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Girls having crushes on other girls is, while not common, nothing that raises eyebrows in the Japanese school system. Sometimes matters go beyond simple crushes to explicit romance; even then eyebrows remain unraised as long as participants aren't too indiscreet. Note that this is less an Anime Trope than a reflection (warped or not) of real-life behaviors and attitudes -- the Japanese refer to this as a Class S Relationship, which teaches the young about real relationships and is meant to be outgrown eventually. Retaining a Class S Relationship as one grows older is a sign of immaturity (note the number of immature Clingy Jealous Girls whose lesbian crush has suddenly noticed Boys). Thus, it is not uncommon to find such girl-girl relationships in anime, especially with the frequency of adolescent characters.
If they don't just pretend the girls are together and get out of it later by revealing they're not, often writers like to hide behind subtext in a form of Getting Crap Past The Radar.
In Japanese, the trope is called yuri, a term which was coined as a counterpart to yaoi (see Yaoi Guys). The word literally means "lily" in Japanese, and can refer to any lesbian sexual or romantic content, explicit or not. It's also known as " Girls Love" ( in English), also created in response to the male version, " Boys Love".
"Yuri" derives from a term which was coined by Itou Bungaku, one-time editor of the magazine "Barazoku", a magazine for gay men in Japan, wherein he termed men the barazoku, or "rose tribe", and women the yurizoku, or "lily tribe". Occasionally, some fans use shoujo-ai and "yuri" as separate degrees of explicitness.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Haruka Ten'ou and Michiru Kaioh (Sailors Uranus and Neptune) in the original uncensored versions of Sailor Moon.
- El Hazard The Magnificent World's cheerfully promiscuous Alielle (and her lover, the Princess Fatora).
- Bleach: Chizuru's very open infatuation with Orihime. Unfortunately for the shonen audience, her advances are invariably thwarted by the protective Tatsuki, who Chizuru has commented she would also find quite attractive if not for her boyish persona. Regardless of her primary crush, Chizuru has also ogled other female members of her circle of friends.
- Akane Kasuga from Kimagure Orange Road.
- B-ko Daitokuji in Project A Ko.
- Lain and Arisu from Serial Experiments Lain seem to be really, really, really fond of each other... sometimes to romantic levels.
- Kirika and Mireille from Noir are not shown being physically intimate, but they share a bed and by the end of the series are emotionally dependent on each other. Also, Chloe exhibits a rather warped (and mostly frustrated) desire for Kirika.
- Steel Angel Kurumi features Saki, a female android who because of the circumstances of her activation has a romantic fixation on the titular character, another female android. The sequel series Steel Angel Kurumi 2, tops that with what is either an oversized Love Triangle or a small Love Dodecahedron: Kurumi Mk. II is fixated upon young cellist Nako, who activated her. Nako's friend Uruka also has a crush on her, and out of jealousy activates Saki Mk. II in order to battle Kurumi; Saki, however, ends up pining for both Kurumi and Uruka. Eventually, Nako comes to return Kurumi's feelings.
- The new series Re: Cutey Honey is said to have a fair amount of implied yuri.
- Futaba in Puni Puni Poemi is an extreme parody of this character type.
- Chanohata Tamami in Mahoraba admits to Shiratori Ryuushi that she is in love with Aoba Kozue (who is completely oblivious), explaining her mean-spirited attitude.
- Simoun cheats a little by setting the story on a world where everyone under 17 is female, making all of the main characters Schoolgirl Lesbians by default. And they use the power of Girl Love to make their fighter planes fly.
- In Azumanga Daioh, Kaorin has an immediately obvious crush on Sakaki that seems one-sided; however, considering Sakaki's addiction to cute things, it's possible that it would be reciprocated if she wasn't entirely oblivious.
- Or, conversely, she could decide to take out a restraining order. Shy and retiring as Sakaki is, it's not implausible that Sakaki would be in every possible way intimidated by Kaorin if she ever noticed the girl beyond "they needed to even out the boys' side". Remember that Kaorin, upon shuffling through some vacation photos, nearly had an apoplectic attack when she found the one of Sakaki relaxing (pinup relaxing, even) in a bikini; the fact that the other students in the entire school, let alone the ones in the same classroom, barely noticed her starting to spaz out always stuck with this troper. Kaorin sometimes heads into Stalker With A Crush territory, you know...
- Devilman Lady (aka The Devil Lady)
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch has the Black Beauty Sisters...
- Tokyo Mew Mew has Zakuro and Minto...
- Lavinia and Jessie in Soukou No Strain. They never do get together in the end, or at least it's left open-ended.
- Other than that, it contains some mindbreaking hints at a possible relationship between Sara and her doll Emily. Things get worse when we discover that the "doll" actually contains the living brain of an alien girl. Whose race shares a common hive mind. So by acting nice to her, Sara acts nice to a whole goddamn One Gender Race. Is this someone's weirdest yuri harem fantasy or what?
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Setsuna serves as Konoka's protector, and admits it precludes hooking up with anyone else. Naturally, other characters assume this is a complicated way of saying that they are a romantic couple, or will be. Konoka certainly has no problem being her (kissing-activated) partner in their magical contract. It's pretty much just Setsuna who isn't aware of this.
- Mai-HiME features Shizuru and her obsessive love for one of the main characters, Natsuki. Fandom has rewarded this with a series of doujinshi, the tamest of which explore Shizuru's more publishable fantasies. The more extreme, well, are let's say that Shizuru is a very imaginative individual. One of the artbooks states that they "find happiness" at Natsuki's graduation.
