#most yaoi is not a representation of healthy relationships and should be treated as such

[ihopesocomic]

I am so happy, so happy to see queer content that is healthy and good 🥹

When I was younger, my first contact with queer stories and characters were yaoi and yuri manhwas. And oh boy. Most of these works are full of toxicity, abusive relationships, sexual violence, etc (and everything treated in a common and romantic way). Besides the fandom being mostly cishet girls with fetishes on gay people. This was very harmful for me. I believed that all queer representation was that way, and that when I made other queer characters in my stories, they had to be that way. Also, it made me feel like I was a fetish object as well, and that my relationships would be like that, which scared me. I know this was really stupid, but I didn't have a lot of information at the time, and it was the only representation I had found (And I know that they are "stories that are not for everyone", but I still hate the way these themes are treated in these works)

Seeing more comics like yours, which in addition to showing healthy couples, also shows topics like abusive relationships, is really good. It serves as a good example of good representation for many people.

Yeah that's sadly a shared experience among older queer people. Not with yaoi/yuri specifically, because when I was younger that was practically nonexistent, but generally at the time all content containing queer people was adult content, and all that that implies. When you were younger you were very starved for relatable queer content because everything was adult oriented, and that kind of an impact inherently makes it harder for younger people to understand themselves.

I will say it is way better now than it was. People of all ages have options now. There's still a loooooong way to go (these are just the most recent numbers, but 1 in 5 people are queer, which means 20% of media should also be), but at least decent kids content is available to them, with shows like Craig of the Creek. People are a lot more sensitive now, which also helps with the quality of queer content. And that includes showing /positive/ queer relationships. (Because I stg every other sapphic relationship in media is abusive lol)

But thank you very much, anon. While I wouldn't consider a comic about anthropomorphic lions the most inspirational thing in the world to a lot of people who are just simply more attached to human characters, I am proud to be working on this, if anything to just keep creating content that shows that you can write something dramatic while not making queer relationships suffer. - Cat

[holyshiete]

Fan service: the exploitation of hypersexualized feminine tropes in anime

     Ah, yes. Fan service. 

    Kidding aside, fan service is a term coined by the anime community as fictional material, in manga or anime, intended to titillate or rouse viewers. Although fan service may be generally used as a denotative umbrella term to cover all material that pleases viewers (non-sexual and otherwise), its main connotative use colloquially is more well-known. Fan service usually falls short of depicting explicit or graphic sexual content as these materials already fall under pornography. For the most part, fan service is not gender restrictive and may be applied to male characters [see: Yaoi] as they are often so to female characters. Yaoi fan service caters to a particular audience of mostly women, who enjoy romantic narratives involving two male characters. For the sake of narrowing our scope, this post shall be focusing on fan service depicted through female characters. 

     Fan service depicted in anime can be traced as far back as the 70s: Cutie Honey, an anime from 1973, was supposed to be a shoujo magical girl style anime but was changed into a shounen and incorporated nudity in order to market the series to boys and to get better ratings. Anime is an industry that heavily relies on consumer interest. If ratings for a series are high, the studio gains a sufficient (or in some cases, a surplus) budget to produce another season or a spin-off of the anime. The elite that controls the studios capitalize on the popularity of an anime by producing even physical commodities like figurines, dakimakuras, and other similar merchandise to cater to the demand of the public–a demand which the elite themselves have initiated or created. Merchandise may range from wholesome keychains to sexually explicit...well, sex toys. Studios deliberately include titillating material in their anime to fuel the never-ending cycle of the producer-consumer relationship built on catering to viewership for popularity. 

     What makes this cycle hard to break is the underlying semiotics embedded in historical and cultural accounts that support the very culture that feeds into this cycle. Most, if not all, female-involved fan service anime depict women through the “male gaze”, introduced by Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema as the use of the lens of the heterosexual male to view and follow the narrative of the series. This gaze appears to be prevalent in many narratives in the realm of media and implies that the gaze itself captures what the male audiences want to see. This situates women as characters in the film as merely secondary to men because they are objectified and viewed as sexual objects by the male audience, while male characters have the autonomy to act without being reduced to an object for the sake of the viewer. Applied in the context of fan service anime, imagery featuring a two-dimensional woman’s breasts, buttocks and pelvis in an overtly sexual manner are common themes to appease the male gaze. 

