthology (read my review of the first volume here on Okazu); Volume 3 of the Saeki Sayaka ni Tsuite novel series (my reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2 are here on Okazu); a  LINE sticker set of the series and; an encore stage play is scheduled for autumn of 2020.

Live Action News

The live-action trailer for Shinmai Shimai Futari Gohan has been posted by the series official account on Twitter.

Yuri Game

Via YNN Correspondent Xan, check out Laura Dale’s review Sayonara Wild Hearts is Neon Lesbian Biker Panzer Dragoon Narrated by Queen Latifah.

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to all of our Okazu Patrons, who make this report possible!

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This summer saw the largest manga exhibition at a museum outside Japan, as the British Museum for their Manga マンガ exhibit, to critical acclaim. A little belatedly, because I was away, we have a review of that exhibit by YNN correspondent Eleanor W. I was seriously sorry that I couldn’t manage a trip to London this summer to see this, so I’m settling in to walk through the exhibit with a friend. ^_^ The floor is yours, Eleanor…take it away!

When I heard about the British Museum’s manga exhibition running this summer, I decided that a trip to our capital was necessary. Since London is 4 ½ hours from me on the train, I made a weekend of it, took my best friend (also a manga fan) and we had a great time. As long time manga fans, we were both curious as to what the exhibition would hold for us, as opposed to people who know nothing about manga or comics. 

The museum’s own website invites you to “Enter a graphic world where art and storytelling collide in the largest exhibition of manga ever to take place outside of Japan.” 

It’s always nice to see Miyuki

The exhibition began with a quick introduction to manga, including some sample draft pages, some examples of artist’s tools donated by Takehiko Inoue and some videos from editors at the major publishers Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan, wishing the exhibition success.

Once in the main hall of the exhibition there was a lot to see. There was clearly a lot of time and effort taken to cover every aspect of manga and its history and diversity. From focuses on a few specific artists, to a model bookshop where you could take Japanese and English volumes off the shelf to read, as well as information on seminal series like Dragon Ball and One Piece and even a small explanation of doujinshi and Comiket. 

There was of course a lot of space devoted to telling the history of manga and how it evolved over the 20th century into what it is today. From ukiyo-e woodblock cuts to early newspaper strips, it was definitely a good beginner friendly introduction to where manga came from beyond Osamu Tezuka. 

An example of early Japanese cartoons published in a newspaper, in the style of Western newspaper strips. 

I particularly liked this board game

I was happy that there was mention of the Year 24 Group and how they developed shoujo manga and BL, with a particular focus on Moto Hagio. 

Leading on from the Year 24 Group, there was another section on Boys Love, though disappointingly Yuri didn’t get a mention. I almost forgive them though, as they included Fumi Yoshinaga and What Did You Eat Yesterday as an example of a different more modern type of BL along with a few pages of My Brother’s Husband, which if you haven’t read already, you absolutely need to. 

The curators definitely tried to pick diverse examples of series to show, evidenced by Chihayafuru being right around the corner from a display on Junji Ito and his horror works, a large print of JoJo on one of the walls and a Colossal Titan head model looming in the opposite corner.

Another part I particularly enjoyed was the section about sound effects. Fumiyo Kono (Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms and In This Corner of the World) has produced a manga guide to the common Japanese sound effects often seen in manga, and uses an adorable rabbit character to explain how they are used and often form part of the art.

Overall, this exhibition was a good balance between not intimidating newcomers to the world of manga, but still providing enough for veteran fans to enjoy. I’m glad I made the trip. 

For further reading, take a look at the British Museum’s blog on the exhbit:

Manga: a brief history in 12 works

An introduction to Manga

and ANN’s report of Viz Editor Urian Brown’s walkthrough video of the exhibit.

Erica here: Thank you Eleanor! I appreciate your overview and I’m very glad that you were able to see the exhibit.

