Evidence has finally surfaced from Vaush's own stream that makes it clear that his secret proclivities are just as bad as had previously been implied.Support...
Also it turns out the wanting to fuck horses thing wasn't just a bit.
"Anime" as the Japanese understand and use it is any sort of animated media. Pokemon is anime, SpongeBob is Anime, Pixar is digital anime. As most English speakers use the term, it's just any animation made in Japan (or sometimes in the Japanese style).
I never heard of Detective Conan but it's apparently a minuscule little 4 year old girl dressed in a suit and shorts? This is not helping any cases here.
Conan is a boy and what exactly is the sexualization here? He's wearing shorts? I hate to break it to you but if you see a drawing of a young boy wearing shorts and think sexual thoughts about it then that says something about you, not the drawing or boys or shorts.
I mean look, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem with sexualizing minors in anime, but it's not really fair to tar an art from because some people use it to depict questionable things. America seems to put out a shit load of live action incest porn but it doesn't make sense to lump all American live action media in with the sister fucking porn, right?
Only if you're Japanese, by your own definition. Nobody else would call Spongebob anime, come on now. Why are so many here so over the top freaked out by criticism of sexualized cartoons of children?
it's a champagne vs sparkling wine situation. taking the weeaboos seriously is a mistake.
Why are people on a discussion forum for adults familiar with children's cartoons?
for the same reason they're familiar with Spongebob. some art transcends age and it can be appreciated on it's own merits.
People here are obviously very triggered due to an insecurity about their liking of a specific art form that they know, very shallow down, is dodgy as fuck.
as someone with several very specific trauma triggers, please don't do this. it's reactionary to refer to triggers as if the term means "mildly upset". moreover, I've read this thread several times, and I think you're projecting emotions onto others, moreso than anyone else getting worked up here.
as for myself, there's generally more queer expression in anime than in western art so that's what draws me to it. I feel more seen there. western depictions of queerness tend to be more pandering than what I find there, where there's a lot more art that introspects on the queer experience. I've never sobbed so hard at art before seeing the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena (because of how it mirrored an extremely specific personal experience I'm not going to share here) and that particular show is a favorite among trans women. I can't pretend to understand why they tend to produce more of that kind of art (Japanese culture makes it fairly taboo -- maybe it's because of the taboo and the lack of corporate/public awareness about the queer subtext of these stories) but it's hard to deny that they do.
if you want an example of a story that isn't merely allegorically or subtextually trans, here's an analysis of a cartoon that's textually and unequivocally about a trans person coming to terms with their gender, using a framing device that trans people share with each other as a thought experiment to help them decide whether or not they're really trans. and, as it's discussed at the end of that video, the author isn't merely some cis person writing about the trans experience. it's very likely that they themselves are trans and are struggling to come to grips with that fact.
the shallow shit that panders to men is a complete non-starter for me, especially because I'm not attracted to women, so I can't really comment on the artistic value of it.
I know this is off topic from both the OP and even more from OOP, and this thread is not really a good place for this, but I'm watching Utena right now and I'm loving it. I'm only half way through, but it has been amazing so far, all the way from the silly to the serious moments.
I’ve never sobbed so hard at art before seeing the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena (because of how it mirrored an extremely specific personal experience I’m not going to share here) and that particular show is a favorite among trans women.
I hope it ends up touching me someway too, it's been a while since a show made me really feel something, and that's one of the reasons I love this medium so much. I'm gonna be honest, I've been really questioning my gender lately and I don't know what I am right now, but it's great knowing trans people love Utena so much!
Also, I agree with your statement about queer expression on anime. I only saw a few things, but it feels very different. Though I'm still new into looking for queer representation in general.
Do you have any recommendations be it anime or not? I really do want to continue exploring this after I finish Utena.
there's a lot of stuff out there that's "this character is trans but haha they're actually not... but what if?". like so, so much of it. like reddit regularly gets up in arms over "femboys" that live as women full time and will look into the camera and tell the audience "I wish I'd been born a woman" but the characters + marketing material misgenders them so reddit dies on the hill of "this character is actually a man". Luka in Steins; Gate is such a prototypical example of this that I can probably just start calling this the Luka Theorem. don't watch that show unless you want your heart to get broken and feel legitimate rage at a TV show over how much she gives up for the sake of a main character who's straight up abusive towards her.
but I'm gonna be honest. I mentioned Utena because it's the pinnacle of queer, animated art, at least from what I've seen, in terms of it's deeply queer themes, it's exploration of queer sexuality and gender. so many shows, from the Witch from Mars, to Steven Universe have paid homage to it, because it touches everyone who watches it so deeply. I suggest watching Kunihiko Ikuhara's other, less well-known shows. I swear to god, he has to be trans because his works are invariably made for women and fembies -- even the one that looks like it's about sexualizing gay women is a direct attack on the rest of the anime industry for it's treatment of gay characters and it's well received by lesbians. Penguindrum is less obviously queer but it's peak Ikuhara. I highly recommend it.
other suggestions:
the Rose of Versailles is the show Utena pays homage to, both in characterization and themes.
if you can get past a strong heaping of anime bullshit, Kill la Kill is both leftist and gay. the first 3 episodes make it out to be a typical shonen, down to the sexualization of teenagers, only for the camera to stop leering the second the main character starts to embrace her sexuality and starts wielding it as a source of power. I thought I was going to hate it but it ended up becoming one of my favorites. I will die on the hill of "it's actually about left unity". the men also get just as naked as the women and, once the revolution is done, they have a huge, nonsexual cuddle pile, which is really cute.
