Subtext
Subtext content (anime, shows, games, manga, etc.) goes here. Basically, it’s quite gay, but yuri because relationships are unconfirmed, ‘implied’ or flat out bait. Usually these attract a lot of yuri fanart or fan content. This means that if the subtext wasn’t enough for you, at least the fans of the series got you covered.
Total count: 27
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Anime
| Puella Magi Madoka Magica | |
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Tags: high school, action, drama, magical girl This one is pretty iconic. Madoka Kaname and her best friend Sayaka Miki encounter Kyuubey, a cat-like magical familiar. They also meet Homura Akemi, the new transfer student. Kyuubey offers them a preposition: he will grant each of them one wish and in exchange, they will become magical girls. However, Homura, a magical girl herself, urges them not to accept the offer, stating that everything is not what it seems. It's a dark anime. But Homura's loyalty to Madoka borders on being a homo. I remember enjoying it very much when I first watched it years ago. The sequel movie (Madoka Magica Rebellion) is even more gay. click for sperg |
| Mai-Hime | |
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Tags: fantasy, high school, action A group of school girls discover that they have been given the ability to materialise weapons and control robotic beasts called Children to stop an evil organisation from their plans of domination. Very old anime, standards were low back then. There wasn't much gay but... It was good. It's not like the other subtext anime here where lots of interactions can be perceived as romantic, it's moreso because Shizuru actually confesses to Natsuki near the end of the anime, it's unclear whether she got rejected or nah. Anyway, the MC is not gay. In fact, I think there's het. But there's a yuri cut version on youtube that removes all the het scenes lmaooo |
| Saki | |
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Tags: high school, slice of life, sports Lesbians play mahjong. You don't need to know mahjong to enjoy this anime. I went in blind and was rooting for characters without knowing a single thing happening, so I think you'll be fine with zero mahjong knowledge. It's also super duper gay. In my mind I thought it was a yuri anime but it's actually not. Season 1 was the heaviest subtext thing I've ever seen. Season 2 on the other hand, was complete garbage. It moved away from yuri subtext to just pure ecchi male gaze fanservice. Was pretty disappointed at that. Sport tournament arcs are always fun to watch though. |
| Love Live! School Idol Project | |
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Tags: high school, comedy, slice of life, music Bunch of girls form an idol group together in order to enter Love Live, the ultimate school idol competition featuring the best groups in Japan. Entry into Love Live is determined by the popularity of each group. I watched this back in the day because I was hoping for some good subtext. I ended up staying around to watch because I liked the show. It’s not really gay or has that much glaring subtext. The movie had more subtext-y yuri scenes if I recall it right. There should be more subtext between character interactions in the mobile game too. Well, at least there’s a lot of fanfiction, doujins and fanart. |
| Love Live! Sunshine | |
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Tags: high school, comedy, slice of life, music The sequel to Love Live, this time it follows a different set of 9 girls who making their own idol group in order to save their school from shutting down. This is a better watch for subtext compared to the first group. Though I remember not liking it as much as the original but that’s just me liking the original show's quality better than how much gay I’m getting out of a watch. |
| Black Rock Shooter (2012) | |
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Tags: drama, high school, action Based on the song Black Rock Shooter by supercell. Except they took BRS’ design and made an entire dramatic gay anime around it. Long story short, a bunch of girls argue and have drama over their friendships. It’s so dramatic and driven that it honestly comes across as a gigantic love orgy. I kind of got frustrated at how immature the characters were sometimes so your mileage might vary. If I’m not wrong, this anime might be the reason why people memed about lesbians and macarons back then… |
| Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha | |
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Tags: high school(? More like middle school…), slice of life, drama, magical girl, action I never knew magical girl animes were this gay. Season 1 was best for subtext, fight me. Actually no, don’t fight me. I didn’t watch the later seasons, I just couldn’t get into it, there just wasn’t enough for me anymore since the focus wasn’t on Nanoha anymore... |
| Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight | |
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Tags: high school, drama, action, music Karen Aijou finds her childhood friend Hikari Kagura transferring to her school, Seishou Academy. One day she stumbles upon a secret elevator leading to a massive theatre underneath the school, an arena that served as a battleground where her classmates participate in duels to determine who among them deserves the title of "Top Star". The two leads are kinda gay. But we know the best thing is Claudine and Maya’s rival-friendship energy. It’s a very artistic show and all of the symbolism and surrealism flew over my head. The movie is even better, all of the fights (except Claudine and Maya I guess, that one was a lot more playful) in it is almost like a gigantic metaphor of the girls having angry gay sex because they’ve graduated and are getting separated due to differing life goals. |
