LGBT manga/anime: "when I get high I can get really emotional about sapphic love"

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > LGBT manga/anime: "when I get high I can get really emotional about sapphic love"

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Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Pollyanna posted:

I honestly wish there was more outright trans rep in anime and manga. Maybe I�ve just been missing it, but most of the non-cisnormative rep is couched in �haha gender-nonconforming presentation but nope actually definitely a boy!!�. Which is all well and good, GNC rep is important, but we�re just outright rare in comparison.

It actually kinda bugs me, and I think a lot of it is authors either being too scared to fully commit, or chasing some fetishistic 4chan-style fad. Cause I know for a fact that there�s Japanese trans people, so it�s not some ethnocentric �this concept doesn�t exist in the East� bullshit.

The trans/GNC rep we do get is often of the idealistic anime waifu garbage nature too. I�d really love to see more realistic, non-turbofemme rep. Gimme some bikers or programmers or something (not biased, I promise). Double House and Shimanami Tasogare were great about this sort of thing.

i mean, you can say the same thing about western media. i also question the use of 'anime waifu garbage' in this post

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 17:14

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 13:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

femboys... good

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 17:29

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

how you feel about it is how you feel about it but theres no real need to be the gender police about it is my take. the yugioh cards with the pink borders is one thing because as mentioned the term itself inherently implies a kind of trickery but the fact is any term that refers to femme presented gay dudes is A) gonna be a 'successor' and B) is gonna be used in a fetishy way. at a certain point youre just moving deck chairs.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 17:33

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

I get your point, but I also don't think it's up to me to say how others should be represented - it's their voices that should be heard, not mine.

i get you feel bad but i wasnt replying to you and also you running down the apology tour checklist is kinda uncomfortable lol, like it feels very performative and at this point accounts for like 25% of the posts in this thread. just say 'sorry, my bad, wont happen again'

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 17:38

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Acerbatus posted:

I didn't think DMing a mod asking for a rule stating no tolerance for sexual depictions of minors was going to 'terrorize LGBT spaces on the forum', yet here we are.

if this is your play its a pretty weak one, there's a long road between extreme sexualization and stuff you could get away with in a pg-13 movie.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 02:35

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Acerbatus posted:

Okay, but that's why I didn't make a report saying "permaban snooze cruise, that'll learn 'em" and sent a DM asking if the mods could set a line on what exactly was okay.

The vtuber thread did just get closed over something pretty minor, after all, so it left the rules pretty haphazard.

i mean, what line do you want to be set here? because what you personally arent comfortable with and what is actually morally objectionable are two different things.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 02:43

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Acerbatus posted:

Making it clear on what level of sexualization of minors is okay, more or less. I'm not a mod here, I don't get to decide what's okay. That's fine.

look i think most people can like, tell, and a rule in the op defining what amount you can show would make this thread look more suspect, not less. imagine going into the lgbt thread and the first post has fifteen paragraphs about child sexualization, come on.

like i said, i read pretty much everything posted in the last thread and everything you could describe as very sexual involved adults. everything with teens you could absolutely sell in a barnes and noble with a 'for ages 15 and up' on the back without any drama, i dont really see the need to live the rest of our lives quibbling in an extremely offputting way because the vtuber thread got blammed.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 02:52

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Monicro posted:

On this exact note: hi gamers im gay and wanna consume more of That Gay poo poo but ive never read manga before at all and dont really know where to start; i know you posted some general recs last page (and ill check them out!!) but are there any like, hall of fame must-reads out there for someone like me who's totally new

im mostly familiar with lesbian manga but huge shoutouts to so, wanna go out, or (officially released in english as how do we relationship) and run away with me, girl.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 02:56

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Monicro posted:

oh yeah i forgot to mention im def most interested in WLW stuff but im down for whatever. I'll check those out thanks!!

oh sweet! still sick is also pretty good though the premise requires a sliiight bit of understanding of anime fandom, nothing major tho. one of the characters does yuri doujins in their free time, like female/female fancomics of anime basically. its mostly about burnout and learning to look at relationships more maturely, the anime fandom stuff is mostly just setup, but figure id give that primer since the manga itself kinda assumes that understanding.

bloom into you is also pretty solid and actually has a decent anime adaptation if you wanted something to actually watch, though the anime doesnt adapt all of it

