Archive for the History of Yuri Category


Journey Through the First 100 Years of Yuri Manga with Erica Friedman By Your Side

February 18th, 2021

It’s official! I and Journey Press are pleased to announce By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Manga & Anime.

The term “Yuri” began life as a coded reference to lesbianism within manga and anime genres, but in the last two decades has been shaped by creators, publishers and fans into a genre of its own. Though Yuri as a genre is a modern development, it has a century of artistic and literary history behind it. In “By Your Side: The First 100 Year of Yuri,” we take a stroll through that history, from Yoshiya Nobuko’s pioneering works for young women in 1920s Japan, to current 21st century trends in webcomics, light novels, visual novels, events, manga and more.

Factual, funny and highly entertaining, By Your Side is a series of interlocking essays, articles and lectures from Friedman’s work on Yuri anime and manga. Meant to be approached as informal discussion in the manner of convivial conversation over multiple dinners, or panels at an anime convention, through these essays, readers will become familiar with the key creators, tropes, concepts, symbols and titles of the first 100 years of the Yuri genre. Walk by our side as we journey through the past, present and future of Yuri!

By Your Side is scheduled for a June 2022 release, in time for both Pride Month and the 20th anniversary of Okazu, the oldest and  most comprehensive site on Yuri in any language.

 

About Erica Friedman

Erica holds a Masters Degree in Library Science and a B.A. in Comparative Literature, and is a full-time researcher for a Fortune 100 company. She has lectured at dozens of conventions and presented at film festivals, notably the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. She has participated in an academic lecture series at MIT, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Harvard University, Kanagawa University, and others.

She has edited manga for JManga, Seven Seas and Udon Entertainent, most recently Riyoko Ikeda’s epic historical classic, The Rose of Versailles.

Erica has written about Yuri for Japanese literary journal Eureka,  Animerica magazine, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund,  Dark Horse, and contributed to Forbes, Slate, Huffington Post, Hooded Utilitarian, and The Mary Sue online. The founder of Yuricon, she has written news and event reports, interviews Yuri creators and reviews Yuri anime, manga and related media on her blog Okazu since 2002.

 

About Journey Press

Journey Press was born in 2019 with the goal of bringing unusual and diverse science fiction to the forefront of the publishing landscape. They are dedicated to supporting the women and queer people who have been erased from the history books and reprinting novels that fell by the wayside, in addition to publishing new novels by creators of all types.

For interviews, signings or appearances please contact Erica Friedman

https://www.yuricon.com/contact-yuricon/

For all other publicity, please contact Christine Sandquist at [email protected]

Contact Us

 

 





Weekly Magazine WOMAN, Volume 3 Summer (週刊文春WOMAN 夏号)

August 9th, 2020

In September 2019, when I was in Japan for the 100 Years of Yuri Tour, I had an item on my to-buy list that I honestly expected to have difficulty finding. Shunkanbunshun WOMAN, Volume 3 Natsugou (週刊文春WOMAN 夏号). This mook is a several-times a year special edition that is somewhere between a literary and a lifestyle magazine, addressing topics of interest to women or about women. It’s not a fashion/makeup magazine, although the advertising is, clearly, fashion and makeup.  Summer 2019 included tｗo articles of interest to me and I hoped I’d be able to find it. It was a wildcard on my list, and I honestly expected to have to special order it. I was surprised to find it pretty much in every place I shopped. Luck of the draw, undoubtedly.

In any case, it has taken me almost a year to crack it open to read Yamawaki Asou’s article “Ima Yuri Manga ga Omoshiroi!” – presumably riffing on the popular publication, Kono Manga ga Sugoi!. The article is, itself, pretty interesting. It includes feedback from Comic Yuri Hime editor Umezawa Kanako and columnist Fukusawa Maki, and it includes a number of very gratifying quotes by manga scholar Fujimoto Yukari. I say gratifying, because she and I have discussed the series she talks about many times together, so when she calls Shiroi Heya no Futari by Yamagishi Ryouko a “protoype” Yuri, it feels like a win for me. There’s also a discussion of the changing demographics of the fandom and how the content has shifted to accommodate those changes.

