Table of Contents
All The Things
Top 10 Yuri Series
Top 3 Yuri Series of 2022
Well my goodness. 2022 was…amazing. Not only do we have so much Yuri this year – and so much to look forward to next year – that it is too much to contemplate without my head spinning a bit. But I am going to do my best to put together a list that gives you a feel of just how incredible the year has been. Because I’m doing the same format as last year, this is not a countdown, it’s a list of media I read, watched, wrote, spoke and thought about in 2022, at least partially in the order of the amount of time I spent on that thing. ^_^
All of this is wildly capricious and has been subject to multiple alterations. This year was particularly hard with so, so much Yuri media from so many different countries and in different forms. But, we have to start somewhere.
All The Things
This category represents the ecosystem for Yuri. Upstream from me are the creators, publishers, distributors, stores and shows and downstream are all the folks who engage with and consume my content about the upstream stuff! I do not and cannot engage with all media, and there are multiple formats that I never engage with. So here are my broadest thoughts about things that strike me as top trends and concepts to be thankful for this year. ^_^
Publishers and Magazines
I stopped listing all the publishers who publish Yuri when it became almost all the publishers in the US and Japan. This year, I’d like to thank all the publishers from all the other countries who have been or are picking up Yuri licenses from Japan and translating their own native titles. We’ve seen a dam break in Thailand, France, Vietnam, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, and many other countries where Yuri fandoms are growing. While there are way too many to list now, I once again want to nod in sincere thanks to all of the US publishers who have invested in Yuri…and even more, in openly queer works this past year.
I also want to take a moment to celebrate Galette magazine’s 5th year and Comic Yuri Hime‘s continued success as a monthly , as well. Having two “Yuri” magazines as anchors and many others running Yuri content, will never get old. ^_^
Okazu Patrons, Supporters, Reviewers, Correspondents and Commenters and Staff
Once more I’d like to take a moment thank all of you.
To those of you who financially support our efforts here at Okazu, Yuri Studio and Yuricon on Patreon and Kofi- because of you, we’ve been able to run 260 posts with a full 10% of those being guest reviews this year. We were able to do 9 Yuri Studio videos this year, 6 of them for the official Season 3. Saying “I could not do it without you,” seems banal, but it’s true. Thank you all so much.
To Okazu readers and commenters – I appreciate your comments and very especially your different perspectives. Thank you for correcting me, or just disagreeing from time to time. It keeps me thinking.
And my very warm thanks to those members of the Okazu community who write Guest Reviews! I love having your thoughts about the Yuri you love (or not) here for us to learn from and enjoy. Many thanks to the YNN Correspondents, you are my eyes and ears and I delight in the news you send me!
Not lastly, thank you to everyone who has helped out on the back end: Ashley and my wife, and everyone else who has made things like logos and formats and translations and stuff I use every day that don’t get seen by everyone. I’m really hoping we can grow the Patreon a little next year so I can hire someone to help out with the Yuricon Store. There’s so much to do and my time to do it gets smaller every week. Yay staff, thank you so much for your help. Could not do it all with you.
Thai Live Drama
This year Thai Drama slammed otself into the Yuri stage with pyrotechnics. Thai BL is going strong and, based on the number of likes and views, it looks like Thai GL is going great gangbusters. We’re looking at a number of new series for the new year. How exciting! Because the push to specifically create and promote Yuri content is pretty new in Thailand, I wanted to give it a nod here.
Webnovels/Light Novels
I don’t even know where to begin with these. There are so many actually decent Yuri webnovels and light novels ….and a lot of trashy ones…that I just wanted to nod to the category as a whole. The good ones may be good, but I think we should also appreciate some of the trash like Girls’ Kingdom and Kunoichi Bettegumi Igarashi Satsuki, which are not literature, but are fun as heck. ^_^ Sure, we’ll talk about a key series or ten here on Okazu, but when I look back at light novel reviews here, wow, have we come so far from forgettable, laughably awful stuff that I used to review in the 00s. (Cough/Kanojo ha Megane-holic/cough). And even the not-great ones, like, oh, The Executioner and Her Way of Life are pretty decent comparatively.
But, then we have surprisingly wonderful series like The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady and, of course the force of nature that is I’m In Love With the Villainess, and we have got so say, that we have come a very, very long way.
Maybe this decade we’ll finally be worthy of the Maria-sama ga Miteru novels. ^_^;
Visual Novels
I endlessly feel bad that we don’t cover more Yuri VNs here. I don’t read them and while I get an offer of a review every once in a while, I don’t actually get finished reviews very often. I’d love to have more (pitch a review of your fave!) But there are a number of studios doing sensational Yuri work right now, from Studio Élan, Bellhouse, YuriEureka, YuriSoft Games, SukeraSparo, and MangaGamer and Lilyka who license and distribute games from Japan. So many stories, by such talented artists and writers and folks creating new ways to experience original and licensed Yuri stories, …. what a bounty we have.
