No one has ever asked whether Samurai Flamenco is good, because the question is a loud and simultaneous “no” and “yes.” But the question of whether it “counts” as queer romance has waged on for eight exhausting years now. Incidentally: yes, it does.
No More Heroes is able to distill my biggest issues with the anime scene, mocks those who defend and perpetuate its shittiest elements, and makes me hopeful that things can improve by having Travis embody and then question his identity as a scummy anime nerd.
Despite having a teen girl assassin as its protagonist, the contrast between Nana and the healer Michiru ultimately paints a picture of the ‘savior complex’ being righteous amongst women.
Female characters who put their energy into caring for others, rather than standing up and fighting, were dismissed as passive doormats who exist only for the male cast’s development. One such character was Honda Tohru. The first part of the remake has made it abundantly clear that Tohru is plenty strong. However, since her strength comes in the form of traditionally feminine roles such as nurturing and protecting those dear to her, audiences tend to disregard her strength because of how these roles are devalued.
Contemporary virtual YouTubers are often characterized by a mix of conventional femininity and “unladylike” behavior. Yet, while the most prominent creators are able to explore more varied and even subversive topics than traditional idols, they are in many ways still beholden to a set of rules and expectations for what an idol “should” be.
Women in shounen battle anime and manga have traditionally been sidelined, even as it became more and more common to include women as fellow fighters. When the guys go in to fight the final boss, the girls stay behind to help with some B-plot battle no matter how competent they may seem. In a new era of shounen, we’ve seen some of these tired tropes be turned on their heads. However, even when series like Black Clover make some strides, they still end up repeating tired cliches.
The lovable characters have kept me hooked on Yu Yu Hakusho for the past 18 years, in addition to the “fight your enemies head on and defeat them through raw power and sheer force of will” storyline that will always be a guilty pleasure of mine. Although these elements make it worth the rewatch even now, my love for this anime hasn’t completely blinded me to its flaws. Yu Yu Hakusho, unfortunately, overtly and subtly fails its female characters time and again.
By presenting a complex female lead with a beauty that is more than skin deep, Howl’s Moving Castle shows that beauty does not die with age. Instead, it increases with wisdom. In this way, the movie challenges ageism as well as the limited roles women can play in a hero’s story.
While Kill la Kill was all about clothes and the way commodification objectifies bodies, it missed the opportunity to talk about the rich history of rebellion using fashion. And moreover, it failed to interrogate the real villains running the show.
Chainsaw Man, a Shonen Jump series by Fujimoto Tatsuki, has its main character, Denji, realize the value in having a strictly platonic relationship with the leading female protagonist, Power. How Denji reaches this conclusion is incredibly messy and more than a little frustrating in places; which is to say that it epitomizes the uncomfortable struggle of navigating platonic relationships with someone you have the potential to be attracted to, a common aspect of growing up for many, and it’s both heartwarming and validating to see a character experience this part of life in a shounen manga.
Swan, which ran in Margaret from 1976 until 1981, follows Hijiri Masumi, an average high school girl from rural Hokkaido, who through the course of the series becomes famous as a modern ballet dancer. One of her key relationships is her friendship and rivalry with Lillianna Maksimova, a Russian classical ballet prodigy. This relationship uplifts them both, as the series uses Lillianna as an avenue to explore just how harmful and restrictive gender roles and expectations can be.
Over the years, the number of lady action heroes has slowly but significantly risen. And this is a good thing… for the most part. But the ability to enact violence shouldn’t be the only way we define our heroes, regardless of gender.
It soon becomes clear that within Hyakkaou Academy, it’s the women who get shit done. That was where I found what had first caught my interest in the first place: the women of Kakegurui.
1122: For a Happy Marriage examines two different married couples that are pressured to adhere to gender and allonormative roles within marriage, which ultimately damages their marital relationships.
The popularity of women authors like Itagaki, Takeuchi, Takahashi, and Arakawa led to their work being adapted into similarly successful anime. But most of these anime, if not all of them, were directed by men.
One of the biggest gripes I have now with Free! is the amount of fanservice the show throws at you. While the perfectly sculpted muscles of the main male cast is what led to the show’s boom in popularity, it has also caused harm for the show.
Despite its flaws, Free! remains close to my heart as a show full of relatable and raw emotions. There’s been times where I’ve shed tears along with the characters on screen, and also deeply sympathized with their hardships.
Paradise Kiss is one of the great josei manga classics, but subsequent versions of the story erode the focus on its lead’s agency that make the original so special, serving as a prime example of how different framings can tell the same plot and lose all of the effectiveness.
In the past few years, the villainess has seen something of a renaissance. Rather than being the subject of ridicule or comeuppance, she’s being celebrated, given the opportunity to come into her own as the subject of an emerging theme in an ever-expanding field of light novels, manga, and anime. Today I’d like to talk a little bit about these ojous: who they are, where they come from, and why in the 21st century their success demonstrates an alternate world where being smart, hard-working, and kind gets you far.
Princess Nine wants to be an empowering lady-led sports anime, but it can’t quite shake off the gendered expectations about what girls “really” want or who society thinks they’re “supposed” to be.
Although marketed toward boys, at least one third of Weekly Shonen Jump’s readers are now female. Despite this, Shonen Jump’s female characters remain over-sexualized, helpless, or useless beyond serving a role as the main character’s love interest. The manga and anime world has not yet caught up with the times by creating female characters that are both realistic and sympathetic to their real-world counterparts, and as prominent and important as their male costars. If one in three readers are female, why are female characters still relegated to the sidelines?
