I’ve already seen some other yuri nation members writing about that, so I thought: why not make an entry like that as well? I have to warn you though, I will probably talk about a lot of unnecessary and boring things, so read this at your own risk.
Before telling you how and when I first got into the genre, I’ll have to tell you a short backstory:
I think I was about 14 years old when I watched my first lesbian TV show, which was South of Nowhere, an American show that I can still warmly recommend, if you’re into this kind of thing. I was really obsessed with it, and thus started looking for similar shows and movies. I found some good ones, but also some really bad ones. So up until I was about 16, I had already seen a lot of lesbian and also gay TV shows and pretty much enjoyed most of them.
It’s important to know that my two best friends at that time were huge anime fans, whereas I didn’t much care about it. In fact, I was rather annoyed with anime, since those two just couldn’t stop talking about their favorite yaoi pairings and all their Bleach fanfics. I remember being really pissed at times, since that was often all they wanted to talk about during our breaks, and needless to say, I couldn’t take part in most of the conversations.
Luckily, they one day invited me over under the guise of cooking together, but really, they never intended to cook anything, and instead forced me to watch anime with them. We only watched the first two episodes of Death Note, and even though I was so against it at first, I still had to admit that it wasn’t as bad as I initially thought it would be. I even ended up continuing to watch the show right when I got back home that day. I guess that’s how I got into anime, and within the next few months, my friends got me to watch some more shows with them, and it was pretty fun, even though I still didn’t fully approve of their 18+ yaoi fanfics that they often made me read….
I think it was around 2009 when I started looking for lesbian anime, and I first came across Strawberry Panic and Kannazuki no Miko. Well, I decided to try Kannazuki no Miko first, simply because I found the main characters to look more appealing than Shizuma and Nagisa. However, I didn’t immediately like the show, since the huge mechas and their stupid reason for invading Earth and killing the priestesses was just a little too weird for me at first. But I guess as soon as I saw Himeko and Chikane kissing for the first time, I completely ignored the rest and simply watched the anime for the two of them. And oh did I love it….
That was probably when I first realized that I might be in love with this genre, so I continued with Strawberry Panic, Sasameki Koto, Candy Boy, and simply all yuri shows that had some main characters that I thought I might come to like. Unfortunately, it didn’t really take me that long to finally run out of possible shows. So then I also took notice of shows that only had yuri-ish characters or shows that came with some subtext only, and that’s also when I found out that manga are also a great source of yuri stories.
I didn’t really know what to read exactly, so I went through a lot of bad and weird ones, but also found great ones, like Gokujou Drops, Octave, and also Girl Friends. Since I didn’t know where to look for stuff like that, I simply read what I found on MangaFox, which is also where I found out about doujinshi. Well, I can’t remember what my first doujinshi was about. It was probably either about HimekoxChikane or NagisaxShizuma, but I really loved the idea of seeing more of my favorite pairings. Also, I kind of liked the fact those were often not as innocent as the anime version was. So yeah….
At some point, I stumbled across this specific blog, http://myanimemangacollections.blogspot.com, which many of you probably still remember. Unfortunately, this blog doesn’t exist anymore. I guess we also don’t have much use for such a website nowadays, since the Dynasty Reader is a faster and better way to find and read new yuri releases anyway. But back then, I visited this blog at least once a day, because I just didn’t want to miss any new releases, and I also pretty much enjoyed reading what yurigirl (the nickname of the girl who hosted this site) had to say about them.
Well, this is staring to get really long, so let me just cut it here and tell you about how I got the idea of starting a blog as well. By the time I had found out about all the most important yuri sources; anime, manga, doujinshi and visual novels, I also started taking part in discussions on anime forums, just to talk about the shows I’ve watched and ask people if they knew more. The two friends I mentioned in the beginning are by the way still anime fans, but I don’t really talk to them about yuri shows.
So, since I didn’t really have anyone to talk to when it comes to yuri stuff, I tried to do just that on the internet, but I guess that wasn’t enough, so I decided to write some random reviews about some of the shows and manga I liked the most. In the end, I didn’t really upload my reviews anywhere, because I was and I still am very unsure about my English. Well, some time went by and I found some other yuri websites, such as Yuri Nation and Yuri no Boke, that I then started visiting frequently. They all made me realize how nice it would be to be able to write down my own thoughts about shows and have people talk about it with me.
