The Best Yuri Manhwa To Read

Key Takeaways

• Yuri content is on the rise in manhwas and manhuas, offering colorful and engaging stories for fans of the genre.
• Stories like
  June Sea, Salieri & Mozart,
  and
  Vengeance
  present dark romances for those seeking a different kind of love tale.
• Titles like
  Mojito, Don’t Fall in Love!,
  and
  The Glass
  explore love in various forms, from forbidden romances to workplace relationships.

Yuri, or GL (Girl’s Love), is a genre that does what it says on the tin by depicting women falling in love with each other. While it may be known for its sexual themes and imagery, its popularity in the media has increased with more PG titles like Bloom Into You receiving anime adaptations. The genre focuses on the L in LGBTQ+ communities, but it can be enjoyed by any audience.

There are plenty of yuri mangas out there, but yuri content can also be found in manhwas (Korean comics) and manhua (Chinese comics), which are on the rise thanks to websites like Webtoon, Tapas and Tappytoon among others. Unlike their Japanese counterparts, they’re often in full color and can be read left to right instead of right to left. But nonetheless, they can still tell great yuri stories.

Updated on December 8, 2024, by David Heath: The time of tinsel, eggnog, jingling bells, and chintzy movies featuring one person wearing red and the other wearing green is upon us. Even couples preparing for Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and other December-set holidays are bound to feel that Christmas Cheer™, and either let it pass as they keep on trucking or escape to a place where it isn’t such a big deal.

If they can’t afford to fly off to Korea or China for the season, they can go there in spirit with online manhwa and manhua. There’s still plenty of them hitting the internet officially and unofficially, with many more offering some romance for femmes with femmes, femmes seeking femmes, and yuri/girl’s love fans in general. So, this list has been updated with more of the best yuri manhwa and manhua out there to keep readers going through the holidays.

26 June Sea

Anime-Planet Score: 3.82/5 Stars

• Creator: Shin Yuri
• 44 Chapters
• Fan Translations only

June Sea takes things in a different direction from most other manhwa, as it’s a somewhat racy, historical tale, as it takes place in Busan in 1936. During this time, Korea was occupied by Japan and wouldn’t be liberated for another nine years. Even then, it would take the country (or half of it, at least) much longer to find peace. That’s too long for the story’s lead, Yeon Jeong, to find a place where she fits in.

Unable to connect to her peers, she feels listless until she comes across a mermaid. She says she’s come to pick Yeon up as promised and take her to a place “where eternal happiness lies”. With no other plans, Yeon is tempted to follow her into the ocean and find a place where she’ll truly belong. But can she trust the mermaid’s word? As lovely as she is, there’s always a catch to deals that sound too good to be true.

25 If You Can’t Kill Me, Love Me

Anime-Planet Score: 3.82/5 Stars

• Creator: JIN
• 46 Chapters
• Available on Tapas

For readers after a romance with some conflict, they’ll find plenty at the heart of If You Can’t Kill Me, Love Me. It takes place in a country wracked with strife, where Second Queen Nayla led a rebellion that managed to kill off the King and the First Queen, Viatan. Only their daughter, Princess Chell, is left, though she’s been reduced to a shell of her former self. Wandering around her home like a ghost, she’s become known as the ‘Princess of Death.’

Her only source of solace is in her blunt but clumsy personal maid, Penny. Unbeknownst to her, Penny is actually an assassin sent by Nayla to retrieve the king’s ring and kill Chell. By doing this, she thinks she’ll be freed from servitude to Chell or Nayla. But as she spends more time with the princess, she finds herself more drawn to her. Likewise, her company has been helping Chell slowly recover. Now she’s torn between finding her freedom, fulfilling her mission, and her growing feelings for her target. It’s a dilemma she won’t find an easy answer to.