It’s a pretty good overview of Yuri, the changes we’ve seen over the decades, and the reasons for them. There’s a little bit about overseas fandom and a nice wrap up of the kind of “shakaijin” Yuri we’re seeing now. The article also mentions the inclusion of LGBTQ characters and issues in recent years The manga included was also a generally good selection of “best of breed” from the last two decades. With one exception – I will never, ever really understand how Yuru Yuri gets on Yuri lists, when there’s so little Yuri as to be negligible. . I think the list was worth reading, though, and reminded me I really need to read Yamashita Tomoko’s Ikoku Nikki (違国日記, which has been on my eventually to get to list for a couple of years, now.

Following this article is an interview with Shimura Takako, creator of Aoi Hana and Otono ni Nattemo, among other titles. It goes pretty well for an interview with a manga creator, although there were no amazing insights.

Ratings

Overall – A very solid 8

I’m pleased I was able to get this magazine and pleased that the summer of our 100 years of Yuri included this review of the genre for a – hopefully – new audience!

 





Why Are There So Many Schoolgirls In Yuri?

July 12th, 2020

Thanks to our Okazu Patrons for their support and feedback, we hope you enjoy the premiere of our first video from Yuri Studio 3.0. In this first of a series of videos about Yuri History, I answer the most common question I get about Yuri.

If you’ve ever wondered why Yuri anime and Yuri manga seem to be so often set in schools, watch this video to find out the answer!

Please consider subscribing to Yuri Studio, liking the video and all that, because YouTube is watching over us. ^_^





Kabi Nagata: Opening Doors at an Intersection

February 16th, 2020

Students of literature or art often find themselves reading analysis of an author’s work long past the author’s own lifetime, whether it be Edgar Allen Poe or Murasaki Shikibu. Manga and anime studies are not that old and, as a result, when one begins to study manga and anime in earnest, one sometimes encounters an unusual phenomenon – the subject of one’s research is often alive and still creating. Sure you might read about Tezuka Osamu, but you might also find yourself reading works by or about Riyoko Ikeda.

A few years ago, I reviewed a manga that had been getting a lot of buzz in Japan. Based on an online diary, Sabishi-sugi Rezu Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report (さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ) was breaking barriers and breaking sales records. The story itself – a manga autobiography of living with crushing depression and an eating disorder – was, I thought, unlikely to get an English translation. While diary comics had been published in translation previously, they were usually the work of well-established “elder” artists, such as Yoshihiro Tatsumi‘s A Drifting Life. Looking back at our own life in retrospect is, to some extent, the function of autobiography. So, even though we, as readers, have become more accustomed to the idea of the “real-time” diaries of social media as a way to understand our worlds in the form of blogs and social media posts, we don’t automatically assign that kind of communication a “literary” status until they become retrospective. Kabi Nagata changed that, in actual real time, while we watched.

By using social tools like Pixiv, and Twitter, Nagata gathered a global following with her diary – which was published in English in 2017 as best-selling manga My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, proving me happily wrong.

It’s not often that we are able to see as an entire industry makes a shift into new territory right in front of us. It’s much more common that we only notice that change as we look back and learn about an artist’s contributions to their oeuvre after they are gone, like Julius Eastman‘s foundational work in downtown music. And so, I want to take a moment today to acknowledge what Kabi Nagata has done for manga, before she’s even had a chance to finish doing it.

 

Comic Essay

In the 2000s when I first started picking up Feel Young and other Josei magazines, among the manga included was a daily diary by well-known manga artist Erica Sakurazawa. She drew about her family and the kinds of typical situations in which an adult woman might find herself. This was my first encounter with what would soon become known as the “Comic Essay” genre. Common in magazines for woman, these comic essays by women gave the readers the sense that they were seen – that their lives were understood. Sakurazawa has continued to put out diary-style manga, as well as fiction and currently publishes comics on her blog as well as in print.

