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Posts Tagged Yuri

Seven Seas Goes Omnibus With Some Genre Favourites

Seven Seas Licenses Girl Friend

Seven Seas has announced two new manga licenses today, both of which should please many a manga reader.

Girl Friends – Milk Morinaga
I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!! – Kusano Kouichi

Girl Friends is a five-volume yuri series by one of the genre’s most well known creators, Milk Morinaga. This is Morinaga’s first title to be released in English.

“When it comes to grades, bookish high school student Mariko Kumakura is at the top of her class. Socially, however, she is shy and lonely, typically eating lunch by herself. Enter the charismatic and beautiful Akko Oohashi, whose mission is to befriend Mariko and burst her out of her introverted shell. In the process of transforming Plain Jane Mariko into one of the cutest, most popular girls in school, deep feelings begin to emerge that suggest something deeper than friendship.”

Seven Seas has previously put out several yuri titles – which are stories with a focus on romantic relationships between women – including The Last Uniform and Strawberry Panic. Girl Friends will be released as two omnibus volumes, each $17.99/US for 496 pages. The first will be on sale October 2012 with the second out in January 2013.

I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!! is a multi-volume manga series about a girl with a severe brother complex:

“Junior High School student Takanashi Nao has a problem: she has a crush on her dreamy older brother, Shuusuke. Fortunately, when Nao discovers that she was adopted as a child and they’re not related by blood, it seems like the coast is clear–but Shuusuke just doesn’t see it that way.”

To be honest, this is the kind of series I’d actively avoid (incest, no thank you) but I know it has a decent-sized fan following so many will be very glad for this news! The series will be released as 2-in-1 omnibus books at )$16.99/US)/($19.50/CAN) with the first scheduled for release in August 2012 with a 320 page count.


PR: Seven Seas Goes Omnibus-First With Girl Friends and…

Seven Seas Goes Omnibus-First With GIRL FRIENDS and I DON’T LIKE YOU AT ALL, BIG BROTHER!!

(LOS ANGELES, November 22, 2011) – Seven Seas Entertainment is pleased to announce that it has added two much-requested manga series to its 2012 line-up–Kusano Kouichi’s hilarious harem comedy I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!! and Morinaga Milk’s highly praised yuri romance manga Girl Friends. Seven Seas will release both series in value-priced omnibus editions.

“Fans have been requesting we license these series for a long time now, and we have responded,” said Jason DeAngelis, publisher of Seven Seas Entertainment. “Our various omnibus editions have done quite well, so we decided to publish these series for the first time as multi-volume omnibuses to give people a lot of bang for their buck.”

I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!! is a popular harem comedy manga series that spawned a successful anime TV series which aired in Japan in spring 2011:

Junior High School student Takanashi Nao has a problem: she has a crush on her dreamy older brother, Shuusuke. Fortunately, when Nao discovers that she was adopted as a child and they’re not related by blood, it seems like the coast is clear–but Shuusuke just doesn’t see it that way. To make matters worse, Nao finds herself in direct competition against Shuusuke’s hot childhood friend, Iroha, not to mention class president Mayuka. As all three girls vie for Shuusuke’s attention, Nao soon learns that all is fair in love and war! I Don’t Like You At All, Big Brother!! will be released in 2-in-1 omnibus editions for the low price of $16.99 starting in August 2012.

Girl Friends, a tale of forbidden love for fans of Strawberry Panic, is an all-new girls romance manga series by yuri icon Morinaga Milk:

When it comes to grades, bookish high school student Mariko Kumakura is at the top of her class. Socially, however, she is shy and lonely, typically eating lunch by herself. Enter the charismatic and beautiful Akko Oohashi, whose mission is to befriend Mariko and burst her out of her introverted shell. In the process of transforming Plain Jane Mariko into one of the cutest, most popular girls in school, deep feelings begin to emerge that suggest something deeper than friendship. Will these feelings destroy the budding relationship between Mariko and Akko, or will it turn into something else? Seven Seas will release the entire five-volume series in two affordable, 496-page omnibus editions ($17.99 each) with the first edition, Girl Friends: The Complete Collection I, on sale October 2012, and Girl Friends: The Complete Collection II on sale January 2013.

Read more…


Swag Bag: Muscling In On Toronto’s Manga Supply

Welcome to what is definitely the longest Swag Bag to date! Mostly because I completely failed to compile my Swag Bag from last year’s Anime North… None the less! – my recent trip to Toronto was chock full of fun finds, and painful but no doubt hilarious attempts at cramming it all into my suitcases. This post here consists of the manga I bought while traversing the packed streets of Toronto while my TCAF purchases will come in a later post once I’ve finished oogling them enough to write something coherent.

The books listed here were all purchased from either my local Strange Adventures (pre-con buying is important, like eating before going to the grocery store – it helps… I think). The rest with exception of I think 1 or 2 came from what I’m dubbing the manga treasure trove of Toronto – The Beguiling. My thanks to their very accomodating staff! If curious about my other comic shop adventures in Toronto, you can check out the Ontario section of Kuriousity’s Canadian Comic Shop listings.

Now onto the swag!

Read more…


Super Savings: RightStuf Offers Fierce Savings on Seven Seas

RightStuf’s first big sale of the year (excluding their starting-in-2010-New-Years-sale) is 33%+ off of Seven Seas books! I know I don’t often see many sales on their books so this is a great opportunity to pick up some old titles or, for even more savings, pre-order some of their upcoming omnibus editions. The sale ends January 6, 2011.

