On the Depiction of Love Between Girls Across Cultures - Comparing the U.S. American Webcomic YU+ME: dream and the Yuri Manga “Maria-sama ga miteru”

Aug 23, 2026

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The paper examines how female sexual identity and romantic attachment are depicted in U.S. American and Japanese popular culture, focusing on a textual comparison between the webcomic YU+ME: dream and the manga “Maria-sama ga miteru.” It argues that although manga-influenced visual style can cross cultural borders, narrative content and representational expectations do not always do so. The study contrasts how love between girls is framed, reproduced, and understood in each medium within different cultural contexts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Research focus and aim

Materials and comparison approach

Selected works: YU+ME: dream and “Maria-sama ga miteru”

Yuri background and genre framing

Love between girls and prior scholarly attention

5 On the depiction of love between girls across cultures: Comparing the U.S. American webcomic YU+ME: dream and the yuri manga “Maria-samaga miteru” Verena MASER In recent years, the portrayal of sexuality in manga1 has attracted much academic research (e. g. Hori 2009, Levi, McHarry and Pagliassotti 2008) . Attention was especially given to the depiction of love between boys in manga, a genre mostly referred to as boys’love. On the contrary, love between girls, the so called yuri [lily] genre, did not arouse much scholarly interest. This genre has hitherto been almost exclusively explained in terms of lesbian sexuality (e.g. Welker 2006) despite the fact that most works of 1 In this paper, the term “manga” is used to denote comics created by Japanese artists in Japanese, published in Japan for a Japanese audience. © International Manga Research Center, Kyoto Seika University. [http://imrc.jp/](http://imrc.jp/ 61)[ 61](http://imrc.jp/ 61) Verena MASER this genre do not feature homosexual2 characters. The underlying expectation or maybe even intercultural misunderstanding is that fictional works about love between female characters always include a discussion about sexuality. This might be true in a U.S.American or European context, but as my analysis will show it is not always true in a Japanese context. The aim of my paper is to examine if and how issues of female sexual identity are depicted in the products of U.S. American and Japanese popular culture, namely webcomics3 and manga. Due to restrictions of space, I will limit my intercultural comparison to one manga and one U.S. American webcomic with a textual analysis especially focusing on characters and their representation.4 I will show that while the manga art style crosses cultural borders, the content does not. I chose two comics that at first glance might seem hardly comparable at all. On the one hand, this is the U.S. American webcomic YU+ME: dream whose author Megan Rose Gedris might best be called an amateur comic artist working in the field of webcomics since 2004. Her depiction of love between girls reflects U.S.-American ideas on this topic but was at the same time inspired by Japanese yuri manga and can therefore be said to be a hybrid product. On the other hand I use a manga published in a mainstream manga magazine in Japan,“Maria-sama ga miteru”(En.: Maria Watches Over Us), which can be termed the most popular yuri series of the last ten years in Japan. While this manga was originally created in Japan for a Japanese audience, it has nevertheless crossed cultural boundaries by being exported to Asia, North America and Europe. My comparison of these two works offers a “clash of cultures” useful to highlight cultural differences not visible in other ways. 1. YU+ME: dream The two-part U. S. American webcomic YU+ME: dream by Megan Rose Gedris5 ran from June 2004 to October 2010 on her website. Later, she also self-published in bookform. Four volumes have been released so far, with volumes one to three covering the first part of YU+ME: dream. I will limit my remarks to this first part, as it 2 “Homosexuality” in this paper is broadly understood as sexual attraction towards a person of the same sex. It is also my understanding that it is connected to the notion of a sexual identity. Therefore, in order to “be” homosexual, you will have to define yourself as such. 3 “Webcomic” in this paper is used to denote a comic first published on a website. 4 A deeper analysis of the yuri genre is the topic of my PhD thesis called Love between girls in manga. Yuri – formation of a genre. It will specifically focus on contents, production and reception of yuri manga and will contain an analysis of yuri manga as well as interviews with yuri manga editors and fans. For a discussion of sexuality between female characters in manga, see my paper Maser 2011. 5 62 Gedris is a freelance webcomic artist and YU+ME: dream was her first long-running webcomic

FAQs

What is the main research aim of the paper?

To examine whether and how issues of female sexual identity are depicted in U.S. American and Japanese popular culture products, specifically focusing on a comparison of one webcomic and one manga.

Which two works are compared?

The U.S. American webcomic YU+ME: dream by Megan Rose Gedris and the Japanese yuri manga “Maria-sama ga miteru” published in mainstream manga magazines in Japan.

What key claim does the analysis make about cultural borders?

The paper suggests that while manga art styles can cross cultural borders, the underlying content and representation do not necessarily follow in the same way.

Aug 23, 2026

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