Here we are at the tail end of 2014. This is the tenth annual Top Yuri of the year list. Last year it was all about people. This year, we’re looking at a tumultuous year of people, places, things, companies, anime, manga, very real non-fiction and fiction that felt real. This year was an awesome meta-look at itself, with old series coming back again, beloved series ending and a host of changes. Yuri, the genre that we love, is ready to take on the 21st century. Here we go, revisting this amazing year in our Top Ten Yuri List!
10. Maria-sama ga Miteru 15th Anniversary
This is not a thing, per se. I’m not talking about the anniversary event, or any specific moment. But I thought it interesting and important enough to note that – despite not being Yuri specifically – this series has, for 15 years, made us all so very happy. And with the final period of the final novel it is officially over, so now is a great time to dig out the DVDs and novels and start all over again! For Sachiko, Yumi, Touko, Shimako, Noriko, Rei, Yoshino, Nana, Youko, Eriko (and, let’s be honest, especially for) Sei, let’s raise a toast to the 15th Anniversary of Maria-sama ga Miteru.
9-7. Yuri Publishers
I always like to take a moment to thank the publishers who bring us the Yuri Manga we love and which become the anime we love. There are fewer Yuri anthology magazines than there were a few years ago, but we have more publishers than ever before.
Thanks, OnePeace Books, Seven Seas, Ichijinsha, Futabasha, Hakusensha, Shonen Gahosha and all the other publishers for giving us more Yuri from great artists!
6. Yuri Non-fiction Comic Essays
This was something totally new for this year. I loved reading the auto- or semi-biographical comic Yuri essays that popped up in bookstores throughout the year Advice on being gay and confident from Makimura Asako, coming out letters from lesbian and gay people to people they care about, a Japanese TV talent who wants the world to know that she’s lesbian, an essay about the lesbian wedding in Disneyland – these tales tell the stories of real people who just want to be accepted for who they are by their friends and families and fans and government. These essays are everyday people talking to other everyday people. I’m loving them – and the hope they represent for LGBTQ folks in Japan.
5. Yuri Doujinshi Artists
Just out of curiosity, I took a look at past Top Ten Lists to see what I was thinking in 2004. It was entertaining, but not surprising, to find that I listed Yuri doujinshi artists on that first list. ^_^ Doujinshi has always been the breeding ground for good Yuri. Unfettered by publisher requirements, censors, limitations of audience or genre, artists are free to tell the stories they want to read.
Most of the best known and best loved manga artists started as doujinshi artists and many of them still create doujinshi on their own time. There is *nothing* like the energy of a Comiket, or the sheer fun of a Yuri-focused doujinshi event. For being the standard-bearers of Yuri through good years and bad, Yuri doujinshi artists get my thanks once again.
4. Kuzushiro
This lady. I mean it. She’s got a load of work right now, with multiple series in Comic Yuri Hime and you know, everything I’ve read by her…I like. Her art hurts my eyes and her sense of humor hurts my brain, but she draws gag comedy that is incredibly smart, even as it’s incredibly dumb. It’s really time we give her the respect he deserves what with her cranking out all this stuff we’re enjoying and having a successful anime and all. Thanks Kuzushiro-sensei!
Okay, so basically, these top three are just so damn cool that there’s nothing I can say other than “wow.” For sheer yeeha factor, there was never any doubt what my top three Yuri things of the year were going to be.
Here’s the Okazu 2014 Top 3 Yuri things….
3. Ikuhara Kunihiko and Morishima Akiko collaborating on Yuri Kuma Arashi
HOW COOL IS THIS? Answer: Very cool. Morishima Akiko is an artist I have been following for a ridiculously long time. To see her working with someone whose contributions to Yuri are indescribably weird and timeless and mindblowing is both unexpected and delightful. I have no idea if I’ll enjoy what comes out the other side, but it’s going to be interesting, that’s a given.
This makes, what, a half dozen or so “Yuri” anime marketed as such in the past few years? That’s a net positive in and of itself. But seriously, Yuri Kuma Arashi is gonna be weird fun. And it’s gonna be Yuri. With bears. It’s got bears! It has to be good. ^_^
2. The Yuri Network
Traditionally, Okazu readers have always had a place on this list, but this year I’m bumping you up. Yuri fans all over the world come here to read, to comment, to write guest reviews, to send in news items.
