For most Anime terms the idea is to explain the appeal of a certain genre or trope or character archetype. That way of defining something can be more subjective so I will agree the line is not always easy to spot. But it will steer us wrong far less often than a strictly technical definition.
More often than not the technical definitions I'm referring to wind up being more broad rather than more strict, but there are notable exceptions to that.
Yuri is the one where I have the least problem with the more broad technical definition. Using the word casually for all wlw content in Anime/Manga/LNs/VNs and Bishoujo Games is something I do myself and it’s become far too pervasive for anyone to stop it even if they wanted to. That said, few would deny there are certain Vibes associated with the term that make a more specific explanation necessary.
Erica Friednam also uses the word of all wlw content in Anime but also has a more specific definition she likes to use being “Lesbian content without Lesbian identity”. My problem with that definition is the kind of judgmental vibe it has in the context of how she often talks about what character she does and doesn’t consider a “Real Lesbian”. It feels intentionally or not related to concepts like Political Lesbianism and other relics of Second Wave Feminism.
Yuri Scholars like Erica Freidman will also talk about the concept in Japanese Culture of Class S, the notion that adolescent girls are expected to have quasi romantic friendships that they will grow out of when they become adults. And my contention is that Yuri as a Genre is the Class S set up, a given work may play it completely straight, it may explicitly reject the notion that they will grow out of it, or it may refuse to address that final question, either way the initial Class S set up is the core of what Yuri is.
And because parallel ideas to Class S did exist in Western Society in the past, I consider it appropriate to let our use of Yuri language drift into how we talk about Western Media only where a Class S parallel is arguably present. So for example many of those old Lesbian Pulp Fiction novels of the 50s and 60s can fit in with the Yuri genre, as can Nancy Garden novels like Annie On My Mind and Good Moon Rising, as well Emily Fields’s complicated love life on Pretty Little Liars. However, using it to describe Harley/Ivy feels wrong.
Bifauxnen is a term that can easily at face value seem like just an Anime word for Butch, but I feel it’s definitely more specific than that. Butch can refer to women to have no aesthetic femininity left in them at all, Bifauxnen definitely does not. When you look at some of the standard Archetypal Bifauxnen from Haruka Tennoh/Sailor Uranus to Amane in Strawberry Panic to most recently Manaria Sousse from I’m In Love With The Villainess it’s clear that the concept is in fact a particular blend of Masculine and Feminine, (I’d love to see a Bifauxnen character who was Assigned Male At Birth but I’m not holding my breath for it). They are Masculine in a Princely or Knightly way but not in a muscular hairy barbarian warrior way.
The Fire Witch in the Boogiepop LNs is described as Bifauxnen but in adaptations I feel only the 2000 Live Action Movie where she’s played by Maya Kurosu succeeds in conveying that, however I may just have a bias against seeing it in any long haired character design. Similarly in the recent Willow TV Series Kit Tanthalos played by Ruby Cruz proves a Western Character can qualify, it really pisses me off that Disney buried that show.
Returning to 2D characters Cure Sword/Spade in Doki Doki PreCure/Glitter Force is a good example, one of my favorite Yuri Doujins involved her and the Blue called Jealous Jealousy 238622. So short hair tends to help but it’s not all there is to it, Ami Mizuno for example has short hair but doesn’t at all come off as androgynous because of it.
The Yandere is where my takes on things may start getting controversial. First is that you will sometimes see a Male character described as a Yandere and this to me misses the point. A Male being obsessive and overprotective and controlling and unwilling to take no for an answer is unfortunately in real life far from uncommon, it’s a real concern Girls have to worry about every time one even looks at them. The Yandere is supposed to be Absurd, it’s supposed to be the unlikely Absurdity of a Girl taking on those conventionally Masculine characteristics but still being Hyper Feminine in every other way. Treating it like a Gender Neutral term that just happens to be associated with Cute Anime Girls because that’s all Otaku care about ignores the deeper commentary at the heart of it all. At best a Femboy/Otokonoko could be a Yandere but in that situation I’d immediately be afraid of the potentially Transphobic implications.
