Not Yuri but its Yuri My Job Is Yuriis deeply homophobic. And it isnt yuri. Or rather it is yuri. Let me explain. Also since this is a negative essay it has to be really long or people will get really mad. So please bear with it. It all comes together in the end. Since the birth of the yuri genre it was divided into twin opposites: Girls showing each other platonic love or lesbian in form Girls in actual real romantic love through practice and deeds or lesbian in content Content: Meaning what is being delivered. The actual essence message or object. Form: Meaning how a content is delivered. The appearance and interaction of a thing. These two opposites are both aspects of the cultural phenomenonyuri. So yuri is inherently contradictory in a real sense. Yuri is often taken to meanlesbian because thats a unity of these two opposites. Both aspects can be described as lesbian but one only in form and the other in content. That unity is also calledGirls Lovewhich covers all intimate relationships between girl characters gay and straight. In recent Japan GL has a lesbian romance connotation. Yuri also has a purely platonic sideSisRomanceSisterhoodat least in symbolism. Historically Sisterhood type Yuri was used to obfuscate the lesbian content for the level of development of that times culture but eventually became a justification for nonromantic intimacy between women in yuri as a whole.Romance in the name means something different. Even so its all part of because yuri itself is a contradiction. Yuri Lesbian GL The theory of yuri is the contradiction of the two opposites. But because of that the definition of the word itself is a battleground. Because the material real definition of the phenomenon is a struggle. So in practice use of the term yuri means staking a claim on one side or another. Lesbianis a good term for biasing toward the outcome of Lesbian in content since this is what the majority of people believe lesbian means anyway. How is this possible? Lesbians experience simultaneously the passionate romance of the heart the lust and also the platonic care and familial bond with their girls. Its all the girly loves together mutually interdependent and interconnecting with one another. In todays Japan Girls Love preserves most of lesbianism since its usually romantic. But lesbian as a term also preserves the unity of opposites in yuri form plus content. This dialectical nature of lesbian makes it the more allsided term but is obviously biased. Girls Loveis a good term for preserving the status quo of the struggle to pretend not to pick sides.In Japan today usually the context is closer to lesbian romance for English speakers GL is more generic sounding. But since theres a power imbalance between those who own the factories and publishing firms that create yuri manga versus the rest of the people any seemingly neutral term is in fact aligned toward existing relations of production and therefore the existing dominant faction. Theoretically GL is the onesided term despite appearing to be the most neutral in English and in fact because its neutral is the neutral for todays Japan. So the problem isnt with the term yuri or what essentially is or isnt yuri but how yuri is made in the first place and what forces define it. Girls and boys arent bound by the same social rules or taboo. Its not impermissible for girls to generally hug touch breasts live together bathe together sleep together say they love each other or even kiss. The historical birth of yuri from the Class S literature movement is due to the very fact that its lesbian form suggestedtherefore receivedlesbian content. So these girlaligned activities are the formal basis for the yuri genre. Each of these are commonly employed as dramatic devices of the genre when a character is a lesbian. The formal nature of girls love confuses lesbians and creates unique drama. Thats fine the same drama exists in reality. Its common for a lesbian manga protagonist to hear I love you from their girl friends and it hurt even more because they assume its just platonic straight love. In fact the formal kind of yuri is often the catalyst for lesbian characters to realize and actualize themselves. The motion of the lesbian content of yuri is actualized love that starts in adolescence like formal yuri but can transcend adolescence into adulthood. A love that I would say looks forward beyond the immediate moments beyond simple impulse for comfort and affection. So lesbian yuri is forwardlooking is planning is longterm is responsiblein essence its workingclass yuri. Its yuri for itself. Its not shortsighted and driven by base desires for comfort. So I conclude romantic yuri is constructive. Platonic or formal yuri is affordable only to children students and the ruling class of society since they lack some working responsibilities. This is yuri for the other and as such is expected to be abandoned for the otherfor a man. Abandon Yuri These girl love relationships are expected to be abandoned when girls come of age so they can start using that experience in love to build a life of ordinary happiness. This getting married to a man settling down to a home having kids finding a job that sort of thing1quotefrommyanonymousfriend. The conservative side of it is how its enforced as a template for a correct path to life and happiness. The reactionary side is how its used to cut advancements made for women in the workplace to keep them as traditional housewives2examplefrommanga. This traps both men womenand the whole of straightnessas a result. Lesbians are a direct threat to the conservative and reactionary side. So conservatives are set against lesbians in content. Usually we see them as set against lesbians in form too. This is a problem deeply rooted in class relations. Conservative ordinary happiness