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Last and First Idol, by Gengen Kusano, is the first of the J-Novel Club Yuri novels that I have read. Having read it, I feel that I stand in the presence of genius, very uncomfortably so. ^_^

This collection of three stories, “Last and First Idol,” “Evo Girls” and “Dark Seiyuu” are reminiscent of Murakami’s “Superflat” movement; combining pop culture and the shallowness of consumer culture with an eye to creating something new and extraordinary. In Murakami’s work, he’s using pop culture art as the base for his epic art. Kusano is using pop culture in the form of idols, seiyuu and mobile games as a base for hard science fiction, sprinkled liberally – and holistically – with philosophical discussions of consciousness, soul, time and life, with extremely detailed forays into science, with a strong emphasis on evolution.

The post-script essay by Satoshi Maejima gives us a few clues to the nature of this particular flattened construction; noting that the titular story began life as a Love Live! fanfic. Kusano himself likens his description of his opening story as a “widescreen yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi idol story,” as being suggestive of the kind of trope inversions we saw in Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

For myself it reminded me heavily of Piers Anthony’s early pre-Xanth science fiction Herald the Healer series and his early fantasy Tarot series, which, while both were obsessed with sex, dealt rather prominently with communication and evolution and society as well. (Disclaimer: The Tarot series is one of my foundational series and a great number of things remind me of it.)

“But in a deterministic universe only the present exists. There is no past or future. Determinism only allows for a time-like progression based on the laws of causality. All that existed is a privileged point in time we call the present. These points in time are related to each other, in that one occurs before or after another, but that’s all. In a universe where free will had shattered determinism the real present exists. The point at which free will activates is the present. By activating free will, we can create a future that had not yet existed. As opposed to the deterministic universe, in which all points in time exist simultaneously.”

Yuri Novel or philosophic rant by an unhinged pop culture addict? Or thought-provoking science fiction? Choose all that apply.

There’s no question that this book is bonkers, but bonkers in a brilliant and brilliantly disturbing way that nonetheless did not leave me feeling traumatized. This despite a great deal of violence, guts, cannibalism, and three completely different end-of-the-world scenarios, all uniquely horrific.

If you are still reading at this point, not put off by anything I have said, you are now ready to read story descriptions.^_^

“Last and First Idol,”explores the nature of pop idols in extremis, in which one young woman’s desire to be an idol, and another young woman’s desire to see her achieve that, drives her them reshape reality to achieve their ends. The end of the world and the destruction of humanity is nothing more than another idol activity.

“Evo Girls,” explores the exact opposite, using the media of mobile games, which have the ability to strip all life from the planet and how one addict puts is all back together, from scratch. You may have read other “reincarnated as an amoeba” stories, but you have never read one like this. Objectively, this one has the happiest Yuri ending.

In “Dark Seiyuu,” the universe turns out to be fundamentally not at all what physicists tell us it is. Genetically engineered seiyuu who fuel interplanetary travel, have the capacity to destroy or preserve life. Murderous Akane, driven mad by her dreams of becoming the greatest seiyuu, is the only one capable of saving herself and her kouhai, Sachi.

I have never before been so relieved that a book did not have illustrations.

The book is described as being “Yuri” and is being sold as being “Yuri” so, it behooves us to ask “Is it Yuri?”

Yes. Every story includes an intense emotional/romantic connection between two characters who identify as female. This last distinction will become clearer as you read the stories. I will not spoil, but I caution you to make no assumptions about my phraseology. It is neither gender nor sexuality, but humanity, about which I am prevaricating.

In more than one of the stories, “love” or “like” is probably not the right terminology, either. Obsession, mutual need, symbiosis, all come a little closer. I’ll tell you this, though – none of the stories have a particularly bad end. The beginnings and middles, though…you’re on your own. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Genuinely brilliant, thoughtful and uncomfortable-making in a dozen ways, Last and First Idol is an excellent book, but not a light read.

Tomorrow, we’ll be talking to Sam Pinansky of J-Novel Club about this new line of Yuri science fiction novels and see what else in store for us!

