by Lena Tama, Guest Writer
Indonesia has no shortage of yuri works created by passionate queer/ally artists, including English-language web comic series that are free and available to read on multiple online platforms. Despite the many struggles and challenges, they continue to produce their crafts in hope of providing comfort and safe space for the queer community, both locally and internationally.
The main cast of Everyday By Day, a yuri webtoon series by Magnolia Team. Image by Magnolia Team, 2025.
On May 16, 2026, Comic Frontier (Comifuro), Indonesia’s biggest doujin & art market for fellow artists to sell and promote their works, held its 22nd event. Among them were three particular groups of artists who also produced their own yuri web series, each with unique themes and upbringings.
Join me as I explain these three yuri web comic series as well as an interview with the people working on these titles!
Everyday By Day
Everyday By Day (EBD) is a slice-of-life yuri series created by Magnolia Team, whose core members are Zaki, Azura, and Marbelous. Started in 2018, EBD is currently one of the longest-running yuri series made by Indonesian artists that is available to read on Webtoon English or Magnolia Team’s social media accounts on Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
One of the main couples of Everyday By Day, a yuri webtoon series. Characters from left to right: Claire and Ashley. Image by Magnolia Team, 2026.
Set in the fictional Harbour City, EBD tells the story of five main sapphic couples, each with distinct dynamics and personalities, as they live their romantic life in a city where being queer is normalized and accepted. Azura (she/they) explained the dynamics of the couples as such:
- Naomi & Hana (low x high cortisol)
- Nadya & Ann (flirtatious x tough-looking adults)
- Jean & Sena (airhead x serious)
- Ashley & Claire (warm x cold)
- Gisel & Wendy (kink dynamic)
According to Azura, the core value of EBD is to tell a lighthearted sapphic story,regularly published on Monday to provide comfort for the readers during their first day of the week at work. In addition, despite a relatively simple story that’s easy to follow for both newcomers and regular readers, EBD also presents ample character development and drama that each couple frequently faces.
“Being set in a city that welcomes queer people, the story explores the drama and conflicts that emerge among those couples without them having to face additional layers of prejudices and hatred. By laying it bare like that, we want to convey that conflicts among couples are a universal thing regardless of their gender identities and sexual orientations,” said Azura.
“In that sense, love is also a universal thing for everyone, thus we want people to accept queer couples kindly, too.”
Doctor and Nurse (unofficial title)
“Doctor and Nurse” (unofficial title), a yuri series by Iwa. Characters from left to right: Nurse (Elise) and Doctor (Jessica). Image by Iwa, 2026.
Doctor and Nurse is a new adult yuri series created in 2026 by Iwa (she/her) that revolves around the relationship between a female Doctor and a female Nurse. Currently available on Instagram, Gumroad, and Twitter, Iwa plans to host her own website to upload the series in the future.
The artstyle of Doctor and Nurse is contemporary and raw with uncensored nudity and imagery, particularly the stitch marks all over the Doctor’s body, as parts of the overarching themes of exploring mental health and criticisms toward patriarchy in an industry dominated by cisgender heterosexual men.
Jessica, the illegal doctor working on organ harvesting for debt collectors, is a character designed to show the way mental illness can ruin oneself inside out. The stitch marks on her body are a direct result of her never fully feeling comfortable in her own body, whereas her asymmetry design screams instability.
Iwa elaborated on Jessica’s character, “I want to show the stitch marks all over her body to showcase the self-harm without the romanticization of mental health struggles. I want to show it for what it is: A struggle that people should discuss and overcome without any prejudices.”
Meanwhile, Elise, the traveling nurse, is inspired by pin-up girls, yet her actions and works defy the stereotypical female nurses that are often sexualized by men and struggling against gender-based violence.
“Female nurses are often subjected to sexualization, sexual violence, and abuse of power relations. However, I want to tell the story of a nurse who travels from place to place to liberate herself from the system and dedicate herself to help people,” said Iwa.
To Get Her
“To Get Her”, a yuri webtoon series by ChamomileTea Studio. Character from the left to right: Ann and Libby. Image by ChamomileTea Studio, 2025.
To Get Her is a 16+ rated yuri series created by ChamomileTea Studio, whose members are the duo Skeetcha and JasmineTea. Originally created in 2021 as a 4-koma web series on Facebook and Tapas, the studio then shifted to developing the series primarily for Webtoon Canvas in the scrolling comic format in 2023. Later on in 2025, To Get Her became an official Webtoon Original series.
