This post was submitted by Jack

Last time I gave a rundown on the terms of note for engaging with Japanese yaoi production, and today I’d like to return to this subject to see where yuri, the female-female equivalent, is similar and where it is different.

Yuri (百合): Today in Japan, yuri has mostly been replaced with the term Girls’ Love (ガールズラブ). Another even older term that is still in circulation in some places is shoujo ai (少女愛), which quite literally means girl love. In the US, these terms are used interchangeably in fan communities so they’re all pretty much indispensible. In Yuri, the sex-gender roles have tended to be less concrete than in yaoi though there is a somewhat analogous history of writing an older, more experienced and bolder woman with a younger, more timid one. Also, yuri stories have tended to draw on other forms of contemporary Japanese cultural production such as Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団), all women’s theatre established in 1914 in which there is a heavy presence of women’s cross dressing and butch gender expression, though this is never overwhelming or taken as a norm.

Class S (クラスS): Class S is a particular genre of fiction originating in the early twentieth century that explored highly emotionally- and sexually-charged relationships between schoolgirls, usually one being an upperclassman. These types of experiences have at times in Japanese history been considered by some to be normal parts of a girl’s maturation, ultimately ending in heterosexuality. This has been highly influential on today’s yuri narratives and is seen by some as the beginnings of Japanese lesbian literature. The earliest notable author is Yoshiya Nobuko.

X: In the U.S., we usually write fan-paired characters with a slash (/), but the Japanese convention is to note it with an x so one thinks of Excel x Hyatt rather than Excel/Hyatt for Excel Saga (エクセル•サーガ), for example.

Doujinshi (同人誌): Like the tradition of fanfiction in the United States (and elsewhere), the most common form of fan-produced media in Japan are comic books called doujinshi that are printed by small presses and sold at conventions and in stores for a small amount of money that covers their creation costs. They are typically created by groups of collaborators called doujin circles (サークル). The content ranges from humorous to adventuresome and even pornographic. A doujinshi is considered yuri (or other related term) if it highlights a romantic or sexual relationship between two female characters from a source work usually whose relationship did not appear in the original. For manga like Revolutionary Girl Utena or MAI-Hime where female-female relationships are already present or heavily implied, fan works may simply make them more explicit or bring them into focus. Doujinshi is not just produced taking Japanese anime, manga, and video games as points of departure. I have also seen doujinshi of foreign media including Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Men, Power Puff Girls, House M.D., Torchwood, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Prison Break, CSI, Master and Commander, 300, Teen Titans, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Supernatural, Dexter, Chronicles of Narnia, Numbers, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, and, of course, Harry Potter. Part of the fun of doujinshi is the opportunity to play with many different possible pairings and art styles. The example covers from Sailor Moon doujinshi below show the diversity. In terms of yuri doujinshi, there may be a major difference in intended audience between what is produced to titillate a heterosexual or bisexual male audience and what is intended for straight and queer women, though obviously there is also considerable crossover in readership.

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