     One of the more common tropes of female characters in fan service anime are the archetypal hourglass-shaped women that are oozing with sex appeal. This brings into question the expectations that arise on what exactly is the ideal woman. Is the ideal woman what the male gaze dictates it to be? Is the ideal woman supposed to embody an hourglass figure to appear more desirable? Should a woman even be questioning for whom she should appear desirable for? Historically, the preference for large breasts and wide hips can be explained through the lens of evolution. Men had an affinity for larger breasts (commonly found in plump women) because they were associated with health and ample food source when food was supposedly scarce. If men were to impregnate a healthy woman, it was thought to have secured both theirs and their children’s survival because supposedly the woman would have had to come from an area where food is abundant. Wide hips, on the other hand, were indicators of the future reproductive potential of a female mate. As women birth more children, their waist-hip-ratio grows significantly higher, therefore a low waist-hip-ratio signified the ability to produce offspring. 

     The idea of anime studios working as an industry is further solidified in the fact that variations of women are also added as fan service material to cater to the different tastes of the male audience. Some of the characteristic variations are presented through a mix and match of different physiques and personalities. To name a few, there are loli, pettanko, nekomimi, and all the types of -deres. Although the studio did provide “representation” for many different types of girls, it does not discredit the use of these representations as objects solely for the male audiences. The representation is not a valid argument that fan service diversity “represents all women” because the very variants are treated as sexualized objects to be added into a selection pool for the male gaze. 

     The recurrent trope of fan service in anime may desensitize an audience to a point of not recognizing whether they consume it or not. Many anime do feature a degree of fan service to gain viewership, however, this does not discredit popular anime that can do without. A good example of an anime that achieved high ratings without fan service is Shingeki no Kyojin. This anime arguably relies on plot to keep audience interest. Although the plot was sufficient enough to gain ratings on its own, seemingly breaking free from the producer-consumer cycle presented above, after the anime gained popularity, the studio released fan service material in the form of posters [see: 1 and 2] and an OVA episode that features Mikasa Ackerman’s abs. In this case, it is precisely because the anime is popular that fan service was provided for the audiences. The fan service still acts as material to keep ratings high although arguably, it may have been used by the studio as a token of gratitude for the audiences’ devotion to the series. This still implies that the female characters are utilized as sexualized objects by the studios to please audiences and to gain profit. 

     Fan service may be an inescapable trope for anime at this point (I did have a hard time looking for popular anime that didn’t feature any form of sexual female-centered fan service), but Shokugeki no Soma, an anime that features fan service as a running gag for every episode, utilizes this non-exclusively. In the anime, there is no discrimination between who gets sexualized–curvy women, pettanko school girls, fat men, the elderly etc. Although this is far from the solution to the hypersexualization of women in anime, it definitely is a start–at inclusivity, that is. 

[fandomsandfeminism]

When Yuri!!! on Ice was first beginning, it was compared endlessly to Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, but now that both shows are completed, does that comparison hold up?

Text Transcript under the cut

Hey, so do yall remember in the build up to the Spring 2013 season when Kyoto Animation announced that THE SWIMMING ANIME was going to be a full series and the internet, particularly Tumblr, lost its collective shit? I do. I definitely do.

And I’ll be honest, I watched both seasons of Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’d probably enjoy the movie too if it EVER GOT A NORTH AMERICAN RELEASE. (Come on Crunchyroll, funimation. Why are yall like this?)  I liked the pretty boys and the pretty animation and the fun opening and ending and holy. Shit. the fanservice.

So when, in the build up to the Fall 2016 season, Studio Mappa announced Yuri!!! On Ice, I was pretty excited. It seemed to promise a lot of the same things that Free had: Cute boy sports anime with fanservice and pretty animation. It promised to be like Free! But the Pool is Frozen, the Boys are back in town 2.0 Winter edition. Hell yeah.

Now, those qualities don’t inherently mean that I was going to love the show. Heck, 2016 Summer’s attempt with Cheer Boys was boring as hell. I don’t think anyone even watched it.

But never, really, in a thousand years, did I think that Yuri!!! On Ice was going to be BETTER than Free. But, let’s be honest. Yuri!!! on Ice is better than Free. Much, much, better than Free.

