All the #Bandori girls are lesbians.

"But what about Himari having *one line* where she says she wish Tomoe was a boy!?"

Yes, that's called closeted compulsory heterosexuality. She thinks her attraction to Tomoe must be unnatural, hence "if only she was a boy".

It only highlights her being a lesbian.

You could even argue that her also falling in love with Kaoru and Kaoru being so openly gay is what helps Himari accept that girls can like girls hence why such lines not appearing since literally the first batch of comics.

There are a billion franchises and stories where girls interact with, crush on or just have open-ended pairings with boys.

BanG Dream! *not* having that isn't a problem. One or two series being 100% lesbian is not a problem.

Is part of the reason BanG Dream! and other Bushiroad franchises are "girl on girl exclusive" just a way to market the series safely to straight men?

Sure, that's no doubt part of it.

Doesn't make the girls not gay or change that countless fans are lesbiasn themselves.

Kidani, the CEO of Bushiroad, have even joked about how Bushiroad have somewhat become a "Yuri Company" and how he's actually fine with that, even if it's still a Card Game Company first and foremost.

It's pretty obvious they know they're catering to gay girls.

"Some people have even began calling Bushiroad a yuri company. We're a TCG company! But yuri is good too." -Bushiroad CEO https://twitter.com/kidanit/status/1001846775093706752

He's specifically referring to post-Bandori and Starlight here, for reference.

Because, y'know, he's well aware of what those franchise are and what they appeal with.

The tweet about how he doesn't believe the girls should be paired with boys was one he tweeted after clarifying that Argonavis was a separate universe and that the only male characters in regular Bandori are family members.

Even *if* we assume that at the time Kidani was entirely talking about this from the perspective of "our male fans don't want competition for the girls", that doesn't change that it still means the girls are canonically unavailable to boys.

And since we know Kidani is well aware of the female fans, the massive yuri following and how Bandori (and Starlight) constantly feed the girl x girl content, it's fair to say that's *not* the only angle at play here.

The girls are simply lesbians.

End of story.

The text of the novels, manga, anime and game support it. The behind the scenes management support it. The majority of fan made content support it.

They're lesbians, Harold.

Hell, these tweets are actually a bit out of date because Bushiroad has gone even harder on the gay shit since then.

Assault Lily is straight up advertised as yuri. Colorful Pastrale was about a female only mermaid society where romance was a factor.

D4DJ doesn't have enough material to say just yet but at the very least Aoi is one of the most stone butch characters I've ever seen in anime *and* she's played by a voice actress who, at the very least, kisses girls in public.

Bandori 3rd Season went all out on establishing Pareo's feelings as romantic for Chu2, which was also not something that had happened at the time of these tweets.

Bushiroad has only striven further down the "yuri company" path since Kidani made the "yuri is good" comment.

And I mean...

*all of Revue Starlight*

...yeah.