AniFem Round-Up
Links to all of our spring premiere reviews in one place, and where you can stream them legally.
How Ascendance of a Bookworm depicts the challenges and triumphs of chronic illness
Myne’s fight to manage her illness–including social and financial barriers to care and the importance of a support structures–have become a cornerstone of the story.
Chatty AF 227: Monogatari Watchalong Part 4 – Nisemonogatari (WITH TRANSCRIPT)
The team tackles the nadir of the franchise, hoping to find something better on the other side. Yes, it’s time to talk about the toothbrush scene; no, that’s not the worst bit of the series.
What was your favorite Winter 2025 anime?
We’re asking a little late, but they’re still good.
Beyond AniFem
Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures Symposium 2025 (Humanitix)
Tickets for a free series of talks streaming on May 20-21.
After last year’s success of the Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures symposium, we are very excited to announce the second edition! Join us on May 19 to 21 for two and a half days of exciting research presentations and keynotes from experts in the field.
The symposium will be held online in order to accommodate participants in different time zones. This year again, we invited scholars, researchers, activists, and practitioners from around the world to participate in a multidisciplinary two-day exploration of the intersection between Japanese popular cultures and intersectional, trans-inclusive feminist studies. During this symposium, we will explore the convergence of gender, sexuality, race, queerness, disability and class. We aim to provide a platform for critical discussions about gender and Japanese animation, fashion, video games, literature and digital cultures. In doing so we hope to encourage new directions in feminist approaches to Japanese popular cultures and foster community among researchers from marginalized communities.
Backstage Stories About the Making of 1979 Classic Anne of Green Gables with Anne Herself, Eiko Yamada (Anime News Network, Richard Eisenbeis)
The first of a two-part interview series about the actress’ debut role.
“Takahata came out, his hair was all messy, and he was kind of, like, a total mess from pulling all nighters, scratching his head and saying, ‘Oh, thanks for coming,’—at that time his hair was like a bird’s nest,” she laughed. “When we tried to say something about the illustrations, he would start muttering to himself about the contents of Anne of Green Gables.” Yamada laughed again. “I had no idea what he was talking about, and I thought, ‘Now I get it! Takahata is giving his all, completely immersed in the work!’ In this situation, there’s no way we could say, ‘Please add more illustrations [to the recording booth monitor]’ That’s my most vivid memory of him.”
Over the course of recording for the 50-episode anime, Yamada made friendships with the other female voice actors. “Fumie Kitahara, the one who played Marilla, [left a strong impression on me]. She was always kind to me, and Urakami told me to deliver the script to Kitahara’s house in Aoyama two or three days before recording every week. At that time, she would give me cake and tea, and in the midst of casual conversation, she would tell me things about how to act—not like, ‘Do it this way, do it that way,’ but in a nice, casual way. That was very helpful.”
Yamada had the opposite kind of friendship with her other veteran female costar. “Miyoko Asō, who played Mrs. Lynde, would often say things like, ‘Eiko, your lines aren’t very sexy, so you need to create more sexiness within yourself.’” Yamada explained. “Asō was kind enough to say all sorts of things to me directly. Kitahara always told me things in a rather gentle way.
Yoji Enokido – Interview on Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX (Shinsekei)
Translation of an interview in the May 2025 issue of Newtype.
— How did you approach Machu, Nyaan and Shuji’s characters when writing the script?
Machu is sort of a textbook protagonist, so it went relatively smoothly with her. In the first episode, she’s introduced as a regular girl living her simple, daily life, and then, all of a sudden, she sneaks inside of a Mobile Suit. It might seem like she’s a bit reckless and eccentric… but in my interpretation, the most unique trait of Machu’s personality is that she doesn’t have prejudices.
— She doesn’t have prejudices?
Side 6 is basically a normal, everyday world, somewhat resembling present day Japan. But there’s an area inside the colony where immigrants —both legal and illegal— and refugees live, people who are relatively discriminated against within the colony. Even in a society with such a dark side, Machu doesn’t hold any prejudice towards the refugees and the illegal immigrants there. Whether that’s because she fundamentally lacks the concept of prejudice, or because she simply doesn’t want to acknowledge it, even I am not totally sure.
If a normal girl were to come in contact with a smuggler of illegal Installer Keys like Nyaan, she’d probably report her to the police immediately. But not Machu, she’d just go ask for the “compensation for her broken smartphone” or something. This is to say, Machu basically considers Nyaan to be her equal. In this sense, inside that Side 6, she’s certainly a peculiar girl.— I see.
