The Metamorphosis of the Magical Girl Genre
As the tone in the Madoka series shifted at the end of episode three, so did the tone of the mahou shoujo genre as a whole, leading to a change in demographic focus that’s still being felt today.
History Category
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Daring to Speak its Name: Goodbye, My Rose Garden and the queer historical romance
Set in 1900 England and steeped in references to both the history and literature of the Victorian era, Goodbye, My Rose Garden draws on turn-of-the-century reality and fantasy alike to highlight the intersectional struggles of queer women of the period.
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Introduction to Copaganda in Anime and Manga
Media from all over the globe contains an abundance of pro-law enforcement storylines and themes. Anime and manga are not exempt from this, with some of the most successful franchises in both mediums espousing dangerous, pro-cop social politics. That’s why this piece aims to introduce new and old anime fans to the concept of copaganda, highlight some of the most popular ways the practice appears so that it can be regularly identified, and offer some direction on how fans can still enjoy the mediums in spite of these prevalent themes.
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How racial inequality in From the New World mirrors the Black American struggle
When your cries are constantly dismissed under thinly veiled apologies, it can be hard to feel seen or heard, but that is exactly what happened when I stumbled upon From the New World, the anime adaptation of Kishi Yusuke’s novel by the same name. I ventured into the series expecting a casual sci-fi horror but was instead met with a much deeper allegory for discrimination that paralleled my feelings of being a minority in America.
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Dressed to Kill la Kill: The overlooked power of fashion’s rebellious history
While Kill la Kill was all about clothes and the way commodification objectifies bodies, it missed the opportunity to talk about the rich history of rebellion using fashion. And moreover, it failed to interrogate the real villains running the show.
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Feathers and Glass: How Swan’s heroines find themselves through dance
Swan, which ran in Margaret from 1976 until 1981, follows Hijiri Masumi, an average high school girl from rural Hokkaido, who through the course of the series becomes famous as a modern ballet dancer. One of her key relationships is her friendship and rivalry with Lillianna Maksimova, a Russian classical ballet prodigy. This relationship uplifts them both, as the series uses Lillianna as an avenue to explore just how harmful and restrictive gender roles and expectations can be.
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The queer blood ties of Vampire Princess Miyu
Miyu is born a vampire, and her bite does not seem to turn her victims into other vampires. In Vampire Princess Miyu, blood bonds become not something that transfers a vampiric condition, but something that creates connection. While in some vampire stories it can also forge mythical bonds, the conventional vampire bite crucially also transfers a condition (vampirism). But here, the connections are not accompanied by transformation. Rather than giving you new traits, its only effect is to create a link between yourself and another person.
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The Surprisingly Queer-Friendly Narrative of Cybersix
Japanese animation has found numerous sources of inspiration, from comics and novels to video games and toys, located from both within and outside of its national borders. But when it came to the 90s, few have the unique history, and overwhelming queer vibes , that the anime adaptation of Cybersix does.
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A Swing and a Miss: The mixed-up feminism of Princess Nine
Princess Nine wants to be an empowering lady-led sports anime, but it can’t quite shake off the gendered expectations about what girls “really” want or who society thinks they’re “supposed” to be.
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Youth in Revolt: How the late-80s/early-90s celebrated the young rebelling against their elders
For every manga and anime from the 1980s and 1990s that promoted conformity to society and obeying the rules, there were many others that instead featured delinquents as protagonists and found popularity among readers who inherited an economy pulverized by their parents.
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Reclaiming the Witch Through Magical Girls
There comes a time in every girl’s life where she’s obsessed with one thing: the occult.
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The Transcendent and the Perverse: Sexuality in Apollo’s Song and MW
Tezuka Osamu’s gekiga show some artistic experimentation, but also dig further into his conservative ideas about gender and sexuality, which were more ignorable in titles aimed at wider audiences. Two stories in particular, Apollo’s Song and MW, hammer in how much of his work was steeped in heteronormativity and homophobia.
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FAKE and the Found Family: The ’90s BL cop drama that influenced a genre
FAKE is a BL mystery-drama manga originally published between 1994 and 2000. The dominant emotional line throughout the series is the evolving relationship between detectives Dee and Ryo. However, just as important as the mysteries and the growing romance is the found family that the detectives build and the support it provides them.
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Nonconforming in the ‘90s: How Pokemon’s gender variance caught the hearts of a generation
Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the Pokemon anime. Now, I think I can finally tell you why: why this strange, silly, sincere show mattered. How it filled the space between “boy stuff” and “girl stuff,” treated both as having value, and challenged why there was a division in the first place.
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Shoujo Manga’s Lost Generation
The 1950s and 1960s were a time of incredible change, when a generation of young women emerged to forge many of the conventions and visual language we associate with shoujo manga. That makes it all the more tragic that this period has fallen into obscurity, as time and circumstances threaten to erase it.
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Not with a Bang, but a Letter: How Violet Evergarden rewrites traditional World War I narratives
Violet Evergarden reimagines historical discussion of post-traumatic stress, early 1900s literary tropes, and the popular “war narrative” genre, but with a female child soldier as its protagonist. In its remixing and calling back to World War I history and especially women’s history, the series provides a fresh take on an old tale with a strong undercurrent of feminist themes.
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Every Rose Has Its Thorns: Vilifying female ambition in The Rose of Versailles
As a main character, Oscar is an all-encompassing figure who struggles with gender roles, duty, empathy, and more. But with Marie Antoinette and the women who act as villains, we see a more traditional exploration of female power, ambition, and anger.
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Southeast Asians Not Included: Black Lagoon and the invisible civilians
Sayang. It’s a word in Tagalog that expresses light frustration and disappointment at a missed opportunity, a combination of “so close” and “what a shame” in one word.
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The Tezuka Revue: How an all-woman theatre troupe influenced the Godfather of Manga
Osamu Tezuka is considered one of the most influential artists in the manga and comic industry. But who inspired Tezuka? It’s common knowledge that he was a huge Walt Disney fan, but there’s an influence on Tezuka that isn’t as well known: the Takarazuka Revue.
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From Princes to Pigeons: A Beginner’s Guide to Otome Games
In the world of video games, anything is possible. You can be a cavegirl dating pigeons in a post-apocalyptic romantic dramedy, or someone helping humanized swords fight against historical revisionism, or you could even be a gender-nonconforming barista at a cat cafe. In other words, you could be playing an otome game.