is something useful to the class warfare of our modern era. In this particular analysis manga is created by workingclass people in service to the profits of the monopoly class. Manga as a whole is a publishing industry defined by its massproduction for the purposes of massconsumption. It may seem like manga is just a type of silly picture book. But thats Mangas commodity form a thing bought and sold at market not its actual essence. Mangas twin nature is to dutifully serve the profitsincommand structure of monopoly capitalism and saturate culture with the hegemony. Hegemony is basically cultural monopoly. So twin monopolies: one over production finance one over culture hegemony. Culture is made up of its two component parts: material culture and spiritual culture. Material culture: The material goods that serve as the basis for culture. Books bibles artifacts clothes etc. Spiritual culture: The goods produced by relationships which serve as the interactive form of culture. Beliefs values etiquette correct behavior morality etc. Material goods as the basis for culture are also produced by the basis of society itself: the workers factories printers publishing firms manga artists etc. All the labor and machinery together: the means of production and the whole of the relationships to production. Together the means and relations of production are the foundational basis of society. Spiritual goods are produced by the overarching structure of society: mediators like the State the great masses of the people educational institutions scientific research art family life law media politics religion philosophy etc. The whole of the spiritual cultural relationships. The structure of all these things primarily maintains the basis of society. It sometimes shapes that basis. The basis primarily shapes the structure of society but sometimes maintains it. The basis is dominant though since it also produces all the food and housing we need actually all needs. You cant eat manga after all. But since spirit is the interconnections of humanity and mankind is social we have spiritual needs too. Manga is saturated enough to count as a type of satisfier of mass spiritual needs. That means it has a serious responsibility to be healthy for the people who consume it. But when the culture is dominated by old fucks who want to maintain existing relations to production conserve the status quo then it often produces unhealthy spiritual goods. Remember the structure of society produces spiritual goods to maintain the basis of society. Monopolists own the basis in most countries including Japan. And until a Revolution they own the structure too. The spiritual culture to abandon all yuri when you come of age is one particular example of this. The ruling monopolists need the whole people to faithfully reproduce society: that is working for wages in an exploitative system so workers labor can be extracted as profit for the rulers. This social reproduction is the root of all conservatism. Its not identical with biological reproduction since social man reproduces socially not biologically though it doesnt stop asshole conservatives from arguing over biology and in essence reduce humanity to mere beasts in heat. But the society advances according to its necessities and moves away from exploitation with each Revolution of the productive tools like factories robotic assembly computers etc. The ruling monopolists therefore also need reactionaries who destroy the advancements of society to prevent and reset the crises of Capital. The most extreme reactionariesfascistsconduct a false revolution by firing up the people against targets other than the ruling monopolists. Example: against homosexuals. Theres a pressure created by the revolutions in the tools to change society for the betterment of everyone. The aim of fascism is to relieve the boiling buildup. It only serves the monopoly class. Fascism is particularly dangerous to the health of the society. It destroys everything around it including itself. Thats its role after all. But more importantly it serves as a completed bridge between all reactionary spiritual culture and the need to destroy the revolutionary tools and workers of production. They fire people up. They use reactionary culture to inspire hate against the people and the basis of society. The basis of society itself doesnt form any kind of reaction. In capitalism the base is constantly undergoing revolution in the tools of production just to meet the rising need for competition. So the reactionary structure is actually the very seed of fascism Without it no bridge can be built into destroying the base and further impoverishing people. Why talk about all this complex social bullshit? Because this bullshit is particularly everywhere including manga. In fact manga is such a massproduced and highly saturated form of spiritual good its loaded with all sorts of cultural seeds. Some manga are conservative some reactionary and some wholesome. Working class people have to make do with what we got after all. So we feel the intrinsic duty to curate the material culture into the future spiritual culture. Thats why we read manga discuss it share it become passionate about it get invested in the stories and the art. All of these are needs and duties which would otherwise be exercised in television film religion or other parts of the societys structure. So regardless of the medium its a human duty to become invested in what we might sometimes call silly trivial nonsense. Sure its silly nonsense. But its silly nonsense that shapes and conditions how we think about one another how we communicate how we speak how the heart develops and grows how we mature how we come to know society and each other how we come to know and love ourselves and how we love one another. So to sum up our reviews and discussions of manga like this one are an act of love. And yuri is a particularly lovebased genre So the consideration of what is conservative and reactionary within the human spirit of love itself is materially important to everyone. 