There were so many wonderful Yuri manga series in 2020, I make no pretense to this being a countdown of any kind. There is no best one manga this year, just ever-widening, ever-lengthening bookshelves worth of amazing Yuri manga treasures! The top four are basically tied for first place, we’ll talk about why when we get there.
I’ve included links to both JP and EN volumes when they are available. Almost all of these titles are available in English. The few that are not are available as print from Amazon JP or e-books from Bookwalker JP, which also has e-books in English available on Bookwalker Global.
Please join me in enjoying some of the many Best Yuri Manga of the year. ^_^
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Tsuki to Suppin (月とすっぴん) / Night and Day
Akegata Yuu’s odd couple story, Tsuki to Suppin, is so…nice. Nothing happens, and there’s so little drama it almost seems like it might not be worth it, but it always, always is worth it to me. Watching a couple who just *work* together and understand one another is so absurdly refreshing. The simple art and the apparent lack of complexity is appealing. Everything about this series is Shodensha doing the exact kind of Jousei Yuri I want to see in the world.
And now you can read this series in English as Night and Day for free on Manga Planet or decide to subscribe and support them in getting more. ^^
Available in English from Manga Planet
Hitogoto Desukara! (ヒトゴトですから!) / It’s Personnel
Now that Shakaijin Yuri is an established subgenre, it’s easy to feel that the initial office romance plots have become stale. Rather than girl-meets-girl, we have woman-meets-woman. But, in Yuni’s comedy drama, Hitogoto Desukara! (which is so clearly written to adapted into a live-action television show!,) we get playgirl vs playgirl in the office…in the one department where they can’t really be in competition, but have to find ways to work together. There’s a lot of insight to the kinds of office politics one sees in large corporations – with exactly the right amount of rage as a response. ^_^ Once again, Manga Planet offers you a chance to try this out before committing, much like the characters of this story. And extra points for the stellar naming sense for It’s Personnel. ^_^
Available in English from Manga Planet
Still Sick & Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana (付き合ってあげてもいいかな) / How Do We Relationship
Both these series, Akashi’s Still Sick and Tamifull’s Tsukiatte Agetemo Iikana made this list for the same reason – they show adult relationships that have some complicating factors. Personal experience and external influence both have impact on the characters here, which means that these are not necessarily the healthiest relationships. As Yuri develops as a genre, I don’t want our romances to become WE TV, with endless flogging of stereotypes and trauma to create the tension, but it’s also good to have more than one-note romances on our shelves. Both these series have characters we’re rooting for…even as we can see they have a lot of stuff to work through.
Still Sick is available in English from Tokyopop
How Do We Relationship is available in English from Viz Media.
Yamada to Kase-san (山田と加瀬さん) / Kase-san and Yamada
In Yamada to Kase-san we encounter old friends once again. Having left their hometown and traveled to the big city, both Yamada and Kase-san are now spending their days building adult lives, making friends and trying to fit each other into this new construct. There is no doubt that they love each other a great deal, and it is a joy to be able to continue to watch over them as they build their lives together..and to know that we’ll get to spend more time with the characters we’ve grown to care about. What a great way celebrate our tenth anniversary with this series!
Available in English from Seven Seas.
Yagate Kimi ni Naru (やがて君になる) / Bloom Into You
Yagate Kimi ni Naru makes the list for three reasons, all of which are meaningful to me as a reader, as a reviewer and as a fan of Yuri. Let’s take them in reverse order. As a fan, I am delighted that a whole new crop of folks have discovered Yuri through this series as their “gateway Yuri.” ^_^
As a reader, this series provided me with both a lesbian character and functional adult role models for that character – the two things which were my favorite quality about the story…then gave me the added bonus of light novels telling that character’s story in more detail. As a reviewer, the journey we took in this series felt whole. We didn’t stop midway, there weren’t handwaves where they just would go on to be happy off-screen; there was a terrific balance between school life romance and bildungsroman. It felt…complete and well told. At the beginning I had so many doubts, but by the end, I had none. And for all of that, Bloom Into You definitely deserves a place on this year’s top list.
