Yuri Expert Erica Friedman Dives Into LGBTQ Anime & Manga History in New Book ‘By Your Side’ – June 2022In February, Yuri researcher and trend-setter Erica Friedman announced that they are writing a new book, By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Manga & Anime. The book will be published by Journey Press in June 2022, in time for pride month and the 20th anniversary of Okazu, the world’s oldest and most comprehensive site on lesbian anime and manga.The term “Yuri” began life as a coded reference to lesbianism within manga and anime genre, but in the past few decades, fans, creators, and publishers shaped the term into a beautiful genre of its own. Friedman traces the past, present, and future of the genre, all the way from the modern Yuri phenomenon manga, webcomics, novels, and games to its routes over a century ago in Yoshiya Nobuko’s pioneering works. Walk together through the past, present, and future of Yuri in this insightful and entertaining new work. By Your Side is a collection of interlocking essays, articles, and essays from Friedman’s gloriously hilarious, witty, and unwieldable mind. Through these essays, readers will become familiar with many of the Yuri genre’s greatest creators, tropes, concepts, symbols, and titles. As the title suggests, the series focuses on the first 100 years of lesbian anime and manga, 1919-2019.Friedman describes her hopes for the book to YuriMother:I want people to approach it like joining me at a Yuri panel - as an ongoing, casual discussion of a topic we love to talk about! I want to walk by your side as we wander through a garden full of lilies and chat about the changes we’ve seen in Yuri… I hope folks will pick it up and read a section, then put it down and think about that series, or person, or concept, then come back later and read another section!Because the chapters in BYS are sourced from my writings and presentations, BYS can be used by fans of Yuri who want to know more about the history of the genre and by students of pop culture who are looking for research they can use for their own work.We also spoke about the future of Yuri.So much has changed in the past even 20 years, I can hardly project what we haven’t even imagined yet. ^_^But…the thing that is the most exciting change I’ve seen recently and the thing I hope for the most is creators modeling worlds where queer lives and happiness are normalized…creators imagining joy in queer lives in Yuri.Indeed, the past few years have seen wonderous titles from a variety of creators embracing Yuri’s queer identity to tell both joyful and brutally real Yuri stories. Works like My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Yuri Life, and most recently, I’m in Love with the Villainess come to mind.Friedman continues:We spent a lot of time in the last century performing lesbian trauma for Yuri subplots. I’m looking forward to Yuri manga where lesbian couples just are and then the story happens.They went on to express their excitement over finally getting ready to put out their “Big Book o'Yuri.”I’m very excited that the Big Book o'Yuri will be a reality, obviously. ^_^ And I’m delighted to be able to work with Journey Press on this. I know they’ll give us all the best book they can make. We’re probably going to run a Kickstarter, which will give us a chance to develop fun physical and digital goods, as well! And, when the pandemic is over, I absolutely want to do events at bookstores where I can talk to folks about their experiences with Yuri!I’m also just exceptionally happy that there will be a book about Yuri out there. Right now we collect every essay we can on the Yuricon Essays page to help folks trying to do research (YuriMother is proud to have contributed works to this Essays page). Once this book is out, my wish is that we’ll see more Yuri research being published as well. I look forward to reviewing other books about Yuri.Just you wait, Erica Friedman! You blaze the trail, and YuriMother (which is to say I, the writer of this report) will happily follow in your footsteps! Readers, join me in supporting By Your Side when it is released next year and continue to consume and learn about Yuri!Erica holds a Masters Degree in Library Science and a B.A. in Comparative Literature and is a full-time researcher for a Fortune 100 company. She has lectured at dozens of conventions and presented at film festivals, notably the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. She has participated in an academic lecture series at MIT, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Harvard University, Kanagawa University, and others.She has edited manga for JManga, Seven Seas, and Udon Entertainment, most recently Riyoko Ikeda’s epic historical classic, The Rose of Versailles.Erica has written about Yuri for Japanese literary journal Eureka, Animerica magazine, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Dark Horse, and contributed to Forbes, Slate, Huffington Post, Hooded Utilitarian, and The Mary Sue online. She has written news and event reports, interviews Yuri creators, and reviews Yuri anime, manga, and related media on her blog Okazu since 2002.They were the founder of ALC Publishing, the first English publisher to release English Yuri manga. ALC Publishing passed the torch to new publishers in 2013 and no long publishes material.Journey Press was born in 2019 with the goal of bringing unusual and diverse science fiction to the forefront of the publishing landscape. We are dedicated to supporting the women and queer people who have been erased from the history books, and to the reprinting of worthy novels that fell by the wayside, in addition to publishing new novels by creators of all types.
Mar 3, 2021 • Subscribe
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