![]() All these portrayals demonstrate the possibility of moving beyond the gender role and identity that one is assigned at birth, yet they’re ultimately always tragic or comic, and often maintain unhelpful stereotypes, which lands them in a space that can’t be seen as straightforwardly positive.īy the ‘90s, as anime and manga expanded, so too did their portrayals of queerness. The 1980s introduced fans to Stop!! Hibari -kun!, where trans girl Hibari’s gender is presented as both an important aspect of who she is, and as a cause for alarm for the male main character, among others. This combination of norm-breaking and norm-maintaining would continue in The Rose of Versailles, in which French aristocrat Oscar is raised as a boy but comes to rue that fact. In his work Princess Knight, lead character Sapphire simultaneously has the heart of both a boy and a girl, allowing her to participate in combat, while also being determined to eventually get married and act like a normal princess. Sadly, queerness has also been used to convey homophobic and transphobic jokes and narratives, often in the same series which present strong queer characters.Īnime’s complicated relationship with queerness extends as far back as the medium’s godfather, Osamu Tezuka. Same-sex relationships and gender deviancy are portrayed in anime more often than is socially acceptable in real life, offering an important space for inspiration and discovery. Throughout the last sixty years, anime and its sister media have been a complex space for queer fans and creators. Even so, it’s neither alone nor the first example of such an occurrence. The explicit use of the term “non-binary” in Stars Align - more accurately, “ x-gender,” its Japanese equivalent of sorts - is a landmark step when it comes to the portrayal of specific subsets of queerness in anime. ![]() Maki accepts this, describing how his mother’s best friend is a trans man in an attempt to reassure Yuu. Instead, Yuu admits to an already-present interest in bending gender norms, for a reason anime had never dived into so explicitly: they’re non-binary. Stars Align never takes that path, though, and declines to make any jokes which would frame the pair as perverse or unnatural because of their crossdressing. In the average series, they’d show up to watch their opponent, appear comically out-of-place among the girls, and the plot would move on. ![]() As a classic plot beat in anime which has appeared in shows from Pokemon to Mob Psycho 100, most viewers likely had a predisposition of what to expect. In the eighth episode of 2019’s Stars Align, Maki and Yuu - a star player and manager of a soft tennis team, respectively - are encouraged by the rest of their club to crossdress so that they can sneak into a crowd of female fans surrounding an upcoming rival’s practice sessions. ![]()
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