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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Is a children’s TV show about guinea pigs worth delving into for feminist analysis? AJ thinks so.
Princess Mononoke, with its focus on women in conflict, winds up reflecting an archetypal struggle between the “civilized” woman and the inner wild self.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Manga artist Aiba Kyoko spoke with us about her latest works and gave several panels about some common differences between anime and “anime-inspired” art and the process of creating manga.
Fordola and Yotsuyu’s treatment and ultimate fate in the story are starkly different, and in this way they clearly expose underlying gendered biases in how their writers think about Evil Women(TM) and who “deserves” redemption in narratives about trauma and war.
Declaring Show Time! as part of an entertainment criticism pantheon may overstate its importance in the anime sphere. However, this hentai uses its erotic elements to explore issues and humanize actresses in a way those other shows for general audiences cannot.
16bit Sensation is (unfortunately) a useful case study for what we talk about when we talk about character autonomy, active versus reactive characters, and how a narrative suffers when the agency of its female protagonists gets reduced.