Available in English from Seven Seas
Éclair Yuri Anthology series
If you are a regular reader here at Okazu, you know how important a place in the history of Yuri I give to anthologies. They gave Yuri creators a community where there was none previously, they give established creators a place to expand their art and a place for introducing new creators to a wider audience. I am delighted once again that you’ve had the opportunity to experience a Yuri anthology series, with all of it’s varieties of creators and stories so that you can decide for yourself whose work you love. For their importance in the past, the present and, I hope, the future, the Éclair Yuri anthology series makes this list.
Available in English from Yen Press
The next four manga are all basically tied for first, because they share a key quality among them that I believe is the single most important quality in any media I want to see right now:
Hello Melancholic! (ハロー、メランコリック!)
This is one of two series on this list that is not translated. I hope that will change. I’ve loved Ohsawa Yayoi’s work for years. She’s got a way with characterization that is wholly unique and her art style has really developed into something stylish and fun. Hello Melancholic, a tale of a girl who is able to rekindle her love for music, touched me. The characters around her all felt real and…fun. It was a story about finding love – and about finding and learning to believe in one’s self.
It just wrapped up in Japanese and I really hope that you’ll all be able to experience it one day in English. Because it is just…lovely.
Kaketa Tsuki to Doughnuts (欠けた月とドーナッツ) / Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon
Hinako is a woman who has been told her entire life that she must present herself in a certain way, and seek certain things from her life. In Kaketa Tsuki to Doughnuts, despite the fact that it made her miserable, she never questioned any of it, until she meets someone at work who simply ignores all the rules. As her life begins to change, Hinako discovers herself and love. I love Usui Shio’s art. It’s everything I want in a Jousei romance story.
It’s a pleasure to know that shortly you’ll be able to enjoy this series along with me, as Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon. I hope you find it as quietly triumphant as I do.
Available in English from Seven Seas
Itoshi Koishi (いとしこいし)
Takemiya Jin is a fixture here on my end-of-year lists. I really wish someone would license her work, because she is the one manga artist working in what we might now call “mainstream Yuri” manga who consistently has lesbian representation in her work.
This year, in Itoshi Koishi, we got a character who knew who she is and what was important to her and knew she wanted to share it all with her closest friends. It took a few volumes, but when Hina comes out to her best friends, they reiterate their love and acceptance for her. It was a beautiful manga about a couple that is supportive and caring and who are supported and cared for in return.
Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている) / Our Teachers are Dating!
In Ohi Pikachi’s series, Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru (羽山先生と寺野先生は付き合っている), Hayama Asuka and Terano Saki are two adult women who find love for the first time and everyone around them is so charmed by their pure joy in each other, that there is complete approval from their peers, their administration, their students, random strangers on the street….
As a parable of acceptance, it’s perfect. As a model of what can be, it’s the kind of fantasy I want a million tons of, until I get sick of it, thank you very much. Ohi Pikachi’s art is adorable and sexy. Asuka and Saki’s love and their joy in one another is wholly adult and totally squee-worthy. I hope you’re reading Our Teachers Are Dating and enjoying it all, too! This is Yuri manga presenting the world I want to see. ^_^
Available in English from Seven Seas
By now, you may have figured out what all these have in common. Love and acceptance of self was the theme of the year. All the best Yuri Manga of 2020 was about learning to love and accept one’s self, and be accepted in return. 2020 is the year of “acceptance fantasy” in Yuri and I am totally here for it. ^_^
As always, please feel free to share your top yuri manga of the year in the comments!
Excellent list as always, Erica! I’ll also be posting my full best of list with many of the same titles on twitter… soon, when I finish reading the books I know will probably get on my list but haven’t actually read yet. >_<
The one thing I'd add is I Love You So Much, I Hate You, also from the author of It's Personnel. It scratched that itch of "somewhat 'trashy', but the kind that explores the difficult emotions other stories can't" manga/anime that I need itching once or twice a year. Aside from an imo rushed-seeming ending, this did what it set out to do very well.
