Because yuri doesn't sell. As long as it isn't confirmed, otakus can imagine them as their waifus and ignore (or not realize) all the subtext you throw at them. Not confirming yuri relationships is a calculated move by studios to make sure to not alienate the biggest part of their audience, male otakus who actually spend all their money on their stuff.
Oh yeah, I know that. There are people who watch Manaria Friends, or Flip Flappers or Princess Principal, and think that the two girls really are just friends, and their money is important. What I should've added is that I don't understand why some few and far-between series do include canon yuri, since it doesn't sell. I guess we should just count ourselves lucky that there are exceptions at all.
But that's good news about Manaria Friends.
To be fair a LOT of anime that aren't explicitly romances have low key het pairings with romantic subtext that is never properly confirmed. It's not like this only happens with yuri flavored relationships. I will admit it is more common with yuri pairings, but it's certainly not unique to them.
I think this is also starting to change for the better with time. Just look at this last year or so or even this season. We have two shows at this moment that are not romances and which have unambiguous yuri elements in them.
Endro has two yuri crushes and a character that is strait up declaring she will rewrite the laws of the kingdom so she can get married to another female character, and Wataten! is a cute girls doing cute things series with two very unambiguous yuri crushes at the heart of what goes on in the series. Both of these are shows that could have easily left the yuri as subtext only without changing the over arching series much at all yet they didn't.
I should add than Manaria friends has already toed the line line between what is subtext and not, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes explicitly yuri in the future.
last edited at Feb 10, 2019 7:42PM
