Did I say 2025 was a great year for Yuri? Well hold on to your hats, because 2026 is going to blow your hair back!
Our first announcement of 2026 is Hajimete no Yuri Studies: Queer/Feminist no Shiten Kara (はじめての百合スタディーズ: クィア/フェミニストの視点から) from Ohta Publishing. While there have been some mooks and an issue of Eureka, a literary magazine, this is the first serious book by a commercial publisher on Yuri as a genre in Japanese. In fact, one of the authors, Mizukami-san commented on X that the success of this book will likely set the tone for Yuri research publishing, so if it is successful, that would be huge.
The main part of this book is a conversation between three feminist Yuri otaku, Nakamura Kasumi, Kondoh Ginga, and Mizukami Aya on the history of Yuri, it’s relationship to lesbian lives, unique issues in Yuri and more. I am honored to have been able to contribute an essay on the history of Yuri in the USA and there is a second essay on the history of Yuri by Shinada Reika, a Yuri researcher from Tokyo University.
In 2023, I had the genuine pleasure of visiting Nakamura Kasumi-sensei’s class at Keio Unversity. After my presentation, we went to lunch with some of the students and had the most wonderful conversation about queer manga and Yuri and BL (in the very elite academic environment of the formal faculty dining room, not at all the kind of place one talks about such things, which we all kinda loved.) This book feels like the continuation of that conversation and frankly, I cannot wait to read the other parts of the book!
I must stress how amazing it is to have a book about Yuri in Japanese from such fantastic scholars and from a queer and feminist perspective. I know when I wrote my book, that was part of my motivation – to get a queer and feminist reading out there first, so it lays the groundwork for research that comes after it. To have such incredible people take up the mantle for Japanese scholarship and do the same thing is beyond thrilling.
Ohta Books has made the introduction by Mizukami Aya available to read in Japanese for free.
Last, but not at all least, the cover is by Morishima Akiko-sensei whose artwork for same-sex marriage and her own manga has long championed queer narratives. I almost cried when I saw that she has drawn the cover. It’s really perfect. ^_^
For the moment, for outside of Japan, Amazon JP is your best bet for purchase, but feel free to ask other outlets, like Kinokuniya USA to carry it.
When I began Yuricon in 2000, our mission was to build a bridge between queer Yuri fans in Japan and the west. With this book, that goal is achieved. This year, I’m going to have to create a new mission statement for real. ^_^
Thank you to Suga-san at Ohta books for being fantastic, and to Nakamura-sensei, Kondoh-sensei, and Mizukami-sensei for letting me part of this project! Go, run, pre-order the book and enjoy this on-going conversation about Yuri.
