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Conformity, mob mentality, and intersectionality in Gatchaman Crowds Insight vs. Yurikuma Arashi
Both series, at the surface level, encourage their audiences to be mindful and critical of the ideas they’re asked to buy into as the price of inclusion. However, there is a stark contrast between how these series portray the underlying power dynamics, prejudices, and active malice behind these policies, as well as the particulars of their respective calls to action. This reveals a difference in priorities; where Insight offers vague hope and comfort with no clear call to action, Yurikuma actively aims to elevate marginalized voices.

Versusby Iris Von Gonten July 29, 20220 Comments
“I Can’t Wait Around Anymore”: Civilian women’s agency in My Hero Academia versus Fullmetal Alchemist
The emotional strain a woman experiences in a relationship with someone who’s so often in danger yet doesn’t communicate is rarely treated as a real issue. A woman’s opinion apparently doesn’t count if she’s not involved in combat. In fact, it’s almost implied that she doesn’t count.

Versusby Caitlin Donovan May 6, 20220 Comments
Clothes Make the Guardian: Fashion and femininity in the Sailor Moon franchise
The silhouettes and clothing styles from the original 1990s Sailor Moon anime, as well as the manga, are consistent and intentional. What is feminine becomes something powerful. Unfortunately, this idea doesn’t carry through to much of modern Sailor Moon media. The new adaptations betray the purposeful fashion of the original series in a way that undermines the story’s overall gender commentary.

Versusby Sydney Mae March 4, 20220 Comments
Blue Flag vs. Our Dreams at Dusk: A look at LGBTQ+ representation and its audience
Our Dreams at Dusk and Blue Flag are two series about queer characters, but it’s clear that each is aimed at a different target audience.

Versusby Kaye Scheidler February 10, 20210 Comments
ParaKiss Lost: The reductive adaptation of Paradise Kiss
Paradise Kiss is one of the great josei manga classics, but subsequent versions of the story erode the focus on its lead’s agency that make the original so special, serving as a prime example of how different framings can tell the same plot and lose all of the effectiveness.

Versusby Vrai Kaiser November 6, 20200 Comments
From Tsunade to Mereoleona: Looking for Shonen Jump’s Lady Mentors
Although marketed toward boys, at least one third of Weekly Shonen Jump’s readers are now female. Despite this, Shonen Jump’s female characters remain over-sexualized, helpless, or useless beyond serving a role as the main character’s love interest. The manga and anime world has not yet caught up with the times by creating female characters that are both realistic and sympathetic to their real-world counterparts, and as prominent and important as their male costars. If one in three readers are female, why are female characters still relegated to the sidelines?

Versusby Ivy Rose September 16, 20200 Comments
A Thousand Good Excuses: LGBTQ representation in Gankutsuou vs. The Count of Monte Cristo
If all representation is good representation, then Gankutsuou’s two LGBTQ characters should win out against Dumas’ one. But if we are to examine representation with a more critical eye, it is difficult to conclude that the later reimagining of the story does any more for queer people than does the story as first told some hundred and sixty years before.

Versusby sunnysegons June 12, 20200 Comments
Rage, Mentors, and Rebellions in Classic vs. Modern Sukeban Anime Girls
While old-school sukeban (“boss girls”) anime/manga characters come across as irrational in their anger and resentment toward society (until the very end of their respective series, at least), newer sukeban characters often are more level-headed, using their rebellious spirit to improve their circumstances.

Versusby Athena Zhang Baker March 20, 20200 Comments
Power, Oppression, and Victimhood in The Twelve Kingdoms versus The Rising of the Shield Hero
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.

Versusby Caitlin Moore February 26, 20200 Comments
Decade Apart, Miles Ahead: Lady action heroes in Bubblegum Crisis and Tokyo 2040
Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 aired from 1999-2000, and I have recently discovered that I love it as much today as when I was a preteen girl with a deep hunger for ladies kicking ass.