1: Quote from my anonymous friend On ordinary happiness: SNS 2: Example from manga My Parents Are Picky So I Faked Marriage With My Junior Boss at a finance firm wants to give management of clients account to a man instead of the woman protagonist. Because the woman will inevitably marry a man quit become a housewife and thus vital job experience will be wasted on her. He says give it to a young man instead since hell stay with the firm increase his capabilities and keep working hard for them. Yuri in Form Lesbians are awesome Says this manga...or something like that. Great so were done here. Its yuri its lesbian and the artist is a goddess...wait. Theres a problem. The whole story spits on lesbians while only paying us lip service. All the characters say good things about lesbians: that theyre fine theyre not hurting anyone by existing theyre not disgusting they should be defended lesbian artists make beautiful gay art have you heard of theClass Smovement? the straights arent afraid to undress and bathe with lesbians Liebe academy is based on lesbianorigin Class S literature there are confessions and kisses and lesbian sex All seems perfect right? The problem is thats the form not the content. Remember if the form is lesbian but the content isnt its actually conservative yuri at best. If we look at what happens concretely: every single lesbian fails continues failing and is set up to be deeply hurt at every possible opportunity. Every. Single. Time. If any lesbian can be hurt in a situation its designed to hurt her as deeply as possible for that situation. She confessed? Its actually to a straight girl or was bait to be used against them. She kissed? It was onesided and not reciprocated. Shes dating? It ends in flames and was a poison relationship anyway. She lives boldly as a lesbian? Thats only because shes a horrible witch who just manipulates everyone good girls stay quiet about being gay or they get hurt. She had sex? It was all just for fun anyway the love was a lie so it goes up in flames. Shes accepted for who she is? Nope Actually the secret condition was she had to not be a romancewanting lesbian. This is the single most thorough most twisted and advanced attack on my lesbian sisters that Ive ever seen. Its almost too perfect for a straight person to write. Its like its written by someone who knows exactly how to hurt us and never relents from doing it. It bypasses all the weak conservative nonsense no one listens to anymore like the list of good lesbian things I opened with. This is a highly sophisticated attack and I cant see it as anything else. In 51 chapters with several dozen omake of extra content that is all that happened to lesbians. Not a single person is happy who has articulated as being attracted to girls romantically and sexually. Mai is happy. Sumika is happy until she starts getting lez feelings. Hime is happy. The one major time Hime wasnt happy was when she got confessed to by a lesbian and it destroyed her. Theres a thin plot thread about Hime coming to like Mitsukis hot body but its been dropped for a while. And it was weak to start with. Subjective in Style In manga the most common style is the a subjective protagonistbased style. The reader is drawn into the world and story through a persons eyes and thoughts. Readers can read their speech body language expressions and also read their mind. The same style is used for Yuri Is My Job. Hime isnt a lesbian. Thats a fact. Its established early and reinforced often. At every major decision involving love romance girls touch etc Hime chooses the nonlesbian path. Meaning she practices the content of someone without romance or sexuality. This is a common writing device for yuri: one character is lesbian the protagonist one is empty usually the love interest. Sometimes the roles are reversed but a yuri manga with a main subject who isnt a lesbian treads conservative waters if it goes too long. Yuri Is My Job certainly swims up a conservative river in this respect. The result of the writing device is usually the lesbian fertilizes the romantically barren garden of the other girl until she begins to bud her own internal lesbianness. So the device can be used for a real lesbian practicing lesbian one in content. But if the garden remains forever unblossomed then its flowers are fake. This is the pure yuri lesbian only in form. A common phrase to describe this is it looks like one thing but it actually is another. Homophobic in Content THIS SECTION IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS FOR VOLUME 7 When Hime rejects Mitsuki her own thoughts indicate shes not gay. She specifically sought platonic love from Mitsuki. Hime methodically drew Mitsuki into a sense of security and vulnerability with her confession expected to hear I love you yet still the reader is supposed to believe of course Hime meant platonically? No. No sane and stable person considers warmly and carefully baiting an I love you confession to mean I love you platonically. Furthermore the readers first subjective experience is from Mitsukis side not Himes. What we actually see is Mitsuki being asked to confess her love doing it then kissing Hime. Hime is surprised but smiles brightly about it. Afterward we follow Mitsuki in her postconfession bliss. Its clear she feels accepted in a way. Then Kanoko a random lesbian classmate and even Sumika all independently construct a narrative that Mitsuki confessed onesidedly. Why? Because Hime quit her job suddenly. The audience is led to believe Hime quit because Mitsuki admitted