It’s not just that you contribute huge chunks of great content, you make everything we do worth doing. You fact check me, and aren’t afraid to share your thoughts, your experiences and ideas. You support the artists your like by buying from legit sources, and you give me hugs when I get to meet you in person! Each and every one of you is an important part of our Okazu family.
For all your time, energy, engagement and interest, you are the second best thing about Yuri this year!
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Even better than how amazing you are, there was one thing that really stood above all other things this year as a special contribution to Yuri. Something actually groundbreaking…
1. Seidosha’s Eureka “Current State of Yuri Culture” Issue
We’ve been collecting (and creating) writing about Yuri as a genre for about a decade here on Okazu and on Yuricon. But until 2014, there hadn’t been an attempt to look at Yuri as a genre by academic and enthusiast writers in Japan.
It’s immensely exciting to be part of this volume, but even more exciting for me to see critical thinking about the entire genre, from Yoshiya Nobuko to Shimura Takako. Included in the pages of this issue are interviews with or articles by a number of our favorite creators – Konno Oyuki, Rica Takashima, Amano Shuninta and Nishi UKO, speaking from the trenches.
What makes Yuri? Where have we come from and what are we looking at? Most importantly – what are we looking forward to Yuri becoming?
There was never a doubt in my mind that of all the amazing, wonderful, things that happened to us in 2014, Seidosha’s Eureka magazine “Current State of Yuri Culture” issue is the Top Yuri thing of 2014.
On behalf of everyone at Okazu and Yuricon, we wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2015 to you and yours!!
This collection from Team Pärvelö had so many qualities that I liked. Variety in art, and story and setting – protagonists of color in a queer manga anthology, how wonderful is that? (Finland seems especially good at diversity in representation.) Refreshing, delightful, fun, smart. Lepakkoluola is the kind of thing that gives me hope for the future of Yuri. I know Hanna-Pirita’s gonna have a heart attack when she reads this, but Team Pärvelö – you did good. Your collection is #10 on this years’ list. ^_^ Please keep drawing and writing!
I wasn’t really sure that this was even a Yuri series after the first volume, but I liked the energy, and the characters and the use of the setting to tell some real, not always all that pleasant, stories about girls’ lives. And then it ended up being Yuri after all. And Morinaga Milk was once again able to draw girl cops. ^_^
Tanaka Minoru’s Rock It, GiRL! was different. The art was intentionally ugly, the characters, too, and the story never went where one might expect. And in the end, it was a loopy, quirky, and kind of charming look at nothing anyone of us would ever see. This isn’t cute idols or meteoric rise to fame – this was a story about blood and guts and singing your heart out and hoping like hell someone might listen, then being told you’re not good enough. I liked it precisely because it wasn’t the same story we’d seen time and time again.
This story was a bit of a dark horse this year. I figured it was a one-shot, lame Maria-sama ga Miteru clone, with no real meaning, but I was dead wrong. Not only was it delightful, it continues!
Amano Shunita’s Philosophia is, as I mentioned in 
I’ve raved about Takemiya Jin’s work a million times. I love, love, love her characterization, and she captures shocked realization in a way that I adore. What really sets this volume of her manga apart, is her unrestricted and unrepentant embrace of not only lesbian culture, but also otaku culture. This book is about us, with our fetishes, and our obsessions, our lusts and loves. Reading game is like looking into a disturbingly accurate funhouse mirror at ourselves, the otaku-rezu who read (and create and write and talk about) Yuri. ^_^;
From volume to volume I had no expectations for this series. I never knew where it might take me. And right to the very end, I had no idea whether it was going to string me along and dump me, or lift me up. As an emotional roller coaster, it was pure brilliance. The art, the story telling and the tension all combined to make this series one of my favorite manga of the year.