In the end, it still took me some more time to really make a blog myself, but today, more than one year after that decision was made, I’m quite happy about it. I’ve actually found a lot of people with the same interests as me and with whom I can talk about yuri to my heart’s content. Also I just love the way I can now just write about basically anything I want to write about and have conversations about it afterwards.
Well, I guess my reviews and other blog entries are not the best out there, and there’s still a lot for me to learn (especially when it comes to English grammar :P), but I still believe that there are at least some people who enjoy what I write. Also, at this point, I just want to say thanks to the people who visit this blog every now and then, and also thanks to the ones who take the time to comment. Please continue to do the same in the future. 😉
Well, I think it started out with “How I Got Into Yuri” and ended with “How I Came to Make a Blog”. I guess I just killed two birds with one stone, huh? Anyway, I hope the ones who took the time to read this all didn’t think it was too boring. 😉
YuriReviews and More 
wonderful story
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Very nice, thank you for sharing your story! I visit your blog a lot since I don't have time to crawl the internetz for myself. 🙂
I found this picture on 9gag, please enjoy. 😉
http://imgur.com/gallery/CASuO
– Anjelaoni
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🙂
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Haha, I know that picture already, since this keeps popping up on my Tumblr dashboard every now and then, but I still laugh about this each and every time I see it 😛
Oh, and nice to meet you 😉
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it was a really good story thanx for sharing. for me i got into anime when i was about 3 or 4 i dont remember properly and when i was about 11 or 12 my friend introduced me to yuri and i fell in love with it so ya thats my story on how i got to love the yuri genre. btw its me eddy-kun im just going to start using my google account now to write posts 😛
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When you were about 3 or 4? Wow, that's early.
I watched anime as a child as well, but I was about 8 or 10 at least and I quickly lost interest when I got older.
Well, the shows I was into back then was stuff like Pokemon and Dragonball, so it's pretty different today.
Thanks for sharing, Eddy-kun 😉
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no problem 🙂
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i got into anime as of yuri as im lesbian my self i wanted to watch shows as i love to see other lesbians and then i was searching for lesbian shows and found yuri anime and fell in love then i came across your site and i check it every day now
and by the way your english grammar is better than some of the english speakers i know
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Thanks you for show me Girl Friends<3, i really love it, and thanks to you now i have a lot to read and watch.
Thanks for all and go on!,
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It's always fun to pick your brain and see what's going on in there. 😛
Since you told yours, I might as well tell how I got into it…
It was just last year that I became friends with someone who was a hardcore anime nerd. I'd never seen any anime before, yet wanted to be able to converse better with her, so I started watching it.
That friend is also is a yuri queen, so I started watching a few and didn't hate it, much to her dismay. The more shows I've watched, the more I've grown to appreciate it, and I look forward to watching more.
And I think I can speak for everyone when I say, thanks for the great blog. 😉
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Very interesting :3 (more material to stalk, lol, sorry :D)
Anyways, hope to see more entries in the future~
For me it was NanoFate at first and after that I got into Touhou, but you already know this :3
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Thanks for sharing your story and of course also thanks for your support 🙂
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Thank you too 😉
I'll try my best in the future as well~
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This girl you just mentioned must be a really good influence on you 😉
Now I wish I knew her better as well. Calling her a yuri queen, that's one mighty title, don't you think?
Maybe, one day, you can introduce me to her?
Also, thank you for helping me out as well 🙂
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Aww no funny name addition this time? What a pity 😛
How about you write a similar post on your blog as well? But for you, it might probably be something like “How I got into Touhou” instead of yuri, even though these two things happened more or less at the same time 😛
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That's weird I remember when I hated anime because of Naruto Then my brother into me to watch Death Note and I loved it! But what God me into Yuri.was strangely Say love you. I wanted to watch more romance anime's so I found sasameki koto. I loved it to death which made me want to find more.
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Yeah, i have some friends who enjoy anime, but i can't really talk about yuri with them. They're not fujoshi either, they just want to see hetero-couple. I talk about yuri just in internet, in twitter, especially.
I started to read Yuri stuff when i was about ten years old, or eleven. My first Yuri manga is Girlfriends.
