Rosa Chinensis

Maka-Maka on sale at TRSI

2009-11-20T13:12:49Z

If you want to get Maka-Maka on sale, now would be a good time:
RightStuf is having a 40% off sale on Media Blasters stuff.
It's $12 a book (and economy shipping is only $4 total if you're in the US), which is even cheaper than Amazon.com.
Be sure you use the coupon code for the sale.

Other relevant titles included in the sale: Aoi and Mutsuki: A Pair of Queens, Girl's High, Kashimashi, Loveless, Otoboku, Seraphim Call, Simoun, Space Pirate Mito, Strawberry Panic, and F3 (hentai). Probably some other relevant titles among the hentai, too.
Thanks to kyaathecatlord for some titles.

A fun quiz

2009-11-19T20:13:05Z

I saw this "Social Orientation Inventory" quiz in hair_complex's lj.

Your result for The Social Orientation Inventory...

The All-American Family BBQ

+Attent/Other/+Attach/-Emo/+<3/Narrow/Secure

You scored 51% Attention-desiring, 60% Other-directedness, 71% Attachment-desiring, 47% Emotionality, 54% Romance-seeking, 42% Range, and 53% Secureness.

Your Bonding Quadrant: Companionate

Summary: You crave regular interaction and like to keep the focus on other people. You make an effort to hold onto the few important people in your life, especially romantic partners. Interpersonal relationships are more about shared interests than shared emotions for you.

Here is a glossary to help you understand the cryptic, septapartite notation of your SOI type:

-Attent=low desire for attention, acknowledgement, and/or interaction

+Attent=high desire for attention, acknowledgement, and/or interaction (specific attentional needs vary from type to type)

Self=more interested in oneself than in others when interacting

Other=more interested in others than in oneself when interacting

-Attach=does not seek out long-term attachments

+Attach=seeks out long-term attachments

-Emo=prefers unemotional relationships

+Emo=prefers emotionally intense relationships

-<3=low desire for sex and/or romance

+<3=high desire for sex and/or romance

Narrow=interacts with few people

Broad=interacts with many people

Insecure=expects negative evaluation from others

Secure=does not expect negative evaluation from others

Merging=High attachment-seeking, high emotionality (merging types are prone to obsession; devotion; identity crises; offspring)

Companionate=High attachment-seeking, low emotionality (companionate types are likely to be loyal, cool-headed, and dependable, with a long-term temporal orientation)

Acute=Low attachment-seeking, high emotionality (acute types tend toward extremes, and temporal orientation is mostly immediate)

Distant=Low attachment-seeking, low emotionality (distant types are the most autonomous and the most avoidant)

Take The Social Orientation Inventory at OkCupid

Previews of Yuri Hime November tankoubon releases

2009-11-18T14:03:52Z

Ichijinsha has put up previews of the books that came out today.
Just click on the title you want, then on the new page that comes up, click the green button on the far right. That will take you to a page that will let you use DHTML or Flash to view a preview of the manga.

These manga are all from the cell phone line, so expect a mix of story and sex.
In order, the titles are:
Gokujou Drops volume 3 by Hajime Mikuni
Yukemuri Sanctuary by Amano Shuninta
Otome Senshi Lovely 5! by Jounouchi Nene
Honey Quartet by Tokoro Kemeko
Sorairo Girlfriend by Rikachi

Kemeko and Rikachi's art styles weren't my thing--not for smut, anyway--but Otome Senshi Lovely 5! looks like it could be fun crack, so I ordered that one. Haven't decided whether or not to buy Yukemuri Sanctuary yet.

Doujinshi scan: Sailor Moon

2009-11-12T03:40:43Z

Rose Garden, a Sailor Moon doujinshi by Rose Garden (Takehara Riko). Raw.
Please spread it around!

See here (scroll down) for more Sailor Moon doujinshi scans.

