romantic friendship vs. Yuri

[silversongwriter]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...GirlFriendship
This sort of thing is pretty prevelant in anime. There's a lot of non-yuri anime with this stuff in it. And that's not a problem for me... In fact, I personally think it's cuter.

However, it's rarer than yuri... I mean all they got is

Spoiler:

Figure 17, Strawberry Mashmellow, Yama no Susume (season 2 especially), Ga-rei Zero, kiniro mosaic (actually can you even call that subtext?), yuyushiki, magical lyrical nanoha, Kurau Phantom memory, Najica Blitz Tatics, Ultra Maniac, Gakuen Alice, Noir, Madlax, Love Live School Idol Project, Hidarami Sketch, El Cazadar de la Bruja, Kiddy Grade, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Kill la kill, ROD, Hanayamata, K-on, Uta Kata, Onii-sama E..., Azumanga Diaoh, Akuma no Riddle, Gatchama Crowds, nana, Kill me Baby, Nichijo (just one moment though), Modoka Magica, Steins;gate, Claymore, Miami guns, serial experiments lain, girls und panzer, Sakua cardcaptor, bottle fairy, D-frag, AKB0048, Sora no Woto, Upotte, seikon no qwaser, Is this order a rabbit?, Sabagebu, Stella Women's academy, bamboo blade, Queen's blade, vividred operation, A-channel, Ro kyu bu, non non biyori, LOVE LAB, CHUUNIBYO, BLACK ROCK SHOOTER, HIDERAMI SKETCH, FATE KALIED, LUCKY STAR, NATSURIO KISKEI, ARIA, BLOOD+, MAWARU-PENGUIDRUM, SAKI, SAMURAI FLAMENCO, SOUL EATER NOT, GIRL FRIEND BETA, MITCHIKO TO HATCHIN (just the end really), BURST ANGEL, STRIKE WITCHES!!!!!!

okay... never mind, there's a lot more of that stuff than there is regular yuri... In fact, most of this stuff is classified as yuri just to make the genre not look as small. But yea... a lot of those shows feature real yuri between supporting characters while the main character has an ambiguous friendship. Or they have no yuri at all.

And well, it may just be because of the number of these anime, but most of the best ones I've seen fall more into this category than in yuri

[Akito Kinomoto]

...There's romantic friendship/yuri teasing in Ultra Maniac, Steins;Gate, and Blood+? Shit, my Yuri Goggles must've been broken.

But anyway...maybe we should make a distinction between 'yuri' that's there for the Hell of it (Azumanga, Lucky Star), 'yuri' that's really just skinship (Love Live!, pre-Rebellion Madoka, Hanayamata), 'yuri' that might as well be yuri but lacks any solid confirmation (Nanoha, VRO, Saki; 'skinship' and 'no confirmation' prolly overlap tho), and then full-blown yuri where yuri may or may not be a secondary element (El Cazador, Marimite, post-Rebellion Madoka).

But with all those titles in the OP, I'm sure this discussion isn't starting from nebulous terms at all.

[silversongwriter]

Is El Cazador a legit yuri... I haven't seen all these anime. Ultra maniac just had one moment sugessting yuri, and in Stiens;Gate it happened a few times, and each time it was pointed out...

If El Cazador is yuri that's kind of messed up, cause the main girl is like an adult and the other girl is a child

[Triple_R]

Honestly, I wish there was a little less pure "romantic friendship" and a little more actual yuri.

That being said, "romantic friendship" isn't without its charms, up to a point. I felt MariMite handled romantic friendship pretty well, for example. So did Love Live! for the most part.

But there does come a point when a yuri relationship is so blatantly implied that not outright confirming it just seems like a pointless (and often counterproductive) tease. It can also hold back a particular character relationship from being as well-developed as it could be. Nanoha and Fate are a good example of that. You could tell a more interesting story with them if the storytellers were willing to go further than endless *hint, hint, nudge, nudge* with it.

[Archon_Wing]

There seems to be this undercurrent where there's no way 2 girls can be in love with each. It's gotta be a phase, where they're just playing because love, sex and attraction can't possibly exist without men. So all that teasing? That's alright, because it's hot. But if they're actually in love with each other, at least one of them is evil and there's gotta be something wrong with them.

Holy shit. I gotta admit, despite all the yuri hentai/h-doujins I peruse, I can't really be that much of a fan of yuri, because of the excessive frequency of those yandere lesbians. I don't even like yanderes to begin with, but the implications are just too frequently put out. So we have these cute, innoncent romantic 2 girl friendships that work fine for moe appeal, but it's just so hard for them to climb over the fence so to speak. When you're getting less condescended to by hentai, we are in very, very deep shit. Honestly, posting this made me a bit sick.

[Marcus H.]

Thank god for Sakura Trick for that reason.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

There seems to be this undercurrent where there's no way 2 girls can be in love with each. It's gotta be a phase, where they're just playing because love, sex and attraction can't possibly exist without men. So all that teasing? That's alright, because it's hot. But if they're actually in love with each other, at least one of them is evil and there's gotta be something wrong with them.

Is that the impression you got? I thought that people CAN'T WAIT to jump to the yuri conclusion

Everything is yuri! That hand holding scene? Yup yuri. Sharing a drink? YURI!