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This summer saw an announcement by J-Novel Club that they’d be releasing a number of Yuri Japanese novels. Yuri and science fiction have had a run of popularity after SF Magazine’s Yuri edition and Hayakawa’s release of a Yuri science fiction anthology, Asterism, so this seems like a good time to be into Yuri and Sci-Fi. Yesterday, I reviewed Last and First Idol, and found it to be an impressive piece of work. I took some time to speak with J-Novel Club’s founder Sam Pinansky about this new direction.

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Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get involved with anime and manga originally?
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SP: Back when I was in college, I got really into anime after seeing some VHS bootlegs of Evangelion, and then I started renting tapes of classics like Slayers/Ranma, etc.

In graduate school I took Japanese for fun while studying for my PhD, and started fansubbing anime to help learn.  I took a postdoc in Japan, and after that was over put myself in the right place to be one of the first simulcast anime translators, quickly turning that into my career.  After gathering a group of localizers I took a job at Tezuka Productions, and then later on Yomiuri TV Enterprise, basically running a localization service for anime, TV shows, movies, and manga from Japan.
 

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You first popped up on our radar as part of the AnimeSols project, translating older classic anime, including Riyoko Ikeda’s Dear Brother. What are some of the lessons you learned with AnimeSols? What anime series would you like to be able to release if you could?
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SP: Well, I’d been around translating your anime simulcasts for many years before that!  But while I was at Tezuka I came up with an idea to try crowdfunding for classic anime titles that couldn’t get licensed using traditional routes.  However we ran into the rise of Kickstarter, and our site/system not being on the most popular crowdfunding platform limited our ability to succeed.  It was also a learning experience for all the Japanese companies involved about how much communication and community interaction is necessary to have a successful crowdfunding campaign.  It seems obvious now, but these were very much the early days back then. I personally think that the classic Tatsunoko series like Yatterman and the like really deserve a proper restoration and western release.

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Tell us about J-Novel Club. How did the idea come about? How has it been received generally?
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SP: The idea for J-Novel Club came from me attempting to answer a question that began bothering me in 2015: Why were there so many anime being made which were based off of light novels, but so few of the actual original light novels being released in English?  I set out to create a business model that I felt would enable me the greatest chance to turn a profit on light novels and fix this problem, and in early 2016 got to work creating the company and licensing the first content, using my fairly deep connections in the anime/manga/publishing industry in Japan.

J-Novel Club is a publishing company, but we actually have 3 business models going on at the same time.  We publish physical books for some of our series, we publish ebooks for everything, and we also have a paid subscription service where subscribers can read the latest volumes of all of our series week-to-week as they are being translated.  This hybrid model is designed to allow all people to consume light novels in the ways they are most comfortable with, as people come to the format from print manga, from weekly streaming anime, and from illegal fan translation groups.  Thanks to everyone’s support over the past nearly 3 years, we’ve sold over 1,000,000 ebooks already and have already published our 300th volume!
 

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J-Novel Club is launching a new line of Yuri Light Novels. Tell us about that – how you decided to do these. What are the qualities of the first batch that you think make them stand out?
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SP: Broadening our readership base and our genres is an important part of how we grow as a company. One thing I began looking closely at is the amount of effort Japanese publishers are putting in to certain genres and series, and I began to see a mini boom in specifically the Yuri science fiction segment. As we already had a good relationship with those Japanese publishers, their latest works in this genre seemed like a natural choice.There are other books we have offers out for, but licensing takes time depending on the publishing house. Books from Iori Miyazawa like Side-by-side Dreamers and Otherside Picnic are simply great science fiction/horror stories on their own, with the Yuri elements forming more of a flavoring than the main course. I think these types of works which are trying to move the idea of what “Yuri” fiction is are very important to release.  At the same time, books like Seriously Seeking Sister act similarly, but on a different angle: instead of scifi, this time it’s your typical overpowered fantasy character which is peppered with Yuri elements. Both should serve as ways to draw our current readership as well as the Yuri fandom at large.
 

