AniFem Round-Up
Lolita and Rock n’ Roll: An interview with Aisya of Strawberry Quartz
Aisya is a “construction worker by day, princess by night” who champions inclusivity in lolita and often works with BABY the STARS SHINE BRIGHT, who used GNC models in their most recent show.
2024 Summer Three-Episode Check-In
Peeking in on some of the most interesting shows of the season so far–and boy, have we got some mess, good and bad.
Can we offer you some hot dads in this trying time.
What series do you automatically associate with its dub?
In honor of Rachael Lillis, who passed far too soon.
Beyond AniFem
Over 80% in Japan morning-after pill sales trial want to buy without prescription: report (The Mainichi, Ayaka Kondo)
Currently the pill requires a prescription and costs between 7000 and 9000 yen.
The Japan Pharmaceutical Association was entrusted with the trial sale by the health ministry, and it began at the end of November 2023 at 145 pharmacies. There are between two and six participating pharmacies in each prefecture, each of which must have one or more pharmacists trained in dispensing the products, be able to fulfil requests at night or over weekends, have private rooms for consultations, and be able to work with a nearby obstetrics and gynecology clinic or department. The trial has been available for women at least 16 years old, with parental consent and accompaniment required for 16- and 17-year-olds.
According to a survey project report released by the health ministry this past May, the actual number of cases where pills were sold from Nov. 28, 2023, to Jan. 31 of this year was 2,181. The most were sold in metropolitan Tokyo, with 266 cases, followed by 231 in Kanagawa Prefecture and 169 in Osaka Prefecture. There were five prefectures, including Yamaguchi and Yamagata, where sales totaled fewer than 10.
Surveys of purchasers were conducted right after using the drug and three to five weeks later. The first survey had 1,634 respondents and the second had 1,063. A total of 82.2% said if they needed to take emergency contraceptives again, they wished to skip going to the doctor and buy them at pharmacies without prescriptions. A health ministry official said, “We confirmed that there is a certain level of demand.”
Regarding the consultations with pharmacists, 91.8% of respondents felt “very satisfied,” while 84.8% said the same of the attention paid to their privacy. Moreover, 99.8% said they understood the pharmacists’ explanations well.
On the other hand, just 38.4% said they were very satisfied with the pricing, showing that many felt the contraceptives were too expensive.
The Boyfriend Shines In The Shadow Of Terrace House (Aftermath, Luke Plunkett)
Terrace House was cancelled due to its culpability in participant Kimura Hana’s death to suicide.
This show’s marketing has been very careful with how it pitches the program. It has rightly been hailed as a triumph of inclusivity in its native Japan, as it’s the first ever gay dating show to air in the country, and the way it’s able to depict same-sex relationships as something totally normal and not some exotic spectacle is a triumph of both its setup and its production. The Boyfriend has been sold as a pioneering dating show, which in one way is exactly what it is, and has been a huge success as a result.
But let’s be real: as you could probably tell just by watching the trailer above, this is Terrace House rebranded. This is the successor show fans have been waiting years for. Just like Terrace House, The Boyfriend is about a group of singles tossed into a fancy AirBnB, where they have to juggle work and play, form friendships, find love and be on camera the whole time they’re doing it. The events are even narrated by a studio panel, which–in case you were still on the fence after everything I just described–includes Terrace House veteran Yoshimi Tokui.
Yet for all its similarities, The Boyfriend also has some key differences that were surely implemented to avoid the show repeating Terrace House’s mistakes. Its stars were only thrown into a house for a month, not months. There were less people in the house, everybody was given their own private bedroom, drinking appeared to be far less common and most plotlines seemed to be driven out in the open instead of behind the scenes, since stars were repeatedly sent out on work assignments (basically day-long dates) together, and were filmed the entire time.
The Staying Power of the Monogatari Series (Anime News Network, Christopher Farris and Steve Jones)
Includes discussion of the most recent series, the franchise’s first with a female director.
Chris: Wait, a novel-based anime, which became a huge hit in its era, emblematic of its medium and genre, largely controversial because of its divisive protagonist? Monogatari really was the Mushoku Tensei of its time.
