I think it's commendable not to contradict the source material (unless absolutely necessary).
The problem comes in when you purposely portray it extremely romantic when it isnt in the novels . "Not my interpretation" my ass lol

And yeah, the married for life thing is pretty much the typical Japanese idea of extremely strong platonic girl friendships. Apparently in the past it was very common to encourage girls to act out something similar to romance when they are young to prepare them for the actual "real" relationship with a guy (basically an extreme version of house). So female 'romantic platonic' relationships are seen as "playing around" and "childish". As if it is a natural part of adolescence that disappears naturally. Something to look back on and remember fondly, but not permanent.
And from there this general theme has evolved into what we see today with almost every female adolescence story in manga centered around only girls.

not yuri anymore

Kumiko going out with Shuuichi in the source material was known since S1. I don't know that the anime was ever explicit enough to override that and call it actual yuri.

On the other hand, per this tweet from the anime thread a while back:
https://twitter.com/ultimatemegax/status/1115692715772141576
In the latest volume of the novels, Kumiko and Shuuichi break up. So it's still up in the air whether Kumiko's really hetero.

Although I do agree with the notion that the series (Kyoani in general) isn't really worth getting invested in. Even Liz and the Blue Bird wasn't particularly interesting on the characterization front, it's only noteworthy yuri-wise due to the production values. Basically, I'd say keep expectations low but wait for stuff to actually come out before deciding if Kyoani shit is "yuri"/"not yuri".

I always find it very strange that whenever you get some silly debate like this about "yuri bait" that everyone seems to assume bisexuals don't exist particularly in cases where there is some evidence of attraction to both sexes. People act likes it's impossible that a girl would appear to be interested in another girl romantically and then end up dating a guy. This happens all the time in real life so I'm not sure why it needs to be a rule that it can't happen in fiction.

Although my experiences may not be indicative of the larger picture, in my many years on this planet I have known far more bisexual people than strait out gay people, so it seems very strange to me when people just assume somebody has to be one or the other in a story. Some of my most painful romantic memories actually involved bisexual love triangles so they definitely are a thing.

last edited at May 5, 2019 12:40PM

This
https://twitter.com/takasakinozomi/status/1125214708691230720?s=20

Leaving the novels aside, what's portrayed in the anime clearly goes beyond feelings of friendship. I don't know what you'd call it; obsession, infatuation, whatever. Kumiko has a weird tendency to kind of latch on to people (not just Reina; the second season is basically just Kumiko going from getting creepily involved in one female student's life to another's).

But also I don't really think it matters what you call it. Kumiko is someone who's afraid to commit to things (relationships, her position in the band, her personal goals), but also cannot resist getting drawn in. And when she gets drawn in, she gets in deep. She has an odd ambivalence where sometimes she's running away and sometimes she gets completely absorbed in another person's problems, like she's experiencing vicariously the emotional drive she feels she lacks.

So that weird sense of ambiguity is not some addition meant to deceive yuri fans. It's another thematic element of what the show creators were aiming for. Or at least an element of what they ended up making.

last edited at May 7, 2019 12:03AM

It really do be like that sometimes.

Worst yuri bait, at least in the anime cause as far as I read in websites, the light novel doesn't have yuri bait. So if someone is bother then blame kyoani. Anyway, I haven't watched the whole anime but just the "yuri" moments between kumiko and reina. So yea, I will never watch it tbh. I dislike bait... do it completely straight or yuri. Notice that I'm not saying is a bad anime. Anyway, the good thing is that it gaves us good doujins of those two girls.

Even though I can understand the frustration, I find it sad that so many people dismiss this show as "yuri bait", 'cause it's a lot more than that. It's actually grown to be one of my favourite shows, especially thanks to the second arc of season 2 and the music, which I really enjoyed.

I can't really get mad at Hibike, because it was actually what led me to discover yuri. I was still pretty new to anime when I first watched it, so I wasn't familiar with this kind of fanservice(?) and I legitimately thought they would get together... So I was rather shocked by the revelation of Reina's crush. Well, realizing that my "just kiss already!", which I had thought multiple times throughout season 1, would probably never happen, I went ahead and searched "anime where girls kiss", or something of the sort, and ended up finding Sakura Trick (which sure quenched my desire for kissing lol).

For the record, I don't think that the fact that they don't get together makes Kumiko and Reina's relationship insignificant, or "bait", but I think @schuyguy's post above explains it better than I could.

And @Pulsar, how can you judge a show you haven't even watched?? This is exactly what saddens me about all this "yuri bait" talk: people criticizing a show (and sometimes even the whole studio), based on only one part of it and often without even having watched it themselves.

I always find it very strange that whenever you get some silly debate like this about "yuri bait" that everyone seems to assume bisexuals don't exist particularly in cases where there is some evidence of attraction to both sexes. People act likes it's impossible that a girl would appear to be interested in another girl romantically and then end up dating a guy. This happens all the time in real life so I'm not sure why it needs to be a rule that it can't happen in fiction.

That's completely fair and bi-erasure is certainly something that needs to be tackled. But in the case of deciding if something is Yuri or not, if the character only ever dates a guy and we only see subtext with another girl is that enough to call it yuri?

If the not openly confirmed subtext relationship in Lycoris is considered yuri then I suppose Euphonium could be as well, even if there's never a girl-girl relationship beyond subtext.