#( Kase. )

[elainiisms]

[corruptedromi]

Yuki by Kasing Lung.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Yuri Manga for New (AND Not-So-New) Readers

I was talking on discord about some good yuri for beginners, and figured I'd repost here.

I get way more detailed some of these recommendations��in this post, and there's great recs from another person too! Check it out!

I'm doing this accounting to various tones and tastes, so what works as a beginner yuri for one person might not for another, just read the info to figure out what your jam is.

I'll put a star by the ones about adults (which is the majority of them) since I've found that's always something people want.

Goodbye my Rose Garden (Victorian yuri w/ beautiful art, just beautiful all around)*

How Do We Relationship? (messy adult relationships and lots of actually realistic intimacy)*

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat- (A woman loves to cook but doesn’t have a huge appetite, only to find the woman next door to her does! She cooks for her and they really start to bond over food and the trials of being working adults. Yes, this is the one where the woman googles lesbian. It's really good)*

Bloom into You- a common go-to yuri for beginners for a reason, about a girl who believes she can't fall in love meeting a girl who wants to date her specifically BECAUSE she can't fall in love. Find out more about it and hear my thoughts here. It has a gorgeous anime that doesn't cover the complete story.

Doughnuts Under the Crescent Moon (sweet office lady romance, ace rep) *

Catch These Hands! (These two women were delinquents and rivals in high school, they meet up again, one reveals she was always into the other, she challenges her to a fight on the condition that if the other woman loses she'll date her. Lots of slapsticky fun and great for any lover of girl delinquents)*

Run away with me, Girl (there's some abuse shown in this one, but it's a story about healing, the premise is these girls dated in high school, but one of the pressured herself "normal" and marry a man, that man turns out to be abusive, so when the former lovers reunite, they decide to run away together. It's got beautiful art and a well done story)*

The Moon on a Rainy Night (absolutely spectacular, explores the relationship between a hard of hearing girl and her closeted classmate, the characters are complex and the writing is so good!)

Kase-san And...- Starting with Kase-san and the Morning Glories, this is a very fluffy and sweet high school romance. It also has a short movie. (as the manga goes on they become college students, too)

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This (slice of life about a voice actress and anime screenwriter who live together as a couple. Unfortunately the ending is a bit abrupt (and likely premature) but I love their relationship)*

My fave Otherside Picnic is great for scifi and (mild) horror lovers. It's Scifi creepypasta adventure yuri. It's a slow burn but does truly spectacularly deliver on the gay. Has an anime, it's not great, you should start with the novels. Wrote an article here. https://www.animefeminist.com/how-otherside-picnic-masterfully-uses-horror-to-explore-abuse-and-show-healing-queer-love/ *(v young adults, college students)

The Guy She was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All: (A web manga about a girl who works at a record shop. Her classmate , Aya, wanders in but doesn't recognize her because she has her hair hidden with a hat and is wearing a face mask, and Aya assumes she's a guy. They bond over music and slowly start to get closer...and Aya's finds her heart is fluttering not only over this mysterious boy, but her female classmate that seems a lot like him...) It's going to get a physical release soon.

I Married my Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up (girl and her friend get married simply so her parents will stop bugging her about being single. You can probably guess where it goes from there) *

I Married my Female Friend (similar premise, except no parents involved, it's a platonic marriage they both agreed to with the promise they'll divorce if one of them falls in love. But one woman has decidedly not platonic feeling for the other that she's hiding from her, so It will likely turn romantic, it hasn't all come out here yet so I haven't finished it)*

Monthly in the Garden with my Landlord* (it didn't really hit with me but I might give it a shot again, it's solid despite the terrible title, a woman moves into a house and finds she'll be cohabitating with an idol) (Some more titles I haven't fully read that could appeal: After Hours*, Still Sick*, Cheerful Amnesia*)

My Cute Little Kitten (two roommates adopt a cat...and maybe fall in love?)*

I think all of those work as solid intro- though it does depend on what flavor you're looking for!

This article also covers some of these recs and some manga I didn't mention due to not having completely read it. so check it out: The Beginners Guide to Yuri Manga.

Here's some titles to try when you're a little more familiar with yuri (or you can try them now! I'm not your boss!)

