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.
Ai Yori Aoshi in many ways feels distinct from the tropes established in titles like Love Hina, despite being a contemporary of it. When revisiting it twenty years later, is this some diamond in the rough, or a relic of an era long past?
The Day I Became a God, while not featuring representation of a specific, real-world disability, features a lot of insidious ableism in its last few episodes. This final arc of the show perpetuates a lot of harmful ideas around how those who are disabled should be treated, and the agency that they often do not have, serving as a painfully apt example of the clichés and stereotypes narratives about disability often fall into.
By their very nature, these series’ protagonists are driven and motivated young women—motivated by something other than romance and men—who experience visible development across the narrative. As a bonus, the relaxed vibe and personal stakes of this genre means that realistic dangers are removed and these characters are left in idyllic spaces where they have autonomy over their time and their surroundings.
The detrimental effect of academic burnout can be easy to overlook. While the media has had a hand in normalizing these behaviors, stories are starting to crop up that examine the issue critically. Blue Period is an excellent study in the behavior that leads to burnout and the consequences that follow.
Chobits uses its post-humanist storytelling to ask questions about the highly personal relationships that humans can develop with something that looks human or shares human qualities, but can never exactly be human. Because the persocoms are almost all built to look like young women, it also creates a space to ask questions about gender roles in relationships and how those perceived as female can be literally objectified. At times, Chobits presents a very compelling and empowering narrative around love, personal choice, and sacrifice. Yet, simultaneously, Chobits fails to reckon with the very questions it raises.
As the tone in the Madoka series shifted at the end of episode three, so did the tone of the mahou shoujo genre as a whole, leading to a change in demographic focus that’s still being felt today.
Ruminations on everyone’s favorite motorbike anime, the pandemic, and my favorite topic: liminal spaces.
Though often shown empathizing with and caring for Emilia, Subaru is also manipulative and controlling towards her. Re:Zero highlights these contradictions to create a portrayal of what is often the actual problem with Nice Guys: the assumption of commodifying good behavior for the return of love or sex, and the sense of entitlement or control over the person they like that often stems from it.
When it comes to a particular category of battle-related gripes, I think I’m less the annoyingly fastidious critic nobody wants to watch a show with, and am actually harping about something genuinely important: female fighter equipment, which too often sacrifices realism and practicality in favor of sex appeal. In anime, this issue manifests in three major forms: “boob armor,” high heels, and “chainmail bikinis,” all which hurt the dignity of not only the characters who must wear them but also the female viewers who must endure the real-world effects of such normalized sexualization of womens’ bodies.
Even with a hefty dose of olfactophilia, Sweat and Soap is as heart-warming and nourishing as it gets. In a genre rife with toxic relationships and uncomfortable relationship dynamics, Sweat and Soap takes what seems like a fetishistic premise and turns it into a story about the growth of a healthy relationship. Throughout the story, we see Natori and Asako set boundaries, communicate clearly, and, most of all, grow as individual people.
Looking at this series through an economic lens reveals yet another layer of interpretation: a story about the cruelty of business models that profit off the worker’s suffering.
In the discussion surrounding queer representation in fiction, things are not always so simple as stamping a work with “good rep” or “bad rep”. While the series is not perfect—or perhaps because the series is not perfect—Land of the Lustrous makes a useful case study for reading and critiquing through a queer lens.
The Love Me for Who I Am manga is educational on how not to treat nonbinary people, but it’s not enough and needs to do better.
If I feel invisible, then I turn invisible. If I feel conflicted about myself, I split into two people. If I suffer from verbal bullying, then I wake up with cuts and scrapes all over my body. This is Adolescence Syndrome, the key concept behind Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, which the series uses to explore various social anxieties and mental health issues that can affect young people but which often go unnoticed.
Hayashida may not be the only female seinen mangaka – there’s Mori Kaoru and Urushibara Yuki, authors of A Bride’s Story and Mushishi respectively, to name just a couple – but she is certainly unique among them. While female-written seinen manga spans a wide array of genres from historical dramas to cooking comedies, Hayashida stands apart from the rest due to her focus on gruesome body horror and gleefully graphic violence.
Using its “magical school” premise, Witch Hat Atelier explores diversity among students and argues for the importance of accessibility throughout society, but especially in education. With supportive mentors and a focus on individual accommodation, anyone really can wield their own kind of magic.
Black women always have to be strong. Society thinks we have some superhuman ability to withstand trauma. We are depicted this way all over the media to devastating results. I want to talk about Casca, a character who stands as the antithesis to this extremely harmful stereotype.
Yes, even the horny catgirl anime can be a lesson in real-world inequality.
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.