*Please note: Spoilers ahoy!*

So here is my thesis, if you will:   Free! Iwatobi Swim Club and Yuri!!! On Ice, despite their obvious similarities, have 3 very distinct differences which cause Yuri!!! on Ice to be more enjoyable and satisfying for me personally: their treatment of same-sex attraction, the development and variety of their secondary characters (particularly women), and the maturity and realism of their emotional depth.

How the shows treat same-sex attraction. For this section, we need to talk about Queer Baiting. What it is, how to spot it, and why, as a queer fan, it kinda sucks.

So definition first. In general, queer baiting is a term used to describe an attempt by canon creators to woo queer fans and/or slash fans by hinting at LGBT+ characters and/or relationships but with no intention of actually making it canon. This is done either by introducing a character who is coded as queer in some meaningful way, or by hinting that two same-sex characters might be attracted to each other but never confirming these things. Worst yet, these HINTS tend to be explained away as jokes, as humor. Often, instead of getting same sex couples, the idea of same sex couples is made into a joke.

Now, the term Queer Baiting comes from a very western context. It is a concept developed in the West to talk about western media, and there is some debate about whether or not that specific term can be applicable to anime and eastern media. Especially since a lot of anime that engage in this aren’t trying to bait QUEER fans, but are specifically trying to bait straight women who like watching hot guys make out. (But then, that could be argued as being partly true in the west as well.) Regardless of whether or not the specific term Queer Baiting is the best to use here, or if we should go with Fan Baiting, or some other alternative, the underlying concept is the same: A show deliberately hints at a queer relationship and then never delivers in order to appeal to a wide variety of fans but lacks real representation.  

So, does Free! Iwatobi Swim Club bait? Hell yes it does. It very intentionally seems aimed at Japanese Fujioshi, Japanese straight female fans who like slash and yaoi, and, to an extent, queer fans, who are incredibly interested or invested in seeing same-sex relationships in media. (There’s a whole conversation to be had about fujioshi culture and how it objectifies queer men, but that’s for another day.)

And let me be clear: Baiting doesn’t inherently make a show bad. If nothing else, it can lead to a very vibrant fan community. And as a queer anime fan, I fall for this shit hook line and sinker every damn time. I’m basically helpless when it comes to this stuff.

But make no mistake, baiting isn’t a good thing. It isn’t progressive writing. It isn’t diverse writing. It isn’t writing that helps positive minority representation in media. The goal of baiting it to titillate fans with emotional fan service, but not actually commit to writing lgbt+ characters.

And make no mistake, anime as a whole does not have a GREAT track record with representing lgbt+ people in positive ways. There are exceptions, naturally, but as a whole, there isn’t a lot there that is positive and well done. And if you are invested in seeing that kind of representation, constant baiting can be frustrating and disheartening.

So Free! Baits. The characters flirt and look at each other longingly and splash in the water together and take random spur of the moment vacations to Australia to meet each other’s foster families and all their emotional stakes are tied to each other and nothing. Ever. happens.  

Yuri!!! on Ice though?

Yuri!!! On Ice came through for us. I think the fandom is still a little bit in shock. I’m in shock. Because like...this shit doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t happen. But here it is! It happened. They flirted. And blushed. And kissed. And rings. RINGS. YALL. ENGAGEMENT RINGS. And holy shit, the pair skate?!

We have professional figure skaters tweeting about this show and the creator talking about how Yuuri and Victor can’t live without each other for real, and how so many fans got on twitter to thank her for the kiss in episode 7 because this kind of thing just….never happens.

I...I’m sorry. It’s just so, so incredibly rare for us to get healthy positive depictions of same-sex relationships outside of the very narrow genres of Boys love (and Girls love) in anime (which can and do have their own issues). And while Yuri!!! on Ice may not always be EXPLICIT with the romantic elements of the show all the time, they are far from subtle. The repeated declarations of love, how Yuuri is skating to show his love, their love, how meeting Victor has taught him about love, how Yuuri has taught Victor about life and love, only the most hard hearted adamant could try to no-homo this pair. And since the finale strongly implied a sequel, and Kubo has said she would like to continue the story, I think it’s safe to hope for even more romantic development in the future. (Like….a wedding? Please?)

So for those of us for whom seeing depictions of same-sex relationships done well is very important, this is like, a big deal. That’s not to say that Yuri!!! on Ice has perfect same sex relationship representation and is the sole standard bearer without flaw. It certainly has pros and cons, and has it’s own place within the Japanese media landscape. But it’s certainly good, and certainly more satisfying than Free! For me as a queer fan.

