Yuri License Announcements

[Claire]

So this one was announced all the way back in November and I missed it because I apparently don't pay enough attention to Kodansha. A mutual on Twitter ended up mentioning it to me. My bad.

'Spoil Me Plzzz, Hinamori-san!' by tsuke

"Ichigo Hinamori has always looked up to her senpai Yaya Suou for her poise, impeccable grades, and kind heart. But that all changes the day Ichigo stumbles upon Yaya wailing like a little kid in the nurse’s office. It turns out everyone’s favorite honor student is desperate to get off her pedestal and be spoiled rotten instead—and now she’s hoping Ichigo will be the one to indulge her!"

Debut Date: October 1, 2024

 

[Claire]

THIS IS A BIG ONE!

Kodansha USA have licensed 'I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day' by Nachi Aono

"A new dystopian Yuri series about a war, a mysterious orphanage, and the girls who live there, perfect for fans of Girls Last Tour and Otherside Picnic!"

Debut: February 2025

 

[zappi]

Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All) manga getting an English release.
this one is really good!

 

[Claire]

Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All) manga getting an English release.
this one is really good!

Ah the author is actually confirming it's in the works then. I know that Denpa let slip in a Twitter comment that someone had licensed it already but not announced it yet. This seems a lot more official.

 

[Claire]

Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All) manga getting an English release.
this one is really good!

This has now been officially confirmed by Yen Press to be one of their new licenses.

 

[Claire]

The 'I'm in Love With the Villainess' spinoff series 'She's So Cheeky for a Commoner' will be getting the audiobook treatment starting in June according to a recent announcement.

 

[Claire]

Viz Media have licensed 'Pink Candy Kiss' by Ami Uozumi

​

 

[Claire]

Wow I forgot that publishers were capable of licensing yuri, it's been a while.

 

[Claire]

Wait I was wrong, there might be a third one.

What's going on? Why is Yen Press being so nice to us? It's making me nervous.

 

[Claire]

I don't know if I should even be counting these as new licenses since all that's happened is they've unceremoniously dropped the individual volume releases on these two series and are just releasing both of them as omnibuses now (kinda screwing over anyone who supported the series before but whatever). But I guess it will come as a relief to fans that Seven Seas haven't just dropped these two completely.



I honestly find Seven Seas a little tiring lately, they seem to have abandoned our fandom. Yen Press and Viz are licensing a few and some Japanese kickstarters for English yuri releases are filling in some of the gaps, but it's still annoying that what used to be "the" yuri publisher for English speakers has decided we're no longer financially lucrative enough for them after 18 years.

 

[Claire]

TappyToon will be doing an official English translation of 'I Love Amy' by Unni starting on September 4th. I HIGHLY recommend reading this one, it is in my mind an absolute masterpiece. Plays around with the yandere arechetype in a way I have never really seen before, and has a very compassionate exploration of mental health issues and trauma. It's absolutely beautiful.

 

[Claire]

I'm duty bound to add this to the thread but Seven Seas really piss me off. Two yuri licenses from them all year and this is one of them?

They've licensed 80 BL series this year and are consistently giving fans of that genre the stuff they actually want, yet when it comes to yuri they're clearly just appealing to fans of ecchi harem series with this one. No thought was given for our fandom when selecting this, even slapping a yuri label on it feels like a technicality more than anything. Hell, there's even far better erotic yuri out there than this that would actually appeals to himejins.

 

[Suzu]

I'm duty bound to add this to the thread but Seven Seas really piss me off. Two yuri licenses from them all year and this is one of them?

They've licensed 80 BL series this year and are consistently giving fans of that genre the stuff they actually want, yet when it comes to yuri they're clearly just appealing to fans of ecchi harem series with this one. No thought was given for our fandom when selecting this, even slapping a yuri label on it feels like a technicality more than anything. Hell, there's even far better erotic yuri out there than this that would actually appeals to himejins.
View attachment 35841

... Utsushicha Dame Na Kao is RIGHT THERE and they went with this slop instead? Smh...

"Nice" to know that me and my friends have been requesting Utsushicha Dame Na Kao, Warikitta Kankei desukara, Zenbu Kowashite Jigoku de Aishite and Odoriba ni Skirt ga naru for nothing in Seven Seas' monthly survey.

 

[Demelza]

They've licensed 80 BL series this year and are consistently giving fans of that genre the stuff they actually want, yet when it comes to yuri they're clearly just appealing to fans of ecchi harem series with this one. No thought was given for our fandom when selecting this, even slapping a yuri label on it feels like a technicality more than anything. Hell, there's even far better erotic yuri out there than this that would actually appeals to himejins.