postconfession that she had Mai lie about her arm injury to keep Hime longer. Thats the exact moment in the story when Himes face goes dark about Mitsuki. So Kanoko as usual is just batshit insane hurling verbal and physical abuse at Mitsuki for being onesided and selfish. Its later revealed those horrible abuses were correct Hime quit and started avoiding Mitsuki because she didnt want unrequited romance between them. She barely even considered Mitsuki lying about the injury to be a problem. Which is a much bigger problem since its completely against Mitsukis character. Theres a recurring theme in the story that romance is inherently selfish and disgusting. Lesbian romance is a kind of romance so this is an example of an actual contradiction of content to form. The story says lesbians arent disgusting. But then says romance is disgusting which lesbians require to articulate as lesbians Anything less isnt lesbian in content its purely lesbian in form only which is the conservative side of yuri. The antiromance theme is enforced most extremely by Kanoko and Sumika. They act like romance cops for much of the manga trying to stop anyone from getting too lezzy. They both think romance is poison to a higher kind of relationship. Its negatively reinforced through Mitsuki Nene Youko later Sumika. Its reinforced passively from Hime and the rest of the cast who dont bother with romance Mai random lesbians who stay in the closet. So many of the characters are so horrible theyre just hateable. So in essence this is the reactionary favoring of Platos love over Eros romantic erotic love. Plato explores the concepts of love in Republic Symposium and Phaedrus. In Symposium Aristophanes makes the case that people begin as a soul connected in a single body which is later split into two bodies. His explanation is meant to be comedic metaphor. Aristophanes essentially argues that straights gaymen and lesbians are who they are because of their division from some initial unity. In a way hes not wrong. But because Platos works are presented from idealism they have no grounding in reality on their own. However Yuri Is My Job seems to agree with Aristophanes on the question of sexualitys form. It has no problems with the existence of lesbians as an abstract ideal but does nothing to accept real lesbians as a practice. Later in Symposium Alcibiades is a man who loves Socrates both sexually and intellectually. But because Socrates only gives platonic love Alcibiades affections lust pride and immoral advances cause Socrates to give up on teaching teaching him. Remind us of anything? Hime is Socrates Alcibiades is Mitsuki. Which means giving up on personal time together and friendship. Socrates is meant to be the character through which Plato speaks by critique of the popular beliefs of his time. Alcibiades represents wanton erotic love which destroys platonic love. And so too destroys all forms of love including friendship with those who practice the higher platonic love. My Job is Yuri is deeply ingrained with the same ideology. So this is a yuri that makes a concrete statement in general: lesbian romance is inherently disgusting deeply deserving of failure and destruction poison to platonic love and platonic love is the highest form of love. To fairly analyze this premise of the manga would require the manga to fairly attempt it in the first place. But it doesnt Instead every character is tricked into following their passions and then hurt for it or hurts others which in turn hurts them. Everything that is poisoned or goes down in flames is manually contrived by the author themselves not the natural unfolding of irrefutable social forces in the story. The net result is lesbians are onesidedly painted as emotional raging rivers unable to control the destructive force of romance that wells up inside them. The message is: Good girls suppress their emotions. Good lesbians suppress their carnal desires toward girls. Girls Love But not that kind of love. But not because youre a lesbian or anything Lesbians are good girls. Until they want romance or sex. Then theyre witches who destroy everything. Summed up the homophobia here is Lesbians should stay in the closet. Real love as opposed to abstract idealist love cant be real unless it actually exists embedded in the material and spirit of society. Love is built between people over time in their shared relationships. This manga forgets that love is shared. Instead the manga paints love as something individualistic and subjective something felt by the individual. Its so concerned with aligning the type of love between the girls that it misses the forest: love is a unity of all its forms. Erotic romantic platonic friendly mother daughter wife sister religious patriotism humanityall love. To partially negate any abstract form of love in reality requires destroying the people who do the loving itself. Sane people dont seek to destroy the love between sisters wives motherdaughters friends and love for the whole people. Why should any sane person with an ounce of humanity in their soul concede to destroying romantic and erotic lovers? Why should this ideology be taken as anything other than deeply homophobic and antihuman? This is a thoroughly reactionary ideology. Concrete Examples THIS SECTION CONTAINS BASICALLY NOTHING BUT SPOILERS FOR VOLUMES 711 Notably everyone who isnt attracted to girls? Happy. Fulfilled. One girl changes into a lesbian midseries and immediately becomes miserable Sumika. So now everything is set up to do maximum damage to her. This series is actively hostile to every lesbian. The message is clear: The only good yuri is pure yuri untainted by the disgusting stench of romance according to this manga. So the only good lesbian is a lesbian in form untainted by its content. Thats also what Sumika