SHWD (action yuri that's taking forever to come out over here physically, featuring extremely muscular women fighting monsters. I think it was forced to end prematurely too)*

Kiss and White Lily for my Dearest Girl: (I'm only three volumes in, but it's really enjoyable. The main storyline is about two academic rivals, where one is determined to rank first in class, and the other is an effortless genius who becomes intrigued at the possibility of someone beating her. Honestly they have the kind of messy combative sexual tension I wish we'd see more often in yuri because it's so good. The story follows other couples too. However, big warning for some nonconsensual kisses in the first volume at least).

Sweet Blue Flowers/Aoi Hana- (This one is a little bit dated, and boy is the ending weirdly paced, but a lot still holds up imo. A painful and sweet coming of age tale, it also has an anime that's good but ends too soon.

One teenage characters backstory involves incestuous (older cousin) the perpetrator of which pulls the "oh no did I turn you gay? thing" but it's definitely framed as a bad thing. )

Yuri is My Job- a story about messy lesbians in a yuri-themed cafe, and how their real relationships differ from the personas they put on. Read more about it here. Big warning for sexual assault of a minor (by an adult villain) in volume 12. Has an anime covering early material.

[bicth-and-in-that-order]

Rambling thoughts of various Yuri manga I’ve read

1. Kase-San and Yamada (Morning Glories sequel series) by Hiromi Takashima

notice how Kase’s name is first, which is representative of her being the main one to cause problems in their relationship

If you asked me what my favorite yuri manga was like 2-3 years ago, I’d say Morning Glories and Kase San everytime. Every avid yuri fan has either read or watched Morning Glories because, at the time in 2010, it was groundbreaking, and I stand by the fact that the original series still holds up to this day. It was cute, sweet, wholesome and only had a few obligatory “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” moments. Most of all it wasn’t a pseudo-incest-straight-male-porn-pandering-garbage-fest—also known as “Citrus”. Was it cliche at times? Yes, but they all are lol. Did they add to the dumb ass “blonde femme and dark hair masc” trope? Also yes. But it was adorable and it was my first ever yuri so it holds a special place in my heart.

And it SEEMED like it was only going to get better in Kase San and Yamada, the sequel. The girls would be heading to college and the story could theoretically focus on more mature topics while they navigate their new relationship. Keyword: theoretically. Unfortunately, instead of exploring interesting relationship dynamics and storylines, the plot of each story arc boils down to: Kase is insecure because a man breathed next to Yamada or Kase is being completely insensitive to Yamada’s feelings…again…—> ✨miscommunication drama ✨—>big over dramatic apology scene—>boring makeup sex or other romantic gesture.

Literally that’s how every single plotline goes. Kase is so goddamn dumb and insensitive to Yamada’s feelings and Yamada’s a complete doormat who can only stay mad for 0.2 seconds before getting pussy whipped like a spineless ass bitch. And for all that Yamada sacrifices for Kase; her hometown, her dreams, her apartment, what does she get in return from Kase? Oh that’s right; bare minimum romantic gestures and a neglectful partner who can’t even call her “girlfriend” in front of others:

Like I thought we were over this shit. It’s been THREE years of them together, a whole anime production, and god knows how many irl years and we’re going back to “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” WHY???

And then Kase later goes onto bet her entire three year relationship over the ugly bitch in the next panel, so now I’m questioning whether or not Kase even loves Yamada with the amount of bullshit she’s put her through. Which COULD be an interesting plot point, but Kase never gets any consequences for her actions and the creator genuinely thinks this is romantic and full of tension so I’m 10000% positive that this arc, just like all the others, will end with some makeup sex and we’ll be right back to step 1. Sigh.

2. Tamen De Gushi by Tan Jiu

Tamen De Gushi’s problems are interesting but it’s NOT because of the Chinese government💀

So today’s dark haired masc and blonde femme of the day are Sun Jing and Qiu Tong, respectively. Their personalities aren’t anything to write home about, if you read ANY high school yuri romance, then you know exactly what happens in this story beat for beat. But, BUT, however derivative it is, I find their dynamic very endearing and down to earth. Idk maybe it’s just the translation, but other yuri stories often have this very inauthentic “anime” vibe to it. Which is to say the characters act very cutesy, overly dramatic, and have this stilted, caricature-esque acting of how the creator thinks teenage girls are supposed act.

