AniFem Round-Up
Classmates and finding the humanity in clichés
Nakamura uses the reader’s familiarity with genre conventions to build a framework for a humanistic, multifaceted story about queer intimacy, connection, and joy.
All of our premiere reviews in one easy-to-find place, plus some updates on subsequent episodes!
What anime have you had to work hardest to track down?
There are plenty of near or totally lost titles, depending on where you live.
Beyond AniFem
Frustrated by Japan’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban, LGBTQ Couples Opt for ‘Photo Weddings’ (US News, Kim Kyung-Hoon and Satoshi Sugiyama)
The existing partnership system, while a step forward in some ways, doesn’t guarantee the full protections of legal marriage.
Established in 2015, Onestyle offers photo weddings for more than 2,000 couples a year, and up to 5% of them are people identifying as LGBTQ, founder Natsue Ikeda said.
“The photos will be our treasure,” said a 32-year-old female graphic designer who took photos with her partner, a 33-year-old transgender man, at Onestyle’s Tokyo studio in August last year.
“Even if we get hurt by online comments every day, we’d feel our lives would be alright because we’ve already got our photos taken,” she added.
Even though some opinion polls show the majority of respondents support same-sex marriage being legalised, there is a clear generational difference in views.
A Fuji TV survey last year showed 91.4% of respondents in their late teens and 20s were in favour of same-sex marriage, whereas less than half of those aged 70 or older endorsed it.
“My mother told me she would want me to date a man and have a baby,” said a 27-year-old genderqueer office worker who held a wedding shoot at a traditional garden in Yokohama in March with their partner, a 31-year-old female nurse.
Kuroyanagi Tetsuko: Japan’s Queen of TV Talent (Unseen Japan, Ebony Brown)
Kuroyanagi pioneered a new kind of persona for women on television.
While her television legacy is undeniably impressive, Kuroyanagi is also widely known for her philanthropy.
In 1984 she became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, the first person in Asia to be appointed to that position. She has spent time visiting war-torn countries in Africa and Europe, highlighting the suffering of children in these areas. Her own experiences with war and its devastation give her a deep understanding of their situation.
Kuroyanagi has personally pushed to have the wars in Ukraine and Gaza featured on Japanese television. She also recently quietly donated her private funds to help with humanitarian aid in Gaza.
A pioneering woman in entertainment, celebrated author, and humanitarian, her first love remains television. She has said she hopes to be on air until she is 100 to serve as an inspiration to the aging population of Japan.
If anyone can pull it off, it’s Kuroyanagi Tetsuko.
Condom ruling called ‘landmark’ in setting terms of consensual sex (The Asahi Shimbun, Issei Yamamoto)
This issue is especially important given that abortions are difficult to access and prohibitively expensive in Japan.
In its ruling, the court noted that “the physical and emotional burden of pregnancy is great, and it is incurred only by the woman.”
“Even if the woman consents to sexual intercourse, if the man continues the act without complying with her request for contraception, it violates her right to sexual self-determination,” the court added.
It noted that the man satisfied his sexual desires but ignored the woman’s feelings, and told the woman “it is your own fault” that she got pregnant.
The court ordered the man to pay damages and other fees.
“It is obvious that sexual intercourse without consent constitutes an illegal act, but it is difficult for (a woman) to strongly object to her partner’s refusal to use contraception when she is emotionally involved with the partner,” defense lawyer Daisuke Mukai said. “Unfortunately, many women do not take such cases to court.”
Mukai said the decision “opens the way for those who would otherwise cry themselves to sleep to recover from the damage” they faced.
Juri Yukita, a lawyer who has worked for many years in the defense of women’s rights, praised the decision and called it “groundbreaking because it recognizes independent and different rights for sexual intercourse itself and for contraceptive consent.”
Violence Chose Us: Chainsaw Man and the Horrible Beauty of Modern Adolescence (Reactor, Leah Thomas)
On the series’ appeal for a Gen Z audience.
None of these characters know how to live a life that isn’t transactional. We’ve gone over the things Denji will do to protect a future that features strawberry jam; Aki gave up the bulk of his lifespan to enlist the power of the curse devil. On a more mundane level, the devil hunter Himeno tells Denji that she will help him get with Makima if he helps her get with Aki.