Madoka Magicka is extremely difficult to read as anything but a gay love story. and this is worth a watch if you've already seen the show, as an analysis of why the show isn't merely anticapitalist but, rather, revolutionary.
Sailor Moon is beloved for a good reason. Ikuhara wrote the third season and the studio's unwillingness to let him allow the women to kiss is what led directly to Utena. don't watch the dub - they tried to retcon how gay the characters are. also don't watch the new show. they tried to only tell the story, which is insane because the story is not why anyone watched the show. the result is that they turned a slice of life show into some kind of weird shonen and sucked all the humanity out of it.
Ouran High School Host Club is fantastic trans rep right up until they undo it all in the ending.
Land of the Lustrous has nothing but non-binary characters. it's beautiful but gender doesn't play a huge role.
there's also a lot of stuff that reads extremely queer if you're familiar with queer culture (I cannot begin to express how many times I've yelled "now kiss" or "bitch just transition" at my screen) but none of it was memorable enough to recommend right now. I'm slowly working through Jojo's Bizarre Adventure right now and it's fun from the perspective that it's hot, buff dudes posing at each other and punching each other when they clearly want to kiss instead, but I can't recommend it, at least so far, cause the politics started fairly reactionary.
Sorry for this long comment, I appreciate you taking the time to write all this, I was beyond overjoyed reading it all!!!
like so, so much of it. like reddit regularly gets up in arms over “femboys” that live as women full time and will look into the camera and tell the audience “I wish I’d been born a woman” but the characters + marketing material misgenders them so reddit dies on the hill of “this character is actually a man”.
Oh, yeah I've seen this type of discourse multiple times over the years, it's always something uh. People still to this day "argue" that Kaworu and Shinji aren't gay in Evangelion, despite Shinji blushing every single time he sees him and basically melting around him. The last one I saw was the shitshow when Bridget came out as trans in Guilty Gear Strive.
don’t watch that show unless you want your heart to get broken and feel legitimate rage at a TV show over how much she gives up for the sake of a main character who’s straight up abusive towards her.
I actually watched Steins;Gate years ago, and I'm due to watch it again sometime in the near future, I don't remember much of what happens at all, but I do remember loving Luka as a character. One other thing I remember is that I disliked how Luka was always made fun of or was like the butt of the joke, at least at the very beginning.
but I’m gonna be honest. I mentioned Utena because it’s the pinnacle of queer, animated art, at least from what I’ve seen, in terms of it’s deeply queer themes, it’s exploration of queer sexuality and gender. so many shows, from the Witch from Mars, to Steven Universe have paid homage to it, because it touches everyone who watches it so deeply. I suggest watching Kunihiko Ikuhara’s other, less well-known shows. I swear to god, he has to be trans because his works are invariably made for women and fembies – even the one that looks like it’s about sexualizing gay women is a direct attack on the rest of the anime industry for it’s treatment of gay characters and it’s well received by lesbians. Penguindrum is less obviously queer but it’s peak Ikuhara. I highly recommend it.
Nah, that's totally fine, I didn't know Utena was seen like that, it's good to know. I've heard of the Witch from Mars, and plan on watching it, and I absolutely adore Steven Universe, it's great knowing these were somewhat inspired by it, and now that you mentioned it, I can actually see it in SU. I'll make sure I take a look at Ikuhara's other works too, thanks!
For the other suggestions:
I actually already downloaded the Rose of Versailles because of another comment on this same thread lol.
I have watched Kill la Kill a couple of years ago, at the time I was still a lib, so I really need to watch it again, but I find funny how Trigger always have the same formula and how it basically always works out for them. If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you watch Gurren Lagann. It's older than Kill la Kill, from before Trigger was formed, but it is so f u c k i n g good! Have a very similar revolutionary plotline, but I remember liking it a lot more at the time (even tho I was still a lib and didn't fully get it then). There's queer rep there too, though it's not the focus of the show. I recommend to watch both movies after the series too, they just turn it up to 11 in every way possible, it's absolutelyfantastic! It's easily one of my favorite shows ever!
I always hear about Madoka every here and then, but never actually gave it a try, thanks, I'll do! Also thanks for the video rec, I love watching these types of video essays!
Been meaning to watch Sailor Moon for quite some time now, I'll get to it too. Thanks for all the info, I don't plan on watching it dubbed in english, I prefer to watch stuff in the original language, and some very rare times in portuguese, but I don't know how good the portuguese dub of Sailor Moon is, so I'll just stick to the original, tho I very much doubt it is bad.