believes. Shes the one who eventually realizes shes gay. Id like to think the author doesnt use her own direct ideology in this character but its too late for that. They already did it with the bold lesbian who is ohsohorrible Youko. Kanoko is an unhinged garbage person who tries to actively ruin lesbians. She has no problem hurling verbal abuse at anyone she remotely perceives as a threat to her being with Hime. And be with her in a nonromantic way even though shes a lesbian. She has accepted the authors implicit endorsement of the wrongness of romance so shes given the following special powers: see the future like an oracle read peoples minds curse at anyone with no negative consequences hit people without negative consequences. In fact shes coddled for the entire series by Hime and Sumika. Notably those two girls also embrace the romance is destructive ideology of the series. Of course Kanoko isnt explicitly made a psychic or socially invulnerable. But this is the outcome of her actions every time. Once she using her plot mindreading powers learned Sumika is in romantic love with her Kanoko wasted no time in setting up a trap for Sumika. Her defining characteristic is to peddle the mangas ideology and always be right no matter how horrible she is. Nene dates Youko and even has sex with her. So progressive But of course the following morning they have to break up again. Why? Because Youko is horrible as usual. Shes just using Nene for her body and fun. This is a typical conservative point about lesbians. Since none of them believe lesbians can be serious women in content or if they are theyre a severe threat they paint lesbians as raging emotionmachines who only care about instant satisfaction. Specifically adult lesbians of form are the bad girls who didnt give it up after adolescence so it turns into an instantgratification life style decadence and destruction. Theyre shown to be impulsive and not forwardthinking. Of course thats true of anything which only is itself in form but not in content But here theyve falsified reality. Lesbians are lesbians in content not only in form. Theyre not playing at love long past adolescence. Nenes defining characteristic? She serves as a lesbian to be foiled. She purely exists to become hurt in a backstory be put on ice and not find love for years and then only thawed again when the story deems it necessary to hurt another lesbian. She is exclusively brought back into relevance only in terms of her pain and only in terms of creating new pain for her then shoved back to the kitchen That last point coincidentally makes it look like Nene is receiving corrective punishment into becoming a tradwife for daring to be a lesbian as an adult. Youko finds out Nene is in love with Sumika who was presumed straight at the time. So she proposes to be temporary girlfriends while Nene waits in vain for Sumika to blossom. But Youko has a real life in academia and work so she doesnt stay at a deadend service caf. This is framed as inherently destructive. Its achieved by getting the reader to systematically accept the importance of every individual in Liebe Girls Academy caf. The reality is if Liebe fails its due to its own internal problems. Specifically Mais ownermanager problem of being overly reliant on her skeleton crew maintaining perfect acting for all time. So when Sumikas perspective is onesidedly given to the reader about Youko the reader is forced to conclude Youkos a horrible person even if Sumika is wrong about romance in general. Shes painted as the villainess in an otome game. Like a villainess Youkos defining characteristic is: nothing she says is disagreeable but the net result of everything she does is tear down other people and all relationships. That sounds like a perfect way to sum up the series as a whole: it never says anything you can find homophobic but everything that actually happens is disastrous for lesbians. So the net result is its homophobic. Specifically to the reader. Conclusion My Job Is Yuri is a soulcrushing homophobic mess. The manga artist favored soapy drama and heartache at every turn. There are few rest periods from the pain. More deviously the story is built to repeatedly draw in the heart of the reader so it can be stabbed. The trick only works scant few times for those with fulfilled hearts. But I worry for those with unfulfilled lesbian lives. The artist Mimansenseiis a woman according to her profile. But I personally dont care about the authors own subjective standpoint in regards to whether the output is homophobic. For the purposes of the conclusion here it doesnt make a difference if theyre man woman neither both or if theyre gay straight bi lesbian asexual whatever. Because the reality is the author is not the sole author of the work. Works cant be separated from their creators but creators cant be separated from their society their historical era their culture. And no work can be separated from its relations to production. Even the most progressive lesbian author will draw upon her society for her work and her society will control the outcome of that work. That always leaves room for conservatism and reaction to enter manga. It means even a lesbian can create something homophobic which is unhealthy for the soul even when they dont mean to. In the final analysis My Job Is Yuri is reactionary homophobic sentimental trash. The more I read the more I felt yuri itself slip backward into the 1970s era of lesbian tragedy. I wish the best of luck in the future and I hope she continues to succeed at all the manga she makes. Thank you very much to for providing us with this story which I could read enjoy despise hate love cry hurt and try to connect with others through. It may not seem like I appreciate her work but didnt I already say this is all an act of love ? Score: