There's a very common sentiment among the more amateurish parts of the yuri fandom that Class S is an outdated genre driven by historical compromises and editorial restrictions, rendering it unable to express a 'true' lesbianism because of its focus on symbolism and subtlety. ...

"Damned lesbians! They ruined yuri!"

This is an interesting analysis of why Class S as a genre still has something to offer, but I strongly disagree with its dismissiveness toward queer identity, the desire to see queerness represented in art, and indeed the idea you seem to have that no art can include "boorish" and "vulgar" modern LGBTQ+ identity and still qualify as art.

It frankly comes across as shadowing the tired old argument that yuri is supposed to be "pure" in a way that putting actual queer identity into somehow sullies, as if someone bringing up pronouns or the dreaded "L" word will break the spell and turn precious subtle beauty into something dirty and common.

Your insinuation that this is also a difference between Western and Japanese sensibilities is troubling. The LGBTQ+ movement exists in Japan too, and they are just as much a part of the conversations about identity and awareness. They have the same flags and the same labels. And Japanese lesbians are just as interested in exploring their own experiences through art - including yuri.

One needs only look at the works of creators like Amano Shinunta, Morinaga Milk, Usui Shio, Takemiya Jin, and so on to see that there's plenty of "art" to be seen in the modern Japanese woman's experiences as a lesbian. Give me some time, and I could come up with many more. This idea that Japanese lesbians aren't part of the queer community is...quaint at best, condescending and Orientalist at worst.

And what's funny is, I'd actually argue that part of what makes this particular work great is how it's an examination of Class S tropes, not just slavishly repeating them. It's about the meeting of Class S with the messiness of actual adolescent emotions and existence. Kasumi and Haruyo try to consciously take on these roles, but it's mixed with real-world issues and longing. They're Class S Onee-sama and Sumi-chan, but they're also two young queer women who clearly have feelings for each other that don't map perfectly onto that roadmap. And them navigating those different dynamics is what I feel like the story is about. It's a celebration of Class S, but also of young love in the messiness of the real world.

last edited at Aug 5, 2025 12:23PM

Is @Temp for real or not? Like should we ignore it or can we reply to that?

@Gellydog I think you're being uncharitable to Temp. They never said that art cannot contain explicit queer labels, just that it need not. They're arguing against dismissing art wholesale on the basis of which labels it contains (or doesn't contain).

I think what this work does show is how Class S tropes can be valuable in providing a structure for young girls to understand themselves and their desires. (Yuri is my Job also does this.) Kasumi in her actual life is burdened by a number of worries and responsibilities that she is frankly too young for (needs to keep her grades high for her scholarship, class rep, her frequent bouts of self-hatred, and of course her friend's suicide she's still unable to face directly). By playing the role of the imouto, she is able to forget all of that and be more selfish, demanding, and childish. Haruyo by contrast has a lack of power in her everyday life, treated like a child by both her family and friends -- "Sounds serious. For Paruyo? Physically impossible.' The oneesama roleplay lets her take charge of herself and her surroundings, giving her the power and autonomy she doesn't have in the "real world." It's not a coincidence that Kasumi has a younger brother and Haruyo has an older brother.

HOLY JESUS
DAMN THIS IS GAY

@Temp, I like your essay about this series and the contemporary Class S genre a lot, but I don't think you need to set up your insightful analytical points by means of shadowboxing with those unnamed "vulgar realist" yuri critics, which comes off as close to straw manning those arguments. I do know the kind of critical arguments you're talking about, and I may even know the names of a couple of the people who tend to make them, but you do such a good job of talking about what the Class S genre is and can be that invoking those "bad guy" critics ends up distracting from your core ideas.

I usually prefer not to engage in arguments on forums, but since I made the original post with an intention to point out certain chauvinistic and reductive tendencies in the discourse about yuri that's found in the West, I find it useful to address a perfect example of this behavior that another user of the forum has been kind enough to provide me with.

"Damned lesbians! They ruined yuri!"

You begin by creating a strawman that has no relevance to anything I posted. I imagine the disingenuity of this opening is plainly obvious, but it reflects a tendency to create false binaries that recurs throughout your argument, and is furthermore a symptom of precisely the crude approach to thinking about yuri that I have criticized.