Never heard of it before, I'll check it out.
Seen it mentioned somewhere before, I'll take a look.
there’s also a lot of stuff that reads extremely queer if you’re familiar with queer culture (I cannot begin to express how many times I’ve yelled “now kiss” or “removed just transition” at my screen) but none of it was memorable enough to recommend right now.
I'm actually not very familiar, but I can relate to that, there has been multiple times were that's all I can think while watching something lol.
I’m slowly working through Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure right now and it’s fun from the perspective that it’s hot, buff dudes posing at each other and punching each other when they clearly want to kiss instead, but I can’t recommend it, at least so far, cause the politics started fairly reactionary.
Oh girl, I absolutely fucking love JoJo's! It was one of my special interests for a few years, I lived and breathed JoJo's.
I can see how it is reactionary at the beginning, specially since it started in the 80s, but I'm pretty sure Araki is at least a very progressive person for Japanese standards. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but some stuff in Part 3, and Parts 5 onward are a lot more progressive than the previous stuff. Part 5 is just full homoerotic twinks beating the living shit out of each other, hell, in part 6 he wanted the protagonist to be a lesbian, but he was barred from doing that. And the newest part that I haven't read yet might have some gender non-conforming person as one of the main characters from last I saw it too.
I highly suggest you don't use the official subs as there's a lot of censorship of names because Araki literally uses band and song names for stands lmao. Also, if you're interested I suggest watching videos about him and about JoJo in general, it helps put a lot of his decisions into perspective. I don't remember a specific video to recommend but xForts and Kaleb I.A. were the channels I used to watch a lot, just make sure you're ahead enough to not get spoilers.
JoJo does have it's fair share of issues, but I think it is absolutely fenomenal! It a 100% helped destroy my, at the time, homophobic views. We JoJo fans tend to be a bit annoying, but I have also seen push-back against LGBTphobia in the community, which is always good.
I have watched Kill la Kill a couple of years ago, at the time I was still a lib, so I really need to watch it again
oh it gets better on a rewatch when you know where it's headed. the politics really pop out at you. if you haven't seen Promare yet, watch it. it's Trigger at their best -- easily my favorite movie.
If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you watch Gurren Lagann.
my friends in college were always talking about it but they made it sound really unappealing by constantly dropping references. you've just reminded me that I've meant to go back and watch it now that I know how good Trigger is, basically always. well, except Darling and the Franxx. I swear to god someone told them to drop the original ending to that show, because "do a literal revolution and kill the people exploiting you" made some suit uncomfortable, as that would have made so much more sense as the ending rather than the...mess... we got.
some stuff in Part 3
ngl, we bounced off part 3 after just a few episodes. neither I nor my wife could stand edgeboy mcedgeface (though, we laughed our asses off when he was like yeah, I'm heading to high school now -- yeah dude, this guy who looks like he's 35 is going to high school, right... but that's been funny consistently throughout the entire series)
Parts 5 onward are a lot more progressive than the previous stuff. Part 5 is just full homoerotic twinks beating the living shit out of each other
yeah, we enjoyed Part 5. we actually liked Part 1 the best of any of them so far because the simplicity made the absurdity much more fun and it did a lot with it's limited run time, without the shitty politics of Part 2. we're considering going back to Part 2 and just straight up rooting for the Pillar Men to win. cause like the only awful shit we've seen them do so far is... kill nazis? which ngl just makes them based. we stopped at "we're leaving to kill people in Mussolini's Italy" (which is extremely "oh... no... don't... stop...") and Joseph was going to ally with the nazis again to stop them. knowing the nazi friend gets murked in Stalingrad only makes it better.
we also accidentally skipped Part 4 because we hit play on season 4 thinking that was Part 4 and eventually realized something was wrong, only to go meh, this is pretty good. the extremely queer men literally everywhere and the extremely homoerotic posing/fights validated that choice. I fucking lost it every time Giorno posed with his stand, hands on its hips like it was going to rail him. so we might go back for Part 4 at some point.
hell, in part 6 he wanted the protagonist to be a lesbian, but he was barred from doing that.
that's extremely disappointing. we're only a few episodes in but I guess it's extremely on-brand for this show to continue being homoerotic subtextually but continue to not address that blatant subtext.
And the newest part that I haven't read yet might have some gender non-conforming person as one of the main characters from last I saw it too.
I've heard Part 7 has them fighting the US president which sounds fucking lit. we're kinda just holding out hope that that's one that makes us go from "yeah, this is good I guess" to obsessive the way everyone else seems to be. I feel like one of the reasons we liked 1 better than 5 was just the length of the latter, though. like 5 had the objectively better story but it dragged on for too long. though, I fucking love One Piece so that's some real fucking hypocrisy lmao.
actually, now that we got live action OP, maybe we'll get a live action Jojos. that would be fucking hilarious if done with the same kind of love and dedication. what a truly bizarre prospect, a live action bizarre adventure.