But it is not all I’m going to talk about. Baiting VS canon may be the most obvious, and important, difference between these shows, it is not the only one.

2. Side characters! Are like, a thing! There are girls in this show too!

Quick! Name all the female characters you can from Free!

Who all could you think of? The teacher- Ms. Amakata, and Kou, right? Maybe you remembered that Kou has that friend, but I bet you forgot her name (It’s Chigusa). Maybe, like, the wife that Rin stayed with in Australia? Makoto’s little sister? It’s pretty scarce. 2 secondary characters, and maybe 3 tertiary ones.

And it is understandable why this is. It’s a cute boy sports anime. Any amount of time we spend giving Kou screen time is time we aren’t watching Nagisa and Rei flirt. Makoto, being total husband material, is the only one of the boys who we really see their family. Rin and Kou rarely interact. Nagisa’s family is only talked about but never seen. Haru? Was ...born from the ocean, I guess.

Amakata and Kou do have personality, and I love them. But they are only two secondary characters.  Makoto’s sister only exists to characterize Makoto. You can’t describe any of her thoughts or likes or personality beyond that relationship. The wife in the couple Rin stayed with? I can’t even find her name on the internet.

Now, name all the female characters you can from Yuri!!! on Ice.

So, there’s Minako. And Mari. And Yuko. And the triplets. And Mila. And Sara. And Yuuri’s mom, Hiroko. And Yurio’s ballet teacher Lilia. All of these characters are seen multiple times, have speaking roles, and have some thought written into them beyond just what their presence tells us about the men. Yuko was the star of the ice rink when she was young. She’s a young mother who still loves skating. Minako was a dancer and owns a ballet studio, loves drinking too much and wants to meet famous skaters. The triplets are young girls who are skating otaku, are over zealous and like being on social media. We can describe nearly all of these characters in meaningful ways without even mentioning their relationships to men.

And look, It’s not a secret I’m a feminist. I like seeing well written female characters. But more than just my preference for some female characters, a lack of women can make a story feel a lot narrower, the world less fleshed out and believable. This gender disparity doesn’t break Free! By any means, and plenty of anime are incredibly girl heavy with almost no boys. We know WHY this happens too: It’s done to more aggressively market the show to an intended gender demographic. But to see a Sports anime able to include a decent number of developed female characters, I think, is a testament to the strong writing of the show and its wide appeal.

3. The emotional maturity.

The last meaningful difference between the shows is probably the most nebulous to describe. The best I can do is this: Free! Tries to capture how emotional teeangers feel about their inner conflicts in exaggerated and juvenile ways.  Yuri!!! on Ice shows adults navigating their inner conflicts in more natural and healthy ways.

A lot of this can be boiled down to the character’s ages, and the assumed age of the intended audience, but I think the quality of the writing affects it too. So when the entire swim team has a melt down because they secretly suspect that Rei is cheating on them with the track team, or when Nagisa runs  away from home forever because his parents want him to focus on school and not swimming, or when Rin breaks down crying all the goddamn time in season 1 because of...sexual tension with Haru? Or when Rin has to kidnap Haru for a vacation to Australia to save him from an existential crisis we all kinda...roll with it, and post gifs about all our feels, and accept it because they are TEENAGERS  in ANIME so everything is really dramatic.

Now, Yuri!!! on Ice is a sports anime about ADULTS. Yuuri is 23. Victor is 27. That doesn’t mean they don’t have problems or deal with drama. But it does mean that problems are met with a sense of realism. Look, Yuuri’s dog died and he bombed his tournament and ends up crying in a bathroom stall. It’s sad, but he doesn’t try to run away and live in a tent. Macchin gets sick and might die, and Yuuri is afraid Victor leaving might make his performance suffer. But they talk about it, and Victor goes to be with his dog, and Yuuri does his best. Yuuri has anxiety that flares up, and Victor does his best to support him. When Victor is overwhelmed at Yuuri’s anxiety and messes up at being a good coach, Yuuri and him talk about it. THEY TALK. LIKE PEOPLE DO. The most emotional drama we get in the series is when Yuuri is considering retiring and cutting things off with Victor in the finale- which gets resolved by the end of that episode. But no one has to bottle up secret career ending injuries for an ENTIRE SEASON from their best-not-boyfriend because they are over dramatic high schoolers.

