ANIME FEMINIST - Japanese pop culture through a feminist lens

Power, Oppression, and Victimhood in The Twelve Kingdoms versus The Rising of the Shield Hero

Versus

While their first arcs run largely parallel to each other, Shield Hero’s themes of revenge and victimhood undercut any room for growth, while Twelve Kingdoms uses almost identical story elements to explore the nature of power and oppression and push its protagonist towards positive change.

Ranma 1/2 and the Anything-Goes School of Accidental Trans Narrative

Perspectives

While Ranma 1/2 is officially the story of a cis boy dealing with a body-morphing curse, the series also accidentally provides a resonant allegory for transmasculine identity.