I highly suggest you don't use the official subs as there's a lot of censorship of names because Araki literally uses band and song names for stands lmao.
we noticed this when the subs turned on while we were watching the dub (Jellyfin has... issues... sometimes) and how much better the naming was in the dub. renaming "the Sex Pistols" to "6 bullets" has got to be a crime of some kind.
Also, if you're interested I suggest watching videos about him and about JoJo in general, it helps put a lot of his decisions into perspective.
I'd love reccs for good video essays about it. I tried searching for videos about specific Parts but I just got the usual "here's why you should watch..." type videos, which are really shallow and don't get into the deeper kinds of analysis that normally helps me process my own thoughts and feelings about what I just saw. also "I didn't understand this so it's a plothole" really gets my goat. like, dude, it's clearly spelled out and it's clearly spelled out why he couldn't do XYZ in that circumstance -- you're a video essayist, would it kill you to take notes? spoilers also don't affect my ability to enjoy things. if anything they help cause I'm way too ADHD and it's helpful to have some context on where I'm at in a story and which details are relevant/irrelevant.
JoJo does have it's fair share of issues, but I think it is absolutely fenomenal! It a 100% helped destroy my, at the time, homophobic views.
hahaha, I believe it. this show is nothing, if not extremely homoerotic. and it probably helps that the extremely not gay men are being extremely not gay good guys, instead of just the villains like a lot of other 90s-00s media. someone on reddit got into it with me about whether or not Ursula in the Little Mermaid was gay/trans coded and so I'm super aware that it's possible to miss the barely subtextual text (actually, sorry, I just got mad about this all over again... honey, what??) but I can see how it helps a lot if you're paying any attention at all.
if you haven’t seen Promare yet, watch it. it’s Trigger at their best – easily my favorite movie.
I've watched Promare too, it's great! It pays homage to Gurren Lagann a few times in the movie, specially towards the end. The only criticism I have is that after watching both Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill it became a bit predictable what was gonna happen, but great movie nonetheless.
my friends in college were always talking about it but they made it sound really unappealing by constantly dropping references. you’ve just reminded me that I’ve meant to go back and watch it now that I know how good Trigger is, basically always. well, except Darling and the Franxx. I swear to god someone told them to drop the original ending to that show, because “do a literal revolution and kill the people exploiting you” made some suit uncomfortable, as that would have made so much more sense as the ending rather than the…mess… we got.
I'm on the opposite end, I'm the one that annoys people about it constantly lol. Also I don't want to oversell it, so I'll say that Gurren Lagann have some reactionary stuff there too, specially in the first half, but overall for me it's easily Trigger's team best work to this day. Also, I've watched Darling in the Franxx when it was airing, there was so much potential it's criminal it ended how it did.
ngl, we bounced off part 3 after just a few episodes.
A lot of people seem to do that, and I can see why, it also gets very repetitive really quickly. I never had a problem watching it, aside from it being a bit to long, tho I'll also say that part 3's lows are really low compared to the rest of the series. Since you said below that you don't mind spoilers I'll throw a few stuff here and there.
If you eventually get back to it I think it's worth for DIO's bisexual ass alone (and Joseph's gay sex joke scene that is hilarious). The way he is portrayed and shown throughout the whole part is extremely interesting, and the final battle is easily one of my favorites. It's also good for the followup in part 6's story line with Pucci, a priest that is obviously gay for him. It's also interesting how DIO is not only a recurring central point to the series but also developed even when he is not present. There's also an old OVA that adapts part 3 if you want to at least see what it is about without committing to the anime adaptation. I never got to actually see it, but everyone likes it, so it's probably good.
that’s extremely disappointing. we’re only a few episodes in but I guess it’s extremely on-brand for this show to continue being homoerotic subtextually but continue to not address that blatant subtext.
It looks like I was wrong about that, he wasn't barred from doing it, that came from a rumor I heard long ago, there's these 2 videos that talk about it: The first one has the outdated info, but it adds some context about part 6, and the second one addresses what actually happened, but yeah it is still quite disappointing. Also, for some reason the anime adaptation cuts a part on the beginning where Jolyne notices a trans prisoner. I don't think it's done in a disrespectful way in the manga at all, it's literally her just noticing and acknowledging them, so it's just weird that it was cut.
I’ve heard Part 7 has them fighting the US president which sounds fucking lit. we’re kinda just holding out hope that that’s one that makes us go from “yeah, this is good I guess” to obsessive the way everyone else seems to be.
I was talking about part 9 there, where Dragona is the sibling of the main character and might be trans from what I seen when it launched, but I didn't look into it after that, so it's possible I'm wrong. But yep, the villain of part 7 is the actual president of the US lmao. The politics are much better there. Part 7 is long as hell, but it is without a shadow of a doubt the de facto best part, be it in setting, characters, story line and politics.
like 5 had the objectively better story but it dragged on for too long. though, I fucking love One Piece so that’s some real fucking hypocrisy lmao.
Part 5 length in the anime doesn't really bother me, although the manga has worse pacing, but I get what you're saying, it could definitely be a little shorter. Also, fun fact, JoJo's actually longer than One Piece lol, it just doesn't have the atrocious pacing of the anime.
actually, now that we got live action OP, maybe we’ll get a live action Jojos. that would be fucking hilarious if done with the same kind of love and dedication. what a truly bizarre prospect, a live action bizarre adventure.