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 03:00

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I would like it noted for the record that 'not a very good secret santa' is a very funny sentence that here means 'didnt get someone a gift at all but gladly took the one sent to them'

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 03:22

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Yuu Morisawa posted:

Finally were all in agreement

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 03:30

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Aurora posted:

*bravely* femboys? heh....i've seen better

Mehboys

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 03:32

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

going through their tl the 'horribly transphobic tweets' are them saying that theyre a bit unsure about people who still have dicks going into a womans bathroom or places for abused women and such, even if they understand that its uncomfortable for the trans women too, and its a complex issue. i cant find anything insanely right wing or terf-y, just that there's a sort of trust and safety involved. which, well, it is? the conversations at a much different place in japanese society and i don't think that view is so insanely terfy that she should be cancelled on twitter, lol. they arent saying that trans women are predators rushing into womens bathrooms and they should be banned just that the fact is that not everyone who uses those spaces for some kind of security or safety when theyre in a dangerous situation is going to be fully educated on trans issues or even should have to accept trans people to be afforded that sense of safety. like this is a bit above this thread's paygrade and its definitely not a Woke opinion but you can see the sentiment.

and they offer no links to the trans woman's twitter to assert the nationalist/terf sentiments. but people are obsessed with ~milkshake duck~ rather than the fact that this random twitter person doodling a cartoon with 5k followers probably isnt a paragon of social justice but just a person with some contradictory and random views, lol.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Sep 2, 2021

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 04:34

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

and also the person trying to spread this has two followers and an account created last month. hm. i wonder if there's any kind of trend of people using the veil of ostensibly woke sentiment to try and undo anything to do with trans people.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 04:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

okay that being said i went to the trans wife's account and they do like some extremely sus tweets about jk rowling being a powerful independent woman. but whatever im not a cop. bizarre that that person had the receipts on the banal bathroom tweets and buried that under an indirect link tho.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 04:46

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Aurora posted:

ive seen an insane amount of uk trans people who have been indoctrinated by terfs into saying they're 'not real women but that's okay even after my srs' so its not impossible that there are trans women who have this idea

yeah she seems very very focused on surgery as a validity marker. probably gotta work through that but hell im not here to cancel some lady with 12 followers for having some baggage just cause her wife drew a cartoon of her, and the comics seem pretty empathetic and understanding. is probably worth knowing though.

couldnt find any of the hypernationalist stuff they alluded to tho.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 05:00

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

all this said i will lol at the artist rting an article about how making fun of people online should be illegal

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 05:01

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Box of Bunnies posted:

"they're not being exclusionary, they're just saying you should piss in the men's room if you don't have the tens of thousands of dollars for surgery or don't want it for whatever reason" lmao

that isnt at all what i said and its extremely hurtful that youd paint my words in this manner, given im literally one of the people you're ostensibly trying to speak up for here. knock it off.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2021 10:55

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Willo567 posted:

I had a question on interpreting a character's sexuality: if there's a character who at one point in the story falls for a person of the opposite gender, but ends up not going for him/her, can I still interpret the character as being bisexual if they're very close to a person of the same gender?

you can interpret them as gay if you want. whats gonna happen, are the canon cops gonna send jack booted thugs after you?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 11:06

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

It varies a lot. Okama is not automatically a slur, many gay men, crossdressing men, and transwomen use it jokingly. And some older gay men see it as crude but preferable to the wishywashyness or assumed westernization of western terms. However, its not the kind of thing youd call someone you dont know or use in a catchall sense.

Otokonoko literally means 'male daughter', and is mostly used to refer to male crossdressers who have a cute and young aesthetic. Of course, some trans people use it too, but thats a whole other can of worms. Its generally not seen as offensive on its own, but it can be seen as very inaccurate when applied to trans women. A good analog would be 'femboy.'

There are a variety of terms similar to okama but for other demographics, such as onabe for butch women - though that term originates in lgbt discourse, unlike okama.

