All Folks Bright and Beautiful: The casual gender diversity of Heaven’s Design Team
Come for the neat animal facts, stay for the charming cast breezily ignoring gender norms.
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How Boruto: Naruto Next Generations demonstrates real-world problems with gender roles and work culture
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.
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Love & Lies: Case Closed and the normalization of gaslighting in fiction
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.
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The Queer Fudanshi’s Starter Guide to BL Manga
To some, boys’ love comics are gay romance and gay representation. To others, they’re an exploitation of gay male love for the pleasure of women. BL really exists somewhere in the middle, and there are plenty of gay and even straight men who enjoy these often erotic gay comics. I am one of them.
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Horimiya and Experimenting with Kink through Fiction
A lack of fiction that portrays varied, healthy sexual relationships often leads to a lack of understanding, especially among younger audience members, about how to engage in those relationships safely. This is why I was overjoyed when I found the manga Horimiya depicting a kinky relationship with a healthy separation between reality and fantasy.
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The Portrayal of Jewish and Jewish-coded Characters in Anime
When Jewish anime fans search for representation in their favorite medium, they find it between the lines if they do at all. And yet, Judaism is one of the world’s most well-known religions. Why is it so underrepresented in anime?
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On Your Side: Support networks in March comes in like a lion
March comes in like a lion is not always an easy show to watch. The protagonist, Rei Kiriyama, is probably the most relatable and moving representation of anxiety and depression I’ve ever seen. He’s what brought me to this show, but he’s not the only reason I stayed.
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How NOT to Enter a BDSM Relationship: Consent and abuse in Demon Lord
Is it okay to own another person? No, of course not. Yet here I am, wearing a collar around my neck.
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Aq-ward Feelings: Discussing the experiences of female and queer Love Live! fans
Love Live! has attracted legions of adoring fans, and you probably won’t be surprised to learn the core target demographic is straight men. So what is it about Love Live that attracts so many female and queer fans? And how do we as female and queer fans feel about being involved in a franchise that nominally accepts us but has not traditionally been for us?
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“The Courage to Speak”: Mental illness and recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friends
Using both its fantastical premise and grounded characters, Natsume’s Book of Friends tells a story with strong parallels to real-world mental illness and trauma. But what really makes it special is that it’s far more interested in exploring the recovery process, offering hope to its viewers who are trying to do the same.
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Demons at the Dinner Table: How Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family glosses over domestic abuse
Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family serves up monthly episodes about the characters bonding emotionally, having fun, and cooking for each other. However, as enjoyable as the show has been, “Bamboo Shoot Gratin” drew criticism from fans and reviewers alike over the way it depicted two characters, Sakura and Shinji Matou.
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Fantasies and Nightmares in the Reverse-Harem Genre
While reverse harems often feature well-developed female protagonists, alluring love interests, and sweet romances, they can also fall into more harmful patterns of depicting passive girls trapped in abusive relationships. Typically, a reverse harem shows its best or worst features in how it portrays its female lead, love interests, and romantic encounters.
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Emma’s Choice: The gender-norm nightmare at the heart of The Promised Neverland
The Promised Neverland begins as a sharply crafted horror story, but it soon reveals itself to be a sophisticated critique on restrictive social practices—including the hellishly limited roles expected of girls.
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Childbirth and Politics in DARLING in the FRANXX
All art, from cookie-cutter crime dramas to Nobel prize-winning novels, reflects the views and mores of its creators and the culture they grew up in. Whether intentional or not, DARLING in the FRANXX touches on one of Japan’s current political hot topics: the role of family and childbirth.
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The Mazinger Problem: On “different times,” “lost in translation,” and the role of translators
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work on the first full U.S. release of one of my favorite franchises ever: Mazinger Z. But while I was all-in for the cheesiness and monster-of-the-week action, I was caught on the back foot when it came to certain elements of the show.
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The View from the Sidecar: How Kamen Rider fails its women
The long-running live action series Kamen Rider has one core concept: the Kamen Rider, a masked superhero riding a motorcycle, fights a shady organization or evil force. However, in its 45-plus years of history, its treatment of women has been lacking, especially in the Heisei era.
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An Alternate Appraisal: Inclusivity and empowerment in the idol industry
If you were to ask a layperson what an idol is, they’d likely think of the scandalous stories that come out of the industry. While these scandals shouldn’t be ignored, they often form the entirety of the discussion, ignoring idol content that doesn’t conform to such negative stereotypes and all the good that idols can do. To properly improve the industry, it’s just as important to promote the positive elements as it is to criticize the harmful ones.
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By returning to their roots, Dark Magical Girls could provide hope
Instead of focusing on suffering, dark magical girls can inspire young female audiences by showing that they have the power to overcome their personal pain.
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Growing into Love: How Kase-san models a healthy queer relationship
It can be hard to find manga that shows both the struggles and joys of the awkward period of teen romance, especially if you’re not straight. That’s exactly why the Kase-san and… manga series is a breath of fresh air, a slice-of-life comedy that models what a healthy, queer romantic relationship can look like.
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“A Woman, Drinking by Myself”: Wakakozake and the diversifying food counter-genre
Despite a variety of stories about food in anime and manga, there’s been a lack of female and intersectional viewpoints, especially in portraying the intimate moments one has with food and encouraging the solitary exploration of food and drink. One series is helping challenge this status quo: Wakakozake.