There is actually a live action Part 4 JoJo movie, but I never saw it. Heard it is kinda ok. Would be cool to have an adaptation like that, but I don't see it happening before the part 7 anime.
I’d love reccs for good video essays about it. I tried searching for videos about specific Parts but I just got the usual “here’s why you should watch…” type videos, which are really shallow and don’t get into the deeper kinds of analysis that normally helps me process my own thoughts and feelings about what I just saw.
Yeah, I just saw the shithole that is searching for JoJo on youtube nowadays, it was better 4-6 years ago, both in results and actual content, and a lot of it aged not very well it seems. I also found out that there's actually not many video essays about JoJo's, and looking back it makes sense, most of the info is scattered around in multiple short videos of character analysis and what not. I guess it makes sense given how many characters and how many almost self-contained stories there are in the series.
I don't really know any good separate part analysis unfortunately, you'll mostly find videos talking about specific events, plotlines and characters. Here's a few videos I think are interesting:
How Hirohiko Araki Makes a Character - There's quite a bit of liberal thinking in here, but it's good to see Araki's process and values in writing. I would skip to the provided timestamp when he's about to talk about part 7 because it's literally spoilers about the end of the story, but he basically talks about how Johnny is a morally grey character that doesn't follow the structures of past protagonists.
The Point of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure [Restored Edition] - This one is a look into the whole of JoJo's, before part 7. There's heavy spoilers for everything, but it's genuinely a great view of what the series is. It's much more hopeful and collective thought oriented than I expected. It's well worth a look.
Music's Influence in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - This one shows how music heavily influences the writing in the series, I think he kinda stretches stuff a bit in this video, but the overall message is correct.
From your other comments here, you're overreacting.
Sexualized depiction of minors in anime is a HUGE issue, alongside hypersexualization of women in general too, but it's not what the whole medium of anime is. The same way there's a lot of bad stuff in the shonen genre (basically the category of anime whose target audience is teenage boys), there's plenty of stuff that don't do that, and there's also stuff that actually criticizes that practice.
Anime movies from Ghibli and other works like Perfect Blue, for example, don't rely on this this type of stuff. For anime series, Wonder Egg Priority is very pro-LGBT and criticizes Japan's issues with sexual assault, all while having a cast of only girls without sexualizing them. There's other works too like Trigun and The Promised Neverland that, as far as I remember, don't rely on this type of sexualization at all, and these are not small niche anime, they are well known works.
Only if you’re Japanese, by your own definition. Nobody else would call Spongebob anime, come on now. Why are so many here so over the top freaked out by criticism of sexualised cartoons of children?
The point of what they said is that the Japanese call every type of cartoon Anime, but everyone else in the world only calls Anime specifically the animated media that comes from Japan, or in some cases animated media that uses the same style as the Japanese, for example, Avatar: The Last Airbender sometimes being called an anime.
Also, no one is freaking out about the criticism you're giving, everyone agrees with you on this front, but you're clearly uninformed enough to lump everything together as the same thing, without giving it a gram of nuance and material thought. Japan have a pretty big problem with these practices that are still unresolved, it is clearly gonna show up on some of the stuff they produce and they SHOULD be criticized for it, but this is not the type of stuff that is gonna change tomorrow, it takes time.
"Anime" as the Japanese understand and use it is any sort of animated media. Pokemon is anime, SpongeBob is Anime, Pixar is digital anime. As most English speakers use the term, it's just any animation made in Japan (or sometimes in the Japanese style).
Conan is a boy and what exactly is the sexualization here? He's wearing shorts? I hate to break it to you but if you see a drawing of a young boy wearing shorts and think sexual thoughts about it then that says something about you, not the drawing or boys or shorts.
I mean look, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem with sexualizing minors in anime, but it's not really fair to tar an art from because some people use it to depict questionable things. America seems to put out a shit load of live action incest porn but it doesn't make sense to lump all American live action media in with the sister fucking porn, right?
Beat me to the punch by just a few minutes, knew I shouldn't gotten distracted while writing my comment.
Removed by mod
it's a champagne vs sparkling wine situation. taking the weeaboos seriously is a mistake.
for the same reason they're familiar with Spongebob. some art transcends age and it can be appreciated on it's own merits.
as someone with several very specific trauma triggers, please don't do this. it's reactionary to refer to triggers as if the term means "mildly upset". moreover, I've read this thread several times, and I think you're projecting emotions onto others, moreso than anyone else getting worked up here.
as for myself, there's generally more queer expression in anime than in western art so that's what draws me to it. I feel more seen there. western depictions of queerness tend to be more pandering than what I find there, where there's a lot more art that introspects on the queer experience. I've never sobbed so hard at art before seeing the ending to Revolutionary Girl Utena (because of how it mirrored an extremely specific personal experience I'm not going to share here) and that particular show is a favorite among trans women. I can't pretend to understand why they tend to produce more of that kind of art (Japanese culture makes it fairly taboo -- maybe it's because of the taboo and the lack of corporate/public awareness about the queer subtext of these stories) but it's hard to deny that they do.