This is an interesting analysis of why Class S as a genre still has something to offer, but I strongly disagree with its dismissiveness toward queer identity, the desire to see queerness represented in art

Here, you argue that I am being dismissive towards queer identity, which is strange, given that the crux of my post was a request to expand the ways in which we think about queerness in art and adopt a less dogmatic approach.

and indeed the idea you seem to have that no art can include "boorish" and "vulgar" modern LGBTQ+ identity and still qualify as art.

Nowhere was this idea expressed. It is an invention, and not a particularly charming one at that. I have critiqued a way of discussing, speaking about and evaluating art, not creating it. Nowhere have I levied insults at artists who prefer to operate in a more realistic mode and make explicit references to queer identity in the LGBT format. I have simply pointed out a bias I notice where artists who do adopt this mode are seen as being inherently superior and more mature compared to artists who embark on more ambiguous, subtextual or experimental approaches to queerness, which is born of an inability to actually consider what these more symbolically charged and dramatically structured formats might offer to artists compared to realism. You haven't discussed this at all, because to you, art seems to be less a question of technique, approach and objectives than the site of a crusade to be waged over your (rather restrictive) definitions of queerness. I request that readers widen the scope of what we consider queer, to treat queer as a mode of reading, argumentation and interpretation, which is the method adopted by many queer historians and literary critics. The fact that you interpret a call for diversification as an argument for exclusion is baffling, and might place you closer to the camp of the conservatives rather than the liberals- though the distance between them is certainly not too great.

It frankly comes across as shadowing the tired old argument that yuri is supposed to be "pure" in a way that putting actual queer identity into somehow sullies, as if someone bringing up pronouns or the dreaded "L" word will break the spell and turn precious subtle beauty into something dirty and common.

In my first paragraph, I critique the idea of 'pure' yuri and how it is used as a cudgel to attack authors who experiment with sexuality or identity in unconventional ways, as they face accusations of deviance, fetishization and exploitation. You've managed to miss this. In my final paragraph, I point out how the labels employed today by the LGBT movement are useful in a daily context for clarifying one's identifications and preferences, but need not be seen as a necessity in art, where the interpretation and fluidity of identification and preferences necessarily furnishes the pleasures of interpretation and discussion, as well as the space in which authors can express themselves in ways difficult to achieve in daily life. You've also missed this.

When a person acknowledges the history of the queer movement as having made admirable gains in the realm of expression and identity, uses tools and techniques of reading employed by queer academics, and references continually the notion that queerness must fundamentally operate as an open and liberatory framework of thought and life rather than ossifying into a checklist or an obligation, which reflects the stagnation of the movement, it is quite frankly absurd to be accused of seeing queer identity as foul. I'm not sure how it's possible for someone to miss a point this hard, although I once again suspect that it stems from the same tendency I have been referencing throughout my argument- a certain belligerently intolerant concept of LGBT 'rights' that interprets any critique of the movement or those associated with it as a total rejection of queerness. This is rather ironic, given that the movement began in colonial and settler-colonial nations built on genocide, was marked by frequent betrayals of more vulnerable groups such as trans women, has frequently been invoked by conservatives of all strands ranging from TERFS to respectability gays, and is also used to fuel homonationalist defenses of imperialist policy across the world.

If I truly wished to embark on a critique of the LGBT movement, I would have a great many places to begin at beyond just its attitudes towards non-Western art. However, that was not my intention. My original post, just to drive it in, was explicitly a critique of certain attitudes towards reading that tend to commonly come from Western readers who don't want to engage with the cultural specificity of forms such as Class S even as they eagerly consume Asian media, always complaining that it would be better if it featured themes and aesthetics more familiar to their Western sensibilities and contexts.

Your insinuation that this is also a difference between Western and Japanese sensibilities is troubling. The LGBTQ+ movement exists in Japan too, and they are just as much a part of the conversations about identity and awareness. They have the same flags and the same labels. And Japanese lesbians are just as interested in exploring their own experiences through art - including yuri.