| Izetta: The Last Witch | |
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Tags: fantasy, action, drama, political, military, childhood friends This is a war drama. Izetta is the last witch and she reunites with Fine, a princess who is also her long lost childhood friend. The subtext undertones of this one is so strong that I thought that this was supposed to go in the yuri section instead of subtext. Turns out, it's not officially yuri, so it's going into here instead. I guess it's about the same level as Flip Flappers. |
| Lycoris Recoil | |
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Tags: high school, action, slice of life, military Terrorist attacks in Japan are at an all time low thanks to Direct Attack (DA), an org that raises orphaned girls as killers in their 'Lycoris' program. Takina Inoue is an exceptional Lycoris but ends up getting transferred out of DA to LycoReco. There, she meets her partner, Chisato Nishikigi, who is determined to prove to Takina that there is more to life than just killing. I haven't watched past episode 1 (insert note here to finish watching it), I heard it has good gay subtext and a ton of people go around shilling it as a 'yuri' anime even though it's actually not. I also heard some onee-samas talking about how it isn't that gay. |
| Flip Flappers | |
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Tags: supernatural, fantasy, high school, action The MC (Cocona) gets pushed around by the second lead (Papika) around a world called Pure Illusion. They have magical girl transformations and the plot is basically trying to find these mysterious crystal shards. It's very gay. Definitely a good watch for the subtext. I’d rank this as even gayer than Madoka. I mean, it feels like the entire show is a metaphor for Cocona to realise herself and that she’s a dyke? I can’t remember it all too well. Yaya was already kind of a thing back then, but it was after this show that the term started getting used a whole lot more. That’s amazing. |
| Hibike! Euphonium | |
AKA Sound Euphonium |
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Tags: high school, slice of life, drama, music Kumiko joins the school band club and ends up playing the euphonium again. There, she meets Reina, someone she had a bitter relationship with before. The students do their best to improve and compete at a national level. The Reina and Kumiko scenes were pretty gay in S1. I heard it goes off the wayside and into het category in S2. Thank you kyoani for cursing us with bait yet again. I wouldn't watch this if I were you because it was so disappointing. I think it was mugino/frenda who kept shilling this show. Fuck you mugino. |
| Liz and the Blue Bird | |
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Tags: high school, drama, music A spin-off movie of Hibike Euphonium that focuses on Mizore and Nozomi. It’s better than dealing with the main series, because there isn’t any het or men here. Plot is mainly Mizore dealing with her and Nozomi’s changing life paths as they reach graduation. She has to come to terms with her codependency that’s so intense it honestly looks like it borders on romance. Hell, there's even a part that kind of looks like a confession. But Nozomi's response still makes me so angry that you should skip this one. I mean, seriously? Mizore: "I like you." Nozomi: "I like your oboe :)" |
| Little Witch Academia | |
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Tags: high school, fantasy, comedy, action, witch Akko enrols in Luna Nova Magical Academy in hopes to become just like her idol Shiny Chariot. Even her non-magical background doesn’t stop her from joining. It’s rather long at 25 episodes. It’s kind of gay between Akko and Dianna (only in the second half). The annoying bit is the het crush that Akko has on Andrew but she honestly gets more gay-ish scenes with Dianna than anything else and Andrew stops being a problem pretty quick (at least in my eyes) |
| Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story | |
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Tags: high school, sports, drama Gay girls and golf. I’ve never seen a sports anime with adult drama and stakes before… Anyway, the gay happens closer to the end of season 1 than all around it like Saki. This is because the MC is busy dealing with other stuff. At the moment, the subtext is more focused on her rival being into her, while her response to that is: “I neither like you or hate you”. I'll update this when the entire season 2 finishes airing. |
| Bocchi the Rock! | |
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Tags: high school, slice of life, comedy, music Bocchi has really bad social anxiety, and somehow winds up joining a band with 3 other members. I didn't reall want to put this here, the anime didn't come across that gay at all. If anything it's the usual 'girls being pals and cute for the lonely male entertainment'. But turns out crunchy roll didn't accurately sub the show. However, you'll still need somewhat high powered goggles for the show. It's more like the gay was played as a gag, but you could take the gags seriously. The manga is a whole lot more gay. click for sperg |
| Koukaku no Pandora | |
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Tags: sci-fi, ecchi, action, comedy Nene is a full-body cyborg girl who dreams of world peace, she is given access to the Pandora Device found on Clarion, a cat girl cyborg. You can see how this is subtext when that Pandora Device is… Opening Clarion’s womb and reaching your hand into it. Otherwise, Nene sure loves Clarion a lot (in a friendly gals being pals kind of way). |
