EN Yuri Fans are Poser
Tuesday, 15 April 2025 17:02![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
michifuguThis is based on my rant on bsky with a little bit of polishing:
I’ll say the most controversial take that will make people mad: English-speaking Yuri "fans" online love the idea of yuri—or GL—or just enjoy calling themselves "yuri fans" for brownie points, but they rarely engage with actual yuri series as a medium. They just like the concept.
Compare that to fujoshi/fujin/BL fans: even if some BL fans don’t engage directly with BL titles, they still participate in the medium through shipping. The statistics prove it, and many anime/manga companies capitalize on this by selling merch and fanservice with fujobait elements.
EN yuri fans love being loud about how much they adore yuri or making it their identity, yet they can’t even name more than five yuri anime/manga titles that aren’t niche. They also rarely discuss culturally relevant yuri ships in the otaku/yuri sphere beyond Homumado or Utena girls
I’ll be a little elitist here, but as a yuri fan myself, it’s frustrating to see EN yuri fans remain ignorant about the genre’s place in the industry. They complain that yuri isn’t popular but never talk about yuri series or ships.
They don’t even realize how much yuri has grown compared to a decade ago. Numerous yuri anime have been adapted, whether yuribait or canon. Hell, we even got a canon yuri couple in one of the biggest mecha IPs in the world. Not to mention, many yuri manga have had decent sales (Kitakawa, Sasakoi, Yagakimi, Watayuri, MagiRevo, MahoAko, Tsukutabe, WataOshi, etc.), and plenty of yuribait/yuri-subtext anime have been popular recently (Lycoris Recoil, Ave Mujica, Mygo, etc.). There's no better time being a yuri fans than now.
Oh, and Uma Musume is now one of the bishoujo IPs with the most yuri content.
It’s bizarre to me when EN yuri fans claim yuri is neglected or unpopular. There are yuri artists with over a million followers (like Arai Sumiko-sensei), while BL artists rarely pass 500K. I don’t know what to say when people insist yuri is sidelined, despite the genre growing significantly over the last eight years.
It’s not BL fans’ fault that BL is more popular than yuri, it’s just not a fair comparison in general IMO. BL has a much longer history, a more established fanbase (both globally and domestically), and overlaps with male slash audiences that already had strong communities in the West. BL simply has the upper hand.
I promise it’s not some hidden conspiracy where BL fans are misogynistic or lesbophobic—most just aren’t interested (because many are straight women). Yuri is inherently more niche, and BL itself is still niche. People act like BL is as mainstream as shounen, but it’s not.
Based on my 15+ years in otaku and shipping spaces, BL’s success comes from fujoshi being incredibly enthusiastic about derivative/transformative works (more so than men). If yuri fans want growth, they should start there. You don’t even need to draw fanart—just talking about ships, writing meta/nonfiction, or sharing headcanons helps. Start writing fics, it’s more accessible than drawing.
Also many EN BL fans even learn Japanese just to scanlate untranslated doujinshi and manga. I think this is also reason why EN BL fans is way more entrenched with JP doujinshi culture beside Hentai guys. Yuri fans should get into doujin spaces too—it helps.
Seriously, EN yuri fans need to stop with the small-dog syndrome and actually engage with yuri as a medium. Tweeting "uwaah I love yuri XOXO girl kiss hot" won’t make publishers license more titles—you have to support the media itself. Demonizing fujoshi in essays won’t help either.
(Also I think the reason why most EN publisher barely license Yuri is maybe the sales aren't that great compared to other genres.... Rather than being angry publisher license the ecchi yuri manga, you can support legally by buying the OG manga or keep sending email to publisher)
Also, stop measuring everything quantitatively. Not even the most annoying fujoshi act like shareholders. I’m concerned by the trend of EN yuri fans insisting, "My genre only matters if it has high fanart/fic counts/sales." Please stop.
Anyway, that’s my rant. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Support your favorite yuri mangaka, artists, and ships—no matter how niche. Stop obsessing over numbers, and you’ll feel better. And again: ENGAGE with the genre you claim to love. Read/watch yuri titles.
(And if you don’t want to read/watch yuri, make fanworks for non-yuri series! Everything is yuri if your goggles are strong enough. Oh no, the female MC has a canon boyfriend? Who cares—draw her having lesbian sex with her female rival!)
I’ll say the most controversial take that will make people mad: English-speaking Yuri "fans" online love the idea of yuri—or GL—or just enjoy calling themselves "yuri fans" for brownie points, but they rarely engage with actual yuri series as a medium. They just like the concept.
