I guess...given the origins of the term 'yuri', this could count in a familial love kind of way? Like how we use the word 'love' to mean romantic, platonic, etc. If 'yuri' is used for love between girls, who's to say that that love always has to be romantic and/or sexual? Just a dumb thought, though. This was cute, but it certainly didn't come across as being romantic or sexual at all.

After all of those stories of pets being depicted as humans though, there is some room to speculate further that maybe not all is as it seems. If we want to get degenerate about it, maybe the little girl isn't actually that age at all, but is an adult 'little'? Maybe she's just being portrayed as small, because she is currently in little-space, and is in a relationship with two 'caregivers'. That's one way to ruin the innocence of this story.

The art and the characters give me Nana to Kaoru vibes, which is really nice in yuri form.

I like the pacing of this series a lot. It has this really laid-back, but realistic vibe to it that I enjoy. At the same time, I want more romance and affection, darn it!

Could be intentional on the part of MC, because of laws perhaps forbiding the creation of dopplegangers of real people (to prevent things like identity theft);

It seems terribly unlikely for someone's virtual appearance to have any legal meaning whatsoever in a society with this kind of communications technology; unless some truly bizarre hardware/firmware side restrictions are mandatory those aren't going to have any more significance than the forums avatars of today, nor any harder to swap around on a whim. Expect anything legally binding to be based on multiple orders of magnitude more secure identification solutions just like today.

"Involuntary synthetic pornographic imagery."

I love how in the end MC decides to make the avatar's hair more like her friend's hair irl, to make her even cuter. Means MC was more aware of her friend's change in hairstyle than she's willing to admit.

Things to consider: MC could have made the character look any way, to make it appear cute, yet the avatar doesn't really look all that different to the irl friend. MC could have had the avatar be male, or masculine. A neko. Hyper anime-esque, or chibi. Except that she didn't.

Could be intentional on the part of MC, because of laws perhaps forbiding the creation of dopplegangers of real people (to prevent things like identity theft); or because MC doesn't want the possibility that the friend could run into an avatar identical to her exact appearance.

Could be subconscious, in that perhaps the avatar is different in appearance (to us, and her friend) because that is how MC perceives her friend in her mind's eye. How she romanticises her friends appearance.

It's subtle, but this story is definitely a happy one. Their relationship is slow-burning.

I'm a leo like Sayaka! That kind of makes me happy.