If you're looking for the most palatable and broadest terms, the truth is theyre the same words as english. 'Transgender' is used as a loan word frequently. Male to Female/female to male have also fallen out of favor a bit in the west but are still commonly used in Japan.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Sep 30, 2021

# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 03:47

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

yeah, and a lot of xgender people use 'male-to-x' or 'female-to-x' which is terminology that ive never seen western nb people use.

incidentally kamatani also wrote nabari no ou, which is a shonen action manga but does get into gender issues a bit too. its pretty solid.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 19:07

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

utenas okay but i feel it gets a bit hyped up for things it doesnt quite do, like a lot of the explicitly lesbian stuff is mostly in the movie rather than the tv series. its a good series with interesting points but i feel like in the tv series the lesbian romance angle isnt exactly a main focus

and idk, even in the 90s there was stuff like cardcaptor sakura, sailor moon, onii-sama e, etc. you can argue they all have their own flaws (minus one ep where sakura has a crush on a female teacher the gay characters in sakura and sailor moon are mostly side characters, onii-sama e goes completely off the rails with that stuff in the last few eps, theres a couple eps of sailor moon that are weird about the gayness) but they're also much more explicit and focused on it than tv utena when it does come up. utena's cool and part of a larger push but its just part of said larger push, not an island.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 19:52

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

cis people are capable of knowing what trans issues are op

also i dont think the manga is saying they should tread carefully if they have characters openly acknowledge it

# ¿ Oct 14, 2021 15:32

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

I mean, I wouldn't really call it a 'minefield,' but a lot of stuff that's explicit about it is going to mostly focus on the romance element, because it's codified into its own genre. You get action stuff, fantasy stuff, sports stuff, etc, but they all usually still pivot around the romance between the leads.

For instance Yuri on Ice is a figure skating anime with a gay romance, but the gay romance is the driving force of most of the plot and tension. The figure skating matters, too, but the romantic tension between the leads isn't exactly a background element, and most of the development and payoff happens with it.

It's pretty rare to find a completely standard plot only the lead is gay but that doesn't really come up outside of a couple brief mentions. You get stuff with side characters like that, Nabari no Ou is a shonen manga that delves into gender and sexuality with a lot of the side cast while still being a shonen manga at its core, but that's still pretty different from, say, 'One Piece only at the end Luffy kisses a dude and goes god i love men,' if you catch my drift.

So it depends what exactly you're looking for when you say 'isn't completely focused?' Because if you mean there's other plot stuff going on, there's stuff like that, like I mentioned Yuri on Ice already, but if you mean its a completely negligible element, that's a lot rarer.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2021 03:38

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

https://twitter.com/AnotherElle/status/1427318736600633344

also theyre canonically and explicitly gay yes

# ¿ Nov 23, 2021 14:51

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Feliday Melody posted:

None of this turned out to be even remotely true

idk the barometer for 'canonically and explicitly gay' is so arbitrary. it is how i viewed it! they were calling each other cupcake and pushing each other up against walls and poo poo. sorry they didnt turn to the camera and read the wikipedia article about lesbianism

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 19:31

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Feliday Melody posted:

Just any official confirmation at all.

again, what do you want here? what counts as 'official confirmation' is gonna vary from one person to another. having extremely specific standards is just gonna lead to weirdness in the margins. its clear what they're going for and it's clear it's one of the main threads running through the story. 'queerbaiting' is when you give one or two hints or introduce a lesbian side character and then dont follow up on it, kill them off, or have the characters end up in straight relationships. its not, when the gay relationship is one of the primary focuses of the story.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:20

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

the moment i stopped caring about this stuff is when devilman crybaby had two women kiss and say they love each other and run around at night laughing and whooping it up in an expression of pure love and dudes on this forum still went 'this isnt canon' or 'i just read it as strong friendship.' even if you had them have a 73 minute gently caress scene people would still call it noncanon. its not somehow 'more real' based on a weird tiering system. its just two women having romantic tension and talking explicitly about that romantic tension.

this need for explicitness just limits depictions of gay relationships, it doesnt free them. if a guy and a girl had those exact same scenes it'd be ridiculous to say it wasn't an explicit romantic angle.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:22

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

bro they made half the show about it i think they're committed!

