“Yuri bait” is a term thrown around perhaps too often that is used to describe an anime relationship between girls that are closer than friends, but never have any explicitly stated or concretely shown romantic feelings for each other.
Yuri-baiting in anime is particularly common given the still-heavy stigmatization of homosexuality in Japan. This means you often find depictions of homosexuality in anime either fetishized, avoided altogether, or baited in a “saying it without saying it” sort of way. Only recently has relatively normal LGBT romance anime become even remotely available.
Yuri-baiting is a clever if not cowardly way of telling lesbian love stories while still keeping your anime series perfectly acceptable for public consumption without alarming the pearl-clutchers.
“Yuri-bait” Vs. “They’re just good friends, like sisters” Vs. “Do you need to have a kiss and confession to confirm love?”
If there is one thing you learn writing about anime, you learn that you need to clarify your criteria for certain things early and often. In this case, I consider yuri-bait anime as anything that depicts a very close friendship between two girls, intimate beyond being just friends, but never acknowledges any romantic feelings between them.
But “why can’t they just be good friends!?” you might say. Let me put it this way. Do you grip your friends’ face in both hands and stare deeply into their eyes for a long, lingering moment? Do you cuddle up with your homie and listen to the rhythmic beat of their heart as the world falls away?
Good friends hug and hold hands, of course. However, there is a clear difference between how that is depicted between friends and people who have feelings that are something more.
Alternatively, I can perfectly accept the counterargument that romantic love can be a spiritual connection, and not one that always needs to be spelled out in words. Yet, spelling it out in words and kisses is the bread and butter of the romance genre. I can’t think of a single heterosexual romance that lets nuance define a romantic relationship, disregarding all the ones that simply didn’t adapt enough of the source material to show it.
Ultimately, the varied opinions on what is and is not yuri-bait will always be up to debate. This is fueled by the way “yuri” itself is defined in Japan. It isn’t just romantic relationships between girls, but intense friendships and spiritual connections as well, meaning that the term “yuri” isn’t strictly limited to homosexual relationships. Some things do get lost in cultural translation, but it doesn’t make anyone’s views invalid.
Since there are actually rather limited options when it comes to shoujo ai/yuri anime, sometimes yuri-bait is the best you can get. You just need to infer your own romantic progression. If you are looking for anime that does, pretty obviously, yuri-bait, then check out these anime recommendations.
Yuri-Bait Anime
Mobile Suit Gundam – The Witch From Mercury
Let us welcome Mobile Suit Gundam, long beloved mecha franchise, into the ranks of yuri-baiting.
The Witch From Mercury is, at present, the newest Gundam series that was designed to bring younger fans into Gundam, since we all know that love for mecha has waned significantly in modern anime.
Although their strategy was to nip a lot of concepts from Revolutionary Girl Utena and add the diverse skin tones and body types that had more obnoxious anime fans call it “the woke Gundam,” it is also one of the more overtly gay Gundam anime as well.
The series follows a new student at an elite school for children of the mega-corporations that rule space. One of the central elements of the school is dueling using legally-not-Gundam mechs to settle disputes. On her first day, the main character ends up winning a duel and, unknown to her, also winning a bride.
While their relationship is superficial at first. The anime even goes out of its way immediately afterwards to give the main character an obvious attraction to a man. However, the superficial nature of their relationship doesn’t stay that way.
The pair become increasingly dear to each other as well as remain engaged for most of the series. By the end, their potential happy union serves as a motivator for various actions.
While the anime ends in a satisfying “saying it without saying it” way, one of the voice actors for the pair messed up and said it. In an interview, she said that the characters were married, like everyone inferred, and then the studio quickly walked back that statement publicly in true, almost comical gutlessness.
Hibike! Euphonium
When you say “yuri-bait” to a lot of anime fans, Hibike! Euphonium is the series they think about first. It not just set up a leading, shippable romance between the two female main characters, but swiftly crushed all hopes as one of the characters confessed that she was in love with a male teacher.