As the 2000s progressed, the “Comic Essay” section of Japanese bookstores grew in size. More artists contributed tales of child-bearing and child-raising. By the 2010s some of the top names in Jousei manga were drawing daily life comic essays.  Comic essays are not only for or about women, consider Junji Ito’s Cat Diary, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that autobiographical comics resonate very strongly for women. Where men’s autobiographies tend to be bildungsroman about their adolescent development into adulthood, women’s autobiographies often center their ordinary lives, giving visibility to what remains invisible. Moyoco Anno’s manga about her life with her husband, celebrated anime director Hideaki Anno, Insufficient Direction, is a comedic essay about the ordinariness of two extraordinary people’s lives together. Comic essays remain a popular format for the display of women’s inner lives. Princess Jellyfish creator Akiko Higashimura has found a whole new kind of success with her autobiographical essay series Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey.

In the west, the artist who has seen the greatest commercial success with comic essays of her own life, is Raina Telegemeier, whose Smile, Sisters, and Guts gave voice to tween and teen girls worldwide. (Middle-grade readers are traditionally ignored by superhero comics companies but, are in actual fact, one of the top market for comics.) The editorial copy for Guts is telling, “Raina Telegemeier once again brings us a thoughtful, charming, and funny true story about growing up and gathering the courage to face — and conquer — her fears.” This is exactly the function of comic essays – uncovering those inner demons;low self-esteem, illness, even boredom and complacency in a relationship, and normalizing them. This is my life, comic essays say, this is your life.

By the 2010s, artists all over the globe were using social communities to draw their comic and manga essays. So when Nagata began her comic diary on art platform Pixiv, she was joining a tradition of great artists before her and bringing the format to a whole new generation of people. With My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Nagata, like Telegemeier, stood at the intersection of life and health and threw the door open.

 

Graphic Medicine Manga

Among things that are universally “not to be discussed at the dinner table” universe, mental health and illness are right up there among the top, along with sex and politics. Humans are still unsure of how to deal with mental health, both medically and socially.  For anyone in any media to admit to depression is still considered a form of “coming out” – an act of making public what is treated as a private burden.

In her first book, Nagata-sensei took her depression, the physical manifestations of that depression, and how it created an inability to form intimate relationships, into the public eye for people to see and comment on. Even behind a mask of pseudonymity, this was an act of bravery. And it was an act that changed people’s lives, as readers online thanked her and started sharing their own stories in her comments. What had been a purely private issue, something to not-be-discussed, was being uncovered and talked about.

While in the west comics creators were birthing a new graphic medicine genre with works like Jennifer Hayden’s The Story of My Tits, Nagata-sensei had opened the door to real stories of real people dealing with mental health issues in manga form.

Following the success of her first book, she continued her comic diary online. While working through her physical ailments, she started to have energy to address her relationship with her family and her desire and inability to build connections with other people. These became her series Hitori Koukan Nikki (一人交換日記), which were published in English as My Solo Exchange Diary,  Volume 1 and Volume 2.

In the meantime, other manga artists had taken the opportunity to “come out” about mental health, as well. Akiko Morishima drew a lovely comic essay about living with ADHD in Otona no Hattatsu Shougai Kamoshirenai!? (おとなの発達障害かもしれない! ?). Morishima is known as a long-time Yuri artist with a very cute style of art. Her gentle art style doesn’t make the story any less powerful as she searches for ways to move forward with her new understanding, in a similar-yet-different path to Nagata’s own quest.

Yet another door has been opened, and I don’t think we’re likely to see it shut again. As mental health becomes increasingly de-stigmatized by those artists speaking up in public and normalizing mental health issues as just another kind of medical issue, it is likely to become more common, not less, to see more graphic medicine manga.

 

Queer Narrative

In western comics, the coming out narrative is so common, so expected, that even now I find myself surprised when I read a book or comic that doesn’t have at least a scene dedicated to the big reveal…even if, ultimately, that isn’t a thing for the other characters in a book. If there’s a defining quality to “coming out” in novels here in the USA in 2020, it’s that…it’s not a thing at all. Bye-bye coming out as trauma, we won’t miss you!

