Slightly more than 20 years ago, Rica Takashima and I hosted Yuricon 2005 in Tokyo. Ichijinsha had just bought Yuri Shimai magazine and was relaunching it as a new Yuri manga magazine. The editor-in-chief at the time came to Yuricon 2005 and asked about the name “Yuri Shimai.” The event attendees and guests were pretty ambivalent about that name and recommended they change it and few months later, Yuri Hime magazine launched. It was quarterly at first. Then in the late 00s, it split into two separate magazines  – Yuri Hime, and Yuri Hime S, nominally “for women” and “for men”. These were quarterly on different schedules, so fans of Yuri could get up to 8 issues a year. 

In 2011, Comic Yuri Hime was relaunched once again as a bimonthly manga magazine. And, in 2017, Comic Yuri Hime relaunched as the first and only monthly Yuri manga magazine.

Today we celebrate 20 year of Comic Yuri Hime from Ichijinsha. Congratulations! It’s been an incredible two decades and I’m glad I’ve been able to be along for the whole ride so far. ^_^

Comic Yuri Hime, September 2025 (コミック百合姫2025年9月号) is an extra thick 772 page extravaganza of Yuri. Beginning with a beautiful celebratory cover, featuring our protagonists in festive kimono at 20 years old, naturally. Kimono patterns and confetti are given a gold gloss for a very luxurious feel. Today, they and we are together, celebrating the love of women. 

I’m not going to give a rundown of all the individual series this time, but I do want to mention that I am very much enjoying the series that focus on strong-willed women and girls finding ways to get what they want done – there are many of these right now and it feels so good to read these, along with more conventional high school stories. There is plenty of “adult” content for those that like that, and still a nice pile of fantasy and isekai and a bit of science fiction. I’m still waiting for sports queer comic is iespecially but we have some great action, and smart women making positive change.

We’ve come a very long way in 20 years and there is still a long way to go. Queer media is once again under attack globally, queer comic especially so. So while we celebrate where we have been and what we have done, I ask you all to please continue supporting Yuri and queer manga. We need unity and strength now to protect what we have gained against the forces that seek to – again- shove us back in closets and silence us. Sing your queer songs, write your queer stories, draw your queer comics!

And on behalf of Comic Yuri Hime and Yuricon – thank you for your support of Yuri!