Think about it again, i'm quite amazed with how can i found stuff like that XD (not that i don't like it), after reading it till the end i re-read it. It's a great one. I'm 15 right now.
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You know I'll always have your back “Euro-Ninja” or “Das Kunoichi”.
I too have no friends who are as into yuri as I am but they know I like yuri with a passion and are cool with it whenever I bring it up. They sometimes check out the stuff I share.
As for how I created my blog I'm sure you've read my story some time ago.
The Yuri Nation is proud to have you amongst its ranks and you are still a valuable member of my yuri council.
Keep up the good work LK.
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Hello Lena senpai! I was wondering, since your friends love yaoi, do you like it too?
Well 2014 is yuri year so, let's look
forward to not running out of shows to watch 😉
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I think it's mainly thanks to the anime my friends used to talk about that I had a bad image of anime.
They either talked about yaoi Bleach stuff or Naruto, so I get you 😛
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Oh, you already got into it with 10? That's really early, at this age I probably didn't even know, something like this exists 😛
But if you start with Girl Friends, you'll of course fall in love with the genre, it's seriously such a great manga~
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Thanks 🙂
I mainly got the idea for this entry, because I remembered reading yours.
Also, if you're interested in that, I still know that I found your blog when I was looking for SonoHana reviews.
I think I read your review about Tenshi no Hanabira Zome first and I quite enjoyed it, which is also why I then read some other reviews and bookmarked your blog~
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I wouldn't say I'm a real fan of yaoi, but I also don't mind reading yaoi stuff every once in a while.
I also used to watch yaoi shows with my friends some time ago and I mostly enjoyed it, but then there is also stuff like Boku no Pico, which is just horrible 😛
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Hi Lena, this is my first time commenting on your blog and I have to say that your posts are not boring at all. They are very fun to read. In fact, reading how you got into yuri made me want to talk about how I got into it also. I started watching anime when I was in elementary school. The animes I watched were sailor moon, ranma, pokemon, and utena. The first yuri anime that I watched was kannazuki no miko on youtube, but that is not how I got into yuri just yet. I remember that most of the comments on youtube were anti-yuri. I didn't know why so many of them didn't like two girls kissing. I thought that it was wonderful and exciting. Anyway, my brother came across a fanart of strawberry panic on deviant art and it looked interesting, so I decided to see what kind of anime it was. I started watching the first episode with my brother and noticed something. I asked my brother, “isn't this a lesbian anime?” He said no. But I felt it. My yuri senses were tingling. So, I looked up strawberry panic and it turned out to be yuri. At that time I didn't finish watching it because it was still airing. But anyway, ever since then I have been madly in love with the yuri genre. I look up yuri stuff every day-anime, manga, visual novel, drama cds, doujinshi, images. Sorry for the long post. I am extremely happy that 2014 is the year of the yuri!!!!! I get pretty bored when I run out of yuri things to do. I hope that after 2014, there will be much more yuri. It sucks that there are so much more yaoi and bl stuff compared to yuri 😦
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Hey there, nice to meet you and thanks for telling us your story as well 🙂
So for you it was Strawberry Panic?
I think, even if I started with Strawberry Panic instead of Kannazuki no Miko, the outcome would have been the same anyway.
Those two still are my two favorite yuri shows of all time.
Also, I think we have much to look forward to, even after Akuma no Riddle and Inugami-san to Nekoyam-san are over 😉
And maybe we're lucky and there will be even more yuri shows after 2014, that would surely be a blessing~
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Oh I saw Akuma no Riddle episode 7 today and it had some nice yuri :).
Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san is super cute. I love it when Nekoyama is jealous. I hope Kimi no Tame nara Shineru is adapted into an anime.
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At first i don't know anything about yuri, and i found Girlfriends manga accidentally. I want to read some shoujo manga and i just randomly type 'girl' haha that's how i found it.
A 10 years old girl who didn't even know about yuri or lesbian what can you expect. Most of them maybe leave the manga, but not for me. Well i keep read it because at first i thought that it's manga about friendship. XD but the story development is really…. amazing.
I know (i mean i really know, not accidentally) about yuri stuff when i was about 13, about doujin and everything.
