Inevitably, when I do any kind of public talk about Yuri or LGBTQ comics, someone will express dissatisfaction at mild school life romances or I’ll be asked for recommendations for manga about “real” lesbians. As we move through the 100th anniversary of the Yuri genre, it seems time to address this issue—not once and for all, as the genre is changing as rapidly as the languages that describe it, but for now.
Media presents a certain set of common tropes that informs much of our idea about love and what it “should” look like. Bloom Into You interrogates these tropes, making it a story that provides important queer representation in fiction while also talking about representation in fiction within the story itself.
The last few years have seen a boom in the English-language yuri market, with more and more manga about queer romance between women making it to shelves. But with all these choices, where does a curious reader start?
Sword Art Online author Reki Kawahara has publicly stated he wants to improve the representation of female characters in the series… and this is something that’s already observable in his more recent novels. Let’s take a closer look at what Kawahara said and how the series has improved over time.
Aggretsuko’s seemingly simple yet charming premise got me on board when it first aired, but now I have mixed feelings about it. There is one problem with this otherwise awesome and progressive anime, and it has to do with the heavily autism-coded Resasuke.
I became interested in shoujo manga after reading Fruits Basket, and I have not stopped reading it since. The more shoujo I read, however, the more I’ve noticed a disturbing trend. While many manga I have read feature sweet, supportive romances, just as many normalize unhealthy, even abusive relationships and victim-blaming.
Tomie is just one version of a story we’ve heard about women over and over about the cruel, conniving woman who “gets what she deserves” after her manipulation of a man blows up in her face. This is how the stories justify and disguise their displays of male misogynistic violence: as uncontrollable supernatural urges in response to an unknowable, distinctly female evil.
SPOILERS: This article covers episodes 1-29 of Hugtto! PreCure. The magical girl genre as a whole is often stereotyped as blatantly feminine. Characters fight in skirts and frills, love and kindness save the day, and our magical protagonist is almost consistently covered in pink. As a whole, the genre seems to play off of gender […]
Seldom is gay manga as wholesome as Go For It, Nakamura!, but this eleven-chapter manga is as soft and sweet as it gets. The comical hijinks and silly conflicts resemble the older romances of the ‘90s anime scene, becoming a window into what could have been if LGBTQIA entertainment had become more mainstream way earlier.
In the 1990s, when this film debuted, Perfect Blue accurately predicted a hostile atmosphere in the entertainment industry for women. We can identify similarities between the #MeToo movement, both the Japanese and American pop industries, and Mima’s mind-breaking plight.
The Team Rocket trio have never been your typical villains. So perhaps it’s no surprise that their special backstory episode defies as many conventions as they do, taking the classic team origin story and turning familiar gendered archetypes cleverly on their heads.
Selfless heroines are common in anime and manga, but Tohru is particularly noteworthy because her development throughout the series serves as an example of growing up, coming to terms with one’s feelings, and finding one’s voice. She navigates a very real, very familiar river, fraught with anxiety and self-doubt.
Black people love anime. This is an undeniable, non-negotiable, indisputable fact. One would think that Black people would have much more of a significant presence in Western anime communities and fandoms. But if you look on any black- or brown-skinned cosplayer’s Instagram posts, you will see loads of positive and encouraging comments, and also a slew of racist ones.
In the decade-plus I’ve been cosplaying, I’ve seen a lot of harassment and other predatory behavior, especially aimed at the most vulnerable members of our community. In light of recent discussion, I want to talk about things that everyone can do to help.
Through Only Yesterday and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Takahata Isao interrogates the patriarchal entitlements that strangle Taeko’s and Kaguya’s expressions of girl- and womanhood.
This musical, magical, swashbuckling school story comes together in an ending that packs a wonderfully metatextual and rebellious punch, serving as a commentary on—and rejection of—the “Bury Your Gays” trope and the historical convention of sad endings for queer characters.
Hiratori Ko’s unflinching view of a world so deeply immersed in misogyny as a mirror to our own would be deeply interesting if it didn’t simply reproduce the sins of the multitude of grimdark fantasy stories that came before it.
Come for the neat animal facts, stay for the charming cast breezily ignoring gender norms.
What happens to shounen action heroes when they grow up? How should a hero and his friends live after getting everything they ever wanted? Boruto: Naruto Next Generations looks at the lives of its heroes as adults raising families, depicting them as falling along traditional gender lines.
When you grow up with a series where the characters don’t age, the story might not change, but you will. Over time, Ran’s experience in Case Closed became disturbingly familiar to me in my teenage years as a Black Muslim man living in a city that used to be the second-largest slave-trading port in France.