Certainly sinking a beloved fan ship beneath the waves is no reason to slander a series as yuri-bait, but the series really was rather misleading with the relationship between Kumiko and Reina. They are displayed as becoming increasingly more intimate with each passing episode right up until that fateful moment that caused a famous stink on the internet when it aired.
Even after the confession, the yuri-baiting continued, and not just between Kumiko and Reina either. Hibike! Euphonium is a series that loves to imply romantic feelings between many girls and never confirm anything. It is actually part of the charm at this point.
Lycoris Recoil
Lycoris Recoil is kind of an odd duck as yuri-bait. What makes it so odd is that the series actually portrays a pretty normal and casually mentioned gay relationship between two men. So to yuri-bait the two female main characters seems strange, and has sparked hot debate.
In all honesty, the plot about a secret organization of undercover school girls that prevent crime and terrorism in Japan isn’t what sells Lycoris Recoil. What sells this show is the amazing chemistry between main characters Chisato and Takina.
One is a no-nonsense soldier type ready to work hard to get back into HQ’s good graces, and the other is a lovable, laid-back super soldier girl determined to show her new peer that there is more to life than just work.
Chisato earns Takina’s respect with her skills despite her silliness, and eventually that silliness causes Takina to become a little less uptight. They develop a nice friendship that has slight yuri overtones to it, but the yuri-bait gets infinitely stronger later in the season after a particularly dramatic reveal. Takina becomes increasingly more intimate with Chisato and, at times, frantic with her actions when it comes to her.
As their chemistry was actually so good, but there were a few moments of “more than friends” levels of physical intimacy, it is why Lycoris Recoil will remain contested as to whether it is or isn’t yuri-bait.
Asteroid in Love
Asteroid in Love follows a girl that made a promise to a boy that she would discover and name an asteroid after him. She ends up joining her school’s Astronomy/Earth Sciences Club in high school where she is reunited with the boy. Except that, “the boy” was actually a girl all along.
The pair were presented as having romantic feelings for each other when they were young, and that presentation continues in high school despite them both being girls.
As a moe anime, it has the standard levels of yuri-baiting that you find in most moe. The girls are close emotionally and sometimes physically, but never in a way that could be called romantically. However, they are far closer than female friends would be anywhere outside of a cute girls doing cute things anime.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid starts out as a rather fun series where a drunk office lady saves a dragon, and the dragon transforms into a maid to serve her in return. As things go on, they also come to live with a child dragon and form what is very clearly a wholesome family unit.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is actually one of the better arguments for the “Do you need to have a kiss and confession to confirm love?” counterargument to yuri-bait. It, in all truth, depicts a wholesome lesbian family dynamic, but it never formally acknowledges it nor makes anything particularly romantic.
However, the issue is that it clearly sets up that LGBT family dynamic and it clearly lays out the potential romantic feelings. To have it clear for the audience to see, but never actually acknowledge it is really the definition of yuri-bait.
As to whether that decision is right or wrong, that is more up to the opinion of those who watch it.
Symphogear
Symphogear is all about beating up a race of aliens with ancient weapons powered by song, and it is a glorious watch for that alone. However, it is also the most gay, non-shoujo ai/yuri anime I have ever watched. The longer you watch this five-season-long epic, the more brazenly yuri-bait it becomes.
Throughout the series, it introduces new female characters, and then promptly sets them up in a ship-baiting relationship with one of the girls, and rarely is there any crossover. It is those relationships that often end up forming the character stories and fostering character growth for those characters very much like modern idol anime does.
Yet, the feelings are clear to see in Symphogear, but they are never, ever said.
“I love you” is like a naughty curse word that will never be uttered in Symphogear, even right at the end where they set up the perfect moment to give fans the conclusion to the main relationship that the series spent five season building.
They will forever be stuck in “heavily implied,” which was ultimately just pretty cowardly.
The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us
Who says yuri can’t also be yuri-bait? Well, most people. However, The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us is a frustrating argument to the contrary.
This series, while fully dedicated to ship-teasing pairings for girls in an all-girls school, only actually has one canon yuri pairing in it. It also suffers from the older school yuri anime plague where that romance doesn’t have a happy ending.