24 Salieri & Mozart

Anime-Planet Score: 3.83/5 Stars

• Creators: Suo Kim & Kibap
• 40 Chapters
• Fan Translations only

Despite how the title sounds, Salieri & Mozart isn’t a historical story. Otherwise, it would have to be a gender-swapped one, too. Instead, it uses the two composers as a comparison between high school swimmers Kim Na-Ra and Oh Ha-Yun. To Kim, the pool was like a home away from home, where swimming came so naturally to her that she was en route to represent Korea at the national level.

Then she met Oh, who broke Kim’s swimming record on her first day. Unlike Kim, she only did it as a hobby, yet it was enough to develop a talent that could rival any of the school’s other aces. As a result, Kim aims to beat her resolutely in competition, yet she soon realizes talent isn’t everything. Like Salieri, Kim grows to detest and love the Mozart-like Oh at the same time, leading to a complicated relationship between the two.

23 Eonni! #I’llTagYou

Anime-Planet Score: 3.84/5 Stars

• Creator: Geon-U
• 6 Chapters
• Fan Translations only

Sometimes it’s titled Eonni! #I’llTagYou, other times it’s Unnie! #I’ll Tag You. By one name or another, this manhwa offers something a little more lighthearted than Mozart & Salieri‘s tense drama. It’s a romcom that sees two women find love through social media. Kang Chae-rin is addicted to the stuff, and tries her best to earn as many followers as possible. But she only has a mere 5,000+ follower count.

Her social media lifeline comes in the form of Seo Yeon-woo, a student returning from abroad who’s since become a famous influencer. Chae-rin tries to buddy herself up to her in the hopes of getting some of her fame and ends up getting more than she bargained for. One bad night of drinking may have ended up helping her find the love of her life, and a few hundred more followers to boot.

22 Love Countdown

Anime-Planet Score: 3.88/5 Stars

• Creator: Lange
• 6 Chapters
• Fan translations only

Compared to the other multi-chapter epics on this list, Love Countdown (not to be confused with the BL manhwa Countdown to Love) keeps things short and sweet with a simple story of a newfound love arising from personal tragedy. It just happened to be girls’ love! Yoo Minhee has her love life turned upside down when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her. On storming back home, she ends up bumping into her old childhood friend, Park Heemin.

To help soothe Minhee’s heart, Heemin makes an interesting proposal: date her for a month. In that time, she’ll do her best to charm Minhee and make her forget about her ex. If she fails, she fails. But if she succeeds, Minhee will find a new kind of love, and though she’s unaware of it, Heemin will achieve her dream. Though brief, it’s a nice story of friends becoming lovers in a steady, realistic way.

21 Mojito

Anime-Planet Score: 3.95/5 Stars

• Creators: Kuaikan Comics & NoftB
• 86 Chapters
• Available on Tapas

Love isn’t easy at the best of times, let alone when one’s famous. Mojito sees Xiao Zhong, a popular supermodel, get outed as a lesbian when she’s caught kissing her smart-mouthed lawyer, Marissa, on the street on the night of a big show. The snaps of their smooch are plastered all over the internet, the press, and more until their employers, families, and the public are pressuring them to call it quits.

But they don’t see any reason why they should stop. They’re in love with each other, and they’ve already been dating for a while. The manhwa shows how love can persevere through the biggest obstacles, even between two women in the showbiz world. Like a mojito, it can’t be put down until it’s done.

20 SwallowTail

Anime-Planet Score: 3.95/5 Stars

• Creator: Tima
• 46+ Chapters
• Fan translations only

Things aren’t any simpler in the entertainment industry in SwallowTail either. Kang Chae-Yeon made her name as part of the idol group Berry Wine as ‘Miss Swallow’ (as in the bird), and has experience doing all sorts of shoots. But she finds herself on the back foot when her colleague for a lesbian-themed photo shoot turns out to be her old school friend, Sohn Seung-Ha. They looked more masculine back then, to the point where Chae-Yeon was sure she was a boy.

