I'll be at AnimeNext this afternoon, wandering around with a bag of goodies to give away (just like a Yuri Santa Claus!) If you see me - I'll be wearing my black "I Love Yuri" T-shirt - say hello and get...something. No guarantees for quality or worth. If I don't know you yet, please introduce yourself! Also, if you're going to be there, please join me at the Promise Sisters' concert at 4:30 in the Arena. If you've been to a Yuricon event any time in the last few years or been to pretty much any con in the NE of America, you know the Promise Sisters. Leanne, Vanessa and Melinda are friends and wow, can they sing! They've won so many karaoke contests that they now perform as a pop idol group. They'll have some guest singers as well as performing both anime and original songs. I hope to see you there!
***
Industry News
You know I don't go totally off topic too often here, because there are about a zillion people covering the wide world o'manga, and few focusing on Yuri but, there are a few industry round-ups that I really think are worth noting right now.
First of all, thank you everyone who contributed to the comments (here and elsewhere) in a positive and creative way on last week's post about the Solution to the Scanlation Solution. It's not at all surprising that many companies are scrambling to be that solution right now.
I wanted to call your attention to this overview of the fallout of the last week. All the links you all need to read have been summed up at The Beat in The Week in Digital: HOLY CRAP. And Matt Blind had a stellar post on the problem with proprietary formats - something he and I were talking about on Twitter, but he and Bruce McF are smarter about it than I am and had a lot more to say.
And, lastly, NPR has a summation of the situation for the uninitiated, that was not only pretty good, but highlights the work of several manga-industry bloggers of note. If you're not following these blogs...you really should be. Additionally, you can give this article to your significant other/spouse/parent to explain what all the fuss is about.
Really, if the future of digital comics interests you, go read these. We're in a new pre-Guttenberg press world. We want to be able to read stuff, but the technology isn't there yet. And companies are hiring as many monks as they can afford to. This is our chance to build the new press.
Thank you for your patience with my digression. Now back to our regularly scheduled Yuri Network News.
***
Yuri Anime
Primastea is releasing a new anime, Kuttsukiboshi about two girls on a "risky" vacation. There is a trailer which implies Yuri. It will be service-y without substance, but for the kind of people who like this kind of thing, that will suffice. You can judge for yourself by watching the trailer. The anime ships on August 16th in Japan. The actually amazing thing about the anime is that it was directed, written, and animated by one person. Good bad or indifferent, that makes it worth watching.
Okay, it's a stretch calling this Yuri, probably, but Queen's Blade is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Remind me to write about "gatchi Yuri" one day.
(The one thing I absolutely love about Queen's Blade is that the only things guaranteed to be more infantile and fulls of "boobs" than the series itself are the reviews of the series. My god, do these people read their reviews!?)
So, true to form, 2010 has been a backlash year so far in Japan, with mostly hentai and bouncing breasts on the Yuri anime front.
Thank heavens Maria Watches Over Us, Season 4 is shipping in a few weeks! Miraculously, I have already received my order (thank you friendly little gremlins at RightStuf!) and I will be sure to review it for you in loving detail asap. (Pre-orderers will get a very fetching writing pad as a premium. I bet you all wondered...I know I did!)
***
Snatches of Yuri
The novel Vertigo sounds dreadful in every way, so I'm dying to read it. In 2030, public disorder, dystopian future, blah blah, two female cops, fight club, pretend to be a lesbian couple, blah blah. Do want.
***
Yuri Manga
There is more info about the planned Yuri Hime move to bi-monthly status. It appears that Yuri Hime and Yuri Hime S will be consolidated into one magazine and released on a bi-monthly basis. This makes excellent financial sense for Ichijinsha and us. They were putting out two quarterly magazines, so we were buy 8 issues a year. Now they will be putting out one bi-monthly, so we'll be getting 6 issues a year. Both magazines were getting downright huge, so I bet the combined issue is well worth our money. And, I'm kind of glad we're losing the "for guys"/"for women" gap. We read them both, so.... Although I do admit to being a tad troubled by the current cover of YHS. It might be weird when they try to satisfy both audiences in one magazine.
Hayate x Blade 12 is out in Japan. I know I don't have to tell you to go get it, do I?
Also, in English, Seven Seas is putting out Hayate x Blade Omnibus volumes, for a very reasonable price. Volume 1 would make a great gift for the wacky kid/lesbian/violent psychotic in your life. Also, more sales is likely to stimulate the possibility of more volumes. Remember - series sell less each volume as a series goes on, so stimulating sales means more money for the company to invest in printing a new volume.
Funniest Yuri news I heard all week is that Senno Knife is putting out a second volume of Lesbian Shoujo-Ai. Read my review of Volume 1 to understand why the news made me laugh. :-)
Of the recent crop of YH Comics, I want to draw attention to Takemiya Jin's Love Breaker and Amano Shuunta's sweet guilty love bites. More to come.
***
Okazu News
If you take a look alllllll the way down at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar, you will see a teeny little widget to "Like" Okazu for Facebook folks. Please click. It costs you nothing, feeds my ego and probably doesn't make a damn bit of difference in the larger scale of things, but I'll like you more. Thanks. :-)
***
Yuri Drama CD
And finally for today, as announced on the obi of the 4th volume of Morinaga Milk's GIRL FRIENDS, there is an upcoming GIRL FRIENDS Drama CD. Details to follow.
***
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!