Forum › So it seems that Hirari is ending publication...
Both ANN and Seventh Style have said that the latest volume of Hirari is also its last, which is a terrible shame. Rest in peace!
On a side note, Seventh Style also made this comment:
As anime is today, there’s no need for the specialty magazine, since picking up a copy of Dengeki Whatever, Nyantype, or Megami, will already be bloated with yuri suggestive imagery all from series not officially of the category. ...
This might have been part of the plan of these mega publishers like Kadokawa, by integrating these specialty themes, they manage to take market share from the masses without ever seeming to do anything out of the ordinary. Assuming that’s the case, it’s certainly working, and the monopoly seems set to continue.
...which doesn't make me happy at all, since series that aren't specifically marketed as yuri tend to only tease it since portraying characters' feelings or relationships as being romantic, whether by showing them in bed together (cough Psycho-Pass cough) or by more subtle means, might elicit a negative reaction from more homophobic parts of their audience. So if yuri is eliminated as a genre, then the amount of series where relationships between two female characters is explicitly romantic rather than left ambiguous is likely to decline greatly. Which, as I stated earlier, doesn't make me happy at all.
That being said, I mostly think of Seventh Style as the site where the writers' attempts at "analysing" images or illustrations which were never meant for such close scrutiny reflect poorly on their taste and judgement, so what they say should probably taken with a grain of salt despite sounding fairly reasonable.
Any thoughts?
Links:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-07-30/shinshokan-yuri-manga-magazine-hirari-ends-publication/.77123
http://seventhstyle.com/2014/07/29/hirari-yuri-magazine-goes-defunct/
So, they things are gonna stay like they were in anime? Where homosexual characters are joke-characters who like the MC who will never like them back cuz of dull male MC love interest and yuri is only subtext and/or fanservice stuff (i.e. not real yuri)? Like last year and many years before?
Anyone knows what series gonna continue from the magazine?
Kase-san is safe it seems. I am most worried about The Real Her...
What other magazines provide real yuri series along side with other kinds of mangas? (not yuri-only magazines)
So... I guess the saying "Yuri does not sell well" goes here?
Asking so many questions... For some reason this feels like the end of the world... ahaha... hah... ah... =/
Sadness.
As anime is today, there’s no need for the specialty magazine...Nyantype [and] Megumi...[are] already bloated with yuri suggestive imagery all from series not officially of the category...they manage to take market share from the masses without ever seeming to do anything out of the ordinary.
Pfft. That was clearly Hirari's problem, they weren't making enough porny posters of existing copyrights. (gonna stop here before I go on a rant)
Anyway, this was talked about a bit in the severely off-topic Kase-san thread, probably good to have an actual thread for it. From that thread and elsewhere, we have some other interesting things that I'll just quote below...
(The original letter, with translation taken from /u/)
アンソロジー「ひらり、」は今号で休刊いたします。
The anthology "Hirari" is suspending publication as of this volume.
これまでたくさんの作家、読者のみんなさんは支えられて14号を迎えることができましたこと、心から感謝いたします。
We thankful from the bottom of our hearts that the support of our authors and readers allowed us to reach 14 volumes.
紙の本としての「ひらり、」は姿を消しますが、その遺伝子はこれからもメディアや誌面を変えてしぶとくたくましく生き延びていきます
The paper incarnation of "Hirari" may disappear, but its descendents will live on in other media, and on the pages of other magazines.
またどこかで、お会いしましょう。
Let us meet again in the future.
Kase-san will be continued.
https://twitter.com/hiromi_gko/status/494324854477172736
KASE TO BE CONTINUED
Holy Girl Paradigm and The Real Her will both be ending as of Hirari volume 14 (The Real Her will have a final ending chapter included in the tankobon). Under One Roof and Morinaga Milk's new-ish series remain unaccounted for [to my knowledge]. It's quite likely there will be some down time before we find out anything new.
Also, Nezchan asked
So wait. Hirari's gone, Tsubomi's gone, what major yuri mags are left?
Yuri Hime and the newly founded Mebae are the only yuri magazines to speak of.
last edited at Jul 31, 2014 4:04AM
^ Thanks.
I guess that relieves some of the sadness...
Gotta go read something happy before going to bed depressed xd
last edited at Jul 31, 2014 4:01AM
Fortunately The Real Her did seem like it was nearing it's end anyway, so i guess we can appreciate it's ending without pulling the RUSHED card
Glad to hear that Kase-san will be continuing... But I'm worried about Under One Roof; it's a bit of a favourite of mine for being different to the other series in atmosphere, style etc. and I'd really like to see the story unfold properly.
Yuri Hime and the newly founded Mebae are the only yuri magazines to speak of.