Ultimately this last point probably matters a lot more to me than most people. Anime as a whole is so super saturated with teenagers with hyper melodramatic emotions that having a sports show where the characters react in reasonable and healthy ways is just really nice.  

So what am I saying? What’s the point? Am I saying Free! Is a bad show? No. If you like cute boys doing sports things and can stand or even enjoy the baiting, then hell yes. Watch the hell out of it. Go nuts. Draw fan art and write fic and fight about Makoto/Haru vs Rin/Haru vs Rin/Souske (RinHaru 4lyfe).

But I think it’s important that we appreciate when a show is pretty good and pretty fun like Free, and when a show goes above and beyond. When a show has real canon representation for same sex relationships, and a decent gender balance, and well conveyed emotional depth, I want us to care. I want the difference between a 7 out of ten anime and a 10/10 anime to matter. I want us to recognize when a show makes history.

So yeah. Yuri on Ice isn’t “Like Free, but the pool is frozen.” If anything, Free is “Like Yuri on Ice, but lukewarm and tepid.’  

Thanks for watching this video! This channel is brand new, so any likes or comments are super appreciated. I’m really new making video essays instead of just tumblr posts, but I had a lot of fun working on this, and I hope to make more videos like it. If you enjoyed listening to a millennial feminist with a BA in English ramble about stuff I like for a while, feel free to subscribe. I will be trying to make more of these soon.

[mononohke-archive]

Anime Roundup Pt.2 - Fall 2016 [Spoilers]

More rambling~

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable [8/10]

Another season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has come and gone, and it’s been quite a wild ride. Personally, I think it was about on par with the first season of JJBA. I liked it better than Stardust Crusaders because I liked the main characters better and the plot was not as much of a repetitive “monster of the week” affair, but unfortunately, it seems like they didn’t put as much effort into the animation and production values. This 39 episode season was also a full 11 episodes shorter than the two 25 episode seasons of SDC, despite the manga being slightly longer. It definitely felt a little rushed, and I’ve had my manga reader friends inform me that some of their favorite parts were cut out.

But there were a lot of things I really loved about DiU as well. Josuke quickly became my favorite Jojo after Joseph, and I like Jotaro more in this part than I ever did in SDC. The villain, Kira, is also one of my favorite characters period and so is Rohan Kishibe, played brilliantly by Takahiro Sakurai as usual. Many of the stands are hilarious and creative in this part too. I also loved the whole Scooby Doo-esque mystery of a serial killer in the town and the slice of life elements. The scale was brought down from “evil villains try to take over the world” to one serial killer who “just wants to live a normal life”... and kill women and take their hands to satisfy his compulsions, of course. It was a really refreshing change from the typical formula.

The only thing or character that I didn’t like is Koichi - partially because he gets more attention than Josuke, kind of like Polnareff in SDC (except much less likable) and partially because his voice actor, Yuki Kaji, is fucking annoying as him. Unfortunately, on top of that, he’s the character who spends most of his screen time yelling exactly what’s happening, like Polnareff and Speedwagon before him, except his voice is literally ear-splittingly irritating.

I sincerely hope that in the next part, they don’t take shortcuts like they did with this part. JJBA is one of my favorites, so I will still be waiting for it eagerly.

Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru [5/10]

I wasn’t expecting much from this anime and it still disappointed me lol. Touken Ranbu is basically a moe anime (but with a diversity in character designs that moeblobs wish they had), except the characters are male. Some of it was sort of mildly entertaining and cute, but for the most part, it was pretty boring.

... Maybe I’m just peeved because they didn’t focus that much on characters I personally find attractive, like Kogitsunemaru. You know the only reason I watched this show in the first place was because I’ve seen a ridiculous amount of yaoi for it on pixiv? The porn was nice, but I would never play the game itself, so I figured the anime would give me a little more insight into the characters and their relationships. The anime did, but it still failed at entertaining me.

So, yeah, this anime perfectly average and forgettable. Only watch if you’re super dedicated to the game.

