It’s the shackles of the Class S heritage. Make-believe relationships between girls are only allowed until graduation. After graduation/age 18, being interested in other girls is verboten. Class S is also to blame why subtext almost never turns into text because things actually happening is also verboten in Class S. If you dare to draw/write women over 18 interested in other women, then you’re not drawing Class S, you’re drawing LESBIANS! gasp Since anything related to actual homosexuality must be avoided, we can’t have that, so all girls must be under 18.

That's pretty interesting. I bet there's a lot of truth in that.
A lot of these yuri middle/highschool stories always gave me the vibe that it's temporary. Something like Virgin's Empire.
They go to an all girl school, so they can fool around for a couple of years.

I just get a little annoyed by basically all the characters being under 18 sometimes.

It’s the shackles of the Class S heritage. Make-believe relationships between girls are only allowed until graduation. After graduation/age 18, being interested in other girls is verboten. Class S is also to blame why subtext almost never turns into text because things actually happening is also verboten in Class S. If you dare to draw/write women over 18 interested in other women, then you’re not drawing Class S, you’re drawing LESBIANS! gasp Since anything related to actual homosexuality must be avoided, we can’t have that, so all girls must be under 18.

Class S stories paved the way for the yuri genre, but now it’s really hard to get rid of. Fortunately, more and more artists and publishers are jumping on the fuck Class S train, but many others still stick to Class S stuff. sigh

More on-topic: Adult life is great because it’s not Class S and we know from the get-go that things are allowed to happen, so I’m gonna enjoy Kanda and Ookuma’s shenanigans while waiting for the inevitable eventual reveal.

Except for all the yuri stories set in high school where the girls discover that they like women, and have sex.

Except for all the yuri stories set in high school where the girls discover that they like women, and have sex.

Having sex isn't a permanent thing for dating women. Oftentimes it is acceptable to experiment but then going back to men. The highschool story ends before they become adults, so readers can interpret it that way as well.

Except for all the yuri stories set in high school where the girls discover that they like women, and have sex.

Having sex isn't a permanent thing for dating women. Oftentimes it is acceptable to experiment but then going back to men. The highschool story ends before they become adults, so readers can interpret it that way as well.

Sure, if they want to readers can interpret them all as being abducted by space aliens after the story ends (it sometimes happens, so they say).

But there are lots of "school life" stories on Dynasty that are not "Class S," going by what is actually on the page as opposed to made up in readers' imaginations.

You know, women experimenting with other women and then going back to men is not an uncommon concept irl at all. And that happens in the Western countries that are the less homophobic regions. Imagine about the other regions. Or dudes watching lesbian porn but then going on hating gays.
Stories are based in real life and real prejudices of people in the particular country. It is a fact that girl x girl in Japan IS considered girls being immature and not even valid. Something that actually doesn't take place in Japan only.

Comparing it with alien abduction is a very bad example.

last edited at Jan 20, 2020 2:17PM

You know, women experimenting with other women and then going back to men is not an uncommon concept irl at all. And that happens in the Western countries that are the less homophobic regions. Imagine about the other regions. Or dudes watching lesbian porn but then going on hating gays.
Stories are based in real life and real prejudices of people in the particular country. It is a fact that girl x girl in Japan IS considered girls being immature and not even valid. Something that actually doesn't take place in Japan only.

Comparing it with alien abduction is a very bad example.

As usual, I'm talking about the valid interpretation of fictional texts and you're talking about "what happens in real life."

Readers assuming that the girls who have sex with girls in fictional texts will move on to men after the texts have ended are making things up in their own imaginations without even the theoretical possibility of evidence to support their conclusions.

last edited at Jan 20, 2020 2:27PM

Class S was an important genre normalizing love between girls and expressions of love between girls, and it told an important truth that lesbians and bisexual women of the time went through, which is being forced out of their relationships outside of school and expected to marry men. It also kinda fucking sucks, and I sure as hell don't want to read Class S works, and it left a massive imprint on the genre to this day, almost every long-form manga references the concepts of Class S, usually, thankfully, to refute them, but still having to acknowledge them. It also influenced the setting, a massive amount, I think we can agree. And the open-ended endings of the oneshots to which MacySan is referring are an artifact of that, I'd argue, by not showing the girls in relationships beyond those in high school, a sense propriety is maintained, but I'd say that's a minor part of things. Either way, you're both arguing pretty hard for having viewpoints that don't actually fully conflict with eachother.

Certainly the Class S story has cast a long shadow on the yuri genre. My understanding of Class S, though, is that such stories are about intimate, romantic, but specifically non-sexual relationships between young women. There are plenty of such stories on Dynasty, but are also plenty of explicitly sexual relationships between high-school age girls.

