Getting into anime means exposing yourself to a world of new ideas, some of which might be potentially confusing at first. Like the tendency for animators to create stories about characters whose gender is not entirely set in stone, such as female characters pretending to be male for some reason, Ranma-esque characters who actually change their gender, and even classical examples like Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles, raised as a swordsman although she’s a girl. One of hallmarks of 90s anime series like Evangelion or Gundam Wing was adding a strong yaoi element to the story, creating tension between male characters and exploiting the drama and comedy generated from that tension to bring in more fans. These days, it seems that anime with strong themes of yuri — stories about girls infatuated with other girls — have really taken over, with just about every mainstream show featuring these themes on some level. It’s hard to say when the “yuri tipping point” was — Maria is Watching Over Us, perhaps? — but the seeds were planted back when fans started noticing something funny about Haruka and Michiru from Sailor Moon.
“Yuri” themes are increasingly present in anime these days. Which is fine with me.