I’m pretty cool with Araryagi myself. To me, he hits right on the sweet spot of being a relatable cringe high-schooler, prone to moments of incredibly poor, but incredibly hilarious, judgment. Honestly, even his seemingly worst moments of perversion come off more like him doing bits that he just winds up taking too far. And lord knows he suffers plenty for it all.
Steve: You know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to respect the presence of bits more. I think it also helps that the narrative is heavily and increasingly invested in dunking on Arararararagi’s flaws, both in jokey and serious ways. And lest I let that Mushoku Tensei comment pass, however tongue-in-cheek it might have been, the comparison disintegrates when you compare the female casts in both series. Monogatari legit has maybe my favorite collection of women in the animesphere? They’re all so inspiring.
Chris: It’s debatable whether Monogatari is or ever was a “harem” series. Regardless, this group of girls stands out from other gaggles due to how fully formed they emerge, and then keep on going. Sure, they’ve all got their own reliably repeated defining character tics. Say the line, Hanekawa:
But even though the narratives ostensibly start with Araragi at the nexus of solving these girl problems, Monogatari‘s writing, pretty much from the beginning, is solidly insistent about them ultimately being the ones to save themselves. That kind of forward character motion propels them to further progress after their introductory arcs are up.Steve: That’s why, as much as I like Bakemonogatari, I think it ends up being the weakest collection of stories due to its focus on simpler introductory arcs. The true joy of this franchise lies in all of the character developments and interactions beyond that. And that’s why Nisemonogatari is where the series starts fulfilling its potential. The toothbrush incest is merely incidental. You find the real meat in the long stretches of dialogue that peel back more of these characters’ souls.
Japan Train Molester Arrested After Climbing “Unclimbable” Fence (Unseen Japan, Francesca Annio)
While recent changes to the legal definitions for sexual assault are positive, change is slow in coming.
These figures were confirmed in February by a nationwide Cabinet Office survey. Among 3,804 young respondents, a shocking 10% reported being victims. Even worse, a staggering 80% didn’t report it to the police, most because they didn’t want to ‘make a big deal out of it.’
The 2024 survey revealed that train stations are the most frequent site for molestation, with 62.8% of incidents occurring there. The Saitama Police Railway Unit flagged the Musashino Line as having the highest number of groping reports in 2023. While this doesn’t alter the societal roots of harassment, it does show that crowded places provide more opportunities for offenders to act.
The reality is that it’s not so straightforward, even when victims find the courage to speak up. So, if a victim does come forward, what happens next?
The “best-case scenario” is if the molestation is caught in the act. In that situation, bystanders can arrest the perpetrator on the spot, even without a warrant. This means the offender can be detained and handed over to the police right away, without needing extra evidence.
The trouble starts when an arrest can’t be made immediately. Even if harassment is confirmed through victim reports and surveillance footage, an arrest warrant often needs more evidence—like witness accounts, extra footage, or fibers from the victim’s clothing. This process can be intimidating, and the added pressure might make some victims hesitate to come forward.
Chieko Aoki, a lawyer for molestation victims who has faced it herself, recounted the ordeal vividly in an interview with Sankei Shimbun. In October 2020, after being groped on a train, she courageously tried to drag her attacker to justice. Still in shock and injured from the man’s escape, she had to hand over her underwear as evidence. Aoki vividly remembers the intense unease and anxiety she felt during that moment.
Stalker registers marriage with her male victim, difficult to annul (The Asahi Shimbun, Takae Kumagai)
The victim only discovered the marriage when his stalker announced it online.
Divorce expert Mari Takahashi, a lawyer and former prosecutor with the Daini Tokyo Bar Association, acknowledges that marriages are relatively frequently registered with one party unaware of it.
She said it is done for a range of reasons, including when someone tries to change their identity.
“Those blacklisted due to having debts try to change their names, so as to take out fresh loans,” she said.
Takahashi said local governments will approve any application that superficially meets requirements, as they have no way to determine whether the entries were falsified.
If a single individual files a marriage application and it is accepted, a letter is mailed to the absent spouse. Takahashi said many victims only find out about their situation after receiving this document.
