Manga Mavericks

2019 marks the centennial anniversary of the Yuri genre, celebrating 100 years of girls in love challenging the expectations placed upon them by patriarchal definitions of love and gender. To commemorate the legacy of the genre and the stories that’ve been told, we interviewed Erica Friedman, a Yuri historian and tastemaker who has been at the center of the fandom for over two decades. Erica is the founder of Yuricon, an organization dedicated to uniting the community through fan events and scholarship, and has written extensively on Yuri on her blog Okazu, which has reached its 4000th post after over 16 years! Erica’s planning an incredible number of events to celebrate 100 Years of Yuri with the community, including numerous convention appearances and a Yuri pilgrimage in Japan in the fall, all leading up to the release of her comprehensive book on Yuri set to come out in 2020! We chat with Erica about the work she’s done growing a proactive community around Yuri, the history of the genre and its fan cult