Poco’s Udon World [9/10]

The biggest surprise of this season for me was this show. Yes, this show is my AotS (by about .2 points) over that other anime which got super popular and had a ton of praise. Well, we all go against the grain sometimes and this is my turn. Poco’s Udon World is an underrated masterpiece in my opinion. This show came off the heels of the much more popular Sweetness and Lightning, which came out the previous season. Both shows have a similar premise - a young man in his early 30s with black haired (voiced by Yuuichi Nakamura) becomes a single father due to sudden circumstances and has to take care of an adorable toddler-aged child. There are some key differences, of course, but they are still similar enough to be comparable.

Personally I think Poco’s Udon World is far superior (for reasons I will discuss), and it saddens me that it hasn’t got half the popularity of S&L. (Probably because there isn’t a cute waifu character as one of the mains, heh.) So what makes PUW so good to me? Well, besides all the cute and the incredibly heartwarming/touching nature of the show, it’s also just very well-written. The characters and their development, as well as a plethora of themes I don’t see being portrayed very often in anime or when they are brought up, are handled in ways that make me uncomfortable.

Here is just a short list of themes PUW manages to masterfully cover in a 12-episode, single cour season:

career vs family

career and family separately

fatherhood

grief and nostalgia

growing up

love

And those are just the main themes? There are other things that are covered on a more subtle level. See, I explained in my review of S&L that it was lacking an exploration of its themes and was constrained by its repetitive slice of life format. Most of the supporting characters were not very fleshed out either. PUW fixes all or most of these problems.

Every episode brings something new to the table and there is no set episode format. I also absolutely love that every character outside of Poco and Souta feels like they could be a real person, instead of being a plot device or 2-dimensional character. They all have lives outside of their interactions with the main characters, so that even when they don't get much screen time, they feel fleshed out. All of them represent a different sort of family or different sort of lifestyle or different sort of mindset, which you can easily compare to Souta's situation because they all serve as foils to him. A lot of supporting characters even get their own character development like Nakaji and Rin (Souta' sister).

And... okay, I want to analyze this show in-depth one day, but I need to rewatch it (maybe several times) before I do. Trust me, it’s cute and all, but it’s much more than that too. You might be surprised at how high it is on my Top 10 Anime of 2016 list.

Kiss Him, Not Me [7/10]

After watching two absolutely terrible otome/harem anime that really pissed me off (Uta no Prince Sama and Kamigami no Asobi), I went back on my decision to never watch an otome because this one was about a fujoshi and written by a yaoi mangaka. Somehow... it paid off. I came out of this pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this show.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty that annoyed me (the fatshaming, how Serinuma’s voice changes, the shoujo cliches, etc), but overall I enjoyed it more than I disliked it. Although I was only rooting for two of the love interests, Mutsumi-senpai (who is mild mannered, friendly, genuine, liked her when she was fat) and Nishina (the gay option™, also a fujoshi and otaku who has a lot in common with Serinuma, also liked her even when she was fat), I didn’t really mind or hate the others either. All of them still treated her more respectfully than LIs in the other otome I watched.

The ending was brilliant too, and if they make a second season, I would still watch it for the characters and humor.

Yuri!!! on Ice [9/10]

How do I even begin to tackle Yuri!!! on Ice? This is the AoTS for sure (in general, not to me personally) and is by far the runaway smash hit in terms of both popularity and ratings. This anime is a game changer, to put it lightly. It did something no other popular anime has done before, and the praise is honestly well deserved. But, hey, remember that it’s still not perfect. In fact, up until the very last episode, I was debating on whether it deserved an 8 or a 9 on MAL. I settled on a 9 (a low nine by my standards) only because I cried a whole lot the last episode and realized that the overall impact of the show is bigger than my minor gripes. What are those minor gripes?

#1) Off-model/inconsistent animation. I will give a slight break to the animators because I know that animating ice skating is very complex and intricate, especially if you consider just how much ice skating there is in almost every episode. There are about a dozen ice skaters, each with two different 2-minute routines. Yes, many of them are reused multiple times, but regardless it’s still a lot of work. Unfortunately, YoI missed the chance to be stunning all the way through and join the other always-praised animation greats like Cowboy Bebop and much more recently, Mob Psycho 100. Only the first episode truly impressed me with how perfect and fluid the animation was, and I was dearly hoping that they would keep up that level of quality all the way through. Sadly they don’t, but we should all thank the writing of this show for being so damn good and making up for it. Besides, aside from a few, rather obvious off-model shots, it didn’t ever get too bad, not like Cheer Danshi!! from the Summer season.

