AniFem Round-Up
Long Live the Queen: How gender defines the antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
The main antagonist is a fascinating contrast to the male antagonists of Shadowbringers–despite similar motives, perception of her gender in-text drastically changes her story.
2025 Winter Anime Three-Episode Check-In
Now that the current seasonal shows are well underway, we check to see how the most promising (or most disappointing) ones are shaping up.
Chatty AF 221: Magic Knight Rayearth Rewatchalong – Part 1
Special guests Megan and Colleen join Caitlin to talk about the magical-girl-meets-mecha isekai classic.
You and Idol Precure ♪ – Episode 1
The Precure franchise is a well-oiled machine by this point, setting up its hook while also leaving a lot to be explored from this very sparkly start.
What’s the weirdest plot swerve you’ve ever seen in an anime?
We know we kinda set the bar high here.
Winter 2025 Midseason Podcast Poll
Cast your vote for which shows we should make sure to cover on the seasonal podcast.
Beyond AniFem
Statement on the Executive Order Signed by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025 (T-Net)
A statement of solidarity from a Japan-based trans activism organization.
For years, the Republican Party and its supporters have sought to curtail women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. This executive order is part of a broader ideological push to enforce rigid gender norms rather than a genuine attempt to “protect women” (Note 22). The true intent appears to be the deliberate incitement of societal discord, making it more difficult for transgender individuals to live their daily lives and ultimately marginalizing them from public life, all to appeal to a radical base.
Of particular concern is the impact this executive order will have on transgender children and young people in educational settings. The order demands the reversal of numerous policies that have safeguarded LGBTQ+ students, including transgender and homosexual youth, within schools. Schools are already environments where LGBTQ+ students frequently face bullying, harassment, and systemic discrimination, making them unsafe for many. Stripping these students of protections will only further limit their future opportunities by depriving them of a safe learning environment.
We determinately reject the strategy of scapegoating transgender individuals—who remain underrepresented and often misunderstood—to provoke public hostility for political gain. sWe are especially alarmed that the radical stance taken by the U.S. President could embolden discriminatory and socially divisive rhetoric in Japan and accelerate the polarization of society.
Furthermore, we strongly protest against political leaders—who should be uniting society—actively fostering discrimination and exclusion based on birthplace, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other attributes and experiences.
What Is 28 Days of Black Cosplay? Reflecting on 10 Years of Excellence With Founder Chaka Cumberbatch (Crunchyroll, Briana Lawrence)
An interview and look back on online fan culture then and now.
What is it that sparked the inspiration to create #28DaysOfBlackCosplay?
Cumberbatch: Honestly, I was tired. I was tired of February being such a challenging month to be Black on the internet when it was supposed to be a time for honor and reflection. I was tired of fighting to justify my existence in niche nerd spaces. I was tired of watching incredible cosplayers being treated as if their work was somehow lesser than due to the color of their skin.
At its core, cosplay is an art form born out of celebration for anime as a medium. So in tandem with that, I wanted us to have a space where we’d be able to celebrate each other without being told that our work wasn’t “technically” accurate. Like, be so for real right now. We’re dressing up as video game, comic book and cartoon characters over here, no part of this is “technically accurate.” I was tired, so I put a bunch of friends in a group chat and outlined a plan to do something about it. I could have never imagined it would grow into what it’s become, or that it would be still going strong a full decade later.
As someone who was in that message group when you decided to start the cosplay movement, I can honestly say I never thought it’d take off the way it did. What were your thoughts when you launched it on February 1, 2015?
Cumberbatch: Likewise, but you were so supportive from day one! The day it launched, I remember standing in my tiny Dallas kitchen feeling extremely anxious. Everyone seemed on board, but it was an extremely turbulent time to be a Black Nerd online. Our very existence was reframed as political discourse.
As much as I wanted to highlight Black members of the cosplay community, I worried about attracting or directing negativity and hate comments their way. I also worried people would lose the message behind the movement, which is why I’ve tried for years not to attach it so intrinsically to myself — I wanted it to be bigger than me.
I wanted it to outlive my active status as a cosplayer, and to become as ubiquitous online as any other regularly scheduled hashtag call to action. Remember #ManCrushMondays or #WomenCrushWednesdays? That was what I was aiming for, and I think now we’ve even surpassed that! Looking back now, I wish I could tell myself not to worry. #28DaysOfBlackCosplay has done all of that and more.
