Since homosexual males are called "gay," homosexual females should be called "ecstatic."
A genre in Japanese media that focuses on female/female romance and can focus either on the sex or on the emotional aspects of the relationship. In Japanese, "yuri" literally means "lily" but has also come to refer to works found within the genre.
In the past, a disproportionate amount of yuri stories have
ended tragically or
inconclusively. Some would move on to boy-girl relationships with the
romantic two-girl friendship as only a steppingstone. Others were driven
insane when the other girl enters a "real" relationship with a boy, and still others
stepped back to let
their love be happy with another. Luckily, this is changing as more and more couples are allowed to have happy, committed and
canon endings.
There are generally three couple types that can often be found within the genre. The three most popular couples are as follows:
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The pairing of a very or relatively masculine girl with a decisively feminine girl. This pairing can often emulate a lot of the dynamics of heterosexual couples.
- Sempai Kouhai: A very common couple type to Japanese Girls' Love works is this pairing of two students, one older and one younger. The older one will generally be very elegant while the younger one will be fairly innocent. The older partner will normally be referred to as Onee-sama.
- Teacher/Student Romance: While not as popular as the other two couples, this teacher/student couple type can often be found within the genre.
In Japan, this genre is popular enough to have found its own mainstream publishing niche. The term "Yuri" was coined by Itou Bungaku, founder and editor of the magazine "
Barazoku", a Japanese magazine for gay men, wherein he termed men the
barazoku, or "rose tribe", and women the
yurizoku, or "lily tribe". Occasionally, some fans use
shoujo-ai ("girl's love") and "yuri" to indicate different degrees of explicitness. However, in Japan shoujo-ai refers to
liking little girls. In Japan, yuri is also known as "Girls Love" (
in English), or GL, a term created for paralellism to the male version, "
Boys Love" or BL.
This is the genre; couple-specific examples should only be listed below if they’re the focus of the series. 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 Japan-only genre. Please limit examples to Japanese media only.
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Anime and Manga
- Shiroi Heya No Futari is possibly the first girls' love manga.
- Maya's Funeral Procession is another one from the same era.
- 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.
- Maria-sama ga Miteru is about Romantic Two Girl Friendships between students in an all-girls high school. Though none of the relationships go past subtext (with one exception in the backstory), it is nevertheless iconic of the yuri genre.
- Oniisama e...
- Revolutionary Girl Utena is possibly the most famous Girls' Love series, even though the series itself never goes beyond hints; The Movie is less ambiguous...well, at least about its Girls' Love.
- Strawberry Panic! is set at a cluster of three girls' schools populated
largely entirely by Schoolgirl Lesbians.
- Similarly, Simoun is set In a World where everyone younger than 17 is female.
- Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
- 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 D/s.
- ICE depicts a dystopia in which all men have become extinct.
- A main plot element of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou falls into this.
- Shoujo Sect
- Candy Boy is a Slice of Life series revolving around the relationship between fraternal twin sisters.
- Most of Miyabi Fujieda's manga:
- Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, basically a Les Yay Fanservice fest.
- Strike Witches which is a cavalcade of Les Yay and Romantic Two-Girl Friendship.
- Koihime†Musou
- Otome Kikan Gretel is an ecchi series set in an all-girls Wizarding School.
- Cutey Honey is often very heavy on Les Yay. The Re: Cutey Honey OVAs having the highest amount of Les Yay, almost crossing over into the GL zone.
- Battle Athletes, with the manga being more upfront with its Girls Love than the two anime series.
- Sasameki Koto happily marries relationship angst with school life comedy.
- Most of Morinaga Milk's work:
- The yuri Manga, Honey Crush is a comedic take on the genre mixed with the supernatural.
- Gokujou Drops, a manga for people who don't think Girls' Love uses Seme/Uke enough. Mixed with Unwanted Harem.
- Kurogane Pukapuka Tai is a love comedy set on a World War II-era Imperial Japanese warship.
- Hayate Cross Blade plays the girls love up for comedy.
- Strawberry Shake Sweet, a Girls' Love comedy manga about teen idols.
- Bloomer Blue Maniacs, a oneshot comedy yuri work.
- Aoi Hana is a Girls' Love series that combines Slice of Life and a Love Dodecahedron.
- Manga no Tsukurikata.
- 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.
- Chirality is a seinen Girls' Love manga with a postapocalyptic soft-Science Fiction setting.
- Octave, a fairly realistic and mature Girls' Love manga.
- Creo the Crimson Crises, a supernatural shoujoesque Girls' Love manga with a slight cynical edge.
- Stray Little Devil
- 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.
- Most of Akiko Morishima's works:
- 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.
- Kanamemo is an anime and a Yonkoma manga where the majority of the female main cast are romantically inclined towards females.
- Kuttsukiboshi
- Flower Flower, a manga by the same person who did Kanamemo. A princess arrives in a foreign land to marry into their royal family, but rejects her betrothed as soon as he enters the room because he's dressed like a woman. She instead goes for the other alleged prince. Issues come up and Hilarity Ensues.
- The Last Uniform
- Tetragrammaton Labyrinth
- Steel Angel Kurumi 2, a Harem Anime with a female harem lead and a small entirely female harem.
- Devilman Lady has a lot of implied and overt yuri dynamics.
- Junsui Adolescence, a manga that deals mainly with a relationship between a student and her school nurse.
- Maka Maka is a yuri hentai manga about two college aged girls.
- The josei manga Pieta contains a dark psychologic yuri story.
- 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 being a jealous tsundere.
- 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.
- Gunjo is a dark and twisted take on the genre.
- 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.
- Kimochi no Katachi, a manga that mixes self-discovery, young love, and gayngst with much attention paid to realism.
- Plica is a slice-of-life four-panel comic about adult lesbians (so it's not really girls' love, but...)
- Haru Natsu Aki Fuyu
- Love My Life
- 08.04 AM Daydream
- Shiro
- The highly ecchi series Tokimeki Mononoke Jogakkou.
- All of Natsuneko's one-shots.
- 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.
- Shuninta Amano's manga:
- The Structural Formula of First Love
- Sweet Guilty Love Bites
- Yukemuri Sanctuary
- Hoshikawa Ginza District 4, is a Teacher/Student Romance yuri work.
- Some of Asagi Ryu's recent work has focused on this.
- Hen: Sort of. It has a lot more heterosexual sex scenes than your average yuri manga.
- Yuri Monogatari
- Prism
Video Games
Visual Novels