#2) Slightly rushed pacing. Yeah, some of the events of this anime just go by too fast, especially the beginning few episodes where months pass between Victor arriving in Japan and Yuuri beginning his journey to the Grand Prix Final. It’s not really made clear to the viewers how much time has passed, and even I didn’t realize until I read a tumblr post on it. Originally, I wanted a whole other cour so that I could see the ice skaters interact more outside of work, but I think that would be too much as well. One more episode (a full 13 episode cour) would’ve been perfect, imo. Thankfully, we are getting another season, so there will definitely be more time to develop the other side characters and resolve some of the remaining threads! But seriously, I hope they do slow down a little bit in season 2.

Other than that...? Gripes so minor that they’re not even worth mentioning. The amount of good that YoI has done is overwhelming my comparison. I’ll just go through them like a list again because why not?

#1) Viktor and Yuuri’s relationship. A healthy canon gay interracial relationship in a non-yaoi anime. That is just shy of revolutionary in terms of LGBT representation in an anime. “We are born to make history”, indeed. Yes, some other anime have done it too like No.6 and Revolutionary Girl Utena. But was No.6, the other one where the main couple is M/M, popular like YoI is? Not particularly. Most of the viewership comes from yaoi fangirls or LGBT anime fans seeking an anime with a canon gay ship in it. What about Utena? Well, Utena didn’t have a happy ending, not for the canon lesbian character and not for the main F/F relationship of the show. Nothing is also explicitly stated like it is in YoI. Ofc, Utena by the very nature of the show, explicitly states very little but still. There’s also a goddamn kiss!

The best part of this is that Viktor and Yuuri is that, despite their happy ending, they don’t sacrifice depth or conflict between them and the drama doesn’t feel forced either. That balance is hard to achieve and it takes writing talent to pull it off. Every action and reaction feels natural and in-character. The writing featuring them is as good as any well-written romantic drama with a hetero couple! The other great thing is that even though Viktor and Yuuri’s relationship is incredibly important to the narrative and is the main relationship overall, romance is still not the primary genre. It equally shares genres with sports, comedy, and drama.

TL:DR; Their relationship is important. It sets a precedent that a gay couple can be the main couple of an anime and still be wildly successful. Now future manga and anime writers can take risks knowing that they won’t end up being financially compromised due the lgbtphobic culture of Japan.

2) Yuri on Ice perfectly balances its genres. This may not seem that important, but it kind of is and ties into the last point about how romance is not the main genre. If romance were the main genre, then this would be a yaoi/shounen-ai anime and it wouldn’t have gotten nearly as popular as it did. Yuuri’s evolution as an athlete and his desire to win the gold for the first time is just as important as his relationship with Viktor. Yurio, Viktor, and the other skaters’ relationships with each other and ice skating is also given a lot of attention. The love and dedication to ice skating in general is prominent and that passion has attracted the attention of countless professional ice skaters. (In fact, It’s like the anime singlehandedly brought attention to a niche sport that doesn’t get a whole lot of industry unlike American football and soccer/European football.)

There’s also a lot of comedy, which may be hit and miss for some people, but I found it pretty damn hilarious when it happens. Of all the sports anime I’ve seen, only a few others try others bringing in other genres. Most are pure sports because pure sports are usually the most successful (Haikyuu!! and Kuroko no Basket). So far for me, only YoI has successfully melded together all the genres it attempts.

3) Characters. It is said that sports anime highly depends on its characters to be good and set itself apart from other sports anime... and that’s pretty true. Most sports anime follow a rigid, predictable plot structure that doesn’t allow for much creativity on that front, so aside from technical aspects like the production values, the characters’ likability are the only things that it can rely on for originality. Of course, as I’ve already discussed, YoI blends genres and isn’t just pure sports so it has more freedom, but even it follows the same basic plot structure: main character is an underdog (they’re usually underdogs) who wants to win the finals.

