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Fiction genre depicting female same sex relationships

, also known by the wasei eigo construction girls' love (ガールズラブ), is a genre of Japanese media focusing on intimate relationships between female characters. While lesbian relationships are a commonly associated theme, the genre is also inclusive of works depicting emotional and spiritual relationships between women that are not necessarily romantic or sexual in nature. Yuri is most commonly associated with anime and manga, though the term has also been used to describe video games, light novels, and literature. Themes associated with yuri originate from Japanese lesbian fiction of the early twentieth century, notably the writings of Nobuko Yoshiya and literature in the Class S genre. Manga depicting female homoeroticism began to appear in the 1970s in the works of artists associated with the Year 24 Group, notably Ryoko Yamagishi and Riyoko Ikeda. The genre gained wider popularity beginning in the 1990s; the founding of Yuri Shimai in 2003 as the first manga magazine devoted exclusively to yuri, followed by its successor Comic Yuri Hime in 2005, led to the establishment of yuri as a discrete publishing genre and the creation of a yuri fan culture. As a genre, yuri does not inherently target a single gender demographic, unlike its male homoerotic counterparts yaoi (marketed towards a female audience) and gay manga (marketed towards a gay male audience). Although yuri originated as a genre targeted towards a female audience, yuri works have been produced that target a male audience, as in manga from Comic Yuri Himes male targeted sister magazine Comic Yuri Hime S.

The word yuri (百合) translates literally to "lily", and is a relatively common Japanese feminine name. White lilies have been used since the Romantic era of Japanese literature to symbolize beauty and purity in women, and are a de facto symbol of the yuri genre. In 1976, Ito Bungaku, editor of the gay men's magazine , used the term in reference to female readers of the magazine in a column of letters titled For example, the male male romance magazine Allan began publishing "Lily Communication"; 百合通信; Yuri Tsūshin in July 1983 as a personal ad column for "lesbiennes" to communicate. The term came to be associated with lesbian pornographic manga beginning in the 1990s, notably through the manga magazine Lady's Comic Misuto (1996–1999), which heavily featured symbolic lily flowers. When the term yuri began being used in the west in the 1990s, it was similarly used almost exclusively to describe pornographic manga aimed at male readers featuring lesbian couples. In Korea and China, "lily" is used as a semantic loan from the Japanese usage to describe female female romance media, where each use the direct translation of the term – baekhap (백합) in Korea and bǎihé (百合) in China.

The wasei eigo construction "girls' love" (ガールズラブ) and its abbreviation "GL" were adopted by Japanese publishers in the 2000s, likely as an antonym of the male male romance genre boys' love (BL).

Among the first Japanese authors to produce works about love between women was Nobuko Yoshiya, a novelist active in the Taishō and Shōwa periods. Yoshiya was a pioneer in Japanese lesbian literature, including the early twentieth century Class S genre. Her works popularized many of the ideas and tropes which drove the yuri genre for years to come. Class S stories depict lesbian attachments as emotionally intense yet platonic relationships, destined to be curtailed by graduation from school, marriage, or death. Class S developed in the 1930s through Japanese girls' magazines, but declined as a result of state censorship brought about by the Second Sino Japanese War in 1937. Though homosociality between girls would re emerge as a common theme in post war shōjo manga (comics for girls), Class S gradually declined in popularity in favor of works focused on male female romances. Traditionally, Class S stories focus on strong emotional bonds between an upperclassman and an underclassman, and a component of yuri.

