Ollie living her best life I see.

Friend sent me this on discord, not sure if it's Yuri but I'm curious as to what the series is, for some reason it rings some vague bells. Thanks in advance for any help!

Thank you, FluffyCow. This is an excellent comment and I mostly agree. I don't think Sumiko will show them being sexually explicit, but I have a feeling there will be lots of attachment and strong emotion between Mitsuki and Aya. Maybe Sumiko will lead up to those sexual moments with passion, emotion, and intensity, but it will be left to the reader to discern with their imagination or with subtext.

Thanks! Yeah I think leaving things to the reader's imagination with sexual elements is fine, I'm mostly hoping to see the attachment and strong emotions you mentioned. I think a very deep connection between the characters is at least hopefully guaranteed, regardless of what form their relationship takes.

I love anime/manga. It's just about the only medium I've read where people consistently enter private residences or facilities without knocking or making any effort to announce their presence so they can conveniently see the most dramatic/sexiest thing possible happening at the exact moment they enter.

I believe I can think of several other mediums but the main one that comes to mind is Western Sitcoms. It's a popular tool with drama/comedy (also dramedy of course), usually someone enters a scene right before a kiss or right at the perfect moment to misunderstand a situation. It's usually done out of the blue to surprise the audience as well as the characters.

So my main point is that you CAN write a very subdued and lowkey love story, one where it's not romantic or sexual but simply about a deep bond and appreciation between two people that goes beyond friendship.

I think that’s the question for many readers, though—what exactly constitutes “beyond friendship,” but is expressly not romantic and/or sexual?

(I don’t have a deep investment in tags/genre designations, since they’re mostly useful for marketing—one person’s “horror” is another person’s “thriller.” But a lot of people do seem to care deeply).

I think it's an understandable question, and I think that's honestly often part of the point of series like that. Where the characters are also uncertain, at least to an extent. Since relationships are usually complicated, and there's many forms of love and ways it can take shape.

Also funny you mention thriller/horror, when I see marketing for Attack on Titan skewered between the two labels haha

Dating someone doesn't have to be a sexual relationship, romance doesn't have to be sexual. Yuri can be a whole lot of everything, including platonic. "Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru" is listed as Subtext on here, but I've seen a good amount of people and other websites classify it as Yuri.

While your statement is true in general, I disagree with using Nettaigyo as an example, simply because the author there went on record saying she does not label it as yuri, stating it is more about close bonds and friendships between girls (basically the same line of reasoning Agu used here). She did say that she does not mind if people head-canon Nettaigyo as yuri, but that is not the same as saying it is yuri.

Yuri can be romance and sexual, it can be romance but not sexual, or it can be sexual but not romance. Close friendship is not yuri, and Nettaigyo is about close friendships and the struggle with loneliness. The amount of subtext and the author being fine with people interpreting it as yuri makes the romance goggles perfectly acceptable, but at the same time if you want to see it as just friendship nothing is stopping you either and this is the angle the author herself took. I do think that in this case what the author said outweighs what some random websites use in their tags, especially since overt romance is simply not depicted on-screen.

Thank you for the information and clarification, I was entirely out of the loop with the author statement and that's why I used it as an example. That's interesting to know, since I still hear people refer to it as a Yuri and various websites still market is as Yuri (such as Amazon where it's currently listed as 74 in Yuri manga books), so I at least think my mistake is very understandable.

Also I think at least the general idea of my point still stands, where in my opinion if the author had instead said the series is Yuri and about a more subtle and subdued love through a deep connection, it would be equally believable. So my main point is that you CAN write a very subdued and lowkey love story, one where it's not romantic or sexual but simply about a deep bond and appreciation between two people that goes beyond friendship.

Edit:

I'm Not Cut Out to Be a Princess, so I'll Elope with the Villainess.

Oh dang I didn't know that got removed, it was fun. Any idea if the creator is going to work with a publisher or something to have it released in a way where we can support them? I intend to respect the author's wishes, it can just be a little frustrating in my opinion when an author wants support but refuses to find a way to release their work in other languages, especially when the demand is there. Which is something I've seen.

last edited at Jun 27, 2022 1:53PM

the thing is, ambiguity of relationships is one of the classic yuri tropes, and in fact it's only relatively recently that explicitly romantic, let alone sexual, relationships have become more common.

i'm not pointing this out so much to come down on one side or the other but to say that worrying about the exactly defined genre of a particular work might not be very fruitful. which for all i know is what the author is expressing in that interview excerpt.

