Annually, I say to you that this is the easiest of the lists to write. In previous years this was completely true. This year however, we hit a tipping point with Yuri manga: No sooner do I discover a series’ existence, than it’s scooped up for license, sometimes before I have a chance to read it in Japanese. Last year I called it an embarrassment of riches. This year, I’m calling it too much to reasonably list! ^_^
As a result of the absolutely massive amounts of Yuri manga being put out in Japanese and English, this list begins with groups of works, rather than individual titles. When I mention a title that is currently available in Japanese and English, I’m using the English language title. ^_^ As always, please feel free to chime in with your favorites in the comments!
Yuri Anthologies
White Lilies, Whenever Our Eyes Meet (from Yen Pess,) Yuritora Jump (ユリトラジャンプ), Syrup (to be released in 2020 by Seven Seas,) Éclair (out from Yen Press,) Yuri + Kanojo (百合+カノジョ), there have been – and are – so very many of these anthologies this year! I’ve written about their importance in the history of Yuri manga, and I’m genuinely thrilled that they are experiencing a resurgence in this new age of Yuri.
Anthologies provide a home for established creators to publish their original work, and a place for new, up-and-coming creators to experience publishing with a company. Fans get to see glimpses of new concepts, new art, new ideas and find new artists to care about. Almost all of my favorite artists were (and often still are) avid anthology contributors. I unabashedly love anthologies, with my endless hope for really good short stories.
As a result of this new wave, Yuri anthologies make this year’s list!
Shakaijin Yuri
Stories about life after high school, where love between adult women can(!) exist. Nikurashii Hodo Aishiteru (to-be-released by Yen Press as I Hate You So Much, I Love You), Still Sick (out from Tokyopop,) BariKyari to Shinsou (バリキャリと新卒), Yuri Life (out from Yen,) Fuzoroi no Renri (不揃いの連理), Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana (to-be-released by Viz Media as How Do We Relationship?) and so many more that I have read and reviewed in the past year, tell stories that until recently could not have been told. Lesbians are still few and far between but we sometimes even get a rare glimpse of one in these adult life tales. ^_^
A decade ago, Yuri was firmly embedded in school life stories, and we were still being informed that girls wear bloomers (they didn’t) and were definitely being married off after graduation (they weren’t) and were never going to be able to see each other again (they could…and there are phones). A person becoming a Yuri fan today would have a chance to see relationships between adult women functioning in the real world in a way we could never have imagined. Western companies are on board with this, bringing out more and more of the adult life Yuri manga. That’s pretty damned awesome.
Comic Yuri Hime/ Galette
Manga magazines have such an important position in manga culture. For most creators, seeing their work serialized is pretty much the epitome of where a title can go. And for Yuri manga, it provides the closest thing to normalization that the industry has. Where anime tends to favor the lowest common denominators (or lower, depending on how uncommon a fetish might actually be,) the constant, slow, repeated application of seeing women together as couples in manga can change the world.
For that reason, I want to once again call out the two Yuri manga magazines that exist right now. I don’t like everything in them, but for their efforts in normalizing Yuri (and, I will project a bit,) relationships between women, monthly Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫) and quarterly Galette (ガレット) hold a special place in my heart.
Now we’re going to take a step away from the general towards specific series that, in my honest opinion, really stood out this year and did something important.
Goodbye Dystopia
It was easy to overlook Hisona’s 3-volume manga series from Comic Yuri Hime, Goodbye Dystopia (グッバイ・ディストピア). It’s not flashy, there was no sex, no histrionics, no drama. Instead, it opened up a whole new field for Yuri creators…one that we hadn’t seen before; two women traveling not to get somewhere, but to leave something behind. We took the time to see old and decrepit things, and most of that time was spent in silence. I would have read a dozen more volumes of that, a Yuri story in which nothing at all was important. I was able to enjoy the feeling of wandering in an almost-empty post-apocalyptic landscape set in the middle of the modern world.
As we head into what is very likely to be the twilight of the human species, we can remember that everything comes to an end and still look forward to tomorrow.
Bloom Into You
I had a lot of reservations about Bloom Into You from the beginning. I’m still not quite sure why it became as popular as it did. Perhaps a mix of zeitgeist and TV animation, but more probably because of the marketing powerhouse Kadokawa/ASCII Mediaworks. No joke – if you want your series to be popular, get Kadokawa to market it. It can be purest distilled crap and they’ll polish it up and sell it for luxe prices. ^_^
The main love story was nice enough, but where this series shone, where it gleams like a beacon of frickin’ hope is in its treatment of Saeki Sayaka, a serious-minded young lesbian who meets two adult women in a relationship and finds herself. I delighted in every moment we spent with Sayaka, with her time talking to Miyako about her true self and getting to know her even better in the light novels.