Doujinshi scan: Original (Tie Breaker)

2009-11-03T01:58:13Z

Tie Breaker 1, an original doujinshi by Raku-Gun (who's done some nice Aria, Marimite, and Negima doujinshi; Horii Kisuke also contributed to Tsubomi 3, though the story wasn't particularly heavy on yuri). Raw.
Please spread it around!

A spoiler for Mononoke Girls' Academy

2009-11-01T20:59:49Z

If you've read chapter 11, you know that Arare wanted Kiri to turn her into a nekomata, but Kiri stopped when she found out why Arare was really doing it.

Now that one issue has been tabled, the next big thing (in chapter 12, the one that just came out in Japan) is that Arare and Pero have ended up in the human world.
We also find out how upset Kiri was over the thing with Arare wanting to become a nekomata for the wrong reasons.

As plot devices go, it's not bad. It'll be interesting to see where Nangoku goes with it--whether it will be a way to put off resolving a certain issue or whether it will set things in motion to resolve it.

A bit more news

2009-10-18T19:42:13Z

According to Yuri na Hibi, Yuri Hime Wildrose 4 is due out on December 18. Also, the first volume of a new anthology called Comic Lily is due out on October 30; the publisher is BunEnDo (the Rice River line?) and one of the contributors has said that it's shoujo-manga-ish yuri. Volume 2 is due out in December.

Meanwhile, Lily Yuri Anthology is now calling itself Yuri Shoujo, and Sakuraike has a banner up on their site with a list of contributing artists. Notables include Inoue Shinkai and Houjo KOZ (from the circle UKOZ). That one is due out on November 19.

A fun meme from usagiko

2009-10-18T03:20:52Z

[01] -- Go to IMDB.com and look up 10 of your TV shows.
[02] -- Post three official IMDB "Plot Keywords" for these picks.
[03] -- Have your friends guess the show names.

1. ~~Extraterrestrial, Time Travel, Character Name In Title~~ Doctor Who
2. ~~Character Name In Title, Racial Discrimination, Brooklyn New York~~ Everybody Hates Chris
3. ~~Lesbian Interest, Lesbian Theme, Breaking The Fourth Wall~~ Exes & Ohs
4. ~~Superhero, Journalism, 1990s~~ Lois and Clark
5. ~~Egyptology, Alien, Space Travel~~ Stargate
6. ~~Space Exploration, Warp Engine, Phaser~~ Star Trek
7. ~~Clone, Family Relationships, Sleeping In Bathtub~~ Kyle XY
8. ~~Spaceship, Interracial Marriage, Preacher~~ Firefly
9. Mockumentary, Beet Farm, Awkward Silence
10. ~~First Family, Female Politician, Political Drama~~ Commander in Chief

Number 3 is hard because there weren't many keywords. I'm sorry.
(And number 9 is not actually set on a beet farm. The other keywords were mostly either too obvious or too vague.)

Another new yuri anthology

2009-10-14T16:40:36Z

This time it's from Cosmicpub, the publisher that put out Sakuraike's Kimochi no Katachi. According to Yuri na Hibi, it will be published under the company's "Kyun Comic Lily Time Series" label, with the tentative title Lily Yuri Anthology. It's due out in mid-November. Contributors include both members of Sakuraike and Shii Hirone.
Edit: It looks like the title is now Yuri Shoujo. The release date has been set for November 19.

Tadeno Eriko works on pixiv

2009-10-14T15:08:48Z

Tadeno has been putting some of her older works up on pixiv. You can view her page here. You definitely need a pixiv account to view the adult manga (and you need to turn on the R18 option in the settings), but I'm not sure about the others. There are English instructions on joining pixiv here.

A couple more old pictures

2009-10-08T01:02:39Z

From a birthday party a few years back (sophomore year of college, I think). We played "pin the rose on Utena." :D

More photos

2009-10-07T20:06:14Z

Mainly of my family this time:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3633&id=100000266921565&l=f08a0db823
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3639&id=100000266921565&l=24840c6b67

More dog pictures

2009-10-07T13:12:10Z

If you aren't sick of them yet:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3619&id=100000266921565&l=bad0e7a7a7

CR to simulcast Sasameki Koto

2009-10-05T20:05:00Z

They get another thumbs up from me. I'm glad to hear that people have been requesting more yuri from them and that they're delivering it!