One needs only look at the works of creators like Amano Shinunta, Morinaga Milk, Usui Shio, Takemiya Jin, and so on to see that there's plenty of "art" to be seen in the modern Japanese woman's experiences as a lesbian. Give me some time, and I could come up with many more.

I'm not sure why the rather basic idea that "Western and Japanese sensibilities are different" is framed as an 'insinuation', as if it were a conspiracy theory rather than the natural result of the different histories and material conditions of these regions. The uniqueness and freshness of Japanese and other non-Western media is frequently cited by Westerners as a reason for their interest in them, and the same obviously applies to Asian readers interested in the West. The fact that you are 'troubled' by this is strange. Are you also troubled by the existence of world maps, time zones, and different languages?

Furthermore, at no point have I implied that there is no LGBTQ+ movement in Japan- you are the one who's brought them in as a rhetorical construct to defend against what you perceive as an attack on queerness. If you glanced through my post history, you'll see that I frequently praise authors like Akiyama Haru who operate in a more realistic mode, and indeed consider Amano Shuninta to be my favorite yuri author. Once again, you've created an argument out of thin air to present a caricature of the kind of person you delude yourself as campaigning against, possibly because it makes you feel quite righteous. I have always and regularly lavished effusive praise on authors who employ realism and comment on the daily lives of lesbians, and tried to give an equal amount of appreciation to authors who employ more traditionally fixed genre conventions to tell interesting stories. However, I've observed that the same grace is not given to both types of authors in the broader Western discourse around yuri, precisely because it sees the genre as having an obligation to document certain types of gender presentations and narratives deemed more 'real' than others, rather than the authenticity of yuri being necessarily contained in the very act of operating within the tradition- a tradition that has always been led by Japanese lesbians, including the pioneers of Class S!

Rather than engaging with this criticism, you've simply proven my point by attacking me and framing me as a malicious actor. You refuse to see the people you're arguing with as people, because it makes it harder to create binaries of good and evil, inclusive and exclusive, traditional and modern. Applied to art, this obsession with binarism produces incoherent readings. Applied to forum discussions, it produces ridiculous arguments, such as the following:

This idea that Japanese lesbians aren't part of the queer community is...quaint at best, condescending and Orientalist at worst.

What does one say to this? If making an argument for considering a culture and genre on its own terms is Orientalist, then you would probably brand the majority of decolonial and anti-imperialist movements as Orientalist for their rejection of Western influence. I don't understand how you can accuse me of propounding the idea that Japanese lesbians are not part of the queer community when I literally, in my first paragraph, criticize how readers of yuri who demand that it fit into restrictive aesthetics of realist queerness will frequently end up casting suspicion and contempt upon Japanese lesbians in the genre who take more experimental and ambiguous approaches, refusing to appreciate their contributions to queer identity. I think its pretty nasty to throw around such allegations in response to a post about appreciating and engaging with other cultures. If your defense of the 'queer community' involves making baseless accusations about people whenever they don't fit into your neat little idea of a family, then I shudder to think of the fate of the people in your queer community. Clearly, their dignity and right to be taken seriously is contingent upon their willingness to never bring up the ways in which the Western gaze can be chauvinist when dealing with art from the cultures it has historically mocked and dehumanized. If the Palestinian academic who devised Orientalism pointed out that there are many cultures that had their own notions and concepts of alternative sexuality long before queerness or the LGBT movement was a thing in the West, you'd probably brand him Orientalist as well. Black is white, good is evil, inclusion is exclusion- you've moved past building reductive binaries and are now in the process of enthusiastically inverting them.

And what's funny is, I'd actually argue that part of what makes this particular work great is how it's an examination of Class S tropes, not just slavishly repeating them. It's about the meeting of Class S with the messiness of actual adolescent emotions and existence. Kasumi and Haruyo try to consciously take on these roles, but it's mixed with real-world issues and longing. They're Class S Onee-sama and Sumi-chan, but they're also two young queer women who clearly have feelings for each other that don't map perfectly onto that roadmap. And them navigating those different dynamics is what I feel like the story is about. It's a celebration of Class S, but also of young love in the messiness of the real world.