In 1970, manga artist Masako Yashiro published the shōjo manga Shīkuretto Rabu (シークレットラブ), which focuses on a love triangle between two girls and a boy. Noted as the first non Class S manga to depict an intimate relationship between women, Shīkuretto Rabu is regarded by some scholars as the first work in the yuri genre. As both Yashiro and Shīkuretto Rabu are relatively obscure and the work focuses in part on male female romance, most critics identify Shiroi Heya no Futari by Ryōko Yamagishi, published in 1971, as the first yuri manga. The 1970s also saw shōjo manga that dealt with transgender characters and characters who blur gender distinctions through cross dressing, which was inspired in part by the Takarazuka Revue, an all female theater troupe where women play male roles. These traits are most prominent in Riyoko Ikeda's works, Some shōnen works of this period featured lesbian characters, though they were typically depicted as fanservice and comic relief. Roughly a dozen yuri manga were published from the 1970s to the early 1990s, with the majority being published in the 1970s. Most of these stories are tragedies, focused on doomed relationships that end in separation or death. 1992 saw the release of two major works for the development of yuri: Jukkai me no Jukkai (1992) by 秋里和国, which began to move the genre away from tragic outcomes and stereotyped dynamics; and the anime adaptation of Sailor Moon (1991–1997) by Naoko Takeuchi, the first mainstream manga and anime series to feature a "positive" portrayal of a lesbian relationship in the coupling of Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune. The immense popularity of Sailor Moon allowed the series to be adapted into anime, films, and to be exported internationally, significantly influencing the shōjo and yuri genres. Uranus and Neptune became popular subjects of dōjinshi (self published manga, analogous to fan comics) and contributed to the development of yuri dōjinshi culture. The success of Sailor Moon significantly influenced the development of yuri, and by the mid 1990s, anime, and manga featuring intimate relationships between women enjoyed mainstream success and popularity. This period also saw a revival of the Class S genre through the best selling light novel series Maria sama ga Miteru (1998–2004) by 今野緒雪, which by 2010 had 5.4 million copies in print. Another prominent author of this period is Kaho Nakayama, active since the early 1990s, with works involving love stories among women.

Faced with a proliferation of stories focused on homosociality, homoeroticism, and female homosexuality, some publishers sought to exploit the yuri market by creating manga magazines dedicated to the genre, coalescing around yuri as the preferred name for this genre in response to its popularity in dōjinshi culture. In 2003, Yuri Tengoku and Yuri Shimai launched as the first manga magazines devoted exclusively to yuri. This was followed by the female reader oriented Comic Yuri Hime in 2005 and the male reader oriented Comic Yuri Hime S in 2007; the two magazines merged under the title Comic Yuri Hime in 2010. Stories in these magazines dealt with a range of themes, from intense emotional connections such as those depicted in Voiceful (2004–2006), to sexually explicit schoolgirl romances like those portrayed in First Love Sisters (2003–2008), Some of these subjects are seen in male targeted works of this period as well, sometimes in combination with other themes, including mecha and science fiction. Examples include series such as Kannazuki no Miko (2004–2005), Blue Drop (2004–2008), and Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl (2004–2007). In addition, male targeted stories tend to make extensive use of moe and bishōjo characterizations. The growth of digital platforms like Pixiv, Twitter, and Shōsetsuka ni Narō allowed for the creation and widespread distribution of yuri works outside of traditional manga magazine and dōjinshi publishing: My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness (2016) was originally published as a web comic, while the yuri fantasy works Sexiled (2018–2019), Roll Over and Die (2018–present), and I'm in Love with the Villainess (2018–present) began as web novels on Shōsetsuka ni Narō before being adapted into other mediums.

Yuri as a genre depicts intimate relationships between women, a scope that is broadly defined to include romantic love, intense friendships, spiritual love, and rivalry. While lesbianism is a theme commonly associated with yuri, not all characters in yuri media are necessarily non heterosexual; Welker states that the question whether yuri characters are lesbians is a "very complicated issue." Characters in yuri works frequently do not define their sexual orientation in explicit terms, and the matter is instead left to reader interpretation. Rica Takashima notes Western and Japanese fans often have differing expectations for the level of intimacy depicted in yuri, which she ascribes to cultural differences between the groups. She notes that yuri works that enjoy international popularity tend to be explicit and focused on "cute girls making out with each other," while Japanese fans "have a propensity for reading between the lines, picking up on subtle cues, and using their own imaginations to weave rich tapestries of meaning from small threads."