Info here.

(As usual, my sympathies to anyone outside the regions they're streaming it in.)

A neat Japanese drama series

2009-09-29T14:24:57Z

Is anyone else watching Haken no Oscar?
I love how the main character takes inspiration from Oscar to stand up to people.

Yuri Hime November tankoubon releases

2009-09-25T20:01:18Z

Tankoubon versions of several Yuri Hime cell phone manga are due out on November 18:
Gokujou Drops volume 3 by Hajime Mikuni
Sorairo Girlfriend by Rikachi
Honey Quartet by Tokoro Kemeko
Otome Senshi Lovely 5! by Jounouchi Nene
Yukemuri Sanctuary by Amano Shuninta

I'm particularly looking forward to Amano Shuninta's. (Amano did the story "Sweet Exercise" in Wildrose 3.)

Blue Drop on sale at TRSI

2009-09-18T00:22:22Z

If you want to get the Blue Drop anime on sale, now would be a good time: http://tinyurl.com/m3dwds
Other stuff from Section23 Films is on sale too, but I haven't looked to see if there's anything else good in there.

The sale is valid through September 21.

Can't promise there will be much there, but...

2009-09-14T12:02:42Z

Twitter
Facebook
MyAnimeList

Marimite season 3 on sale at TRSI

2009-09-03T23:41:33Z

It's one of the weekly specials this week:
$23.99 instead of $39.99
http://www.rightstuf.com/1-800-338-6827/catalogmgr/F0IQxmtLdW51YmtTae/browse/item/78902/4/0/0

If you've been waiting for a sale to buy it, maybe now's a good time. The sale is valid through September 9.

Some food for thought?

2009-09-02T21:15:31Z

I put this together for myself, but maybe others will appreciate it as well, or have some suggestions of other unselfish motivations I missed.

"If someone does [unfavored behavior], they're just scanlating/fansubbing for their own ego!" is a favored insult in the community--usually on both sides of a given issue. Whether or not this is actually an insult, the question remains: Is it a fair one?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say "Unless it's someone you know well, probably not." I've put together a list of some controversial/opposing practices and some potential motivations for them, divided into "good motivation" and "bad/selfish motivation" categories:

Quality over speed
Good:
-Don't want to butcher someone else's creation
-Put patience above greed and instant gratification
-Want to be sure any projects they take on are within their skill levels, so they don't ruin them
Bad/Selfish:
-Take pride in their work, want to be thought of as good or praised for being good, want to have a good reputation
-Want to impress people
-Want their praise to come from an elite
-Want to feel better than other people
-Unjustified ego (say their work is "high-quality" when it really isn't; say they care about quality while engaging in practices that lower the quality of their work)
-Want to feel like they're doing "the right thing"
-Indulge their own perfectionism (or conform to someone else's overly-high standards or nitpicky rules) even when it might not make much difference in overall quality
-Want to work with people who care about their work and either know what they're doing or are committed to improving the quality of their work; in other words, allow their own pickiness to limit the amount of work that gets done because they are not taking on all the new members they could be; also, indulge themselves over others by being willing to wait months (or years) for a project to be completed if it's being done by a master of their craft
-More prone to procrastination, because the work is more difficult?
-Commit to projects that will take years at their current pace, even though there are no guarantees that they'll be around that long
-Want to go back to a time that no longer exists (or perhaps never did), when quality was prized and people thought a year--rather than a week--was a long time to wait for something they wanted
-Put the quality of the work above people's feelings; less indulgent of other people's impatience because they have worked to learn patience themselves; In short, put their own values over other people's suffering

