While I was binge-shopping in the various Yuribu of Tokyo this past February, I repeatedly encountered this attractively put together photo collection of Yuri “poses”, Yuri Sekai Hikareau Futari wo Kaku tame no Pose Shuu (百合世界 惹かれ合うふたりを描くためのポーズ集). It looked quite slick and interesting…and large enough that I left it on the shelves and didn’t try to stuff it into my overfull luggage. ^_^
Now that the magic of overseas shipping has delivered this book to me, it was time to give it a closer look. The book is broken into three sections, which feature three pairs of women in various poses dressed as a high school couple, a couple in college and a pair of careerwomen in the office.
The point of this book is ostensibly to provide life drawing poses for a Yuri couple. The number of shots is astounding, and the variety of perspective is quite exceptional. If you’re an artist and cannot afford a model, this book would be an asset. It also provides key visuals of cloth draping or pulling, how shadows fall or lighting hits parts of the body.
Also exceptional are closeups of individual scenes, so you can see hands from a variety of angles; how a hand crumples the material of a blouse when on a shoulder and specifics like that.
All of the photos are clothed, there’s nothing suggestive or creepy, but I’m not going to lie, after the 30th angle of two people almost kissing, I felt like a stalker. At some point I felt my skin crawl at the idea of the photographer circling the models taking photo after photo after photo. ^_^;
Ratings:
Overall – 8
If I were in any way artistic, this would be a valuable resource.
I always wondered what the girls who participate in such photo shoots think about yuri.Obviously, these girls have no prejudices regarding qeer women and these photos were not made for lovers of “hot lesbians”, but I wonder if they are interested in yuri themselves.
I actually would say yes, that a lot of the folks in this book probably do have an interest in yuri.
After three years in Japan, it seems to me that yuri is a bit more “mainstream” -most likely because of anime- and I think that with the rise of Yuri events, it’s more than likely that they’re fans of the genre, or at least engage with it positively in their personal lives :D
Well, if I had the opportunity, I would also like to create something in the yuri or yuri-ish way, for example, a la MariMite. In any case, I think will agree with you. Sometimes it even seems to me that the yuri community has completely replaced the BL fandom in the mainstream media.
Oh wow, MariMite takes me back! It was one of the first yuri anime I watched! It’s so nostalgic.
I also think that yuri has overcome BL in many ways. I think that lately, yuri has really created a lot of realistic stories. There’s also many anthologies, which I think helps showcase popular and new authors more easily. I think BL is also creating more genuine stories about queer male couples too. It’s all so wonderful, isn’t it? :D
Good luck if you create something: I really want to create yuri media too!
This was the second yuri anime I watched, the first was Aoi Hana :)
Yeah, I like that every year we get an increasing representation and positive image of qeer people, and not a bunch of another works, where yuri and yaoi are just a fanservice and fetish material.
Thanks for the support! I hope that your wish will come true!
The Sendai Yuriten had copies of this, and it was my biggest regret not buying it, especially as an artist who draws almost exclusively female-coded characters.I’m glad to know it’s a worthwhile purchase: I’ll be ordering from Amazon today!!
It’s an investment, definitely, but a worthy one for an artist doing Yuri who isn’t in a position to hire models.