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Now, it’s time to crack down and get serious about the things I thought really made the year special. These series all took up a lot of space in my head, in various media and languages. They are all notable, enjoyable and some are, IMHO, important.
I’m focusing on the English language editions where they exist, but many of these I also followed and reviewed in Japanese. The fact that we have English language releases for most of these is itself a notable thing. It wasn’t long ago that half this list was me crossing my fingers, hoping we’d hear about a license…eventually. In fact, there’s only one title on this list not licensed or released in English yet.
I’d love to hear what your favorite series were this year – drop them in the comments!
Top 10 Yuri Series
I’m waffling like crazy in this section, so let’s start, as I often do…with a tie.
The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This / Catch These Hands
It was really nice to see Ikeda Takashi to return to Yuri with The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This, a realistic, yet whimsical, story about two complete goofballs. What puts this story over the top, for me, was moments in the art that were honestly breathtaking.
This story about two women trying to make it it their respective industries is touching, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, it’s embarrassing, it’s heart-warming. It’s also such a low-key series, I’m afraid it just isn’t getting the coverage it deserves, but it was – and is, and will be, a delightful not-typical Yuri series.
I absolutely adore Catch These Hands. Both this and Two of Them are goofy, interesting, alternate visions of adult life, beyond just another office story. Not everyone works in an office or becomes a mangaka. There’s all sorts of other ways to be dysfunctional. ^_^
I just love this look at women who hit their peak in the girl gangs of high school and are flailing a bit since. How do people find their interests, build a common experience and make room for “like” and “love” when all they have ever known is rivalry and competition? Takebe and Soramori have no idea, but they are gonna try and we’re gonna root for them the whole time. ^_^
One of my favorite things about a good writer is their ability to create a premise that promises to be entertaining, then do something extra. In Yuri Is My Job, Miman reaches into the tropes of “S” for a silly, light-hearted romp. And it is very funny. …Then it gets serious and kind of touching. Now, it’s getting queerer and kind of adult and a little dark! I can’t even imagine where it’ll go next.
The art is getting better and better…and in 2023, we’ll get an anime to remind us of the things that made us laugh in the early volumes (even as we chew our fingernails at the current volume….)
A Yuri concept cafe based on a light novel series that doesn’t exist? Exactly my kind of meta. ^_^
I’ve been a huge fan of Kuzushiro’s work for ages and *finally* English-language manga publishing is catching up with me. Square Enix’s Manga-Up platform licensed Living With My Brother’s Wife, (a great series to read to watch her art improve, among other things) and even more exciting, Kodansha has licensed a manga that I genuinely think is outstanding for a number of reasons.
Amayo no Tsuki, licensed as The Moon on a Rainy Night is a gripping high school drama about a hard of hearing girl and the hearing girl that befriends and falls for, her. There are so many things I sincerely love about this story, including representation of both disability and queer life.
I’ve been reviewing Amayo no Tsuki here on Okazu since last spring – I cannot get enough of it and so look forward to when you can read this fantastic series!
Boyish² Butch x Butch Yuri Anthology
I loved everything about this crowd-funded manga anthology. I loved that I could enjoy a number of artists I already knew and learn some new names. I loved the art and the different approaches to the topic.
I loved that it was crowdfunded in Japanese and in English, proving the power of crowdfunding to reach across physical distances. And, honestly, I just loved the content.
Butch x Butch Yuri Anthology for the win and a great way to start last year! I’m hoping that 2023 will bring us more original, independent works by queer creators.
schwinn’s characters are adorable, the story is gentle and poetic. This story of two older woman changing each other’s lives is quietly thrilling. We really feel how Hanako’s small life is opened up by a chance encounter, not just to a new love, but to a whole new view of the world.
The connection with Yoshiya Nobuko’s literary masterwork is absolutely part of the hook for me…as it is for the characters. This story ties past and present together in a way that I apparently longed for…and now I have it.
Of everything on this list this year, this is the only story without a license. It is a Kadokawa title, so we’ll have to convince Yen to license it, which might be an uphill battle, but not as hard as it would have been last year. We’ll circle back to this in a bit.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury
Even before we saw G-Witch, we knew that this was a ground-breaking series. For the first time in it’s more than 40 year history, the Gundam franchise had a female protagonist. Then we saw the first episode and you could hear the shouts.
The homage to Revolutionary Girl Utena is loving, but not confining. THIS is a textbook case study of how you how you expand an audience. At no point have we felt that this series is doing Utena a disservice…nor is it disrespecting it’s own characters. Well, okay, we would have liked a dance, but we’ll take the L. ^_^
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury is doing it’s own Gundam-y things and bringing a whole new group of watchers into this beloved franchise. I’m not just watching a Gundam story – I’m enjoying it and looking forward to more. That deserves a mention on this list. ^_^
2022 was an one of the busiest years of my life. In the middle of all the many things of the year, there’s one accomplishment that stands out. I’m thrilled that I managed (with so much help from so many people, thank you to my publisher, Journey Press – check out their other titles!) to put together the book I wanted to write, the way I wanted to write it. Even more wonderful, is the fact that so many people have bought and enjoyed it!