Speed over quality
Good:
-Want to help people (don't want them to suffer through waiting)
-Want to be sure they can finish any project they take on, so nobody is left hanging
Bad/Selfish:</u>
-Take pride in their speed, want to be thought of as fast or praised for being fast, want to have a good reputation for speed
-Want to impress people
-Want more praise (speed is more popular than quality); cater to people's greed and encourage them to be even more impatient, so they will favor speed over quality even more and praise the groups that work the fastest
-Want to be popular
-Want to feel better than other people because they are faster
-Can't do any better, and don't really care since people will praise them either way
-Want to feel like they're doing "the right thing"
-Indulge their own impatience and/or laziness
-Treat scanlating/fansubbing as a race, and want to be first to the finish line no matter what the cost
-Don't mind butchering someone else's creation if it will help themselves or their friends/readers

Taking over projects that are already covered (for speed)
Good:
-Want to help people
Bad/Selfish:
-Wasteful
-Cater to people's greed and encourage them to be even more impatient, so they will favor speed over quality even more and praise the groups that work the fastest
-Want the praise/attention that comes from doing a popular project
-Turn scanlating/fansubbing into a competition (to see who is fastest)
-If an official adaptation is (or will be) available in the target language, they are potentially harming the financial success of the work in order to indulge their own values or impatience

Taking over projects that are already covered (for quality)
Good:
-Care about artist's work and don't like seeing it butchered; want people to see it as it should be
Bad/Selfish:
-Wasteful
-Unjustified ego (often these are only a slight improvement over the other groups' versions)
-Want the praise/attention that comes from doing a popular project
-Turn scanlating/fansubbing into a competition (to see who can do the best job)
-If an official adaptation is (or will be) available in the target language, they are potentially harming the financial success of the work in order to indulge their own values or perfectionism

Taking over projects that are already covered (for fun)
Good:
-Intellectual exercise for the readers? That's really stretching it, though.
Bad/Selfish:
-Duh
-If an official adaptation is (or will be) available in the target language, they are potentially harming the financial success of the work in order to indulge their own desires

Refusal to take over projects that are already covered
Good:
-Unwilling to put self above community
-Will not touch an artist's work unless they have an extremely good reason
-Don't want to encourage impatience and greed
-Don't want to hurt people's feelings or cause conflict; want to keep a friendly atmosphere in the community
-Willing to give others the benefit of the doubt
Bad/Selfish:
-Allow poor scanlations to be people's introduction to artists' work because of their own values/feelings
-Allow series to remain stalled for long periods of time or permanently remain unfinished because of their own values/feelings

Watermarking
Good:
-Informative: if an isolated page is floating around, this tells people where to find more (though if there is enough space, putting the title and author instead would be just as informative, and less vain)
-Guarantee of quality?
Bad/Selfish:
-Plastering their names all over someone else's creation
-Using someone else's creation to promote their own site
-Vanity

Credits pages
Good:
-Informative (including networking to help build community efforts)
-Take responsibility for their actions
-Guarantee of quality?
Bad/Selfish:
-Using someone else's creation to promote themselves
-Vanity
-To make friends
-When it's on the work itself: plastering their names all over someone else's creation, elevating themselves to the same status as the original creators
-When it's on a separate page: Making more of it than it is, giving their credits a special status

Treating scanlations as practice (especially in the case of beginners)
Good:
-Trying to help others--turning something that would otherwise only benefit themselves into something that helps the whole community
Bad/Selfish:
-Publicly sharing a poor adaptation of the artist's work in order to get feedback, praise, attention, and so on instead of studying or practicing in private until they are good enough to do the work well; in other words, using (and, often, butchering) someone else's creation for their own benefit

Deliberately holding releases because of complaints or lack of comments/praise
Good:
-Want to teach people not to take other people for granted
-Want to effect positive change in the community's attitude
-Want to encourage politeness
-Want to get the support/motivation they need so that they can work harder to serve the community
Bad/Selfish:
-Duh

Begging for comments, begging, commanding, or enticing people to come to website/channel, etc.
Good:
-Website points people to related material of interest
-Want constructive criticism in order to improve their work
-Want to encourage politeness
-Want to get the support/motivation they need so that they can work harder to serve the community
Bad/Selfish:
-Duh
-Find out what's most popular and do that in order to get the most attention/praise/popularity