Instead, she became a model whose fame rivals her own, and she manages to make her just as flustered as a woman than when she thought she was a boy. Chae-Yeon doesn’t expect to see her again, but after their shoot became a big hit, her life will end up revolving around Seung-Ha more than she thought. Even without the story, it would be worth reading for its lovely watercolor-style art, which helps it stand out next to the usual digital-looking fare.

19 Partition

Anime-Planet Score: 3.96/5 Stars

• Creator: Tea Cozy
• 62 Chapters
• Fan translations only

As sterile and oppressive as it seems, the office can be surprisingly fertile ground for romance. Or at least that’s the case when it comes to fiction, as there are plenty of office romance movies, shows, manga, etc. Manhwa is no different, as it managed to offer up a yuri office romance in Partition, where the barrier between work and personal life gets thinner and thinner.

At work, Lee Yu-Na is the chirpy mascot of the online business department, pretty as a picture and just as sweet. But this is just a front to get by in her career. In reality, she’s a stern, ruthless figure who hates sweet things like chocolates and candy. In turn, her coworker Han Yu-Na is a masculine woman who actually loves all things cutesy and girly. When the two have a misunderstanding, they each end up seeing the other’s true face. That isn’t so great for Han, but for Lee, it softens her up enough to allow love to bloom.

18 The Glass

Anime-Planet Score: 3.98/5 Stars

• Creator: Nuria Sanguino
• 74 Chapters
• Available in English via Pocket Comics

The Glass sees romance take a complicated turn when a humble office lady ends up getting more than she bargained for. Lara is hunting for a job after finishing her internship six months ago. Unfortunately, companies are more concerned with her engagement with her fiancé, Mark, than they are with her skills. One day, while on her way to an interview, she decides to take off her ring to avoid the same old conversations. The moment she does, a car suddenly comes zooming down the street towards her.

Luckily, she is alright, but out of the car comes Suni, a member of the top pop group The Glass. As it turns out, she used to be Lara’s childhood friend, and Lara’s life quickly changes as Suni hires her as her new manager. On the face of it, Lara’s just part of her team helping The Glass achieve their dream of winning a Grammy. But Suni has an ulterior motive: she’s been in love with Lara since their childhood days and wants to fulfill her promise to marry her.

17 Don’t Fall In Love!

Anime-Planet Score: 4/5 Stars

• Creator: Song Ha
• 31 Chapters
• Available via Manta Comics

Don’t Fall in Love takes things in a simpler direction with the story of a hopeless romantic and her celebrity crush. Jung-Hyun has a bad habit of falling in love with someone at first sight. If her heart clicks with someone, it’ll beat for them until she gets the hint that things won’t pan out. So, Jung-Hyun steels herself to keep things purely professional in her new job as a manager.

Unfortunately for her, she’s managing the actress Heera Joo, who’s so pretty that Jung-Hyun falls head over heels for her. She really wants to keep her job, so she tries her best to resist Heera’s charms, but everything she does just melts her heart. Getting carried away by one’s feelings can lead to trouble, but maybe Jung-Hyun can find a way to express her feelings safely without exploding.

16 Vengeance

Anime-Planet Score: 4/5 Stars

• Creator: Aji
• 22 Chapters
• Fan translations only. Formerly available via Lezhin Comics

June Sea offers temptation. Salieri & Mozart has a psychosexual relationship deriving from competition. Both suit readers who are after a darker romance than just the ordinary meet-cute. Vengeance offers a similarly dark tale, as detective Hyeon Seola discovers her girlfriend, Hwan Hara, has been murdered and mutilated.

The last time she saw her, they had an argument. Seola was all about keeping quiet, while Hwan was an outspoken queer rights activist. Now that her voice has been taken from her, Seola and her work partner set about finding her killer. Tracing her last movements, whittling through the suspects, and fighting off her sense of guilt and regret, Seola vows to get revenge no matter what happens.