| Scum's Wish | |
Kuzu no Honkai |
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Tags: high school, drama, a mess Two (guy and girl) lovesick high-school students, seeking solace and companionship, decide to simulate a relationship after both their older crushes fall in love with each other. It’s a very mature piece of media with a lot of teens exploring sexuality and well, sex. It’s porn with feelings with all sorts of representations (e.g. homosexuality, polyamory etc) I wouldn’t even watch this if I were you. The lesbian LOSES and there’s het all over this thing. This is literally just here to tell you not to watch it for yuri. |
| Mikagura School Suite | |
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Tags: fantasy, comedy, action, high school, slice of life Eruna Ichinomiya attends Mikagura Private Academy because she saw a hot girl in a pamphlet, soon discovers that the school only has cultural clubs and has an intense battle system where students with special powers must fight each other. It’s gay subtext in the aspect where Eruna crushes hard on the girl but that’s about it. Has too much focus on their bajillion other side characters. Which is to be expected from a collection of vocaloid songs I suppose. |
| Selector Infected WIXOSS | |
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Tags: high school, drama, action, sports Ruuko Kominato receives a deck of cards for the popular card game WIXOSS, only to find a girl trapped in her LRIG (avatar card). She finds out that she has now become a 'Selector', a player in a special version of WIXOSS where girls can battle each other for a chance to have their wishes come true. But there's a catch, if they lose three times, their lives will be destroyed. It has somewhat heavy yuri undertones, even a pretty darn gay scene. Although I was a little sad because this show had more suffering than subtext. No subtext that pays off well, it’s not like Madoka at all. There's also a character IN LOVE WITH HER TWIN BROTHER??? |
| Kantai Collection: KanColle | |
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Tags: high school, action, comedy, slice of life, military Special human girls who don weaponized outfits and possess the spirit of historical naval vessels, fight to save humanity. I can’t remember how gay it is. But the fact that I don’t remember probably means that it wasn’t really subtext to get your panties twisted over. I only remember Kongou being pretty funny and that I would read fanfiction/doujins of Akagi and Kaga… Also, the anime is made specifically for people who have actually played the game, going in blind isn’t going to be very fun. |
Manga/Webtoons
This section wasn't supposed to exist, but sigh...
| Watashi wa Kimi wo Kakasetai by Fumio Aya | |
AKA I want to make her cry |
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| https://dynasty-scans.com/series/watashi_wa_kimi_wo_nakasetai | |
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Tags: angst, delinquent, introspective, school life I was misled into reading this. I thought it was yuri. I got baited… The main character loves films and goes to an empty theatre after school one day to enjoy watching one alone in an empty theatre. But turns out, she isn’t alone and the delinquent gangster-like girl from class is there too. They end up becoming friends and getting closer, but not without problems in the way. The dynamic between the two characters is great. The delinquent is cute and I love this artist’s artstyle. I was so disappointed at the ending. I’ll need a few days to recover from this. |
| Dear NOMAN by Neji | |
| https://dynasty-scans.com/series/dear_noman | |
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Tags: age gap, school girl, ghost, supernatural, tsundere MC is able to see ghosts. She makes a contract with a ghost society, where they use ghosts dubbed 'NOMAN' to exorcise other NOMANs from wrecking havoc in the world. I walked in expecting yuri, but I got a heartwarming story of a small girl and her ghost servant. If you strain your eyes enough, you could hallucinate some subtext. But honestly it's purely platonic. |
| Night of Shadows by YUNG | |
| https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/night-of-shadows/list?title_no=5044&page=1 | |
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Tags: drama, action, horror, supernatural, mystery Note: This is a webtoon I went into this knowing it would be subtext at best. Rule of thumb imoutos, if there are men in the banner or cover art, there is a 99% chance it is not yuri. Areum has a notebook where she keeps track of her dreams, oftentimes to her horror, they come true. One day, she discovers a set of pages she doesn’t remember writing, and that’s when all hell breaks out in her school. I like the setting, you don’t have supernatural horror monsters everyday.I heard the last bits of volume one gets pretty heavy subtext wise too. I find Yujin quite handsome too. |
Games
The unfortunate reality is that we just don't have many non-VN games that's gay. It sure reminds me of how yuri anime looked like a long time ago...
I don't play subtext games often, so this is basically it. I would very much rather play actual yuri games or spend time reading VNs instead. However I do know a bunch of others that might qualify as subtext games. I don't know anything about them though.
They're mostly gacha games, like:
- Granblue Fantasy
- Azur Lane
- Assault Lily
- Arknights
- Blue Archive
- Genshin/Honkai Impact
- Love Live School Idol Festival