AniFem Round-Up
Let’s hear it for the first completely unremarkable fantasy show of the season.
Headhunted to Another World: From Salaryman to Big Four! – Episode 1
Actually hits pretty well if you’ve worked a soul-sucking corporate job.
Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time – Episode 1
It’s mostly rote and unoffensive isekai stuff, with a couple of potential concerns for the future.
Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective – Episodes 1-2
Does solid work as a medical procedural, with a few frustrating writing choices around its genius detective.
The premise has potential and there’s a certain fever dream quality about it. But there’s also the GoHands of it all.
I’m Getting Married to a Girl I Hate in My Class – Episode 1
A dull, charmless enemies-to-lovers rom-com that just made us miss Ranma ½.
It desperately wants to evoke the likes of Death Parade and The Apothecary Diaries, but has none of their spark.
I’m Living with an Otaku NEET Kunoichi!? – Episode 1
The majority of this premiere is a pretty aggressively forgettable, medium-horny rom-com. And then the Psycho Lesbian enters the chat.
It has it all: lively visuals, engaging characters, and a light sprinkling of homoeroticism.
This story of a girl with dreams of figure skating is both warm and immediately gripping.
OKITSURA: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Know What She’s Saying – Episode 1
Gets messy when real-world history meets what’s supposed to be a fun, linguistic experience backset by island life.
I Want to Escape from Princess Lessons – Episode 1
The heroine is great, but unfortunately the love interest kind of seems like he sucks.
It isn’t every day you get to see an ambitious anime original created by two successful women in the industry.
Despite all the magic and beautiful men, it’s terribly dull.
Chatty AF 220: 2024 Fall Season Wrap-Up
Alex, Cy, and Peter return to close out 2024 by wrapping up the Fall season, from okay adaptations of great shoujo to (mostly) great adaptations of good shounen.
What was your favorite Fall 2024 anime?
Stretch your minds back a few weeks.
Beyond AniFem
Whisper Me a Love Song Anime’s Japanese Blu-ray Disc Release Canceled (Anime News Network, Anita Tai)
It shares the same sad shelf as Phantom in the Twilight now.
The official website for the television anime of Eku Takeshima‘s Whisper Me a Love Song (Sasayaku yō ni Koi wo Utau) manga announced on Tuesday that the Blu-ray Disc release in Japan is canceled due to internal circumstances. Four volumes of Blu-ray Disc releases were planned.
In August, the staff announced it was delaying the Blu-ray Disc releases of the anime by four months due to “production circumstances.”
The anime’s first Blu-ray Disc volume, originally slated for September 13, was scheduled for release on January 31. The second volume was delayed from October 11 to February 28. The third volume was delayed from November 8 to March 28. The fourth volume was delayed from December 13 to April 30.
ANN then confirmed in late October that the domain name of show’a animation studio Cloud Hearts has expired, with the website now inaccessible.
Gravity = Culture: Trans Liberatory Potentials and Limitations in Heaven Will Be Mine (Game Studies, Niamh Timmons)
An open-access academic article on the sci-fi visual novel.
This article expands on the current game studies scholarship on transgender representation in games via a narrative analysis of the game Heaven Will Be Mine. Heaven Will Be Mine complicates and rejects problematic elements of transhumanism and also centers queer and trans desire. The game’s three endings map out different trajectories for queer and trans liberation. I locate the framing of settlement in space in the game’s narrative, and the lack of interrogating the dynamics of settlement, as a reification of settler colonial logics. As such, the trans liberation narrative of Heaven Will Be Mine, continues to maintain settler colonialism. Despite the game’s flaws, Heaven Will Be Mine is still an important game to think about the dynamics of trans liberatory potentials and limitations. In this article, I examine Heaven Will Be Mine as a form of trans liberatory potential and limitations while grounding the project in current landscape of game studies scholarship on trans representations.
Organizers of Japan’s only national wheelchair relay race crowdfund to maintain event (The Mainichi, Satoshi Kubo)
The race has been held annually since 1989.
The campaign aims to raise 3 million yen (about $19,000) with an eye to the March 9 opening of the 36th race.
The organizing committee for the event includes the Kyoto Prefectural Government, and this is the first time they are turning to crowdfunding. Until now, it has made do with public funds and corporate donations, but challenges such as financial woes and the rising costs of consumer goods and labor affected their decision.
The prefectural government reported that expenses for regulating traffic, transporting competitors and preparing for the event, along with security, management and other related costs are increasing. Some of these are to be covered by crowdfunding to stably manage the competition.
The crowdfunding campaign runs until March 2 on the site ReadyFor (https://readyfor.jp/projects/147996). Donors can choose contribution levels from 5,000 to 100,000 yen (approx. $32 to $630). With a 50,000-yen donation, supporters can watch the race from special seating, and at the 100,000-yen level, supporters can not only watch the race, but get to hold the tape at the finish line.
Growth in the Number of Yuri Manga Titles over Time (RPubs, Frank Hecker)
A dataset and charts calculating publication numbers over the years.
The accuracy of the dataset, and thus of the analysis, depends on the following factors:
whether the source of the data has entries for all manga published during the timeframe in question (post-World War 2);
whether the search properly excluded all works that are not manga in the strict definition of the term (i.e., comics created by Japanese artists and writers and published in Japan in the traditional manga format), and did not exclude any actual manga by mistake; and
whether the search captured all manga with significant yuri content, and excluded manga lacking yuri content or with only incidental yuri content.
In particular, the source of the data uses a scheme devised by Western fans in which the tag “yuri“ is used to mark works more sexual in nature and the tag “shoujo-ai” is used to mark works focused more on emotional relationships. The tag “GL” should include both of these categories, but I have not confirmed this.