Yet, while there is one canon actual girl’s love pairing, there are many, many other yuri-bait pairings that skips past sapphic acknowledgment with every single out ever given – new boyfriend, arranged marriage, it was just a phase, became a nun, ect…
You know The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us is a girl’s love anime because there was not an ounce of balls shown by the creators when making it. Just spineless storytelling keeping in line with the homophobic sensibilities of the day.
Aquatope on the Sand
Like many series on this list, the yuri-bait in Aquatope on the Sand was pretty hotly debated in its time. The series is about an idol that decides to flee her career and ends up back home in Okinawa. She starts working at a floundering aquarium after being inspired by the director’s granddaughter that is working hard to keep it afloat.
The two girls have a good chemistry together and become quick friends. While mostly a slice of life anime, the story also has some coming-of-age themes, particularly when it comes to moving forward from the past and letting things go. As such, the girls become increasingly close to each other to the point where one fills the role of surrogate sister to help the other move forward from latent grief.
Now, making them “as close as sisters” isn’t the problem. The problem was they were very gay about it.
Or rather, they stole a lot of intimate actions from moe anime. The cuddling and frequent closeness for female “friends” is somewhat innocent when done by sexless moeblobs, but take on completely different connotations when done by the realistic, complicated, and beautiful characters that P.A. Works can bring to life.
This series yuri-baits often between its main characters in their deeply intimate actions, far beyond the intimacy that two friends would engage in non-romantically, no matter how close they are.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Magical girl anime is always a little gay sometimes, so it seems right on brand that Madoka Magica, a subversion of magical girl anime, keeps the gayness and makes it more complicated.
In true ship-baiting form, the four main girls in Madoka Magica are kind of paired off. It also provides an interesting contrast to girls who are “just friends” and girls who are “something more.”
Sayaka and Madoka are displayed as just friends. They interact pleasantly, but are never particularly intimate, emotionally or physically. Madoka and Homura, however, form an ever-increasing and intimate relationship with each other while Sayaka and Kyoko send out some heavy shipping invitations in their own way.
While the yuri becomes almost confirmed in the Madoka Magica Rebellion movies when Homura states she is doing the variety of things she is doing due to her love of Madoka, it is never explained if that “love” is platonic or romantic. Yet, the way they present the relationship is a bit above platonic friendship love. I wouldn’t do the things she does no matter how much I non-romantically love my friends.
No matter how you cut it, yuri-baiting is a complicated issue made complicated by – as I said – different cultural interpretations. What are anime that you would call yuri-bait? Let interested fans know in the comments section below.
Calling Witch from Mercury is extremely incorrect, Suletta and Miorine are unambiguously married in the end, Suletta’s sister Eri even calls herself Miorine’s sister-in-law, and the two are wearing wedding bands during the finale.
Mercury is definitely a real yuri anime, it’s just not a good yuri anime.
Hibike is my nightmare, when i watched the anime, i was so young that i just be happy cause the read line betwen kumiko and reina, and i did not recognize what reina said “not like, love” means, and after years, it becomes my nightmare, mybe too far, but i still fell not good when watch hibike again.
Lycoris is also not a good yuri anime, and even not yuri enough, the relation between chisato and takina is too fake? That’s how i fell when watched Lycoris.
Asteroid in Love is a yuri anime but a little boring.
Symphogear is definitely a yuri anime, and pretty good.
Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is not a yuri anime, kobayashi is real a girl or a women? Is the author really describe kobayashi as a female? i fell suspicious.
The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us is not a yuri anime, in my opinion, sis(sister) anime is defferent from yuri anime, yuri should be les, but sis, at least the author write sis works dont think they should be les.
Aquatope on the Sand, i dont watch the anime, cause i dont believe the studio PA will create a real yuri work, and so.
Last Madoka is a yuri anime, especially after the movie, and if the director or the script say there is no a real romantic between kyoko sayaka, madoka homura one day, jsut f*ck them.