if you want an example of a story that isn't merely allegorically or subtextually trans, here's an analysis of a cartoon that's textually and unequivocally about a trans person coming to terms with their gender, using a framing device that trans people share with each other as a thought experiment to help them decide whether or not they're really trans. and, as it's discussed at the end of that video, the author isn't merely some cis person writing about the trans experience. it's very likely that they themselves are trans and are struggling to come to grips with that fact.
the shallow shit that panders to men is a complete non-starter for me, especially because I'm not attracted to women, so I can't really comment on the artistic value of it.
I know this is off topic from both the OP and even more from OOP, and this thread is not really a good place for this, but I'm watching Utena right now and I'm loving it. I'm only half way through, but it has been amazing so far, all the way from the silly to the serious moments.
I hope it ends up touching me someway too, it's been a while since a show made me really feel something, and that's one of the reasons I love this medium so much. I'm gonna be honest, I've been really questioning my gender lately and I don't know what I am right now, but it's great knowing trans people love Utena so much!
Also, I agree with your statement about queer expression on anime. I only saw a few things, but it feels very different. Though I'm still new into looking for queer representation in general.
Do you have any recommendations be it anime or not? I really do want to continue exploring this after I finish Utena.
there's a lot of stuff out there that's "this character is trans but haha they're actually not... but what if?". like so, so much of it. like reddit regularly gets up in arms over "femboys" that live as women full time and will look into the camera and tell the audience "I wish I'd been born a woman" but the characters + marketing material misgenders them so reddit dies on the hill of "this character is actually a man". Luka in Steins; Gate is such a prototypical example of this that I can probably just start calling this the Luka Theorem. don't watch that show unless you want your heart to get broken and feel legitimate rage at a TV show over how much she gives up for the sake of a main character who's straight up abusive towards her.
but I'm gonna be honest. I mentioned Utena because it's the pinnacle of queer, animated art, at least from what I've seen, in terms of it's deeply queer themes, it's exploration of queer sexuality and gender. so many shows, from the Witch from Mars, to Steven Universe have paid homage to it, because it touches everyone who watches it so deeply. I suggest watching Kunihiko Ikuhara's other, less well-known shows. I swear to god, he has to be trans because his works are invariably made for women and fembies -- even the one that looks like it's about sexualizing gay women is a direct attack on the rest of the anime industry for it's treatment of gay characters and it's well received by lesbians. Penguindrum is less obviously queer but it's peak Ikuhara. I highly recommend it.
other suggestions:
there's also a lot of stuff that reads extremely queer if you're familiar with queer culture (I cannot begin to express how many times I've yelled "now kiss" or "bitch just transition" at my screen) but none of it was memorable enough to recommend right now. I'm slowly working through Jojo's Bizarre Adventure right now and it's fun from the perspective that it's hot, buff dudes posing at each other and punching each other when they clearly want to kiss instead, but I can't recommend it, at least so far, cause the politics started fairly reactionary.
Suggesting The Rose of Versailles? Unfathomably based
Sorry for this long comment, I appreciate you taking the time to write all this, I was beyond overjoyed reading it all!!!
Oh, yeah I've seen this type of discourse multiple times over the years, it's always something uh. People still to this day "argue" that Kaworu and Shinji aren't gay in Evangelion, despite Shinji blushing every single time he sees him and basically melting around him. The last one I saw was the shitshow when Bridget came out as trans in Guilty Gear Strive.
I actually watched Steins;Gate years ago, and I'm due to watch it again sometime in the near future, I don't remember much of what happens at all, but I do remember loving Luka as a character. One other thing I remember is that I disliked how Luka was always made fun of or was like the butt of the joke, at least at the very beginning.
Nah, that's totally fine, I didn't know Utena was seen like that, it's good to know. I've heard of the Witch from Mars, and plan on watching it, and I absolutely adore Steven Universe, it's great knowing these were somewhat inspired by it, and now that you mentioned it, I can actually see it in SU. I'll make sure I take a look at Ikuhara's other works too, thanks!
For the other suggestions:
I'm actually not very familiar, but I can relate to that, there has been multiple times were that's all I can think while watching something lol.
Oh girl, I absolutely fucking love JoJo's! It was one of my special interests for a few years, I lived and breathed JoJo's.
I can see how it is reactionary at the beginning, specially since it started in the 80s, but I'm pretty sure Araki is at least a very progressive person for Japanese standards. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but some stuff in Part 3, and Parts 5 onward are a lot more progressive than the previous stuff. Part 5 is just full homoerotic twinks beating the living shit out of each other, hell, in part 6 he wanted the protagonist to be a lesbian, but he was barred from doing that. And the newest part that I haven't read yet might have some gender non-conforming person as one of the main characters from last I saw it too.