I really like how you follow up the accusation of Orientalism with a paragraph that casually implies that there are works in Japan that 'slavishly' imitate the tropes of Class S- not a problematic framing in the slightest! Where is the theoretical Class S work that somehow manages to avoid engaging with "the messiness of actual adolescent emotions and existence?" Why do you have to praise this manga by using a "not like the other girls" approach and shitting on the tradition rather than appreciating how this work iterates on it? Remove the concern trolling you've been doing for the past few paragraphs and this is the true face of our great defender of queerness- a ridiculous argument that somehow a portion of the Class S works written in the past were not really queer and therefore not good (slavish, you say, in an Asian-honoring way), but this one is because it's actually queer- a criteria defined by messiness? Emotionality? People not quite fitting into their roles and trying to find new ones that better fit them? Literally the exact things that Class S has always been known for, and is quite often affectionately parodied for? What a farcical conclusion this is! You might as well say that all schoolgirl yuri was awful before Bloom Into You, because Bloom Into You discussed how two people's personal ideas of love might not be the same. You know, the sentiment that is literally constantly expressed in dozens, if not hundreds of yuri works in the decade before Bloom Into You was released.

It would be so very simple and easy to acknowledge that art is not created in a vacuum, that it is informed by various traditions and precursors, and that the traditions of a genre in an author's native language and culture may be particularly influential, and therefore a reader from outside this culture ought to engage respectfully with the history of the genre and its influences on the works written in the present. But I guess that its hardly fitting with your shallow notion of 'queerness' to respect the influence of the past and look sympathetically upon the people who attempted to work from within the circumstances of their times to tell interesting stories. Everything has to be either 'subversive' or 'realistic' in order for you to derive a sense of self-importance from reading it. You can't criticize or praise an author on their own merits- you have to present them as either the symptom or the slayer of an evil and rotten tradition. Quite frankly, this is a terrible way to engage with art, particularly from cultures outside your own. But I suppose an appreciation of history is impossible for someone who seemingly struggles to understand complete sentences. If you can't grasp something as elementary as what I'm saying (respect and engage with the genre), I don't think you should be making sweeping statements about art.

Ultimately, I guess this demonstrates the old adage that criticizing chauvinism is a surefire way to summon a chauvinist who'll indignantly reply to you while proving every point you've made.

last edited at Aug 5, 2025 2:58PM by

By creating a setting where identities are so heavily assigned, it ironically and cleverly opens up a secondary plane of identification beneath, one that is not avowed or declared like the opening of a resume- "I identity as XYZ, here are my pronouns, this is my flag", but one that is necessarily more elusive, strategic, provisional and metamorphic. The openness and clarity of queer labels and identity are, of course, a perfectly valid and valuable part of daily life, and one that has been attained through significant organization and agitation. But art is not and should not be life, and serves as a place to explore precisely those ways of speaking, thinking and being that are uncommon or mysterious in the range of daily affairs.

While I do think your comment was mostly about propping up Class S, the language and tone of it does feel dismissive of non-Class S work. These sentences in particular feel particularly heavy handed as far as elevating Class S by bringing down works that are more obvious about identity. It feels unnecessary to talk about how other works are worse to try to make this one be better.

Wow, that ribbon-switching scene...

And the entire chapter somehow had a lot of Akebi vibes for me.

After seeing the posts above me, I'm more curious about how long the posters took to write them, and whether they wrote them themselves or with the help of AI.

After seeing the posts above me, I'm more curious about how long the posters took to write them, and whether they wrote them themselves or with the help of AI.

Temp is definitely not using AI, that's just how grad students talk. I mean this both positively and negatively lol.