A second tendency I’ve noticed among Yandere that is not in the textbook definition is that they tend to be pretty conservative sexually, almost like that’s another comedic duality, being so nonchalant about killing but then incredibly Chaste. It’s not just because they like to call the girls they see as a romantic threat to them Sluts, lots of female characters might do that in the heat of the moment regardless of their actual feelings on sex. It’s that they’ll hold the object of their affection captive for days or weeks and never try anything, and they’ll get all shy about their Bra coming off in the Pool like any other Anime Girl. Kotonoha in School Days is willing to have Sex with Makoto but only once she feels that’s her only option.
The big possible exceptions to that are people who are controversial to classify as a Yandere for more reasons than just this. Sekai in School Days I refuse to classify as a Yandere first and foremost because in the original version of the VN she only gets homicidal under very specific circumstances that include her being pregnant and feeling abandoned and she only kills Makoto not the other woman. Shion Sonozaki in Higurashi arguably predates the formation of the Yandere and her mental breakdown happens when she thinks Satoshi is long dead, and it also wouldn't have happened without the virus.
The closest thing to a Western Analogue for the Yandere are the Female Stalker characters you see in a lot of Lifetime Movies. However they are the opposite on the conservative sexuality point, they are usually a Femme Fatale at the same time. Because their target audience are traditional stay at home housewives who regardless of how they vote can be assumed to be at least a little socially conservative, so they are made to appeal to the anxieties such women have about the kinds of Girls they fear might steal their Sons or Husbands from them. The Anime Yandere is designed to appeal to Otaku who have a complicated relationship with Japan’s Purity Culture.
Netorare is a term that has multiple disputable aspects to how to define it. But to start with the problem with simply treating it as an Anime term for Cuckolding is that Cuckolding in western live action Porn is almost exclusively a subgenre of Femdom, they involve women who never intended to be faithful.
In an NTR Hentai or Doujin, even in the rare cases where it is even remotely reasonable to argue the girl consented, it still wasn’t premeditated on her part, she was Seduced or Tricked or Manipulated. Hentai that rather does the above will get mistakenly tagged as NTR but they clearly have a different vibe.
There are other mistakes in how English Language websites apply the Tag. If the Protagonist is the one taking someone else’s Girl or Boyfriend that’s Netori which some sites fail to recognize as a separate thing. And if the Girl is technically cheating but her husband or boyfriend isn’t a character in the story then he doesn’t actually matter.
However Netorare is a broad term in that it’s about the Emotional Feeling it creates and has nothing to do with there being a formal relationship, it can be about the protagonist’s Crush they never confessed to, or a close relative. The VN You and Me and Her literally uses the word in reference to the prospect of your love interest dating someone else and not you.
Last but not least is in fact the term Anime itself.
The common assertion that in Japan that word is used of all Animation is in fact an oversimplification of its complex history, Cynic Clinic and STEVEM and Carbioo-kun have done videos on that nuance. It begins with how Osamu Tezuka himself in one conversation at least distinguished Anime from Animation. In that context however it treats as innate to the definition certain tendencies of TV Anime that some Western Anime fans see as a Bug rather than a Feature, and excluding Ghibli from qualifying as Anime is something few would be happy with. So that isn’t a debate I want to settle here.
But I do want to express that if Country of Origin is going to be treated as an important part of how we classify something as Anime or not, it’s kind of Racist to count Chinese and Korean Cartoons but not sufficiently Anime Inspired Western Cartoons. It is an inherently White perspective of the world that assumes other East Asian countries are probably more similar to Japan than anyone else. Japan lived in massive isolation from even the rest of East Asia for Centuries until contact with the West broke it. Modern Japan is heavily Westernized and the origins of its approach to Animation are a part of that with some being influenced by Disney but Tezuka more by the Fleischers. So China and Korea and everyone else in the Far East’s Animation industries may be very adjacent to all of that in their origin stories, but they are still not the same thing.
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