What's It About?

Suzune Senmiya, a young voice actress, has been struggling for six months to get over the retirement of her favorite idol, Karin Kanezuki. One day, Karin appears as a new voice actress in Suzune's agency! While Suzune tries to play it cool and keep her distance, Karin aggressively closes the gap between them. As Suzune starts to see unexpected sides of Karin, she begins to perceive her not just as an idol but as a woman. 

Did You Think My Yuri Was Just for Show? has story by Neru Asakura and art by Minori Chigusa, with English translation by Jenny McKeon. Published by Yen On (March 18, 2025). Rated T+.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Lauren Orsini
Rating:

Until I read this book, I didn't realize there was a different word for yuri fanservice (also known as yuri bait) in Japanese. It's “yuri business,” and for the protagonist of Did You Think My Yuri Was Just for Show? it's her bread and butter. As a popular voice actor, Suzune is all but required to fake a romantic interest in her costars for the titillation of their fans. But considering that Suzune identifies as a lesbian, this book is more than a fluffy yuri love story between two voice actors—it's also a shrewd critique on an industry that forbids its talent from pursuing love in their free time, but forces them to fake it on the daily. While this novel left something to be desired regarding the chemistry between its romantic leads, it was an enlightening read on the hypocritical VA industry.

Suzune, a twenty-something anime voice actor, has always known that she's “yuri for real,” which is how she defines being attracted exclusively to women. This adds a layer of guilt to the yuri business aspect of her job, since her co-stars don't realize a lesbian is flirting with them. Of course, Suzune is the victim just as much, if not more, than her co-stars. As she reflects before a scene of intentional yuri business: “They would never have a man and a woman do that sort of thing. In a way, saying ‘It's fine if it's between people of the same gender’ felt a bit like the management's way of unconsciously rejecting people who were attracted to the same gender, people like Suzune.” But Suzune bites her tongue right up until her oshi (loosely, her number one celeb crush), the former idol Karin opts for a career change and joins the same agency as her! As Karin and Suzune grow closer both as co-stars and friends, Suzune feels increasingly bad about publically performing yuri business with somebody she'd like to be with for real.

In their postscript, author Neru Asakura writes that they were given strict orders: “no more naughty books!” It's on this point that this light novel suffers. By avoiding any content that could be interpreted as even slightly titillating. Asakura seems to have eliminated nearly all of the chemistry that could exist between Suzune and Karin. This book gets points from me for its portrayal of the tightrope that Suzune must walk as a lesbian VA, but without so much as a kiss between its two female leads, its yuri component might as well be just for show.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. Yen Press, BookWalker Global, and J-Novel Club are subsidiaries of KWE.