2023 Summer Premiere Digest
While it can’t match spring’s bounty, summer has a few gems to offer.
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2023 Summer Premiere Reviews
All the summer premiere reviews in one easy-to-find place. We’ll update the chart as more series become available, so be sure to check back in the coming days for more!
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Working Out the Kinks: Deconstructing gendered expectations of sex in Ladies On Top
NEJIGANAMETA’s manga Ladies On Top is a cute, sexy josei romcom about the crushing pressures of heteronormative gender roles. I know, the emotional trauma inflicted by society’s narrow expectations about acceptable masculinity, femininity, and sexual desire doesn’t sound very cute or sexy, but trust me when I say Ladies On Top weaves these themes together effectively with its fluffy romance.
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Killin’ ‘Em With Kindness: The radical compassion of Kamado Tanjiro within the modern shounen landscape
Tanjiro’s got that moralistic determination trait/defect common in many of my Shounen Sons (™), but what makes him different is a clear and consistent decision to choose kindness toward others, with a pang of deep sadness and forgiveness that outlines it. When holding it up against the other leading boys in the same genre, this particular “brand of nice” feels different. But what is the difference in Tanjiro’s “nice” compared to other shounen protagonists—and why isn’t it more common?
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Akane-Banashi: Writing women protagonists using Battle Shounen tropes
Akane-Banashi, a manga about a young woman coming into prominence in the world of Rakugo, has one of the farthest possible premises from the shounen standard, and yet it uses the tropes of shounen effectively to convey the emotional stakes of the story.
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She Has Two Hands! Room For non-monogamous love in yuri
Yuri and the wider GL community has an increasing reach that seems to be growing each year, and it’s worth examining the ways in which the increased variety of yuri stories are representing different kinds of love and relationships. Love can be so many different things, after all, and it’s gratifying when fiction reflects that—not to mention how it opens new possibilities for storytelling and discussions of relationship dynamics.
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Sins of Her Fathers, Strength of Her Mothers: How Jolyne Cujoh inherited her foremothers’ legacy
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure presents a very different attitude from the common story of patriarchal family lines. Not only does the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure conclude with Jolyne, the first female protagonist of the saga, but it’s clear that her very survival hinges on traits she inherited from her female predecessors.
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Kiki’s Delivery Service: An empowering coming-of-age tale of self-discovery
More than three decades after its release, this sweet coming-of-age tale has not lost any of its charms, using its magical elements and the symbolism of the witch to weave a gentle but powerful story of female community and independence.
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2023 Spring Three-Episode Check-In
It’s a lovely season for surprises, mess, and surprisingly compelling mess.
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2023 Spring Premiere Digest
This is a season of meteoric highs and nightmare lows.
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2023 Spring Premiere Reviews
All the spring premiere reviews in one easy-to-find place. We’ll update the chart as more series become available, so be sure to check back in the coming days for more! Check out our merch store for shirts, stickers, and more! Use the code SPRING23 to get 10% off your entire order.
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Ugly Things Cannot Be Loved: Penguindrum and the dilemma of Yuri
Yuri’s assault on Ringo is emblematic of how the tensions and arguable flaws in Penguindrum point to larger tensions and unresolved questions in our movements for transformative justice, abolition, and queer liberation.
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The Infantilization and Sexualization of Inoue Orihime in Bleach
Even as someone who loved the show in the past, I’ve found myself becoming more of an onlooker these days. I suppose it’s because I can no longer keep from opening Pandora’s box and exploring the problematic traits of Inoue Orihime, a character whose screen time grows in line with the misogyny of her portrayal.
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What we can learn about labor organization from Akiba Maid War
While not comprehensive, Episode 4 perfectly captures many of the tactics corporations use to suppress their workers. Of course, the challenging relationship these characters already have with labor organizations as sensationalized mobsters further complicates the themes of this episode, but the pro-union sentiment of this zany plotline deserves analysis.
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Subverting masculine expectations and complicating the male gaze in My Dress-Up Darling
While still tangled in fan service and horny comedy, My Dress-Up Darling’s depictions of masculinity and the sexualization of its female characters are typically leaps and bounds above many of its genre counterparts.
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How Otherside Picnic masterfully uses horror to explore abuse and show healing queer love
Otherside Picnic makes a wonderful addition to the canon by centering queer love and examining how survivors of abusive relationships can heal from their pain and trauma in order to move onto healthier relationships.
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Two Clever Princesses, Two Feminist Fairy Tales: The Clever Princess vs Princess Arete
Both interpretations of Arete’s tale are valuable works rich with feminist themes, and looking at the different ways the different versions play them out gives insight into the potential strengths that different tones and narrative structures can hold.
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The Transient Queerness of Fruits Basket
This show makes me laugh, it makes me cry, but more than anything, it makes me hope. It makes me hope that no matter how bad things get, there will always be a second chance waiting just around the corner. Even two decades after the original manga began publishing, it shines just as brightly. But I’m not here to talk about how much I love Fruits Basket. Today, I’m here to explore one of its most under-discussed problems: its portrayal of queerness.
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Remixing Expectations: Queer representation and gender euphoria in D4DJ Groovy Mix
Particularly in how it integrates canonical queerness and themes of gender identity within the text, D4DJ manages to go places that very few franchises in its peer group manage to do.
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2023 Winter Three-Episode Check-In
The big forerunner this season? Girls in fantasy shows!