When a case goes to court, the perpetrator’s background and motivation tends to come to light. This reduces a recurrence.
However, finding a perpetrator guilty does not automatically nullify the marriage.
Extra decisions or rulings are needed to correct entries on the family register, so that legal ties can officially be dissolved. This process takes several months at least, Takahashi said.
Asylum seekers on provisional release facing poverty in Japan (The Mainichi, Tomomi Akasaka)
Currently there are roughly 4,000 detainees living under these harsh circumstances.
A revised immigration law that took effect in June limits the number of times foreign nationals can apply for asylum but allows them to reside elsewhere than immigration facilities, following several deaths of illegal immigrants during long-term incarceration.
But the revised measures have drawn criticism from legal experts, who say they raise human rights concerns as they leave asylum seekers without necessary assistance for living outside the facilities.
“My medical expenses have increased by hundreds of times, and I have no prospect of knowing when I can pay them,” a Pakistani man in his 50s from Saitama Prefecture said at a free health examination conducted by a nonprofit organization in Gunma Prefecture in June.
He and his family are on provisional release after his request for refugee status was turned down in November. As his residency status was retracted, he cannot work and has been charged in full for his medical expenses to treat a severe chronic disease he suffers from.
Maybe It Should Be Illegal To Instantly Delete A Website’s Archives (Aftermath, Luke Plunkett)
We might be in a terrifying era of record obliteration, actually.
In the 21 years Game Informer’s website was open–and this was a magazine that was once the centre of the video game media landscape thanks to its lavish reveal stories and covers–do you know how many other websites linked to its posts? How many Wikipedia pages, how many reports on the pages of peers and competitors, how many forums, emails, tweets and Facebook posts? It must be countless.
Game Informer’s posts–and the links pointing to them–are the bedrock of our modern, online history. So much of the internet is built around clicking one thing to be taken to another, links piled atop decades of older links, that it’s become part of our subconscious user experience, as second-nature to being online as putting one foot in front of the other is to walking down the street. But that clicking only works when there’s something to click to.
In tearing down Game Informer’s website, GameStop has torn the nervous system out of a huge part of gaming media’s dying body. You now can’t read any old Game Informer posts, and most of the old links pointing towards them don’t work anymore. Where Game Informer once stood there’s now nothing but a gaping black hole, with torn wires hanging around its edges. Were it not for the Internet Archive (and Wikipedia editors’ herculean efforts in substituting its links with archived substitutes) salvaging some old stories and links, it would be as though the site had never existed in the first place.
Japanese Indie Otome You Can Play in English (Blerdy Otome, Naja)
A list of available and upcoming titles with English translations.
In the last few years otome games have been booming in the West, with tons of great titles making their English language debut! We’ve gone from one or two games to year to 10 or more! It’s truly a great time to be an otome gamer. But, with all the big name titles from Otomate and Broccoli making their way to the West, it’s easy to miss out on some of the smaller indie Japanese otome releases!
These quirky, fun, and short otome titles are just as enjoyable if not more so than their mainstream counterparts. So, I wanted to spotlight a few of the Japanese indie otome games that are available in English!
VIDEO: Watase Yuu’s monumental impact and importance, and the struggles that contributed to her long absence.
VIDEO: Slogging through Rent-A-Girlfriend for charity.
AniFem Community
It’s very cool to see so many suggestions, all from different eras.
Baccano! A series set in prohibition-era America lands so much better when you have the regional American accents, and Joel McDonald’s delivery of “IT’S THE RAIL TRACAH!” will stay in my mind until my death.
[image or embed]— Buggy (@rebuggy.bsky.social) Aug 13, 2024 at 11:30 AM
Basically started my anime journey on dubs because they’d be on TV like Pokemon and Cardcaptor Sakura, and family would buy me DVDs from China which could be in Cantonese dub (FMA, Hamtaro, Futari wa Pretty Cure). I guess I watched CCS and Pokemon in EN and Cantonese dub.
[image or embed]— 猫猫茶 (@nekotea.bsky.social) Aug 13, 2024 at 10:13 AM
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