Unfortunately, a bit of Googling yielded this: http://www.comiczin.jp/info/comic/index.cgi?no=3448. It makes it very clear that the magazine is intended for a male demographic, and judging by the pictures on the page it's mostly ecchi/hentai that does not treat the female characters respectfully, a far cry from Hirari's generally more shoujo stuff. Even if it's yuri it doesn't look like the sort of thing I'd want to read. I guess there's nothing for it but to continue supporting Yuri Hime and yuri doujin...
Everything I've ever heard/read regarding seventhstyle has shown them to be fucking hacks...all of their actual news can probably be gotten from somewhere else, so it's a joke to consider them a 'source' which is remotely credible.
Yuri Hime and the newly founded Mebae are the only yuri magazines to speak of.
I've been curious for a while as to the official status of Sakura, which came out this year in January. I picked up a copy of vol.1 myself due to the special Sakura Trick chapter which was included, but with such little attention from the yuri community I guess it must not've sold very well (it's been more than 6 months since the first issue too). For a yuri anthology from Houbunsha, it admittedly also feels much less ambitious/serious than Tsubomi; flipping through the volume, the only notable/familiar yuri artist I recognized aside from Tachi was Hirao Auri (of Manga no Tsukurikata). The contents themselves are not bad, although it's a bit hard to get attached to oneshots.
I guess it would also be safe to assume that Dolce is kaput as well? The first two volumes came out 8 months apart and stopped as of January 2013.
In any case, Hirari dying is indeed a goddamn tragedy but I wouldn't necessarily panic regarding the general health of the genre. According to Okazu's latest review in any case, Yuri Hime at least is doing pretty well. It's always nice to have other magazines to bring something different to the table but still, we're not exactly running out of new things to read or artists to follow just yet.
yuri is dead...
sigh...
yuri is dead...
sigh...
Yuri is not dead! how we are currently getting it is changing. at best, we are all witnessing a consolidation in the anime/manga industry with the same amount of yuri content. at worse, we are witnessing a contraction with little to no yuri content. but after reading some of the links, i am not as worried as i thought i would be given that web comics and like-minded online sites will most likely pick up the slack.
that said, there's something about reading a paper book that phones, e-readers and tablets can never replace. if anything, we all should be mourning the death of the paperback.
On the topic of yuri and the mainstream, I just have to ask:
Would it be bad if yuri got integrated into the mainstream?
I think the assumption is that the result would be the sidelineing of yuri, but that's not the only possible outcome. If characters had lesbian relationships in mainstream media, I doubt we would be really worried about it so much. Heck, if someone came along and picked up Morinaga Milk's series for publication (as-is) in something like Hana to Yume, I think we'd be pretty happy with that. It would get published more often, that's for sure!
What we're worried about is the disappearance of actual yuri and the replacement of it with subtext crap, the fall of yuri into the realm of doujinshi and fanfiction. I don't think we have to worry about that, really, as Yuri Hime is doing well, but nonetheless the disappearance of small publications is distressing. It seems that the market can only handle so much. Hirari and Tsubomi being gone is not a good thing for us... but we should think about why they are disappearing, too.
The market for small niche publications is always a tight one. Magazines come and go all the time. Hirari and Tsubomi were fairly tighly focused magazined, and had a big competitor in Yuri Hime. Yuri Hime itself has had ups and downs, they folded Yuri Hime S - but really, they just folded Yuri Hime S into Yuri Hime. YuruYuri is still running... in Yuri Hime.
I think part of the problem is that the magazines often aim for too small a niche, and yuri in particular bleeds over into other genres. The folding of Yuri Hime S into Yuri Hime was symtomatic of one artificial division - the male reader/female reader division, which is unncessary for Yuri Hime. Though no doubt there were some people who only were interested in one or the other, the tastes of yuri readers can't be simply categorized as "male readers vs female readers". In fact, that division is stupid - the male readers and female readers are reading the same things, or want to read the same things, much more than they want different things. Morishima Akiko has lots of sex, lots of romance, lots of cute girls - would anyone say that she is only interesting to women, or only to men? That's just absurd.
I think Hirari and Tsubomi both fell partly because of being in a small niche, and not being "wide" enough in an era where yuri is actually somewhat less marginal. Sakura Trick is not published in a yuri magazine. There may not be as much of a need for specialty magazine. Maybe yuri romance stuff needs to be published in magazines that publish a lot of romance. Maybe yuri magazines need to aim for broader stories. The most recent big successes from yuri into the mainstream are YuruYuri and Sakura Trick. YuruYuri is basically a comedy and works perfectly as a comedy - that it was published in Yuri Hime is fortunate, but it would work elsewhere. Sakura Trick is actually yuri enough that you would almost think it should be in a yuri magazine, but it isn't.