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Which is your favorite of the Yuri Novels you’re releasing and why?
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SP: Personally I really like Last and First Idol, but I’m biased since I edited it.  The author self-describes it as an “existential widescreen yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi idol story”.

It’s a collection of 3 scifi novellas, 2 of which won the most prestigious scifi prize in Japan, the Seiyuu Award, in 2017/2018 respectively. These are extremely “hard” scifi stories, with 11 dimensional string theory and aether based gravitational theory and all manner of trigger warnings for gore and body horror, which frankly blew me away when I first read them. As a first work by the author Gengen Kusano, they are completely bonkers. The yuri in them is so stripped down to the bare elements of “yuri” as we know it (the love of one girl for another, in all of its forms), it can be drowned out at times from the noise of planets exploding, but it’s there, and without it the book would be far diminished.

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What were your favorite books when you were a kid?
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SP: Asimov’s Robot series and Foundation series, Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, everything Tolkien ever wrote, and eventually in high school Infinite Jest and Gödel, Escher, Bach. I read everything.
 

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Any message for Yuri fans?
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SP: If you’ve only been reading yuri manga, you should definitely try one of our novels! Yuri-n for a treat! *gets shot*

 
That joke aside, (^_^);, thanks very much for taking time to speak with us today, Sam. We’re looking forward to more from J-Novel Club!

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The October issue of Comic Yuri Hime is what I’m starting think of as “steady on.” There are series I like a lot, that sort of sandwich series I don’t much care about, that sandwich stories I don’t like at all, which means I’m reading the beginning and the end of the magazine and just sort of skipping the middle. It’s not 100% every issue, but relatively consistent.

The magazine opens up with a short text story for Yume Utsustu Re:Master, the game that is being promoted in the early pages of recent issues.  This Yuri Visual novel by Konami is about sisters, so is dead to me. Do let me know if you’ve read it and would like to do a review!

“Pochacrime,” Mintarou’s new manga series about indoor climbing, known as bouldering, was not bad. It’ll have to develop a little more before I really decide if I like it or not. My reticence is most because of the art and the viewpoint of the art. If the characters develop to become more than a vehicle for “cute girl eats” and “staring at cute girls’ asses” I’m totally willing to get on board.

A serious crisis comes to a head in Miman’s “Watashi no Yuri ha Oshigoto Desu!” as Hime finally confronts Mitsuki about what the actual heck is happening here. What she finds is probably not what she expected, but once again, her reaction is better than I expected from her. It’s a sign of good writing that I find myself totally comfortable with changing my opinion of both lead characters.

I’m pretty sure this is not going to break any new ground, but I still like Takshima Eku’s “Sasayaku ni Koi wo Uta.”

I’m pretty sure it is going to break new ground, so I’m always eager to read a new chapter of Takemiya Jin’s “Itoshi Koishi.” Yayoi’s confronting some of her own concerns once again and Hina’s right there to let he know when she’s overstepped.

Ohsawa Yayoi’s “Hello Melancholic” is already pushing Minato very hard. She’s barely had time to realize that she’s got friends before she’s realized that she’s falling in love with one of them. A late night caper of illicit musical practice isn’t helping her feel any more grounded….but it’s kind of obvious that this sort of total disruption of her status quo is what she needs.

Ichijinsha is reprinting Kindaichi Renjurou’s Mermaid Line, (which I reviewed back in 2008) with a new complete edition. This month’s issue reprints the classic-Yuri style story “Yukari to Mayumi,” in which two OLs pretend to be dating, but one of them finds that it makes her question her own feelings.

“Ikemen-sugi Shiki-sempai” takes a shocking turn towards drama as Hana learns something about Shiki-sempai that’s she not supposed to know. (It’s not really shocking, but it’ll be good for a couple of chapters of drama.)

