Some Yuri You Might Enjoy
Continuing in my attempt to expand this blog and what I use it for, I was in a discussion with some people and one of them said they were into something called “Yuri.” I wasn’t familiar with it, so I did a quick Google search, and man have I been missing out! Turns out there’s all sorts of Yuri out there. I thought it would be neat to put together a few of them that caught my eye, so that’s what we’re posting about today. So without further hesitation, let’s dive right in!
In the Command and Conquer franchise, Yuri (played by Udo Kier) was an amazing antagonist whose ambition to take over the world had him work with the USSR with his psychic technology and ultimately invaded the United States. This guy was prolific. He had a base on the god damned moon, for crying out loud. A number of enemy units ended up being his clones. To defeat him, the Soviets and the Americans had to team up together for the fate of the world, going back in time to before Yuri had finalized his power, and sending him into the past where he was eaten by a T-rex. One downside is that Yuri had a unit called the Boomer submarine, which despite it’s name didn’t just call the enemy snowflakes and expect them to work three jobs just to get by.
Look at this sexy man-beast. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a cosmonaut (which was like an astronaut, only a better tier with access to better equipment) who was the first human in outer space. This guy had super humble beginnings, working as a foundryman before enlisting into the Air Force. From there, he found himself in space. Truly a Communist hero. But then his best friend died in a space training exercise, and his superiors were like “no more space flight for you!” He did his best puppy eyes and said “Can I fly normal airplanes then?” His bosses were like “Yeah sure, go for it, but get some training first.” And then he was getting some training and his MiG-15 jet crashed and burned. Poor guy.
Did you know some people are still inventing new instruments in this the year of our Lord twenty-whatever-year-this-is? Yuri Landman knows, because he does it and continues to do it. This Yuri didn’t set out to create musical instruments; originally he was going to be a comic book artist. He actually won an award for his second comic… but stopped actually publishing them after that, instead deciding to sell other people’s comics and getting into graphic design. He toured with a lo-fi band for a while, then joined a noise band, then said “Hey I think I want to create weird instruments for famous musicians.” And so he did. He might be most famous for the Springtime series of electric guitars, which have three strings and three outputs. They have a very iconic look to them. Yuri Landman is still inventing instruments to this day. He also teaches and gives lectures despite never having gone to college himself, which is kind of neat.
Well, this paragraph is going to get me into some trouble, I’m sure. Yuri Komuro is a classic “AV Actress” which is a fancy way of saying she’s a porn actress. She did that for a while, and was arguably one of the most popular adult actresses in the 1990’s. Despite this, each one of her films only made her about $10,000 American which is more than I make in a couple of months but definitely less than one can retire on. Once she stopped filming adult shows around 2000, she pivoted into mainstream and indie films before moving on to journalism. I have admittedly not watched anything this woman was in. Post in the comments if you have and you have an opinion about her content.
Yuridia “Yuri” Valenzuela Canseco is a really popular singer from Mexico who is still performing today despite being in her 50’s. She’s absolutely prolific, having 29 studio albums, several notable roles in popular telenovelas, and won a Grammy in 2018 for musical excellence. Apparently she was in the Mexican version of the musical Cats, which boggles my mind because Mexico is a huge country so how can it only have one version of Cats? Her Youtube channel only has half a million subscribers which is kind of disappointing for such a popular singer. Maybe if she teams up with a Kpop band she’ll get even more popular? Seems to be a thing.
What a misleading name for a show. This isn’t Yuri, this is Yaoi. For Christ’s sake.
