Weekly Round-Up, 10-16 February 2021: 90s BL, CLAMP’s Impact, and Isekai Exhaustion

AniFem Round-Up

 Blue Flag vs. Our Dreams at Dusk: A look at LGBTQ+ representation and its audience

Kaye Scheidler compares two manga about queer teens and how marketing assumptions shape the story’s contents.

You Don’t Have to Kick Ass to Be Kickass: Shoujo fantasy and the value of the noncombatant hero

Dee celebrates the importance of heroes across genders who change the world without throwing a punch.

Chatty AF 134: Yuri Manga Variety Hour

Alex, Mercedez, and Vrai talk about some of their favorite modern yuri titles.

What’s your favorite niche or obscure series to share with others?

Gatekeeping is bullshit; let’s share what we love instead.

Beyond AniFem

Bilibili Faces Brands Boycott Sparked by Accusations of Misogyny Ahead of Hong Kong Share Listing (Variety, Rebecca Davis)

Users, particularly women, spoke up in the wake of Bilibili airing Mushoku Tensei, which it marketed as being appropriate for teens.

Among the first to criticize the show was one of the site’s top live-streamers, an influential content creator known as LexBurner with more than nine million followers. In a widely viewed rant on Feb. 1, he said the Japanese series could only appeal to “lowlifes in society” dissatisfied with their lives, who enjoy the idea of an alternate reality where life is easy and their sexual yearnings fulfilled.

As criticism of the show mounted, Bilibili on Sunday pulled its four existing episodes and stopped the release of a fifth. The show’s page now states the content is unavailable for “technical reasons,” a common euphemism for censorship.

But after the show’s many fans complained en masse to Bilibili that they found LexBurner’s commentary condescending and insulting, the site also banned his account on Monday, explaining in a statement that he had “made many inappropriate comments during live-streaming” and “violated the relevant rules of Bilibili’s community.” Although LexBurner has since issued an apology, the site is now suing him for violating his content-creation contract.

Meanwhile, a vocal group of female users have galvanized around the moment to accuse the platform of broader sexism in its tolerance for misogynistic and sexually suggestive content, in addition to having mishandled the “Mushoku Tensei” situation. Local outlet China News reported that the site appears to have shut down many accounts of female users criticizing the show, but not those of male users using similarly strong language.

This push from female users has ultimately been the catalyst that led local brands to cut ties.

Boku no Sexual Harassment – 90s Corn Yaoi (Trash & Treasures, Vrai Kaiser)

Podcast retrospective on the 90s OVA and its influence on genre and fandom.

Yes, the actual name of this anime is either “My Sexual Harassment” or “Boku no Sekuhara,” but we wanted our title to briefly capture the extremely mangled naming convention from the height of this title’s memetic fame. Because anime fandom is, has always been, and will always be an embarrassment. We’re looking at you, “Boku no Hero” people.

For this year’s horny Valentine special, we dove into the infamous yaoi OVA and how its creation in the 90s and popular English-language distribution in the 00s ended up having a ripple effect on how Western fandom conceives of BL even up to today.

VIDEO: Overview of CLAMP’s cross-genre impact on the industry.

VIDEO: Spoiler-free Wonder Egg Priority talk and breakdown of Redo of Healer’s misogyny.

VIDEO: Discussion of gender disparities in modern anime marketing and a case study of Re:Zero.

TWEET: Article about a trans monk who made a LGBTQ+ safe haven.

https://t.co/gj3y3Yhpqi

— Foz Meadows (@fozmeadows) February 11, 2021

THREAD: Sexist Olympic committee head Mori replaced with racist guy Kawabuchi Saburo.

Old sexist man resigns. Replaced by a second, slightly older man https://t.co/fGBa0TXVKN

— Andrew Kiya 🌳 (@wouldhaus) February 11, 2021

THREAD: Discussion of anti-Korean hate speech in the wake of the recent 7.0 earthquake.

Yu Miri @yu_miri_0622, author of Tokyo Ueno Station, points to anti-Korean hate speech on Twitter right after a huge 7.0 earthquake in Japan: claims that Koreans put poison into wells, they're thieves, celebrating, etc. This is a form of hate in some ways unique to Japan. https://t.co/v26LpXdO64

— Grace Ting グレイス・ティン 丁恩宜 (@graceting) February 13, 2021

TWEET: Comparison of a hololive concert from 2016 and identical choreography from a 2015 online video.

It's feels kinda dehumanizing to see that our work was good enough to be used, but we ourselves aren't worth being credited https://t.co/7aHWByM0cc

— Ari 。@ Ari。Ki (@Arimaasu) February 11, 2021

TWEET: Neat news that all the actors in Horimiya’s dub cast are POC.

The main dub cast of #Horimiya is entirely POC, actually! A couple of us are mixed but all POC. 🙂 I think our minor characters and walla groups are POC or majority POC, too. https://t.co/huAyAdTS7x

— Anairis Quiñones – 🥚time?? (@anairis_q) February 14, 2021

AniFem Community

There are lots of cool suggestions from folks if you’re looking for new things to watch.

Kino's Journey (2003+2017) We stan a nonbinary protag & talking motorcycle on their ventures across countries pic.twitter.com/dbG4rHZ7CC

— ✨Ky✨ genshin hell (@garou_anime) February 16, 2021

Fune wo Amu! (AKA The Great Passage.) A-plus voice cast AND it’s all about the joys and hardships of being a dictionary publisher. What’s not to love? https://t.co/pFyj8R30un

— Stacy Dickerman (@linguajinks) February 16, 2021

Kaiba is an anticapitalist fable about a dystopian future where you can transfer your consciousness and memories to different bodies leading to the exploitation and abuse of the poor. https://t.co/VaSsOkgTde

— unemployed educated person, a millenial, basically (@nopalcartoons) February 16, 2021