But manga is not science fiction, or YA, manga is another medium from a country that is slowly and steadily working towards LGBTQ equality, but is not there, not yet. Nonetheless, even in an industry as frequently heteronormative and conservative as manga publishing, queer-facing comics (as opposed to straight-facing comics about being sexual and gender minorities, like Gengoroh Tagame’s mainstream men’s manga My Brother’s Husband or Chii’s transgender life comic essay, The Bride Was a Boy,) are creeping in; artistic wildflowers growing up in the midst of a paved walkway. Takemiya Jin is one of the handful of out lesbian manga artists in Japan; her series Itoshi Koishi is an unusual Yuri manga that shows a young lesbian’s life as a wholly positive experience. Her older lover is kind and supportive and never pressures her in any way to do anything; her friends adore her and yet, when she feels that she wants to come out to them, she still feels stress. Coming out, which until recently was a hand-of-god narrative complication, resulting in loss of family, friends, and jobs, is less likely to be so dramatic these days, but it’s never easy.

One of the  – even fewer –  comic essays written by and about a woman in a relationship with another woman is in the same magazine that carried Itoshi Koishi, Comic Yuri Hime, a monthly Yuri manga magazine. Notice I don’t say it is a “lesbian comic”, or even a comic essay about lesbian life. For a monthly magazine that prints Yuri manga, there have been few lesbians in the 15 years of the magazine’s run.

So, when Nagata writes about herself in her first book, “By the way– when it comes to free hugs, gender doesn’t matter to me. But for anything more that that, I’d only want to purse it with a woman.” she joined that handful of out lesbian manga artists. That her narrative is not about being gay, but about her relationship with her body, with how she relates to (or doesn’t relate to) the world, does not change that her entire story is a queer woman’s story. And with that, Nagata flung open a third door in which a creator can relate with honesty, their sexuality and their relationship to their body.

 

Not “The End” 

Nagata’s story is not over. This article is not a retrospective of an influential artist’s life and work after their death. Nagata is creating new work, even as we speak. She has fiction manga coming out shortly in an anthology and her own collection. She’s doing cover illustration and, while all of that is happening, she’s still telling her readers the stories about her life, her health, her trials and tribulations.

Like other comic essayists, Nagata has already given voice and visibility to people whose stories have been obscured. Here at the intersection, she’s laid groundwork for people to discuss their mental health and for queer folks to speak of their lives matter-of-factly.

In her most recent book, Genjitsu Touhishitetara Boroboro ni Natta Hanashi (現実逃避してたらボロボロになった話), Nagata chronicles even more serious physical ailments, this time pancreatitis as a side effect of alcohol abuse. We ride along as she once again pulls herself out of a  deep well made in conjunction with the imbalanced chemical cocktail of her brain and body. It’s a testament to her strength of will (and a functional national healthcare system) that she is still capable of healing.

More importantly, as we read about her desire to create new, non-essay work, it’s a testament to her creative drive, her artistic and narrative abilities, that from inside all of these mental and physical health crises, there is a talented and unique voice who wants to be seen and heard. Perhaps then, she has more doors to blast through, as she gives voice to creatives  whose work, rendered obscure by illness, poverty, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, skin color, ability or other forms of marginalization, find something in her story to resonate to.

Nagata has already changed what we read and how we read it, so it seems very fitting to also let her be the person who changes how we recognize that kind of paradigm shift, as well. Her body of work is notable enough that it’s worth noting now, during her life. I hope this will inspire other people to do more analysis of her work while she is still creating it and change the way literary critics will have to approach literary criticism for some time to come. ^_^





100 Years of Yuri 2020 Project, by Erica Friedman

January 5th, 2020

Welcome to the final post of the 100 Years of Yuri 2020 Project! With this post, the first centennial anniversary of the Yuri genre is complete. We can walk forward into a new century, assured in the knowledge that we have absolutely no idea at all what will happen. ^_^

One of the most often-asked questions I get is “where do I start?” when it comes to reading and watching Yuri. My criteria for this list was simple: Answer that question using primarily English-language releases (as the readership for Okazu is primarily, although not exclusively, English readers.) This list is an attempt to trace the evolution of the Yuri genre over 100 years. These choices will help you understand where the tropes of our genre came from and how they developed. The series mentioned here had massive influence on our perception of Yuri. There are still a few critical pieces that are not yet available in English – I hope that one day I’ll be able to say they are. In the meantime, I’ve added them in in Japanese, for those of you who are dedicated to learning more about the origins of the genre.