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that this series made this year’s list because of Sayaka. ^_^
My Solo Exchange Diary
I very much hope one day soon to write an article about how creator Nagata Kabi absolutely threw the doors wide open for graphic medicine in Japan. It’s not that comic essays were unheard of, but before Nagata-sensei’s brutal self-evaluation and honest autobiographical essays about the mental and physical constraints of her existence, Josei manga artists frequently entertained readers with comic essays about life as a mother or living with cats. Nagata-sensei’s work was vastly different. Casting herself as a one-woman show on a stage of her own making, she touched the hearts of millions of people worldwide, a Raina Telgemeier of Japanese mental health, covering depression, eating disorder (and alcohol-induced pancreatitis in her newest book.) In years to come, it is my belief that we will see Nagata-sensei listed as a genuine pioneer whose work changed lives and the manga industry, much as we see the Magnificent 49ers now.
It’s not an easy read, but if I taught a course on manga, My Solo Exchange Diary would be a fixture on the curriculum.
Kase-san and Yamada
I’ve said it a thousand times, lesbian don’t just disappear after high school. I say this because until recently, they kind of did. ^_^; From the beginning, the Kase-san series was never groundbreaking. It trod over well-worn paths, but it stopped a little more often to notice the flowers that lined those paths. In Volume 6 released this year, Kase-san and Yamada took their first step off that path onto new territory.
When Kase-san and Yamada left high school, readers might have assumed that the series would wrap up. Instead they moved to the big city to go to college and we went along with them to see how they handled a new environment and new challenges. It’s a pleasure to spend time with these women and a pleasure to see where their experiences will take them as they enter the adult world.
Yamada and Kase-san are no strangers to this list, having made it on several times since their debut in 2011. We welcome them back once again for this year.
You’ll have noticed that my primary motivation for inclusion this year, as it has been for many years is stories with a sense of reality; stories of couples who exist in a semblance of the world as you and I might hope to experience it. With that in mind, I give you the Okazu Top 3 Yuri manga of 2019.
Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru
Hayama Asuka and Terano Saki are teachers at a school who have, to their surprise, fallen in love. Everyone knows they are going out and everyone, from students to administration think they could not be more adorable if they tried. This is the major handwave of this series and I, for one, think it wholly acceptable. Instead of dealing with bullying by colleagues or angry parents, we get to enjoy Saki and Asuka loving their time with one another.
Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている) is an adult story that includes sex, but is not porn. It focuses on the the sheer joy these two women find in one another. Yes, it’s a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy I wholeheartedly endorse. This manga makes me smile. Every time. Next year you’ll be able to enjoy it as Our Teachers Are Dating! from Seven Seas.
I’ve never hidden my desire to see more overtly lesbian themes in my Yuri. This year, we were able to enjoy manga series that were explicitly about queer people, by queer creators, that told various stories of different gender and sexual minorities. My top two series this year are effectively tied for the position because they both are by us, and tell our stories.
Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare
2019 was the year we were able to read a LGBTQ manga that pulled no punches. Yuhki Kamatani’s breathtakingly beautiful and moving Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare is a love letter to Shimanami and a supportive hand being held out to LGBTQ youth at the same time. Each character’s story is unique and individual, there is no pretense to telling all queer stories ever. Every character is shown as three-dimensional, working on understanding themselves and their place in a world that won’t make a place for them.
It ends with a wedding ceremony for the lesbian characters; a symbol of change and acceptance. The first time my wife and I had a ceremony, we never expected to be able to marry legally. And here we are with that right. Saki and Haruko’s wedding might not be legal, but their families being there for them is an important step forward. This is not “Yuri” but it is one of the most overtly queer manga I have ever seen. Like a symbolic wedding, I honestly think that is worth celebrating. It’s a step forward. I’ll hope that this holds the door open to more overtly queer stories, more stories of lesbian couples who don’t face “death or marriage” as the only possible outcomes. And maybe, just maybe, assist in changing the way people think, an important bit of groundwork for a new legal landscape for queer couples in Japan.
In the middle of the many Yuri tropes that exist, there is one trope that is so very common in western literature and yet is almost completely missing in Yuri – the coming out narrative. There is a series that I have believed since the very beginning would be the series to address this. I was not wrong. This series is my top Yuri manga pick of the year.
Itoshi Koishi
Hina, a senior in high school is going out with Yayoi, an older woman. Yayoi is very aware of the age difference and is waiting for Hina to move beyond school into adult life. They are good for each other, and take care of each other and their friends are supportive. Yayoi is a lesbian and has friends who are, as well. Hina has friends who adore her and whom she adores, and she has slowly and surely been moving towards telling them the one thing she’s been keeping from them. My Christmas present arrived with the January edition of Comic Yuri Hime in the form of Itoshi Koishi‘s protagonist Hina, coming out to her friends and her friends responding with love and acceptance. Hina takes on a few old lingering stereotypes of gay couples (left over from Japanese TV shows purporting to show “real” gay people whose lives were miserable) and clears them away with a smile.
Takemiya-sensei has been leading up to this slowly, carefully and ever so gently. Itoshi Koishi (いとしこいし) is not a series of high melodrama, it is a series about two people who love and are loved in return. It shows that “coming out” may never be easy, but it does not have to be traumatic. I love this story with all my love.
This series, by this author, who combines Yuri and lesbian themes sweetly, without fantasy handwaves, is my number one Yuri manga of the year.
The next list will be an accounting of all the companies, the people, the places and things that have made 2019 an amazing anniversary year for Yuri!