Werewolf / vampire /drug / dark fairy tale “SCARLET” is still chugging along, as Misery (Mizallie, but let’s face it, her name and her fate are “misery”) throws herself into the middle of the story once again.

And “Umineko Bessou,” by Kodama Naoko, is getting a little darker as Ashima’s horrible family life crowds out Mayumi’s personal drama. When Ashima points out the obvious, it break Mayumi’s carefully constructed emotional cocoon.  Yes, Mayumi, it is obvious you like Rin. I’m kind of with Ashima on this, it is a bit of a “duh” moment.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

The stories I don’t like, I don’t like more than ever, but the ones I do, I like more, so it all works out.

The November 2019 issue is available and waiting for me at the store – I’m looking forward to it very much!

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Never before have I seen a collection with so many vehicular deaths.

Ichijinsha’s Isekai Tensei Yuri Anthology (異世界転生百合アンソロジー) was somewhat disappointing from my perspective. I was hoping for fun (i.e., innovative and original) Yuri stories about being reborn into an alt-universe. Instead I found this anthology clogged with repetitive tropes that take the place of good writing.

When I was reading fantasy novels in the 70s and 80s during the first big boom, Isekai was a pretty common plot. Lots of “people who ended up in the world of their D&D games as their characters,” or something very similar. It was so common that it almost instantly became a parody of itself and, one or two of the riffs ended up being more memorable than the lazy writing it parodied. Ultimately, they all came down to two plots: We Have to Get Back or Life is Better Here, We Want to Stay.

We’re at that point, clearly with Isekai, where we need some folks with the chops to parody the whole thing better than the originals, because this whole anthology was uninspired and uninspiring.

Which brings me to my original comment. I have been reliably informed about “Truck-kun” the standard form of death that catapults a character to some alternate world. I have so many objections to this interpretation of “reincarnation,” I could write an essay. I’ll spare you other than to say: That is not how reincarnation if we are speaking of the re-incarnation of the soul – works, if it indeed works. “Reincarnated as a Slime” and “Evo Girls” are closer to the idea, even if they are both are hyper-sped up. But setting that aside, the fact that almost no creators in this book came up with *any* new idea to get us to that world is just…disappointing.

Once the character find themselves in “another world,” I was yet again reminded of the D&D isekai novels of my youth as every single alt-universe is some variation of a fantasy feudal society. I mentioned this on various platforms online and several people noted that Isekai, as a subgenre, is meant as a kind of rejection of societal norms and adult oppression – a paean to not growing up. To which I replied, “I reject growing up and being oppressed by authority! Let’s escape to a feudal monarchy!” Even as a child I could see that fairytales were only a good place to be if you were the third Prince with two idiot older brothers. They were shitty for everyone else. ^_^;

The very coolest thing about this collection is the cover. There is no story inside that quite hits that same level. There is one story with a cool knight from another world in ours, who is defending a much younger girl, for some reason, but that failed to engage my attention. Many of the stories include animal-eared or demony girls. My general objection is absolutely zero of the stories were about two adults, and combining lolicon and anthropomorphic fetishes do nothing to endear me more to either.  Although some of the stories were just fine on their own, I have no idea what made them Isekai other than a panel that showed someone dead from being hit by a truck.  These could have just been in the non-human x human anthologies I’ve previously reviewed.

Apparently it is too much to ask of a wholly fantasy setting to have something original, about women in that fantasy setting doing something cool.

I was so looking forward to reading this anthology. I cannot truly express how disappointed I am in it.

Ratings:

Overall – 5

It’s an *alternate universe*, you can make up anything as you go – why be so boring?

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Yuri Manga

Via Senior YNN Correspondent Sean G, we have some news out of New York Comic Con. Viz Media has announced the license of Tamifly’sTsukiatte Agetemo Iikana? (links to reviews of Volumes 1 & 2) as How Do We Relationship? for Summer 2020. The title translation is not in any way literal, but it really suits the tone of the story. ^_^

Via ANN, Blue Drop creator Yoshitomi Akihito is launching a new Yuri manga this month. Kyou Kara Mirai will be on HEROS Flat website on October 18th.

