Definitions and Classifications of Yuri (Third Revision) - yuri315
(This is a translation of a 2018 blog post by the user yuri315 on hatenablog, originally found here. I find this author’s system incredibly thorough and interesting, as well as the examples they provide of most of the relationship types, so I wanted to translate it and share it with other yuri fans on Tumblr. I included notes on important information that I thought required additional context, and provided links to all of the manga and anime mentioned, in English when possible and in Japanese when no English was available.)
At present, in order to roughly group together a great variety of relationships as “yuri”, the question of where the line is on what can be considered yuri, whether a certain work can be called yuri, and other such unproductive arguments happen frequently. The purpose of this article is to create a general classification of the contents of yuri as a genre, in hopes of shifting the conversation from “is this yuri?” to “what kind of yuri do I enjoy?”
Of course, it can’t be denied that the ambiguity of the definition of yuri, combining works following a variety of tastes and trends into a single genre, has been an aspect of the boom that’s revitalized the genre. Understandably, there are concerns that clumsily subdividing the classification of yuri will cause a lack of cohesion and lead to the boom stalling and collapsing, when as it is now it hasn’t even received a genre code at Comiket.* However, for the general public and new fans who don’t share these assumptions, it may be difficult for them to understand situations where it isn’t clear whether something is yuri, and they may not be influenced or restricted by those saying “X isn’t yuri.” Therefore, it is the author’s belief that it would be significant for the yuri genre to have some form of comprehensive definition or classification.
Let’s start with a provisional definition of yuri. Yuri can be described as “relationships between two or more women, and the genre of works that depicts those relationships.” By analyzing what feelings and behaviors these “relationships” are based on, the contents of the yuri genre can be classified. In the following article, we will divide yuri into three broad categories: “Romantic Relationships”, “Special Relationships” and “Friendly Relationships”, and then establish a more detailed typology of how these relationships form and how they may be portrayed in each category. These designations are for convenience only, and the author is currently experimenting to find a better system.
(*TL note: Genre codes at Comiket—Comic Market, a doujinshi convention and the largest fan convention in the world—are used for attending artists/circles to categorize their work. Circles exhibiting works in the same genre code are grouped together in the convention space; there are currently no genre codes for yuri like there are for BL, even now, five years after this article was written.)
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