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This Week in Anime
Rainbow Days
by Christopher Farris & Steve Jones,
It's a good season for queer anime! Chris and Steve go over your options.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network. Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
Chris
You know, I presumed that Pride Month was over when June ended and all the corporate social media accounts took the rainbows out of their icons. But if the ongoing summer anime season has anything to say about it, the season of declaring that you're here and queer has continued through July and is now marching into August!
That is, summer's anime seems extra gay this season. Dang if I don't think we needed it, too.
Steve
Damn straight! I mean, uh, damn gay! Either way, I find it refreshing as well. Like, yes, obviously queer storytelling isn't bound by what month it is, but this summer's lineup almost has an air of righteous defiance to it. Not to mention the surprising amount of variety in content, tone, and messaging. It's good.
Anime, of course, is no stranger to queer characters and storytelling. Even just as far as the medium's popularity in the West, a big part of that was from kids growing up learning things about themselves, and seeing aspects of that reflected, whether in Ranma 1/2's gender-bending shenanigans or Haruka and Michiru's relationship in Sailor Moon. 90s-dub cousin-lovin' notwithstanding.
Yeah, we shouldn't forget that three pretty blatantly yuri romcoms in one season is, on its own, a statistically significant anomaly. We're usually lucky to get one.
But as you said, that's just the tip of this summer's iceberg. Call of the Night, for instance, is bringing its A game to the gay game in its second season.
If I could be so presumptuous, Call of the Night was always at least thematically queer. It's about people on the outside fringes of society, with Ko pursuing an atypical relationship and seeking to change his body to something he'll be more comfortable with. Plus, you know, everything about Hatsuka. The read was there.
Season 2, however, lets you know right from its new OP that the yuri dial is getting cranked way up.
Oh, for sure, a big part of why I love Call of the Night so much is how unapologetically queer and "deviant" it is, despite its outward-facing heterosexual main couple. Although we should also take into account that, at one point, Ko admitted he was attracted to Hatsuka, and the series didn't make a big deal out of it.
Everyone in this series is an icon in their own way.
And I really like that some of the most blatant fanservice featured in the second season has been directed at Hatsuka. This is even the scene that arguably best translates Kotoyama's bone fetish into the anime's character designs.
There were a lot of loaded questions from that aforementioned OP to Kabura's behavior as this arc got underway. The way Call of the Night dragged them out was pretty ingenious, pointedly playing off what audiences thought they'd figured out about Nazuna and Kabura's relationship...by having Ko and Nazuna make the same presumptions.
And I like how the actual reveals about Kabura play back with Call of the Night's themes of finding yourself outside of society's guidelines. Kabura's story is pointedly similar to Ko's arc, codifying the inherent queerness of the whole setup.
I think it's also poignant that her arc draws some parallels between her sexuality and her chronic illness, both of which ostracize her from her family and peers. We see her bear the brunt of these microaggressions, and it makes Haru's unjudging arms look all the more welcome.
Call of the Night understands the weightiness of the queer experience as it details Kabura's story. The catharsis is palpable in her confession to Haru on the roof, contrasted with the unencumbered joy she's shown feeling with her crush once she's out.
Vampirism as lesbian praxis is indeed an unforgettable facet of Call of the Night's thematic prism. And to make it all the more relatable, the series follows that up with another part of the lesbian experience: finding out your crush wants to settle down with some random dude.
Seriously, though, I love all of the complicated emotions that this creates in Kabura's relationship with Nazuna. Like, she has a surrogate daughter who looks exactly like the ex she never got over. And naturally, that makes Kabura so, so normal.
Kabura hadn't been much of a stand-out to me in Call of the Night's first season, so she had a lot of room for her stock to shoot up with this arc. She now really embodies the messy emotions that are so good, both in this anime and in queer romance in general.