ChatGPT outputs college essays at a D- level and Temp is working at at least a B+

There's a very common sentiment among the more amateurish parts of the yuri fandom that Class S is an outdated genre driven by historical compromises and editorial restrictions, rendering it unable to express a 'true' lesbianism because of its focus on symbolism and subtlety. This is a typically boorish and rather Western-centric conception of yuri that views it as a genre whose primary function ought to be the simple documentation and recording of the Japanese lesbian community and nothing else- any attempt to take the genre in more artistic directions, to engage in plays of identity, to experiment with the dynamics of girlhood, to explore dark and speculative quirks of behavior, are all viewed as being failures and distractions that do not reflect 'authentic' lesbianism, even if an avowed Japanese lesbian were to be creating the piece. Good yuri, in the eyes of many of these (usually Western) commentators, must therefore always be a publication of the LGBT movement (assumed uncritically to be both a homogeneous global phenomenon and yet also developed enough in the Western nations to let them dictate the correct line on sexuality to other countries)- anything else would simply be a distraction, a cowardly retreat into a subtext assumed inferior to the mythical 'textual' yuri (as if the avowal of lesbian identity made an artistic piece superior in and of itself), or at worst, a parody of true lesbianism written by the ever-present boogeyman of the secretly male yuri author who was simply exploiting lesbianism for profit and fetishes, obsessed with schoolgirls and either their purity or their sex lives (depending on how the work in question approaches sex), as if the exploration of adolescent sexuality was somehow not a recurring and key approach taken by art about queerness in every context. Thus, Class S becomes, within this vulgar realist critical model of yuri, the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the genre, and therefore something for the modern yuri artist to transcend and move beyond.

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Doesn't everyone?

@Temp - I think it's funny that you accuse me of creating a strawman, and then spend a few thousand words repeatedly putting words into my mouth and likening me to some sinister group of Western lesbians who are trying to "police" queerness, and then acting like you're brilliant for trashing your shadow-puppet foe. Someone said you're a grad student, and you certainly talk like it.

You're the one who brought up the LGBTQ+ community and queer identity, not me. I just pushed back against what I perceived to be problematic language that was unnecessarily included in your otherwise decent analysis of Class S yuri. You deliberately took shots at groups of queer people that you clearly feel aggrieved about. Maybe you have a point! I don't really know, or care.

And your response wasn't to explain yourself or acknowledge that maybe you expressed your ideas in way that could come across badly- you just went straight into insulting me and outright implying that somehow I'm queerphobic because I had the gall to call you out. And also imperialist? I guess?

But I'm not some debate bro in one of your classes that will just sit here and take your shit. It's clear that rather than have an actual discussion, you just want to write an essay and rely on your eloquence to seem like you're not just being petty and rude. So I'm just gonna say, we probably shouldn't spam this comment section with what's clearly just going to be pointless back-and-forth. This work is too good to ruin it with this kind of pointless B.S.

still have a couple gripes about the layouts (the use of space in the non-spread pages is a little off sometimes, moreso in the earlier chapters) but all the other aspects of the work are hitting like crazy
also echoing others in saying humongous ups to the TL work... really exquisite stuff

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Doesn't everyone?

I certainly don't. Sometimes I wish I did. But definitely not to that extent. Lol

Everytime they meet I feel like their roles are reverse lol. That ribbon scene looks quite lewd

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Doesn't everyone?

I keep my expectation myself quite low lol

last edited at Aug 5, 2025 9:14PM

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Doesn't everyone?

I keep my expectation myself quite low lol

My ego is sky high, my self-worth is in a crater.

There's a very common sentiment among the more amateurish parts of the yuri fandom that Class S is an outdated genre driven by historical compromises and editorial restrictions, rendering it unable to express a 'true' lesbianism because of its focus on symbolism and subtlety.

I agree 100% that westerns have a very closed way of perceiving queerness and are quick to catalog what is and what isn’t queer, unables to accept others perspectives.

When I read lesbian comics from the west that are realistic, they do not look very different from the high school american movies I have seen. Basically, their stories for me are also "unrealistic" but I understand that they work in a context different from mine and with that understanding, I navigate them or at least don’t judge them.

Class-S and sisterhood are probably my favorite tropes in yuri. They are unique, I like the stablished dynamics and aesthetics.
Although I differ a little, even if class-s did not have subtly queerness, it would still be good. I don’t think yuri needs to be queer or realistic to be signifcative or valid.
I understand the value She loves to cook She loves to eat has, but its not my cup of tea as I am not searching for that in yuri.