I think there is still a need for a specialty publication (Yuri Hime), but also there is a need for more overt yuri in more mainstream publications. And to the extent a specialty publication can make it, it needs to appeal across demographics and publish in a wide variety of genres. There is a need to see beyond the division of shoujo vs shounen vs josei vs seinen - magazines that hope to live on yuri should focus on YURI, but yuri across as wide a range as possible.
that said, there's something about reading a paper book that phones, e-readers and tablets can never replace. if anything, we all should be mourning the death of the paperback.
Good ol' Abe is considering to move up the sales tax to 10%.
that said, there's something about reading a paper book that phones, e-readers and tablets can never replace. if anything, we all should be mourning the death of the paperback.
Good ol' Abe is considering to move up the sales tax to 10%.
yeah, I've been reading about that. kinda sux because on one hand he's trying to jump start or continue the jump start to the Japanese economy which will be good all-around, but on the other hand the inflation created will make nonessential items more expensive.
EDIT: mmmmm business, politics and manga, it doesn't get any better than that :-) but on a serious note, I'd love to see the reincarnated version of Tsubomi or Hirari active by next year which I think is totally possible. I went back and reread the comments on 7th style and realize (as has been stated above) that the "mainstream" anime/manga fan base sees Yuri as an accent; however, one particular comment caught my eye... "whatever turns a profit". those are dangerous words that have been known to either recreate or destroy an industry. as I have said, I don't think the genre is dead, and wonder if this might be good overall.
@adamatari, all good points which is why I am truly hoping that an online version of Hirari/Tsubomi comes out in the following months. however, what would need to be different to keep it from failing under the weight of being in a "small niche" and not being "wide enough"?
also, I will ask this of everyone: to what extent are readers such as Dynasty and scanlators to blame for the failure of these publications? does any blame exists?
well, enough musing for one night. night all.
last edited at Oct 6, 2014 2:16AM
For blame to exist the japanese editorial shoud care for the international market first so scanlations groups or readers like this have a very small (if any) negative impact on the fate of those publications (there are some very excepcional cases like Watamote, but those are the exception that confirms the rule).
Printed media is on its death throes so I think small/niche publications need to fully embrace the digital era to survive.
I just want to recall the "SM Magazine Hilali" credit page joke.
(And who bumped this up?)
Printed media is on its death throes so I think small/niche publications need to fully embrace the digital era to survive.
I will keep buying printed media, in preference to digital, in both Japanese and English as long as it's available. I don't even have an e-reader. (Though I suppose I'll eventually end up getting one.)
last edited at Oct 6, 2014 3:57AM
also, I will ask this of everyone: to what extent are readers such as Dynasty and scanlators to blame for the failure of these publications? does any blame exists?
"Blame" is the wrong way to think about this. These publications are/were entirely targeted at a domestic audience, and English translations won't have a meaningful impact on that.
On the other hand, these are commercial publications, and their decisions are based on sales figures. Publications are folded if they don't sell well enough; conversely, if one genre sells better, then you'll see a proliferation of publications following that genre. The common refrain to the "scanlators are to blame" argument is to say that, "If companies wanted to sell more yuri to English speakers, they should publish in English," but this is actually beside the point—I'm not talking about what companies want, I'm talking about what you as a reader want. Specifically, if you want to see more yuri being published, the solution is to buy more yuri. If you don't, well, nobody's forcing you, but you can't really complain then when publications are folded.
also, I will ask this of everyone: to what extent are readers such as Dynasty and scanlators to blame for the failure of these publications? does any blame exists?
"Blame" is the wrong way to think about this. These publications are/were entirely targeted at a domestic audience, and English translations won't have a meaningful impact on that.
fair enough. this is why I present the overall question as two questions. the "does any blame exist?" part takes into consideration that by and large the publications are not targeted towards foreign audience and no "blame" should exist.
On the other hand, these are commercial publications, and their decisions are based on sales figures. Publications are folded if they don't sell well enough; conversely, if one genre sells better, then you'll see a proliferation of publications following that genre.
very true. this is one of the reasons I think a digital presence is and will be the future of the genre (actually the industry) as a whole.
The common refrain to the "scanlators are to blame" argument is to say that, "If companies wanted to sell more yuri to English speakers, they should publish in English," but this is actually beside the point—I'm not talking about what companies want, I'm talking about what you as a reader want. Specifically, if you want to see more yuri being published, the solution is to buy more yuri. If you don't, well, nobody's forcing you, but you can't really complain then when publications are folded.
agreed.
