Jump to content

Is yuri "big" on the JP eroge market?


Plk_Lesiak

Recommended Posts

For a long time, I was under the impression that yuri is immensely more popular in the West, when it goes to VNs. A lot of the best visual novels we have out here are pure girls' love stuff and tons of games, like many otome games, include females as either some of their main romance options or at least side routes of sorts. On the Japanese side of things, when you consider the sheer output of the eroge industry, it's not really very impressive - if you take away larger series such as SonoHana and Flowers, there's barely anything of quality left.

A question for those more oriented in the Japanese eroge scene: do Japanese readers care less about yuri? Are titles such as Flowers, Yurirei or Fatal Twelve finding mass appeal in Japan, or are they very much niche things for the already yuri-oriented audience?

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Porn sells but the yuri maniacs view yuri as pure love that can't have any sex. Sonohana is not a yuri game but a lesbian game. Flowers is a yuri game.

One thing in Japan is that majority of yuri fans still consists of males (opposed to West's female/LGBT/QUEER/what do you call these people nowadays). Males usually need a self-insert character for the porn while females generally don't. The reason why OELVN market is full of "yuri/lesbian games" whatever is thanks to the high amount of QUEER people making them that doesn't really exist in Japan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yuri is definitely less popular in Japan. Like Kiri mentioned, most "yuri" fans in Japan see it as something pure and innocent, so titles like Flowers will be more popular than H driven ones. That being said, there is a market for H filled yuri games in Japan too, just a smaller one.

You can tell by looking at the monthly eroge releases in Japan, tbh. A yuri game only pops up once in a blue moon.

The only somewhat recent yuri game I can think of is the Kimihane sequel, which was meant to released this month, but is still stuck in delay hell. It was actually meant to be released last year but DELAYS, AHH!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Lesbians* in Japan is a pipe dream.

(*): Maybe not accurate term, dunno.

Well, I think they are that in the West too - there might be much more media presence of lesbians here, including public figures etc, but the fetishistic male fantasy of lesbians is alive and well. Plus it's still something quite detached from most people's experience, if you look outside of the media fandoms or the leftist university groups. :>

*I read that レズビアン is a proper word in Japanese nowadays. :P

1 hour ago, Dergonu said:

Like Kiri mentioned, most "yuri" fans in Japan see it as something pure and innocent, so titles like Flowers will be more popular than H driven ones.

Really now? I guess I should've expected that, but after my year+ of dealing with VNs I started thinking that everything sells better with porn. Glad to be proven wrong here. :3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Kiriririri said:

Porn sells but the yuri maniacs view yuri as pure love that can't have any sex. Sonohana is not a yuri game but a lesbian game. Flowers is a yuri game.

The right terms are "Shoujo Ai" and "Yuri", Shoujo Ai has no sex wehereas Yuri has sex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Isn't that distinction more of a wee... Pardon me, Western otaku thing? I've heard that at least yuri is a catch-all term in Japanese. 

Dunno, but Shoujo Ai is a japanese word and is used as actually categories on alot of sites such as manga, anime, visual novels websites, it's certainly more accurate than "Lesbian", which is an english word and isn't very widely used in Japan due to it being considered boorish/vulgar (pronounced "re-zu-bi-en").

Edited by Nier
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Nier said:

Dunno, but Shoujo Ai is a japanese word and is used as actually categories on alot of sites such as manga, anime, visual novels websites, it's certainly more accurate than "Lesbian", which is an english word and isn't very widely used in Japan due to it being considered boorish/vulgar (pronounced "re-zu-bi-en").

Shoujo Ai is nowhere in Japan used to refer to the yuri genre. Shoujo Ai as a genre is an American thing.
In Japan Shoujo Ai is actually equal to pedophilia so have fun with that. It means that you yourself are in love with young girls (shoujo).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

Shoujo Ai is nowhere in Japan used to refer to the yuri genre. Shoujo Ai as a genre is an American thing.
In Japan Shoujo Ai is actually equal to pedophilia so have fun with that. It means that you yourself are in love with young girls (shoujo).

