#and also has some toxic yuri going on with homura

[mahoutoons]

you know how in a lot of magical girl shows the main character has more chemistry with a female teammate or best friend than her male love interest who they force on her even though he has the personality of cardboard? sayaka miki's arc is the opposite of that and i love it.

[translationandbetrayals]

We (or at least I) need more actual queer representation in anime and manga.

Anime and manga as a whole has the habit to ignore the existence of LGBTQ+ individuals when creating their stories. This might be the consequence of Japan being a very homophobic country, but I have to digress, as a part of the Japanese youth revels against heteronormativity and since a couple of years has become “genderless”

I have seen many times the argument that “the sexuality of the characters does not matter for the plot of the anime” as an excuse to not put LGBTQ+ characters in a series, but if sexuality doesn’t matter, all the more reasons to give plot relevance to queer characters.

Now I understand that some people might say that there is already enough representation, or even that with genres like yaoi and yuri the fee is filled, but what I mean we need more of is non-sexualized, non-fetichized, clear and valid representation.

The problem with thinking that genres like yaoi or yuri can count as actual representation is that is harmful for real queer people. I´m not going to shade anyone for enjoying those genres, but there need to be a realization for them that the only point in that kind of work is to sexualize gay and lesbian relationships, and that they are fictional works not meant to be a real representation of queer relationships, astheyoften romanticize abuse, non-consensual intimacy, toxic relationships or possessive partners.

There is also the amount of times that I have seen young girls stalking or almost harassing gay couples because they are “fujoshis” and want to “show their support for the couple” they have been way too many, and it disgust me more every time I see it. It´s just a little reminder that yaoi is often made by straight woman, for straight woman, same being for yuri, queer people are not their intended demographic.

There is also a huge problem with queerbaiting and queer-coding.

Queerbaiting is when a series pretends to introduce queer characters to the plot to attract queer viewers and appear more progressive, only to never actually address them, making them irrelevant to the plot or giving them timelines or relationships that don’t get anywhere. Although this is a problem way bigger in western media it still happens in anime and manga.

Queer-coding characters, even though not actually harmful, does not help either, because by leaving the identity of the character ambiguous is that it makes the LGBTQ+ people that point out those characteristics look crazy. Characters like Caesar Zeppeli from JJBA part 5, Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Magne from BNHA, Kaworu Nagisa from Evangelion, Momoko Sudō from Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo, Christa Lenz and Ymir from Shingeki no Kyojin, and many more.

I’m not going to go in detail about why these characters are queer coded because that will take a lot of time, so I guess you will just have to take my word for it or look for the information yourself, which I highly recommend, as it is not hard to find.

I assume that if you get angry at someone for suggesting that your fave characters are any other that straight I got you real mad.

Even in series where there are LGBT+ characters they are usually push as supporting cast or antagonist, or porly represented.

But we can see a how things can be done with Alluka Zoldyck from Hunter X Hunter, her character is an actual good representation of a trans person, and the struggles she has to endure by being part of a family that doesn´t support her, being Killua one of the few people that actually respect her and refer to her by her preferred pronouns. She is an important character in the cast and is significant for the development of the plot.

(As a side note, the HxH Fandom Wiki in English acknowledge the difference between sex and gender and refers to her as female, however the Spanish Wiki does not and refers to Alluka as a male, so, English wiki is Killua and Spanish wiki is the rest of the family)

There is also Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune from Sailor Moon, two characters that were clearly in a lesbian relationship, where the English dub made the awful decision to change to cousins, making everything extremely uncomfortable, but that’s another story. 

And at no point I mean that there is no good queer anime, what I actually mean is that the ones that are actually good are usually unknown by most people, leaving them in the obscurity, and most of the time not getting international translations, let alone anime adaptations.

Some examples of good representation are mangas like Shimanami Tasogare, Sabishisugite Rezu Fūzoku ni Ikimashita Repo (My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness), or Boukyuusei.

They have become petty popular amongst queer anime fans, for the sole reason that they are some of the few mangas that wanted to represent sexuality and gender in a modern, non-fetishized way. These works in no point queer-bated their audience, nor they romanticize abuse or toxic relationships like many yaois or yuris do.

Asking for more LGBTQ+ representation in anime is not “wanting to make everything gay”, it´s asking for the bare minimum. Wester shows like the new She-ra adaptation or Steven Universe, despite if you like them or not, have dared to put queer protagonist in their stories, and not only that but have allowed those characters to succeed, surely Japan can do the same.

- Catalina Vásquez M