Dieser Beitrag von Erica Friedman (ALC Publishing, Yuricon, Okazu) beschäftigt sich mit einer Frage, die wir uns sicher alle schon mal gestellt haben, „Ist Yuri Queer?“. Ihr findet den Artikel in voller Länge HIER.
Erica Friedman Inevitably, when I do any kind of public talk about Yuri or LGBTQ comics, someone will express dissatisfaction at mild school life romances that seem to fill Yuri bookshelves, or I’ll be asked for recommendations for manga about “real” lesbians. Exactly why we don’t yet have a blockbuster lesbian action story is certainly a conversation we should and can have. (...)
So let’s get to the heart of the matter and ask what we’ve all wondered at some point:
Is Yuri Queer?
The answer—as you’d probably expect—is “yes” and “no” and “maybe, it really depends.”
To get a grip on what, exactly, Yuri is, I want to begin with the intentionally broad umbrella definition we use at Yuricon. “What is Yuri” ends with this broad stroke:
Yuri can describe any anime or manga series (or other derivative media, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience.
In short, Yuri is any story with lesbian themes.
Note the emphasized phrase. What you and I understand as “Yuri” may not be even remotely similar. I’ve famously joked that I seek out media with amoral psychotic lesbian characters, such as Yoshimurakana’s MURCIÉLAGO (Yen Press), whereas you might find that scandalous and prefer sedate tales of high school romance and drama like Bloom Into You (Seven Seas).
Neither of us are wrong. Both of those are “Yuri” as we understand it. There is room enough in this youngest genre of anime and manga that we can set the tent poles wherever we’d like. And we might as well make the tent as big as possible.
Under this huge tent, we have room for all fans. So let’s first look at the arguments for “Yes.
Yes, Yuri is Queer
No, Yuri is Not Queer
(...)
Complex questions do not have simple answers. (...)
So let’s get to the heart of the matter and ask what we’ve all wondered at some point:
Is Yuri Queer?
The answer—as you’d probably expect—is “yes” and “no” and “maybe, it really depends.”
To get a grip on what, exactly, Yuri is, I want to begin with the intentionally broad umbrella definition we use at Yuricon. “What is Yuri” ends with this broad stroke:
Yuri can describe any anime or manga series (or other derivative media, i.e., fan fiction, film, etc.) that shows intense emotional connection, romantic love or physical desire between women. Yuri is not a genre confined by the gender or age of the audience, but by the *perception* of the audience.
In short, Yuri is any story with lesbian themes.
Note the emphasized phrase. What you and I understand as “Yuri” may not be even remotely similar. I’ve famously joked that I seek out media with amoral psychotic lesbian characters, such as Yoshimurakana’s MURCIÉLAGO (Yen Press), whereas you might find that scandalous and prefer sedate tales of high school romance and drama like Bloom Into You (Seven Seas).
Neither of us are wrong. Both of those are “Yuri” as we understand it. There is room enough in this youngest genre of anime and manga that we can set the tent poles wherever we’d like. And we might as well make the tent as big as possible.
Under this huge tent, we have room for all fans. So let’s first look at the arguments for “Yes.
Yes, Yuri is Queer
There is a school of thought that any representation (that is not actively inaccurate or damaging) is good representation. Any couple shown as loving and pair-bonded without ambiguity can be seen as a good representation of queer couples.
No one, upon seeing Haruka and Michiru in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Kodansha Comics), could sensibly argue that they are not a queer couple. (Of course, there were those people who made that argument in the late 1990s and were shut down by the creator’s plain statement that they were, in fact, a couple.)
During the series’ 25th anniversary promotions, they have been repeatedly featured as a couple—there was even an entire series of goods designed to highlight their existence as such. This past Girls’ Day, Japanese figure-maker Megahouse released two sets of dolls, one with Usagi and Mamoru and one with Haruka and Michiru. The two romantic relationships of Sailor Moon were immortalized in plastic.
Most queer readers of Sailor Moon, or those of us who saw ourselves in Revolutionary Girl Utena’s (Viz Media) Arisugawa Juri, who felt conflicted feelings of desire for her best friend Shiori, can attest that these characters are queer. Thus Yuri, even when it’s not intentionally seeking to be queer, is queer.