15 On A Leash

Anime-Planet Score: 4.04/5 Stars

• Creator: Aji
• 139 Chapters
• Available on TappyToon

Aji’s other work, On a Leash, isn’t any brighter as it takes place during a war between animalistic shapeshifters. It’s told from the perspective of Red, a Mammalian who can take the form of a dog, who relates how the war affected her life, and turned her into a devoted if short-sighted soldier for her cause. At this point, they’ve allied with the Reptilians to take on the Federvolk (bird-themed shapeshifters), which introduced her to Luce Duval.

She’s a snake-themed shifter who serves as a doctor, but likes to manipulate others to do her bidding, be it through seduction or more underhanded methods. Though even knowing that, Red couldn’t keep herself away from her dangerous influence. Even if her battlefield injuries didn’t send her to Luce’s department, Red finds herself thinking of the doctor. It’s like she’s got a leash around her neck. Though it was originally cut short on Lezhin Comics, it’s since managed to be completed on TappyToon.

14 My Dear Enemy

Anime-Planet Score: 4.06/5 Stars

• Creator: Xian Jun
• 42 Chapters
• Fan Translations only

Sometimes, opposites can attract, and often frequently in fiction. My Dear Enemy is no different, as this popular romantic comedy manhwa combines that trope with being a first love and a workplace setting. Funny as it is, sparks can still fly and cause a blaze in this office romance where one drunken night brings two rivals together.

When Shen finds out she got second place in the employee ranking, she drowns her sorrows and becomes a drunken mess. Her coworkers don’t know what to do with her. Luckily, Jiang, her long-time rival, offers to take her home. Once they get there, Shen surprises Jiang by giving her a deep kiss. One which they both rather like. What seems like a drunken encounter ends up leading to more once Shen sobers up.

13 Relationship Guidelines

Anime-Planet Score: 4.07/5 Stars

• Creator: EPUM
• 82 Chapters
• Available via Tapas

At least The Glass‘ Suni is straightforward with her feelings and intentions. Jiwon isn’t so lucky in Relationship Guidelines. She’s been friends with Myeong-In since they were little, but things took a turn when they reached high school. One day, Myeong-In dared Jiwon to give her a kiss, which she duly obliged. However, she soon tries distancing herself from her longtime friend.

Frustrated, Jiwon tries to close that distance, only for things to get more awkward. As the two try to sort out their misunderstandings, their feelings for each other get more complicated. That playful kiss set off a spark that, no matter their attempts to steam it, leads to the two skirting the edge of a platonic relationship and leaning gradually further into a passionate, romantic one.

12 The Love Doctor

Anime-Planet Score: 4.07/5 Stars

• Creators: Chamsae & Bansook
• 86 Chapters
• Available via Lezhin Comics

The Love Doctor is a lengthy read at 86 chapters, though readers find it engaging to the very end. It starts off simply enough, with Jung Erae having so much trouble with love, relationships, and the opposite sex that she seeks professional help. She gets in touch with doctor Cha Yoon and, as soon as she catches sight of her pretty face, lovely hair, and charming personality, gets an inkling about why she hasn’t had much luck with men.

It starts off like a fluffy meet-cute, which will appeal to those who fancy a sweet story. However, it doesn’t take the easy way out by making Erae’s issues simply about her sexuality. On top of learning to love and trust, the strip goes into what it means to love someone, what it makes people do, and the sacrifices members of a couple make for each other. It’s like a coffee-flavored candy with a vanilla coating, where the bitter and sweet tastes mix well together.

11 Miss Angel And Miss Devil

Anime-Planet Score: 4.09/5 Stars

• Creator: MAEU Malgeum
• 436+ Chapters
• Fan Translations only

The problem with Miss Angel and Miss Devil is that it doesn’t have an official English translation yet. Not that they’re the be-all and end-all of translations, but its fan translation is quite rough compared to other series. But if readers persevere, they’ll get a neat, supernatural fantasy tale about angels who aren’t necessarily angelic and devils who aren’t all that evil.

