While yuri is the term widely used to define girl’s love anime depicting the romantic relationship between two women, the term “yuri” isn’t actually traditionally reserved for romance alone. It is a term that has more than a little nuance to it, which makes what is and is not yuri anime such hotly debated subject. However, because yuri can be used to describe a intensely close connection between female friends as well as a romantic connection, yuri anime often has an innate wholesome sweetness to it.
Of course, like yaoi, yuri is victim to own share of problems. The girl-on-girl nature of it can lead to some yuri anime fetishcizing the relationship or just dismissing it by the end as a youthful dalliance before they move onto men. Furthermore, like any romance anime, yuri can also get that sweetness stomped out by heavier relationship drama and ecchi situations.
If you just want a wholesome yuri anime that keeps things very cute and very likable, without getting too heavy with the realities of relationships or too weird with the sexy stuff, then these are the girl’s love anime recommendations for you.
Wholesome Yuri Anime
Ms. Vampire Who Lives Next Door
Ms. Vampire Who Lives Next Door follows a girl who loves dolls that hears a rumor about a girl who looks like a doll that wanders the forest at night. Bravely investigating, she discovers that this doll-like girl is actually a shut-in vampire that only occasionally wanders the night, usually to indulge otaku hobbies.
Quickly becoming infatuated with this living doll, she moves into the vampires secluded house and they carry out lightly comedic, heavily wholesome slice of life activities with each other.
Konohana Kitan
Konohana Kitan is a fantasy slice of life anime about fox girls that work in a hot springs inn that exists between the mortal and spiritual realms. As with any series about working anywhere, the cast of characters are the ones that provide the enjoyment in this anime. While many in Konohana Kitan lack depth of personality, it is the dynamic relationships that unfold which carry this show.
Konohana Kitan is one of those shows where the main character is so innocent and friendly that she becomes a balm for the more difficult personalities. She comes in as a whirlwind of clumsiness, but her friendly disposition endears her to others over time and brings out the best in their personality.
While not outwardly a romance, Konohana Kitan attracts ships like a port before a storm. As the cast is large, predominantly female, and all about deepening relationships with each other, there is a lot to love for the yuri fan even without official couplings.
Yuru Yuri
If you can’t find anything that is both wholesome and yuri in the romance genre, sometimes you find it in comedy, and that is what Yuru Yuri offers – a lot of yuri comedy.
Yuru Yuri follows the members of the Amusement Club, a do-nothing club with the sole purpose of entertaining its members.
Yuru Yuri is unimpressive looking as a distinctly Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, random school club anime, but its charm is in the amount of yuri fluff stuffed in there among the jokes, above and beyond the yuri fluff that you find in many CGDCT anime.
Asteroid in Love
What Cute Girls Doing Cute Things tropes Yuru Yuri dodges by being a comedy, Asteroid in Love embraces tighter than ever in its unambitious story. Asteroid in Love is so unambiguous with its yuri bait that it mind as well wear a girl’s love label with pride.
Asteroid in Love follows a girl who meets a boy when they were both children. Their meeting is short, but their shared interest in the stars leads the girl to promise to discover an asteroid and name it after him.
Years later, she ends up meeting him again in high school in the school’s near-defunct Astronomy Club that was combined with the Earth Science Club, but discovers that this boy was actually a girl the whole time.
That discover changes their dynamic… Not in the slightest. In fact, it gives them license to be more cuddly and affectionate with each other. Meanwhile, you also have the Earth Science girls forming their own “closer than friends” relationship too.
Sakura Trick
Sakura Trick comes in strong by focusing on two best friends who start high school together. While in the same class, jealousy springs up when the more easygoing of the two starts to make friends with her classmates. In order to alleviate some of that insecurity and cement their BFF bond, they decide to kiss, and much like Katy Perry, they liked it.
While Sakura Trick goes heavy on the kisses and the cuteness, the series does struggle to “move forward” from this first step. It keeps sending you make out scenes, but doesn’t develop the relationship much more. That does, however, keep the drama away and keep things pretty wholesome, but it may become a bit stale for some.
Stardust Telepath
Similar to Asteroid in Love, Stardust Telepath offers more CGDCT with a space theme, but somehow even stronger yuri bait to the point where it really seems like they should be locking lips rather than doing “foreheadpathy.”
Anyway, Stardust Telepath is about a shy girl who has trouble making friends. She believes that if she went to space, the aliens would somehow understand her and she could be friends with them. She has a clandestine meeting with a new girl in town who claims to be an alien who can’t remember where her planet is, much less how she got to Earth. With both having space-faring desires, they decide to make a rocket ship.
That sounds like a lofty goal, and is! However, this series is still somewhat grounded by featuring the characters mostly forming a rocket science club and limiting themselves to toy rockets as they work up to multi-million dollar spaceship designs.
While it has a serious science focus that it actually does pursue, the charm of Stardust Telepath is its cute color palette and even cuter characters. Of course, that cuteness is often driven by their very affectionate relationship with each other.
A Centaur’s Life
Who would have thought that an anime detailing the daily life of a centaur girl would be so yuri-forward? Sometimes you find girl’s love in the most unsuspecting places.
A Centaur’s Life is a cute slice of life anime about all the various annoyances that comes from living as a centaur in a modern world that is filled with other supernatural beings. She goes to school and enjoys time with her friends, but while there are some very strong yuri bait moments for the main character, much of the yuri in this series actually comes from side characters.
It features two side characters that are very unambiguously a lesbian couple, which was a refreshing find to see in a slice of life anime and sometimes even rare to see in specifically non-yuri-bait yuri anime.
Adachi and Shimamura
Adachi and Shimamura is one of the more “real” feeling girl’s love anime series out as it focuses on two girls that become friends while skipping class, and the relationship is slowly evolving into a romantic one.
However, the possibly undesirable outcome of a grounded yuri romance is that Adachi and Shimamura doesn’t feel quite as “fluffy” as some other wholesome yuri anime on this list. It is a pretty low drama romance anime, but both of the main characters have some pretty unhealthy personality traits.
That said, much of Adachi and Shimamura is not just about these two growing closer romantically, but helping each other grow as people too. So while not as fluffy, it certainly is just as wholesome.
Kase and the Morning Glories
As a single episode, 58-minute OVA, what Kase and the Morning Glories lacks in length, it makes up for in sugary sweet wholesome yuri moments. Usually, I wouldn’t even both listing OVAs as they lack length to make them a satisfying experience, but this particular OVA is the very definition of wholesome yuri without being yuri bait.
Regardless, Kase and the Morning Glories is about the new romantic relationship between two high school girls, one who enjoys plants and the other who is the ace of the track team. It is that typical tale of a sweet, shy girl and a vivacious tomboy, but focuses on their growing feelings for each other in the sweetest way.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid endeared itself to audiences by being about a office lady that finds her home invaded by a dragon she saved while drunk. While a solidly fun slice of life comedy at first, over time you watch Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid transform.
The pair live together, they take care of a child dragon together, and by the second season they are unambiguously a wholesome family together.
However, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is yuri in the most “saying it without saying it” sort of way. What you are watching is very clearly a wholesome, normal functioning family and you even get some more tender and touching moments between the main duo, but the series seems dead-set on keeping their affection unspoken.
That said, while Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid does keep its main couple wholesome, it does get a bit dubious with some of the side character relationships, namely the big breasted dragon and her unhealthy attraction to a little boy.
Do you have more yuri anime that keeps things wholesome and doesn’t dive into the darker, messier corners of relationships? Let fans know in the comments section below.