- Despite the distinct flavor of a Psycho Lesbian, some fans argue that the obsessive extents she goes to represent a Deconstruction of this trope, demonstrating how
lesbianism excessive "love" can lead to violence and insanity. It should go without saying that this controversial claim has detractors.
- Shizuru's popularity in this series likely led to her Mai-Otome incarnation actually hooking up with that universe's Natsuki.
- Speaking of Mai-Otome, there appear to be quite a few of them there, too, since most of the story takes place in the all-girls' Garderobe Academy. Chie, in particular, appears to have out-Chizuru'd Bleach's Chizuru in the "openly flirty" department.
- Parodied in an episode of Tenchi Muyo. After being cast into a High School AU, Magical Girl Sasami shoots the bickering Ayeka and Ryoko with a "beam of friendship". The sequence just gets more suggestive as two begin gazing into each other's eyes, proclaiming their mutual love and admiration, and almost kissing before being cut off by the end of the episode.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena: Juri's secret obsession with Shiori consumes her entire life. Wakaba's loud and public crush on Utena seems frivolous and harmless in comparison.
- Wakaba's just playing around. We see her have two real love interests and behaves totally differently.
- Almost every single character in Strawberry Panic. Then again there are absolutely no males in this series.
- Pretty much the entire cast of Oniisama E.
- Maria-sama Ga Miteru has only one explicit case of a lesbian love affair. The rest of the relationships often seem to go in that direction, but generally stop at the Romantic Two Girl Friendship level, which raises suspicions of Bait And Switch Lesbians among part of the fandom.
- Anna towards Izumi in He Is My Master, to the point of Stalker With A Crush. Izumi doesn't exactly reciprocate the feelings, but the cast (including Izumi, with promises) do use Anna's obsession to their advantage on occasion.
- Hiyori in Lucky Star is a yuri fangirl/artist, though it's apparently nonsexual for her.
- Some people assume that Konata and Kagami, despite the personality clash, may secretly be these. Konata playfully flirting with Kagami and Tsukasa after a Marimite session doesn't exactly help her case.
- Word Of God is that there is at least a one-sided romantic relationship between Konata and Kagami.
- Yutaka and Minami are even more blatant, even after you remove all the parts of the show that were viewed through Hiyori's yuri-goggles.
- Blue Drop, it also contains older lesbians as well. Most of the plot of the anime revolves around the relationship between Mari and Hagino, the latter being the female commander of an alien battleship who hides at Mari's all-girl high-school.
- Kitagawa from Doki Doki School Hours has a thing for petite women, which just happens to apply to her teacher - and she is not at all shy about showing her affections.
- Kuro from Kodomo No Jikan has a crush on her classmate Rin, which is mostly used to let her unleash her jealous rage against her teacher Aoki, since he in turn is Rin's (unwilling) object of affection. And believe it: Kuro can be downright scary.
- Hazumu and Tomari (pictured above) from Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl, along with the third girl in the triangle, Yasuna. The other characters dismiss Hazumu's sexuality since she used to be a guy; still, Hazumu remains a girl permanently. Yasuna, on the other hand, is so afraid of men she literally cannot see their faces.
- Yamada and Satou from Koi Koi 7 like to cheerfully show their affection for each other.
- Rosalie from Rose Of Versailles isn't technically a schoolgirl, but she's in the right age bracket and certainly has a huge crush on Lady Oscar.
Web Comics
- Western (though anime-influenced) example: Nanase and Ellen in El Goonish Shive
 .
- Cheesecake St.-Cherrywell from the webcomic Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy is a particularly over-the-top parody, particularly of Chizuru from Bleach.
- Jessica from Loserz, forming a pair with bisexual Jodie, beginning in this strip.
- Red String has Fuuko, she has a crush on Maaya, but the feelings aren't returned. This causes a big scandal at their school actually as one of the was quite a prominent figure at the school. Fuuko moves to Tokyo when her family are relocated, where she meets Hanae Niijima who falls for her.
Comic Books
- Runaways' Karolina Dean is in love with her best friend Nico, who unfortunately doesn't return her affections. Fortunately for Karolina, she finds new love in a shape-shifting alien named Xavin, who changes "his" form into that of a woman to please her.
Video Games
- Project Justice, the sequel to Rival Schools, drops hints of this in the Seijyun High ending, showing Akira and Yurika to be very happy to finally see each other again.
- Natsuki... no, not that one...the one from Persona 3, whose friendship toward Fuuka occasionally took on dangerous levels of obsession, resulting in the SEES group having to keep her isolated for her own good.
- Of course, the 'dangerous levels of obsession' was from a Shadow giving her impulses so that she'd be a prime victim, which is why she was isolated. After that incident, the two became extremely close to the point that Natsuki moving out of town was the catalyst for Fuuka's Persona to power up.
- We mentioned Grim Grimoire, didn't we? Amoretta and Lillet? Yup. It's canon. The hints were there from the beginning, though.
Literature
- I don't know whether it's played straight or subverted, but Lofty and Tonker from Monstrous Regiment certainly qualify.
- Given that at the end we learn they've taken to committing robberies together, apparently to support themselves, it's played pretty straight.
Real Life
- Historically, the phenomenon was somewhat common in Western female-only colleges where the students were completely sequestered from opposite-sex contact.
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