Because of the nature of awards and audiences and whatnot, the chance my book ever gets on anyone else’s best of lists is small, so I’m damn well going to blow my own horn. ^_^
I’m proud to have put down something that will allow Yuri students and researchers a starting point for their work. (Spoiler: I have a really exciting new piece of research I’m working on that I hope will offer another cite-able foundational work, check back in the new year.) Now it’s on all of you to continue the effort and send me all of your Yuri research. ^_^
Top 3 Yuri Series
There are probably no surprises here. If you’ve spoken with me, watched me do a presentation, or been within 100 meters of me in the real world, you have heard me talk – endlessly – about these three series. Let me be clear, this is a three-way tie, because every single one of these series was fantastic in every possible way.
I’m In Love With The Villainess
If I rented space out in my head, this series – and it’s spin-off, coming out next year in English – fill an awful lot of the floors. The characters develop in unexpected ways, the portrayal and discussion of life as a sexual and gender minorities is honest and empathetic. I cannot think of a series that has engaged me in this way since Maria-sama ga Miteru. Thankfully, both of I’m In Love With the Villainess‘s publishers, GL Bunko and Ichijinsha, are very responsive to the overseas audience which, btw, inori-sensei credits as making this series as successful as it is.
Equally as important, Seven Seas has listened to us about how ground-breaking this series is, so we have the light novels, the manga, the spin-off light novels, as do other out-of-Japan markets, for translations in (I believe) 10 different languages. I do wish we got more of the physical extras here in the west, too. I’m eating my heart out from jealousy of the Vietnamese releases.
From webnovel to light novel to manga…in 2023 to anime. inori-sensei, hanagata-sensei and Aonoshimo-sensei are living the dream. We’re alongside for the whole ride. inori-sensei’s story and characters have captured our hearts. An openly queer protagonist, in a fantasy Yuri romance and we know she’ll get the girl. I can’t imagine any greater change from twenty years ago.
She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat
If I had to pick one word to describe this series, it would be remarkable.
Food and Yuri are my two favorite topics, so it was off to a good start – then it manifested qualities I long for in my Yuri, like women taking care of each other and creating a support network; women having conversations that feel real, discussion of systemic misogyny, women’s health, family trauma, lesbian identity and found family. THEN they made a fantastic live-action adaptation of this and didn’t lose any of those qualities. Outstanding. I am wholly in love with this series.
Yuzaki Sakaomi’s work is also a remarkable for what it isn’t as much as it is – this series has almost no serious conflict. Instead, it deals with small everyday life things in a wholesome and uplifting way. TsukuTabe, as it is referred to in Japan, is popular enough that the message is pretty clear – we are ready to feel happy about our life choices.
A few years ago, I might have said that something like Hana Monogatari would have no chance of licensing, but with the popularity of She Loves to Cook, She Loves To Eat, we may genuinely have a chance. Now we just have to convince Yen. ^_^ It’s time for Yuri to feel…good.
When people ask me about favorites, I always fail to respond coherently. However, at one presentation this year, I was asked two questions: What series was I most excited about watching and what was I looking forward to and the answer to both those questions was…Birdie Wing.
With roots in Yuri action series of the early 00s, and clearly made for an audience that was not us, Birdie Wing might very well be the anime I have waited for my entire life. The trailer for season two looks like they are just going to get even more Birdie Wing than the first season. In fact, I may start measuring other anime based on how amazing this one was. “Eh, it’s only 3 on a scale of Birdie Wing.” ^_^
I have been *begging* for a Yuri sports anime for years. With Birdie Wing, we got a sports anime with Yuri, that was about underground mafia golf and elite girls’ school sports clubs, with a banger opening theme and also, it was batshit and amazing.
Thank you Yuri gods for Birdie Wing. I feel blessed.
For the first time ever, we don’t have a single Best-of-the-Year series, we have three extraordinary, completely different series, for completely different reasons and there wasn’t a single one of them that was less good than the other two.
The Okazu Top Yuri this year were LGBTQ+ isekai fantasy I’m In Love With the Villainess, LGBTQ+ josei manga and live-action She Loves To Cook, She Loves To Eat, and wholly unrealistic fanatsy sports anime Birdie Wing.
An abundance of riches indeed.
As we head into 2023 we already have 2 second seasons, 3 confirmed and one potential Yuri anime before the year even begins. Next year is going to be off the charts for Yuri.
Here is to an amazing year for all of us!