Compare that to fujoshi/fujin/BL fans: even if some BL fans don’t engage directly with BL titles, they still participate in the medium through shipping. The statistics prove it, and many anime/manga companies capitalize on this by selling merch and fanservice with fujobait elements.
EN yuri fans love being loud about how much they adore yuri or making it their identity, yet they can’t even name more than five yuri anime/manga titles that aren’t niche. They also rarely discuss culturally relevant yuri ships in the otaku/yuri sphere beyond Homumado or Utena girls
I’ll be a little elitist here, but as a yuri fan myself, it’s frustrating to see EN yuri fans remain ignorant about the genre’s place in the industry. They complain that yuri isn’t popular but never talk about yuri series or ships.
They don’t even realize how much yuri has grown compared to a decade ago. Numerous yuri anime have been adapted, whether yuribait or canon. Hell, we even got a canon yuri couple in one of the biggest mecha IPs in the world. Not to mention, many yuri manga have had decent sales (Kitakawa, Sasakoi, Yagakimi, Watayuri, MagiRevo, MahoAko, Tsukutabe, WataOshi, etc.), and plenty of yuribait/yuri-subtext anime have been popular recently (Lycoris Recoil, Ave Mujica, Mygo, etc.). There's no better time being a yuri fans than now.
Oh, and Uma Musume is now one of the bishoujo IPs with the most yuri content.
It’s bizarre to me when EN yuri fans claim yuri is neglected or unpopular. There are yuri artists with over a million followers (like Arai Sumiko-sensei), while BL artists rarely pass 500K. I don’t know what to say when people insist yuri is sidelined, despite the genre growing significantly over the last eight years.
It’s not BL fans’ fault that BL is more popular than yuri, it’s just not a fair comparison in general IMO. BL has a much longer history, a more established fanbase (both globally and domestically), and overlaps with male slash audiences that already had strong communities in the West. BL simply has the upper hand.
I promise it’s not some hidden conspiracy where BL fans are misogynistic or lesbophobic—most just aren’t interested (because many are straight women). Yuri is inherently more niche, and BL itself is still niche. People act like BL is as mainstream as shounen, but it’s not.
Based on my 15+ years in otaku and shipping spaces, BL’s success comes from fujoshi being incredibly enthusiastic about derivative/transformative works (more so than men). If yuri fans want growth, they should start there. You don’t even need to draw fanart—just talking about ships, writing meta/nonfiction, or sharing headcanons helps. Start writing fics, it’s more accessible than drawing.
Also many EN BL fans even learn Japanese just to scanlate untranslated doujinshi and manga. I think this is also reason why EN BL fans is way more entrenched with JP doujinshi culture beside Hentai guys. Yuri fans should get into doujin spaces too—it helps.
Seriously, EN yuri fans need to stop with the small-dog syndrome and actually engage with yuri as a medium. Tweeting "uwaah I love yuri XOXO girl kiss hot" won’t make publishers license more titles—you have to support the media itself. Demonizing fujoshi in essays won’t help either.
(Also I think the reason why most EN publisher barely license Yuri is maybe the sales aren't that great compared to other genres.... Rather than being angry publisher license the ecchi yuri manga, you can support legally by buying the OG manga or keep sending email to publisher)
Also, stop measuring everything quantitatively. Not even the most annoying fujoshi act like shareholders. I’m concerned by the trend of EN yuri fans insisting, "My genre only matters if it has high fanart/fic counts/sales." Please stop.
Anyway, that’s my rant. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
Support your favorite yuri mangaka, artists, and ships—no matter how niche. Stop obsessing over numbers, and you’ll feel better. And again: ENGAGE with the genre you claim to love. Read/watch yuri titles.
(And if you don’t want to read/watch yuri, make fanworks for non-yuri series! Everything is yuri if your goggles are strong enough. Oh no, the female MC has a canon boyfriend? Who cares—draw her having lesbian sex with her female rival!)
