it's mysterious, it's not new, it's altogether startlingly prevalent, it's...

 

"It's a story about a certain girl.  A few years ago; the story of a first year entering the Strawberry Dorms.  She didn't know why no one wanted to be roommates with her.  'One day there will be someone living with you.'  That's what she heard.  But that other girl didn't come at all.  She kept on waiting for another girl to come.  'When that happens, every day will be happy.'  But another girl never came in the end.

 

"Three years later, a girl transferred to Miator, and her roommate was notified.  And then, that girl arrived.  After that girl came, every day was better than she ever imagined.  And that girl always wore a cheerful and outgoing smile.  Everyone cheered up when they were beside her.

 

"Thank you very much, Nagisa-chan.  Thank goodness you came."

 

What it means

Both "shojo-ai" and "yuri" refer to the loving caring surreptitiously homosexual relationships that form between girls or women.  Both words have become fairly loaded, however, and carry all kinds of contextual baggage.  In fact, the meaning depends as much on where you are as who you are.  Really.  I'm going to paraphrase Wikipedia's definition because I am lazy.

 

YURI

    Typical usage of "yuri" here in the states refers only to porn.  In Japan, it means anything involving girl's love, and is thus the more technically accurate term.

 

SHOJO-AI

    Here in the states, we use "shojo-ai" to refer to the worksafe version of yuri.  In Japan, it carries the connotation of pedophilia.

 

One advantage of using "shojo-ai", as listed by the great font from which all human knowledge flows, is that you get far less... unrelated... search results.  Unless that's what you're looking for, but there's another page on this wiki devoted to that, so I'm off the hook as far as that's concerned.

 

Where it came from

"Shojo-ai" derives from the Japanese words for "girl" and "love", respectively.  When put together, the definition should be obvious.

 

"Yuri" (from the Japanese for "lily") refers to lesbians only because a magazine for gay men called women the "lily tribe" way back in 1976.

 

Oh, you meant the genre

The credit for shojo-ai as a genre of its own (and not just an additional element of some other genre; see below) goes mostly to Revolutionary Girl Utena.  Though here in the states, the credit is far more likely to go to Sailor Moon.  For reference, the English dub tried to remove references to any kind of lesbianism.  The obvious yuri couple in Sailor Moon became cousins... kissing cousins... that flirted with each other.  One of these "cousins" dressed up like a man often.

 

 

Where you probably have seen it

Each of the anime listed below features shojo-ai in a limited manner.  Don't be fooled.  Just because it isn't the focus doesn't mean it isn't completely obvious.

 

Azumanga Daioh

If you've seen the show or read the manga, you'd know.  For those who haven't, there is a character named Kaori who exists only to a) have a crush on her fellow classmate Sakaki and b) be tormented by a creepy male teacher who has a crush on her.

 

Cardcaptor Sakura

Again, anyone who's seen the show or read the manga would know about this one.  Pictured above is the legendary "almost-kiss" between Tomoyo and Sakura.  Sakura is the magical girl and Tomoyo is the doting omnipresent admirerer.  True to form, Sakura never notices.  This is a typical schtick in most magical girl animes, and gets lampooned on a fairly regular basis by only slightly exaggerating the circumstances of admiration.

Excel Saga

Pictured both above and at the top of the page is the Excel Saga episode featuring the two Ropponmatsus (Ropponmatsu 2 is pictured at left) in a process of "imprinting" and bonding with the two main characters of the Excel Saga anime, Excel and Hyatt (Excel is pictured at right).  Notable in this episode (and, typically of Excel Saga, only in this episode), is the thinly veiled reference to rape, magical girlfriend anime/manga (those extra six letters make a totally new genre), and tentacle porn.  All in roughly the same five minutes of the episode, too.

 

Best Student Council

The dating sim that Konami made into an anime is notable for including the most typical of shojo-ai locations: the all-girl's school.  Even the name of the student council is a play on the student councils in other shojo-ai anime (see below).

