Work Sucks, I Know: The Marxist horror of Aggretsuko
Aggretsuko isn’t just about the pitfalls that come with growing up and accepting responsibility. It’s about the pitfalls that come within the exploitative system of capitalism.
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Good Soil Makes a Good Crop: The Story of Saiunkoku and the myth of meritocracy
Despite its fantastical setting, The Story of Saiunkoku is no traditional fairy tale, and the sexist hurdles Shurei faces to achieve her dream of becoming a civil servant are much closer to unjust reality than escapist fiction. This allows the series to explore systemic oppression, workplace harassment, and the importance of structural support, especially in systems that claim to be merit-based.
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“I am a shadow… The true self…”: Identity and social norms in Persona 4 Golden
Ultimately, the game universe makes clear that “facing yourself” is more concerned about fitting into society than personal growth. And though individual characters may seem to subvert normative expectations of gender and sexuality, the game ultimately reifies those roles, forcing all characters into societal norms that stand contrary to the glimpses of their more rebellious authentic selves.
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How My Brain is Different allows the neurodivergent to tell their own stories
When manga author Monzusu realized how poorly the general population understood neurodivergence, she sought out the stories of ordinary people with experiences similar to her own, eventually turning some of them into a memoir manga. In doing so, she offered neurodivergent people like her a rare chance to tell their own stories in their own words.
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Overcoming Barriers: Mobility limitation; “inspirational” disability; and Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish
Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish, a 2020 adaptation of a 1987 story of the same name, is certainly an uplifting and inspirational film, but its treatment of its central character usurps this concept. Instead of being saintly, Josee is a rounded character who works to achieve her dream of living as an artist.
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Being a Better Man: The healthy masculinity of MY love STORY!!
Through its characters and their relationships, MY love STORY!! supports a vision of masculinity where boys and men can be openly emotional and not be shamed for it.
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“Differences Die At The Door”: A post-mortem of Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop
Few adaptations miss the point of their source material as brazenly as Christopher Yost’s series. There are many avenues to critique it from, ranging from casting decisions to direction to the script itself, and much ink has already been spilled on all of these. But it’s prudent to get even more granular. If we trace each individual influence behind both Bebops, the fundamental failings of the Netflix show become even more apparent.
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What Role Are You Playing? Communication, queerness, and neurodivergence in Yuri is My Job!
Miscommunication as narrative conflict is often linked with contrivance and bad writing—and no genre faces this criticism more than romance. That’s what makes Yuri is My Job! so refreshing. In the process of building a will-they-won’t-they story, it explores the gendered, neurotypical, and heteronormative expectations that are built into social interaction.
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The possession and performance of relationship in Spice and Wolf
Holo and Lawrence’s relationship is initially held back by the circumstances upon which they first meet, rendering Holo as an owned object rather than an equal companion and stifling both leads’ feelings behind layers of performative inauthenticity. Part of the appeal of Spice and Wolf is watching these two characters overcome the gendered norms of their medieval setting, as well as their own personal flaws, to achieve an emotional reciprocity that is narratively satisfying.
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Queer resonance and critiquing heteronormativity in SPY x FAMILY
Spy x Family is a great example of how a story might have queer resonances and queer themes even if it cannot be classed as queer fiction.
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Comedic Highs and Objectified Lows: The girls of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is a hilarious supernatural comedy in which a cast of teenagers tries to live ordinary lives amidst extraordinary shenanigans. The female characters are three-dimensional and compellingly written, often just as expressive, funny and absurd as the boys. Although this potential is often well-utilized, narratives on the show that involve male attraction often sacrifice the depth of the girls, for the sake of sexualized scenes and lazy punchlines.
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Strength Unsaid: How Moribito’s main characters normalize gender equality
The roles and characterization of main characters Balsa, Tanda, and Prince Chagum make gender equality seem natural, and therefore powerful, even if their story takes place in a patriarchal system.
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Parasociality Killed the VTuber Star
While many people can maintain a healthy relationship with them as entertainment personalities, others developed an unhealthy level of parasocial attachment, particularly to the female creators. These parasocial fans have caused incident after incident, making the space unsafe to VTubers and the audience alike, and are even suspected to have caused some of them to “graduate,” or retire from streaming. The most infamous of those incidents is the case of Kiryu Coco.
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Queer media, escapism and self-discovery in Sasaki and Miyano
While the series itself is a sweet, wholesome story about self-discovery, it also offers an incredibly potent metatextual analysis of how queer media can help LGBTQ+ teens come to understand themselves.
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Framing the Model Minority Myth with Neo Cat
Hi, it’s me, Chiaki, once again thinking too hard about cats in media. Today I’m here to tell you that Aoka’s Neo Cat conveys how being celebrated doesn’t necessarily exempt you from racism.
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Death Notes on Camp: Repurposing a classic
New layers and new ways to appreciate the series emerge when it’s considered as a campy melodrama rather than the brooding thriller that writer Ohba Tsugumi intended it to be.
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Moriarty the Patriot’s class war is far from history in the UK
In the anime, Moriarty’s seamless assimilation into British high society makes an inadvertent mockery of the idea that you can simply be born “better” than others. The reality is anyone could get into Moriarty’s position with the right opportunities, but not everyone would choose to share the resources they gained to support those they left behind. It’s no exaggeration to say that to many, classism still feels so deeply ingrained in the UK it seems like the country would collapse without it.
This begs the question: how effective is Moriarty’s plan to burn everything to the ground, and what does the UK (both in fiction and reality) need to do in order to destroy class inequality for good? -
Unsung Heroes: The women of The Heike Story
The creators of The Heike Story go a step further beyond tribute with the character of Biwa: by presenting her as the epic’s original author-performer, the anime adaptation places the theme of female agency front and center in what is otherwise a male-centric work.
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In the Name of Art: Academic burnout in Blue Period
The detrimental effect of academic burnout can be easy to overlook. While the media has had a hand in normalizing these behaviors, stories are starting to crop up that examine the issue critically. Blue Period is an excellent study in the behavior that leads to burnout and the consequences that follow.
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All My Darling Daughters and the need for working women’s success and failure stories
Just as inspirational stories of women who achieve their goals are necessary, stories of those who are forced to relinquish them are equally important. Success stories are empowering, but in a vacuum they may unintentionally insinuate that failure also rests entirely on effort, laying the blame on women themselves rather than the disadvantages they face as a result of gender inequality.