(no subject)
Date: Saturday, 10 May 2025 11:44 (UTC)This was an interesting read for me as someone that got super into yuri manga 10+ years ago and hasn't read almost anything since then. At the time I read pretty much everything I could find, and there was a lot I liked but not nearly as much range as BL. Your post inspired me to go look at some of the recs on your blog though and I'm pleased to see some of the new stuff that's coming out!! I've been saying and preaching there should be yuri about fujos and am so surprised and pleased to see there's even something about that that you've recced!! :D
On English GL vs BL fandom-- again, I'm really out of the loop for yuri specifically, but I still feel pretty in the loop for English-speaking fandom in general, although less so in the past few years. IMO GL is doomed to have scraps compared to BL due to our (English-speaking) fandom culture, because of how restrictive people are with it. By that I mean that people have moral expectations of GL that they don't of BL. When people promote or generally talk about GL, it's often done out of a sense that they should (or as you say, for brownie points). The ability to feel good about your GL promo is negated by the GL in question being problematic. But the problem is that pretty much everyone really prefers media that's problematic to some degree, even if they say they don't, and this actually probably applies moreso to GL because we're all already used to seeing women be unproblematic in fiction. So everyone only promotes GL that they're never going to really get excited about.
I think you can really see this in Killing Eve fandom. When it came out, people were comparing it to Hannibal in terms of the relationships between the leads; the shows are super different, but clearly both draw people because of the combination of lopsided power dynamics (Villanelle and Hannibal are both borderline undefeatable killers that have held control over Eve/Will in a very visceral way), general toxicity (each duo is in a clear antagonistic relationship where each person commits violent harm against the other), and intense attraction (making the previous two elements even more toxic). In Hannibal fandom this is abundantly apparent via the fanworks, which tend towards leaning into the toxicity of it all, vs in Killing Eve fandom the greater trend I've seen is to work as hard as possible to make Villannelle and Eve into a perfectly healthy couple. If they stay a little evil, it's usually not towards each other, because that would be bad! Similarly telling is that Eve is almost always made to be the top in fics, which IMO is definitely to try and counter the power dynamic present in the show. Again, in Hannibal fandom, people are more likely to lean into the toxicity and make Hannibal top.
All this is to say that I think a lot of people in fandom don't like the idea of themselves being more into BL than GL, but they will never let themselves enjoy GL works due to various fandom politics reasons, so they (unknowingly) commit themselves to forever making token comments about how they wish there was GL out there. Not sure how much this lines up what you've seen in the yuri space specifically.
(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, 27 May 2025 03:42 (UTC)And yeah, you’re totally right about how people place weird moral expectations on GL/yuri. I feel that too, and I don't blame BL fans or others for feeling like it’s restrictive or full of peer pressure. It really sucks how some yuri/GL fans don’t realize that this kind of behavior just pushes people away from exploring or getting into yuri. That’s part of why I want to write more about problematic yuri titles—to spread the love and show people that yuri/GL can be messy and complex too! I honestly think the “yuri should be unproblematic” a la Catholicism is rooted in radfem ideology that’s deeply embedded in the EN-speaking yuri community. You see it a lot, people who "mystify" or "sanctify" lesbianism as if it’s some kind of “pure” or “sinless” sexuality. And as a lesbian, that kind of thinking really puts me off, lol.
LOL, I totally agree with you about Killing Eve! You perfectly explained why I could never really vibe with the fandom or its fanworks. It always felt like the shippers were ashamed of being into a toxic lesbian dynamic. Like, when I see art of Eve as the top, it doesn’t feel like the artist drew it because they liked her in that role, but because they wanted to deconstruct the dynamic out of some moral obligation. It’s such a shame because Killing Eve is such a great example of toxic lesbian rep, it’s probably the closest we’ve gotten to a “lesbian ver. of Hannibal”, but fans rarely lean into the toxicity. It’s funny how the Western side of the fandom avoids it, while in Asian spaces you’ll often see Villanelle portrayed as a typical toxic seme, just like in old-school BL. lmao
I feel like modern fandom being so political isn’t inherently bad, but the way people handle it is just... awful. Especially in English-speaking spaces, it feels like you constantly have to make a moral statement about everything you enjoy or be "critical" of every work or ship you like. There's so much peer pressure, especially for teens, to cancel or call out people who enjoy something “problematic” or who aren’t being critical enough about the media they consume. Honestly, I think a lot of modern BL fans are afraid to openly enjoy BL because they don’t want to be labeled as “male-centered” or “misogynistic” (which is ridiculous), so they try to get into yuri instead, but, their heart just isn’t in it. You can tell.
So many yuri spaces now are full of people who like the idea of yuri moreas a "concept" or "aesthetic" than the actual content. They treat it like an aesthetic or a political stance, not something they genuinely enjoy. That’s why you get so many modern himejoshi or yuri fans whining about wanting more “X but yuri” or getting mad at AO3 stats, instead of actually digging in and reading more yuri manga. In the end, a lot of them are just posers who aren’t really into yuri as a genre, they just want to use it as a tool for performative activism or to make a political statement in fandom spaces.