Yuri

Yuri which means girl's love in Japanese is a genre of Japanese media focusing on intimate relationships between female characters who can be lesbians or female bisexuals. While lesbianism is a commonly associated theme, the genre is also inclusive of works depicting emotional and spiritual relationships between women that are not neccessarily romantic or sexual in nature. Yuri is most commonly associated with anime and manga, though the term has also been used to describe video games. light novels, and literature.

History
Themes associated with yuri originate from Japanese lesbian fiction of the early twentieth century, notably the writings of and literature in the Class S genre. Manga depicting female homoeroticism began to appear in the 1970 in the works of artists associated with the Year 24 Group, notably Ryoko Yamagishi and Riyoko Ikeda. The genre gained wider popularity beginning in the 1990s; the founding of Yuri Shimai in 2003 as the first manga magazine devoted exclusively to yuri.

As a genre, yuri does not inherently target a single gender demographic, unlike its male homoerotic counterparts yaoi (marketed towards a female audience) and gay manga (marketed towards a gay male audience). Although yuri originated as a genre targeted towards a female audience, yuri works have been produced that target a male audience.

Trivia

 * The de facto symbol of the yuri genre is a white lily.