"Not sure if this news is old but, the first signs of Hirari web serialisation.
http://www.shinshokan.com/webwings/
A web magazine, FLASH Wings seems to be where some series of the old Hirari will find home. This is from the same publisher as Hirari itself. At this moment, there is only Morinaga's old stuff but here is what the Editor has to say:
From this month onwards, content from "Pure yuri anthology Hirari" will be added! First, we have Morinaga Milk's "Ohime-sama no Himitsu" series. It is the (repeat of) two chapters from the anthology. Hereafter, new series will appear too so, please look forward to it!!
Asagao to Kase-san is scheduled to start serialisation in the November issue, according to the author."
Copy and pasted from /u/
Link to Takashima's blog post about it; http://gureko.blog21.fc2.com/blog-entry-313.html
I'm curious, how do those magazines that go online continue making profits?
Another case for me is Comic Blade, which has high concentration of mangas I love
I also wonder if this will make scanlators work easier or harder
Might be advertising based profit, or maybe keeping some series on a "pay to read" model. Don't really know, but if there's a lot of traffic on a site, there are ways to make money. Also, online edition might cost less than printing, so easier to reach a profit bar.
(I originally just copy/pasted because I thought I was busy. I was wrong. Thanks /u/)
I'm curious, how do those magazines that go online continue making profits?
As I recall, magazines typically sell at a loss, and make no money on their own. Profits are made through the advertisements within - new anime, games, whatever - and tankobons. Thus, they're not really losing any profit, and with the relatively small amount of server space required, they ought to be losing less by going online. Of course there's a lot more to it than that, but the money is going to be made the same way - advertisements for print stuff, and tankobons.
There are two issues to contend here. The first is that the Japanese haven't made much effort to reform their business model, meaning that the actual viability of an online magazine is still up to great debate. The second? I'm one of those who feel that print magazines are obsolete, so my view is certainly very biased (along with being outdated/lacking in fact-checking).
Another case for me is Comic Blade, which has high concentration of mangas I love
Hopefully they do well!
I also wonder if this will make scanlators work easier or harder
I'd say neither. Editing from the web pages minimizes the work in one step (cleaning) and can make another (redrawing) much easier, but it comes at the cost of a typically tiny (~1200 px) resolution. In some cases, web comics can be so small that certain kanji are completely indecipherable, but I think that's more of an issue for sample pages than a problem for anything officially released.
Of course, there may be some scanlators who will wait to work on a project till they have the highest quality raws, so I could see there being some delay.
last edited at Oct 10, 2014 3:28PM
"Not sure if this news is old but, the first signs of Hirari web serialisation.
http://www.shinshokan.com/webwings/
Thought I'd point something out. Following the links I got to a page offering links to FLASH Wings at Yahoo Store and at NikoNikoSeiga. At Yahoo Store, http://bookstore.yahoo.co.jp/free_magazine-154442/, I readily found The Princess's Mirror and The Princess's Lie and was able to read them.
However, they will only be up from 9/28 to 10/27, so if anyone wants to see them, you'd better look at them soon. Of course I don't know what the posting period of the other two current chapters will be. Or when or how long new chapters will be posted. But this gives me more solid hope that new chapter will indeed be coming out.
"Not sure if this news is old but, the first signs of Hirari web serialisation.
http://www.shinshokan.com/webwings/Thought I'd point something out. Following the links I got to a page offering links to FLASH Wings at Yahoo Store and at NikoNikoSeiga. At Yahoo Store, http://bookstore.yahoo.co.jp/free_magazine-154442/, I readily found The Princess's Mirror and The Princess's Lie and was able to read them.
However, they will only be up from 9/28 to 10/27, so if anyone wants to see them, you'd better look at them soon. Of course I don't know what the posting period of the other two current chapters will be. Or when or how long new chapters will be posted. But this gives me more solid hope that new chapter will indeed be coming out.
if they are keeping new releases up on a monthly basis, hopefully they have or will add an archive page so readers can go back and reread "old" releases.
However, they will only be up from 9/28 to 10/27, so if anyone wants to see them, you'd better look at them soon. Of course I don't know what the posting period of the other two current chapters will be. Or when or how long new chapters will be posted. But this gives me more solid hope that new chapter will indeed be coming out.
Oh, thanks for checking it out! That's too bad, I was hoping it'd be more like the sites that host Frag Time/Stretch; with older chapters staying up till the tankobon release. This sounds more Tsubomi Web, which really penalized readers who fell behind (removing new chapters after a few weeks).
Good to have some frame of reference.
if they are keeping new releases up on a monthly basis, hopefully they have or will add an archive page so readers can go back and reread "old" releases.
Well, it's meant to encourage folks to purchase the tankobon if they want to read older chapters, so there's always that.