ANN has the full layout of the post-manga series projects for Bloom Into You. I just read the final chapter/epilogue in Dengeki Daioh, and have some thoughts about that. Will write them down in a future review. ^_^

Now that the damn has broken with Yuri Kuma Arashi being licensed by Tokyopop as Yuri Bear Storm, it looks like we are getting more work by Morishima Akiko-sensei. We can look forward to Conditions of Paradise, the English-language release of Rakuen no Joken in February 2020 from Seven Seas! This is excellent news.

Yuri Anime

ANN has the promotional video by Yuri anime Fragtime leads Misuzu and Haruka, prompting people to order their tickets for this theatrical release through online ordering app Kinepass.

LGBTQ Comics News

Also out of NYCC, Heidi Macdonald on the Comics Beat reports that LGBTQ comic Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (link to review) won in the Best Children’s or Young Adult Book Category. Check out all of the Harvey Awards winners,  because if you want to see the changes for the better that are going on in comics right now….here it is in list form.

Amanda Steele on The Comics Beat is taking a look at some key LGBTQ artists in NYCC’s Artist Alley for your reading pleasure!

Yuri Visual Novel News

 Studio Élan is holding a Kickstarter to do a fully-voiced version of the Heart of the Woods, their stunning first Yuri VN release.

Yuri Events

This Sunday, October 6, at New York Comic-Con, I will be on the Comixology Panel Manga Ikimashou! – LET’S GO MANGA! in which I and a number of illustrious panelists do the one thing I always swear I will not do – recommend manga to you! ^_^ You can catch us 2:30 – 3:30 PM in Room 1A02.

I’ll be doing two lectures at Michigan State University, October 15-16. Both these lectures are free and open to the public.

October 15, 5PM, B122 Wells Hall, MSU Campus
I will be talking about about Rose of Versailles and Sailor Moon to a class on translation. They each pose a significant set of challenges to translators and adapters. This is free and open to the public (check with the school for registration.)

Wednesday, October 16, 5PM, Rom 301 International Center, MSU Campus
We’ll be talking about 100 Years of Yuri!

Oct. 25, I’ll be at Diversity Con, Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, NY.

And rounding out my 2019, I’ll be presenting 100 Years of Yuri and verbally sparring with translator Zack Davisson at AnimeNYC, November 15-17, at Javits in New York City.

Other News

Add this to your morning reading – Brigid Alverson interviews George Takei on his new comic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, about his life in an internment camp during World War Two. Read it, if only as a reminder that the last time we put people in concentration camps was within a lifespan and here we are, as a nation, doing it again.

Speaking of NYCC, I took a look at this year’s AnimeFest and laid out some of the anime and manga-related events and panels you can expect this weekend at The Comics Beat.

To round out this week on a positive note, we can report a couple of steps forward in Japan. Akita held its first-ever Rainbow Pride festival this past month. Love the parade poster. ^_^ And even more importantly the Kanagawa city of Zushi has added same-sex partnerships.

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to all of our Okazu Patrons, who make this report possible!

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Ancient Vampire Princess is reborn
To enact the most elaborate PG revenge porn
More super-powered than a god
She forces the plot not to plod
It’s so silly one can’t even scorn

Seriously Seeking Sister! Ultimate Vampire Princess Just Wants Little Sister; Plenty of Service Will Be Provided! by Hiironoame surely must be given some credit for taking it’s overlong title and actually providing useful information with it. I knew going into this novel nothing beyond the fact that I am overtly not the audience for it. And, indeed, I aborted my first attempt at reading it. But a second attempt was more successful once I stopped caring at all. ^_^

Ristia is a cheerfully unreal overpowered scion of a vastly overpowered vampire race, the destruction of which happens offscreen while Ristia is trapped in a crystal for millennia in a fit of pique because her parents would not procreate and give her a younger sister to dote upon. This opening is so overtly ridiculous that you’d do better to skip to roughly midway through the book and start there, after Ristia has been awakened and is overpowering her way through a feudal society unable to cope with her overwhelming magic. Ristia ends up taking over an oprhanage and making improvements that would catapult the orphans several centuries forward in technology. Throughout, of course, Ristia spends the entire book insisting that she’s normal, despite magicking everything around her.

