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Since homosexual males are called "gay," homosexual females should be called "ecstatic".
Yuri is the Japanese word for "lily", and also refers to a sapphic romance genre in Japanese media. It can focus either on the sexual or emotional aspects of the relationship. Occasionally, some fans will use the term shoujo-ai ("girl's love") to distinguish the less explicit works that focus on romance and/or emotions between the characters. Note however that in Japan, shoujo-ai refers to liking little girls.
Yuri is a genre (or a collection of overlapping genres) distinguished by the use of a set of common tropes and stereotypes. The term "yuri" is sufficiently strongly associated with those tropes and stereotypes that some Japanese lesbian manga fans use a different term, like "bian" (short for lesbian), "Onna x Onna" ("women x women"), or "Onna-doushi" ("women together") for works which are actually by/for lesbian women.
In Japan, yuri is also known as "Girls' Love" ( in English), or GL, a term created in common with the male version, " Boys' Love" or BL.
See the Shoujo Ai Archive and this short glossary of yuri terms, as well as Matt Thorn's "What Japanese Girls Do With Manga, and Why" essay and the Wikipedia's "Yuri Genre" page, for a bit more context.
There are a few different types of yuri, depending in part on the target audience:
- Yuri for men, "seinen yuri", tends to emphasize sweetness, femininity, girlishness, innocence, purity, and Moe generally. It usually has a very romanticized view of what it's like to be a teenage girl. This is in contrast to the standard Girl on Girl Is Hot scenarios (lustful women making out with each other for the viewer's delectation, often mixed with heterosexual content in fanservice-driven shows) which are usually not considered yuri. Men's yuri typically fetishizes femininity and youthfulness and rarely focuses on long-standing relationships or adult characters, much less LGBTQnote Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer/Questioning culture and social issues. The fairly common assumption is that the yuri relationship won't last and the girls involved will eventually end up with boys.
- Yuri for girls, "shoujo yuri", may also be hyperfeminine and "pure" but can feature some degree of genderbending or crossdressing, with the bifauxnen in a more traditionally male role. In either case, it's usually focused on fantasies of female solidarity, idealized femininity and gender transgression, not with lesbian identity, culture or actual life in Japan. Here's an academic essay that discusses the history and looks at some modern stories (warning: one of the images near the end is NSFW)
- Yuri for adult women, "josei yuri", is usually less stereotyped and fairly realistic, like most fiction aimed at adults. Yuri for lesbians is the most likely to be realistic, and to deal with LGBTQ culture and social issues, but is a very small portion of all yuri produced. As previously noted, some readers use a separate term for "yuri by/for lesbians" to distinguish it from the more common types.
In the past, a disproportionate amount of yuri stories have ended tragically or inconclusively, but this is changing as more fictional couples are allowed to have happy, committed, and canon endings.
In yuri, you'll most likely find relationships that play on Tomboy and Girly Girl or Sempai Kouhai dynamics. The first usually emulates a heterosexual couple, while the latter emphasises the difference in maturity between the girls. Teacher/Student Romance is also found, but less commonly than the other two.
This is the genre; couple-specific examples should only be listed below if they're the focus of the series. For yuri-style couples (and unrequited crushes) in other genres, see Token Yuri Girls. Also see: Slash Fic, Everyone Is Gay, Schoolgirl Lesbians, and Romantic Two-Girl Friendship.
The Spear Counterpart of this genre is the Boys Love Genre (targeted towards women) and the Bara Genre (targeted towards gay men).
See also our guide on how to Write A Yuri Manga.
(Sub-)Tropes frequently associated with the genre
This is a East Asian-only genre. Please limit examples to East Asian and Animesque media only.
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Prolific Creators
- Shuninta Amano:
- Miyabi Fujieda:
- Shizuru Hayashiya:
- Shoko Iwami:
- Milk Morinaga:
- Akiko Morishima:
- Go Nagai. While not known mainly for it, has proven himself partial to yuri.
- Natsuneko. Has only written one-shots so far (see full list on her page).
- Kaoru Sudoo. Sadly, seems to have quietly slipped off the radar after OKG was cancelled.
- Akihito Yoshitomi. Is well-known for his contributions to the genre, though he tends to take weird approaches:
- Blue Drop, although the anime is much less explicit with its Girls' Love than the first and third manga of the series. The second manga Tenshi no Bokura moves away from Girls' Love, as the focus is on a heterosexual pair.
- Sisterism is a GL manga about two childhood friends falling in love with each other's little sisters. Who are both 12.
- Two and Two is a slightly different take on a similar setup, with two schoolgirl roommates discovering their attraction to each other only after they independently start dating older women. Both of whom are childhood friends, so it's complicated. Also, at least one pairing is into domination/submission play.
Original Manga
- Aoi Hana is a Girls' Love series that combines Slice of Life and a Love Dodecahedron.
