Yuri Seiyuu? It’s All Fanservice, My Friends
Common sense, people. There is no such thing as gay people in the Japanese entertainment industry. If there were, they’d be beaten to death with a stick and have their careers driven down the deep, dark hole known as oblivion. This is after all, a country that crucifies their entertainers for making jokes about women’s amnion fluid going rotten after the age of 35, and where famous stars have to apologize for their rotten son’s or brother’s bad behaviour.
There are no yuri seiyuu. They only want you to believe they are so, in the interest of getting your male/female hormones all overworked so that you buy their photobooks and merchandise in order to fantasize some more.
And of course, over-excited fans like me lap it all up. After all, it’s one of the fun and more light-hearted aspects that takes your mind off the fact that the seiyuuu business is a depressing place, rotten to the core. (underpaid, underappreciated, blablabla). But hey, it’s a really incestuous industry anyway, where every seems to be the friend of someone who knows somebody else.
Out of boredom, I drew a quick chart (click for larger version) to illustrate some of the relationships going on in the seiyuu world, seen from the eyes of a fan wearing thick yuri goggles. You can play spot the seiyuu at the same time too, since I neglected to put their names in (oops).
EDIT: Uploaded a labeled version here.
Red: Yuri! Confirmed yuriyuriyuri!
Blue: ‘Good’ friends
Orange: Yuri(?)
Green: One-sided love
Yellow: Deep admiration
Please don’t harp on about how inaccurate it is - the colour of the arrows is subjective 
Please don’t tell me Ai & Mai should have a red arrow, I think they are about as yuri as the Powerpuff Girls.
Sorry if you were expecting some deep essay on the evolution of yuri female seiyuu, I don’t have the will to write that sort of thing :/
Comments
Comment from TheBigN
Time: May 9, 2008, 1:59 am
Makes me wonder how much of a brouhaha would result from a seiyuu outing themselves, male or female if that’s the case. :/
Comment from tj han
Time: May 9, 2008, 2:28 am
In other news: Clouds are fluffly and air is invisible.
Comment from hashihime
Time: May 9, 2008, 2:37 am
A thing of beauty. Looks “accurate” to me, as far as the rumors go. I’m going to keep semi-believing it just for fun. In any case, there’s yuri and yuri: being good friends with strong feelings for each other and actually doing anything physical are two different things. In any case, I dont think any of these women could “out” themselves. No matter what they said or did, it would all just seem like more jokey fanservice.
Comment from jouttex
Time: May 9, 2008, 2:48 am
True. But I’m still gonna eat the whole crap up. Awesome chart, btw.
Comment from Diodati
Time: May 9, 2008, 2:51 am
Sorry but only a blue line between Mami and Ayako?! What lies!!
It’s interesting the seiyuu world can carry its own yuri vibe or even ‘allow’ people to create a ‘yuri image’ - when in other industries even jokes/fanservicey rep could land you in the crapper.
‘Course for irony’s sake, there probably are a few ‘closet cases’ living the dream behind The Joke. Social conditioning is a sad thing.
Comment from j1m0ne
Time: May 9, 2008, 7:46 am
Oh I know clouds are fluffy. I was just trotting out crap as an excuse to put up my epic chart XD
Comment from Neo Horizon
Time: May 9, 2008, 11:29 am
Poor KitaEri. Look at all that green. XD Now if only she could find herself a nice yellow arrow, she could have a grand slam of sorts…
Comment from Lil Donkey
Time: May 9, 2008, 3:21 pm
Did you just add a blue line between Ami and (Itsuki) Yui? ’cause I didn’t remember seeing that a dozen hours ago. lol, nice chart btw. You sure have a lot of time…o_O
Comment from j1m0ne
Time: May 9, 2008, 3:29 pm
Ooh sharp eyes @_@ Well, yeah I did… I actually mentioned it in my earlier comment before I fixed it, heh.
Comment from townberry
Time: May 9, 2008, 10:43 pm
Lol at Kitamura Eri’s one sided love quest XD
Hoc-chan and Yukarin….with red arrows? Please nooo.
*townberry permanently depress*
Comment from Lil Donkey
Time: May 9, 2008, 10:53 pm
Whoa, townberry is here…and…you didn’t know? o_o
@ j1m0ne: Oh, you did mention it? I think I skimmed too fast then - again. ^^”
Btw, now that I’m reminded of Itsuki Yui…I’m very confused with her connection to Yousei Teikoku…Japanese wiki says that her connection to it is a rumour…(but Yui and Fairy Yui look so similar to be different!)?
Possible for you to clear up my confusion?
Comment from rain
Time: May 9, 2008, 11:14 pm
I spot a lot of red and blue arrows. Isn’t that a good thing? XD
Comment from OtaAgg
Time: May 10, 2008, 1:45 am
plz excuse my n00bness… can someone kindly label the pics? XD I only recognize around 1/2 of them, and I’d like to appreciate this whole yuriyuri affair to the fullest. BTW awesome chart XD It really made my day haha…
Comment from j1m0ne
Time: May 10, 2008, 7:46 am
Alright, a labeled version just for you ^^; http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6244/yuriyuriyi9.jpg
And yes, Fairy Yui is Itsuki Yui. Any blind man can tell its the same person -_- dunno why they wanna create confusion about it.
Comment from omo
Time: May 10, 2008, 7:50 am
win
Comment from OtaAgg
Time: May 10, 2008, 12:28 pm
j1m0ne, you are my hero(ine) XD
Comment from Owen S
Time: May 9, 2008, 12:45 am
Epic chart. And here I was thinking that you’d read my mind or something — I was just talking to a friend the other day about your yuri seiyuu posts, LOL.