I don't think this got shared at the time here, so I'm sharing it now given its relevance to the conversation:

x.com

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When you take that into consideration it's easy to see why publishers are going for BL by the bucketload but not Yuri, you can't really blame them if the sales aren't matching up to the costs involved.

 

[Suzu]

When you take that into consideration it's easy to see why publishers are going for BL by the bucketload but not Yuri, you can't really blame them if the sales aren't matching up to the costs involved.

That doesn't explain why they licensed a yuri manga no one requested instead of yuri manga that multiple people have requested every month in their monthly survey.

Also:

 

[Demelza]

That doesn't explain why they licensed a yuri manga no one requested instead of yuri manga that multiple people have requested every month in their monthly survey.

We don't know if no one requested it, it's not like we're privy to that. In the same breath requests are not the only reason a series gets licensed, it could have some kind of cross-media release forthcoming (thinking anime or live-action dramas in other circumstances particularly BL), or it could be the Japanese publisher has offered it to Seven Seas for whatever reason. They have the Ghost ship and more adult labels, so they're a good place for an English release of a title like this. At the end of the day, licensing is complicated and there are a lot of different factors that go into that decision.

Also:
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My response to this is that they are marketed more or less the same by publishers but in general, they don't have the same circumstances as BL titles. They're less likely to get anime or dramas, especially those that then make it into the Western market and they appeal to a different crowd so they don't get pushed in the same way because they lack that cross-media approach that you can jump on the back of. BL has only grown because those with buying power have supported it, if it didn't sell they wouldn't bother. If the Yuri titles aren't selling as we're credibly told then as a publisher you have to look at the risk to your business by licensing things that aren't going to make the money back and spending accordingly, which means picking up fewer titles for the demographic.

I'm not saying the publishers are blameless, but ultimately if readers aren't buying then what can you do?

 

[RadFemHedonist]

That doesn't explain why they licensed a yuri manga no one requested instead of yuri manga that multiple people have requested every month in their monthly survey.

Also:
View attachment 35846

I'm inclined to agree with you - I don't buy or read a lot of yuri or yaoi (some but not a lot of both) but I don't really believe that the paying audience for yuri is that small, particularly when you factor in combined sales to queer people and other demographics - it's not even as though only lesbian women read yuri (not that it would be "bad" or unworthy of publication if it was that way, just making a point). I'm not an expert here but I'm sure (or at least guessing) there's more complicated factors involved here than just "low sales". No disrespect indended to @Demelza btw, I get what you are saying too. I think it is possible that given how much financial belt-tightening people have been doing on the whole that's affected sales for a lot of things, though I also hear that a lot of people got more into reading during pandemic/lockdown, and as a big shoujo manga and anime fan I am wary of being too quick to believe "it just doesn't sell" as as you say they used to say that a lot about shoujo manga and anime (and some still do), whether it's true or not.

 

[Demelza]

I'm inclined to agree with you - I don't buy or read a lot of yuri or yaoi (some but not a lot of both) but I don't really believe that the paying audience for yuri is that small, particularly when you factor in combined sales to queer people and other demographics - it's not even as though only lesbian women read yuri (not that it would be "bad" or unworthy of publication if it was that way, just making a point). I'm not an expert here but I'm sure (or at least guessing) there's more complicated factors involved here than just "low sales". No disrespect indended to @Demelza btw, I get what you are saying too. I think it is possible that given how much financial belt-tightening people have been doing on the whole that's affected sales for a lot of things, though I also hear that a lot of people got more into reading during pandemic/lockdown, and as a big shoujo manga fan I am wary of being too quick to believe "it just doesn't sell" as as you say they used to say that a lot about shoujo manga and anime (and some still do), whether it's true or not.

No worries! I think you make a good and valid point as well. To me it's definitely not just sales, it's layered. When we look at the market broadly it's still mostly made up of licenses that have anime coming or from a creator already established here. Of course that's not everything, but when you look at what's being talked about / reviewed / makes it into the end of year sale charts it's almost all isekai / shounen / a handful of other highly popular things. And unfortunately when we look at what's being turned into anime or live action dramas... it's not really yuri titles, which already puts them on the back foot for exposure. I know I was talking about BL earlier, but actually shoujo and josei titles have been enjoying something of a boost thanks to receiving anime a bit more often and that market finally starting to widen in general.

I think the other thing is that you're right about people not being able to spend as readily as they did before and I think everyone is worried about the market for manga and webtoons as a whole having a crash of some sort (even if it's not nearly as bad as what happened in the past).

