Blog Updates, More on the Industry, and La Maison en Petits Cubes

I added a new feature to this blog last night! ^^ Along the left side, there are three lists of yuri blog links, one for English yuri blogs, one for Spanish yuri blogs, and one massive list of Japanese yuri blogs. I've included every yuri blog that I can think of- feel free to suggest more, as long as your suggestions are yuri-focused, regularly updated, and work-safe. I'm especially interested in finding more non-English or Japanese yuri blogs- in Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Mandarin, Korean, etc, etc.

For anybody who's interested in the mechanics of the anime industry, here's another informative article from The Japan Times Online. Although it was published on March 4, it's still a relevant and interesting read that contains more information about the anime industry that I wasn't aware of, although I already had some knowledge of the situation there. The one assertion I disagree with is that people prefer to watch hand-drawn animated productions much more than digitally-drawn animation. While hand drawn animation has its unique appeal, I (and most people, I think) care more about the story and writing than how the animation frames were put together. That point also ignores the popularity of computer-animated movies in Japan, like Pixar's productions.

Speaking of which, Anime News Network just posted Oricon's list of Top-Selling Animation/Manga DVDs in Japan in the 1st Half of 2009. There aren't any yuri titles on the list, but there is pieces of love Vol. 1 "Tsumiki no Ie" ( "La Maison en Petits Cubes"). ^^ La Maison en Petits Cubes is an excellent short film by director Kunio Katō that won Best Animated Short Film at the Oscars this past year. If you want to see animated art that pushes the traditional boundaries of what anime can be, watch this film if at all possible. I really can't recommend it enough, and I'm both happy and extremely surprised that this beautiful little art film sold so well.

An image from La Maison en Petits Cubes.

Edit on 06/22:
I really want to include links to as many blogs as I can on this site, but I want to emphasize that I will not accept nsfw suggestions, and will remove any blogs that cross that line at my discretion. No offense meant to the authors of those blogs.