However, I’m happy to report that Tamen De Gushi is a breath of fresh air in this regard. The characters and interactions they have are grounded and feel organic, which makes them feel like real people, not aliens pretending to be human. This really elevates the humor in turn, oh did I mention that Tamen De Gushi is super funny? Because Tamen De Gushi is super funny, here’s one of my favorite panels and it’s all because of Sun Jing’s goofy ahh expression:

Like go girl give us nothing

If you’re wondering why I haven’t spoke much about the actual romantic relationship between the girls, that’s because there isn’t one💀 Which, okay, that’s not a fair assessment, they have a ton of romantic tension and they flirt a lot. It’s certainly building to a great romantic relationship, but it can’t quite get there due to legal/political reasons sadly. 😔

Edit: I received new information in regards to what happened to Tamen De Gushi. While I reached my limit for posting pictures, I want to point out that the Chinese government had nothing to do with Tamen De Gushi getting censored, rather it was a dispute between the author and the publishing company. The prior information I received was false and I prob should’ve looked it up more so sorrrry. The fact still remains though that after their big lesbian kiss towards the middle of the story and maybe a few other moments, that’s just kind of it. You’re stuck waiting for something to develop, but nothing really happens. The comic very quickly becomes a collection of slice of life segments and cute pictures that imply a relationship between the girls, but not really ;) ;).  Now things are just kind of left in purgatory for the foreseeable future and, well, that’s Tamen De Gushi y’all.

Compared to Kase San and Yamada, the characters were much better, which is not saying much, but without an actual romantic storyline, there’s just not a lot for me to comment on to be honest. It’s really pretty though, look at this art :

3. Beauty and the Beast Girl by Neji

my personal favorite and the BEST yuri I ever read

So next on the list is Beauty and the Beast Girl (I’m going to abbreviate to BatBG from here on) , which I already spoiled my feelings on the matter so this will basically be me gushing about this story for several paragraphs straight, enjoy.

Contrary to what the title suggests, it really has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast’s story except in name. The main girls are Lily Blind, who is actually fucking blind 💀 and Heath the monster girl. Already I’m happy because instead of blonde femme and dark hair butch, it’s blonde femme and of-course-you-have-purple-hair-and-pronouns masc. Lol, all jokes aside, Lily, unlike her blonde femme counterparts is quite assertive and voices her opinions all the time. In fact, she’s the one who pushes Heath to be more open and communicate with her rather than the other way around. This is, in part, due to the story BatBG is trying to tell. I say BatBG is in name only to Beauty and the Beast because Lily isn’t trying to find the “beauty” within Heath or learning to love a beast or whatever, she’s fine just the way she is and her love for Heath is unconditional. Plus the only thing beastly about Heath is her appearance…which I’ll harp on later, but her behavior is in no way different from a regular human except in very rare, specific moments.

At its heart, BatBG is a story about forgiveness (the creator literally says as much) , but it’s also about the cycle of violence that results from being outcasted and deprived of love. BatBG is set in a world of humans and monsters, where the monsters are outcasted and either have to stay away from human society like Heath or assimilate themselves by hiding away their monster like traits, which is a really queer narrative on top of an already queer story. I don’t want to go into too much spoilers, but sometime before the beginning of the story, Heath in-directly hurts Lily before they ever meet. However, it’s not about Lily needing to forgive Heath, or trying to get over the pain she inflicted upon her, rather its Heath learning to forgive herself and in effect, learning to love herself as much as Lily loves her.

Another big aspect of BatBG is disabilities, Lily Blind is in fact Blind lol and while there are times she struggles with her blindness, she never views her disability as something she needs to be ashamed of and never, ever, blames Heath for it or holds it against her unlike what many, many, many, many other stories end up doing. Her blindness isn’t treated like a super power either, it’s a legitimate disability. She just accepts that it’s a part of her and goes onto say that if not for her blindness, she would’ve never met the love of her life, which I found to be an incredibly profound thing to say.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I suppose I can add a bit of a disclaimer. So BatBG is waaaaay more explicit about the physical affection between the girls than in any of the previous stories I talked about. Heath and Lily are constantly kissing on, hugging, and almost always flirting with each other, and make no mistake, these girls do be fucking. The sex scenes are never perverted or gross, but genuinely super sweet and romantic, which makes it way hotter imo (huh imagine that🤔). And aside from being hot, it also serves a purpose! Lily’s pretty damn horny underneath all her nice girl antics and while it’s not a major part of her character, it does give a slight edge to her personality and, most importantly, balances out the dynamic between Heath and Lily. It would’ve been very easy to fall into that boring trope where Heath is aggressively horny and Lily is the submissive blind girl, but by making Lily be the one to initiate the sexual encounters, it not only compliments Heath’s more reserved nature, but breaks the stereotype that people with disabilities are pure precious being who couldn’t possibly have sex, which is ableist af btw. Many people think the existence of any sex scenes at all is superfluous, but in BatBG, it truly elevates the story, the characters, and the romance in ways that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying without it.