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:24

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

This raises the issue of dealing with queerbaiting without running into bi-erasure.

queerbaiting isnt real, so its been dealt with.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:26

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

Bi-erasure absolute is, though.

iunno, i think its pretty easy to discern between 'dumb forced straightness' and 'bi rep.' if a characters introduced as gay and then ends the story in a straight relationship that isnt bi rep. i mean some bi people irl do that but when a story introduces a character it tends to emphasize certain things about them to make their character clear. introducing a character in a way that makes it clear they arent questioning at all and then having them veer hard away from that is maybe accurate to some people's experiences but its mostly just lame. versus introducing a character as bi or questioning and then having them end up in a straight relationship. yknow?

not that everyone needs to be tagged as what they are on introduction but to me its fairly clear when something is pushing a certain angle hard and then intentionally goes away from it for whatever reason, versus being an earnest exploration of questioning or bisexuality.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:28

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Elfface posted:

On it's own, it's fine, but it's one work among many that are determined to do everything they can to avoid having a woman call someone her girlfirend, or a man his boyfriend.

and frankly, its ftw and based. pogchamp, as it were

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

I don't really care whether a bi character ends up in a relationship with someone of their own gender or not, so long as the character acknowledges at the end that they're still bisexual - all too often it's way more a situation where they've found "the one" and suddenly it's no longer important whether they previously identified as bisexual.

yeah i think we're coming at this from slightly different angles but its basically the same feeling i have - forget the name of it but thinking of that one manga where a lesbian character had a big, cool speech about gender, how people perceive her, and then she winds up with a random lame dude at the end and her sexuality is not acknowledged at all in the final chapter. lol

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:41

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Apraxin posted:

Blue Flag?

yeah that

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:51

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Katreus posted:

If you're interested, a writer on the Arcane story commented on Reddit with their thoughts on the Caitlyn and Vi relationship:

https://www.reddit.com/r/arcane/com...web2x&context=3

There are multiple comments by the writer.

theres some interesting stuff here but its funny that the op is so hardline about not explicitly exploring homophobia and then the replies descend into 'what about gay *men*!?'

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 20:55

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

yeah even as the person riding them hardest callign them spoiled feels a bit weird lol

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 23:27

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

i honestly think double house gets a lot out of being so short. its just an extremely short, extremely casual blip into a handful of people's lives. of course id have loved 500 chapters of it, but iunno, i think its neat.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2022 16:09

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

wandering son is so lifeless, dull, and terminally uninterested in its own trans characters that i kind of hate it

# ¿ Sep 5, 2022 09:04

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

Libra posted:

School Zone is on indefinite hiatus but the author will be working on other projects.
Gonna miss the goof.

quote:

I couldn't write every reason that lead to this hiatus since there are so many, but the main one is my motivation towards my own work. Though I don't mean to say I've come to dislike the series. School Zone is my first ever work and I have a deep attachment to it. That's why instead of forcefully ending the characters' stories out of nowhere I decided to put them on hold instead. I don't know when I will return to it, but I would like to come back and continue drawing it when I feel capable of it.

I've worked on School Zone for several years. It was my first serialization so it was quite shoddy, but despite that I took my work on it everyday very seriously. But as time went by I realized that, somewhere deep inside me, I wanted to challenge myself to write something new. And when I thought about how authors have such limited careers, and how I've been working on nothing but School Zone for so many years, the motivation I had towards writing my own manga completely vanished, leading to this decision. Because I've always gone all out on School Zone, I couldn't move forward with other challenges I've always wanted to undertake. I'm really sorry to all the readers who have supported me along the years.

My current plan is to challenge myself to write a new kind of yuri manga under a fresh environment. I've already been preparing for its serialization behind the scenes. For me, who's only drawn a slice-of-life story like School Zone, this is a complete 180 and I feel like I'm starting from scratch all over again. I don't know how many years it will be until this new work is serialized, but I will keep pursuing the kind of yuri manga I truly want to draw with all I've got. I would be very happy if you could continue supporting my works in the future.

she got burned out on doing the same school manga for years, especially one she started when she was a very different author, basically, and she didn't want to rush an ending and leave fans unsatisfied. sucks but understandable.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2022 20:38

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 13:37

Endorph: Jul 22, 2009

the otherside picnic guy's interview has some weird lines that people dont really mention, a lot of talking about yuri anime/manga like 'obviously if a guy was around then lesbianism wouldn't happen,' or talking about the viewer as a voyeur in a way that presumes the viewer is automatically a straight male, or talking about how actually 'yuri' can be a relationship between a man and a woman. do not recommend idolizing him from a western lgbt viewpoint.

note that this isnt me trying to cancel the otherside picnic guy or anything, hes just a weird anime nerd, its just that interview gets spread around a lot in very selectively edited form.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 18:57 on May 16, 2023

# ¿ May 16, 2023 18:54

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > LGBT manga/anime: "when I get high I can get really emotional about sapphic love"

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