Pride has been awfully quiet this month, and, if we are honest, the subdued atmosphere has led to some very melancholy feelings. We are often told that spring and summer are seasons of renewal and rebirth, and thus we are very sad to admit to both having closed down our former discord server, and to having witnessed Jericho Vilar's wonderful Blusterhouse go on hiatus. We hope that this momentary pause for the site means there will be a greater renewal at a later date and we encourage you all to go forth a read through some of the wonderful articles available on the site.
In regards to Pride month, we decided to eschew work on our ongoing serial, Sophia!—save for the release of Chapter XII—and focus our efforts on telling weekly stories that resonated with queer issues but also exemplified some of our core themes.
In Boyfriend, we asked ourselves about our place in the annual festivities.
In Father's Day, we considered the relationship we have with our parents and what it means to come out to people who have known you all your life.
In Elysium Dream, we spoke sadly of the maenads and the taming of their wildness.
Along side these stories, we also expressed our mild critique of Japanese screenwriter, Inoue Toshiki in Nu, and celebrated the school's fourth anniversary with an exciting tease of a near-complete project! Gosh, has it really been four years we ask ourselves? To celebrate, we still have fresh goodies in our etsy store, where, should you be saddened by the absence of new current artwork from Jericho, you can at least gaze upon his wonderful cover for the paperback edition of All Cats Are Beautiful.
There is also 20% off the newest work of one of our girls from JMS Books, Found Footage, being an eclectic cocktail of Norse myth and homages to the early-'00s J-horror releases. For your amusement, and to wrap up this newsletter, we present the synopsis below:
Showa 57 / Koenji, Tokyo
"They say there's a tape out there, and if you listen to it, you go mad. They say that someone recorded it from a radio station back in the Taisho period, that's what they say, but no one's ever been able to work out what kind of a station would broadcast something like that!"
It's 1982, and Japan is prosperous, full of excitement and wonder, neon and colour. Ishikawa Miki is 16-years-old, a failing student and part-time waitress at her parents' restaurant. In Koenji, close by the station, there is all the nostalgia of a pop culture that Japan looks on from afar but can never fully bring itself to participate in; Union Jacks hanging behind the bar in narrow venues the size of living rooms, the staccato stutter of the Clash on the radio. Koenji is not Chelsea, not Camden, not even Carnaby, as much as it might wish it was; Koenji is just Koenji, a backwater station on the Chūō-Sōbu Line, six stops from Shinjuku, a stone's throw from Nakano Broadway, smooth grey trains with their proud yellow stripes passing every time you turn your head away, every time you wish to be somewhere, anywhere but Koenji.
And yet, for all the melancholy and tedium of everyday life in Suginami ward, there is another world, a more dangerous world that waits in the fields of stars above. In 1919, the first reported sights of a tenth planet in the outer solar system were confirmed, a planet with such a unique atmosphere that it was constantly interfering with radio signals, a planet christened Lucifer for its ominous appearance in the night sky beyond the Kuiper belt—and in Shin-Koenji International Preparatory School, Miki discovers that her curious English teacher, a foreigner with wild hair, their right eye hidden beneath gauze and surgical tape, may perhaps know more of those whispers from Planet Lucifer and the cursed cassette tape that they might wish to admit.