And as an advancement of Call of the Night's themes and indication of its direction, it gears me up to wonder where else it'll go this season. Don't think I haven't noticed all the past/present pairing contrast of Nazuna and Anko in that new OP!
I mean, the latest episode concludes with Nazuna pondering what kind of emotional baggage pushed Anko to pursue her vendetta against vampires, so I think it's safe to assume there might be some parallels with Kabura here.
And, full disclosure, as a manga reader, I do know exactly where this goes. I don't want to put too fine a point on it for the anime-only crowd. But suffice it to say, if you want more gay shit, keep watching.
The emergence of queer characters and ideas in Call of the Night comes in parallel to other cases this season in shows where they might not have been entirely telegraphed. Like yeah, My Dress-Up Darling has broached the topic of crossplay before, but I wasn't wholly expecting them to dedicate a couple of episodes this season to crossdressing, gender nonconformity, and the emotional struggles therein.
I've always liked My Dress-Up Darling, but this season has still consistently and pleasantly surprised me at every turn. And everything with Amane is fantastic. Like, I love the refreshingly frank take on the behind-the-scenes minutiae of feminine performance. In a fashion wholly consistent with their characters, Marin's and Gojo's open-minded curiosity teaches them a lot.
It was always going to be a slippery slope after Marin bought that strap.
In hindsight, Amane's story is a perfect one for My Dress-Up Darling to do. It fits right alongside Gojo's anxieties about his gender-nonconforming hobbies and how he's just starting to get over that. Plus, there's a natural line to be drawn from Marin's regular euphoria at her cosplays coming together to Amane's kind of euphoria upon getting to try feminine presentation.
And in a media environment that frequently (and justifiably) looks into the difficulty of exploring one's gender and gender performance in society, I like seeing the occasional story that shows how ridiculously easy it is for people to be supportive and normal about it.
It's one of the main messages that My Dress-Up Darling has been driving at this season: that one intolerant person in your past doesn't need to define your worries about being accepted by others.
Really, it seems almost too simple the way Amane lays his logic out, but it is this uncomplicated. If you love it, and it helps you love yourself, then there's really no argument.
There is, understandably, a lot of queer angst in these anime this season. But this kind of uncompromised queer joy is a heartening message, I think a lot of folks could use in these times.
Personally, I know it can be difficult for me to recognize that every single other person in society isn't out to get me, and stories like this help me remember all of the good people I do know.
The Summer Hikaru Died is a modern boys-love body-horror classic that many people I know have been singing the praises of for a while now, and I've been elated at how the anime adaptation has been knocking it out of the unsettling, unnerving park.
Going into it, I knew through osmosis that the series had gay vibes, but I wasn't expecting it to get literally elbow-deep into the muck of queer adolescent sexuality. This barely counts as subtext.
I can confess that my partner keeps affectionately razzing me over how into the inside-fondling scenes I get when watching the series, but I don't care. The Summer Hikaru Died really is living (and dying) at the intersection of embracing the taboo, the nominally repulsive, in coming to terms with one's outside sexuality. This is another tone that has decades of history in storytelling, and here it's also mixed up with grief and guilt, the known and the unknown.
It is rich is what I'm saying, and I'm thriving off of it.
It just so wholly embraces the messiness of both main characters. Yoshiki is a hopeless closet case whose pining alternately pulls him towards and pushes him away from his best friend's doppelganger, who, unlike the real thing, actually reciprocates his affection.
This is a story that could really only be done with that queer textuality to it, as Yoshiki's guilt is tied up in his worries that he didn't know the real Hikaru as well as he'd hoped, and now can't know him further to confirm or deny how he'd react to Yoshiki's crystalizing awareness of his own queerness.
That also enhances the horror atmosphere with the correct depiction of those small-town vibes: bigoted, intolerant, constraining. Boys, get out, please.
It's actually totally normal to imagine your fellow townsfolk as writhing eldritch pillars of flesh who want to squeeze you and your loved ones into the shape that most pleases them, i.e., resembles their own. That's just part of growing up.