I’m presenting these choices in chronological order, from earliest to most recent. Here are my recommendations to understand 100 years of of the Yuri genre.

Titles have been edited so series available in English use official English-language titles, and Japanese-only titles are in Romaji (with Kanji in parentheses).

 

Yaneura no Nishojo (屋根裏の二処女) by Yoshiya Nobuko
Yoshiya Nobuko’s story about two girls living in the attic room of a foreign-run mission school is the origin for so many of the tropes we have come to expect from Yuri – from the tower room itself, to an intimate piano duet.

Akiko, who take three pages to open a door when we meet her, does not hesitate to take Akitsu’s hand and go to the outside world, together, a choice echoed by two women who lived in a tower almost a century later in Revolutionary Girl Utena.

We would not speak of or think of Yuri in the way we do now, if it weren’t for this foundational work, Yaneura no Nishojo.

 

 

Yellow Rose by Yoshiya Nobuko
In the first part of the 20th century, as the “S” aesthetic was sweeping Japan and creating a culture for girls, Yoshiya Nobuko’s serialized short stories of the lives of young women were wildly popular. Hana Monogatari represented girls’ lives as they moved out of school into adult life. The protagonists of these stories often embraced new technologies so instead of marrying, they lived independent lives as working women.

Yellow Rose is the only one of these stories available in English. Translated by Dr. Sarah Frederick, published digitally by Expanded Editions, this short, but intense, story captures the feel of classic Japanese literature and the sense of the dawning of a completely modern age. Trains and typewriters loom as large as Sappho and her poetry in this fascinating, darkly emotional tale about unexpected feelings of attraction and loss. This is an excellent place to start with in your English-language journey through Yuri.

 

 

Princess Knight by Osamu Tezuka
The Yuri trope of the Girl Prince has roots going back to the Heian period, but as far as manga is concerned, this is where it began. Tezuka, known as the “god of manga.” captured the glamour of the all-woman musical revue named for the town he lived in, Takarazuka, added a bit of Disney flair, spiced it up with a little gender-bending to create Ribon no Kishi, Princess Knight (Volume 1 |  Volume 2) available from Vertical Publishing. This book is technically out of print. Consult your local library to get it by Interlibrary Loan.

Sapphire is born to be the Prince of her country except that, as a girl, she can’t rule. But because she has the heart of a man and a woman, and to stave off the evil Duke, Sapphire grows up acting as the Prince. Her boy heart give her athletic and ruling abilities, but her girl heart makes her yearn for love and beautiful gowns.  This story relies on mid-century gender stereotypes, but it is the origin of a theme we will see over and over again in Yuri; the blending of male and female in a noble Girl Prince.

 

 

Shiroi Heya no Futari (白い部屋のふたり) by Yamagishi Ryoko
There’s always controversy around the “first” anything, but if there is a single manga that has claim to being the first truly “Yuri” manga, Yamagishi Ryoko’s Shiroi Heya no Futari is the leading candidate. It codified Yuri tropes visually, in the same way Yoshiya’s novel Yaneura no Nishojo did thematically.

Emotionally high-strung traditional Japanese beauty Simone and cheerful and European doll-like Resine meet in a foreign mission school. Both of them outsiders to the school, they share an attic room where they fall in love. But there can be no happy ending for them, so Simone runs off to die a tragic death (one that immediately recalls American lesbian pulp novels of the time) to “free” Resine to marry.

Almost 50 years later, we still see the ripples of Simone and Resine in other popular Yuri series about a romance between an emotionally unbalanced dark-haired beauty and a cheerful girl, most recently saburouta’s Citrus. Shiroi Heya no Futari is long out of print and not available in English, but I hope one day to be able say that this classic Yuri manga is heading our way, if only to share the “original” Yuri manga with you.

 

 

The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda
Sometimes it is easy to look back and see why a thing sparked the zeitgeist. Timeless tales told with high drama, history as seen through a modern lens; the human drama of human drama is always popular.

