AniFem Round-Up
Ito’s work is now Oscar nominated alongside numerous other awards. We spoke with her about her work, harassment, and battling Japan’s legal system.
Good Soil Makes a Good Crop: The Story of Saiunkoku and the myth of meritocracy
Saiunkoku (or Colourcloud Palace) is a must-see for Apothecary Diaries fans—a shoujo title about a young woman struggling to find a place in the face of systemic misogyny.
What excellent female character deserves to be in a better series?
We’ve all got at least one of her in our hearts.
Beyond AniFem
Japan Oscar-nominated film to be reedited amid legal concerns (The Mainichi)
The Black Box Diaries will be edited to remove the footage in question.
“I sincerely apologize for causing harm,” Ito said in a statement released through the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan on Thursday, where she was scheduled to hold a press conference on her film but canceled due to feeling unwell.
Ito admitted that she used security camera footage at the hotel she was dragged into by the alleged assailant, a former television reporter, even though it was provided solely for use in the trial.
She also used a phone recording of a conversation with one of the former lawyers, as well as footage of conversations with a taxi driver and a detective, without getting approval from the relevant parties for the film.
“In the latest version, all efforts have been made to ensure that individuals cannot be identified. I will do everything I can to make the necessary changes for future screenings abroad,” she added.
Known as a symbol of Japan’s #MeToo movement after going public with the high-profile rape case, Ito became the first Japanese director to be nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature film.
The documentary is based on her investigative reporting detailing the 2015 incident.
At a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday, the lawyers questioned whether foreign distributers were aware of the film having legal problems and whether the human rights and ethical issues were considered in its evaluation.
Ito said in the statement that in seeking to prioritize the public interest, she decided to go ahead with using part of the unauthorized material, believing it “essential” to conveying the reality of sexual violence and “the only visual proof.”
Angelique Special: A monumentally important game that’s consistently overlooked (Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster)
Angelique is arguably the first otome game and well worth remembering, though the licensing cost of its prestigious voice cast means we’ll likely never see it overseas.
The version I’m looking at today is Angelique Special, a remake of the original released on the Saturn, PS1, PC-FX, and PC. It’s got a few new events as well as the obligatory ’90s CD extras—animated cutscenes and voiced dialogue (with neither actually showing up as often as I expected them to)—but is otherwise the same as the original. It’s worth noting that this appears to have been treated as the official first game experience going forwards, as the sequel was only ever called Angelique Special 2.
Wherever the game’s played, the core task remains the same. The current Queen of the Universe has selected two candidates—Angelique, the (renameable) protagonist, and Rosalia, her incredibly posh rival—to undertake an important challenge that will decide her successor. Both are given a land to nurture with the assistance of nine divine Guardians, and the victor will be the one able to cause their civilisation to flourish so much it reaches the small central area that joins the two lands together.
As important as becoming the next Queen of the Universe sounds, the stakes couldn’t be lower. Rosalia may be Angelique’s rival but she has no ill intentions and she’s perfectly capable of doing the job she’s aiming for. The universe will be fine either way, and the outcome of any romances I choose to pursue are completely independent of my success in this part of the game. This deliberate lack of responsibility is a wonderful, positive, thing. I don’t have to worry I’ll play all weekend and then find myself falling into an unwinnable situation, hours of work wasted. I don’t need to have a perfect grasp of anything or watch over pages of stats like a hawk. I can just spend my time sitting in a room so pink Barbie would think it was a bit much while a grumpy Guardian tells me how much he dislikes lobster.
‘I won’t forgive him’: Japan baton athlete shares what sexual abuse cost him, what remains (The Mainichi, Reona Mizutani)
Includes graphic discussion of grooming and PTSD. The young athlete’s case is currently pending in the courts.
In the middle of all the pain, the athlete was pushed forward by competitors above him, who offered encouraging comments like “I want to see you pick up the baton one more time,” and “I’d like to compete in a tournament together again.” He resumed practicing the sport sometime around last fall.
A certain teammate got him to go watch the national championships. “When I heard the cheers from the audience, it made me want to be on the receiving end of it once more,” he recalled. His zeal for the sport had returned.
Kojo’s trial is set to begin at the Kyoto District Court on March 24. After his second arrest, he reportedly told investigators, “I won’t say anything.”
“I want him to admit what he did. I don’t care if he apologizes to me. I won’t forgive him,” the athlete said. He does not intend to attend the trial, but hopes the defendant will fully face up to what occurred.
The athlete hasn’t lost his skills. His current goal is to achieve a good score in a competition this month. He feels that the passage of time has helped ease his feelings. “I want to freely enjoy baton (twirling),” he said. His dream now is to someday instruct his own team.
Inscrutable Desires, or, The Heart Wants What It Wants (Tier Review, lotus root)
Heisei Pistol Show, a surreal exploration of mental illness and abuse, is a freeware RPGMaker game originally released in 2008.
Is Heart trans? It’s not really a question with a yes-or-no answer. A moment that sticks out to me is when Heart is referred to by a neighbor with different pronouns, within the same sentence:
He became a different person after leaving the hospital. From then on, he kept his distance from others. And, for a while, he sold her body too. Didn’t even seem to mind it all that much.
While this could be chalked up to a typo or quirk of translation, the question of Heart’s gender identity is one that the game constantly plays with. Another of the listed influences on Heisei Pistol Show is a poem by Hagiwara Sakutaro, whose English translation by Hiroaki Sato is titled “The One Who’s in Love with Love.” The narrator of this poem is a man who laments that he is a man—that his chest bears no “breasts like rubber balls” and his skin lacks the “fragrance of fine-textured powder.” In the latter half of the poem, the narrator transforms himself, rouging his lips, slipping on gloves and “something like a corset.”
The narrator of this poem makes clear that his desire is not simply to be attractive or desired, but to embody a femininity he feels himself lacking. There are obvious parallels between this narrator and Heart, who from a young age fantasizes about becoming a princess and finding a prince to love. It’s true that the princess is a cipher for other things Heart craves: beauty, security, being adored and protected. But these things are inseparable from a certain expression of femininity.
The image that Heart latches on to is not just that of a princess but an idol. He is drawn to the idol, her performance of yearning, her song that brings cheer to its audience. Heart quickly takes on this role of a singer as a way of making his father happy. Singing is a way for Heart to step in as a kind of surrogate for his mother, who also loved to sing. At the same time, he becomes a surrogate for his mother in another way: as a scapegoat for his father’s anger. When his father beats him, he’s also lashing out in response to his wife’s betrayal.
VIDEO: How Princess Tutu is not, in fact, different from other magical girls (and that’s okay).
VIDEO: On Kimi ni Todoke’s portrayal of protagonist anxiety.
VIDEO: Spotlight on Tamara Yumi, the influential artist who remains virtually unknown in English spheres.
VIDEO: Gaming accessibility standards that should become normalized in 2025.
SKEET: Call for papers for The Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures symposium.
THREAD: Matt Moylan, director of Udon Entertainment, is once again saying bigoted things online; this has led to multiple others discussing the marginalized people at the company working to create an inclusive space in spite of him. At time of writing, Moylan is still employed with Udon.
AniFem Community
This is all an excellent reminder of why reading a variety of titles beyond the big Shonen Jump hits is important.
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