Now, with as much praise I gave BatBG, there is one criticism I have, but it’s a quibble really, and it can be explained in a single image:

There is a dissonance between the story and the art, the story says: “Heath is a big, ugly scary monster”

The art says:

And like yes, it can be argued that Heath is simply regurgitating the things bigoted people have said to her, but at no point in the story is this ever challenged or brought up in any meaningful way. Lily is blind so she doesn’t know what the hell she looks like and the other characters aren’t any help either. It’s not a big deal or anything, it just would’ve elevated the story if Heath was actually kinda ugly/more monstrous and not incredibly beautiful because right now it’s giving skinny girl who calls herself fat all the time, and it’s like, babe, who tf are you fooling? 😭

Other than that, BatBG is incredibly profound despite its premise being so deceptively simple and I love it to pieces so …yeah! READ IT.

4. Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit by sometime

Well, at least there are no blondes

So imma just abbreviate to SiL btw

Alright, let’s get started. The premise is that a villainess falls for the super hero girl and then that plotline is dropped in about 16 pages. I’m not even joking, the villainess falls for the hero, loses her job as a villain and then joins the hero all in one chapter. The REAL plot is actually about a council of evil alien-humans who want to destroy humanity because of generic super villain reason #434: the leader of the aliens is sad and misunderstood :( I’m not even going to lie, I had 0 interest in “X” (the generic ass name of the main villain) and her band of useless lesbians. They did literally nothing in the story except be a nuisance and contribute to X’s incel breakdown at the end. Their inclusion actively made SiL worse because the story has this weird tonal problem where in one breath the villains are portrayed as complete jokes and then you turn the page and now they’re shooting children like girl what💀 And these useless lesbians hog sooooo much of SiL that desperately needed to be given to Honey trap and Hayate to develop their relationship.

When the story DOES actually focus on Honey Trap and Hayate, it’s pretty good, even cute at times, there just wasn’t enough time given to them to flesh their relationship out. As it stands, Honey Trap and Hayate don’t have much of a dynamic, or personality for that matter. Honey Trap’s main gimmick is that she’s extremely horny for Hayate and delulu:

Aside from that, she’s a great value version of Heath, but even a watered down character is better than, like, nothing. All I really know about Hayate is that she’s nice, heroic, likes wearing tacky clothes and ….that’s it. She loves Honey Trap because…………they fought together a few times so why not🤷‍♀️ I’d say at least that’s better than Tamen De Gushi, but actually it’s not because these grown ass women don’t even kiss , all we get is a love confession and their gremlin love child and that’s supposed to be satisfying I guess.

And the worst part is that SiL has the audacity to pretend the romance was something that it clearly wasn’t:

Girl…yall were “””enemies””” for 10 panels.

Now, it’s stated they have been rivals for a while, but I guess Honey Trap forgot all of that because the moment she sees Hayate’s face, my good sis is pussy whipped for life. And that’s in spite of apparently being the evilest one out of the evil group because Honey Trap has no grudge or baggage toward Hayate. She immediately turns good with no issues and Hayate is only distrustful of Honey Trap for 1 or 2 speech bubbles and then she’s not. Anything else that happened was off screen, which means it didn’t happen. Ironically, the very next entry on this list will do a MUCH better job at an ex-villain love story, but for SiL, there’s just not much going on.