Bad guys are, one and all, horrible vulgar men who rape and pillage, and speak in crudely malformed suggestive lines, a veritable pack of frat boys being appalling to the young women around them, so of course we feel nothing when they are bloodlessly disappeared out of the story. Good guys are thankfully split between men and women, or I’d suspect some kind of agenda.

Because I don’t read too many Light Novels of this kind, I turned to translator David Evelyn and shared that I found it hard to know whether there is humor in the overpowered Ristia or I’m being made fun of. He suggested that the language was typical of isekai novels, but there was a kind of self-awareness that made it funny. Like a joke that is funny only after the characters become aware that they’ve repeated it too many times, as Sean Gaffney noted in his review. After all the carpenters agree to never mention how obviously not normal at all Ristia is, I finally relaxed into the story.

The title is not wrong – there was a great deal of service and very little of it served this fan. There are a number of lingering looks at lingerie and physical descriptions of too-young women, which just flat out bore me. The idea that a line like “With her clothing now reduced to only her matching light bra and panties, Ristia went fishing through the assortment of dresses” is considered “service” by any human on the planet, fills me with exhaustion. Up your game, my fellow humans. The Internet should quench your fetish for matching underwear sets. Go find yourself a catalog. Matching bra and panty sets are the Wal-Mart of fetishes. It’s all so 12-year olds gathered around the NatGeo mags.

Because I had an easier time relating to this novel as a comedy than as an action or drama story, the sort-of emotional relationships Ristia forms in her quest for a little sister, were somewhat less satisfying to me as a relationship than a punchline. And they were the only (inevitably service-y) feature where her nature as a vampire has any relevance…which made it funnier to me.

As Yurimother noted in her review of this novel, the one strong point was the lack of violence against women, beyond implication that it had occurred in the past. But the threat of violence against women and children as a plot driver is still not optimal. Thankfully most of the “good” characters are thoroughly likable, so its gilding the reaction lily to make us worry about the cute dog-eared girl.

My only genuine criticism of this book is that the art does nothing to illustrate anything that is described in the text. Ristia is presented as a young woman with an ever-present allure, (due to her being a vampire, you know) but the character we see is goofy, not alluring. We read that her hair is long, thick and lustrous, and we’re shown her with a bad collar-cut. It feels weirdly dysphoric to have the text and art so at odds with each other.

Ratings:

Story  – 7
Characters – 8
Art – 4 Not bad in and of itself, but wholly unrelated to the text
Service – 5 Blood sucking, dressing/undressing for no reason, underwear (yawn)
Yuri – 5 Same as above, no real emotional connections…wasted opportunities to be a good story there

Overall – 7

As an elaborate form of a comedic revenge narrative, Seriously Seeking Sister is an amuse-bouche of a novel…it won’t satisfy your hunger, but it will pass the time until you find something more filling.

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In Volume 1 of Teiji ni Ageretara (定時にあがれたら), one day at work, Yukawa learns she’s dropped her keys when fellow employee, fashionable and attractive Mizuki, returns them. The two of them become friends, sharing meals and hanging out together. One day, almost without realizing it, Yukawa tells Mizuki she likes her, then immediately asks Mizuki to forget it. But Mizuki finds that she just cannot. No matter how much she’d like to go back to being just friends, they aren’t going to be able to. So Mizuki asks Yukawa out.