The French Revolution is so enormous that it may be best told as one person’s story. Whether we follow Jean Valjean or Oscar François de Jarjayes, seeing the events from one perspective gives us a place to start as the grand and ghastly true tale unfolds. With such epic historical content, Riyoko Ikeda still manages to make The Rose of Versailles relatable.  Oscar stands atop the pinnacle of the Girl Prince trope and we, the readers, understand perfectly why the men and women who knew her, loved her. Tezuka may have created the Girl Prince, but Ikeda perfected her.

Now that there is a definitive English edition of The Rose of Versailles manga from UDON Entertainment, we can one day hope for a definitive edition of another of Ikeda’s masterworks, Dear Brother (Oniisama e).

 

 

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi
In any modern series we’d be happy to see a lesbian couple form an alternative family with three mothers and a daughter. In any current series, we’d be delighted to see a team of women willing to die to save one another. More than 25 years ago we got all that, and more. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon as a series includes multiple instances of sexual and gender minority characters. In a series ostensibly for children. Not all of them are dead at the end of the series. For a 25-year old series, that seems a miracle.

Miracle or not, it is one more reason to continue to love a magical girl series that has inspired-and still inspires – a quarter of century of creativity, of social expression and a ridiculous number of Yuri artists and writers. With both anime from Viz Media and manga from Kodansha Comics available in English, it’s time to fall in love with the Senshi – and watch Haruka and Michiru, the queens of Yuri, fall in love with each other – all over again.

 

 

Revolutionary Girl Utena by BePapas
On the cusp of a new millennium, a group of extraordinarily talented anime and manga creators teamed up. They took Yuri tropes, magical girl tropes, festooned them with dueling and overtly meaningless symbols that were left to grow in a fertile petrie dish of adolescent awakening until they developed meaning. They covered it with the musical equivalent of a magical cookbook full of spells and paid homage to dozens of Yuri predecessors in the anime, movie and manga series that followed. Revolutionary Girl Utena was indeed revolutionary to the fans who watched wide-eyed as Utena unsheathed Dios’ sword from Anthy’s chest and were lead into the birth of a whole new genre.

Revolutionary Girl Utena gave us Utena and Anthy, but it also gave us Juri, the lesbian whose heart is locked up in her love for a manipulative (and, depending upon who you ask, unworthy) Shiori. It gave us a whole new set of Yuri archetypes, explored all the old archetypes with fresh eyes and ushered in a massive wave of fans, ready for a new genre. In many ways, Yuri could not have been born without the magical unrealism of Utena. Both anime, movie from RightStuf and manga and movie manga from Viz Media have received definitive releases in English, so it’s worth taking a look at all four of the stories to see all of the alternative versions of this important series.

 

 

Maria Watches Over Us by Oyuki Konno
At the same time Utena was redefining and reimagining magical girl Yuri, another series was doing the same with the early 20th century “S” aesthetic. Maria-sama ga Miteru was developed by Konno Oyuki as a 39-novel series (plus 9 other related novels) over 15 years. It was adapted into 4 seasons of anime, an 8-voume manga series, and at least 26 different Drama CDs.

Fukuzawa Yumi is honest and goodhearted, but not, apparently, special. We watch this “average” girl become involved with – but not overwhelmed by – the elites of the school, the Student Council and most especially, with the object of her own admiration, Ogasawara Sachiko. The focus of the series is on the big sister/little sister relationship trope that was so deeply embedded in Yuri and so well-known to Japanese fans, but mostly unknown to western audiences, as none of the early sources had been (and many remain) untranslated. When Maria Watches Over Us, available in English from Sentai, debuted as an anime, an entire generation of global Yuri fans learned about the specific and sisterly bonds between girls that had been encouraged since Akiko and Akitsu shared that tower room in the early part of the 20th century.

 

 

ALC Publishing
In  2003, ALC Publishing published the very first “Yuri manga” in English, Rica ‘tte Kanji!?, which went for 3 printings. Further chapters were serialized in in ALC’s Yuri Monogatari anthology until it was collected and reprinted digitally in 2012 as Tokyo Love – Rica ‘tte Kanji! Digital Collection. Rica was followed by Tadeno Eriko’s doujinshi collection WORKS, which is still in print and the Yuri Monogatari series, of which Volume 4 and Volume 6 are still in print.

