When I played Kingdom Hearts Union X Cross (then called Unchained X) for the first time in 2016, I felt pressured to play as my assigned gender (female), due to the lack of options for both Black female video game characters and non-binary characters. As someone who was still exploring their gender identity and expression, this was extremely stifling.
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.
Fantasy is often described as escapism, but the genre has great potential to expose a reader to different perspectives on their own society while drawing them into an exciting new world. The Twelve Kingdoms novels by Fuyumi Ono truly show this. The world of the Twelve Kingdoms is a masterful example of a fully developed, politically complex, colorful and varied fantasy world.
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.
Black people love anime. This is an undeniable, non-negotiable, indisputable fact. One would think that Black people would have much more of a significant presence in Western anime communities and fandoms. But if you look on any black- or brown-skinned cosplayer’s Instagram posts, you will see loads of positive and encouraging comments, and also a slew of racist ones.
When Jewish anime fans search for representation in their favorite medium, they find it between the lines if they do at all. And yet, Judaism is one of the world’s most well-known religions. Why is it so underrepresented in anime?
The classic 1980s Banana Fish manga is a painful read because it’s able to capture how pervasive white supremacy is throughout all sectors of society. The series also depicts how that ideology is perpetuated through interpersonal relationships and how it has an influence on real-world policy decisions.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work on the first full U.S. release of one of my favorite franchises ever: Mazinger Z. But while I was all-in for the cheesiness and monster-of-the-week action, I was caught on the back foot when it came to certain elements of the show.
Amelia and special guests Lizzie Visitante, Jacqueline-Elizabeth Cottrell, and Minami discuss their experiences with, and provide advice for, learning Japanese as women of color!
When I saw Adorned by Chi, the Black-owned “nerdy lifestyle brand for misfits & magical girls”, had an 80%-funded Kickstarter with a week to go, I had to know more.
Throughout my ever-growing love for all things manga and anime, there have been a lot of pretty good and some downright horrible portrayals of Latinx people.
Unlike previous adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo, which overwhelmingly cast white actors, Gankutsuou makes a point of depicting the main characters as people of color. This is more accurate to the original, and allows the anime to explore the racial elements of Dumas’s story that are often overlooked.
There are more foreign-born manga artists active in Japan than you might think. You just may not notice some of them because they take on pennames that obscure their non-Japanese origins. The artist known as Tiv, for instance, may seem like a Japanese man from the content of her work, but she’s actually a Korean-born woman.
There’s a nasty stereotype that anime fans and Nazis are closely related, as indicated by the number of virulent alt-right trolls with anime avatars you’ll find in any Twitter cesspool.