Available on Webtoon, To Get Her tells the story of Ann, a workaholic graphic designer who’s trapped in a lifeless corporate environment which deprives her of life beyond work. Her latest gig with a posh bar near her home leads her to Libby, a bartender whose presence begins to change Ann’s life for the better.
Amid their journey of self-acceptance and loving relationship, Ann and Libby encounter other recurring characters like Libby’s friendly bar manager, Ann’s pesky and friendly female coworker, and a male coworker who seems to be attracted to Ann.
The main characters themselves are inspired by Skeetcha and JasmineTea, with Ann based on Skeetcha’s experiences as a graphic designer and Libby based on Jasmine Tea’s past work in the food & beverage/hospitality industry.
JasmineTea (she/her) further explains the dynamic between Ann and Libby. She said, “We want to convey a story that’s very much relatable to our readers, particularly those who work a corporate job that may be boring and/or full of stress every day.”
“The life of two people whose jobs and personalities contrast one another also makes for an interesting story that’s filled with conflicts and romance. We hope that the journey that Ann and Libby take to love each other and themselves can be inspiring.”
The struggles of presenting yuri series in Indonesia
Despite presenting unique premise and backstory that differ from one another, all three titles share similar troubles, in that most of their audience are international readers, and that they are struggling to present their works in the local market due to numerous risks, such as hate speech and many cases of gender-based violence.
One such case occurs with Doctor and Nurse. Iwa observes that most of her readers are lesbians and trans women based in Europe, USA, and a handful of Southeast Asia countries like the Philippines, whereas her Indonesian readers are only a fraction of those.
Iwa explained, “Indonesian readers are still hesitant to engage with my work because of the fear that their friends on social media might discover their likes/comments/shares, and then these readers would be at risk of receiving hate speech. Of course, this also hurts my exposure to the local audiences and the revenue.”
“I’m grateful to my readers who are my intended demographic targets, but I also sometimes receive hate speech from bigots and people that are outside of the demographic targets.”
ChamomileTea Studio also faces a similar issue with their web series, in addition to their other, more personal dilemma. Their lead author, Skeetcha (she/her) said,
“We realize that To Get Her garners more attention and support from the international readers than the local ones because we currently also don’t have enough resources and time management to put more effort into advertising it to the local market.”
Another issue is censorship which further affects the algorithm on the platforms. Due to many platforms’ updated policy which may put more restrictions on R18 works, of which yuri is frequently categorized into, this puts the publication of the series at risk.
EBD in particular was rated as Mature 18+ by Webtoon Canvas due to the intimate scenes that typically conclude many of the chapters. As a result, when the platform published a new policy change that began forbidding partial nudity (bareback & cleavage) in early May 2026, EBD’s then-latest chapter got censored and deleted on Webtoon.
It took Magnolia Team a number of days before they were able to resolve the issue with Webtoon and the chapter resurfaced on the platform. Even then, the team also feel that the Mature 18+ rating that they received also makes it more challenging to reach new audiences on the platform.
Reflecting on the experience, Azura said, “We’re afraid that something like this may occur on other platforms. Censorship hurts our viewership a lot, which will also affect the algorithm. Because of that, we’re trying to spread the publication to numerous platforms and hoping that they don’t get censored.”
Supporting Indonesian yuri artists and works
In a country where many citizens still demonize the queer community and queer works, local yuri artists continue to produce their works as a passion project and/or one of their sources of income, in hope of providing a safe space for the community and inspiring other people to engage with the media or produce their own works, despite the many challenges.
Magnolia Team themselves hope to maintain stability in their work with EBD as it is one of the ways for them to convey their emotions and desires, as well as to love their own hard work.
Azura added, “We hope that our story inspires other people, whether it’s for them to read our works and the others or for them to create their own GL works.”
The rising number of yuri artists also brings hope that more people would be more open and accepting towards yuri works, in addition to opening new topics for them to explore.
In regard to that, Iwa hoped, “May we find more personal and diverse works that revolve around yuri/GL/lesbian. In that sense, I also hope that people can be more open and accepting of using the label ‘lesbian’ in their works, not seeing it as taboo anymore.”
Last but not least, the yuri/GL/lesbian community hope to continue to support one another in continuing their works and achieving their goals.
Skeetcha and JasmineTea said, “We hope to continue supporting the yuri/GL/lesbian community and foster an environment where everyone can support one another. We also hope to see more fanarts, more original works, and various yuri works made by local artists in the future.”
And of course, to close off the article with a popular motto from the local community…
Dirgahayuri!!*
This article is written by Lena Tama, a contributor and queer journalist from Indonesia. She loves all things yuri and will bake cookies & sweets for you!
*[Dirgahayu] means ‘long live’ in Indonesian language
