AniFem Round-Up
Captivated, By You – Series Review
Complete in five episodes, you’ll find yourself captivated by the lives of four boys moving through their academic lives.
Subverting masculine expectations and complicating the male gaze in My Dress-Up Darling
Despite its fan service, the series cheerfully wants to reject gender roles.
What shoujosei manga would you like to see reprinted?
Some great titles are back out, but only available digitally.
Beyond AniFem
In Memoriam: Matt Haasch (Azuki, Evan Minto)
Haasch was a wonderful force in the industry and will be missed.
If you’ve read manga on Azuki, you’ve no doubt come across some of the series and one-shots Star Fruit Books published. Matt founded Star Fruit with the goal of bringing more manga from outside the mainstream of the Japanese comics scene to English readers. Alongside publishers like Glacier Bay Books, Star Fruit served as an unprecedented window into the world of self-published manga or “doujinshi.” If you followed the publisher on social media, it quickly became impossible to keep track of all of the books Matt was putting out. Introspective josei from Minami Q-ta, pulp horror from Hideshi Hino and Noroi Michiru, and an avalanche of one-shots from rookie manga artists, among many more examples. He was an unstoppable force, driven by a passion and love for these books.
While Matt leaned on help from a network of friends and colleagues to keep it all running, in many ways he WAS Star Fruit Books. Matt picked the books to license, oversaw production, maintained the social media accounts, and distributed the books himself, with no help from a major book distributor. All while working as a middle-school teacher! That sometimes meant production delays and hectic schedules as Matt raced against his own ambition to put out more and more manga.
Matt was also a longtime supporter of us here at Azuki. Star Fruit and Glacier Bay were the first two indie publishers to release their books on Azuki, and Matt kept up a steady stream of new digital titles on Azuki over the years. As a personal fan of what Star Fruit was doing for the manga community, it was an honor to be able to feature Matt’s books on our service, especially when we were such a new platform with such a short track record.
Threads of You: Beyond the Bay (Kickstarter)
The small town slice-of-life game’s demo is currently available.
Over 110,00 words in the demo.
7 Love Interests, all with their own unique backstories.
An Interactable Exploration Map that you can use to travel around Brine Bay.
MC Customisation for both Appearance and Pronouns.
Room Customisation during your stay at Coral Inn.
Partial Voice Acting.
A Phone System you can use to scroll through Social Media, text and call your Love Interests.
Four Days from the first week of the game in the demo.
Of Course One Piece’s Pirate Flag Is The Symbol Of A Real-Life Youth Revolution (Aftermath, Isaiah Colbert)
Because, just to be clear, One Piece is a very political manga.
The One Piece flag initially appeared this summer in Indonesia, where some flew it as a statement against President Prabowo Subianto’s calls for Indonesians to display the nation’s flag. It appeared again in Nepal in September, where, in a stunning display of Gen-Z political power, the country erupted in mass protests that culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli—replaced, via a Discord election of all things, by Sushali Karki, the nation’s first female prime minister. The Nepal protests, which started on September 8, were triggered by a social media ban on September 4, which escalated into nationwide demonstrations demanding government accountability and an end to corruption. Like many political protests, Nepal’s youth-led revolution sadly was not bloodless, involving deadly police force and reports of live ammunition, and has seen at least 72 deaths. Amid the upheaval, photos circulated online of protesters waving the Straw Hat Pirates’ jolly roger, which became a symbol of the youth protests. The flag has also appeared in French protests against budget cuts.
Sanseitō Rep Likens Being Transgender to a “Contagious” Disease (Unseen Japan, Kristina Rin Fujikake)
Sanseito continues to follow familiar beats as a newly ascendant far-right political party.
Local LGBTQ advocacy group Pink Dot Okinawa condemned her words as unscientific and discriminatory, demanding both retraction and an official apology. Editorials in local newspapers echoed these demands, calling her remarks “clearly discriminatory” and stressing that comparing gender identity to disease is unacceptable.
Medical experts also quickly rejected Wada’s framing. Nakatsuka Mikiya, chair of the Japanese GI Society and professor at Okayama University, stated, “Gender identity does not spread. Gender dysphoria is not a disease.”
Human rights advocates also warned that framing transgender identity as contagious undermines psychological safety for LGBTQ youth. Such rhetoric risks legitimizing bullying, deepening stigma, and contributing to social isolation.
Japanese activists have worked for years to secure protections for sexual minorities, but progress has been slow and uneven. The largest gains have been at the local level, where partnership systems enable same-sex couples to register their union. Two years ago, these systems covered 70% of Japan’s population; they now cover over 90%.
In 2023, the Diet passed Japan’s first LGBT Understanding Promotion Law, but activists criticized it as toothless. The law contained no binding nondiscrimination clauses and included language stressing “no unfair discrimination,” which campaigners feared could be misused to justify exclusions. Pride organizers and legal scholars described it as a symbolic gesture, not real protection.
Against this backdrop, Wada’s remarks represent not just a local controversy but part of a national struggle over how Japan treats LGBTQ people.
VIDEO: Ojamajo Carnival~YuruTabi-hen~ music video
VIDEO: Taisho Romance Theater Demo.
VIDEO: Analyzing how chapter 34 irrevocably shifts How Do We Relationship?.
VIDEO: (Lightheartedly) nitpicking The Apothecary Diaries’ depiction of Chinese culture.
VIDEO: AI scam artists have been registering for tables at convention Artist Alleys.
REEL: A message of trans allyship from rogue mascot Chiitan.
AniFem Community
Hopefully the trend of reprinting classics continues.
More Mari Okazaki plz
— Foryth (@foryth.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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from far away, happy mania, you’re my pet are the big ones for me
— phia (@_selphic on twitter) (@phiabean.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 7:38 AM
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