Seriously, though, the adaptation is scarily good at depicting how suffocating Yoshiki finds almost everything in town besides Hikaru, who is a different, more inviting kind of suffocating.
It so appropriately shows how and why someone would seek love and validation from an outside individual, even one labeled a "monster," after feeling rejection from all other facets of their life.
It's not just "showing" either, I have to praise the sound design in this adaptation. The discordant noise levels sell the oppressive atmosphere of the town in this fateful summer.
Not to mention all the good goops and squelches. And the drum and bass that accompanies this week's gay chest sex scene. More horror anime should sound like a Venetian Snares album.
I gotta say I lucked out big time with streaming reviews assignments this season. Between Call of the Night and The Summer Hikaru Died, I have an embarrassment of horror-tinged queer riches to write about each week. That's my happy place.
It also speaks to the overall smorgasbord of queer anime on display this season that those two nickels are both airing at the same time! Like we said at the start, there's a surprising amount of variety and inclusions popping up where we might not have expected. Even horny satire Nukitashi has a lesbian character, and this week's CITY just revealed that Niikura was keeping a locket with a picture of her crush/roommate in it.
I was, admittedly, dubious when I heard that Nukitashi featured a lesbian who lusts after her brother, but the show doesn't mince words in its defense of sexual minorities, so I think its heart is in the right place. Other body parts notwithstanding.
I also have it on good authority (i.e., one guy) that not only is there a Nukitashi 2 sequel visual novel, it is vociferously pro-trans rights.
This kind of inclusion was already significantly more than I would have expected from a series like Nukitashi, so it's heartening to know it maintained that quality. While still being (appropriately enough) extremely true to its whole raison d'être. Live your truth.
Similarly, and on the complete opposite side of the target age demographics, I was also alerted by someone else, our editor Rebecca, who's kept up with Pretty Cure, that the latest entry, You and Idol Precure♪, had introduced its own queer elements this season.
Now, Pretty Cure is no stranger to queer overtones. Still, it is amusing in its own way to see the trademark marketable fairies of the franchise engaging in a jealous all-girl love triangle involving the lead heroine. Also, not for nothing, but Cure Kiss and Cure Zukyoon's transformed attacks embody the yuri-baiting on-stage chemistry I've come to expect from my idol media.
Now, the other series this season I'd heard tell from others of queer theming before going through it for this column was Studio Orange's Leviathan anime. Being able to binge the whole thing helped in this case to see how that bore out, but honestly, I don't know if it was all the way there?
Yeah, my understanding is that it was more of a Mulan-type situation. Which still has queer undertones, of course, but perhaps not on the level of these other examples.
I will say that Sharp's story is still dipping its toes into the gender of it all, but it never gets as far as, say, straight-boy lead Alek wondering about his attraction to the character regardless of gender. Though it admittedly does play with the presentation in other ways.
And there are gestures at what Sharp may be feeling, presentation-wise, in the last arc, including a pretty great moment where they opt for a suit instead of a dress when they need to infiltrate a banquet.
I put this one in the "questioning" column, which, to be clear, is still absolutely valid, just not quite as gay as advertised to me, especially compared to the rest of this season's rainbow of offerings.
I at least respect Leviathan's recognition that every good war story requires some fancy crossdressing subterfuge.
Gay mascots aplenty in this column, the season really is covering all the bases!
And, again, I think that's the cool thing here. There's a wide swathe of representation this summer, and for me, that variety encompasses both the universality and specificity of the queer experience. Speaking as someone who wouldn't be writing here if not for Revolutionary Girl Utena, queer stuff in anime is so important, and it's clearly not going anywhere.
Agreed! It can feel like a scary time for queer people of all stripes in the real world nowadays. So it's important to see stories that don't just reflect and validate the worry of that experience, but also celebrate their joy. And even the simple, petty silliness of their everydays.
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