Another reading of this story is to call it a “parody” but…no, it isn’t. SiL isn’t a comedy, yes there are comedic moments that poke fun of the genre, but the rest of the story genuinely wants you to take it seriously. Except it can’t. X and her league of dimwits are boring as piss and they oscillate between Saturday morning cartoon villains and child murderers seemingly on a whim. So I can neither be endeared to them nor take them as a serious threat. Honey Trap and Hayate are there, but I lament on all the potential lost from what could’ve been an amazing relationship.

5. Yamujiburo/Kianamaiart’s Hanamusa webcomic

This one is kind of cheating, but I also don’t care let me talk about hot MILFs💀

So the final entry on this list is a webcomic series by one of my fave artist: kianamaiart! And it’s right here on tumblr so check it out!

I stumbled upon this webcomic a few weeks ago, fell in love and now I want to talk about it. This yuri pair thankfully has no blonde femme in sight and instead features two popular Pokémon characters: Jessie from Team Rocket and Delia Ketchum, Ash Ketchum’s mom. What I love about this ship and the world Kiana creates around them is that it’s a very unconventional pairing. There’s just not many romances where a single mom falls in love with an ex gang member and the best part is, Delia being a mom is a big part of her character and she doesn’t ignore Ash in favor of her new relationship with Jessie. She has time for both and doesn’t prioritize one over the other, which many ppl fail to do even irl so good on you Delia!

Now, as for the romance it self, Jessie and Delia are a unique pair. Jessie’s overconfident, brash, drama queen personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “dominant” role and Delia’s sweet, motherly personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “submissive” role. Their dynamic in the webcomic actually plays out in the reverse, Jessie is the one who gets easily flustered and Delia’s…intense, to say the least:

(But Tbf if Delia looked at me like that I’d be at her beck and call too💀)

This subversion of these tropes creates a fun dynamic for the couple and it’s super adorable to see how their energies bounce off each other in each new situation Kiana puts them in. I also love how both Jessie and Delia inspire each other to live out their dreams and they become better versions of themselves by being together.

And one last thing, I don’t have any smart commentary to go along with this, I just really like this drawing of Jessie:

no thoughts, head empty

Final Thoughts

Soooo yeah, that’s the end of my dissertation on yuri comics. I know I ended up dragging a lot of popular yuri, but it wasn’t my intention to make you guys hate any of things I talked about. These were just my thoughts as an avid yuri fan, so let me know your thoughts as well, especially if you read any of the yuri I talked about. And even though I’m super picky about the type of yuri I read, I’d still love to hear any recommendations. Who knows, it might dethrone the undefeated champ that is Beauty and the Beast Girl.

[yonae]

[steemyart]

blorbo doodles weeb edition

[all-blues]

by 高嶋ひろみ

[thelittleangryitalian]

Leo: Is anyone in this house straight?

The Elite force: Oliver

Oliver: I’ll have you know I kissed Kaz once

Chase to Kaz: You kissed Oliver?

Kaz: We were twelve!

[baileybeez]

Some of my favorite ships non/canon!

[elainiisms]

me watching two leaves fall into a puddle right next to each other: yuri.

[legends-of-drag]

Bonus:

“My name comes from my ability to craft stuff on a very low budget and transform the grotesque to glamorous and maybe be both at the same time.”

Charity Kase

Drag Race UK (S3)

[lonestatus]

♥♡∞:｡.｡ Yamada To Kase-San ｡.｡:❀✿＊

[mahoutoons]

actually getting into yuri makes you realize that the notion of yuri being made for straight men who fetishize lesbians is a misconception. while yes, there might be some yuri that's problematic, a lot of it is just regular love stories between two girls. some of it is more lighthearted, some are more realistic to the experiences of queer women. there's lots of yuri actually aimed at girls and women (such as kase san which is a shojo and run away with me girl which is a josei. revolutionary girl utena, one of the most popuar yuri, is shojo).

and a lot of yuri fans i've seen, including myself, are queer women who find themselves represented in the genre. as an aroace lesbian i felt truly represented by yuu koito from bloom into you and himari kino from whisper me a love song. there's a lot more positive representation than you think in the yuri genre. you just have to look

[lab-trash]

Shout out to Chase for realising Kaz had been replaced within like 2 minutes of seeing his copy. That's some boyfriend behaviour.

I know this because Oliver, his best best friend didn't figure it out even after a full conversation with him, and then more talks at work. Even though he was just as, if not more suspicious.

[jennrostowsky]

"I love Kase and she loves me back."

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