AniFem Round-Up
Perfect World, Disability Narratives, and Writing Outside Your Experience
Zahra Ymer explores this josei romance and the pros and cons of disability representation as written by an abled author.
The Beautiful Masculinity of Mob Psycho 100
Over and over, MP100’s storytelling rejects shonen’s “be the strongest” narrative and emphasizes compassion, community, and the importance of not bottling up your emotions.
What anime has the best stage show?
Fortunately more and more are receiving filmed versions.
Beyond AniFem
Princess of Worlds End: Urban Fantasy Game about Addiction (Kickstarter)
The Kickstarter will run until the 12th.
The story begins in the year of 2004 as you take control of a 21-year-old woman who goes by the nickname of “Princess”. She wakes up in a rainy forest in the dead of night with severe symptoms of prescription drug abuse. You must first find a way to guide her to safety before uncovering the many other mysteries surrounding you. Once you do so, you unlock special powers which allow you to change not only your future but also the future of the world, but they come at a great cost. You must live your life as Princess while managing your addiction, newfound powers, relationships with others, a new job, and most importantly, preventing the end of the world.
If you are still curious about the story of the game please feel free to play the demo using the link below! It let’s you play through the first hour of content and provides a more comprehensive introduction to the story and allows you to see firsthand the kind of player experience we are going for. Click here to see our Steam Page and play the Demo!
Crunchyroll Releases Black Lily’s Tale Yuri Visual Novel Adventure Game in English (Anime News Network, Rafael Antonio Pineda)
The game is available on mobile with a PC release forthcoming.
The game is set in Japan, in a vague near-future time eighteen years after a virus known as CLII killed over half the minors in the country, exacerbating the country’s already widening age demographic and replacement rate issue. The government and its institutions have strongly encouraged heterosexual relationships. The story centers on the relationship between two teenage girls: protagonist Hana Sasamori, and her friend Ai Isshiki, whom Hana has a crush on. Despite the forces of their society, Hana cannot stop her feelings for Ai. In their last year at school together, Hana one day sees Ai die to a car crash, but abruptly wakes up some hours before the incident. With newfound determination, Hana realizes she has a chance to save Ai from death, and will try as many times as she can to do it.
The game partially plays like other visual novels, with players watching dialogue progress, but the game also has a text parser reminiscent of older adventure games, which allows the player to suggest actions to Hana, or urge her to remember important details. The text the player inputs guide Hana to certain actions, and can influence the ending.
Money Makes Kaso-Machi Go Round (Unwinnable, Maddi Chilton)
The game was released earlier this year on most current systems.
In this way, Promise Mascot Agency does seem to add another argument to the #discourse about coziness, capitalism, consumerism and cute things. It chose to ignore the oft-litigated aspects of games it shares a core structure with – the romanticization of pastoral life, the commodification of cozy aesthetics, the refusal to admit that working in a coffee shop fucking sucks – and instead throws itself headfirst into the parts of small business no one likes talking about. Time off. Bonuses. Revenue share. Burnout. Bee attacks. Employees being needy. The coffee machine breaking. Normal sized doors. Utility bills. Franchising. Merchandizing. Debt, debt, debt. Then it does this for the setting, too: you want to rejuvenate a dying village by crafting, building and decorating? You want to make things look charming and personal while also being creative? Sike. You’re doing bureaucracy. You’re going to a room in the basement of city hall. You’re personally responsible for investing money if you want to see literally anything get done. When all else fails you get involved in a complicated legal case that’s come down from the big city because at the end of the day that’s politics. This is what fixes the world. It’s never that pretty.
It genuinely does seem like the developers of Promise Mascot Agency took specific pains to un-cozy their game. It shares an extremely common structure with many games in that subgenre: you move to a small town to revive a local business, pull the community together, assemble a group of quirky comrades and eventually learn a heartwarming lesson about the value of friendship. It then takes every opportunity possible to reject the aesthetic and mechanical hallmarks of said genre and instead teaches that heartwarming lesson about the value of friendship to a bunch of weird, violent freaks and perverts while bashing you over the head with overwhelming numbers and invasive pop-ups. This is what is really interesting about Promise Mascot Agency: it also shares a strong thematic similarity with many cozy games. It is about community. It is about family. It is about people (and mascots) trying to help each other and come together across differences. It is about the damaging effects of capitalism, greed, environmental neglect, political ambivalence and personal nihilism. It offers (in my personal opinion) an ultimately comforting, hopeful view of the world.
