Timeline of Yuri Fandom

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Fandom: Yuri
Dates: 1970s - present
See also: Timeline of Femslash, History of Femslash Fandom

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This is a partial timeline of events that occurred in, or are of interest to, yuri fandom.

1970s

  • Ryoko Yamagishi's Shiroi Heya no Futari (Our White Room or Couple of the White Room), the first manga involving a lesbian relationship.
  • Riyoko Ikdea's The Rose of Versailles became an influential work for both shoujo and yuri, introducing the trope of women as princes that would continues within the yuri genre for years to come. The manga and its anime adaptation were widely available in European languages, but not in English until 2012 when it was licensed by Right Stuf.
  • The manga Oniisama e... began its run, focusing on schoolgirl relationships and the darker affair between sisters Fukiko Ichinomiya and Rei Asaka.

1980s

1986

  • Project A-ko is created as an affectionate parody of various anime genres. There is abundant lesbian subtext all around: antagonist B-ko blatantly crushes on the innocent C-ko, who acts like she has a crush on heroine A-ko. There is plenty of belligerent sexual tension between A-ko and B-ko as well, and one of the OAV's many sequels features C-ko imagining the two in bed together.

1990s

1991

  • July 14, Oniisama e is made into a 39-episode anime.

1995

  • August 28, Sailor Moon airs in the west. Yuri becomes very popular in Sailor Moon, with the main cast being practically all female. The Inner (Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, & Venus) and Outer (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, & Saturn) Senshi are often shipped together, Chibiusa (Sailor Chibi-Moon/Mini-Moon) is often shipped with Sailor Saturn. However the most popular canon femslash pairing is Haruka/Michiru (Uranus/Neptune) - although the English dub of Sailor Moon garnered negative comments for destroying their established relationship - first leaving it unsaid before eventually getting the two to refer to each other as cousins.
  • El-Hazard debuts, featuring the lesbian character Alielle Relryle as the lover of Princess Fatora. The TV series excludes Fatora, giving her more of a relationship with lead character Nanami Jinnai.

1997

  • March 1997, Chirality is licensed for released in North America by Central Park Media, making it one of the first yuri mangas to be brought over. It is published as 18 issues, as well as being released into four bound volumes from 1997 to 2000. The art was also flipped so that it would read left to right which was not an uncommon practice for manga released at the time.
  • April 2, Revolutionary Girl Utena, a shōjo anime series where the main storyline focuses on a yuri relationship, begins to air and is widely regarded today as a masterpiece. Central Park Media releases of the first 13 episodes in the west, but is unable to finish releasing the series till 1999.

2000s

2000

  • Yuricon is founded by Erica Friedman as AniLesboCon, which aims to form a bigger community for fans of yuri anime and manga.

2001

  • January 29, the LiveJournal community Yuri is founded. It is dedicated to f/f anime pairings.
  • April 6, Noir begins to air. The Mireille/Kirika Ship Manifesto notes that "Noir's fandom is small, but is it one of the most yuri-friendly ones. Noir was first broadcasted in 2001, several years after Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena, two other yuri-friendly animes. The yuri in Noir is not explicitly canon (although there is plenty of subtext, and for a while that was all yuri fans had to go on), but because of that subtext, it was a godsend to yuri fans at the time."[1]
  • September, Philip Mak creates the Shoujo-Ai Archive, a website and forum for those who enjoy shoujo ai and yuri anime and manga. The forums become one of the central gathering points in the yuri fandom.

2002

2003

  • June 13–15, Yuricon holds a three-day convention in Newark, NJ. The convention brought together fans of Yuri with panels, an academic lecture series, games, several dozen vendors of anime and manga and related items and video programming.
  • 28 June, Sun Shuppan launched the first all-yuri anthology magazine, Yuri Shimai. It was discontinued in 2005, but re-launched that same year by Ichijinsha as Yuri Hime and continues to be published bimonthly.
  • Lililicious becomes one of the first scanlation groups dedicated to yuri manga.

2004

  • January 7, Maria-sama ga Miteru (Saint Maria Watches Over Us or Marimite) begins to air. It is credited as one of the breakout series of the yuri genre and popularized the setting of private all-girl schools with upper and lowercase relationships between characters.
  • January 27, Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl manga begins its serialization.
  • September 30, Mai HiME begins to air.
  • October 1, Kannazuki no Miko (Priestesses of the Godless Month) and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha begins to air.
  • November 17, Aoi Hana (Sweet Blue Flowers) manga begins its serialization.

2005

2006

  • January 11, the anime adaptation of Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl begins to air.
  • April 3, Strawberry Panic and Simoun begin to air.
  • October 21, Girl Friends manga series by Milk Morinaga beings its serialization.
  • October 24, Seven Seas Entertainment announces a new yuri imprint, the Strawberry line, becoming one of the first western publishers to do so. Strawberry Panic, Saigo no Seifuku (The Last Uniform) and Tetragrammaton Labyrinth are part of their first wave of licensed manga.

2007

2008

  • Scanlation group nanofate is formed to translate Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha doujins, specifically ones based on the Nanoha Takamachi/Fate Testarossa pairing. A site lunched the following year with the following aim: "Our purpose is to serve as a community for the fans of this series to have a good time together, and to share and provide translations of manga, doujinshi, novels and news."

2009

  • July 2, the anime adaptation of Aoi Hana premieres.
  • October 7, the anime adaptation Sasameki Koto premieres.
  • September 18, a fan translation for the yuri visual novel Aoi Shiro is released by Shijima. It is one of the first times a yuri visual novel has been patched into English.

2010s

2011

2013

  • January, the anime adaptation of Love Live! premieres. The series is part of a larger multimedia franchise which has a large fan base. Yuri pairings are common within the fandom due to the cast being an all girls idol group.
  • April, the anime adaptation of Attack on Titan premieres. The first season of the anime boosted the series' popularity worldwide, receiving much critical acclaim, and making it an international commercial success. Krista Lenz/Ymir became a popular pairing within the fandom.
  • July, the first season of RWBY, an CGI animated series from Rooster Teeth, premieres after a year of teaser trailers. Yuri pairings are very popular from the start due to the story leading most characters to have an assigned teammate that form a large team.
  • October, Kill la Kill premieres. Satsuki/Ryuuko and Mako/Ryuuko become popular pairings. However fandom's response towards Satsuki/Ryuuko is divided once it is revealed that they are actually sisters.

2014

2015

  • April, Hibike! Euphonium premieres. The focus on Kumiko and Reina rebuilding their friendship makes to two a popular pairing.

2016

2017

2018

2019

  • March 16: an anime adaptation of Fragtime is announced, to air sometime later in the same year.[5]

References

  1. ^ Maidens With Black Hands, by Star of Heaven. (Accessed April 19, 2009).
  2. ^ Anime News Network. Seven Seas Licenses Bloom Into You Yuri Manga
  3. ^ 第3回次にくるマンガ大賞 コミックス部門
  4. ^ https://twitter.com/yagakimi/status/977359209137242112
  5. ^ ANN: Sato's Fragtime Yuri Manga Gets Anime Adaptation
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