The assumption that just because those stories end before a depiction of adult life the characters will or may revert to a heterosexual norm is something that is innately unprovable and unfounded in the texts themselves.

Maybe the "purest" form of Class S has no sexual intimacy, but I would say that the hallmark of the genre is simply the transience of the relationships, rather than the exact and specific relationship between the girls.

Maybe the "purest" form of Class S has no sexual intimacy, but I would say that the hallmark of the genre is simply the transience of the relationships, rather than the exact and specific relationship between the girls.

Well, if you tweak the definition to your personal preference, you can make it mean anything you want. Carry on.

God you're so fucking obsessed with being right. I'm trying to discuss things not win the argument you think every interaction on this forum is. Why are almost all of the most active posters on here so fucking argumentative

God you're so fucking obsessed with being right. I'm trying to discuss things not win the argument you think every interaction on this forum is. Why are almost all of the most active posters on here so fucking argumentative

Look, I was making the point that not all the stories here featuring 18-year-old characters fall under the usual definition of Class S. You want to rework the definition so they do.

There’s absolutely nothing objectionable about a preference for stories about adult lesbians. I do find something objectionable—on the grounds of legitimate textual interpretation—about the assertion that because we don’t see the adult life of high-school-aged characters those characters can be assumed to revert to a heterosexual norm. That’s not how texts work.

That's also not what I said, you talked to 2 fucking people here.

That's also not what I said, you talked to 2 fucking people here.

Your expansion of the Class S definition to focus on the supposed “transience” of the characters’ relationships rather than their behavior within the relationship assumes that you know or can predict what those characters will do after the story is over.

Am I misstating something here?

last edited at Jan 20, 2020 3:16PM

Class S stories classically often involved a meeting between the characters again in their future lives as adults, in heterosexual marriages. Like, that was one of the common things within Class S. Are you really saying Class S stories usually involve the characters staying together after the end of the stories? Because you were originally arguing that there's no evidence people don't stay together after the end of stories in modern high school works, which is true, but saying that about Class S is pretty false.

It's hopeless arguing with Blastaar. Not trying to.be rude really, but I think you really have a problem seeing things from the other person's perspective. You have a very linear and one way is the only right way thinking.
A lot of people can agree that they interpret and imagine what happens next to the story based.on their real life experience.
Stories interpretions and expectations are also subjective.
The problem here is, you can't accept any other opinion as valid besides your own. You don't seem to comprehend how others think if you don't agree with them.

Class S stories classically often involved a meeting between the characters again in their future lives as adults, in heterosexual marriages. Like, that was one of the common things within Class S. Are you really saying Class S stories usually involve the characters staying together after the end of the stories? Because you were originally arguing that there's no evidence people don't stay together after the end of stories in modern high school works, which is true, but saying that about Class S is pretty false.

No, quite the contrary—I was arguing against assimilating all high-school yuri stories, whatever the level of sexual intimacy, to the Class S paradigm absent textual evidence to support that reading.

@MacySan: I agree that I have do sometimes sharp disagreements with people who think of interpreting texts as a spinning out imaginary scenarios based on their personal preferences, as opposed to basing their readings on what the texts actually do (and don’t) say. I imagine from some perspectives that does seem pretty “linear.”

last edited at Jan 20, 2020 3:32PM

No, quite the contrary—I was arguing against assimilating all high-school yuri stories, whatever the level of sexual intimacy, to the Class S paradigm absent textual evidence to support that reading.

Yes which I literally agreed with at multiple points, hence my statement that you just think everything is an argument.

No, quite the contrary—I was arguing against assimilating all high-school yuri stories, whatever the level of sexual intimacy, to the Class S paradigm absent textual evidence to support that reading.

Yes which I literally agreed with at multiple points, hence my statement that you just think everything is an argument.

I guess I misread the gist of your “transience” point, then, as being in line with what MacySan was arguing, so those discussions did get conflated.

This is not a "text". It is an imaginary story. A lot of people in real life believe that women dating women is just another phase, therefore their interpretation of what will happen in the story next, can very well be that the girls go back to dating guys.That also helps them like yuri and accept it, because at the back of their minds they're thinking that the girls will go back to "normal" again. Which is just as real as thinking the girls will stay together for ever.

Some guys even like yuri because it keeps their waifus "pure" , while they get to see them naked at the same time.

Can we get back on-topic ? I'm sure the topic is interesting but i don't think it's the place to have such arguments.

Here's a link for your convenience, if y'all wanna continue this topic

I don't have high hopes for a Mochi story to have a truly emotionally engaging story, but I hope that when Ookumi finally finds out she's a girl, it'll be a more satisfying result than an empty "it's okay, I'll still love you anyway".

Kanda kinda reminds me of M200 from girl's frontline

Came back to reread it all after coming across this tweet which made me reconsider this manga is more realistic than what we initially believed