It’s exactly because Machu sees Nyaan as her equal that the moment she notices the bruise on Nyaan’s face left by the military police, she feels so angry inside. She’s thinking, “Why is the police beating up a girl about the same age as me!?”. And then, she gets even angrier at Nyaan’s attitude of it being only natural that they’re being violent against someone like her. Machu’s inner anger reached its limit when the military police Mobile Suits started to arbitrarily destroy the buildings in the refugee settlements, with the excuse that “they’re illegal anyways”. It’s at that point that she decides to sneak in the Mobile Suit —it was a manifestation of all the anger she was bottling up deep inside herself.
Actually, it’s very similar to the anger Amuro felt in the first episode of “Mobile Suit Gundam” [機動戦士ガンダム, 1979], when he saw Fraw Bow’s family getting bombed. That’s why I believe I was able to get Machu to step into the Mobile Suit in the proper, traditional way of a Gundam protagonist.
The Manga Letters – Interview with Sabrina Heep (Yatta-Tachi, salinsley)
Interview with a veteran letterer, whose work spans from Nana to Chainsaw Man.
I believe Nana was meant to be a gateway manga here, to show North America that manga could have more mature storylines. To make it accessible to your average reader, the dialogue in particular was fully adapted. The script was sent to a rewriter who was a band vocalist herself, and she went all-in to make the dialogue sound natural to NA ears in more than just band and punk rock lingo. One of the first examples that I can recall is Shin-chan describing himself as a “bishounen,” or beautiful boy. It was changed to “hot guy” instead. I think nowadays, it would be more literally translated as “pretty boy”.
One artwork change for localization that I truly regret is when Ren named Hachi and Takumi’s daughter, Satsuki Ichinose, by writing out her name in beautiful calligraphy. I had to white out his artwork and replace it with the name in English. I tried to make it beautiful, too, but I really wish we could have preserved the original calligraphy and used a footnote translation.
When Hachi was pregnant, they jokingly named the baby “Sa-chan”, short for “Sachiko”. Ren chose the name “Satsuki” because that fit with the already established “Sa-chan” nickname. In our English version, “Sa-chan” had been changed to “Li’l Sachi” to localize it, and so Ren’s reasoning for “Satsuki” no longer made sense. But even now, whether Ren’s calligraphy would be preserved or not would depend on the editor’s choice.
In cultural localization, things seem easier, but I believe the level of localization largely depends on the editor in charge of a book. If they want every store sign and food label lettered, then it’s done. If they don’t seem to care unless it’s important to plot, then things are left as-is. This applies to phone buttons, too. Sometimes we leave them in Japanese, sometimes we do a literal English translation, sometimes we replace the keys’ labels with what they would be on an English-speaker’s phone.
Manga in The Crosshairs: The State of Manga Bans in 2025 (Anime News Network, Coop Bicknell)
A thorough breakdown of the attempted bans of manga in school and public libraries over the past year.
With all of this information in mind, how can you, the reader, support your local libraries? The librarians made this crystal clear to me—show up to school board meetings, get involved in your community, join protests or advocacy efforts, and just keep borrowing manga. The last suggestion here is incredibly important when it comes to getting more titles and keeping them in a library’s collection—it’s partly why Hillary Chang could buy all 31 volumes of Slam Dunk in one fell swoop. Additionally, make sure to talk with and get to know the librarians in your community! If you discover that a school in your district doesn’t have a librarian, go to those board meetings and share the importance of their presence in your schools.
With the threat posed to libraries in the wake of Trump’s Executive Orders and those emboldened by them, it’s more important than ever to stand up against these attacks on our civil liberties whenever you can. One librarian I spoke with had a desire for people to stand up to these bad actors with the same intensity that fuels their attacks. If these people are allegedly going to drive across county lines just to raise a stink in a community they have no business visiting, it’s best to send them packing with the same gusto that brought them into town.
In the months since my investigation began, proposed laws that could firmly target manga and graphic novels have appeared in states such as Florida and Texas. While this pair of states are obvious poster children for these sorts of laws, there’s no guarantee that they will not show up in other states. For further updates on the larger book banning debate, I highly recommend the work of book-focused outlets like Book Riot and especially the work of Kelly Jensen. For anything further on the latest manga challenges, Anime News Network will keep you up to date as the situation continues to unfold.