Japan convenience stores filling role as local safety refuges as police presence declines (The Mainichi, Haruka Ito)
The community action struggles with employees not being given training or instructions beyond “protect the individual and notify the police.”
How should stores respond? This past October, the Mainichi Shimbun asked the headquarters of four store chains — 7-Eleven, Lawson, FamilyMart and Hokkaido-based Seicomart — about their current situation and challenges. All four stated that they do not have incident reporting guidelines or emergency response manuals. They instead contended that they respond however possible based on a JFA policy that states, “If a woman who feels she is in danger runs inside looking for help, properly protect her in the store and immediately notify the police.”
Lawson Inc. stated that, to respond appropriately, “A list of emergency contact numbers is posted in store offices and a one-touch security alert system is installed so that all employees can respond in case of emergency.”
While the companies did not establish any concrete measures against interference by a perpetrator, such as allegedly happened in the Asahikawa incident, each said they had by October 2024 held awareness-raising activities at all their stores.
One of the convenience store executives expressed doubt over the meaningfulness of more rules or guidelines, arguing for the importance of thorough awareness and training, saying, “I’m not sure why the staff didn’t report it (in the Asahikawa case), whether because it seemed like a joke, they were busy with regular duties or thought it was too much trouble, or there were other circumstances, but I’m reminded that the most important thing is probably staff awareness of the issues.”
“Mysterious Setting” by Kazushige Abe (Asian Review of Books, Christopher Corker)
The book was originally published in 2006.
Shiori is the young and naïve archetype taken to its extreme. She is continuously misled by the most bare-faced and simplistic of lies. Beneath that maddening obliviousness, however, is a message about how living in such a theater of lies can lead not only to alienation but to a misplaced sense of inward blame and castigation. No one is interested in the “truth” of Shiori’s voice because it makes them feel uncomfortable, and it is to accommodate their discomfiture alone that she self-accuses and self-censors. Like the characters in Natsuko Imamura’s recently translated Asa: The Girl Who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks, Shiori is forced to forsake her own happiness to prevent others feeling ill-at-ease, her true character suppressed by the wrathful pettiness of friends and authority figures.
Peppered with mentions of conflict in the Middle East, bird flu and nuclear anxiety, Mysterious Setting shows how an ongoing stream of misinformation makes its characters feel disempowered and ultimately unable to trust even those who have their interests at heart. In this atmosphere, earnestness becomes unusual enough to be deemed fictional, and only someone as naïve as Shiori can commit fully to what she says. When she does, even those few who are receptive are so warped by the cynicism of the world that they view her heartfelt outpourings as little more than a game. This pervasive societal mistrust limits true human interaction and leads to a world in the novel that Shiori describes as one in which all “amble about, muttering to ourselves”. Those mutterings never interact and therefore never constitute true conversation.
Yoroku: 2025 a year to finally introduce a selective surname system in Japan (The Mainichi)
The issue was initially raised 29 years ago but has been frequently deferred by the LDP.
The two, both medical professionals, married in 2019, and Sato reluctantly agreed to legally change her last name to Nishi upon marriage. At work, her name “Mana Sato” started disappearing, from documents and her name tag. She asked her co-workers to call her by her maiden name, but her boss responded, “Why does it matter so much to you?”
Overcome with stress, Sato felt both physically and mentally ill, and she was diagnosed with adjustment disorder. Though she found her work fulfilling, she had no choice but to leave. If she could have chosen to keep her name, she would not have had to go through such a painful experience. She would have felt happier about her marriage. Her frustration grew.
It was only when Sato told Nishi, “I resent you,” that her husband realized the struggle she was going through. Nine months after filing their marriage, the couple divorced to become common-law partners.
Those who argue for maintaining the current system, in which a married Japanese couple must share the same last name, point to “the sense of unity among family members” as a reason. Some criticize those who do not wish to change their surnames as being “selfish.” However, this is an issue that concerns individual dignity and calls into question human rights awareness.
Yuri Comic Magazine “Galette- Special English Edition02” (Kickstarter)
Backorders are also available on order of the latest volume.
“Galette” is an independent yuri comic magazine that contains yuri from various genres such as manga and illustration. We want to draw a story-oriented romance between girls! We want to deliver high quality yuri constantly! The yuri comic magazine “Galette” was planned by a group of yuri artists who agree with this desire.
Since its first issue in Japan on February 12, 2017, the magazine has been published 4 times a year, and this year marks its 9th anniversary. We are pleased to announce that we are planning a translated version of the magazine so that people overseas can experience Galette’s works! This will be a limited edition version of a selection of Galette’s gems from the past.The main authors are “Milk Morinaga,” “Mera Hakamada,” “Haru Yatosaki,” “Miyuki Yorita,” “Moto Momono,” “Ringo Hamano,” “Izumi Kitta,” “Nekohariko 22.”
We are planning to publish the Japanese and English editions of Galette simultaneously after the project for all seven volumes of the overseas editions is completed. We would very much appreciate your support.
VIDEO: A recovered interview with the late Maddie Blaustein.
VIDEO: A devlog on making a dating sim in 30 days.
AniFem Community
Not the strongest season, but some of its titles absolutely blossomed by the end.
Fall 2024 was an incredible anime season! I cannot recommend Dan Da Dan, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc., and 365 Days to the Wedding enough. There was something for everyone!
— Dr. Adeene Denton (@adeenedenton.com) January 6, 2025 at 11:13 PM
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DandaDan and Natsume's Book of Friends for full series, though One Piece Fan Letter and Look Back were my favorite anime from the season otherwise.
— Cris (they/them) (@catterbu.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 2:58 PM
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