The Metamorphosis of the Magical Girl Genre
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.
seinen Tag
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The Sound of Depression: Liminal spaces, sound design, and Super Cub
Ruminations on everyone’s favorite motorbike anime, the pandemic, and my favorite topic: liminal spaces.
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Re:Zero’s critique of Nice Guy Subaru and supposedly selfless love
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.
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Gearing Up or Dressing Up? On female fighter equipment
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.
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Is it Hot in Here? Consent, communication, and boundaries in Sweat and Soap
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.
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Kyubey’s Multi-Level Marketing Scheme: The capitalist metaphor of Madoka Magica
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.
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Genderless Gemstones: The pros and cons of Land of the Lustrous as non-binary representation
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.
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Love Me for Who I Am is inclusive, but falls short for some non-binary people
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.
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“What If Our Greatest Pain Speaks to Us?” Using the supernatural to explore mental health in Bunny Girl Senpai
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.
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The Devils in the Details: The grotesquely charming world of Hayashida Q
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.
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Thinking Outside the Circle: Accessibility and education in Witch Hat Atelier
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.
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How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman”
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.
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The Worker’s Nekopara: A call to arms against nekonomic exploitation
Yes, even the horny catgirl anime can be a lesson in real-world inequality.
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A Thousand Good Excuses: LGBTQ representation in Gankutsuou vs. The Count of Monte Cristo
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.
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My Fave is Problematic: Mad Bull 34
Mad Bull 34 cranks up the absurd action of buddy-cop movies in a way only the animated medium can. But the series and buddy-cop movies in general have a serious flaw: the glorification of police officers who circumvent the rules, as well as police brutality in general.
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The Gloriously Goofy, Geeky Girls of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Through both the character design and characterization of its three protagonists, Eizouken challenges a lot of the tropes that often loom over portrayals of nerdy, passionate teenage girls… and, if we’re being honest, teenage girls in general.
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The Transcendent and the Perverse: Sexuality in Apollo’s Song and MW
Tezuka Osamu’s gekiga show some artistic experimentation, but also dig further into his conservative ideas about gender and sexuality, which were more ignorable in titles aimed at wider audiences. Two stories in particular, Apollo’s Song and MW, hammer in how much of his work was steeped in heteronormativity and homophobia.
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After the Injury: Rediscovering my athletic identity through After the Rain’s Akira
Series that focus on non-cis male athletes in a serious, competitive environment, let alone deal with the mental health issues that some athletes face, are rare and valuable. I was absorbed with how much I saw my own relationship with tennis in Akira’s relationship with track, and that it wasn’t cute. It hurt.
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Our Dreams at Dusk and the process of healing through found families
I knew Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare would be the series that got me back into manga as soon as I saw a cover image. The fourth volume features two women in wedding dresses, clearly getting married to each other. There were no pretenses; it wasn’t open to interpretation. This was a queer manga and I loved that the cover didn’t hide it.
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Mangaka Ichikawa Haruko and the beautiful horror of growth
There’s no one else doing manga quite like Haruko Ichikawa does it. Not only is her work recognizable at a glance from its simple, spindly character designs and striking compositions, her stories tread a fine line between hard sci-fi and surrealism—or perhaps sci-fi as surrealism—that few other creators care to walk.