Talking (especially in public) about how hard something was, how hard they worked on it, what they had to sacrifice to achieve it, etc.
Good:
-Informative (teaches people what goes into scanlating/subbing, and not to take it for granted; explains past delays and warns of future delays)
-Want to get the support/motivation they need so that they can work harder to serve the community
Bad/Selfish:
-Duh

Publicly praising themselves and their teammates; Making it about themselves rather than about the artists' works (making a fuss over achievements, anniversaries, teammates' birthdays, and so on; branding; making their own image overshadow that of the artists and their work; speaking about the works in a proprietary fashion or as though they created--rather than adapted--them; taking credit for a work's popularity)
Good:
-Want to encourage positive attitudes, friendliness, and camaraderie in the community
-Want to serve as good examples of polite behavior
-Want to get the support/motivation they need so that they can work harder to serve the community
-Want to recruit more members, to better serve the community
-Want to help people quickly find material of interest
-Don't want to be aloof or snobbish
Bad/Selfish:
-Duh

Badmouthing fellow scanlators/fansubbers, their policies and values, the quality of their work, etc. (especially publicly)
Good:
-Trying to effect positive change; don't want harmful practices to continue; want to spur others to improve the quality or speed of their work
-Want to encourage others to be courageous and speak out about things they think are wrong
-Want to promote an atmosphere of honesty and openness
Bad/Selfish:
-Want to express their resentment, frustration, or hate
-Want to make themselves look better by bashing others
-Want to be praised for sharing the values of the people who visit their site
-Want to win others over to their side of a given issue so that they can gain more praise/admiration/approval/popularity
-Want to be honest even at the expense of others' feelings
-Indulge their own perfectionism or impatience by holding everyone to unreasonably high standards
-Indulge their own pessimism or cynicism by not giving others the benefit of the doubt

While I was putting together this list, I realized that I could think of unselfish motivations for every single practice on the list. The likelihood of a given motivation is another story, but at least this list will remind me that there can be good reasons for every practice on this list, even the ones I don't care for.

I suppose it would be useless to say "No flames, please," since I started it by posting this list in the first place. But try to be fair to both sides of a given issue, please?

Doujinshi list updated

2009-07-31T20:12:46Z

Updated the doujinshi scan request list. Highlights: some Marimite (mostly by UA or Kodama Naoko), some Utena, some Star Trek (mostly TNG, Voyager, and DS9), a nice Battle Athletes we might scanlate, a genderswitch Hetalia (USxUK) with sketchy art.

Please continue to make requests on the first post.

Outstanding requests: 2 Sailor Moon doujinshi. Sorry for the wait.

Doujinshi scan: Original (Tact)

2009-07-07T00:28:51Z

Tact 01, an original doujinshi by Sakuraike (who did some excellent stories for ALC Publishing's Yuri Monogatari 5; you may have read them in the doujinshi Flower Language as well). Raw.
Please spread it around!
And if you like it, please purchase the updated version of the Tact series that's due out in Japanese bookstores this summer, Kimochi no Katachi (ISBNs for volumes 1 and 2: 4774730203 and 4774730211).

No new Amber Teahouse this month--too bad.

2009-07-04T10:50:08Z

Fujieda has announced on his blog that he did not contribute to this month's issue of Yuri Hime (or REX). He says he'll work hard on the next one.
So don't look forward to a new Amber Teahouse chapter until October.
There is a lot to look forward to in YH17, though--works from several BL artists (Zaou Taishi and Eiki Eiki, plus two newcomers to YH whose names didn't ring a bell for me), plus the usual regulars. It's the fourth anniversary of the magazine, so they're promising special (probably send-away, probably limited to a few lucky winners instead of "everybody gets one") treats.

Aoi Hana simulcast?

2009-07-01T12:02:30Z

Yes yes yes!

Words on a yuri manga: Wagamama Juliet volume 2

2009-06-12T16:21:41Z

My thoughts on volume 1 are here.