I Am The Trigger: What Adult Games Can Learn From Fandom (Adult Analysis Anthology 3, Lindsay Ishihiro)
A proposal for more thorough tagging and content warnings in adult games.
The conversation surrounding content warnings in games often revolves around reducing harm — protecting the player from content that could cause trauma or affect their mental state. But can playing a video game, even one with upsetting content, cause emotional harm?
I’m going to make a very complicated answer short: no. Playing a video game is a consensual act, and the power to continue is always in the hands of the player. A game can be a reminder of real harm that has occurred to the player in the past, and a game can often change us, or force us to confront feelings that may have been easier to ignore. This is the purpose of art, of which games are unquestionably a part. We must reframe the conversation around content warnings in games, rejecting the narrative that their sole purpose is to reduce harm. The better purpose of a content warning is to help a player make informed decisions about their own participation. They are the expert in what content they find appropriate, and what they need to have a good time with a game. Not having a good time with a game’s content is largely a mismatch in expectation versus reality. A good content warning gives the player all the information they need in order to choose whether or not to seek out your game.
Titillation is a powerful drive. Seeking pleasure is natural. Sometimes pleasure-seeking can drive someone to seek out content that is challenging, even upsetting. A content warning system doesn’t just warn, but invites as well. It says: you will find what you need here. It says: I have prepared a place for you.
Japan PM Ishiba to resign within 1 year after taking office amid pressure (The Mainichi, Keita Nakamura)
The LDP will hold a special election on October 4th.
He cited his government “reaching a milestone” on tariff negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump as a reason for his resignation, adding he hopes that his successor will maintain strong relations with the United States and other key partners.
According to sources close to him, Ishiba, who took office in October 2024, voiced his willingness to fend off moves to hold an LDP leadership contest by threatening to dissolve the House of Representatives and call a snap election — a stance that caused a backlash within the LDP.
When asked whether he had considered dissolving the lower house, Ishiba said, “I do not deny that I came up with various ideas.” Tetsuo Saito, the head of the LDP’s junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, said he told Ishiba that that was “never acceptable.”
Media opinion polls showed more than 50 percent of respondents said Ishiba’s resignation was unnecessary.
VIDEO: Manga artists that publicly support Palestine (YouTube shorts regrettably can’t be embedded).
https://youtube.com/shorts/PsBvno8tDJA?si=ajC1f2Srn0r3mTy-
VIDEO: Freedom, Consent, and the Illusion of Choice in The Apothecary Diaries.
VIDEO: Sonic Racing Crossworlds Accessibility Preview.
VIDEO: Five of the most frustrating tropes in otome games.
POST: Matt Haasch, founder of indie manga publisher Starfruit Books, passed away this week.
Shocked and saddened to hear that Matt Haasch, founder of indie manga publishing company @starfruitbooks.bsky.social has passed away. His gofundme campaign for his medical and other expenses is still up – contribute if you can. www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-…
— Deb Aoki (@debaoki.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 9:59 PM
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AniFem Community
Here’s hoping more stage plays continue to become accessible worldwide.
My Neighbour Totoro. Hands Down. The puppetry is INCREDIBLE, and the blending of Japanese and English Songs makes it really accessible for little ones 💚🌿☂️
— Sunlitlake (@sunlitlake.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 10:38 AM
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I mean… come on. There’s no contest, here. It’s Sakura Wars. It’s always going to be Sakura Wars, which had roughly FORTY unique stage shows, ALL of them absolute legends. Shit, Kaijin Bessou was so strong that it was adapted by the OSK Revue more than a decade later!
— Samantha Ferreira Is Creating An Anime Mag (@sam-animeherald.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 10:50 AM
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Sailor Moon Eien Densetsu Kaiteiban (particularly in the context of its preceding run of musicals) is the best 2.5D musical and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees.
— Joe✨ (@lonelydistance.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 10:18 PM
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