Though yuri has been historically and thematically linked to shōjo manga since its emergence in the 1970s, yuri works have been published in all demographic groups for manga – not only shōjo (girls), but also josei (adult women), shōnen (boys) and seinen (adult men). Shōjo yuri works tend to focus on fanciful and fairy tale inspired narratives that idolize Takarazuka Revue inspired "girl prince" characters, while yuri works in the josei demographic tend to depict same sex female couples with a greater degree of realism. Shōnen and seinen manga, conversely, tend to use yuri to depict relationships between "innocent schoolgirls" and "predatory lesbians". Manga magazines dedicated exclusively to yuri tend not to conform to any one specific demographic, and are thus inclusive of content ranging from schoolgirl romances to sexually explicit content. The attachment between Candy and Rose becomes the subject of rumors or even blackmail, even while Candy and Rose grow to acknowledge that their relationship has become romantic. The story concludes with Rose dying in order to protect Candy from scandal. This distinction is comparable to that of the seme and uke distinction in yaoi, or to the butch and femme distinction in broader lesbian culture.

In the mid 1990s and early 2000s, some Japanese lesbian lifestyle magazines contained manga sections, including the now defunct magazines Anise (1996–97, 2001–03) and Phryné (1995). Additionally, Mist (1996–99), a ladies' comic manga magazine, contained sexually explicit lesbian themed manga as part of a section dedicated to lesbian interest topics. The first publication marketed exclusively as yuri was Sun Magazine's manga anthology magazine Yuri Shimai, which was released between June 2003 and November 2004 in quarterly installments, ending with only five issues. After the magazine's discontinuation, Comic Yuri Hime was launched by Ichijinsha in July 2005 as a revival of the magazine, Like its predecessor, Comic Yuri Hime was also published quarterly but went on to release bi monthly on odd months from January 2011 to December 2016, after which it became monthly. A sister magazine to Comic Yuri Hime, named Comic Yuri Hime S, was launched as a quarterly publication by Ichijinsha in June 2007. Unlike either Yuri Shimai or Comic Yuri Hime, Comic Yuri Hime S was targeted towards a male audience. However, in 2010 it was merged with Comic Yuri Hime. Ichijinsha published light novel adaptations from Comic Yuri Hime works and original yuri novels under their shōjo light novel line Ichijinsha Bunko Iris starting in July 2008. Once Comic Yuri Hime helped establish the market, several other yuri anthologies were released, such as , Mebae, Yuri Drill, Yuri + Kanojo, and Eclair. Houbunsha and Shinshokan also published their own yuri magazines, Tsubomi and Hirari respectively, with Tsubomi running from February 2009 to December 2012 for a total of 21 issues, and Hirari running from April 2010 to July 2014 for a total of 14 issues. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, the creator owned yuri anthology magazine Galette was launched in 2017.

The first company to release lesbian themed manga in North America was Yuricon's publishing arm ALC Publishing. The latter collects stories by American, European, and Japanese creators, including Akiko Morishima, Althea Keaton, Kristina Kolhi, Tomomi Nakasora, and Eriko Tadeno. Besides ALC Publishing, the Los Angeles based Seven Seas Entertainment has also incurred in the genre, with the English version of well known titles such as Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl (2004–2007) and Strawberry Panic! (2003–2007). Between 2011 and 2013, the now defunct JManga released several yuri titles to its digital subscription platform, before terminating service on March 13, 2013. As of 2017, Viz Media and Yen Press began publishing yuri manga, with Tokyopop following in 2018. Kodansha Comics announced its debut into publishing both yuri and yaoi manga in 2019, as well as Digital Manga launching a new imprint specializing in yuri dōjin manga. As yuri gained further recognition outside Japan, some artists began creating original English language manga that were labeled as yuri or having yuri elements and subplots. Early examples of original English language yuri comics include Steady Beat (2003) by Rivkah LaFille and 12 Days (2006) by June Kim, which were published between 2005 and 2006. Additionally, more English developed visual novels and indie games have marketed themselves as yuri games. This has been aided by the Yuri Game Jam, a game jam established in 2015 that takes place annually. By the mid 2010s, yuri video games also began to be officially translated into English. In 2015, MangaGamer announced they would be releasing A Kiss for the Petals, the first license of a yuri game to have an English translation. MangaGamer went on to publish Kindred Spirits on the Roof in 2016, which was one of the first adult visual novels to be released uncensored on the Steam store.