Not sure of each other’s interest, there’s miscommunications, and misunderstandings, but slowly and surely Yukawa and Mizuki work their way towards a mutually romantic relationship. When Mizuki confesses that she loves Yukawa, it’s not so much a climax as a great relief to both women that they haven’t been wrong.

The final chapters are more of the same as Mizuki thinks out loud about becoming lovers and Yukawa has to figure out what she thinks about that.

The story here, in this Pixiv comic, is watching two adult woman figuring out what their relationship means to both of them. The creator is in no rush to reach any great dramatic climaxes. As a result, this manga is a slow, relaxed paced relationship, building upon shared time at the office and off-work. Neither Yukawa nor Mizuki are gregarious, but nether is super introverted. There’s little conflict except the moments when they don’t know what to do with their feelings. Inui Ayu’s art lends itself to the emotional struggles, with a focus on faces and inner states over action, as one might expect from a jousei manga. Lots of blushing and tears.

Teiji ni Ageretara is not the most compelling office romance I’ve read, in part because the characters act as if they are 14, not 24. And this is not even unrealistic for characters in their mid-20s who never expected this kind of relationship, I’m just a little less tolerant of existential crisis over calling someone by their first name in October 2019 than I was in previous years.  (That said, I will soon make a hypocrite of myself in an upcoming review, so wait for it… ^_^)

Ratings:

Art – 7 Characters have a tendency to look a little soppy
Story – 7 It’s nice, not amazing
Characters – 7 Same
Service – 0 in this volume
Yuri – 7 We end this volume at the beginning….

Overall – 7

The series is ongoing on Pixiv, so if this kind of slow-burn office romance appeals to you, you can follow Yukawa and Mizuki on Manga Jam on Pixiv and see how they are getting along. ^_^ You can read chapter 1-2, and then ongoing chapters starting with 6. For chapters 3-5, you’ll need to pick up this volume of the manga!

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In Volume 1, we met Yuki, a young woman who works at a coffee shop in a bustling Taisho period town, who is very interested in the works of a particular female novelist, Azuma Beniko. When Sensei comes in to her cafe, Yuki finds herself instantly captivated by the cosmopolitan author.

In Volume 2 of Nagori Yuu-sensei’s Pixiv manga Jyoryusakka to Yuki (女流作家とユキ), Yuki learns more about the novelist, and about herself. Yuki is starting to fantasize about Azuma-sensei and recognizes, as she has read many romance novels, that she’s falling in love. She also learns that those same novels were the cause of a lover’s suicide, when two girls killed themselves supposedly motivated by one of Sensei’s books.

We learn that Yuki’s obsession with Azuma-sensei’s work stems from being a lonely child on account of not being physically strong. Her mother had died when she was young and her father is away for work most of the time. And, when he returns, he tells Yuki that he’s setting up a marriage meeting for her. She protests, and he blames the novels she likes. In anger, she runs to Azuma-sensei who brings her back, but both she and Yuki stand firm in the face of her father’s anger. Ultimately, he relents. It moot, because Sensei has admitted to herself that she loves Yuki and invites Yuki to live with her.

In the end, Yuki wakes up, amazed and embarrassed to find herself in the bed of a woman she’s idolized for so many years. But this time, she’s assured, it is not a dream or a fantasy. And we can close this book assuming a happily-ever-after for this successful female author and the coffee-shop girl she loves.

Okay, yes, it’s a ridiculous story. I loved every page of it. I loved the clothing, the backgrounds and with the exception of a chapter in the middle where the style significantly altered (I’d assume because of a hardware/software or materials change) the art.This story was a joy to read and the ending left me with a huge grin.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story –  8 Still girl meets author and is swept off her feet. Still okay by me.
Character – 8
Service – 2 Nothing particularly salacious. Yuki’s fantasies and Yuki’s reality are as close as we get.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

This was a Yuri romance that I looked forward to every chapter of. I slowed myself down reading a few times, just to enjoy it longer. Then I re-read it. ^_^

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