The Yuri Monogatari anthology series (named in homage to Yoshiya Nobuko’s Hana Monogatari,) brought together Yuri artists from around the world in the very first English-language Yuri anthology. The goal was to present English-language readers with a wide variety of story and art and encourage them to look beyond girl-meets-girl.

ALC Publishing laid the English language foundation for the western Yuri market, with a strong emphasis on stories of adult lesbian life, rather than the still more common first-love school scenarios.

 

 

Cutey Honey & Devilman Lady by Go Nagai
If Osamu Tezuka is the “God of Manga” then Go Nagai is manga’s brilliant, but creepy uncle. Every genre that Tezuka established, Nagai did too, weirder and, arguably, better. Nagai is known in the west primarily for his Devilman and Mazinger franchises. In Cute Honey, Nagai created a magical female warrior who did not need men to help her (and often had to save them from harm) and a lesbian love story that has evolved and survived over decades. The Cutey Honey Classic Collection manga from Seven Seas and Cutey Honey Universe anime from Sentai Filmworks are exceptional versions of this timeless, yet pervy, story.

But where Nagai really excels is in the horror genre. He was born to create and explore the dark underbelly of demonic existence. The 2018 Netflix release of Devilman Crybaby was deeply queer and absolutely worth watching as a horror series. As far as Yuri goes, the series we should all know is Devilman Lady, released in the 2000s by ADV (now, by Section 23) as Devil Lady. Hopefully we’ll see a 20th anniversary release of one of the objectively best Yuri anime ever made just as lesbian horror is undergoing a long-awaited renaissance.

 

 

Comic Yuri Hime (コミック百合姫)
The story of Comic Yuri Hime is the story of Yuri at the turn of the 21st century. This magazine burst forth in 2003 as Yuri Shimai and the last 2 decades have seen repeated renewals and rebirths as the market shifts and changes.

Beginning life as a quarterly magazine, Comic Yuri Hime is now monthly and has been home to the growth of many of the top name sellers in Yuri manga, from Morinaga Milk to Kodama Naoko. Along with the careers of their creators, these pages have seen so many of the newest iterations of old Yuri standards and, with folks like Ohi Pikachi and Takemiya Jin, its even broken some new ground.

While there is no English-language version, you can subscribe to it digitally in Japanese on Bookwalker Global.

 

 

Galette (ガレット)
I think of Comic Yuri Hime as a pathway that has been paved and widened over time and is now a highway for Yuri artists to take from their own work to published status. Using that metaphor, Galette magazine is an upgrade to the old road that parallels the new expressway. It’s still a smaller road, but there are a lot of things to look at, and accommodations are often more interesting/quirky than they are on the highway. 

This crowd-funded, creator owned quarterly Yuri manga magazine is giving complete freedom to Yuri creators. We have no idea what we’ll see along the way, but it will surely be interesting!

Galette is also available for Japanese-language subscription through Bookwalker Global.

 

 

Kase-san Series by Hiromi Takashima
Hiromi Takashima’s Kase-san series is a story of survival and tenacity. It was born in a brief period of prosperity during a Yuri boom in 2011. When the magazine it ran in went belly up, it would have been reasonable to assume we’d never see more of it after the third volume was published. But the creator didn’t agree and took her work online and continued the story. Without a magazine for an anchor, its amazing that this series was given a fourth volume, then a fifth. And then an actual miracle occurred. Because while the Kase-san series was continuing, peripatetic although it was, the Yuri market had blossomed since 2014. In 2017, the world was ready for Kase-san and Yamada to leave school and not live happily ever after, but continue on dealing with things like jealousy and separation and two lives moving in different directions as adults.

The manga series is available from Seven Seas and the beautifully animated OVA is available from Sentai Filmworks. The Kase-san series both embodies common Yuri tropes and exceeds them, which makes it an important stepping stone to understanding Yuri.

 

 

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata
One day, there will be articles and research about the impact this book, its sequels and its creator had on manga. Japanese manga has already seen an uptick in manga about mental and physical health. I don’t think I can overstate how important this book will be as we move forward in the 2020s.