For example, Haki is supposed to lead humans into temptation and sin. But she’s actually a sweetheart who’d rather look after her flowers. Hiskya is as good as the next angel, but she’s prone to eccentric behavior and is better at teasing than Haki, a literal devil. But though they look like polar opposites, they make a cute couple in this sweet, easygoing, divine-themed romcom.

10 A Joyful Life

Anime-Planet Score: 4.14/5 Stars

• Creator: Gum
• 74 Chapters
• Formerly available in English via Pocket Comics

Some titles can end up being ironic or take a bittersweet turn. A Joyful Life is no different, as it’s a manhwa about abuse and the pitfalls of adult life. But it’s also about reconnecting with old crushes and forging new paths in life towards happiness. In other words, its grim parts are the soil that helps its sweetest scenes grow and flourish.

Joy Ahn is a typical office worker who’s unsatisfied with her life at home and at work. She keeps a bag packed under her desk, ready to take a trip the moment she gets the chance to. But it never comes. Not until she meets her old school crush, Aerie Park, an out lesbian who left town when her family found her kissing a girl in public. As they reconnect, Joy thinks she might get to take that trip after all, so long as she can overcome the obstacles in her way and if Aerie wouldn’t mind joining her.

9 Blooming Sequence

Anime-Planet Score: 4.17/5 Stars

• Creator: Lee Eul
• 77 Chapters
• Fan Translations only. Formerly available on Lezhin Comics

Despite its high score, Blooming Sequence has a bit of a mixed reception. Some readers felt it ended too quickly, with its plot elements rushed to an untidy conclusion. Yet others felt it was a realistic take on GL, where the lovers come off as reasonable people trying to handle their issues as best as they can in a society that doesn’t care for women, let alone the gay community.

Seowoo Hyun has a chance encounter with a red-headed girl when she drunkenly topples out of a bar, and sings and dances with her. It was a brief encounter, but one Seowoo didn’t mind. However, once she reappears to join Seowoo’s film club, things get complicated. Seowoo has difficulty expressing herself, while Hayoung Ahn, the redhead, has trust issues. But as they get closer to each other, they accept each other’s flaws as well as their own.

8 After The Curtain Call

Anime-Planet Score: 4.19/5 Stars

• Creators: Assam & Jina
• 51 Chapters
• Available on Tappytoon

Love can strike when people least expect it, or at least that’s certainly the case in fiction. Relationship Guidelines saw it start from a dare. In My Dear Enemy, it rose from antipathy. After the Curtain Call sees it come from jealousy, as Park Soyoung is a big fan of musical theater. Its live action and flashy outfits make it stand out from TV. But when she saw Jang Jaeyi perform in ‘Macbeth’, it became even more appealing.

Her dazzling beauty transfixed her enough to make her a fan at first sight. She continues to appear at every one of her shows, requesting autographs, and getting lucky enough to actually become Jang’s friend through their shared love of the theater. But when Jang has to work with Hyesun Hwang, an actress she shares a past with, Park gets intensely jealous. But it also makes her question whether she was just a fan, or if she feels something more for Jang.

7 Lily

Anime-Planet Score: 4.24/5 Stars

• Creator: Pikapi
• 938 Chapters
• Available on BiliBili

Lily is a high school-based manhua that centers around the prim and proper schoolgirl Fan Yilin and the tomboy Lan Ruoxi. Their first encounter was nothing short of unfortunate. First, she bumps into her, then Ruoxi catches Yilin talking about her behind her back. But there’s something about Ruoxi that’s sticking in her mind.

Each time she sees her, her heart starts thundering in her chest, and she starts feeling flushed and flustered. Could she be falling for another girl? And if so, why with her? What is it about her that gets her pulse racing? And can she capitalize on it before her equally-interested friend gets to her first? It makes for a sweet and gently paced story about two girls who find love in each other.