So in that sense, Yuri is queer. It can tell our stories, even when it’s not intentionally seeking to. If we can see our queer experience reflected in Yuri, then Yuri is queer.
No one, upon seeing Haruka and Michiru in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Kodansha Comics), could sensibly argue that they are not a queer couple. (Of course, there were those people who made that argument in the late 1990s and were shut down by the creator’s plain statement that they were, in fact, a couple.)
During the series’ 25th anniversary promotions, they have been repeatedly featured as a couple—there was even an entire series of goods designed to highlight their existence as such. This past Girls’ Day, Japanese figure-maker Megahouse released two sets of dolls, one with Usagi and Mamoru and one with Haruka and Michiru. The two romantic relationships of Sailor Moon were immortalized in plastic.
Most queer readers of Sailor Moon, or those of us who saw ourselves in Revolutionary Girl Utena’s (Viz Media) Arisugawa Juri, who felt conflicted feelings of desire for her best friend Shiori, can attest that these characters are queer. Thus Yuri, even when it’s not intentionally seeking to be queer, is queer.
So in that sense, Yuri is queer. It can tell our stories, even when it’s not intentionally seeking to. If we can see our queer experience reflected in Yuri, then Yuri is queer.
No, Yuri is Not Queer
On the other hand, I have a second—more personal—interpretation of the term Yuri on Okazu, my blog:
Yuri is lesbian content without lesbian identity.
By this definition, if a series recognizes itself as being about queer issues, it is a series about sexual, gender, and romantic minorities, something I put into the “LGBTQ” category on Okazu. Very little of the massive amounts of Yuri being published uses the word—or the concept—of “lesbian.”
It’s still rare to encounter a character who says even in an internal monologue that they, when they are looking for a sexual or romantic partner, look at their own gender—which makes Bloom Into You’s Saeki Sayaka uncommon. (That series also features a stable adult relationship as role model and confidant for Sayaka, which makes the series highly unique in a positive way for young queer readers.)
Coming-out narratives, which are very common in western literature, are rare in Japanese literature. Instead, tropes of lesbian behavior are modeled on the heteronormative Takarazuka Revue with its strong butch/femme dynamic, or removed from the real world completely by being set in fantasy scenarios at impossibly rich girl’s schools, such as in Maria Watches Over Us (anime from RightStuf), Strawberry Panic! (anime from Media Blasters; manga from Seven Seas) or, more recently, Revue Starlight (anime from Sentai).
Even with the current trend in Japan of Yuri anthologies focusing on adults, stories rarely acknowledge the social and political facts of homophobia, family pressure, employment and housing instability, medical care, and other real world issues of being queer, much less address them directly.
So in that sense: no, Yuri is not at all queer. You might call it “queer-adjacent.”
Yuri is lesbian content without lesbian identity.
By this definition, if a series recognizes itself as being about queer issues, it is a series about sexual, gender, and romantic minorities, something I put into the “LGBTQ” category on Okazu. Very little of the massive amounts of Yuri being published uses the word—or the concept—of “lesbian.”
It’s still rare to encounter a character who says even in an internal monologue that they, when they are looking for a sexual or romantic partner, look at their own gender—which makes Bloom Into You’s Saeki Sayaka uncommon. (That series also features a stable adult relationship as role model and confidant for Sayaka, which makes the series highly unique in a positive way for young queer readers.)
Coming-out narratives, which are very common in western literature, are rare in Japanese literature. Instead, tropes of lesbian behavior are modeled on the heteronormative Takarazuka Revue with its strong butch/femme dynamic, or removed from the real world completely by being set in fantasy scenarios at impossibly rich girl’s schools, such as in Maria Watches Over Us (anime from RightStuf), Strawberry Panic! (anime from Media Blasters; manga from Seven Seas) or, more recently, Revue Starlight (anime from Sentai).
Even with the current trend in Japan of Yuri anthologies focusing on adults, stories rarely acknowledge the social and political facts of homophobia, family pressure, employment and housing instability, medical care, and other real world issues of being queer, much less address them directly.
So in that sense: no, Yuri is not at all queer. You might call it “queer-adjacent.”
(...)
Complex questions do not have simple answers. (...)