In Japan the term that is more used is "Girls Love", or "GL".

Shoujo Kakumei Utena would be considered as "Girls Love" for example, because it has no sex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, Nier said:

Dunno, but Shoujo Ai is a japanese word and is used as actually categories on alot of sites such as manga, anime, visual novels websites, it's certainly more accurate than "Lesbian", which is an english word and isn't very widely used in Japan due to it being considered boorish/vulgar (pronounced "re-zu-bi-en").

Shoujo ai is a western thing. They don't use that in Japan. It's strictly a western term attatched to yuri without H/ stories with yuri undertones. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Dergonu said:

Shoujo ai is a western thing. They don't use that in Japan. It's strictly a western term attatched to yuri without H/ stories with yuri undertones. 

Why you copypaste my post dude!!!

9 minutes ago, Nier said:

No I mean ガールズラブ or GL.

Yeah but that's exactly same meaning as yuri?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Yuri is definitely less popular in Japan. Like Kiri mentioned, most "yuri" fans in Japan see it as something pure and innocent, so titles like Flowers will be more popular than H driven ones. That being said, there is a market for H filled yuri games in Japan too, just a smaller one.

You can tell by looking at the monthly eroge releases in Japan, tbh. A yuri game only pops up once in a blue moon.

The only somewhat recent yuri game I can think of is the Kimihane sequel, which was meant to released this month, but is still stuck in delay hell. It was actually meant to be released last year but DELAYS, AHH!

wtf is more pure then 69ing? :tears:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Well, I think they are that in the West too - there might be much more media presence of lesbians here, including public figures etc, but the fetishistic male fantasy of lesbians is alive and well. Plus it's still something quite detached from most people's experience, if you look outside of the media fandoms or the leftist university groups. :>

*I read that レズビアン is a proper word in Japanese nowadays. :P

From what I understand, lesbians in Japan prefer the term ビアン (bian) to refer to themselves. レズ (rezu) is an insult roughly equivalent to calling someone a lesbo.

There's a great article about the history of the term "yuri" and other ways Japanese creators refer to GxG works here. tl;dr: "yuri" is the term used by the Japanese lesbian community; "girls love" was coined by publishers who wanted an analogue to the "boys love" term.

I can't really speak to the topic of the thread, but I would bet that there are more yuri VNs by WLW in Japan's doujin scene, similar to how LGBTQ+-themed games in the West are pretty much exclusively the domain of indie games. But because doujin games almost never get translated, we don't hear about them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I've seen on PC...

35/40= hetero, male-oriented

2/40= Yaoi

2/40= Otome

1/40= Yuri

On consoles and portables

6/10= Otome

2/10= Hetero male-oriented

1/10= Shounen-ai

1/10= Shoujo-ai

edit: This is just my impression of the proportions from looking over the releases each month for the last eight years...  a significant number of the hetero male-oriented on console and portables are ports.  Yaoi has been increasing in number over the last five years or so, but Otome and Yuri on PC have been decreasing or more or less plateauing.  Console is dominated by Otomege, with Shounen/Shoujo Ai making infrequent appearances.

Edit2: Note that those interested in LGBT content that isn't males magically becoming females in nukige oriented to male readers (which is more of a fetish than anything else) tend to go for doujinshi and ero-manga more than VNs.  This is because doujin consumers and the manga industry are more permissive and open, at least at present.  I don't think I see more than two or three yurige with H content come out in a given year...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

About what Clephas says... I guess that consoles are more diversely oriented (not strange to catch a girl playing with some console), plus they should be 15+ at most. Otome fit well with that.

Whereas PC is seen as a master ra... as a more "monocled" platform for lack of a better term. Most often your PC is used only by you. Traditionally it has been harder to use and mantain than a console, so leading to more monocled users. That kinda leads to PCs being used by a majority of male gamers, potentially "nolifers" (i. e. they spend most of their time on their computers), which fits well with the traditional male-oriented eroge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...