As we both say, it's complicated with a lot of factors even putting sales and genres aside.

 

[Claire]

I don't think this got shared at the time here, so I'm sharing it now given its relevance to the conversation:

x.com

x.com

When you take that into consideration it's easy to see why publishers are going for BL by the bucketload but not Yuri, you can't really blame them if the sales aren't matching up to the costs involved.

I'd wager there's a little more to it than this, I've seen that tweet before but it's unsourced so I don't really take it as an absolute authority.

If we look at the other publishers (namely Yen Press, Viz, and Kodansha) they actually seem to be licensing a lot more yuri than they did before, whereas in the case of Seven Seas it seems like they went all in on BL and stopped licensing a lot of other stuff (the lion's share of 7S licenses these days are BL/Danmei). So this precipitous decline in licensing can only really be seen with Seven Seas.

We also saw in the last couple months that several yuri manga kickstarters from creators in Japan to release English versions immediately smashed their targets and ended up getting many times their funding goals. Given that Seven Seas licensed yuri consistently for 18 years, and that the other publishers have stepped up on licensing it, I don't really buy that it isn't profitable. I think what's happening here is that BL is just way more profitable than anything else right now and Seven Seas are rushing to cash in on that. So now everything else they sell is being compared to that and they're going "why would we want some of the money when we can have ALL of the money?".

I'm not entirely sure where that will go in the medium to long term though. 80 BL licenses in one year (with 4 months to go) is a pretty staggering amount from one licensor and as fervent a fandom as it is people don't have limitless money. If they go too gung ho there's a danger of oversaturating the market. Even putting aside yuri specifically, Seven Seas licenses are lacking a bit in diversity lately as a result of this.

 

[Demelza]

I'd wager there's a little more to it than this, I've seen that tweet before but it's unsourced so I don't really take it as an absolute authority.

If we look at the other publishers (namely Yen Press, Viz, and Kodansha) they actually seem to be licensing a lot more yuri than they did before, whereas in the case of Seven Seas it seems like they went all in on BL and stopped licensing a lot of other stuff (the lion's share of 7S licenses these days are BL/Danmei). So this precipitous decline in licensing can only really be seen with Seven Seas.

I will say the other publishers have a lot more direct connections to those titles if you look at the magazines for where they came from (which I appreciate is nitty-gritty detail FYI!) you'll find they're usually Kodansha or Kadokawa-owned, which means Kodansha and YP have first refusal at the very least being directly or partly owned those companies (same for Viz and theirs). This is the downside of Seven Seas not being owned by one of the Japanese publishers since they're always going to be competing against the others and don't always have the best access to other publishers with yuri titles. As we've said a few times in this threads, that's one of the factors that complicate it.

We also saw in the last couple months that several yuri manga kickstarters from creators in Japan to release English versions immediately smashed their targets and ended up getting many times their funding goals. Given that Seven Seas licensed yuri consistently for 18 years, and that the other publishers have stepped up on licensing it, I don't really buy that it isn't profitable. I think what's happening here is that BL is just way more profitable than anything else right now and Seven Seas are rushing to cash in on that. So now everything else they sell is being compared to that and they're going "why would we want some of the money when we can have ALL of the money?".

Yeah, honestly I think that's a good assessment of it. Though the Kickstarters do better because you have the actual diehard fans backing them (a good thing!), but the mass market who is simply browsing in a bookstore may just not be picking up those kinds of titles. Seven Seas have pretty poor distribution into Europe as well, so your chances of even seeing their titles is slimmer which in turn is going to hurt anything that's less profitable generally. There definitely is a rush to cash in on BL tho, similar to isekai and light novels previously. There are also a lot more BL titles coming out in Japan and they're often single volumes compared to yuri, so you're not locked into long licenses if something flops and there's more to go around.

I'm not entirely sure where that will go in the medium to long term though. 80 BL licenses in one year (with 4 months to go) is a pretty staggering amount from one licensor and as fervent a fandom as it is people don't have limitless money. If they go too gung ho there's a danger of oversaturating the market. Even putting aside yuri specifically, Seven Seas licenses are lacking a bit in diversity lately as a result of this.

That is definitely the concern, but other markets like France seem to be handling it so perhaps it's not out of the question that people are supporting it. Maybe the fact so much is so short helps sell people on, I mean I can say that I do pick up a lot of BL due to that... and have picked up probably 80-90% of what's been licensed this year BL wise from the big publishers, the exception being SS where I've sought those titles out in Japanese instead due to my own feelings on those releases.