Yuri

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Synonyms: Girls' Love
See also: Doujinshi, Shoujo ai, Femslash, Yaoi
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Yuri (百合) is a genre that involves romantic or sexual relationships between female characters in manga, anime, and related Japanese media. Yuri can focus either on the emotional or sexual aspects of the relationship.

The debut of the first yuri-focused manga magazine, Yuri Shimai, in 2003 and its successor, Yuri Hime, marked the beginning of yuri as a distinct publication genre and helped in the development of yuri fan culture. Yuri Hime went on to introduce the terms Himejoshi and Himedanshi for fans of yuri to refer to themselves as.

The terms 'yuri' came into use early in the history of English speaking animanga fandom. Between the 2000s and 2010s western yuri fans began calling non-adult yuri works shoujo ai, incorrectly trying to parallel the usage of shounen ai to yaoi, however the term was already used in Japan to reference adults who have a fetish for young girls and thus it was never used in Japanese yuri fandom. It fell out of use as more western fans became aware of its proper meaning, as well as once Japanese publishers introduced Girls’ Love/GL as marketing terms that could be used interchangeably with yuri.

Terminology and Etymology

Yuri literally means "lily". As in English, this is both the name of a flower and a female given name, and so Yuri, Yuriko, and related names are often used for characters in yuri works in Japanese. In English, references to lilies are common, such as in the name of the scanlation group lililicious.

The term was coined and popularized as a parallel to the pre-existing association between the word for rose ('bara') and gay men.[1]

Yuri vs GL

Yuri and Girls' Love can technically be used interchangeably, however there are some yuri fans who dislike the use of girls' love/GL over yuri as they feel it divorces yuri from its historical queer background in favour of a term created for marketing.[2] Additionally some fans incorrectly assert that GL is meant for non-adult works while Yuri is for the explicit, similar to how shoujo ai was used by western fandom in the early 2000s,[3] which has caused minor arguments in many a comment section.

Ultimately, girls' love continues to grow in usage among fans and publishers, particularly in international markets that have been influenced by yuri, such as with non-Japanese webtoons and Thai GL dramas, but yuri still has strong ties to anime and manga.

Yuri Tropes

  • Lilies: The flower is heavily associated with yuri within it's own genre and broader anime and manga culture. Lilies often appear in panels to denote sapphic interest for a character and the name Yuri and Lily is sometimes used for characters or businesses.
  • Sempai/Kohai dynamic: Also known as "oneesama", this is the pairing of a mature older girl with a bright-eyed, emotional, admiring younger girl. This was popularized by Sachiko Ogasawara/Yumi Fukuzawa in Maria-sama ga Miteru in 2004.
  • Dark hair/light hair: This is common in yuri series to the point where some fans consider it a cliché. Maria-sama ga Miteru features this, along with Kannazuki no Miko and the heavily implied Sayuri/Mai in Kanon.
  • "Class S lesbians", wherein the romantic relationships between two women only last until high school or college graduation, whereupon the girls will go back to being "just friends" and find husbands. This trend is slowly dying out, however, seen as outdated and offensive.
  • Tachi/Neko: The terms in Japanese lesbian culture for an active or passive partner, somewhat comparable to top/bottom or butch/femme dynamics. Many stories have such dynamics and some reference the terms directly, such as the short "Neko to Neko no Owaranai Yoru" (The Endless Night Of Two Bottoms), which is the originator of the "They Were Both Bottoms" meme.
  • Yuri Aquarium Date: Visiting an aquarium is very popular within yuri, to the point where it is sometimes lampshaded in the works themselves. it is generally agreed that Yuu and Touko's aquarium date in Bloom Into You popularized the trope.

Audience

Unlike the term 'yaoi', 'yuri' does not indicate a particular audience, the audience itself has evolved over time, having first started in shoujo and josei works that were targetted toward girls and women, and later evolving to also include works catered to men.[4]

Varoius studies exploring the demographics of yuri fandom have been done by by publisher, academics, and acafans. Zeria, a meta essayist and vidder, wrote the essay Yuri isn't Made for Men: An Analysis of the Demographics of Yuri Mangaka and Fans that analysed many of these studies, as well as including results from their own yuri fandom demographic survey, as a mean to dispel some assumptions within fandom spaces about yuri creators and its fans.

All the data here suggests one principal thing: that yuri manga is primarily made by women and primarily consumed by women. This is not to exclude the presence of men in the creation of yuri manga and in its fandom. Men certainly are present. But the claim that yuri isn’t made for women — more specifically the claim that it holds no appeal to queer women — is unequivocally false. There’s simply no evidence to suggest that’s true, and it should be promptly discarded.

Events

  • Yuri Day - in Japan, June 25 has been noted as a day for celebrating Yuri works.

Communities

Livejournal

Dreamwidth

Deviantart

Tumblr

Reddit

Further reading

Meta

References

  1. ^ Wikipedia's yuri article has more on the etymology.
  2. ^ Why We Call it “Yuri” by Erica Friedman. Anime Feminist. August 9, 2017.
  3. ^ Yuri vs Shoujo-ai: Why Terminology Matters by Yuri Mother. June 9, 2019.
  4. ^ Rethinking Yuri: How Lesbian Mangaka Return the Genre to Its Roots by Ana Valens for The Mary Sue. Oct 6th, 2016.
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