Love and the Highly Sensitive Person Manga Review (Anime News Network, Dee)
A sweet one-volume work dealing with an underexplored type of neurodivergence.
Don’t let my weepy eyes mislead you, though: this is not a woe-is-me melodrama. There’s a lot of levity and humor mined from Yoh’s Big Feelings, whether he’s overthinking a benign social interaction or getting super stoked about petting a cat. The narrative is sympathetic to Yoh, but it doesn’t shy away from pointing out (and poking fun at) his quirks and flaws, either.
All of these elements combine to create a sincere but not-too-sappy tale of love and acceptance, both for oneself and others. In addition to being just as gosh-darn sweet as apple pie, Yoh and Chiyo’s slow romance pushes them to understanding, respect, and communication. It’s a valuable narrative for anyone, but it’s especially heartening if you’ve ever struggled with self-worth, anxiety, or worried about fitting a narrow definition of “normal.”
The art pairs well with this overall theme. The linework is simple but graceful, with a sketchy softness that suits the story’s tone. A recurring underwater visual metaphor helps depict Yoh’s mood, but this is mostly a manga where you look at handsome men interacting with each other. This includes some excellent comedic Anxious Faces as well as more understated glances and touches to convey the growing attraction between our leads. Sex is implied but never shown, so those little moments of intimacy go a long way to building physical as well as emotional closeness.
One-shot manga often feel rushed or overstuffed with panels and narration, but Love and the Highly Sensitive Person understands the value of a quiet, lingering scene. It knows when to take a beat and let the art tell the tale, such as when Yoh spends an entire page wordlessly, joyfully receiving one of Chiyo’s letters. It’s not flashy, but it is quite lovely, and makes me curious to read more of Saruwaka Chimi’s work.
Why Harassment Comes with the Territory of Translating Popular Manga (io9, Isaiah Colbert)
The standardized issues of harassment and the encroaching threat of AI replacement on translators’ jobs.
Paul refers to One Piece‘s style guide as a “Frankenstein document” due to how many people have touched the series over the years to keep track of proper names, techniques, character-specific laughs, and islands. This style guide is often shared to help develop other media, like One Piece‘s trading card game. Though even there, fans have noticed discrepancies with translations, most famously Yamato’s pronouns. In the manga, Yamato refers to himself as Kaido’s son and uses he/him pronouns, whereas in merchandising, Yamato uses she/her pronouns. This, in turn, causes a stir in the One Piece community whenever anyone voices their opinion on the matter on either side of the fence over Yamato being trans.
“It’s a really tricky situation for Yamato in particular because there’s a natural tension there where, within the story, Yamato is clearly like, ‘Hey, yeah, I’m a man,’ and you see Yamato in the bath with the guys and stuff like that,” Paul said.
While the dialogue within One Piece‘s story, which already includes queer characters, makes Yamato’s gender seem like a straightforward matter, the series at large has been inconsistent with the language surrounding it. For example, One Piece‘s aforementioned card game will refer to Yamato with she/her pronouns.
“There’s mixed messages, and it’s one of those things where, I think, within the story, it’s pretty clear, but as a translator, you never know for sure how things might change in the future or how they might shake out,” Paul said. “I have to be really careful about the language that I use.”
Growing Muslim population in need of burial plots in Japan (The Mainichi, Ko Obinata)
A burial ground was planned in Miyagi, only to be barred by the most recently elected mayor.
According to an estimate by Hirofumi Tanada, professor emeritus at Waseda University who is an expert on Muslims affairs in Japan, the country’s Muslim population was approximately 350,000 as of the beginning of 2024. The number of mosques in Japan had increased from only a few four decades ago to about 150 as of June 2024.
Although the numbers are expected to rise even further, according to the town of Hiji and others, there are only about 10 major locations with burial sites in Japan with religious affiliations, including Christian sites.
The law regarding burial sites does not prohibit ground interment, and local governments can establish them if they set requirements. But according to a national survey conducted in fiscal 2023, more than 99.9 percent of cemeteries still only perform cremations.