Versusby Aysha U. Farah August 9, 20190 Comments
Queerness and the Power of “Subtext” in Sound! Euphonium & Liz and the Blue Bird
Sound! Euphonium drew an audience of sapphic women due to the heavily implied romantic relationship between its two leads, but the show ultimately failed to deliver. Years later, however, the spin-off film Liz and the Blue Bird, centered around side characters Nozomi and Mizore, provides audiences with the explicit queer representation many Euphonium viewers found themselves lacking.

Versusby Misty Schultz April 26, 20190 Comments
Cursed with Insecurity: Howl’s Moving Castle in print and film
Released in Japan in 2004, Howl’s Moving Castle remains one of Studio Ghibli’s classic films. But to anyone who was inspired to read the book it’s based on (written by Diana Wynne Jones), the film reads less like an adaptation than a complete reimagining. One of the biggest changes is the character arc of our protagonist, Sophie Hatter.

Versusby Genevieve Hammang December 5, 20180 Comments
Trauma or Titillation? Perspective and assault in Belladonna of Sadness and Perfect Blue
Belladonna of Sadness and Perfect Blue are films that carry a lot of clout among anime fans and connoisseurs. It’s well-earned, as they are artistic powerhouses. They’re also very concerned with violent trauma being visited on their female main characters.

Versusby Molly Brenan November 23, 20180 Comments
Dissonant at its Soul: Sexual objectification in Soul Eater
The Soul Eater prologue chapters lean heavily into the ecchi tradition, sexually objectifying the female protagonists both in dialogue and visual representation. One of the notable differences between the manga and anime adaptation is the reduction of sexualized framing, allowing viewers to consider the necessity of “fanservice” in the first place.

Versusby L.M. Brents November 14, 20180 Comments
How Gokusen’s gangster heroine was softened from page to screen
As Gokusen was told and retold in other forms of media, its sheer audacity was intentionally dismantled and sterilized. Despite being a hardened gangster in the manga, protagonist Yankumi was stripped almost entirely of her gangster characteristics when translated to J-Drama.

Versusby K. Vasquez-Braun October 17, 20180 Comments
Commentary vs. Snuff: Sex, violence, and despair in Danganronpa
Throughout visual culture all over the world, sex and violence against women are constantly intermingled.

Versusby Caitlin Moore August 10, 20180 Comments
From Yandere Girlfriends to Social Anxiety: Handling mental illness in The Future Diary and A Silent Voice
Mental illness is a part of life for many people, yet it’s still a taboo topic that has a lot of stigma attached to it. Often times in fiction it’s portrayed through a “crazy” person, and there haven’t really been a lot of realistic discussions about it. Anime is no exception.

Versusby Angely Mercado June 27, 20180 Comments
Cardcaptor Sakura and the Stagnant LGBTQ Representation
While the currently airing sequel, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card was created roughly twenty years after the original series, it so far seems less actively progressive than its predecessor. Specifically, it’s missing the original’s focus on explicitly representing LGBTQ characters as well as the way it sensitively portrayed their lives and emotions.

Versusby Geordi Demorest May 11, 20180 Comments
Cozy Campfires, Bitter Broth: Female Relationships in Laid-Back Camp and Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles
In Laid-Back Camp, the main characters’ relationship develops over the course of the series becomes a rewarding story about female closeness; Ms. Koizumi, on the other hand, sticks to the status quo established in its premiere, which creates a stale and repetitive story that perpetuates negative tropes about queer women.

Versusby Alex Henderson May 4, 20180 Comments
After the Rain, Ristorante Paradiso, and the delicate art of the age-gap romance
Through its premise, dialogue, and visual language, Ristorante Paradiso is a story that’s clearly told from its female protagonist’s perspective and directed at a female audience. After the Rain, on the other hand, seems mostly directed at the (straight) adult men its seinen magazine is so obviously targeting.

Versusby Dee March 9, 20180 Comments