Autobiographical comics are not uncommon in the west or Japan. When we look back at some of the greatest western comic artists, their stories about their own lives have resonated deeply with millions of readers. For a Japanese manga to join the ranks of Harvey Pekar, Alison Bechdel and Raina Telgemeier among our comics awards, is notable. In the sense that this is not “Yuri” at all, but is by and about life of a queer person, it threw doors wide open.

Kabi Nagata has already been recognized for her work with a Harvey Award. The creator being open about being gay, without any sense that story this is – or ever can be – a romance story, has already had a massive impact and I expect we will see ripples for years to come.

My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness and My Solo Exchange Diary Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available in English from Seven Seas.

 

 

Yuri Life by Kurukuruhime
The last few years has seen the creation of a brand new subgenre of Yuri. Known in Japanese as Shakaijin Yuri (社会人百合), these stories follow adult women in society. Often written as office romances, they allow for exploration of life as an adult woman in the working world, a place that is often a hostile environment for women.

Kurukuruhime’s Yuri Life avoids the problems and instead focuses on pairs of adult women making their lives together.

Adult life Yuri is not new – ALC Publishing’s WORKS addresses many of the same issues we see addressed in stories like Still Sick from Viz Media but Yuri Life and Whenever Our Eyes Meet, both from Yen Press are the first two adult life Yuri to make it into English and are notable for being the opening adult women needed to be part of the Yuri landscape.

 

 

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! by Ameco Kaeruda
The end of our first Yuri century just about exploded with whole new sections of the Yuri genre. Visual novels, office life Yuri, and Light Novels all carpet bombed Yuri fandom. I waffled heavily trying to pick just one truly representative Light Novel. Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka from Seven Seas was certainly representative of the older schoolgirl romance tropes and it was still a very good light novel, but the example I chose for this list was the one that broke new ground.

We might have expected it from a office romance, (and, admittedly, we see examples of the frustration with systemic misogyny in almost every example of that subgenre) but for pure, unadulterated exhaustion with misogyny, with a sense of being so far over it, that it’s unbelievable it still exists at all and with the kind of empowerment women can give one another when they work together in a Yuri story, I had to go with Ameco Kaeruda’s RPG Fantasy Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! Volume1 and Volume 2 are available digitally and Volume 1 will be released in print in 2020 from J-Novel Club.

 

 

Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare
Following on the heels of openly queer creators whose work is breaking sales records and breaking new ground at the same time, Kamatani Yuhki-sensei took the next step forward with a manga about sexual and gender minorities and the community they create for themselves. Like Rica ‘tte Kanji?!, Our Dreams at Dusk Shimanami Tasogare from Seven Seas uses the life of one young person, still questioning themselves to learn about the ups and downs of other people’s lives – all with eye to creating empathy and acceptance.

At the end of a century of Yuri, we are finally seeing what I always hoped we’d see – lesbian stories, stories of lives led, and loves found and lost. Yuri is still undergoing a massive change as more stories of adult life move into the Yuri genre. Eventually, as Yuri creators age, I have no doubt we’ll see senior years romance and life. ^_^

And here you have – it a primer for 100 Years of Yuri. With these titles, you will encounter all of the traditional Yuri tropes, where they came from and be able to see where they creators are taking them.

 

2020 is going to bring us absolute riches of both classic and new Yuri. With all these riches, I want to point out – again – that I’m still not seeing a few things that I want to see. So as we move into 2CYE (Common Yuri Era), here is my wish list for Yuri:

  • Sports Yuri manga series
  • “Ladies” Motorcycle gang Yuri series
  • High-powered Court Yuri Lawyer drama
  • Mystery-solving Lesbian Detective series
  • Space Marine Yuri Science Fiction
  • Senior Yuri Romance

…and, borrowed whole from petrarchian on Twitter:

  • A mezzo and a soprano who fall in love during a run of Der Rosenkavalier Opera Yuri ^_^

There’s my wish list – have at it, Yuri creators!

Thank you all for reading our lists, contributing your thoughts and here’s to a brilliant decade for Yuri!