My top recommendations from Seven Seas would be the first volume of Aoi House (the second volume and I aren’t on good terms) and Aoi House in Love! – a fun OEL series that plays around with fandom tropes; Hayate x Blade Omnibus – a silly but charming story of sword battles in all girls’ school that appeals to fans of Yuri; and the Strawberry Panic Manga Omnibus – a semi-serious tale of Yuri love also in an all girls’ school. I’d also love to recommend The Last Uniform as a super adorable Yuri story but alas it’s no longer listed on RightStuf’s website.

As for me, I’m looking forward to buying the first omnibus book of Kashimashi, the complete-series omnibus of Hollow Fields and the one-shot Voiceful.

You can check out their index for the full list of RightStuf’s Seven Seas’ offerings.


ANN Review: Strawberry Panic Omnibus

ANN Review: Strawberry Panic! Omnibus

The omnibus trend continues as I tackled the collected edition of Strawberry Panic for a review over on AnimeNewsNetwork.

Overall I had fun reading this purely because it was so silly; cute but campy. The art was beautiful but the characters pretty shallow. It really felt like a big stereotype of Yuri as a genre, with a debatably healthy dose of cliches straight out of harlequin novels. Too bad about the lack of any realistic romance though, though at least I wasn’t really expecting that going in. Ah well, it was shiny?


Swag Bag – Culture-Shock, Doctors and Yuri

My local comic shop Strange Adventures is having a 20% off everything sale this month – hopefully that means lots of new books in the coming weeks!

While there this week I picked up a few different books:

Peepo Choo (Vol. 01) – This book was insane. I read it on the way home on the bus (for which thankfully I was sitting in the back because this is not the kind of book you want to think people are reading over your shoulder). Very 18+ material and pretty mean too. I liked it over all because of the sheer amount of ridiculous energy but the creator is definitely out to make a statement by being pretty insultive. But though over-emphasized, it’s still based on nerd-dom truths so you can’t hate it for that. The stereotypical anime fans versus comic fans scene is pretty entertaining and hits the nail on the head. The amount of sex and violence really surprised me though but I did very much find myself wishing it’d stick to those parts and leave the ‘weeabo’ drooling, shiney-eyed main character behind.

Black Jack (Vol. 12) – One of the series that I just cannot wait to pick-up – when I know it’s out, I must have it! This volume continues the trend of never disappointing. I do find each time I read a new volume I always think ‘this is darker than before’ in regards to how the stories end but since I have that thought every time, I think it just proves how much continuing good shock value some of the stories have, not that they’re actually getting more grim or serious over time.

And from the wonderful bargain bin I picked up volume four of Me & My Brothers and volume two of A Tale of an Unknown Country. I haven’t read either of the series before so reading through these volumes should give me an idea of if I’d like to hunt out the rest of the volumes.

And arriving in the mail for me this week was two volumes of Yuri Montogari which are really uniquely varied stories of lesbian-love stories (some with definite twists in some stories) and a copy of Moto Haigo’s Drunken Dream and Other Stories from Fantagraphics Books. I was really surprised to see Drunken Dreams is a large-trim, hardcover book with glossy decoration work.

And as a little birthday present for myself I picked up an artbook by Ken Mizuki titled Sarasa. It’s a pretty small artbook compared to the others in my collection (small page count) but the cost was cheap and the art inside still very pretty. I think this artist primarily does doujinshi so while I’ve never read any of their manga, it was neat to see some artwork in here that I remember seeing scattered across fan-forums back in the days of Gundam and Saint Seiya fandom.

And lastly, thanks to the public library, I’ve been reading the Manga Guide to Statistics. It’s admittedly weird reading something that makes me feel like I’ve been dropped back in high school yet at the same time I really have to give the book credit for being such a good teaching tool. I had to reread some parts a few times to grasp the more involved stuff yet the fact that it makes me want to learn this stuff enough to do so is impressing me in itself. I’m definitely planning on reading the other books in this series.


Yuri from Yaoi and a Missed License?

Have we been stealth licensed?

A few random things of interest worth noting today:

 A post over at Yaoi Press’s blog says that Yuri fans will have something to look forward to from the original Yaoi publisher at their Otakon booth.

 According to ANN, the comedy manga Cafe Kichijouji de is set to continue in the anthology magazine Wings. Originally based off drama CDs, Cafe Kichijouji de is currently being made into a live-action television drama in Japan and has had it’s original three volumes of manga published by Digital Manga Publishing.

 And lastly for now: Amazon.com has recently been updated with just about all the Digital Manga Publishing, and its imprints Doki Doki & June plus sister-group 801Media, books licensed and announced at Anime Expo. So if you’re looking for release dates of the many titles, then give Amazon a check. Gotta love that one of the Hellboy graphic novels is currently the number one selling manga, wouldn’t you say? Note: I have nothing against the Hellboy comics, just Amazon’s current placement of them it seems.

A notable title to pop up also, however, is Train*Train, a comedy by Eiki Eiki which I don’t recall hearing any licensing news for. No complaints from me on this licensing though! Train*Train is the story of Asahi Sarutaa,  a boy who wishes to be a train conducter, only to discover that his dream job location only hires the most attractive people to work there.


Yuri Or Not?

Erica Friedman, founder of Yuricon, has put up an editorial about what her definition of Yuri is. It’s a good read for fans of the genre and new ones alike. I also think it has strong points that can be crossoveredo the world of Yaoi showcasing the difference between couples that can define a Yuri or Yaoi, and ones that merely act as little fetish touches for fans.

You can read the editorial here.


Take me back to the top!