With Valentine's Day fast approaching, February is widely considered a month for celebrating romance. The fact that the internet has taken it and also dubbed the month "Femslash February" makes it even more romantic, and makes it the perfect opportunity to look at some of the best yuri from years past, too.
After Revolutionary Girl Utena came out in the late-1990s, yuri anime of the 2000s had a lot to live up to. With such an iconic and groundbreaking series, the bar had been set pretty high in the previous decade for other girl-girl centered series. Now it's time to look back and see out of all the yuri anime that did come out of the 2000s, which ones stand the strongest according to IMDb.
10 Simoun - Score: 6.1
In a science-fiction anime where the premise revolves around a futuristic warship full of young priestesses not old enough yet to pick a permanent gender, one would expect it is ripe for yuri content with countless pairings and scenarios. 2006's Simoun delivers.
In wartime, everyone gets a yearning eventually. The large cast of girls in Simoun are much the same. They find solace in each other's arms in this drama-driven show. The story is slow-paced and not as much focused on action or conflicts of war as it is on the interpersonal relationships between the young priestesses, which makes it one visually-gorgeous yuri worth seeing.
9 Kanamemo - Score: 6.2
One of the more overlooked yuri from the 2000s is Kanamemo, a quirky comedy anime series based on a 4-koma manga. It follows the story of middle school student Kana Nakamachi who, after losing her grandmother, becomes a local newspaper delivery girl in exchange for having a place to stay.
The yuri pairs in this show range from the strange and slightly predatory, with the always-drunk and far-older Haruka Nishida who preys on Kana and the delivery's "little chief," Saki Amano, to the insanely cute Yume Kitaoka and Yuuki Minami. This yuri also gives us a rare treat from the beginning: Yume and Yuuki kiss in the very first episode!
8 Maria Watches Over Us - Score: 6.2
A little lighter on the yuri and more focused on a deeply platonic relationship than anything else, Maria Watches Over Us follows new student Yumi Fukuzawa as she starts attending an all-girls' Catholic school. To her surprise, super-popular second-year student Sachiko Ogasawara asks her to be her petite sœur, or "little sister," a move which brings on a lot of unwanted attention and rumors on the girls.
A drama series that isn't as much romantic as it is about how profound the bond between friends can be, Maria Watches Over Us still gets kudos for featuring the Class S relationship between Yumi and Sachiko.
7 Blue Drop: Tenshi Tachi No Gikyoku - Score: 6.3
A unique blend of sci-fi, school, and slice-of-life, Blue Drop: Tenshi Tachi No Gikyoku is a yuri anime that features some amazing water effects and more so the romance and relationships between its main characters rather than the advanced worldbuilding aspects that are typical for sci-fi's.
Mari Wakatake is the sole human survivor of a horrible event on Kamioki Island that she can't even remember. When she starts attending school, she meets the calm and mysterious Hagino Senkouji, who is far more than she seems. There are others waiting for Mari's memory to return, too, which makes the series' biggest question: what will happen when Mari finally remembers what she survived?
6 Whispered Words - Score: 6.3
Unrequited love is a theme omnipresent throughout the story of Whispered Words, where Murasame Sumika has a gigantic crush on her best friend, Kazama Ushio. For every heartbreak and unreturned affection with other girls that Kazama herself endures, Sumi is right there with her, echoing that frustration as she works up the courage to confess her feelings.
For as dramatic as unrequited love plotlines can usually be, Whispered Words manages to make it comedic. And though most of the actual yuri between the main girls are only featured in Sumi's daydreams, there's still enough yuri representation throughout the cast to be considered a 2000s staple.
5 Sweet Blue Flowers - Score: 6.5
Sweet Blue Flowers is a rare gift of a yuri drama anime that doesn't take its story too comedically or fill it with fanservice, either. Instead, it focuses on the different relationships young women can have with each other during such a defining time as high school.
Fumi Manjoume, a young woman who cries at the drop of a pin, has just reconnected with a childhood friend in high school. Surprisingly, she's also receiving quite a bit of attention from Yasuko Sugimoto, a super-popular upperclassman. As her romance with Yasuko blossoms and her friendship with her childhood friend deepens, Fumi will have one high school experience that is charming as much as it is touching.
4 Destiny Of The Shrine Maiden - Score: 6.8
Destiny of the Shrine Maiden features a fan-favorite type of romance where its main pairing symbolizes the moon and the sun. Quite literally, in this show's case, as both the quiet, classy, and reserved Himemiya Chikane and the clumsy, bumbling Kurusegawa Himeko are brought on to destinies as shrine maidens when an ancient evil suddenly reawakens.
It isn't a show to watch for its giant mecha battles, as those feel more extraneous to the show's plot. Instead, this series' greatest strength is its relationship between Chikane and Himeko, as Chikane has feelings for Himeko she is constantly afraid are not returned. In short, while not the best action anime, it is one of the best yuri from the 2000s, and that's what matters.
3 Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl - Score: 6.9
Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl is one of those anime series with a ridiculous premise that actually, once the plot begins, is actually pretty sincere in its love triangle drama and romance. Enter Hazumu Osaragi, a young man who, after having his love confession to bigtime crush Yasuna Kamiizumi rejected, climbs up a mountain to reflect. Then he gets hit by an alien spaceship.
The aliens, mistaking Hazumu as a girl, reconstruct his body thusly and throw him back to his old life with his new body, new social standing, and a new way of having to navigate the world. When Hazumu reconnects with bigtime crush Yasuna and her childhood friend Tomari, she has lots of difficult decisions now about who to choose.
2 Strawberry Panic - Score: 6.9
Considered by many to be a classic of yuri anime, Strawberry Panic once again features girls at a Catholic school, but with a far different dynamic than the aforementioned Maria Watches Over Us. With zero male characters and lots of side-pairings in addition to the main duo, there is no doubting the yuri present here.
When Aoi Nagisa transfers to a school on Astraea Hill, Shizuma Hanazono, the schools' only Etoile, is immediately smitten. Over the course of this series' 26 episodes, as Nagisa and Shizuma grow closer and closer, Shizuma must eventually face a difficult decision that forces her to confront her awful past.
1 Mai-HiME - Score: 7.3
Though a bit lighter on the yuri fare as its featured girl-girl couple is between secondary characters that weren't together in the original manga, Mai-HiME still has the highest rating out of all the other 2000s yuri because of its stronger characters, their motivations, and its more dramatic plot.
Still, Natsuki Kuga and Shizuru Fujino developed a devoted fanbase, even though they weren't main characters. These two face a lot of ups and downs and back-and-forth with unrequited love that ultimately pinnacles in a dramatic scene that would be cruel to spoil, but at least post-series, we are given enough hints to know that the two's relationship canonically continues to deepen afterward.
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