Back Shiroi Heya no Futari Spanish Shiroi heya no futari French Shiroi heya no futari Italian Shiroi Heya no Futari Russian
| Shiroi Heya no Futari | |
 1975 anthology cover, featuring Resine (foreground) and Simone (background) | |
| 白い部屋のふたり | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Yuri |
| Created by | Ryoko Yamagishi |
| Manga | |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| Imprint | Ribon Mascot Comics |
| Magazine | Ribon Comic |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Published | February 1971 |
| Volumes | 1 |
Shiroi Heya no Futari (Japanese: 白い部屋のふたり, lit. 'The Couple in the White Room') is a Japanese manga one-shot written and illustrated by Ryoko Yamagishi, originally published in the February 1971 issue of the manga magazine Ribon Comic. Focusing on the romance between two students at an all-girls Catholic boarding school in France, it is considered to be the first work in the yuri (female–female romance) genre.
The manga was published during a significant transitional period for shōjo manga (girls' manga) as a medium, characterized by the emergence of stories with complex narratives focused on social issues and sexuality; this change came to be embodied by a new generation of manga artists collectively referred to as the Year 24 Group, of which Yamagishi was a member. Yamagishi drew inspiration for Shiroi Heya no Futari from her interest in male–male romance fiction, particularly the novels of Mari Mori, but believed that a female–female romance story would be more palatable to the teen girl readership of Ribon Comic. Following its publication in Ribon Comic, Shiroi Heya no Futari was republished several times in anthologies of short works by Yamagishi.
Shiroi Heya no Futari was one of a number of works of shōjo manga that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s which depicted intimate relationships between female characters; it was, strictly speaking, not the first manga to depict a female same-sex relationship. It is nevertheless widely regarded as the originating work of the yuri genre due to the extent to which its plot conceit of a tragic romance between a stern dark-haired girl and a naïve light-haired girl became an archetypal yuri story formula, recurring frequently in manga that depicts romance between female characters.