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Tales of lilies and girls’ love. The depiction of female/female relationships in yuri manga

  • Marta Fanasca

Yuri manga are focused on the representation of sentimental relations between girls. Despite still being a niche within the manga landscape, the popularity of this genre in terms of number of productions and fans is increasing, and in the last few years its fame has been expanding outside Japan as well. As a manga genre, yuri developed since the mid-2000s. Notwithstanding being a novel genre, yuri narratives are deeply embedded into the heritage of the late Meiji-early Shōwa shōjo bunka (girls’ culture), and especially into the so-called “esu kankei” relationships, girl/girl bonds developing in girls’ schools at the time. The aim of this article is double-folded: from one hand, I will highlight and discuss the birth of yuri manga, analysing the re-elaboration of the heritage of shōjo bunka and its cultural productions - such as Yoshiya Nobuko’s Hana Monogatari - into the first examples of yuri manga, to demonstrate the intermediality and intertextuality of these media. On the other hand, I will map the development of yuri manga through the 2000s, stressing onto the increasing relevance given by these narratives to LGBTQ+ related themes, along with the detachment from the influence of shōjo bunka.

  • Keywords:
  • manga; yuri; lesbian; female homosexuality; shōjo bunka,
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Marta Fanasca

Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation - ORCID: 0000-0001-7214-5311

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  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Pages: 51-66
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Tales of lilies and girls’ love. The depiction of female/female relationships in yuri manga

Authors

Marta Fanasca

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7.03

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Tracing Pathways 雲路

Book Subtitle

Interdisciplinary Studies on Modern and Contemporary East Asia

Editors

Diego Cucinelli, Andrea Scibetta

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

156

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-260-7

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-259-1

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-260-7

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

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