Yuri Anime: Cross-dressing and Gender Bender.
Cross-dressing and Gender Bender should be considered an Yuri anime?
Both these themes are sometimes used in yuri anime and it seems to be used more and more often. In Cross-Dressing, a man dresses as a woman for some reason, usually has to do with being admitted in some all-girl school. In Genre Bender, the person changes gender completely through something supernatural.
In both cases, this person usually becomes bery popular and attracts alot of fangirls who might fall in love with this person. I have seen that not everyone accept these kind of anime as yuri, even the gender bender, where the person really become woman.
Cross-dressing
In yuri anime, cross-dressers are usually elegant, friendly and above all so convincing that their gender are mentioned occasionally to remind us they are men. There is a huge chance that a girl will fall in love with him. The biggest examples of these anime are Maria†Holic e Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru
Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru
Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru tells the soty of Mizuho Miyanokouji, an androgynous who is transferred to an all-girls school due to an request in his grandpa’s will, who wanted him to attend the same school as his mother. To be able to study there, he cross-dressers. His childhood friend, Mariya Mikado, who goes to this very same school, helps him with with the transition from man to woman.
Mizuko instantly becomes very popular between the other studentes, who frequently speak of how beautiful, cool and athletic ’she’ is. This over popularity gets to the point where he is designated, against his will, to join the ‘Elder Sister‘ elections.
In Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru, almost all girls want him. I think even the animators forget that Mizuho is a boy, because in the swimsuit scene, his body seems really female.
Maria†Holic
Kanako Miyamae doesnt like men, to the point of being allergic to them. Hoping to find a yuri love, she goes to the same school her parents met. She finds the charming Mariya, who seems to be what she’s been looking for, except for the fact that Mariya is actually sadistic cross-dresser.
Gender Bender
In this type of anime, men really become womem. completly. Be it through magic, the black arts, scientifc experiment, alien abduction or some other supernatural way. Like in cross-dressing, these women-who-once-were-men attracts alot of women-who-have-aways-been-women.
Kashimashi
In Kashimashi, Hazumu, who has always been kind of gay, is tranformed in a woman after a UFO crashes on him, putting him out of his misery, after he got rejected by the girl he loves. After his death, the aliens revive him, but as a woman
Now, his best friend wants him, just as the girl who rejected him when she was a boy. Hell, even his male friend wants him.. Kashimashi is the biggest yuri-yaoi-mind-screwing ever made.
In this case, maybe the two girls like Hazumu as a man, even if he is now a girl. But Hazumu’s friend likes her as the woman that she is now, even if it sounds kinda gayish. And even if the girls like Hazumu as a man, doesn’t change the fact that she is a girl now.
Simoun
In Simoun Everyone is born female and get to chose their gender only after they are 17yo through a magic fountain. So, in the plot’s context the ‘girls’ technically are like genderless, right?
Kämpfer
Senou Natsuru is a normal student. However, he has been chosen to be a Kampfer, whose objective is to fight against other Kampfers. But there is a catch: Kampfers are female,so he is turned into a girl when he needs to fight. Different from the others anime, he can turn back and forth into male and female. Sakura, another girl, falls in love with his female side. Actually, every girl he knows fall in love with him, some for the male side, some for the female side, some for both sides.
In my opinion these anime should be considered yuri, especially the gender bender ones, where there is no mistake, the man became a woman period. From the moment he becomes a woman, for whatever reason, he is a man no more. As for the cross-dressers who fool people, the girls who fall in love with them, see them as women, so, to them, they are loving someone from the same gender = yuri.
Simoun is a special case. To me it’s the less yuri from all, but I’ve never seen anyone questioning about this one…
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I disagree with you a bit here, particularly on cross dressing. In my opinion, cross dressing should not be considered yuri. I am still ambivalent on gender bender and not sure if it should count. There are definitely strong yuri moments, so…
But, if a girl is liking a guy, thinking he is also a girl, that makes her a lesbian?
This is an interesting question. Gender bending? I’d consider that Yuri since the character is physically a girl.
Cross-dressing, on the other hand, I’d say no, since Yuri means ‘Girls Love’ and one of the character’s is not a girl. I don’t think we can consider what the girl ‘thinks’ but go on what we as the reader/watcher knows in classifying the work.
Personally, I think trying to portray cross-dressing as Yuri just confuses things in a bad way because the underlying message is something akin to ‘every lesbian really wants a man’, or ‘it’s ok because she’s still with a guy’, and I won’t go into the male fantasy side of things
Well for Kashimashi and Kampfer he really turn into a girl so yeah it’s yuri
My friend said that Kampfer is not actual yuri, yeah it’s true too
yeah gender bender is not really a yuri but there are still some yuri scene with the other characters so it’s still a half yes