- Bloomer Blue Maniacs, a oneshot comedy yuri work.
- Chirality is a seinen Girls' Love manga with a postapocalyptic soft-Science Fiction setting.
- Creo The Crimson Crises, a supernatural shoujoesque Girls' Love manga with a slight cynical edge.
- Ebisu-san and Hotei-san, a Will They or Won't They? story about two office ladies, one of whom is a workaholic perfectionist and the other a jealous tsundere.
- First Love Sisters, a shojo GL manga fairly typical to the genre but still a quality work in its own right.
- Girl X Girl X Boy, a manga dealing with a type 2 love triangle between two girls and a boy.
- Gokujou Drops is for people who don't think Girls' Love uses Seme/Uke enough. Mixed with Unwanted Harem.
- Gunjo is a dark and twisted take on the genre.
- Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu was the only yuri venture by a circle that specializes in Boys Love. As a result, a lot of yaoi tropes are mixed in with the yuri conventions here.
- Honey Crush is a comedic take on the genre mixed with the supernatural.
- Hoshikawa Ginza District 4, is a Teacher/Student Romance yuri work.
- Husky and Medley chronicles the budding romance between the eponymous pair of high school students who attend an all girls school, and is supposedly Based on a True Story.
- Junsui Adolescence, a manga that deals mainly with a relationship between a student and her school nurse.
- Kannazuki no Miko intertwines a Girls' Love romance with a Humongous Mecha + Magical Girl plot. After demoting Chikane and Himeko to extras in Kyoshiro To Towa No Sora, Kaishaku once again have given them the main role in Zettai Shoujo Seiiki Amnesian, throwing an Ancient Conspiracy into the pot.
- Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl has a Love Triangle involving three Schoolgirl Lesbians with the added complication that the main character used to be a boy.
- Kimochi No Katachi, a manga that mixes self-discovery, young love, and gayngst with much attention paid to realism.
- Kurogane Pukapuka Tai is a love comedy set on a World War II-era Imperial Japanese warship.
- The Last Uniform
- Lonely Wolf Lonely Sheep is a short story about two girls who happen to have the same name and some serious self-esteem issues.
- Love My Life is a gentle Slice of Life story that delves into the gay culture of Japan as it follows the life of a young lesbian who had just come out of the closet.
- Maka Maka is a yuri hentai manga about two college aged girls.
- Manga No Tsukurikata.
- Maya's Funeral Procession is another one from the same era as Shiroi Heya No Futari.
- Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, basically a Les Yay Fanservice fest.
- Octave, a fairly realistic and mature Girls' Love manga.
- Oniisama e is one of the oldest and most influential yuri mangas.
- Oniyuri-san and Himeyuri-san is about a Student Council President and her treasurer (who both happen to be school idols) in a secret romantic relationship. The title says it all.
- Pieta: A josei manga that contains a dark psychologic yuri story.
- Poor Poor Lips: A Gag Series Yon Koma with surprising depth about the lives of a rich, lesbian employer and her poor employee.
- Plica is a slice-of-life four-panel comic about adult lesbians (so it's not really girls' love, but...)
- Prism
- Saki is a yuri subtext Mahjong anime that holds the record as the series with the most yuri themed blushing. One interesting note is that the anime plays its Girls' Love up more than the manga.
- Sasameki Koto happily marries relationship angst with school life comedy.
- Satou Kashi No Dangan Wa Uchinukenai, a shojo manga that follows the relationship between a schoolgirl who wishes to rely on no one but herself, and a self-proclaimed mermaid who must find true friendship in one month's time or she will fade away forever.
- Shiro
- Shiroi Heya No Futari is possibly the first girls' love manga.
- Stray Little Devil
- Tetragrammaton Labyrinth where the main couple are demon slayers in 20th century London.
- Tokimeki Mononoke Jogakkou: A highly ecchi series.
- Under One Roof
- Wife and Wife is the slice of life story of a young lesbian couple who have recently moved in together, serialized in Yuri Hime S.
- Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: A main plot element falls into this.
- Yuri Monogatari is not a single manga but an annual anthology of indie yuri works. Also notable for containing yuri manga-style comics produced all over the world (so it's not "manga" in the strictest sense of the word).
Original Anime
Original Light Novels
Video Games
Visual Novels
Other
- The manga Claudine, written by Oniisama e...'s author Riyoko Ikeda, is often classified as Yuri Genre. However, this is a mistake. The main character, Claudine de Montesse, is actually Transsexual: he is female-bodied but identifies as a man, and searches for female love interests. (And is referred to as such by other characters: for instance his Unlucky Childhood Friend Rosemarie says that Claudine is "a true man, given a woman's body"). Therefore, it'd be technically incorrect to classify this particular manga as yuri; although homosexuality and transsexuality are both LGBTQ issues, they are very different ones and, whilst they can overlap, it's not always the case.
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