So, what about the characters? Honestly, they’re fucking great. The problem with sports anime characters in most cases is that authors will fall back on tired stereotypes. Even the best of sports anime tends to have really obvious archetype characters you can recognize instantly. YoI doesn’t really have that. Yes, some of the characters do follow archetypes a litte, but even in the short amount of time they are given, they end up having miles more depth than the average sports anime character. It helps that we get to see them interacting with each other off the ice too. YoI is a character driven show much more than it is a plot-driven one. The plot is fairly simple, but the characters and their development are the most important part, particularly the main character, Yuuri Katsuki. He is relatable but also very believably talented and multifaceted. Viktor comes off as kind of a passive aggressive jerk at first, but he is one of the kindest and most caring characters in the show. Yurio comes off like an aggressive little brat (and he is still a little shit, I hope he gets more development in s2), but he’s genuinely a prodigy and he cares about Yuuri’s career. Listen, I could keep going and list another 5 characters that I like, but that’s not the point of this review.

That about covers the major things... I could go on, but then I might never shut up. To summarize, YoI is not perfect, but it is still so important for the gains in made for gay representation and besides that, it’s a rich, funny, heartwarming, and interesting portrayal of figure skating. I am sincerely looking forward to season 2 and hope that it’s just as good or even better than season 1.

[misssugarpinkshome]

Thank god for uncensored free written child porn I guess

OKAY so HERE WE GO now that I have an internet connection! Gonna put this in a read more because it’s long and rambly and also contains some personal stuff.

In my last post, I did mention that AO3 contains uncensored content. What content might this be, you ask? Why yes! There is child porn. It’s a fucking atrocious fact of life that sometimes, people... are disgusting.

You know what else goes uncensored?

LGBT content. Like. Hoooly fuck you wanna search for that gay shit on there? Guess what, it’s even in the fucking relationship take! F/F or M/M up in here. What’s that, you’re looking for polyamory fics? MULTI ROMANCE BITCH. And no, this is not me condoning “uwu look at my yaoi bois being adowable” culture. This is me saying “look at this website that doesn’t try to censor an entire group of people from existing!” Because you know, when Fanfiction.net and Livenet decided to do their massive purges of anything NC-17, it just so happened that they also cleared off a lot of LGBT+ content. Who would’ve guessed huh? It’s almost like people use censorship for bad things too. Wow!

I would love to go on for hours about all of the benefits, but this is the biggest one that is most applicable to me. Not to mention, you know, those websites that DO practice censorship tend to ALSO have free child porn (and, you know, WHITE SUPREMACY, hint hint, TUMBLR). It’s just that AO3 actually believes that freedom of speech should be a thing. It’s almost like. AO3. Treats fandom writers. As actual writers. And what you all are actually mad about is people. Feeling like they can write. Wow.

And just to head this conversation off before it starts: no, I am not saying child pornography is a good thing. Duh. But as some people have already decided to point out, I have a dark evil fanfiction history hurr durr. So let’s go into that shall we?

When I was about 14? I think? I got into MLP. oh gosh misssugarpink that’s a real toxic fandom with disgusting people. Oh yeah really? You know, being 21 now, I just maybe have figured that out by now. Just maybe. But when I was 14? Hell no that fandom was my inner sanctum away from homophobic, racist parents! It was my safe harbor. And then, when I was 16, and discovered oh wait I have feelings for people and things that are not platonic in nature oh fucking course I started writing porn. Duh???? I was a writer experimenting with sex in a safe way. What, did you want me to just. Start going out and fucking people at 16???????

So yeah, I wrote drabbles. And then I realized Oh I’m in an abusive relationship right now. So then I started actually reading smut and stuff and oh my god that’s what consent is??? YEAH I LEARNED WHAT CONSENT WAS FROM A MLP FIC. So then. Gasp. It’s like. I started writing healthy (yes sexual) relationships. It’s almost like. Fanfiction. Was a way. For me to explore my wants and desires. In a healthy. Way. Wow.

And then, 17-18??? It’s almost like I was discovering I was gay. Wow. Because everything around that time??? Centered??? On figuring out???? What gay ships I felt comfortable writing??? And realizing?? I liked? Being? Gay? This is why I moved to fandoms with actual gay representation. It’s why I started writing homestuck when I got into that ---- and yeah, the realization that the characters were underage was why I moved to OC Undertale writings. It’s almost like having access to the ability to write child pornography doesn’t make you suddenly become a pedophile.

So yeah. There we go. Rant is just about over now. If you’re interested in AO3 and censorship of Fanfictions and of Free Speech, I would suggest researching it some yourself. I know there’s so many more people affected by censorship when it comes to writing, and this is only one place that AO3 really shines. I have a shit ton of grading and lesson planning to do right now, so I physically don’t have the time to just do your research for you.