[Tempester]

Please don't link to TVTropes. Just use your own reasoning and examples instead of relying on that faulty website.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Is that the impression you got? I thought that people CAN'T WAIT to jump to the yuri conclusion

Everything is yuri! That hand holding scene? Yup yuri. Sharing a drink? YURI!

And that is all insanely shallow, and hard to take seriously. Enjoy the fetishism bottled in harmless form!

Personally I have found myself more interested simply because I happen to like girls and thus more than one girl is cute. However, that's really all I end up going for so many times.

But whatever. Even series like Nanoha and Madoka have dropped the ball so I don't care any more. /salt

[Eragon]

Anime is really not the medium to look for any kind of decent stories with lesbians. Manga's do a way, way, way better job at portraying them as something more than fap material. I'm very glad Girlfriends is never gonna get an anime adaption. They would absolutely butcher it.

[silversongwriter]

Personally, I don't care about the social implication of yuri... nor do I care about addressing LGBT topics. In fact, I enjoy yuri a lot for the fact that there isn't any preach acceptance messages most of the time.

However, what I get out of yuri undertones/romantic friendship is...
1. I simply think it's cuter
2. There's more of it
3. I can find it more relatable than actual lesbian relationships.
4. Teasing lesbianism is sexier than seriously addressing it.

In the end... messages and implications mean nothing to me, compared to entertainment

[Akito Kinomoto]

I too, usually don't look for a piece's social implications. But there's only so many times I can turn a blind eye before I'm forced to see the elephant in the room. Sadly, Archon and Eragon hit the nail on the head (me being a big former yuri manga reader I can empathize with them a bit). This is why Kashimashi was one of my favorites, as it's a very straightforward love triangle where all the wheels just happen to be female; no fetishism, no social consequences, no bullshit. If we're not talking about things like Aoi Hana or Girl Friends that address the subject's consequences, then a more 'normal' approach like Kashimashi isn't the fanservice we deserve; it's the fanservice we need.

[Triple_R]

Straightforward love triangle and 'normal' approach equals fanservice now?

That's the very opposite of fanservice, in my opinion. It's putting believable and solid storytelling first, ahead of any fanservice frills. Like you wrote - no fetishism, no bullshit. In other words, no fanservice.

[Akito Kinomoto]

I could have worded that better, maybe cuter would've been the better word (goes along in line w/ what the OP is looking for anyway)

[Nicaea]

Well, most of the japanese demographic is male, do I'm not really surprised about the lack of full blown yuri, nor am I surprised by the reasoning that it's more acceptable to tease around with yuri.

[silversongwriter]

You can't have a yuri without just a little bit of fanservice. It's like the seasoning on a steak, it's still delicious without it, but with it you can make it better if you season it right.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Technically, you could consider anything fanservice, but connotatively, it's usually reserved for the sexually gratuitous stuff (never seen anyone complain about mecha laser fanservice lol). That said, you're supposing 'deliciousness' can always be added to make a yuri story better. But that's disregarding series that don't want 'deliciousness' as part of their repertoire.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Holy shit. I gotta admit, despite all the yuri hentai/h-doujins I peruse, I can't really be that much of a fan of yuri, because of the excessive frequency of those yandere lesbians. I don't even like yanderes to begin with, but the implications are just too frequently put out. So we have these cute, innoncent romantic 2 girl friendships that work fine for moe appeal, but it's just so hard for them to climb over the fence so to speak. When you're getting less condescended to by hentai, we are in very, very deep shit. Honestly, posting this made me a bit sick.

Have you been perusing real yuri, i.e. stories serialized in magazines like Yuri Hime, Tsubomi (RIP), etc.? The stuff aggregated at Dynasty? I don't see what you're seeing within these stories. Excessive yandere lesbians seems to be largely a fetishized or "comic" element in mainstream series otherwise not involving yuri, no?

Crazy clingy hardcore girls don't seem to populate the casts of Morinaga Milk's series, or Takemiya Jin's, or Amano Shuninta's. At worst, when they go mature, they create terrible adults, not crazy lesbian stalkers.

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Is that the impression you got? I thought that people CAN'T WAIT to jump to the yuri conclusion

Yet for some reason most anime producers are extremely reluctant to actually do yuri series, or establish real romantic relationships between female characters. Even Sakura Trick pulled that BS in the end. Uh-huh.

Doujins are absurdly plentiful, but actual yuri series don't sell that well and yuri authors are farther than the mainstream than BL by a distance. Yuri magazines keep falling out of business, too.

There seems to be some sort of barrier here between the otaku mainstream and honest portrayals of lesbian relationships, even through the idealized tropes of yuri. I'm tempted to speculate on homophobia and Japanese culture, but I'm not sure I'm actually equipped to do so.

[Eisdrache]

I only watch yuri series. Well almost.

Also lol Takemiya Jin. That guy draws the same story every time just with different designs.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Have you been perusing real yuri, i.e. stories serialized in magazines like Yuri Hime, Tsubomi (RIP), etc.? The stuff aggregated at Dynasty? I don't see what you're seeing within these stories. Excessive yandere lesbians seems to be largely a fetishized or "comic" element in mainstream series otherwise not involving yuri, no?

Well, he says 'anime' is getting outdone by 'hentai,' so the yandere lesbian thing is likely referring to anime and not manga. Tsubomi went under?

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Even Sakura Trick pulled that BS in the end. Uh-huh.

IT DID WHAT NOW