Lilyka-chan
- Jul 9, 2022
- 4 min read

👸"Holy YuriMother" The goddess of the Yuri community

Updated: Jul 16, 2022

We are honor to have your here. Could you introduce yourself for all of us?

👸 I am YuriMother. I am a Yuri and LGBT media researcher, reporter, and critic. I operate the website yurimother.com where I upload content about Yuri, including news reports, reviews, and articles about the genre.

My love of Yuri began around 12 years ago after I saw Madhouse's Strawberry Panic anime. Immediately, I started consuming as much Yuri as possible, which for a middle schooler in America during the early 2010s was not that much, just a handful of licensed releases from a smattering of publishers. As I grew up, my view and knowledge expanded, and I started noticing patterns and themes in Yuri, writing about them, and posting fan content online. Because of this early interest, I often say I grew up Yurijin, a Yuri person! I began formally working with the genre around three or four years ago, doing research and more formal news and editorial content on the YuriMother website.

Outside my work on Yurimother, I am an educator, currently teaching sixth grade in a public school. It is a bizarre combination. I spend my workdays at an elementary school going over mathematics, then go home and delve into Yuri for hours on end. I suppose I just enjoy expanding peoples' minds, whether it be showing a student how to divide or discussing the different tropes and movements of the Yuri genre with readers.

Truly impressive...We would like to know about the titles you enjoyed from Lilyka!

👸 The incredible proliferation of the genre is probably the most remarkable change we have seen in the Western Yuri world over the past five years. We rapidly moved from having one or two publishers licensing an occasional series to dozens adapting all kinds of Yuri stories, romance, action, science fiction, isekai, you name it! Lilyka is terrific, as they do a great job finding fantastic doujinshi and working with the artist to bring their great manga to new audiences.

Mintaro's Lily Fairy Tale series is a must-read, in my opinion. It is a sort of anthology set at a school full of girls from classic fairy tales. Each issue focuses on a different odd pairing of classic characters like Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella and Little Red Cap. Such a creative concept blends these well-known characters and stories with a new Yuri twist and a faint eerie atmosphere, as each character has an inevitable fate. Plus, minatro-sensei's illustrations are adorable and have an enchanting air about them.

I also strongly advocate for Ruri Hazuki's work if you like a more chaotic read. I think I once described her series Saturday as "wild and sloppy." Yet, I find the series oddly charming and incredibly salacious! The idea of a company comprised of women who all constantly flirt and seduce each other with such vigor and frequency that there is a literal chart to keep track of it all is sheerly absurd!

SHWD by sono.N is one of my all-time favorite works, and considering I read Yuri for a living, that is pretty high praise. I love the darker tone and elements of horror in it, particularly in any scene with the Dynamis, which always send a shudder down my spine. The action scenes with them are always thrilling and spectacularly illustrated. However, the character designs are easily the best part. In Yuri, we get a lot of cute, fluffy romances and slice-of-life series with moe schoolgirls, so it is a welcome change to see some larger, mature women with bludging muscles as they both kick butt and show off their more feminine, delicate side.

Lastly, no discussion of Lilyka's incredible offerings is complete without sincere praise of Alt Hanakage. Although much of the work I know her for is more sultry and, frankly, for that reason, not of much interest to me, her more dramatic and tender Shakaijin Yuri works are spectacular. Senpai no Kouhai, which, as she admitted to Lilyka, was based on her experiences as a lesbian, is so authentic. The reader gets a sense of both women's turmoil and regret, and the manga is so relatable to queer people.

Hanakage-sensei's other work on Lilyka, Ring On My Finger, is an exceptional short letter expressing both the profound love that two women can have for each other and the injustices LGBT people face every day, tailored through the lens of Japan's lack of marriage equality. The manga captures the voice of the queer community, their joys and their sorrows. It nearly brought me to tears. It is so beautiful.

Do you have any messages for Yuri fans?

👸 If I had one message for Yuri fans, it would be to continue supporting Yuri by enjoying the many wonderful and diverse works within the genre. Do not be afraid to explore! Watch the latest Yuri anime, read a long-running romance manga, check out some light novels, play a visual novel, and of course, check out some of the smaller releases and doujinshi tucked away in special corners of the internet!

If you want to learn more about the Yuri genre and its history, get the latest news on releases and developments, read thoughtful reviews, and get curated recommendations all about Yuri, be sure to check out my website yurimother.com, and follow me on Twitter and TikTok.