Can ‘Yuri is My Job!’ Make Fake Workplace Romance Bloom?

A boarding school theme café serves up coffee and yuri for customers. But what happens when acting yuri becomes real in Yuri is My Job!?

Everything in anime today is meta. It’s not enough to follow the isekai formula — you need to find a twist that breaks down the genre and rebuilds it into something that will hold fans’ attention. That’s what happens with the yuri anime Yuri is My Job! (私の百合はお仕事です！ Watashi no Yuri wa Oshigoto desu!) this spring. The yuri romantic comedy takes the conventions of girls’ boarding school stories and builds three meta layers!

The first meta starts with the main character, Hime Shiraki. Outwardly, she acts like the perfect, friendly girl in class. But inwardly, she’s a conniving social climber! Her personality reminds me of the yuri-trap comedy Maria + Holic. The titular Mariya was not the respectable ojousama she appeared to be. In fact, she wasn’t even a girl! Mariya was the twin brother of the girl that Kanako fell in love with. Kanako was powerless to stop her nose-bleeding yuri fantasies after she knew her roommate was a crude, rude boy! Yuri is My Job! follows that model but takes another meta step.

Last season, Akiba Maid War showed us what happened behind the scenes in a fictional version of Akihabara maid café culture. The waitresses in those cafés were not the bubbly women the “masters” thought they were. The maids played characters to create an atmosphere. Yuri is My Job! presents a similar dynamic with a themed café, The Liebe Girls Academy. The servers are characters in an all-girl boarding school. But their yuri drama plays out on the dining room floor to entertain their customers. It’s yuri dinner theater! However, the show has one more meta layer to throw on top of this one.

The girls playing the boarding school characters start falling in love with each other! A fake rich girl persona plays a fake little sister to a fake big sister, but they fall in love anyway! Yuri is My Job! happily leans into self-referential layers. Instead of using the girls’ real names, the official website character pages display their café characters’ names. The anime turns the premise of Maria Watches Over Us into an amusement park restaurant, in which the “cast members” play at love for diners. But yuri-style romance breaks out when the girls take off their school uniforms. That’s the best scenario for yuri fans!

The Flowery Cast and Crew of Yuri is My Job!

The character designs and bright colors of Yuri is My Job! drew me in. It did not surprise me that animation studio Passione, alongside the new Studio Lings, made the girls look so beautiful. Passione is famous for producing plump bodies in ecchi anime, like the recent Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World, Renai Flops, and the super-sexy last season of High School DxD. The anime character designer, Taisuke Iwasaki, has extensive experience from the Bakemonogatari collection of series and movies. If he can consistently make Liebe Girls Academy Café girls look like one of Miman’s (manga artist) compositions. Yuri is My Job! would be an immense pleasure to watch.

The anime’s director, Hijiri Sanpei, was an assistant director on Citrus, so he brings ecchi yuri experience. He also led the team for Wasteful Days of High School Girls (Joshikousei no Mudazukai), which should bode well for the comedic ensemble format of Yuri is My Job!. But the heavy lifting for convincing the audience to fall in love with girls who fall in love with other girls will come from the superstar cast of voice actors.

• Hime Shiraki. She is the main character forced to work at a yuri-themed café. Can she use her lying skills to play a different role? Voice Actor — Yui Ogura (Priestess from Goblin Slayer).
• Mitsuki Yano. Shy in real life, she plays the kind, calm big sister at the café. She also hates Hime from a past incident! Voice Actor — Sumire Uesaka (Hayase Nagatoro from Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro).
• Kanoko Mamiya. Hime’s been her friend since childhood. The nervous girl started working at the café after she had tailed Hime there. Voice Actor — Minami Tanaka (Mary Saotome from Kakegurui).
• Sumika Chibana. A gyaru outside her role, she plays a glasses-wearing serious senpai role at the café. Voice Actor — Makoto Koichi (Elza Hyena from Interspecies Reviewers).
• Mai Koshiba. Hime accidentally broke the café manager’s arm, so Mai guilted the girl into becoming a temporary substitute. Voice Actor — Yukari Tamura (Mizuho Himekawa from BIRDIE WING).
• Nene Nishidera. The café chef used to work as a little sister type for customers. Voice Actor — Asami Seto (Mai Sakurajima from Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai and Raphtalia from The Rising of the Shield Hero).
• Youko Gotou. Bonus character because she’s in that lovely art up there. Let’s hope the former café member appears in the show!

Are you a fan of yuri? Will you watch Yuri is My Job! when it airs for the spring 2023 anime season? Let us know in the comments below or online on Facebook or Twitter.

If dinner theater isn’t strong enough for you, how about graduating to the next level of yuri appreciation? J-List has the classic yuri visual novel A Kiss for the Petals — Maidens of Michael in stock at the store. Choose your favorite lily-gilded couple!