For example, platonic lesbian relationships in japan were expected-normal in adolescense and outside of yuri, even nowadays lesbians are seen as sexless. So for me yuri having sex scenes, women masturbating, etc. is more subversive than the use of labels.

Otherside Picnic had a “intimate” scene and some reviews in amazon jp were complaining. I saw something similar with a Thai GL fanpage when the protagonists had a bed scene (it was tame lol). Obviously this is not Class-S fault but a example of how this has shaped readers in accepting a specific type of yuri and how fans reacts to more “straight forward” lesbian interaction. Korean yuri suffers from this treatment of not being “real” yuri.
So, as you said. It is a bit fascinating because a lot of what people like about (japanese) yuri derives from Class-S, simultaneously don't liking it but at the same time when a manga completely deviates from the vestiges of class-S the scrutiny of What constitutes a Yuri begins.

But I also believe that this is a topic with multiple angles. A few years ago, Hanamonogatari was re-edited in Japan and the sleeve used the word "Yuri" and the phrase in it was something like "when lilies were still a secret" and japanese lesbians were angry because the media and everyone avoids using the word lesbian. When I Favor the Villainess was aired in japan, some were angry at the LGBT talk. So what is and isn’t subversive also varies depending on your context.

This discussion can go back to what is “queer”. and that also varies from person to person. Even what many non-western people consider queer is based on western queerness. I also think the idea that yuri=lesbians is what generates this discussion.

But I must also contradict myself and say that it stresses me that one can never criticize yuri because suddenly you are a man, you are lesbophobic, have never read yuri and likes shojo/bl, are ignorant about the history of the genre, I am reading in bad faith, I didn’t understand the plot, want to restrict lesbian expression,etc. sometimes it borders anti-intellectualism.

@appstore I find the idea that “because you’re a man, you can’t criticize yuri” both dumb and interesting. To generalize it: yuri, like any other form of literature, should be open to interpretation. You consume it, reflect on it, and then share your thoughts, whether those are critical or full of praise.
If you're a man or a woman, part of the LGBTQ+ community or not, as long as you engage with yuri thoughtfully and don’t hold a narrow-minded belief that it exists solely for one audience, then your perspective is valid. When you treat yuri as a piece of art of any form wethers its deep emotions, beautiful art stlye in-depth characters etc, gender or sexuality shouldn't disqualify you from having an opinion. From what I’ve seen, the people on this site are generally open-minded and understanding. I hope that mindset continues to grow. :)

Class-S and sisterhood are probably my favorite tropes in yuri. They are unique, I like the stablished dynamics and aesthetics.
Although I differ a little, even if class-s did not have subtly queerness, it would still be good. I don’t think yuri needs to be queer or realistic to be signifcative or valid.

Honestly, I think Class S is inherently queer. It is, by definition, two girls establishing an intimate relationship beyond the bounds of traditional heteropatriarchy. (Patriarchy allowed it because it was assumed they would "grow out" of it, but the very existence of Class S demonstrates the possibility of alternate forms of living.) So I can't really imagine a Class S dynamic that's not queer.

This chapter was awesome and I'm relieved to learn I was not the only one who found the ribbon tying kind of erotic.

Also, I'm happy to report I managed to resist the temptation to read what Temp said or to reply to anybody with a Take about Class S. Is this what being normal feels like?

But I must also contradict myself and say that it stresses me that one can never criticize yuri because suddenly you are a man, you are lesbophobic, have never read yuri and likes shojo/bl, are ignorant about the history of the genre, I am reading in bad faith, I didn’t understand the plot, want to restrict lesbian expression,etc. sometimes it borders anti-intellectualism.

Yeah, I think anti-intellectualism is a pretty big issue on a lot of online discussion forums. It's hardly a new issue, or one that's likely to vanish in the years to come, but it's still quite off-putting to see just how hostile people are to engaging with unfamiliar or challenging ideas. It's one thing to say, "I don't have the energy to fully address this point, I can't quite understand what you're trying to convey, or I'm just here for the jokes and vibes". But people often go on the offensive and try to argue how not engaging with someone's opinions is actually a very progressive or heroic thing to do. They achieve this by trying to create a caricature of the kind of person who isn't worth arguing with, accuse another poster of embodying this archetype, and thus get to both make nasty accusations and absolve themselves of justifying them. A common variant of this is accusing anyone who's penned a long post of having used A.I., which carries the assumption that "No real person would spend this much time thinking and writing about art. Rather than trying to acknowledge that you've put the effort in to make a point, I believe that the volume or density of your views are symptomatic of your inauthenticity". Therefore, the most honest way to say something becomes to say almost nothing at all! What does this convey about our attitude toward discussion? Anti-intellectualism is precisely how I'd describe it.

