CONTEST: Starfighter Fan Art Contest Winners!

Well, by far this was and probably will be the toughest contest to decide of them all. So tough I had to bring in the help of some 'celebrity' judges to assist me. The four of us ranked the entries and I decided on those rankings who came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd as I felt those three all deserved a prize. As a reminder, I was looking for the entry that best captured what Starfighter was about and I think you'll agree the first place winner did just that. Without further adieu, here they are!

First place goes to Chelsea and here is her entry (definitely original and captures the dynamics between Cain and Abel):

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CONTEST REMINDER: Web Banner Contest Ends 2/26!

Here is a link to the original post with all the details.

There are only a few entries so chances to win are good!

YAOI NEWS: Is Aurora Quietly Shutting Down?

Back on January 14th I shot off an email to Elisa Tung over at Aurora Publishing inquiring about their holiday sale and to see if they had planned on continuing the sale (they are). I received no response back until January 27th, which was from a different party at Aurora, a Mikako Ogata who from what my research tells me is Aurora's General Manager. She informed me Elisa was no longer with Aurora but gave no reason why. Something about the email made me think it was initially coming from their Japan office so I started to wonder about their US office. I decided to do some investigating and tried to call their phone and fax number as listed on their website only to find out both have been disconnected. I then shot off an email back to Mikako and she informed me that the office was not closed but that they "can’t really publish new titles for a while due to the very severe economy". She went on to say if they do publish a new title they "will announce it on [their] websites as well as [their] newletter". Now if you remember correctly, their December newsletter stating the following:

Sorry Guys! Nothing yet! But there will be something soon! Shhh! It's gonna be "Kinky But Kind!" >.> Don't tell anyone I told you…

Their recently sent January newsletter had no updates, which leads me to believe we won't be seeing Kinky But Kind any time soon. Continue reading »

YAOI NEWS: Hetalia Movie Gets Title

The fact that there is a Hetalia movie coming out is old news to us 'cause someone (me) already broke that story weeks ago but now ANN is giving us further details including the movie's title, "Ginmaku Hetalia – Axis Powers Paint it, White (Shiroku Nure!) or literally, "Hetalia – Axis Powers on the Silver Screen: Paint it, White". They don't list a date of release beyond early summer so we'll just have to go with the date we were already given of June 5th. If it changes, I'll let you know.

~Jennifer LeBlanc

SOURCE

YAOI MANGA REVIEW: Living For Tomorrow

Tasuku and Ryouta are two high school boys who have been friends since childhood, but Tasuku has a secret… he’s in love with Ryouta. Instead of telling his friend he has a crush on him, he uses his 'superior' karate skills to constantly beat him up. When Tasuku finds out he may have inherited the powers of an “ageman” from his mother, he tries to use them to bring him and Ryouta together.

CONTEST: Valentine’s Themed AMV Winners!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone and what better way to celebrate than with a beautiful AMV inspired by yaoi and Valentine's Day! The winner of this contest is "BliceHeart" (YouTube name). Here is her wonderful AMV with a song that has quickly become my favorite:

The runner up is "TheYaoiObsessioner". Congrats to both and thanks for taking the time to put these together and participating in the contest!

YAOI NEWS: Christopher Handley Finally Sentenced

Never thought I was going to see the day and it happened rather quietly I think. Christopher Handley was the man in Iowa charged with having obscene materials, which were actually manga. He was sentenced to six months in prison, followed by three years of supervised released and five years of probation to run concurrently. Here's the part that just chaps my ass (ranting to commence in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…):

During Handley's supervised release and probation, Handley must also "participate in a treatment program, to include psychological testing and a polygraph examination, as directed by the U. S. Probation Officer." According to earlier court documents, this last provision is "intended to provide [Handley] with diagnosis and treatment for sexually and/or gender identity or other mental health issues."

Excuse me? You're going to treat "sexual and/or gender identity" with psychological testing and a fucking polygraph examination? Really? Oh yeah, this is the U.S…. what was I thinking. We're not that progressive although we like to think we are.

The seven books/mags/comics were finally listed and it was confirmed there was not any yaoi in that specific batch but that doesn't mean boy characters don't get the same treatment. Don't fool yourselves.  Another interesting note in ANN's article was where he bought his stuff from. Some of it was from JList, the same place I buy my BeBoy Gold from and the same place I know a LOT of people buy yaoi and hentai from. (CORRECTION: He bought "similar" materials from JList, not the specified seven)

If you haven't read the article yet, I suggest you do. It provides a lot of information we were not given before including background information on the defendant himself.

Did you read it? What do you think? Big deal? No big deal? Worried? Could care less? Please share your thoughts in comments.

EDIT: Some new information regarding the trial was added in comments. Please read the comments for clarification on the gender identity issue.

EDIT #2: Made a correction as noted above.

EDIT #3: The comments section is having some issues with the layout in Firefox. There are comments that don't appear to show but it's due to the black background showing through with the black text. Just highlight the comment and you'll see it. I'm going to work on getting this fixed.

SOURCE

YAOI WEBCOMIC: Holy Webcomics Batman!

I hit the motherload of yaoi webcomics. Like tons and tons of them! Here's the link and it goes to a search for all "yaoi" related webcomics on that site. I've read a few and they're pretty good. Keep in mind, some of these are pretty amateur but my suggestion is to look at when it was last updated so you don't read something abandoned and also look at "# of comics" meaning how many pages have been posted so far. You may not want to get too invested in a brand new comic. I've read about six so far and one that I think is pretty cute is Northern Lights. If you find any good ones, comment on this post so others can take a look as well! There are a lot in the search results so good ones could be buried.

CONTEST #4: Funny Dialogue Contest

This is an easy, fun contest for everyone and no artistic abilities are required. All you have to do is save one of the following panels to your computer, add your own funny dialogue and submit it back to me at info AT theyaoireview DOT com before the contest deadline, which is 2/19/10.  I have TONS of yaoi to give away so depending on how many submissions I get and how many make me laugh, there will be numerous winners! Here is an example of what I'm looking for:

EXAMPLE:

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YAOI NEWS: Attention “Croquis” Purchasers…

A couple of days ago I received an email from Marco Pavia, Associate Publisher at TokyoPop asking me to alert you all to a misprint that occurred in some of the copies of the recently shipped Croquis and what you should do to get a new copy. Here are the details:

"Due to a perfect storm of technical and human error, some editions of CROQUIS were printed with German text in approximately twelve word balloons. We discovered the problem too late to recall all editions, so some stores will have a book with a German word or two at the end of the English, in about a dozen word balloons."

If you have on of these copies, here is what you need to do to get a corrected copy:

"…mail proof of purchase — cut out the barcode on the back cover from the book — to TOKYOPOP, 5900 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90036 ATTN: CROQUIS, along with [your] mailing address, and [they'll] send a clean copy."

He finishes up with his sincerest of apologies to all those affected. Personally, I think he's just afraid we'll get him with the yaoi paddles at the next YaoiCon. We forgive you, Marco… THIS time. *polishes paddle*