In a world so chaotic, making deals makes a lot of sense. We learn that when a devil makes a contract, they cannot break it, lest they die. Only contractual agreements have a tangible sense of power in this world, and so many people feel powerless. These characters can only hope that making contracts in place of friendships will mean those connections can’t be broken.
Interestingly, this contract-based society also ties inextricably to an underlying respect for consent. Power tells Denji he can touch her boobs if he rescues her cat. He never once considers that he could touch them otherwise, and the show never once presents nonconsensual interactions as a possibility. This idea reinforces the notion that not only does Denji retain his humanity, but also that even in this devil-ridden world, some things are sacred. Consent being among them is, frankly, refreshing, especially given how often other shows have made a joke of the concept.
5 sex crimes tied to U.S. troops outside Okinawa also kept secret (The Asahi Shimbun)
An American soldier has been accused of sexually assaulting an underage Okinawan girl; 166 similar cases have been investigated since 1989. Articles include description of sexual assault.
In each of the five cases, prefectural police did not inform the prefectural government, citing “consideration for the privacy of the victims.”
Of the five cases, three that occurred in Kanagawa and Yamaguchi prefectures were subsequently dropped, prefectural police said.
Under a 1997 agreement, information about U.S. military-related incidents and accidents is supposed to be channeled through central and local government agencies so that it is “immediately provided to the local community” concerned.
However, a series of undisclosed incidents uncovered in Okinawa Prefecture since last month shows that this system did not function properly.
Earlier this month, the central government formally announced it will share information with Okinawa Prefecture in the future about sex crimes involving U.S. service personnel, even if they are not publicized by investigative authorities.
It is not just Okinawa that has been kept out of the loop. In each of the five cases, too, there was no communication from government agencies to local governments.
Crunchyroll Silences Their Viewers (Anime News Network, Lucas DeRuyter and Steve Jones)
As of the most recent update, the website no longer has a comment section.
Lucas: This is why all platforms need rock-solid moderation policies and tools, though. Even if this homophobic bombardment wasn’t actually the straw that broke the camel’s back re: CR’s comment section, it ruined what fun people could have there and made people not want to contribute. A lot of people think that rules get in the way of people having fun online or in IRL spaces, but they’re actually vital to keeping the vibes right and disincentivizing bad behavior.
Steve: Exactly! Without basic rules and moderation, it is way too easy for a small number of bad actors to completely corrode a place. And Twilight Out of Focus was far from the only show to suffer homophobic comments throughout Crunchyroll history. I’d be curious to hear why the bigwigs suddenly decided that enough was enough, although I doubt we’ll ever get a statement beyond their aforementioned canned one.
Lucas: Yeah, did people lose their jobs over this or are they now in the process of being transferred to a different department? I know the CR comments section didn’t have a ton of activity, but someone had to have been on the hook for moderating/maintaining that feature. This decision also speaks to the fact that most streaming companies style themselves as tech companies rather than media companies, and that space has been defined lately by mass reductions in roles that interact with userbase.
You’re right, though. I can’t think of many industries that are great about transparency, but the anime industry DEFINITELY isn’t one of them and these questions will likely go unanswered.
VIDEO: Making a historically accurate MaoMao costume.
VIDEO: Avu-chan from QUEEN BEE Interview.
VIDEO: Frieren, Delicious in Dungeon, and Witch Hat Atelier reinvigorating the fantasy genre.
TWEET: Rogue mascot Chiitan comes out as nonbinary.
Yes! Transgender people are my precious family and I love them with the bottom of my heart.
— ちぃたん☆／Chiitan (@chiitan7407) July 19, 2024
Transgender people are less accepted in Japan than in the US, and people may look strange when they declare their identity, but I don't mind.
It's a small thing like people saying bad… pic.twitter.com/VgLlAqYo26
AniFem Community
Good to remember these stories as streaming licensing continues to deteriorate.
Sally the Witch (1966). I found raws, but no english subtitles past several episodes. Thus, I have started learning Japanese…— Cris (they/them) (@catterbu.bsky.social) Jul 23, 2024 at 12:41 PM
The one that required the most work to enjoy was easily Hareluya II BØY, a decade ago. Low quality Chinese TV rips w/ burned in Chinese subs, every ep’s audio desynced & required me to fix before I could even watch, two eps only had Chinese audio, & the final ep’s post-credits scene was missing.
[image or embed]— George J. Horvath (@landofobscusion.bsky.social) Jul 23, 2024 at 2:20 PM
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