S. Korea court orders Japan to pay compensation over ‘comfort women’ (The Mainichi)
Similar issues have also arisen regarding Japan’s use of forced labor in Korea.
The Cheongju District Court’s decision over the case, where the son had sought 200 million won ($140,000), was the third known South Korean ruling in favor of comfort women, following ones in January 2021 and November 2023 that were later finalized as Japan skipped the hearings and did not appeal to the Supreme Court.
Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said in a statement that the ruling, which the government believes contradicts international law and a 1965 bilateral agreement, is “extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable.”
Iwaya said the court decision denies “sovereign immunity,” a concept under international law that a state is immune from the jurisdiction of a court in another country.
Japan has taken the position that all claims related to its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were settled “completely and finally” under the 1965 pact under which it provided financial aid to South Korea.
That’s What Love Is: Kou Kou Kyoushi (Aniwire, Adam Wescott)
Looking at an early social drama by Wonder Egg Priority writer Nojima Shinji.
Nojima is excellent at writing male fuck-ups. We see how Hamura’s unwillingness to acknowledge what he wants hurts the people closest to him; how Fujimura’s abuse comes from a fear of adult women and a sincere desire to be loved; how even a bro like Shinjyo can have a temper he isn’t proud of. Even Mayu’s father, who might as well be a monster out of fairy tales, feels real pain at being separated from his daughter.
Where Nojima fell short in Wonder Egg Priority, and where he also stumbles here, is writing women, particularly adult women. He does not give them the same affordances that he grants his male characters. Instead they are one-note. Hamura’s fiance is shallow and materialistic. Hamura’s teaching assistant is jealous of Mayu. Mayu’s classmate Asami hates Hamura because she is gay and wants Mayu for herself. (Yes, this character is why folks say High School Teacher has “LGBTQ rep.”)
The two female characters who are written to be sympathetic are Mayu and her best friend Naoko. Nao is easy to like because she does her best to help out her friends despite being abused weekly by Fujimura the English teacher. Mayu on the other hand is tough to figure out. Sometimes she does funny, whimsical things like drawing cats on Hamura’s foot with marker. At other times she clearly knows more than she lets on. She’s an out-of-her-depth child, conniving manipulator and tortured victim depending on what Nojima needs from her.
Sachiko Sakurai does her best to knit these contradictions together. You look at her face and see a psychology there, even if she’s selective about what she chooses to share. Yet as the series continued I couldn’t help but wonder: how much of this is Sakurai’s doing and how much is Nojima’s? Remove Sakurai and Mayu becomes a symbolic rock at sea for Hamura to wreck himself on. Sakurai is the key ingredient that makes the character a person.
VIDEO: Influential women creating shounen manga.
SKEET: News item that Magical Girl Dandelion is supposedly more popular overseas than in Japan.
Shojo manga #MagicalGirlDandelion has been more popular in the U.S. than in Japan since it began serialization last year, Masami Hatanaka, the chief producer leading Shogakukan's division for girls' and women's manga, told The Tsukuru magazine in its annual manga and anime issue.
— Richardson Handjaja (@rhandjaja.bsky.social) April 15, 2025 at 10:32 PM
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SKEET: New lolita magazine Merveille is seeking photos from international applicants.
Merveille (new Japanese lolita fashion magazine) is searching for overseas snapshots in the form below! 🍓 Form: ws.formzu.net/sfgen/S20149… 🍓 Kindle ebook: a.co/d/hNKoRS9 🍓 Src: www.instagram.com/p/DHNtS6opBdF/ #lolitafashion #jfashion #ロリィタ
— Kimberly Pham🌸 (@kpossibles.bsky.social) April 14, 2025 at 8:06 PM
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AniFem Community
Thanks for your patience as travel schedules and illness wreaked havoc on link and talk posts, AniFam. Things should be back on track from here, just in time for spring to be in full swing!
ZENSHU. Where to start.
— S.E. Robertson / C.A. Moss (@feelingsandmagic.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 5:37 PM
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For new series, Medalist, continuation its Apothecary Diaries. "Escaping the princess lessons" suprised me because i didnt expected to have a whole show about Stockholm Syndrome, but somehow it exist and i hated it (even tho i watched it till the end idk why)
— Kicho (Polarisx) (@kichom4n.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 9:08 PM
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