AniFem Round-Up
Alma-Chan Wants to Be a Family! – Episode 1
It’s not really trying to break the mold SpyFam popularized, but it’s sweet and well-executed.
Plus-Sized Misadventures in Love! – Episode 1
A tip of our hats to this show for taking on the herculean task of selling a cute, confidently fat heroine to a fatphobic world.
Chitose is in the Ramune Bottle – Episode 1
It’s lazy, self-congratulatory storytelling that no amount of pretty animation can add depth to. You can get in that Ramune bottle and stay there, buddy.
The concept of ninja and yakuza having a hidden war in society’s darkest corners isn’t a cool enough premise to fix a premiere that’s dead on arrival.
The Dark History of the Reincarnated Villainess – Episode 1
Transporting a woman into her own middle-school fanfic makes for a great affectionate parody of isekai stories for teenage girls.
A genuine and engaging premiere about a boy who wants to dance and a girl who loves dance that’s marred by the uncanny 3DCGI for its dance sequences.
GNOSIA transports viewers to the deepest recesses of the universe and a crew trying to find the traitor among them before it’s too late. So far it has all the beauty and gender of the game.
What’s your favorite game based on an anime?
We’ve all played a couple, right?
Beyond AniFem
Exclusive: Anime Times President Hideo Katsumata Talks About Expanding In Indian Market, Industry Issues & Future Collaborations (AnimeHunch)
Interview with the industry veteran and producer.
Animehunch Team: You’ve worked as a producer on many popular titles, including Black Clover and Fullmetal Alchemist. However, you were also involved with Yuri!!! on ICE. This is something fans are desperate to ask about. The planned movie, ICE ADOLESCENCE, was officially cancelled by MAPPA, which left many fans heartbroken as they loved the series dearly. We know this is a sensitive topic, and you may not be able to discuss it, but fans would be incredibly grateful for any insight you could offer as to what went wrong or why the movie was ultimately cancelled.
Hideo Katsumata: I can’t talk about the details, as that includes some very private matters. But if you ask whether it’s a creative or business issue, the reasons stem from the creative side. The main reason is that it couldn’t be made due to creative reasons. Since it was an original animation, the people involved—including the creators and the animation studio, MAPPA… among the creators, on the creative side, a situation arose where it just became impossible to proceed with production.
Crunchyroll Cites Internal System Problems Regarding Subtitles for Fall 2025 Anime (Anime News Network, Alex Mateo)
The company claims it has not changed its subtitling program.
Many people on social media had speculated in the last week that Crunchyroll had switched from Aegisub to Israel-based OOONA for subtitles starting with the fall 2025 anime season. ANN asked Crunchyroll about whether the company previously used Aegisub and switched to OOONA, but the company only gave ANN the above statement from a company spokesperson, and did not comment on what subtitle program it has used in the past or is currently using.
The company recently announced the titles it is streaming for the fall 2025 anime season.
Crunchyroll laid off a number of employees in August. In addition, some employees expanded their scope, and others got new role assignments. Crunchyroll also revealed plans to build engineering hubs in the U.S., Mexico, and India “to spark innovation and fuel transformation.”
INTERVIEW: J-Novel Club Knight with Madison Salters (Yatta-Tachi, wendeego)
Knight is a J-Novel imprint specifically for BL works.
SALTERS: We decided that now was the right time to start with digital releases for BL authors. There are fantastic teams working on these books; this is a passion project for us. I was working behind the scenes in preparation for launch for two years. We had to make sure all the right pieces were in place.
WESCOTT: There’s always a danger with longer series that they might not be released in full. Is that something that you’re keeping in mind for JNC Knight?
SALTERS: We launched with two books that are done in one volume each. We have a few more of those, and then we’re focusing on one to three volume BL series with some longer ones. Manga series especially will run longer. We wanted works that were not just new but also already done, so that our readers have an ending to look forward to! I can’t tell you how many manga I’ve started where at first I’m so into it, but then it takes so long to release that I have to take a year or two break before coming back.
WESCOTT: While I can’t speak for Japan, queer media is currently under threat in the United States. As a publisher, do you believe that you have a responsibility to ensure queer stories continue to be printed and made accessible to people?
SALTERS: Yes. That’s something that we’ve discussed, if not internally, than informally as coworkers. I just married my wife a few months ago. It’s very important to me that we put out stories about different types of love and all sorts of people. Not just stories about being gay, but stories about people who are all different genders and sexualities just living life and often winning at it. Of course, there’ll be sad stories or tragic plotlines; that’s how you give them gravity. But at the end of the day, we need to keep publishing literature like BL so people can see themselves reflected through fiction that matters to them.
