#and whilst Sophia is Achan's Reincarnation she is NOT Achan

[mrsmarymorstan]

no wait i want to hear ur thoughts on the my next life as a villainess queers... personally im leaning towards yuri bait but i could be convinced otherwise

This is gonna be steam of consciousness rather than actual thoughts because I need a nap. But essentially I feel as though whilst the fact that there are multiple female love interests whose love for Catarina is presented as being on pa with that of the boys, the fact that the boys have had more character and relationship development with Catarina does make it feel as though there is a certain amount of heteronormativity in progress.

We see declarations of love and affection from both male and female, but in terms of kissing and explicit romance we've only seen it from the boys. Which has also ALWAYS been non-consensual, so in many ways I'm HAPPY that Catarina has not been forced to experience that from any of the girls but regardless when 3/3 kisses have been from boys then one needs to start to debate whether the series is just queer bait.

It's interesting because we KNOW that the society Catarina lives in does have at least SOME tolerance towards same sex couples since she was able to find queer stories suitable for pre-teens in just the local bookshops. However at the same time, we only ever see M/F couples surrounding them! None of her fellow pupils have same-sex parents. We don't see same-sex couples wondering about. We don't have any evidence that same-sex couples exist outside of the world of fiction!

We've also not had a "But I'm a Girl?!" moment either which, on the one hand, I'm grateful for because I don't want these girls to have any ounce of heteronormativity. I want them to just fully accept their love for Catarina right away and not view it as something that needs questioning like that. However, at the same time, "But I'm a girl?!" Is SUCH a Yuri Trope that to NOT have it feels as though they're actively avoiding being seen as a Yuri series?

There's also the Yuri Manga Anthology spin off to be considered. It's advertised as being a series of Yuri side stories from the canon, but when you read it there's not much to them? They're fun enough, and obviously cannot go further than the canon does, however they don't feel especially YURI? The girls don't have any big internal confessions or draw hearts around their names or contemplate getting married. It's just... more the same.

Don't get me wrong! I think the series is a LOT of fun, and it's great to see a Bisexual Reverse Harem! It's also good to see that there isn't the same level of blatent homophobia/fetishization that you get with some of these series. Or at least in the past-- re-watching something like Ouran can be kinda YIKES at times.

So yeah, on the whole whilst it definitely presents us with some level of queer representation and content, the series' inability to commit to the female love interests in the same way it does the male ones means that -- to my mind -- it skews more towards Yuri Queer Bait than anything else.

Now this MIGHT be different in the manga and light novels! But I have only read the Yuri Anthology and seen the anime. So only have that to go off of.