It might help if we get an afterword from the author once the comic is finished, one in English and Japanese (since they've said before that they can speak both). So we can get a clear understanding of their intent and ideas, what kind of relationship they're intending for these characters. I think it would be interesting to hear their thought process.

Adorable

I was the one side in that argument stating that she said, in her interview, that she didn't consider the story she's currently writing as yuri (ie, romance between girls), but as "female close relationship" or something. Ie, Gal Pals. Or subtext.

Afk was arguing that she implied "so far", I was arguing that she's talking about the whole story in general.

Not yuri then. Friendly affection between girls. The warmth of having a gal pal who is really close to you, like a soulmate, and really understands you.

This chapter really drives the point home.

This reminds me of an episode of People Watching. The entire thing is about how popular culture heavily devalues friendships and tries to center everything on sexual relationships despite that being "Fucking lame."

Dating someone doesn't have to be a sexual relationship, romance doesn't have to be sexual. Yuri can be a whole lot of everything, including platonic. "Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru" is listed as Subtext on here, but I've seen a good amount of people and other websites classify it as Yuri.

Also as for the video you linked, I feel it largely centralizes around the concept that men and women can be friends, without it being sexual or romantic. However there's also a very good comment on that video talking about relationships and the fears people have, the last part of said comment is "Their relationship is primed for a powerful and stable romantic relationship, but they refrain from moving their friendship to a romantic stage from fear of losing the existing trust and support. It is ironic, and in my opinion, bittersweet.", which I think is a very good point. People CAN just be friends, but they can also be more than friends without things being sexual or even romantic. It's a complicated topic, and feelings are hard to sort through, as humans we're messy unsure creatures.

With this manga we're on a website that focuses on sharing romantic F/F comics, and so a lot of people want to see them at least date, hold hands, fall in love and bond over music. I don't think everyone on here wants to see them fuck. I do think whatever relationship the author goes for should be interesting. There's nothing wrong with platonic friendships, nonsexual romances, and sexual relationships. Everyone has their preferences.

I'm a bit mixed. On one hand, hell yeah female friendships forming over a beautiful hobby that gets them kinda ostracised from others. On the other hand, it feels very much like galpal erasure of gay girls because they're just really close friends. Nothing's final until the author says so of course, but the path seems to be getting clearer.

I will definitely still follow this story, but just a bit disheartened now.

Yeah there's also I think the gay erasure aspect to consider here. Where so many same sex relationships just get dismissed as purely friends. As I said in my comments above, this series can still be Yuri, Women's Love, or however you want to define it where they're in something along the lines of maybe a platonic love relationship, that isn't romantic or sexual, but they're still more than friends.

last edited at Jun 27, 2022 1:39AM

Nobody here really wants to be in the business of determining what is or isn't fitting the criteria of a Yuri (or related) tag. It's not an easy or straightforward determination in most of the cases in which it matters. So, I wouldn't expect any further changes to the current setup of Yuri, Yuri Crush, and Subtext until and unless other terms become more widely-used than they are today.

Makes sense, thanks for the reply! I think just using "Yuri" (and Yuri Crush + Subtext) is fine personally, the symbol of the Lily is still iconic in Japanese media.

Adorable

Well I didn't expect from this cute chapter to come into a serious and intense conversation like this.

All I can say is if we start tagging series on Dynasty as "wlw" and "Yuri" seperately there might be a lot of fighting on what exactly defines the two. Author intent. So many factors, along with personal opinions. I just don't see it going well at all personally, but maybe I'm wrong...

I definitely find their dynamic interesting.

^ If it's not a cheek kiss it's probably Eve whispering something. Regardless most every scene with Aoi and Eve is pretty dang flirty throughout the series haha

last edited at Jun 25, 2022 11:26PM

The carry kiss is perfect

^Oh My

Lovely cat on cat action

Adorable, Eresh deserves all the snuggles!

^With the power of fanart anything is possible ;)

Also where is this version of the series? I need it heh

last edited at Jun 24, 2022 11:17PM

Some say the womb rune is the most powerful of them all

^Aye, it's unfortunately very rare. They're a cute pair and I'm happy to see this art!

Kiara being assertive with Gura in collab and fanart is great, also that finger lick is 10/10. Ina you're next!

Quick Menat the only viable method for applying sunscreen to Juri's ass is by applying sunscreen to your face and then motorboating that ass.

Ame is going to be eating a lot more than an egg sandwich at this rate ;)

Kokomi being assertive is a rare but very welcome sight!