When Youko went home the next morning and told Kouta that she'd had sex with Ayari, he slapped her and yelled at her. She left, and went to stay with Ayari at her apartment. A week later, she met Kouta at a hotel coffee lounge to talk. He asked her to come back to his place so they could talk in private (to which I couldn't help thinking, "Don't go! Don't go!"); Youko agreed. Thankfully, all that happened was that they talked for a while and he eventually agreed to a divorce--he still didn't understand why Youko would want to be with a woman, but he knew that if things kept on, they would come to hate each other, and he didn't want that to happen. So he gave in.
Youko and Ayari are happy--but also scared--to be on their own now, just the two of them.

But the story doesn't end there.

We jump ahead a year. Youko and Ayari are still living happily together, but things aren't perfect between them. Ayari begins working as a hostess again; she lies to Youko about it, saying she's changing jobs for the money and that she'll be working in a snack bar. Youko, for her part, finds that she is always wanting more from Ayari, and I think Ayari finds Youko's love stifling.

One night, Ayari runs into Kouta at the club. He honestly just wants Youko to be happy, and begs Ayari not to do anything to make her unhappy. He comes back another time to make the same request. Ayari doesn't think there's anything wrong with being a hostess, even going so far as to kiss customers (and Kouta himself) and say it means nothing. And what Youko doesn't know can't hurt her, right?

However, Ayari never picked up one of her dresses from the dry cleaner's, and they call the apartment. Youko, who has already picked up on the fact that something is wrong but has no idea what it is, goes to get the dress. When she sees it, she realizes that Ayari isn't working in a snack bar after all.

They have a gigantic argument when Ayari gets home that night/morning. Youko wants Ayari to be honest, Ayari cruelly shares details that she knows will hurt Youko, Youko slaps Ayari, Ayari demands that Youko kneel down and kiss her feet and is horrified when Youko complies... At the end, Ayari leaves. Neither of them knows if she will ever be back.

Youko comes out to her mother, who has been pressuring her to remarry. Her parents talk to Kouta about it, which leads to Youko talking to Kouta about it. He continues to hope that things will work out for her--either with Ayari or with somebody else. He offers to take Youko to the club where Ayari works, but Youko says no--she wants to wait and see if Ayari will come back on her own.

Later, he encourages her to start moving on with her life, and so she goes out drinking with her coworkers and ends up coming out to them. People start whispering about her at work after that, but she's too numb to care. Kouta worries that though coming out is all well and good, in this case, Youko might just be doing it to punish herself. But really, it's about being true to herself--something she learned from Ayari. She used to worry about being "normal," but her new goal is to be a stronger person.

Spoilers for the end of the story (highlight to read):
Ayari has slept with a bunch of guys (ones she met at the club) since she left Youko, but not one of them has turned her on. She goes to Youko's apartment, then turns around to leave; Youko happens to be coming home just then, and sees her. Ayari says she doesn't want to get back together, but Youko insists that she at least come in for a cup of tea. When Youko refuses to let go of Ayari's wrist, Ayari flings her off and ends up hurting her in the process. She takes Youko to the hospital, where Youko is hospitalized for an ulcer (one she first developed when she and Ayari started having problems). They have a serious talk, and end up getting back together.

I liked that Youko and Ayari didn't just magically get a happy ending without working out some of their issues first, and that the second volume focused on the problems they had after they got together. I also liked that the issues were things that followed logically from the characters' personalities and interactions in volume 1, rather than just throwing in drama for the sake of drama or bringing in an outside villain (Ayari's ex never reappears, thank goodness).

When Youko comes out to her parents, they disapprove and want her to have a normal life. They even ask Ayari to withdraw. But at the very end, we find out that despite their reluctance to accept Youko's sexuality, they are having Youko and Ayari over once a month. That was another thing I liked.

I didn't particularly like Ayari (which makes sense, since she's not supposed to be likable), and the ending was a bit abrupt, but aside from that, I thought Wagamama Juliet was a good read, and it covered some important points.