Is it me, or do there seem to be more “yuri vibes” in anime lately? In this post, let’s talk about the new Ruri Rocks anime, aka Ruri no Houseki, a cute and wholesome anime about a girl learning the joys of mineralogy and girls’ love!
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Ruri Rocks: an Introduction to Mineralogy and Yuri
Meet Ruri Tanigawa, a high school student who’s obsessed with jewels. When her mother won’t give her an advance on her allowance to buy a quartz crystal pendant, she decides to head to the mountains to try to dig some up herself. What she finds instead is Nagi Arato, a curvaceous college graduate student with a passion for mineralogy. Together they embark on many adventures, panning for gold and searching for rare gems, as Nagi teaches Ruri (and us) about the fascinating natural processes that created the planet we live on.
While Ruri no Houseki is a totally wholesome anime about a girl finding inspiration and mentorship, the anime makes the smart decision to use yuri themes and sexy visual fan service to get fans’ attention and tell a more compelling story.
Why did Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films make so many girls realize they were lesbians? Read my blog post here!
The anime is based on a manga by Keiichirō Shibuya that has run for six volumes so far. The animation is top-notch, being handled by Egg Firm, the studio that worked on Mushoku Tensei, Kandagawa Jet Girls, and Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister! You can tell from the quality of the animation that the staff is highly motivated to do right by the original story, and I don’t think fans will be disappointed.
Is Yuri Anime On the Rise? Great, If So!
While I was browsing the Internet for content to put into my CITY The Animation blog post, I came across this short clip that asked the question, “You ever like, when a woman just, womans, and you’re like… woman!” It caused me to realize you could easily watch that anime, with its three close heroines, through “yuri goggles.” This perspective appealed to me.
Then I watched the Watanare: There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… romantic comedy, about a cute girl who just wants some friends in high school, and ends up with a harem of girls who want to date her instead. The drama and comedy are a lot of fun, and you know I love a good anime lesbian romance.
And now there’s Ruri Rocks, a smart show that uses girl-girl relationships to tell a sweet story about a girl discovering a passion for learning about science and gems. That’s a lot of yuri for one anime season.
Are we entering some kind of Golden Age of yuri anime? I would hope so. Yuri as a genre has never been as commercially successful as yaoi/BL, sadly. I think that yuri and girls’ love is the perfect kind of storytelling: full of compelling drama, with physical romance that can be both steamy and oddly pure. It’s one of the few genres that men and women can appreciate on the same level.
Literally Any Story Can Become a Yuri Anime
I love the way, with a little creativity from the writer, the thrill of girls falling in love with other girls can be added to almost any kind of story. Here are some examples:
- Yuri and food. The Happy Cooking Graffiti show was a cute-girls-doing-cooking-things show with a nice side helping of light yuri.
- Yuri in the office. I’ve never been more obsessed with lesbian game creators than I was watching New Game!
- Laid-back lesbian camping. Yuru Camp was the show that made us Google “How do two girls have sex in a tent?”
- Light music and light yuri. K-On! was filled with “yuri flags” that got fans’ imaginations revving. J-List sold so many doujins!
- Yuri as character motivation. Homura’s desire to save Madoka was the major driving force of Madoka Magica, inadvertently causing the Walpurgis Night disaster with her repeated time looping.
- Golf as a proxy of yuri romance. Birdie Wing was a touching story of girls swinging clubs, trying to find the right holes.
- Magical girl lesbians. What’s better than nubile magical girls who need to make out in order to recharge their mana? I can’t think of anything better than Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya.
And now you can add “anime about exploring for minerals” to the list!
Lots of Sexy Ruri Rocks Fanart!
I’m fascinated by the way you can quantify how popular an anime is based on the amount of fanart you can find on Pixiv or various other image boards. And I’m happy to report that there’s plenty of sexy fan-created images for Ruri no Houseki! [image source]
Thanks for reading this blog post about the new Ruri Rocks yuri anime. Are you going to start checking out this adorable and educational anime? Tell us in the comments below!
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Great news: J-List has started a new sale giving you 18% off all DVDs, Blu-rays, and Nintendo Switch games. That means an instant 18% off all imported anime Blu-rays, sexy live-action JAV titles, hentai anime, and region-free anime games for your Nintendo Switch! Browse all sale products now!