That’s a fair add, I do love Yuni’s work generally. ^_^
And thank you for all your help this year. You’ve been a terrific help and it’s always a pleasure to work with you. ^_^
Hayama-sensei to Terano-sensei ha Tsukiatteiru is that good? My future work is related to school, but because of my salinity towards yuri SoL, I reread your reviews several times, but could not dare to start it.
This was a great year for manga!
From this list, I enjoyed “Tsukiatte Agetemo ii…” and “Kase-san…”.
The series I reviewed this year, “Ichido dakedemo…” has turned out to be a continuously sweet, enjoyable adult life yuri story.
Other good manga I read this year:
性教育１２０％ – This is a surprisingly frank and entertaining manga about sex-ed. Not “yuri” but addresses gender and sexuality issues nicely.
I’ve continued to enjoy Sal Jiang’s art – she features a variety of women’s body types and also lets her characters be, frankly, nasty people sometimes. If you’re getting tooth decay from all the impossibly fluffy romances, Sal is a great palate cleanser.
ガンブレッドｘシスターズ : Sexy nuns with guns fight superpowered vampires? This is pure exploitive yuri trash, but I do enjoy reading it, so help me. (Guilty pleasure I guess!) It shares a lot of things in common with Murcielago – messy, violent art, absurd character designs, trashy sex – but it has some great action, great character hooks, and I always appreciate a story with yuri where the romance isn’t the actual plot.
怪獣色の島 is a nice little mystery yuri story about a pretty runaway with mysterious abilities that befriends a tomboyish loner in a backwater island town. Gives off some Blue Drop vibes to me in the central relationship (a good thing, since I liked that series.)
花に嵐 has continued to be my favorite of the schoolgirl romance series. Nanoha and Chidori’s daily life is a fun distraction, they are relatable and believable, and there’s just enough progress and drama in the story to sustain interest.
Stuff that Didn’t Stick the Landing:
Lily Marble, a fitfully entertaining look at the relationships of the staff and clients at a fitness center, fizzled out this year after getting the axe for one reason or another. I liked the art a lot and the オトメの帝国 like omnibus look at the various type of yuri and yuri-adjacent relationships of adult women. But it didn’t really get the time to wrap up properly.
制服のヴァンピレスロード : Yes, vampires, but the art was elegant and the main character’s effortless charming of all the girls in her orbit was fun. Unfortunately, the mangaka never really took the story anywhere, and her main character was too perfect – there was literally no downside to her vampirism and everyone loved her. Another one that got canceled and wrapped in a hurry in lackluster fashion.
It came out last year but I didn’t find it until this year: 私以外人類全員百合. This seems to be the first and only yuri work by this mangaka, and it kind of shows. The art is clean and pretty, and the story starts with a little bit of complexity and intrigue, but it ends up being some fairly generic sci-fi/fantasy hokum with a rushed finale.
New trend this year: artists’ gimmick Twitter threads that evolve into kinda nice little stories. e.g: JKちゃんと男性同級生のおかん, Byte’s 地味子とギャル series, Kishi Torajirou’s Ui and Yaaya short.
Picking up where last year left off: Seems like this year continued the trend from last year of stories in and around lesbian sex work and brothels. Most of the stories weren’t that great, but I at least appreciate media that gives positive, sympathetic portrayal of sex workers (even if I doubt any of them were particularly realistic.)
Totally agree about 花に嵐. I was sure I’d see it licensed by now.
I also agree on Lily Marble. I wanted something from it that it did not have.
Not on this list, but something I really like that you might is 百合と声と風纏い. It’s not breaking new ground but it has a LOT of potential to do good things.
Yes, the sex workers stuff really doesn’t seem to be focusing on anything important, just sort of lumping it into accessible fantasy.
Thanks for the recommendation, I will look into it for sure!