In my post about Strawberry Panic, I claimed that yuri classic Maria-sama ga Miteru has no swag. It felt unfair to let this grave insult go unchecked without proper investigation, so I read the first six volumes of the light novel for a fairer evaluation. While I mostly stand by my statement, reading the series got me thinking about my personal conceptions of yuri and how they've changed as I've become more familiar with my own identity.
Maria-sama ga Miteru, or Marimite for short (not to be confused with marmite), started as a short story in 1997 and then ran as a light novel from 1998 through 2012, stacking up to an impressive 37 volumes. It kicked off a revival of the all girls Catholic school setting that led to series like Strawberry Panic and Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, both of which I'm fond of in certain iterations. Having never received official English translations, the series mostly found its way to Western audiences with its anime adaptation, which seems to have somewhat skewed the public's perception of the franchise. Fortunately, translation group Baka-Tsuki has since translated 33 of the light novel's volumes so far. Baka-Tsuki's releases are how I've been reading the books, so I will use their terminology/translations for this post.
Discussing Marimite requires some understanding of yuri's history. Cultural trade between Japan and the Western world in the late 1800s placed a new emphasis on education in Japan, resulting in the establishment of all-boys public schools providing secondary education to young men. The gender divide resulted in missionaries establishing so-called "mission schools" for girls. These private institutions both provided formal education and instruction to grow into the time's vision of a proper women, that is, one who makes a good housewife. These institutions were often boarding schools, meaning girls were briefly separated from a patriarchal society during their adolescence. Girls were encouraged to form kouhai-senpai bonds as a means of social nurturing, which often developed into intense, lifelong bonds. Obviously, genuine lesbian relationships were formed within this safety bubble, but understanding that the majority of them were likely not sexual in nature is important.
The cognitive dissonance between an all-girls haven and the harsh reality of being married off for societal gain resulted in an understandable romanticism of the time spent away from men. Stories of close relationships between girls, usually in a kouhai-senpai mentorship, were submitted to girls magazines and eventually propagated into a genre called "class S" (or just esu in Japanese). Apparently the S was derived from "sister" but has come to mean everything from "shoujo" to even "sex" depending on the work. Class S itself should be distinguished from the cultural "S" movement it was inspired by, which was much more akin to a broad, multifaceted feminist movement (Friedman, Chapter 3).
Class S stories serve as a kind of proto-yuri. However, class S is less concerned with sexual attraction than it is with a kind of emotional intimacy that could bloom between any two girls, regardless of orientation. If you've ever found frustration in works tagged as "yuri" without featuring an actual lesbian relationship, it's important to understand yuri's roots. Class S fiction did not depict modern day homosexual relationships. Apparently it's still the topic of debate today whether or not class S stories actually depict lesbianism within their original social context at all (Hecker). Class S eventually fell out of favor and reemerged in the more explicitly lesbian form of yuri, but its origins mean that "yuri" is a broad sweeping term that encapsulates all kinds of intimate girl-girl relationships, from strong emotional bonds to actual fuckin'.
All this is important in talking about Maria-sama ga Miteru, because Marimite is seen as much as a revival of the class S genre as it is yuri. Its prominence around the turn of the millennium meant it served as a gateway into yuri for many, many people, which has perpetuated what I would have once described as "the boring kind of yuri." That's all to say, even reading the subtext, the main characters of Maria-sama ga Miteru are not queer (except for one, who I'll discuss in a bit). In fact, the first volume even reveals that Sachiko Ogasawara, one of the girls in the main pairing, once had romantic feelings for a boy. Yumi Fukuzawa, her kouhai, takes this information not as a crushing truth that her beloved is straight, but as further motivation in supporting her senpai through the difficult times she is facing as he reappears in her life. So, Marimite isn't gay. But I hope you'll stick with me regardless, because I've discovered a different kind of personal value in this softer side of yuri that I previously rejected.
Maria-sama ga Miteru follows the life of Yumi Fukuzawa, a first year high school student at Lillian Girls' Academy, a Catholic school providing primary education all the way up to an affiliated university. The impetus for the formation of bonds between girls at Lillian is the "soeur system," in which older girls choose a younger student to take under their wing. Souer, meaning sister, naturally means the girls refer to each other as their onee-sama and imouto respectively. Yumi is a souer-less, run-of-the-mill girl who admires one of the school's student council members, Sachiko Ogasawara. Through a series of wacky coincidences, Yumi ends up as the target of Sachiko's affection and eventually ends up as her little sister and helper for the student council.
Bear with me here, because I need to introduce the student council system and its members. The Yamayurikai (Mountain-Lily Council), as it's called, is headed by three "roses" elected by the student body. The three roses, generally referred to only by their title, consist of Rosa Chinesis, Rosa Gigantea, and Rosa Foetida. Each rose's little sister is referred to as an "en bouton," meaning "rosebud" in French, and is expected to take over student council duties upon their onee-sama's graduation, barring any sort of Wacky Events that stir up a student council election. Sachiko is Rosa Chinesis en bouton, making Yumi her "petit souer" who will automatically assume the position of en bouton should Sachiko become the new Rosa Chiensis. It all makes sense once you're used to it, I promise. Though why they're roses and not lillies is beyond me. Maybe it would be wrong to put them on the same level as Mother Mary, whom the lily represents? I dunno. I wasn't raised religiously, so this is a huge blind spot for me reading these books.
Each volume I've read so far has revolved around an intriguing event in the lives of the Yamayurikai's members. Marimite has a bit of a reputation for nothing of great importance ever happening, though that's kind of the point. The appeal isn't in the events the girls face so much as the development of their personalities and sisterly bonds. Quite fortunately, there are no absurd villains who appear to upend the lives of the girls. The antagonists, if they can be called as such, all have their own complex personalities and motivations. The result is a series revolving around fairly realistic depictions of girls living their lives at Lillian. Not much happens, because they're middle to upper class girls attending a private school. They find entertainment in what may be seen as mundane, because that's what teenagers do.
So why did I feel compelled to write about this form of mundane yuri? Gender identity! Wowee! If you've got gender identity on your blog post bingo card, mark it down now. As with many other gay trans girls, shoujo and yuri manga have provided a window into