Yuripig's Best Yuri of 2022

Baru Cormorant is a yuri harem series. It's a lot of other things too, but it's also a yuri harem series.

Blah blah blah short fiction anthology.

Rabbits
by Csilla Kleinheincz
     If you want to understand the exact kind of yuri I like and you don’t have time to read all of Baru Cormorant or watch all of Noir, read this instead. A pilot in love with her captain avoids talking about the elephant in the room as their spaceship falls into the sun.

The Guest
by Zen Cho
     If you want to understand the exact kind of yuri I like and you don’t have time to read all of Baru Cormorant or watch all of Noir, read this instead. A pilot in love with her captain avoids talking about the elephant in the room as their spaceship falls into the sun.

Blah blah blah short fiction anthology.

Morrigan in the Sunglare
by Seth Dickinson
     If you want to understand the exact kind of yuri I like and you don’t have time to read all of Baru Cormorant (which as you may notice, shares the same author) OR watch all of Noir, read this instead. A pilot in love with her captain avoids talking about the elephant in the room as their spaceship falls into the sun.

結草銜環 (Knotting Grass, Holding Ring)
by Ken Liu
     If you want to understand the exact kind of yuri I like and you don’t have time to read all of Baru Cormorant or watch all of Noir, read this instead. A pilot in love with her captain avoids talking about the elephant in the room as their spaceship falls into the sun.

     In 2022 I read Nicola Griffith's stand alone novel Slow River, and Aud Torvingen series novels The Blue Place and Stay. All have lesbian protagonists. (I appreciate that Griffith writes lesbian protagonists that are tops and know what they want.) Her plots tend to get a bit muddled, but her characters and prose are incredible. I'll happily read her write about pretty much anything. As you're probably wondering—the reason these aren't on the main list is because the lesbian relationships didn't end up being what made any of them for me. For example: Slow River was my favorite of them because it focuses on a wastewater treatment plant which I've always secretly been fascinated by. I'm looking forward to reading more Griffith.

     When Fox is a Thousand is the Larissa Lai novel I liked best in 2022, but I also enjoyed her other two novels The Tiger Flu and Salt Fish Girl. Compared to When Fox is a Thousand these are significantly more surreal. If you want to read truly bizarre lesbian speculative fiction, I recommend checking out Lai.

     This one isn't translated officially OR unofficially, and unless I do it myself it probably won't be. It's drawn by Itou, the artist behind the doujin circle Golem, Inc, which produced the cult hit original yuri doujinshi series 最悪にも程がある ["It Can't Get Any Worse Than This"], of which I'm a fan. I describe it as "What if Misery was yuri and instead of breaking the writer's legs, she became her mommy GF." Despite me being a fan of Itou for some time now, I had not known this manga existed until 2022. And what a manga it is...
     Sabaaki takes place during an alternate history and sci-fi setting where the planned Soviet invasion of Hokkaido actually took place, and northern Japan is now part of the USSR. And also, there is a genetically engineered race of dog-people super soldiers. There's kind of a Dorohedoro-esque gritty biopunk vibe to the world.
     The plot revolves around a human woman, and her much younger dog girl partner/lover on a quest to get revenge on the people responsible for the death of the dog girl's mother, who was ALSO the human woman's former lover. There's a lot of gonzo violence, a lot of dog girl sex, and a lot of Russian terminology and confusing history explanations. Is it good? I don't know, but there definitely isn't anything else like it.
     The manga opens with the main dog girl and the human woman having sex in front of a guy they're torturing for information, and then electrocuting him to death. So that kind of gives you the tone of this work. It has a VERY irregular release schedule, with only 10 chapters released since 2019. When I read all that had been released last year I honestly thought it had been dropped for good, but I just saw two more chapters were released in July 2023 so maybe it's back? If you're curious, it can all be read online here.

If it wasn't for one episode this would've been in the main list...

     This is a show that worked for me, but I don’t think will work for most people. While it focuses on the relationship between two women, hard-working ronin Mayuko and her freeloading alien roommate Niea, the lack of emotional catharsis or change in their relationship throughout the series keeps me from putting it in the yuri category. It’s a weird show. It seems to genuinely have things it wants to say about how poorly immigrants in Japan are treated, but at the same time one of the minor characters is a walking racist stereotype. Most of the comedy doesn’t really land. For me it captured the feeling of being in a transitional period in your life in a way that really hit home. If, like me, you’re fond of the genre “slice of life with sci-fi elements”, Niea_7 is definitely that.

     Yes, I did watch Yellowjackets. I thought it was pretty good! Shauna and Taissa were my favs, but I didn't care that much about the Jackie/Shauna relationship which probably lessened the show’s overall yuri impact on me. The Shauna and Taissa MILF sleepover and young Shauna having to hold on to young Taissa at night so she doesn't sleepwalk made me insane but I seem to be in the minority there. C'est la vie.