I highly suggest you don't use the official subs as there's a lot of censorship of names because Araki literally uses band and song names for stands lmao. Also, if you're interested I suggest watching videos about him and about JoJo in general, it helps put a lot of his decisions into perspective. I don't remember a specific video to recommend but xForts and Kaleb I.A. were the channels I used to watch a lot, just make sure you're ahead enough to not get spoilers.
JoJo does have it's fair share of issues, but I think it is absolutely fenomenal! It a 100% helped destroy my, at the time, homophobic views. We JoJo fans tend to be a bit annoying, but I have also seen push-back against LGBTphobia in the community, which is always good.
oh it gets better on a rewatch when you know where it's headed. the politics really pop out at you. if you haven't seen Promare yet, watch it. it's Trigger at their best -- easily my favorite movie.
my friends in college were always talking about it but they made it sound really unappealing by constantly dropping references. you've just reminded me that I've meant to go back and watch it now that I know how good Trigger is, basically always. well, except Darling and the Franxx. I swear to god someone told them to drop the original ending to that show, because "do a literal revolution and kill the people exploiting you" made some suit uncomfortable, as that would have made so much more sense as the ending rather than the...mess... we got.
ngl, we bounced off part 3 after just a few episodes. neither I nor my wife could stand edgeboy mcedgeface (though, we laughed our asses off when he was like yeah, I'm heading to high school now -- yeah dude, this guy who looks like he's 35 is going to high school, right... but that's been funny consistently throughout the entire series)
yeah, we enjoyed Part 5. we actually liked Part 1 the best of any of them so far because the simplicity made the absurdity much more fun and it did a lot with it's limited run time, without the shitty politics of Part 2. we're considering going back to Part 2 and just straight up rooting for the Pillar Men to win. cause like the only awful shit we've seen them do so far is... kill nazis? which ngl just makes them based. we stopped at "we're leaving to kill people in Mussolini's Italy" (which is extremely "oh... no... don't... stop...") and Joseph was going to ally with the nazis again to stop them. knowing the nazi friend gets murked in Stalingrad only makes it better.
we also accidentally skipped Part 4 because we hit play on season 4 thinking that was Part 4 and eventually realized something was wrong, only to go meh, this is pretty good. the extremely queer men literally everywhere and the extremely homoerotic posing/fights validated that choice. I fucking lost it every time Giorno posed with his stand, hands on its hips like it was going to rail him. so we might go back for Part 4 at some point.
that's extremely disappointing. we're only a few episodes in but I guess it's extremely on-brand for this show to continue being homoerotic subtextually but continue to not address that blatant subtext.
I've heard Part 7 has them fighting the US president which sounds fucking lit. we're kinda just holding out hope that that's one that makes us go from "yeah, this is good I guess" to obsessive the way everyone else seems to be. I feel like one of the reasons we liked 1 better than 5 was just the length of the latter, though. like 5 had the objectively better story but it dragged on for too long. though, I fucking love One Piece so that's some real fucking hypocrisy lmao.
actually, now that we got live action OP, maybe we'll get a live action Jojos. that would be fucking hilarious if done with the same kind of love and dedication. what a truly bizarre prospect, a live action bizarre adventure.
we noticed this when the subs turned on while we were watching the dub (Jellyfin has... issues... sometimes) and how much better the naming was in the dub. renaming "the Sex Pistols" to "6 bullets" has got to be a crime of some kind.
I'd love reccs for good video essays about it. I tried searching for videos about specific Parts but I just got the usual "here's why you should watch..." type videos, which are really shallow and don't get into the deeper kinds of analysis that normally helps me process my own thoughts and feelings about what I just saw. also "I didn't understand this so it's a plothole" really gets my goat. like, dude, it's clearly spelled out and it's clearly spelled out why he couldn't do XYZ in that circumstance -- you're a video essayist, would it kill you to take notes? spoilers also don't affect my ability to enjoy things. if anything they help cause I'm way too ADHD and it's helpful to have some context on where I'm at in a story and which details are relevant/irrelevant.
hahaha, I believe it. this show is nothing, if not extremely homoerotic. and it probably helps that the extremely not gay men are being extremely not gay good guys, instead of just the villains like a lot of other 90s-00s media. someone on reddit got into it with me about whether or not Ursula in the Little Mermaid was gay/trans coded and so I'm super aware that it's possible to miss the barely subtextual text (actually, sorry, I just got mad about this all over again... honey, what??) but I can see how it helps a lot if you're paying any attention at all.
I've watched Promare too, it's great! It pays homage to Gurren Lagann a few times in the movie, specially towards the end. The only criticism I have is that after watching both Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill it became a bit predictable what was gonna happen, but great movie nonetheless.
I'm on the opposite end, I'm the one that annoys people about it constantly lol. Also I don't want to oversell it, so I'll say that Gurren Lagann have some reactionary stuff there too, specially in the first half, but overall for me it's easily Trigger's team best work to this day. Also, I've watched Darling in the Franxx when it was airing, there was so much potential it's criminal it ended how it did.