If it's not annoying enough when directed at a commenter, this practice becomes even worse when directed at the interpretation of an artistic work. It's not enough to say, "I dislike this piece, I think it was badly executed, I don't quite agree with the author's treatment of this idea" etc. People feel the need to dismiss entire genres and ideas out of pocket, asking not, "How has the author approached this?", but "Should this have been approached at all?". They come up with this notion of what yuri ought to be, which necessarily implies dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and rather than trying to engage with a particular yuri work, they demand that the work should engage with them, cater to them, fulfil their preconceived notions of what yuri ought to be, claiming that some yuri works are more yuri than others- as if this was all quantifiable. And this obsession with essence and proof necessarily leads people to make some pretty sweeping statements- "This work has too much sex for me, so it must have been written by a man", "This work didn't end with the couple kissing, so can we really call it yuri?", "This work deals with incest/lolicon/noncon themes, so the author is a porn-brained pervert creating masturbatory material with no meaningful message", "This work doesn't fit the direction I thought the author would take, so it must have been axed/censored/edited"- these are just some of the statements I've seen made on forums. The Death of the Author has been succeeded by the Necromancy of the Author, as people consistently try to conjure up hypothetical figures, whether authors or commenters, who are evil or stupid or helpless enough to make the act of dismissing them not a matter of personal taste, but one of moral imperative.

When you treat yuri as a piece of art of any form wethers its deep emotions, beautiful art stlye in-depth characters etc, gender or sexuality shouldn't disqualify you from having an opinion. From what I’ve seen, the people on this site are generally open-minded and understanding. I hope that mindset continues to grow. :)

Also agree with this point. When discussions are had, they should focus upon opinions and not upon identities. I think it should be possible to critique a way of thinking and speaking without making assumptions about a person's character or background or education or nationality, which is something that is all too often done as a way of discrediting arguments. Wherever you come from, it's possible to learn and appreciate different cultures if you have the right attitude and put in the effort to see culture as a fluid, complex and mutifaceted thing rather than a monolith. But in order to do this, people must be willing to productively face difference rather than trying to homogenize the world. They must both be open to new ideas and understanding of older ones in their unique contexts.

To tie all this back to the manga, I think that is what Class S offers to authors and readers as a genre- a fascinating blend of tradition and expression, a complex of roles that can certainly turn into restrictive and suffocating labels, but also be reinterpreted as structures that offer women directions and purpose in life. The most open of social situations can still become suffocating and grueling thanks to unspoken assumptions and unexpressed feelings, as demonstrated by Kasumi's struggles and guilt. And conversely the most binding and strict of roles can contain the potential for creativity and artistry, as we see in Haruyo's approach to playing the onee-sama. These paradoxes defy simple binaries and demonstrate the multiplicity of ways there exist to portray queerness itself- nostalgia, family, secrecy and intrigue, all of which are not merely relics of the queer past rendered obsolete in the modern age, but endlessly fertile fields of gender/sexuality expression that function almost as a sophisticated system unto themselves- not always the system of a curriculum, but often the system of a game, which derives its enjoyment precisely from the space around the rules.

I, for one, think Hanayo looks better with short hair. It's very cute and has a 30s style air to it.

As for the discussion, while I agree that dismissing Class S feels ignorant, it's equally, if not more ignorant to underplay the importance of "realistic" yuri. It comes off as you viewing the experience of those real Japanese lesbians as inauthentic and the "Western" LGBT+ values they hold as a foregin inveding force. Many lesbian and sapphic mangaka talk about LGBT+ issues and rights and the treatment of lesbianism by Japanese society. Don't throw them under the bus.