The Erotic and Grotesque Roots of Silent Hill f(Endless Mode, Madeline Blondeau)
A spoiler-dense discussion on the new game and ero-guro.
Both Silent Hill f and the artwork of Toshio Saeki indict aging, decrepit systems of governing necropolitics as a primary source of violence towards young women. Hinako is the recipient of not only her father’s abuse and an arranged marriage, but outright ostracization from female friends and her own mother alike. Both Hinako’s mother and her classmates are defensive about their way of life—so secured in their prized male that they will doom the future of a young girl just to hold onto it.
Hinako has begun taking prescription pills to deal with stress headaches that stem from her situation. This is an in-game item which cannot be used as an offering at one of the game’s upgrade points. By the game’s spiritual praxis, these pills are not sacred. This a hint that the player should probably not use them for the game’s best possible outcome. Later notes point to beastly side effects, as well as hint to the detrimental effect on Hinako’s body and psyche. Players also learn that the pill is rooted in traditional Chinese healing, meant to realign the chi of those who imbibe.
There is significance to the drug being Chinese in origin, but similar in function to an American-made painkiller—like, say, Nazi-sourced tranquilizer Thalidomide. Japan’s military history with China is a dark spot for both nations, defined by violent colonization and punitive sexual violence as social control mechanisms. Relevant to Silent Hill f, however, are the experiments of microbiologist and military officer Shiro Iishii. His Unit 731 was an Imperial Japanese research lab set up in what is now Northeast China. The pretense of this facility was to research the effects of weapons, test experimental surgeries, and run trials on subjects.
‘Vinland Saga’ Creator Makoto Yukimura Looks Back on Writing His Pacifist Viking Epic (Gizmodo, Isaiah Colbert)
An excellent long-form interview.
io9: Vinland Saga has been praised for its moral clarity in a genre often defined by moral ambiguity. Do you see Thorfinn’s pacifism as a radical act of storytelling in today’s media climate?
Yukimura: I actually never thought about it that way. Maybe it’s true that it is more predominant that people make morals more ambiguous in stories nowadays. Maybe that is more mainstream.
io9: In the west, Vinland Saga is often grouped with Berserk and Vagabond as a kind of “seinen big three,” much like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece were for shonen. What do you make of that comparison—especially in terms of how these stories center men who endure hell and emerge gentler, rather than perpetuating cycles of violence?
Yukimura: (Laughs) Wow, I’m very honored! Since the beginning of working on this story, I had this really strong feeling that I wanted to say something. This is something about morals and the state of the world. How we are submerged in violence and wars. There was something that was triggering me: “There’s something wrong with this picture.” I really wanted to tell this in a way that everyone could understand. That was a strong feeling that I was focused on writing the story. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how people will perceive my work in the rest of society. I have no real good sense of that.
io9: To give more color on that, Thorfinn’s famous declaration that he has “no enemies” has become a meme in the west—used affectionately, especially during the high-profile rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, through J.Cole reaction images in social media posts, and as a shorthand catchphrase in anime circles. How does it feel to see such a pivotal moment in your story take root in popular culture in this way?
Yukimura: (Laughs) First of all, I feel very happy that it has turned into such a phenomenon—my work turning into a meme—because it means that my intention to make what I’m trying to say in the story into a short, compact sentence was successful. People won’t remember if it was a really long sentence or something very complicated.
If “I have no enemies” has become a meme and people remember it, then maybe people will understand what I’m really trying to say through the story, which is that humans are immature, but we can mature. To become mature is to become kind. This is the foundation of what I’m trying to say, but it really has to be much shorter for people to remember. But it does give me hope that people remember these short phrases as memes. Then, one day, it will click in their mind what I was trying to really say in the first place.
VIDEO: Podcast discussion of the first half of Horimiya (ft. Caitlin).
VIDEO: Boys Over Flowers retrospective (specifically the K-Drama adaptation).
VIDEO: Petite Princess Yucie retrospective.
REEL: A mini-primer on josei.
REEL: Sailor guardian cosplay set inspired by Mexican folklore.
AniFem Community
We especially love the obscure pulls.
Literally literally literally my all time fav game on the 3DS.
— Moment👾Appliarise (@momentaimonster.bsky.social) October 13, 2025 at 11:39 PM
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Giant Robots AND alternative timelines.
— Thomas aka OtakuboyT (@otakuboyt.bsky.social) October 14, 2025 at 5:23 PM
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