Amid the domestic shortage of labor, the government touts its efforts to accept more human resources and work toward the reality of an inclusive society. Abe, the Hiji mayor, says the issue of providing burial plots should not be left to municipalities, suggesting that the central government step in to establish guidelines.
In 2021, the Beppu Muslim Association petitioned the central government to establish a public cemetery where people can choose their burial method according to their faith, but “there has been no change,” according to the association.
Japanese Women Use Hashtag to Share Workplace Sexual Harassment Stories (Unseen Japan, Jay Allen)
Women are discussing cultural sexism and harassment around jobs and the hiring process.
Singer and TV host Nakai Masahiro made headlines when it surfaced he had paid a massive financial settlement to a female Fuji TV employee. Since then, Fuji has come under scrutiny for charges that some of its employees routinely pressured female announcers to “entertain” famous male celebrities.
These events were set up as dinner parties that were thinly veiled excuses for the stars to pressure the women into sex. One Fuji TV announcer interviewed pseudonymously by tabloid Weekly Bunshun told a reporter her work opportunities diminished after she refused one celeb’s advances.
The incident has once again surfaced how common sexual harassment is in the workplace —and how often women are simply expected to endure it. Women report not only getting sexually harassed on the job but also targeted during the job recruitment process itself.
A trending hashtag on social media site X a few days ago captured some of these women’s stories. The hashtag 私が退職した本当の理由 (watashi ga taishoku shita hontou no riyuu), “the real reason I quit my job,” appeared to take off as a Japanese equivalent of the #MeToo hashtag – and it documented some horrifying stories.
‘The Rose of Versailles’ opts for empty opulence (The Japan Times, Matt Schley)
A film trying to squash the entire manga into a feature length musical.
Instead, the film spends much of its precious runtime on a series of what can best be described as music videos, with cloying music from Kohta Yamamoto and Hiroyuki Sawano featuring lyrics sung from the point of view of Oscar, Marie and those in their orbits. (Like many Japanese pop tunes, each piece features a line or two in English — did no one suggest that French might be the more natural option?) Some of these musical interludes are montages meant to speed up the story, but others feature flashbacks to scenes that took place mere minutes beforehand. It’s as if someone is fiddling with a remote control, bouncing between fast-forward and rewind but never landing on play.
Visually, the film faithfully, if somewhat blandly, replicates the regal opulence of Ikeda’s manga (except crowd scenes, which are populated with stiff, copy-and-paste 3D puppets). But while Ikeda, who began writing “Versailles” after a stint in left-wing youth politics, pulls back the curtains on that opulence via depictions of historical elites as petty and out of touch, the film instead revels in it, pasting over the manga’s radicalism with an inoffensive plastic veneer. Focusing on the sheen without probing into the underbelly leaves the audience as clueless as the naive Marie herself as to why the citizens of France decide to revolt.
The themes explored in the original “Versailles” — an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor, power in the hands of corrupt elites, evolving gender roles and identities — are as relevant now as they were in 1972, let alone 1789. But instead of probing any of that material, this new adaptation merely asks: Yeah, but it sure looked pretty, right?
VIDEO: Misogyny in BL works and BL fandom, how to best combat it and the importance of dialectics in fan communities.
THREAD: The dire state of translator pay and why collective action is important.
The translation industry's race to the bottom is driving so many talented translators out of the industry. Most of my colleagues from my Master's program in Translation are not doing anything related to translation at all anymore. The rest are either in-house or do it as a 'side hustle'.
— Katrina Leonoudakis (@katrinal10n.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 1:55 PM
AniFem Community
Shout-out to everyone out there trying to step really gingerly around their spoilers.
I still don't know how to feel about the last five or so episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist (2003). I've been a sort of lonely advocate of that show since Brotherhood replaced it in the fandom consciousness, but those were some odd creative choices at the end.
— Tristan Cannon (@cannondebris.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 12:32 AM
you can't just start this with samurai flamenco and expect it to be topped
— Chronah (@chronah.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 1:31 AM
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I mean, Maze: The Mega-Burst Space turning into an incest romantic dramedy for its final arc was something I didn't expect.
— Samantha Ferreira Is On Sabbatical Until April (@sam-animeherald.bsky.social) February 4, 2025 at 12:29 AM
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