She notes that yuri works that enjoy international popularity tend to be explicit and focused on "cute girls making out with each other," while Japanese fans "have a propensity for reading between the lines, picking up on subtle cues, and using their own imaginations to weave rich tapestries of meaning from small threads. Noah [at Unseen Japan] put together an itinerary that didn’t lock us in and we could travel at our own pace.

In 2008, Ichijinsha made a demographic study for its two magazines Comic Yuri Hime and Comic Yuri Hime S, the first being targeted to women, the second to men. James Welker of Kanagawa University argues that these narratives represent a form of "lesbian panic", where the character – and by extension, the author – refuses their own lesbian feelings and desires. As a genre, yuri does not inherently target a single gender demographic, unlike its male homoerotic counterparts yaoi (marketed towards a female audience) and gay manga (marketed towards a gay male audience). Themes associated with yuri originate from Japanese lesbian fiction of the early twentieth century, notably the writings of Nobuko Yoshiya and literature in the Class S genre. The first magazine to study the demographics of its readers was Yuri Shimai (2003–2004), who estimated the proportion of women at almost 70%, and that the majority of them were either teenagers or women in their thirties who were already interested in shōjo and yaoi manga.

Many of the Japanese LGBT films released, unlike the romantic imports from the West, are heavily influenced by their cultures, showing a unique sadness in the stories. Recently, a new wave of politicians both in the LDP and in opposition parties have successfully campaigned on commitment to advancing protections for LGBTQ people. Characters in yuri works frequently do not define their sexual orientation in explicit terms, and the matter is instead left to reader interpretation. The attachment between Candy and Rose becomes the subject of rumors or even blackmail, even while Candy and Rose grow to acknowledge that their relationship has become romantic. The Little House is a drama film by Yoji Yamada, and based on the same-titled novel by Kyoko Nakajima.

lily"), also known by the wasei-eigo construction girls' love ( ガールズラブ, gāruzu rabu), is a genre of Japanese media focusing on intimate relationships between female characters. With same-sex relations not an overtly popular topic in Japanese cinema traditionally, the recent years have finally seen the emergence of more Japanese film makers tackling LGBT stories. However, social welfare issues such as same-sex marriage and partnership laws are still very much premature.

Another prominent author of this period is Kaho Nakayama, active since the early 1990s, with works involving love stories among women. The majority of yuri stories published in the 1970s and 1980s were tragedies, focused on doomed relationships that end in separation or death (see History above). For example, while in the west Sailor Moon is regarded as a magical girl series with some yuri elements, in Japan the series is regarded by yuri magazines as a "monumental work" of the genre. The wasei-eigo construction "girls' love" ( ガールズラブ, gāruzu rabu) and its abbreviation "GL" were adopted by Japanese publishers in the 2000s, likely as an antonym of the male-male romance genre boys' love (BL).

While schoolgirl romances remained popular into the 2010s and 2020s, notably Kase-san (2010–2017), Citrus (2012–2018), Bloom Into You (2015–2019), and Whisper Me a Love Song (2019–present), yuri works during this period began to incorporate new genres, themes, and subject material. When the couple mentioned they’d used a sperm donor and the hospital staff learned that they were a lesbian couple, their troubles began.In a true story, Yoshiko and Yuriko relates the journey and great love affair of Yoshiko, who was a renowned translator of Russian literature and drama, and Yuriko, who was a feminist novelist and great activist of the post-war democratic literature movement. The term came to be associated with lesbian pornographic manga beginning in the 1990s, notably through the manga magazine Lady's Comic Misuto (1996–1999), which heavily featured symbolic lily flowers. Yoshiya was a pioneer in Japanese lesbian literature, including the early twentieth century Class S genre. This story of infatuation, youthful love and disappointment centers on Manami Shintana (Aoi Morikawa), the president of their school’s broadcasting club.

As of 2017, the ratio between men and women is said to have shifted to about 6:4, thanks in part to the Comic Yuri Hime S merge and the mostly male readership YuruYuri brought with it. Her position is challenged by the arrival of Chinatsu (Asami Tada) who is well-versed in MMA techniques but working without the knowledge of her abusive husband, a karate master, who later abducts and brainwashes her back to submission while threatening to close down the fight club.Students from Hosho Academy High School were aboard a plane when it crash lands under mysterious circumstances.