A Juneteenth Treatise: or, Thoughts on Isekai’s Slavery Problem
Cookout style thoughts and vibes in an article that ponders the ongoing cruelty and nature of slavery in isekai in an increasingly diverse, global community.
gender equality Tag
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Performing Ease: Emotional detachment and masculinity in Skip and Loafer
Skip and Loafer highlights how gendered expectations around emotion are learned and reinforced at an early age.
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Fighting Evil by Moonlight, Selling It by Daylight: Sailor Moon and the limits of 1990s American girl power
Sailor Moon’s original North American release was a product of its moment, shaped by broadcast standards, marketing logic, and a cultural framework that simply did not have room for everything the original series was doing.
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Anime girl King Arthur and the history of genderbending in the Fate series
While occasionally thematically messy and narratively convoluted, Fate’s long history of genderbending is rooted in a genuine interest in exploring gender, identity, and personhood.
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Dweebs, Dorks, and Dictators: El-Hazard’s prescient political commentary
El-Hazard’s depiction of its own petulant villain provides some eerily relevant commentary that resonates outside of the show’s original context, and makes revisiting the series particularly powerful.
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Orb: On the Movements of the Earth and imagining radical futures
As I watched Orb’s various protagonists stake their lives against a violently oppressive religious institution, my real-life government grew alarmingly hostile toward my existence and those of my ilk. Watching Orb became an acutely personal experience, demonstrating the force with which established power structures will suppress truths that threaten their authority and how hope for radical change can be found through community and collective action.
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The women coloring the worlds of Studio Ghibli from behind the scenes
Characters like the determined Chihiro, the principled San, and the imaginative Shizuku have inspired women and girls across generations—but do these fantastical worlds reflect the reality for women making films at Studio Ghibli, and are their ambitions equally respected?
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No Gunpla Girls Allowed: How Gundam Build Fighters fails its female cast
In a world where high-tech Gunpla battles reign supreme, anyone can build a Gunpla model kit and become a Gundam Battle champion… in theory. In practice, Build Fighters and its sequel end up undermining that message through the treatment of their female cast, and accidentally saying a lot about trends in shounen and the Gundam franchise in the process.
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Supporting Women’s Wrongs (Just Not Like That): Fandom misogyny and the flawed women of NANA
The need for well-written female characters is supposedly understood and advocated for in fandom spaces, but the moment these female characters show any unfavorable attributes or make mistakes, they are rarely given the same grace as male characters. The complicated women of NANA prove that there’s a limit to how flawed a female character can be before she’s no longer palatable to readers.
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Folktales, gender and transformation in Where the Wild Ladies Are
Aoko Matsuda’s award-winning folklore collection, Where the Wild Ladies Are, is a feminist retelling of traditional Japanese ghost stories. Transformation is key throughout the collection, both to the characters’ journeys and to Aoko’s commentary on ancient and modern gender expectations.
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How women in The Apothecary Diaries navigate patriarchy and class
While some women do their best to play by the rules, others find loopholes in social customs through which they can enact a semblance of autonomy. However, doing so is extremely risky, especially for those lower on the social ladder.
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Girl Power and Guinea Pigs: Pui Pui Molcar through the lens of feminist media tests
Is a children’s TV show about guinea pigs worth delving into for feminist analysis? AJ thinks so.
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Wild Women and Iron Will: The battle for nature in Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke, with its focus on women in conflict, winds up reflecting an archetypal struggle between the “civilized” woman and the inner wild self.
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Kamikaze Girls: An alternative and queer retrospective
The story of lolita-meets-biker-girl was formative to me in my high school years, and rewatching it recently with the Discotek release made me realize the impact it had on my gender, my sexuality, my friendships with others, my self-expression, and self-acceptance.
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Long Live the Queen: How gender defines the antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
Sphene thematically reflects previous antagonists, but the additional context of the setting’s gender roles (and the player’s own presumed awareness of gendered roles in real history) reframe her character and refresh the villain formula.
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Embracing darkness and exploring the female gaze in After God
After God is a wonderful example of how female characters in shounen can go beyond simplistic portrayals of strength and beauty, exploring the darker and more complex aspects of human emotions and identity–without disappearing from the narrative or being made an object.
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Visiting the CLAMP Exhibition in Tokyo to celebrate 35 years of the legendary manga collective
CLAMP is a creative group of four women who have produced a range of iconic manga across a variety of demographics, from shoujo to seinen. Their body of work was recently celebrated with a showing at the prestigious National Art Center.
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Hagio Moto’s Marginal and BL manga as feminist fabulation
With regards to her own work, Hagio Moto has often talked about how writing boy’s love manga freed her to explore kinds of stories that she felt like she couldn’t tell about female characters, and 1985’s Marginal is a particularly interesting example of how BL comics can be used to talk about women’s experiences of their own gender and the patriarchy.
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Resilience and Resistance: Reimagining marginality and agency in The Apothecary Diaries
The Apothecary Diaries re-imagines the social life of women in its fictional society, showcasing how, despite living in oppressive systems, women continuously negotiate their existence through resilience, intellect, and community.
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Discussing Japan’s #MeToo movement and award-winning documentary The Black Box Diaries with journalist Shiori Ito
Ito Shiori made waves in 2017 when she accused Yamaguchi Noriyuki of raping her in 2015. Following her suit, the Japanese journalist also published her memoir “Black Box” detailing the difficulties in proving her case in Japan’s legal system.
Eight years on, Ito captures that experience in her autobiographical documentary which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film has been shown in 50 different festivals in more than 30 countries, but still not in Japan.
