General Anime Discussion: Area 11

[Terraoblivion]

Over the last week I've been working my way through the four big manga of what can be considered the new wave of yuri, focused on realism and setting the yuri in a wider society mostly made up of straight people. What I can tell is that they're all quite good, despite the problems I had with Aoi Hana, but also that they're quite different.

Aoi Hana was the first one in 2004 and is the one closest to the archetypal MariMite mold. It still has the impossibly fancy girl's school and students looking up to their sempai and so on. It does, however, still pioneer the general themes of the four, with recognizing heterosexuality as being important in society and sex actually happening, without reducing it to fanservice. And I said a whole lot about the problems I think it has above, but don't let it dissuade you too much, there's still plenty of awesome stuff in it.

The other three are, at least to my knowledge, substantially less famous, but each pushes the move away from formalized, age-based relationships in girl's schools quite a bit in different ways. Octave does this the most, focusing on a pair of working adults who bump into each other at random and concludes that the other is hot and they want to sleep with them. It puts sex front and center, again without much fanservice to it, as it is what started the relationship between the main characters and no small part of their motivation and worries. Adult careers and finding your place in the world outside the safe confines of the educational system is similarly a major part of the story. It's generally quite good, but suffers heavily under the drama being driven by one of the main characters having a unique talent for always doing and saying the wrong thing. It might be realistic, though I'm not sure, but it gets tiring at times.

Girl Friends on the other hand is about high school girls in a girls' school. Unlike the archetype, however, it focuses on characters with strong ties outside the school. Neither of the main characters are in any clubs and the things they and their friends care about involve fairly common things like shopping and, for their friends, dating. No other yuri that I know of spends as much time on the world of heterosexual romance and dating as this one does. Nor can I recall ever seeing a manga focusing on the fashion and dating oriented girls who are probably the most common distinct teen subculture in Japan, though I think it overestimates their disposable income for clothes and cosmetics some. Still, it is nice to see a group barely represented in manga and often maligned in mainstream culture get portrayed sympathetically and on its own terms. Unfortunately the drama is kinda dragged out by misunderstandings.

Finally, there is my personal favorite Sasameki Koto. Not only is it set in an ordinary high school, rather than a girl's school, but it's also very much a comedy for the first half, with much of the comedy not particularly centering on the girl's being cute. Even so, the actual drama it has is realistic, god knows that I've been there reacting like both main characters and the minor character who gets the most drama, and quite heartbreaking. Somehow, despite the obvious unrealism for comedy and in making Sumika and Tomoe as perfect as they are, it just comes off more believable to me than any of the others. The drama seems to grow naturally from the personalities of the characters and their relationships and it takes forms I know from myself, friends and family. The manga isn't completely without flaws, it drags some with subplots that aren't strictly necessary and not all of the humor works *cough*chapter 7*cough*. Also, the transition from humor dominating to drama dominating, did leave some odd relics. Still, it's my favorite of these and the one I think ultimately works the best.

And that's my short guide to the more substantial and filling yuri out there. There is other yuri I love, such as Wife and Wife and the complete works of Miyabi Fujieda, but they're ultimately just fluffy wish fulfillment fantasies. I honestly do love them more than all but Sasameki Koto of these, but they're a different genre. Also, as much as I talk about distance from the mold as MariMite as a good thing, I do love the show. I just like getting more realistic and grounded representations of lesbians, ones I can relate to my own life and to the problems I know face many lesbians, rather than just go along. Like the difference between watching a popcorn movie and watching serious drama. So here is my recommendation for Sasameki Koto, Girl Friends, Octave and Aoi Hana. So if you're interested in romance, stories about growing up or watching cute girls be cute together go read these.