A lot of people seem to do that, and I can see why, it also gets very repetitive really quickly. I never had a problem watching it, aside from it being a bit to long, tho I'll also say that part 3's lows are really low compared to the rest of the series. Since you said below that you don't mind spoilers I'll throw a few stuff here and there.
If you eventually get back to it I think it's worth for DIO's bisexual ass alone (and Joseph's gay sex joke scene that is hilarious). The way he is portrayed and shown throughout the whole part is extremely interesting, and the final battle is easily one of my favorites. It's also good for the followup in part 6's story line with Pucci, a priest that is obviously gay for him. It's also interesting how DIO is not only a recurring central point to the series but also developed even when he is not present. There's also an old OVA that adapts part 3 if you want to at least see what it is about without committing to the anime adaptation. I never got to actually see it, but everyone likes it, so it's probably good.
It looks like I was wrong about that, he wasn't barred from doing it, that came from a rumor I heard long ago, there's these 2 videos that talk about it: The first one has the outdated info, but it adds some context about part 6, and the second one addresses what actually happened, but yeah it is still quite disappointing. Also, for some reason the anime adaptation cuts a part on the beginning where Jolyne notices a trans prisoner. I don't think it's done in a disrespectful way in the manga at all, it's literally her just noticing and acknowledging them, so it's just weird that it was cut.
I was talking about part 9 there, where Dragona is the sibling of the main character and might be trans from what I seen when it launched, but I didn't look into it after that, so it's possible I'm wrong. But yep, the villain of part 7 is the actual president of the US lmao. The politics are much better there. Part 7 is long as hell, but it is without a shadow of a doubt the de facto best part, be it in setting, characters, story line and politics.
Part 5 length in the anime doesn't really bother me, although the manga has worse pacing, but I get what you're saying, it could definitely be a little shorter. Also, fun fact, JoJo's actually longer than One Piece lol, it just doesn't have the atrocious pacing of the anime.
There is actually a live action Part 4 JoJo movie, but I never saw it. Heard it is kinda ok. Would be cool to have an adaptation like that, but I don't see it happening before the part 7 anime.
Yeah, I just saw the shithole that is searching for JoJo on youtube nowadays, it was better 4-6 years ago, both in results and actual content, and a lot of it aged not very well it seems. I also found out that there's actually not many video essays about JoJo's, and looking back it makes sense, most of the info is scattered around in multiple short videos of character analysis and what not. I guess it makes sense given how many characters and how many almost self-contained stories there are in the series.
I don't really know any good separate part analysis unfortunately, you'll mostly find videos talking about specific events, plotlines and characters. Here's a few videos I think are interesting:
How Hirohiko Araki Makes a Character - There's quite a bit of liberal thinking in here, but it's good to see Araki's process and values in writing. I would skip to the provided timestamp when he's about to talk about part 7 because it's literally spoilers about the end of the story, but he basically talks about how Johnny is a morally grey character that doesn't follow the structures of past protagonists.
The Genius Of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Great overall look on JoJo's over the years and how it evolved.
The Point of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure [Restored Edition] - This one is a look into the whole of JoJo's, before part 7. There's heavy spoilers for everything, but it's genuinely a great view of what the series is. It's much more hopeful and collective thought oriented than I expected. It's well worth a look.
Appreciate Squalo and Tiziano (Clash and Talking Head) - This a short character analysis of the gay antagonist couple in part 5.
Music's Influence in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - This one shows how music heavily influences the writing in the series, I think he kinda stretches stuff a bit in this video, but the overall message is correct.
Bizarre Style: Fashion In Jojo - This talks about the fashion inspirations that Araki took over the years.
The Artistic Evolution of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Evolution of the art in JoJo's, primarily in the manga.
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I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
From your other comments here, you're overreacting.
Sexualized depiction of minors in anime is a HUGE issue, alongside hypersexualization of women in general too, but it's not what the whole medium of anime is. The same way there's a lot of bad stuff in the shonen genre (basically the category of anime whose target audience is teenage boys), there's plenty of stuff that don't do that, and there's also stuff that actually criticizes that practice.
Anime movies from Ghibli and other works like Perfect Blue, for example, don't rely on this this type of stuff. For anime series, Wonder Egg Priority is very pro-LGBT and criticizes Japan's issues with sexual assault, all while having a cast of only girls without sexualizing them. There's other works too like Trigun and The Promised Neverland that, as far as I remember, don't rely on this type of sexualization at all, and these are not small niche anime, they are well known works.
The point of what they said is that the Japanese call every type of cartoon Anime, but everyone else in the world only calls Anime specifically the animated media that comes from Japan, or in some cases animated media that uses the same style as the Japanese, for example, Avatar: The Last Airbender sometimes being called an anime.
Also, no one is freaking out about the criticism you're giving, everyone agrees with you on this front, but you're clearly uninformed enough to lump everything together as the same thing, without giving it a gram of nuance and material thought. Japan have a pretty big problem with these practices that are still unresolved, it is clearly gonna show up on some of the stuff they produce and they SHOULD be criticized for it, but this is not the type of stuff that is gonna change tomorrow, it takes time.