While yuri originated in female targeted (shōjo, josei) works, the genre has evolved over time to also target a male audience. Various studies have been undertaken to examine the demography of yuri fandom.

The first magazine to study the demographics of its readers was Yuri Shimai (2003–2004), who estimated the proportion of women at almost 70%, and that the majority of them were either teenagers or women in their thirties who were already interested in shōjo and yaoi manga. In 2008, Ichijinsha made a demographic study for its two magazines Comic Yuri Hime and Comic Yuri Hime S, the first being targeted to women, the second to men. The study reveals that women accounted for 73% of Comic Yuri Hime readership, while in Comic Yuri Hime S, men accounted for 62%. The publisher noted, however, that readers of the latter magazine also tended to read the first, which led to their merger in 2010.

Verena Maser conducted a study of Japanese yuri fandom demographics between September and October 2011. This study, mainly oriented towards the Yuri Komyu! community and the social network Mixi, received a total of 1,352 valid responses. The study found that 52.4% of respondents were women, 46.1% were men and 1.6% did not identify with either gender. The sexuality of the participants was also requested, separated into two categories: "heterosexual" and "non heterosexual". The results were as follows: 39.5% were heterosexual men, 30% were non heterosexual women, 15.2% were heterosexual women, 4.7% were non heterosexual men, and 1.2% identified as "other". Regarding age, 69% of respondents were between 16 and 25 years old. Maser's study reinforced the notion of the yuri fandom being split somewhat equally between men and women, as well as highlighting the differing sexualities within it.

The relationship between yuri and lesbianism is tenuous in Japan. While yuri was strongly associated with lesbianism in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, the correlation between the terms has weakened over time. Though Japanese fans, journalists, and publishers recognize that yuri and lesbianism share common characteristics, they can specifically segregate the terms as concepts, with Comic Yurihime editor Seitarō Nakamura stating that "in general, [yuri is] not [about] lesbians [rezubian] with a carnal relationship." Japanese lesbian and queer magazines in the 1990s often opposed the conflation of yuri with lesbianism, likely due to its prior connotation with male oriented pornography. Erin Subramian of Yuricon explains that most Japanese people see the term "lesbian" as describing either "abnormal people in pornography or strange people in other countries." Maser concurs that yuri is a genre primarily focused on ideals of beauty, purity, innocence, and spirituality before sexual identity; focus is placed on "connection between hearts" rather than "connection between bodies." Nagaike notes in her analysis of letters published in Comic Yuri Hime that many female readers of the magazine identify as heterosexual; she thus argues yuri is more closely aligned with homosociality than it is with homosexuality, even if the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Maser analyzes contradictory sources and concludes that the "line between yuri and 'lesbian'/'homosexuality'" is blurry". She notes that in her sources, "the term rezubian [lesbian] is used in many instances, but that it is almost never made clear what exactly it is referring to".

Nagaike argues that yuri is a byproduct of the , which formed in pre war all girls schools in Japan. Isolated from the influence of patriarchy, adolescent girls created a "shōjo culture" that used Class S literature to disseminate and share homosocial cultural codes. Though this culture was significant in informing girls' attitudes about femininity and independence, it was ultimately ephemeral; upon leaving the single sex school environment, girls became subject to patriarchal expectations of marriage and family. As mixed sex education became more common in the post war era and Class S literature declined as a means to disseminate homosocial bonds, cross dressing and yaoi emerged as the primary modes in literature for women to criticize and resist patriarchy. The emergence of yuri allowed for a return to Class S style homosociality, of which homosexuality is a component. Thus, Nagaike asserts that yuri does not conform to the political vision of lesbianism espoused by philosophers like Monique Wittig that sees lesbianism as overthrowing "the political and sociological interpretation of women's identity;" rather, yuri is closer to Adrienne Rich's vision of a "lesbian continuum" that seeks to overthrow compulsory heterosexuality.