Whispered Words marks two major developments in English-language Yuri manga. A new publisher, One Peace Books, is setting up shop on the block and a major Yuri series that I didn’t think we’d ever manage to get over here is here! Sasamekikoto explores every possible Yuri trope all at once and manages to be sad and moving and funny and wonderful. And now we have it. I can guarantee that unless something *amazing* comes out in 2015, Volume 3 will be my top slot next year. ^_^ The ending is just that good.
I’m unabashedly besotted with Nishi UKO’s artistic sensibility. Her people are people – okay, ridiculously beautiful people, but people, nonetheless. They can be petty, snarky, obsessed, in good moods and bad, hungry, lonely, and she communicates these emotions with simple, short stories, exquisite art and a mature aesthetic that is rarely found in manga, much less Yuri.
lete and real and in our hands and on our shelves. At last!
manga. Now for us to have and watch and enjoy whenever we feel like it. The combination of Riyoko Ikeda’s timeless writing and Dezaki Osamu’s sharp eye for dramatic visuals have changed the way we view anime forever.
Squee. You may not remember why you liked it, it was so long ago. You may have made up stories in your mind about how good or bad it was. You probably forgot the dinosaurs and some of the worst Monsters of the Day ever. But when you watch the original anime and re-meet Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako, you’ll remember all over again why you love them. ^_^
It’s silly, it’s stupid, it’s full of painful gags and a duck that looks like a platypus, dumb service (especially for a shoujo manga) and made-up violence scenes that are pretty bloody (especially for a shoujo manga). But it has Yuri and if you can just take your brain away for 20 minutes at a time, it’s actually enjoyable in it’s own way. Urara and Momoka aren’t a real couple, but that’s pretty much a relief. ^_^
The Puella Magi Madoka Magica movies came out in theaters in the US and on DVD, thanks to Aniplex being so willing to keep up the high-saturation level of the series. They were an interesting alt-story to the Madoka TV anime, and had great visual impact…and, even if the story didn’t play out as positively as the TV anime, that was a good thing, too. This series is showing surprising longevity in Japan, so I’m not entirely sure if we’re saying goodbye to it just yet.
Rewatching this series was a real eye-opener for me. I had forgotten just how Yuri and BL this series was, and wow, does the action and art hold up well. As much as Tomoyo was the Yuri torch-bearer to generations of Yuri fans, she can barely hold a candle to her mother, Sonomi. This is one of the best “magical girl anime made for girls” series ever, really.
Riddle Story of a Devil was was a “Yuri” anime because we were told it was, but there was some interesting sexual tension and random partnering to make up for the lack of affection. The action was good, the plot full of holes, but as a modern version of Seraphim Call-like character scenarios tied up by a ribbon story, it was entertaining. It’s not timeless, but we looked forward to it being on air and enjoyed the heck out of it while we watched it. That’s a good enough reason for me to include it on this list. ^_^
I know you know that I didn’t much care for the anime. But setting that aside, it was a fairly significant series – a Yuri romance anime, nuthin’ else but Yuri. No gimmicks, no pretend drama, just straight up “Story A.” While I did not care for the thigh-staring, and the creepy male gaze of the camera, there is no doubt that Yu loves Haruka, Haruka loves Yu, they love each other. The end.
I toyed with making this my number one choice for the year. Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san was, to me, the most enjoyable advertised-as-Yuri anime of the year. It was silly, and actually funny in places, and light-hearted and goofy. There are any number of potential pairings and a few actual couples, but the anime kept the Yuri mostly in the imagination of the leads…and I enjoyed it. From the insanely adorable opening theme, right to every stupid animal pun, Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san made me smile.
I watched Book One of this series back in winter 2013, and marathoned Books 2-4 over the past few weeks and I have to say…this may well be one of the greatest animated series ever made. It blasts through the Bechdel Test and the Friedman Addendum…and it’s an awesome ride all the while. Legend of Korra has everything I’ve ever wanted in an animated series – amazing characters, great action and lovely animation and a female lead who has a life and family and friends and complexity and morally ambiguous bad guys. The stories are well written, the dialogue sounds human. And in Book 4 we got something else. We got the ‘ship we’d been keeping one eye on the whole time. We got Korra and Asami.
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