I'm glad i found your blog months ago, it's helping me find good stuff
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Like I said glad to have you on the team ninja girl.
I love me some Eris X Shizuku.
I do what I can to stand out from the crowd by being as optimistic as possible…even though I lose my temper at times, especially on Twitter.
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Oh, you want me to write funny names? ok then 😛
Nah, I think it would be rather boring, and long, and I would also go off-topic too often xD
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Aha! I knew it 😛 So why have you been angry about me claiming that you'd be into this stuff? D: and you even…you know… D: I am really disappointed! *sob*, lol, just kidding 😀
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Omg wtf, what's with that name 😀 😀
You already know that I have absolutely no problem with yaoi stuff and I was never angry at you for claiming that I like it. The only one who is always angry at me for claiming stuff like that is you 😛
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I think you do stand out quite a bit, in a good way of course.
Hm and if you don't like Twitter that much, wouldn't it be the best idea to just not use it anymore?
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Oh Kimi no Tame nara Shineru? I read that one years ago and I think it's still not finished yet. Well, at least the translation stopped, but I could be wrong with that.
I remember it had a really great art style~
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Hehe it must have been quite a shock when you found out that Girl Friends is in fact not about friendship but love 😛
Also, I'm glad this blog is helpful to you 🙂
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I almost missed this comment, but then I saw this huuuge name and was like wtf, who is that 😀 😀
So you're stalking me super hard? That sounds so wrong…. 😛
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Yeah, it gave me a shock. But because of the story and the art :3 i keep reading it. My heart beats faster because i was really nervous about what would happen next *haha*
I read many yuri manga or doujin, but i don't think that there's a manga that is better than Girlfriends. Well, it's just my opinion. Girlfriends is on top of my favorite.
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Th-then I have to put on ultra long names so that you notice me? D: (Notice me, Senpai, lol :P)
Oh, you didn't know that I stalk you super hard? Every day, every second muhahahaha (sorry, just kidding, you know that I'm not able to…yet >:D)
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What?? What you've edited tells me a different opinion! D: but lol, you know how I'd react to Yaoi xD (better take a YukaReimu Doujin with you, lol)
and oh…my names get creepier, don't they? 😀
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That makes me happy. Thanks for the compliment Euro-Ninja.
It helps promote the blog and find more potential visitors but thankfully not too many. It's a necessary evil I suppose.
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How can senpai not notice you with creepy poems like this? 😀
I'm actually starting to think that it's absolutely no good idea to give you internet at home…
What about my precious privacy? D:
Just kidding, stalk me as much as you want 😛
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I think so too, Girl Friends is still the best one out there, but I really hope there will be an even better one out there soon~
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Well, that's true, but I wouldn't use it if I didn't like it at all.
Or I would only use it to post blog updates and nothing more.
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You're names aren't only getting creepier, they are also getting better and better in other ways 😀
Next time I'll order stuff from Japan, I'll get some YukaReimu doujinshi. Whenever I mess up and get you angry with the “nice” names I usually give you, I'll just give you one of these and tada, we'll have a very happy Mai again 😛
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I read Girl Friends somehow, I don't remember how, then I found out about the Dynasty reader from here, and I've been binge-reading yuri for the last 2-3 months :O
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So you just got into it, huh?
That's nice, you have sooo many great yuri manga waiting for you~
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It's always wonderful to find dedicated yuri blogs! Please continue to make posts! I feel like almost every yuri fan got into yuri because of Kannazuki no Miko and Strawberry Panic. Those two are the gateway drugs, I swear!
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Lol, so Senpai has noticed me? *-*
Noo, I have to have internet >-< and that not only to stalk you :D
(Lol, du gibts mir ne Freikarte zum Stalken? Ich denke das wirst du irgendwann bereuen :P)
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huhhh, they're getting better in which way? now I'm curious 😛
ooh, really? 😀 Oh wait…that means…for one Dx name you have to show me one YukaReimu Doujin! Go go!
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Haha, I read that a lot already and I think even with Sakura Trick and Akuma no Riddle, those two will still keep being the most popular yuri anime out there~
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They are also getting funnier, now that wasn't all that interesting, was it? 😛
Also, one stupid name = one YukaReimu dounjin… I think I'll have to order 100 each week, so that won't work 😛
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