Yeah, for example, Oniisama E (To dear brother) was one of the most famous, popular yuri-themed manga and obvious cultural ancestory to Maria-sama, was a yuri-themed manga in the 70s. Ran in Shoujo Margaret, and was extremely popular.
Another I can remember is Aries no Otometachi (Girls of Aries), which was made into live action TV series, and very much in the same vein.

There are countless more, and nearly all of them were shoujo manga.

Yes girls like yuri but that was in the past. Today girls are into bishies and yaoi. They just hates anything had lesbians in it. My experience in MyAnimelist forums prove that. Girls are just as perverted as their male counterparts are.

What does your experience in "MyAnimelist" prove anything to do with Japanese girls reading shoujo manga, and its market?

Seriously? That is your defense?
Your obviously extremely narrow window of data gathered by your personal experience with people who have nothing to do directly with the said genre and its demographics?

By the way, there were four or five new yuri magazines that emerged into publishing in just the last two years.
Not to mention, the mega-hit of "Maria-sama ga miteru", whose fandom is almost entirely composed of female fans, have spawned resurgence of like-wise Yuri fad in the recent years.

Seriously, you need to actually look outside your small world, and actually see the facts.

"Nuh-uh Yuri fans can't be real cuz girls I know hate homo" is not a valid argument.
"Nuh-uh Yaoi is more popular so Yuri dun exist" is also not a valid argument.
Yaoi is more popular yes. However, Yuri is also far more popular theme in girls comic than boys. Far. Not to mention it originated there.

Protip: There are gay people who like yaoi and lesbians who enjoy yuri.

:topicoff:

Guys, you need to chill. IMMEDIATELY.
It's not like this guy who appears to be wrongly-informed about the development of same-sex relationship portrayals in manga and anime is the worst person in the world to give his view on the current topic (which I think is going off to a slight tangent).

I can't say my opinion regarding the tastes of specific genders regarding certain themes in anime and manga because I'm clearly inexperienced compared to aohige and some others, but from my perspective, you're simply ganging up on a person with an entirely different view on things.

By "different view" do you mean "factually wrong from tip to toe"?
I could say "no one likes the movie Avengers cuz everyone around me hates it", and that would not be "different view". It's simply wrong.

There's a big difference between subjective opinion and factual information.
The former can be presented in difference in view, the latter has nothing to do with subjective opinion.

Well, while I don't think you're wrong in suggesting that people should calm down, by the same token it shouldn't be surprising that people find wild generalizations and gender-based stereotyping offensive. It doesn't help that it's being served along side prejudice and stereotypes about sexual orientation/preferences.

The whole thread is based on a flimsy premise -- that shounen shows are becoming "less shounen" because some are portraying guys in relationships with other. The insinuation is that this is being done only to attract women, but even that alone is potentially offensive; there's nothing wrong or necessarily unexpected about a man reading and enjoying such a story either. (And let's not even get started about whether reading or enjoying such a story "means you're gay"...) This is completely aside from the also-important and oft-mentioned issue that a demographic isn't a box that constrains the content within it in the first place, so the whole premise may be based on a misconception.

So anyway, I think this thread has basically gone as far as it can go on this premise. I'm going to close it for now. If someone has a good argument why it should be re-opened and continued, feel free to present it to me or any of the other staff for consideration. Otherwise, perhaps a new thread could be considered that starts on a little bit of a more solid foundation.