Throughout its 100-year history, yuri has uniquely evolved in and moved about multiple markets, often existing in many simultaneously. It is by and for a variety of people: men, women, heterosexuals, queer people, everyone!
The first time I read Kindred Spirits on the Roof, I was surprised and even grateful, because it often felt like the game was speaking to my questioning teenage self. It attempts to honestly portray queer female relationships, but sometimes blurs the line between depicting attraction and sensationalizing it.
“Purity” is most commonly used as a shorthand for chastity or sexlessness, and generally refers to stories that don’t engage with sex at all. Though Yamada’s sincerity and innocence is part of Kase-san‘s appeal, the way it engages with the girls’ sexuality is just as important. Sex does exist in Kase-san, and while the series focuses primarily on Kase and Yamada’s emotional relationship, it also explores their physical relationship and sexual attraction to each other from the very first chapter.
Inevitably, when I do any kind of public talk about Yuri or LGBTQ comics, someone will express dissatisfaction at mild school life romances or I’ll be asked for recommendations for manga about “real” lesbians. As we move through the 100th anniversary of the Yuri genre, it seems time to address this issue—not once and for all, as the genre is changing as rapidly as the languages that describe it, but for now.
Media presents a certain set of common tropes that informs much of our idea about love and what it “should” look like. Bloom Into You interrogates these tropes, making it a story that provides important queer representation in fiction while also talking about representation in fiction within the story itself.
The last few years have seen a boom in the English-language yuri market, with more and more manga about queer romance between women making it to shelves. But with all these choices, where does a curious reader start?
This is the story of an openly queer mangaka who really loves to write about women falling in love with other women.
It can be hard to find manga that shows both the struggles and joys of the awkward period of teen romance, especially if you’re not straight. That’s exactly why the Kase-san and… manga series is a breath of fresh air, a slice-of-life comedy that models what a healthy, queer romantic relationship can look like.
Fantastical fiction is an ideal space for working through complex real-world issues using the frame of allegory, metaphor, and a little bit of magic. Yurikuma Arashi is one such series, a step detached from reality but with something to say about real-world problems, specifically about homophobia and the societal stigmas queer women face.
In FLIP FLAPPERS Episode 5, Cocona and Papika are thrown into a world that combines Class S, a genre of sweet yuri romance, with horror. Now, what in the world could that strange combination be trying to tell us?
“Yuri” is a complicated word and a complicated genre. Complicated, because words often change shape after they have been coined and exceed their roots, sometimes even completely changing their meaning to the opposite of their original intent.
When I found the manga Girl Friends, I was not only excited to see a yuri that seemed made for me and other queer women; I also felt as though I related to the girls on a very intimate level because of the authenticity presented in their relationship.
Yuri manga is an entire genre of comics about girls and women falling in love. So why is it so often overlooked by queer and feminist fans?