 

Where you probably haven't seen it

And now we tread (softly, of course) in to that most dark and mysterious of territories: the genre of anime in which shojo-ai is the driving plot focus.  It's not just a sub-genre of shojo, it's a sub-genre of shonen, too!  Some people in fact prefer the shonen-derived shojo-ai because of the supposedly healthier portrayal of lesbians as sexual beings.  This is a load of crap for two reasons: 1) it's mass market media and (this is the more important reason) 2) lesbians sell.  Just ask the writers of Battlestar Galactica.

 

Maria-sama ga Miteru (a.k.a. "Marimite")

SYNOPSIS

It's about an all-girl's Catholic school named after the lily (a good sign you're watching some kind of shojo-ai).

 

The plot revolves around the special "soeur" (French for "sister") relationship that occurs between and older student and a younger student.

MEDIA

• drama CDs
• light novels
• three anime seasons
• manga series
• internet radio show
• three dojin (i.e., fan-made) video games

FUN FACT

The student council is named the Yamayurikai, or "Mountain Lily Club".  Hmm.

 

Kashimashi (subtitled "Girl Meets Girl")

SYNOPSIS

It's about a boy who falls in love with a girl and confesses his feelings for her.  He gets rejected, and goes to the top of a mountain to pick flowers.  He is then promptly hit and killed by a spaceship.  The pilot restores the boy to life but screws up -- so now he is a she.

 

The plot revolves around the love triangle that crops up between the three main characters.

MEDIA

• manga
• internet radio show
• light novel
• anime
• drama CDs
• visual novel/dating sim

FUN FACT

A spaceship!

 

Strawberry Panic (sometimes "Strawberry Panic!")

SYNOPSIS

It's about not one, not two, but three (3) all-girl's Catholic schools that share a single dormitory: the Strawberry Dorms.  Because of the nature of this insanely huge dormitory complex, there exists a position above the student councils, the Etoile (French for "star").

 

The plot revolves the mind-bogglingly huge love polygons that ensue.

MEDIA

• short stories
• light novel
• manga
• internet radio show
• anime
• drama CDs
• visual novel/dating sim

FUN FACT

In the first incarnation of Strawberry Panic! (short stories in a yuri magazine), the relationships of the characters were decided by popular vote.

 

Kannazuki no Miko (lit. "Priestesses of the Godless Month")

SYNOPSIS

It's about two girls who are the reincarnations of the Lunar and Solar Miko.  They must use their magical powers to reconstruct a shrine on the moon that contains or summons some kind of magical robot, their only hope against the dark demon god Orochi, a demon they sealed away in a past life.  By now, you might be able to guess that none of this has any real bearing on the plot whatsoever.

 

The actual plot (interrupted by some of the lamest and most boring mecha fights in the history of art itself) revolves around the complex relationship between the two fledgeling miko, because one has to kill the other in order to actually and completely save the world.

MEDIA

• manga
• anime
• drama CD
• internet radio program

FUN FACT

Kannazuki no Miko was brought to you by the mangaka that brought you Steel Angel Kurumi and UFO Princess Valkyrie.

 

Miyuki-chan in Wonderland (just "Miyuki-chan in Wonderland")

SYNOPSIS

This one-volume manga is award-winning manga team CLAMP's rendition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  But where the source material is an intellectual romp, Miyuki-chan in Wonderland is an ecchi-laden farce.  Schoolgirl Miyuki falls through a series of strange worlds populated only by women who want to get their hands up Miyuki's skirt and/or seduce her.  As a random example, the part of the White Rabbit is played by a woman in a Playboy bunny costume.

MEDIA

Miyuki-chan in Wonderland is the media-deficient one of the four here, weighing in at only three formats:

• manga
• direct-to-video animation
• image album

FUN FACT

You might have read some of CLAMP's other yaoi-laden works, such as Cardcaptor Sakura, RG Veda, and X.

 

FYI:

I seriously wasn't kidding about the video games.  The Strawberry Panic! game (right) cost over 9,000 yen, which comes to over $80 with current exchange rates.  Halo 3 runs for $60.  You do the math, people.

 

Brief commentary

I would just like to point out that a genre like this is actually rife for some pretty heavy-hitting stuff.  Most of these series lack male characters entirely, allowing the creators of these series to run away with commentary on gender roles.  Of course, they might just as easily run away with nudity, kissing, and sex.  Depends on the series.

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See also: Anime