Happy New Year and welcome to 2020 or, as I like to think of it, the first day of 2CYE (Current Yuri Era.) ^_^
To begin with, thanks to everyone who made 2019 one of the best years of a lifetime, as we celebrated 100 years of the Yuri genre!
In my final list of 2019, I imagined what Yoshiya Nobuko-sensei might have made of this last century and the growth of an entire genre out of her and her peers’ work…and what she might think looking at explicitly queer stories with openly lesbian characters. A hundred years is a long time, and tastes, technology, fashion and the sociopolitical landscape have all changed so radically. Which got me thinking about those years and all those changes. Even in the past 20 years, there have been some remarkable shifts. From a fetish on a long list of fetishes, or a reference to a century-old literary movement to a full-blown genre with recognition by companies and bookstores on both sides of the globe, there have been a lot of changes in Yuri. Yuri has gone from a niche of a niche to a segment of the anime/manga audience that has its own events and visible presence at larger events. And, so, I developed an idea – one last exciting project to cap off this 100 Year Anniversary of the genre. I asked this question:
Could we develop a list of the best, most notable, most representative, Top Yuri titles of the last century?
To help me out with this, I reached out to invite some of my favorite Yuri experts, folks whose opinions I am always interested to hear and whose knowledge about our genre is far-reaching.
Starting tomorrow, over the next several days, you’ll be hearing from Erin Subramanian Katherine Hanson and Nicki Bauman, all long-time Yuri researchers and bloggers. These are people who I like to consider my peers in the non-academic Yuri research bubble that I have created and which I so cheerfully occupy. ^_^
I’ll be posting 4 different lists from each of these terrific writers and myself on our “Top Yuri of the last 100 Years.” Each one of us had completely different criteria for our choices which means that, even if you see some of the same series represented I ask you to read the entries, because they are on each of our lists for completely different reasons!
Please join me in welcoming all of our our guest writers as we start the 100 Years of Yuri 2020 Project!
So, these will be tops … Well, it will be interesting to read an opinion on the best works of the genre from someone who really has a lot of knowledge about the subject. I only wanted to ask one thing, but how many works do you want to include in one such list ?
There were no rules. Every writer will provide their own take on the matter.
Hmm, that will be even more interesting. I will be happy to wait for the result of your work!
To be fair, I don’t even know how many I picked and I just finished writing it today. ^_^
This is going to be amazing – looking forward to everyone’s lists! (I like my bubble, but a Yuri research bubble sounds even better….)
Looking forward to the series! There’s so many angles to consider: will recency bias be a thing because very few of us were probably around in, say, 1952 to really know what works were stirring the yuri winds? Or because the emergence and growth of the genre has been decidedly non-linear? Do you put more weight on something that broke new ground, even if timidly by present-day standards, or by later works that perfected the form (or were at least bolder)? How much do you consider doujinshi (adult and non-adult)? I kinda envy and don’t envy the listmakers – I’d love to do this, but I would make SUCH a research project out of it that I really don’t have time for right now. So I’m very much interested in seeing the tacks that others take!
We all had different criteria for our lists (that we decided on personally), so some may consider elements such as historical importance and impact on the genre more than others. I, for one, put a lot of thought about where I wanted my ideas to come from and how much I should account for the limits of more historical works.
As for recency bias, in my case, it absolutely plays a factor, but I also maintain that Yuri is getting better and gayer, so I enjoy many newer works more than some older ones.
-Nicki Bauman
Well, if the phenomenon is progressing, then in my opinion it is obvious that more recent works will be better and more memorable. Yuri is not a genre that is in stagnation and whose best works have remained in the classics.
Personally, I worry more about ambiguous or popular in shipping works like Love Live, because lately yuri-ish and fake yuri titles often hide more actual anime and manga.
This is exactly why I wanted different perspectives to start the year. We might agree that a series is important or “good.”, and still have vastly different reason as to why or what it mean to us…or what anyone else might get out of it. More likely, we may not even agree what is something to be focused on at all!